If George Lucas had never seen Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, we probably wouldn’t have the Star Wars we know today. Now it’s time to put some Star Wars back into The Hidden Fortress.

Editing goals:
• to rescore The Hidden Fortress with John William’s music from Star Wars
• to rename the major characters and clans with Starwarsian names: Reia, General Kenobi, Atu, Situri, and a few others best left as surprises
• and to make the edit family-friendly by removing a questionable scene, curse words, and lightly rewriting some of the dialogue.

There will be other trims to improve pacing. The story will remain largely unchanged from the original film, but incidental dialogue will be altered to reference the Star Wars universe.

Rescoring won’t be flawless, since the original audio is essentially mono. The 3.0 Perspecta sound is really a mono track manipulated to provide directionality, so there’s no music-free center channel. Still, it’s possible to rescore this baby, and if my early drafts are any indication, the movie picks up a different vibe with a JW score.

Sneak peeks:
https://vimeo.com/167065284
https://vimeo.com/164068500
password for both = fanedit.org

And part of the featurette:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHge9QqIzgY

[if anybody can instruct me on posting video directly here, i’d be much obliged.]