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Star Wars Episode I: Cloak Of Deception (Released) — Page 4

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Seems like many of these devices have spotty luck with stuff like this. But one thing that would tell me something is wrong is if someone has an issue with v3 that they don't have with v1 or v2. Otherwise I'll have to conclude, even for my own device which once played them, that it's inherit. At least in that event, I wouldn't have to start over with this 1080p versions. 

EDIT: V2 is causing the same choppy playback for me. I have to conclude that my issue has to do with my Roku, rather than the video. In other words, I have no better clue why some of you are having problems than I did before. *shrugs* But if you are able, you could reencode it yourself to a known good format, or get the 720p version.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

Seems like many of these devices have spotty luck with stuff like this. But one thing that would tell me something is wrong is if someone has an issue with v3 that they don't have with v1 or v2. Otherwise I'll have to conclude, even for my own device which once played them, that it's inherit. At least in that event, I wouldn't have to start over with this 1080p versions. 

EDIT: V2 is causing the same choppy playback for me. I have to conclude that my issue has to do with my Roku, rather than the video. In other words, I have no better clue why some of you are having problems than I did before. *shrugs* But if you are able, you could reencode it yourself to a known good format, or get the 720p version.

I couldn't find a V2 or a V1 so will just watch V3 on the computer for the time being. Though will give Handbrake a go at some point to see if that works. I'm sure somebody here will come up with the solution before long anyway - it's probably something simple, one of those annoying little settings that makes all the difference. Thanks for checking it out anyway.

I have watched the first half of Clock of Deception. Whilst there's only so much one can do with the material of course, I LOVE what you've done with it. So much more stream-lined now and it flows way better. Cutting all the journey to the gungun city out and much of Jar-Jar's antics just about makes him tolerable now and cuts to the heart of the story better. If only George Lucas still had an editor of Marcia Lucas' skill when piecing together the raw material for Phantom it could have been a pretty decent film, in addition to using a voice actor entirely to enlace Jar-Jars incredibly grating voice! The only thing that slightly interupted the flow for me were the deleted upscaled scenes. Interesting additions but the noticeable drop in quality (in the 1080p version) made then really stick out to me. None the less interesting additions. Look forward to seeing what you've done with the remainder later tonight. Resisting to the urge to go through your check-list of changes until I've finished, or I'll be looking out for them. To me an unnoticed change is a compliment as it means the film is flowing as it should :)

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I've just watched this, and I must say it was very well done. I think it meets its goal of "avoiding making changes that would betray to the audience that they're watching a fan edit." by being honest about the overall flaws of TPM and the PT. It can be fun to re-dub or sub Jarjar and to pretend he was written as a hero, but it requires quite a lot of imagination while watching to pretend the effect works. There's still a bit of JarJar remaining, which probably took a bit of restraint. 

Instead, this edit felt more like selective memory, if thinking back on the (relatively) better working parts of the film. Many of the most cringeworthy moments are gone with no deleterious effects. As someone with a not-quite-vivid memory of the movie, most of the actual missing lines went unnoticed. I did, of course, recognize the lack of the underwater scene, and the scene on the stairs. Patching up Anakin's Naboo fighter battle, essentially a required edit, was done seamlessly.

On the technical side, almost everything was very smooth. Wipes and audio transitions seemed clean. I didn't have any real problem with the SD deleted scenes (inclusion of deleted scenes is nice here, but will be essential in II and III). I do prefer the podrace without extra music, so thanks for the option. There were a few audio cuts that stood out strongly. But this seemed much less obvious when I tweaked my stereo/surround settings. Visually, the only cut that I thought fell through was at 25:14. I forget what line is cut, but I feel it might not be so important that the visual discontinuity and teleporting R2 and person in red hat are required. Anyway, it's only one thing, and quite minor. Certainly doesn't change the fact that this is now my favorite edit of this film.

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Thank you for the feedback and I'm always glad to hear people enjoy it. I think you accurately restated my philosophy, particularly about using deleted scenes for Ep1. These are on the conservative end of the spectrum in the interest of functionality. It might sound silly, but thanks for the compliment about restraint!

And I think the awkward cut you mentioned was to trim Anakin's dialogue: "You'll never reach the outskirts in time! Sandstorms are very, [very] dangerous. [Come on!] I'll take you to my place." I see how that'd be a little jarring. Oh, well. 

I used a fragment of a deleted scene for the podrace just so I could recreate the scoring how I remembered it from editing the DVD version years ago. Sort of a personal thing, though with the music-less soundtrack option it's there without that purpose. To me the original reads as boring now, like playing the Death Star attack without score. (You can still see the video I was trying to recreate, on my old YouTube channel 'Plutoneam.') There is another point where I cross faded the music this time around when I removed some twoheaded announcements before Anakin flies up the ramp. So if I wasn't going to use the music, I would have probably have edited the podrace a little differently. 

Well, I just wanted to borrow from the incredible work from the fan editing community and bake a prequel trilogy that I can enjoy. As good as, say, L8wrtr's edits are, it would have been very hard for someone who has spent a good deal of time editing the DVDs ten years ago to "settle" for something I didn't do myself. 

All this being said, someone please help me.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

And I think the awkward cut you mentioned was to trim Anakin's dialogue: "You'll never reach the outskirts in time! Sandstorms are very, [very] dangerous. [Come on!] I'll take you to my place." I see how that'd be a little jarring. Oh, well. 

 Ah, I see. The sound came across very nicely. It was really just the characters jumping around between two frames that did it. But mostly because that woman in he red hat is directly in front of Anakin while he's speaking. Oh well. :)

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I got to finally watch this after a week trying to find it and i really liked it. It did get a little funky when the Deleted scenes show up. but the Pod-race was so awesome and adding music to it was nice :D I enjoy it.

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I absolutely appreciate everything you've done for this trilogy...so thank you very much.

I do have one question though:  Why is there no MP4 version in 1080p but there is in 720p?

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There are three formats available, a single-layer DVD, 720p mp4, and 1080p mkv (BR compliant). Each one takes a solid week of encoding on my machine, totaling a minimum of 9 weeks. I picked three formats that would likely be useful to most people, and can't release every combination possible. The 1080p mkv is pretty close in quality and bitrate to the original source, and should be adequate to toss into Handbrake or something if you want to convert it to another format.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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You can also remux the MKV into an MP4 container using various programs if you wanted a 1080p MP4 without taking the time to re-encode the video altogether.

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Hey Hal,

Have seen thefirstt half of this and loved your editing choices and pace.

I would like to throw out that i also struggled with getting the 1080p version to work - despite being technically bluray compliant, i was unable to get any of your pt edits to work successfully on a bluray disc,

My suggestion for you, if you don't already, is to render your final project to a lossless file that you then encode to the different release formats. Should save time.

My personal preference is to encode my blurays with bdtoavchd. I set it to very slow and tune grain ( in advanced) and let it fly. Beautiful results every time.

Preferred Saga:
1/2: Hal9000
3: L8wrtr
4/5: Adywan
6-9: Hal9000

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I tried that approach once, but the results don't look very good at all. It might be the grain layer I slapped over top of the films. Piping the project through Compressor from within Final Cut looks great. But rendering it to a lossless file first looks terrible. 

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

But rendering it to a lossless file first looks terrible. 

 I fail to comprehend how that could possibly make any difference at all...

but in other news I just watched V3 of ole' Cloaky and I  very much enjoyed it.   Only one or two things I would have done differently, but overall the edits were very clever and well placed.  Definitely my favorite menace edit.

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So everyone is aware, I'm in the process of reuploading everything for all three edits to Mega, so hang tight until then if you're trying to get them. This ought to address problems with being prompted for passwords.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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It is frankly amazing how much your edit improved this film. Hats off, sir, and thank you.

Jake Lloyd should hate George Lucas forever for ruining his life. This fan edit proves that with a bit of editing, he could have avoided years of negative criticism. He was perfectly likeable in your edit.

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I just watched this and great job Hal! If not for my memory and a few quirks like low res deleted scenes I would have totally forgotten this was an edit.

I don't know if you're still taking opinions for v4 but I'll just throw a few things here while it's fresh in my brain:

- Thank God for the cuts in Jar Jar and Ani antics. Particularly the ending battles were really improved because of that. There's one more i feel you could cut and it wouldn't hurt is Jar Jar "wissa going home!"

- For deleted scenes I feel the probe droid one is indispensable, it explains why Qui-Gon is rushing to the ship which was never done in the movie. The others are fine but don't really add much.

- The added SotE soundtrack on the pod race is very well done. At first I was concerned because I always loved the SFX on that race and felt the lack of music enhanced the action but you didn't bring the music to the forefront so it merged very well.

- I'm glad you're re-adding "the negotiations were short" because I always like that little playful side of Obi-Wan. Though if I'm honest I didn't even notice it was cut until Qui-Gon is on Naboo and says "there were no negotiations"

- I noticed the opening crawl faded to black very quickly and early. I don't remember how it is in the original movie but it felt much faster than ep 4-5 (that I just watched recently).

- Similarly the end credits stutter a lot and it's a bit jarring. Presumably you sped them up to catch on the inserted Edit Credits but I'm not sure why it's not a smooth scroll and it takes you out of the movie. I would prefer if you let the credits roll normally and then add the Edit credits at the very end (similar to what Harmy did)

- I thought the Gungan part would feel rushed without the underwater stuff but it flowed very nicely. I do love the submarine "there's always a bigger fish" part but there's no way to include this without the Gungan city. Do you think there's a way to cut the antics in that part to allow you to leave it in or is it not salvageable?

- I'm not sure you should cut the part where it's mentioned Anakin's never won a race because then Padme's reactions feel very weird. She goes from being friendly in the deleted scene when she wakes him up for the race to being very annoyed 3 mins later saying "you jedi are far to reckless the Queen does not approve"

- Another scene I'm not sure why you removed is "this one is a decoy!". I felt it was clever and I always loved the sound of that door closing super fast :P

- There's one edit I wish you'd made and it's Darth Maul' death. I always felt the time that elapse between Obi-Wan hanging and Maul cut in half was ridiculously long and completely made Maul appear dumb for not realizing what was happening. I feel if the scene were quicker it would be a matter of not being able to react in time as opposed to just looking like an oblivious inactive dumbass. Particularly if you cut the part were he furrows his brows and Obi-Wan is looking pretty much straight at Qui-Gon's lightsaber it might enhance the scene.

I think that's pretty much all I got. Sorry for the wall of text.

Can't wait to watch TAS!

“This cannot be! Is… Is it an omen?”

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Thanks for the feedback. I've told myself I've "locked" all three edits once I recorded the commentary tracks, though I've gone back a few times and re-edited them to match. Let me address your points in turn.

The "Weesa going' home" line seems fine to me in the context of this edit, just a short bit of non-slapstick silliness in the background. I did lower the volume on him as well. Also, one benefit of removing the entire underwater sequence from the first act is that Jar Jar is no longer banished. He's just a regular Gungan. Putting even an abbreviated version back in would require reintroducing this subplot. In my version, Jar Jar is just a regular guy and he's along for the ride. My motto for him was that he can stay as long as he behaves himself.

The podracing deleted bit was reincluded just so I could roughly recreate my musical score for the race the way I had years ago using DVD. Trust me, for V4 it won't even stand out as a deleted scene at all, with DrDre's upscaling job. 

The end credits do indeed seem jagged. I applied some smoothing, though I just took a look in Compressor and will try a few test clips using stronger smoothing settings, and see if it makes a difference. If so, I'll reencode. If not, I'll release what I've already done so far. 

You bring up a good point about Padme being cheerful in one scene, and annoyed later. However, she's talking to a small child in the first one, and even then she reads as unhappy to be there. She expressed disapproval with Qui-Gon the prior day, so it doesn't seem too inconsistent to me. I think, at the very least, the gain of improving Anakin's characterization as a great pilot outweighs the potential drawbacks. (Anakin is a great pilot, and Qui-Gon notices these personal things about him rather than taking a blood test.)

As far as the "this one's a decoy" scene, I agree that I like the part that I cut out. The reason is that I was using L8wrtr's idea of making Anakin the main hero of the end battle. Padme gets herself kidnapped, then Anakin blows up the ship, and then it's implied through editing that this is why the battle droids collapsed and allowed her to win. In TPM, Anakin's actions were seemingly redundant if Padme already captured the Viceroy and could put a gun to his head.

Lastly, I did remove one shot from the death of Maul, where Obi-Wan sails upward from the pit. I didn't want to cut it too short, either, though it is trimmed somewhat. It's a bit implausible regardless, I know.

So, I will see what I can do about the end credits. I do want to put the fan editing credits into the credits themselves, jarring speed or no. For one thing, I put a lot of work into redoing all of them so they'll look consistent, and it's the normal fan edit convention for these things. Harmy did what he did because he was restoring a film, rather than doing a fan edit.

Thanks for expressing your opinions about the edit. V4 is done, but any little things that can be tweaked without actually changing the A/V sync, I am still open to. :)

My stance on revising fan edits.

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I had completely forgotten about the fact that Jar Jar gets banished. It does indeed flow better in your version.

I had actually forgotten the pod race deleted scene when I wrote this, I was talking more about the one right before it. The one during the race with the repair droids I actually really enjoyed.

For Ani's race record I honestly never had a problem with him never winning before. For me the bigger issue (which you solved) was his immature, childish behavior. I mean he's still very young and presumably he's only just started racing so it's plausible he did just a few races before and failed, crashed, Sebulba tricked him... but he's learning. And Qui-Gon gives him the guidance and advice he needed to push the Force in his favor and win. To me it's very similar to Obi-Wan guiding Luke to drop the bomb in Ep IV. And in that case I always kinda felt "It's not that hard I used to bullseye womp rat and they're not much bigger than X" was just a cheap and easy way to establish Luke's ability. I mean he's surrounded by veterans in that room and it makes them look like incapable people and this new brat comes along and says "nah you all suck, it's not that hard". Anyway segway over!

I hadn't realized you had already removed a shot from that Maul bit. I think removing those 2 extra would only shave 1-3secs but I understand it's a slippery slope and flow continuity is important.

Speaking of, it reminds me of a scene where the cut is a bit abrupt (probably the only time I felt a cut that you made). It's when Ani and Padme are in the ship and Ani says that he's cold. Padme talks about her worries for her People and then very abruptly says "you miss your mother". I assume it's because you cut the whole "I made this for you" bit and it can't be salvaged but the cut and change of subject is noticeable. I think you'd be better served with just cutting that line altogether. We can see both are worried and it's implied if not obvious that he's sad because he just left his mom.

And finally for the Viceroy hostage. I guess one way to fix it would be to cut the Ani bits before the Queen take the Viceroy hostage but that's some major change and I'm not sure it's needed honestly. I always saw those 3 paths in the ending climax as happening at the same time, just obviously they can't be shown at the same time. It's not impossible that the Queen does her trick around the same time Anakin is crashed in the base and shooting, they just both have to go through with the plan on their end in case the other one fails.

Totally understand about the end credits :)

“This cannot be! Is… Is it an omen?”

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That's an interesting perspective about Qui-Gon's mentoring being the thing that finally sees Anakin win a race. That conversation is awful, though, and most edits remove it. If there were a more subtle way to make it clear he's never won before, I'd be okay with that. In an event, it's clear he's the underdog, and it's the debut of his own Podracer. 

I agree that it's a bit awkward removing the discussion between Anakin and Padme, but it's the best it can be if the jappor snippet is gone, because it won't be seen again in my trilogy, which it dictated by other goals. I'd still like to keep the beat with Padme acknowledging Anakin's sadness. 

V4 for COD will be coming very soon. This thing will never be perfect, but it's been pretty well thought out at this point, and I'm comfortable letting them alone with whatever flaws or missed opportunities that may remain. I haven't left anything on the table, but have given everything a fair mental shot.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

 I haven't left anything on the table, but have given everything a fair mental shot.

 And this is why I went with your edit. Going through your threads I realized you weren't really a PT hater and you gave each decisions a lot of thought.

“This cannot be! Is… Is it an omen?”

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Aaaw shhhhh.... !

“This cannot be! Is… Is it an omen?”