Best OT fan edits that place an emphasis on continuity with the prequel canon?

Hey everyone, if you wanted to watch all of Star Wars in timeline order, what fan edits of the original trilogy would you recommend?

I’m talking about edits that create a middle ground between the theatrical and the special editions, tidying up any small canon inconsistencies, and some unobtrusive nods to the Dave Filoni helmed TV and streaming shows. So far, David Kaylor’s “Original Trilogy - The Final Cut” seems to fit the bill minus the Filoni nods, but are there others?

I’m particularly interested in edits that remaster and add the deleted scene where Vader is called a Sith, and age up Hayden’s force ghost in ROTJ. Ahsoka having a blink and you miss it appearance is the sort of thing I am looking for. Although not to everyone’s taste, giving Nik Sant a Captain Rex nod like in this edit is perfect for what I have in mind, but so far, this editor hasn’t uploaded a full cut of the movie.

I’m not against jumping back in and making my own, but would prefer to watch someone else’s or use one as a major starting point.

Anyway, it’s good to be back and I look forward to people’s suggestions!

The Hal9000 ‘Custom Special Editions’ are the ones I recommend. They do retain the Sebastian Shaw ghost, but otherwise include several nods to continuity with the prequels. For example, In Empire Strikes Back, Obi-Wan’s ghost refers to Yoda as “A Jedi Master Who Instructed Me” rather than “The Jedi Master Who Instructed Me” and in ANH, he tells Luke “I wanted you to have this” when giving him Anakin’s lightsaber instead of “Your father wanted you to have this”. If there was a version with the Hayden Ghost, I would say they would be perfect for what you want, but you can always combine the Final Cut version of ROTJ with Hal’s ANH and ESB, or make your own tweaks to ROTJ.

Hal 9000 said:

But yeah, I don’t want a Hayden ghost in ROTJ because it just doesn’t work to have a different actor in the same movie play the character, and because I feel it sends a message that Anakin merely regressed. Plus the footage used is dogshit.

I used to be in the same boat as you, but then I was beaten down by the endless barrage of kids asking me “Who’s that?” when Sebastian Shaw shows up next to Yoda and Obi-Wan at the end, even though they’d JUST seen the same actor playing Anakin only a few minutes earlier.

Granted, I show them the prequels and selected episodes of Clone Wars in between Empire and Jedi. Perhaps it’d be less of an issue if the prequels hadn’t cemented in their heads what Anakin Skywalker looks like. I think the aged up versions of Anakin fans helps fix the understandable regression issue.

I’d agree on Hayden if the footage they used wasn’t so terrible. If they actually got Hayden and filmed a new shot it would have looked way better. I remember someone using the ahsoka footage as a replacement and that looked pretty good.

EddieDean said:

The tricky one is Padmé’s death. I can’t determine which has the strongest weight in the cultural hivemind - “I remember my mother” versus her dying onscreen in childbirth.

It’s got to be the latter. If only for the whole thing being overshadowed by the ‘dying of being a bit sad’ part.

Like many others, when it came to the force ghost scene, I used to be an adamant Shaw supporter. I still like the original very much, but I’ve also come to see the merit in continuity between trilogies. The Kenobi show also sparked my interest in trying to come up with something that could possibly tie things together a bit better. Here’s something I put together using footage of Hayden’s face from recent interviews so that it’s more age-accurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF55QWytYbE

I also took the Hayden Christensen as Anakin/Darth Vader Deepfake by Crimson Maul and, by way of a lot of composite work, attempted to merge it a bit more smoothly into the scene. The results are pretty decent for when I’m in the mood to watch a version of ROTJ with only Hayden.

Crimson Maul’s deepfake work was very good, but it’s from a few years back already. I’ve been hoping that, with the advancements in AI, Crimson Maul or someone else would create a really clean version of the unmasking of Vader featuring Hayden Christensen. If there’s anyone out there with that capability, please consider taking on the project. Just about any Star Wars fan would be interested in seeing that, and the fan-editing community would be in your debt.

21C Peasant said:

Crimson Maul’s deepfake work was very good, but it’s from a few years back already. I’ve been hoping that, with the advancements in AI, Crimson Maul or someone else would create a really clean version of the unmasking of Vader featuring Hayden Christensen. If there’s anyone out there with that capability, please consider taking on the project. Just about any Star Wars fan would be interested in seeing that, and the fan-editing community would be in your debt.

I could quite easily do the voice work for a scene like this, I think. I’d just need to get a Hayden voice clone, and use the tool that takes pre-existing voice work and basically applies the voice clone as a filter over it. So you end up with the exact same line delivery as Shaw, but in Hayden’s voice.

The only reason this method didn’t work when I tried it for the Kenobi flashback scene is because his voice was too entangled with the lightsaber noises. But this scene is perfectly quiet aside from the music, which would be easier to isolate.

21C Peasant said:

Like many others, when it came to the force ghost scene, I used to be an adamant Shaw supporter. I still like the original very much, but I’ve also come to see the merit in continuity between trilogies. The Kenobi show also sparked my interest in trying to come up with something that could possibly tie things together a bit better. Here’s something I put together using footage of Hayden’s face from recent interviews so that it’s more age-accurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF55QWytYbE

This is a big improvement over the official version.

Octorox said:

21C Peasant said:

Like many others, when it came to the force ghost scene, I used to be an adamant Shaw supporter. I still like the original very much, but I’ve also come to see the merit in continuity between trilogies. The Kenobi show also sparked my interest in trying to come up with something that could possibly tie things together a bit better. Here’s something I put together using footage of Hayden’s face from recent interviews so that it’s more age-accurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF55QWytYbE

This is a big improvement over the official version.

Oh yeah, agreed.

Was the wide shot of him touched at all? He looks a tad younger in it.

Was the wide shot of him touched at all? He looks a tad younger in it.

The wide shot is the original with just some color work. It seemed convincing enough, so I left it for now.

There is a very good version in “The Final Cut” edits by David Kaylor. I incorporated this into my series edit, with his permission.
https://vimeo.com/1052082076?share=copy

Yeah, that looks like what was done to his ghost for Ascendant.

Here’s something I put together just for fun in which I insert Ahsoka several times into ROTS. It seems like it could be relevant here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUXohgIe8EI