logo Sign In

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side (the TM edit) (Released) — Page 36

Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: musicman
Man, I'm gonna have to disagree and say I really enjoyed the asteroid field. It was one sequence where it really felt like Star Wars to me, particularly. And I thought the seismic charges were really cool.


I concur - there are like, what, about 2 space fights in the PT? (There are more, but not enough - the PT is more like Boring Green Planet Wars than Star Wars.)
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1113/userbar381851ln2.gif
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8653/userbar381853dp6.gif
Super Mario Bros. - The Wicked Star Story
"Ah, the proverbial sad sack with a wasted wish."
Author
Time
Post link
The asteroid scene in AotC sucked lots of ass through a straw. It is extremely cartoonish and fake-looking, and I didn't enjoy it at all. I'd cut the whole scene, personally, but if it is to be left in, then trimmed of excess like bombs and dodgy missile shots. And eliminating entirely Boba's "Get him dad! Fire!" rubbish. God, that kid made me want to puke. lol

It would probably do well to have music, because it's just empty-sounding without it. I often hate it when they leave scenes silent that had music composed for them--was this one of those?

If those bombs are supposed to be sound waves, then that doesn't make any sense. No air in space to carry the sound waves . . . Sure the movies have sound, but that's just for the viewers pleasure; you can safely assume the characters aren't actually experiencing any sounds generated from outside their ships.
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: musicman
Man, I'm gonna have to disagree and say I really enjoyed the asteroid field. It was one sequence where it really felt like Star Wars to me, particularly. And I thought the seismic charges were really cool.

That's my feeling on it too; why completely cut out the only space dogfight in the film? This is Star Wars! The other reason I don't want to cut the whole thing is because it would lessen Marcus' death at the end. And why would you sympathize with a kid you only saw in one scene? This scene establishes a relationship between father and son, and I think it'd be detrimental to cut it.

On the other hand, are all of the gaudy CGI shots really neccessary for this? Seems to me that the whole thing goes on too long, even with good music. I could be wrong, though; I need to play with it some more. The scene is just too colorful and razor sharp to seem real. I might have to do more than just softening it.

The reason I didn't want to cut the bombs sequence was because I have a very effective cut of that with dramatic music. I also replaced the bomb sound effects with more traditional SW explosions, which could be an unpopular change. It just really seemed like a modern effect. Right now, you hear the sound immediately as you see the explosion, but I like the sci-fi delayed sound concept too, and that's a quick fix if I decided to delay it for a split-second.

EDITED TO CLARIFY: As it stands now, I suppose the bombs aren't really "sound bombs" so much because you hear the sound in the traditional way- as the explosion happens. Perhaps this is more acceptable to some of you; I do enjoy the sound much more this way. You really get a different feeling out of the scene with toned down colors, better sound, and an exciting, synchronized music track. If there's any scenes that need music, it's traditionally the ACTION scenes. And as far as Boba Fett's annoying lines go... not so fast. Not so fast. I may have a surprise or two yet to come


OK, now the down side to this is that the fight is not serving the story as much as the story is making an opportunity to have a fight. I hated the original pacing in this movie, specifically how every other scene was designated a boring dialogue scene, and the other scenes were designated action scenes. There was no spontaneity whatsoever. Unfortunately, I'm hard pressed to fix that in this case.

But I've put too much musical and visual work into at least the seismic charges scene, continuing with the "He won't take a hint, this guy." tunnel chase. I'm thinking that either the lasers or the torpedoes might need to go to better serve the pacing (again, I could be wrong).
--------------

Originally posted by: andy_k_250


Sniff-sniff.

Just kidding. I'll just wait like everyone else. Fair enough.

Good luck with getting all the Niemodians' voices cleared away.


Hey, not so fast I never said you couldn't get a copy of the test cut, just that I hadn't decided on it yet. I'll figure it out in a couple months.


Originally posted by: Sluggo
Have you looked at Tagalog? I was listening to some Tagolog on the shortwave some time ago and I thought it was reminiscent of Huttese.



No, I haven't. Thanks for that suggestion! Do you mean the lines should be written in Tagalog, or do you mean actually synching existing Tagalog recordings to the characters?

I suppose I can dub the Nemoidians myself if it comes down to it, including Gunray. That I don't have a problem with.

Jar-Jar I do have a problem with. He really needs a fresh actor. I don't have the voice of a Gungan, I'm sorry! Maybe it's audition time again, although I'm not looking forward to a reprise of that headache. Before I found Nanner Split, there must have been 2 or 3 others that didn't come through for one reason or another (not their fault, though).

--------------

Several people have asked before if there's anything they can do to physically help on SOTDS, to give me more time on the things that need my attention. These are all things you might be able to do to help, and I'd be so grateful to each one of you that could do something....


1. The really obvious one that comes to mind immediately is Mace Windu's lightsaber. It would save me an incredible amount of time if I didn't have to do that frame by frame myself.

If anyone REALLY has a lot of free time on their hands and would like to rerotoscope Count Dooku's saber and any others, so that they look more vibrant and flickering, as if they were a source of energy--that would be utterly fantastic. I don't like the "4th of July light stick" look Lucasfilm seemed to be going for. Needless to say, I'd like them the same general color.

2. Another thing that would be a great help would be to go through the radio dramas and find workable C3PO dialogue for his introduction into the saga. I’ll repost the example here:


C3PO: I am See-Threepio, human/cyborg relations. At your service. So pleased to meet you, sir. I need not take the liberty to inform you that…(or some other typical 3PO ramble).

Anakin: I’m here to find my mother- Shmi Skywalker.

C3PO: Your mother! Well, the proper procedure is ….etc. etc. (blah blah blah- establishing him as a very annoying character from the get go).

Anakin: Just take me to your master.

C3PO: Oh, yes. I see. My master. Follow me, please.

CUT to EXT: Owen’s place.


Anakin: I’m Anakin Skywalker.

Lars: Owen Lars.

Anakin: It took awhile for your droid to take us here.

Owen: Don’t even get me started on the robot. He’s a protocol droid and he can’t even speak Bocce. The Jawa traders dumped him on me last month. (pause). I’ll give you 500 credits if you take him.

Anakin: Is my mother here?

Cliegg arrives and gives his little talk. “We have a lot to talk about.” He turns. We hear the sound of footsteps as they walk away.

It begins to sink in for C3PO. CLOSE-UP (CFSS)

C3PO: Sir, sir! There must be some mistake!

CUT to Beru serving drinks in next scene.

3. Perhaps someone could look into whether a Maul cyborg demonstration by Palpatine is even possible at the end of SOTDS?

4. We need a special effects artist. My two major dream fixes as far as that goes are putting Tarkin in the Senate, and replacing the excessive Jedi Analysis Robots with some kind of speaker/console type thing, like HAL 9000 in 2001. The style of the scene sticks out like a sore thumb, not only in this movie but also when you start comparing it to robots and information storage in the OT.

5. It'd be great if someone could figure out how to best go about changing the end credits sequence to include all of the new team that worked on this project. Everyone and anyone that gave me ideas through this thread is going to want to PM me with their actual name for use in the credits (much more professional than using forum nicknames). In the meantime, it'd be great to actually learn about the fonts and how you go about changing them. Nichols did it and Darth Editous did it, so I know it's not impossible.

6. If anyone can do sky replacement and some chroma keying that has more free time, I'm changing the funeral scene and the scene following it to sunset and dusk, respectively. Perhaps someone could work on that?

7. If anyone is experience on animation, even on a program so simple as Flash, I need new '70's style computer readouts for Jango's ship. Use the Millenium Falcon's readouts for reference- so wonderfully simple! A rotating square grid. It can be as simple as that!

8. And needless to say, anyone with good recording equipment is more than welcome to do any or all of the Nemoidians and/or Jar-Jar Binks.


I know that's a long list, guys. Maybe I should post it in a new thread so that more people will see it? Anyway, thank you all for the greatest help of all that you could have given me: your ideas. My 51 pages of notes for this edit certainly are not all my ideas. Thanks, guys! The big event is yet to come...

-TM

Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side

Emperor Jar-Jar
“Back when we made Star Wars, we just couldn’t make Palpatine as evil as we intended. Now, thanks to the miracles of technology, it is finally possible. Finally, I’ve created the movies that I originally imagined.” -George Lucas on the 2007 Extra Extra Special HD-DVD Edition

Author
Time
Post link
I can help with numero eight. Could you e-mail me with more of what you have in mind?
Author
Time
Post link
I have the radio dramas, I can do a hunt for potientialy useful Threepio dialogue.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

Author
Time
Post link
I posted this idea somewhere else, but this is a more appropriate place for it:

For number 1 on your list, would the same person willing to rerotoscope Windu's saber be willing to do something similar to a lot of other people's lightsabers in Episode 2 and 3? A stupid little thing about the prequels is they kept putting things that were awesome and incidental in the OT into a formula in the PT.

"Darth" was cool and incidental in the OT because there was Darth Vader, but that was it, in the PT any John Q Badguy is named Darth Something-or-other: Darth Maul, Darth Sidious, Darth Douchebag, etc.

Okay off topic, that's just another example, the example I'm bringing up is lightsabers. In the OT, it's cool cause really there's only one bad guy lightsaber and it's Darth Vader's and it's incidentally red. And also incidentally we only see three other lightsabers the entire rest of the trilogy and they're Anakin's, Obiwan's, and Luke's--and they're blue, blue and green incidentally. In the PT it suddenly becomes a formula that good guys get a tough choice between blue or green and bad guys gotta have red. In the Star Wars expanded universe, like KOTOR for example, there's much more of a spectrum of color to the things. It'd be cool to see a sea of variety in some of those shots of everybody flexing their saber skills.

Spaced Out - A Stoner Odyssey (five minute sneak peek)

Author
Time
Post link
I completely agree with you, there was never any indication of Jedi blue or green (and sometimes purple if you whine enough) and Sith red. I know most people here seem to dislike the EU for the most part, but I always thought games like KOTOR or Jedi Knight 1, 2 and Academy, as well as the Tales of the Jedi comics always had a bit more of an OT feel to them when you would see a group of Jedi all with different coloured blades. In the PT we are stuck with only three colours
(4 but only 1 purple one ever. That honestly doesn't make sence at all either, do you have to be the head of the council to have a purple blade or something?) I really liked how MagFan made Duku's blade yellow, I have always thought the yellow blades looked really cool.

I agree with Paul and think that scenes like the area battle would look a lot cooler with more colours than just green and blue. But when reading discussions elsewhere regarding lightsabre colours, I seem to get the feeling many of us are content with the good = blue, green and bad = red.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

Author
Time
Post link
better than pink... I remember reading somewhere that the lightsaber colors are given to distinct classes of jedi/sith.

blue for guardian

Green for consular I think

Purple for super jedi

red for evil I guess

tiny sabers for jedi kids and yoda (I'd have made the kid's sabers white to show that they haven't earned a color yet.)

from my google searches i'm finding that this might be connected to the knights of the republic video game; it's an interesting ranking system. Some of you who've played the game may know more than I do about it. Of course we all know that originally only two colors existed, blue and red; but because luke's blade dissapeared against a blue sky in rotj, it was changed to green.

I don't think I like the idea of re-rotoing lots of different colors for lightsabers. for one it's a lot of work and it'd make the whole battle seem too much like a skittles commercial. It also might defeat the idea that a specific color is significant in some way. The most obivious being that red is for sith and blue/green/pimp-purple is for jedi.

and Oh dam I wish i could particapate in the test screening thing you're doing.

also I do silly voice recordings from time to time on my computer, but it's not with good recording equipment. just a standard computer mic. It still sounds ok enough to me though but I'm not sure if it'd be up to your standards. anyway I'm willing to help... but my uh... dinky equipment might be a hinderance.
He big in nothing important in good elephant.

"Miss you, I will, Original Trilogy..."

"Your midichlorians are weak, Old man." -Darth Vader 2007 super deluxe extra special dipped in chocolate sauce edition.

http://prequelsstink.ytmnd.com/
Author
Time
Post link
I definately think that yellow would be a good color for Dooku, cuz he was always a bit different, and white would be cool for the young ones.
Author
Time
Post link
Originally posted by: Wesyeed
better than pink... I remember reading somewhere that the lightsaber colors are given to distinct classes of jedi/sith.

from my google searches i'm finding that this might be connected to the knights of the republic video game; it's an interesting ranking system. Some of you who've played the game may know more than I do about it. Of course we all know that originally only two colors existed, blue and red; but because luke's blade dissapeared against a blue sky in rotj, it was changed to green.

I don't think I like the idea of re-rotoing lots of different colors for lightsabers. for one it's a lot of work and it'd make the whole battle seem too much like a skittles commercial. It also might defeat the idea that a specific color is significant in some way. The most obivious being that red is for sith and blue/green/pimp-purple is for jedi.


I didn't know they changed Luke's saber in RotJ from blue to green was a production decision! But that kinda goes back to the old rule of thumb for Star Wars: Any production decision may be explained later as an intentional artistic decision, ie--the Obiwan Kenobi and Darth Vader lightsaber battle explanation, the idea they were "tired old men" or whatever, and that's why they weren't jumping around like Jedi jumping beans like in RotS--stuff that's been shoved down our throats like that. If you read about different colors going to different classes from George Lucas; it's bullshit.

Allright--good point about the skittles, but you can get around a tasty rainbow look with the color choices. You don't need to go Red Green Yellow Blue Violet, you could go with some more unique colors. Going back to KOTOR again, there really is no rhyme or reason to anyone's lightsaber. Color just depends on the crystal used in the hilt--at least that's what I was always told.

How do people feel about LSmaker for rerotoscoping lightsabers? maybe I'll volunteer myself for the job (that's a maybe, damn that'd be a lot of work!).

Spaced Out - A Stoner Odyssey (five minute sneak peek)

Author
Time
Post link
Maybe even have Dooku have a purple balde but not like the normal annoying lightsaber purple that Mace had, more along the lines of a very dark purple. Haha sorry just thinking out loud (kinda)
Author
Time
Post link
Weren't the threads leaning for less colors? Maybe I'm wrong. Again, I'm not sure if it is even open for discussion; the final decision may have already been made. Man, I'm too lazy to go back and read.
Author
Time
Post link
Weyseed you are correct Knights of the Old Republic The Sith Lords does have a classification system of jedi based on their blade colors.
Blue is guarduian.
Green is consular.


Author
Time
Post link
"Mike Gallo: Obviously the color red is a traditional color of Dark Jedi or Sith Lords, but those guys aren't really subtle anyway. You will run into other characters with lightsabers of course, but the colors aren't really tied to anything specific."

"I always get what color my class should have. Blue for the Jedi Gaurdian Green for the Jedi Consular Yellow for the Jedi Sentinel Those are all the normal classes for any prestige classes I would do Silver,Cyan,Purple,Orange,Verdian and Bronze. Sincerely, Revan466"

Well, this is insane! Damn you, Star Wars universe!

Spaced Out - A Stoner Odyssey (five minute sneak peek)

Author
Time
Post link
Trooperman,

If you were going to recolor Dooku's blade, why not use the yellow one from MagnoliaFan's "The Clone War?" I thought it looked great, and it also made Dooku more ambiguous. The film as a whole seems to work better if Dooku is less Sith and more of a rogue Jedi.

As for blade colors, there ought to be a wide spectrum - orange and yellow definitely, in addition to green, blue, red, purple.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1113/userbar381851ln2.gif
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8653/userbar381853dp6.gif
Super Mario Bros. - The Wicked Star Story
"Ah, the proverbial sad sack with a wasted wish."
Author
Time
Post link
Alright, Trooperman - I finally read through this thread.

To everyone who blithely tells people, "Read through the thread" - it takes forever; that's why people ask.

Anyway, I took notes as I was going along.

A general suggestion I have for your edits would be to view ChefElf's 64 reasons to hate "Attack of the Clones" (http://www.chefelf.com/starwars/ep2.php) if you've not already. You've likely seen it already, but just in case, it does offer a wide range of critiques (many of which you've already addressed). He has similar complaints about the whole saga.

First off, I think the re-editing of the existing material that you have proposed is great. Things that really stand out to me are:
- the "fixing" of the decision on whether or not to go to Geonosis
- the romance adjustments
- the "in that case be extra careful" line
- the George Lucas line inserted
- the funeral
- Yoda's language

Lines/scenes I would like to see taken out (if they aren't already):
- "Jedi Poodoo"
- "stay away from power couplings" and the harmless shock
- the "nest of gundarks" crap and the uncomfortable laugh afterward
- Elan Slezzebaggano and his death sticks
- the Tusken raider "Ort! Orttt!" from ROTS when Palpatine mentions Anakin's mother
- "We don't serve droids?" (why not? you're a droid!)

Lines I would like to stay in (if possible):
- "You'll be the death of me."
- "Shut me down." (3P0 when he sees the factory - I know you've taken out the droid factory nonsense, with good reason, but that line cracks me up and seem very in character for 3PO - it would be great to fit somewhere into your PT)

Things I am concerned about:
- "Also Sprach Zarathustra" to open the Obi/Anakin/Dooku duel?
- German for alien language (a lot of people know German - it's also pretty recognizable, even to people who can't understand it)
- heavy reliance on non-SW films/soundtracks for music
- your voice (sorry - in the end, it is going to be the maker or breaker for this project)
- I know it's awful to say this, but that test clip of Dune shots for the Clone War Battle reminded me of Turkish Star Wars - they looked like two different movies, put together, and I think I would have thought that even if I had not seen Dune. Besides, how do you reconcile the difference in armor between the Clonetroopers shown earlier and the samurai-dervish outfits from Dune? Where are they battle droids? The ships from Dune don't look like any of the vehicles on the map in the war room. I don't know, I just didn't dig it.

Questions:
- Will Owen be Anakin's brother-in-law?
- As far as the Kaminoans, is there any reason you can't have one speaking in an alien language and the other speaking English? You wrote way back that you really like the existing dialogue for one of them.
- Did you take out the Geonosian's "Hyah!" when he whips the animal drawing Anakin and Padme's cart into the arena? My wife and I got a big kick out of that the other day, because of how anti-romantic it is following their "touching" scene, but at the same time, it works as a serious addition because of how brutal it is.
- Why was Padme missing her mid-riff, anyway?
- What percentage complete is this project?
- You say you like MagnoliaFan's Episode I. If you do your own, will you keep the Kaiber Crystal sub-plot in?
- Your early lightsaber work - it looked bad in still frames, but how did it look in motion?

Granted, I have not seen anything near the finished product, so this is all preliminary judgement and not a fair trial of your work. Your choices are daring, so they will be great if they work, but - honestly - they will be awful if they don't. Is there any way you can repost any clips with your voice acting, or the German?

Please don't take any personal offense to my comments. So far, you've encouraged discourse and criticism on your ideas, and I hope you take my ideas as the suggestions/concerns they are, not attacks. A project this big and time-consuming, I would like to see done right. (Was that a Yoda line?)

I know "right" is my opinion, but I think a lot of people share an idea of what is "right," otherwise we wouldn't be wasting time with PT edits. Other than my concerns, I think this project looks and sounds great, and I look forward to seeing the finished product.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1113/userbar381851ln2.gif
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8653/userbar381853dp6.gif
Super Mario Bros. - The Wicked Star Story
"Ah, the proverbial sad sack with a wasted wish."
Author
Time
Post link
Why do I suspect that this wasn't the first time you've watched Padme frame by frame?
Author
Time
Post link
I think we should just stick with taking out the purple blade.... I don't see any reason to have a "candy colored" sea of jedi sabres. Mabye it's just me though.... Besides if you wanted more colors changing Mace's blade is unneeded....

Marvolo: I think in some of the games you can decide your own saber color....



http://twister111.tumblr.com
Previous Signature preservation link

Author
Time
Post link
So, does anybody know where I can find transcripts of the radio dramas? It sure would make C3-PO dialogue easier to find than by listening to them all.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape