Return of the Jedi - The Spence Final Cut (Released) — Page 21

Haha, I'm very pleased that was the first review.

Glad you enjoyed it!

If anyone needs links, PM me and I'll send them out.

Haha, glad you liked my mini-review, Spence.

One more thing I wanted to add:

While the editing was pretty flawless, there were some technical issues I noted, such as audio sync being off for some shots (usually not by too much, though), one glitch in a shot with the added Death Star (camera starts moving at the end of the shot, but the Death Star stays in the same position), one shot that should have had the Death Star in it but didn't, and the credits and menus are at the wrong color space (0-255 instead of 16-235), making the player-generated black bars brighter than the hard-encoded letterbox black bars.  Also, your added credits start playing over top of the credits that are already there.  And in the shot of the lightsabers crossing in front of the Emperor, the cores still aren't quite white, and you can see that weird point where they cross, like in the '04 DVD.

Sorry, I just figured I should mention everything I had a problem with (and believe me, these technical issues are the ONLY things I took issue with, I have no complaints about the editing itself) before I write my otherwse-glowing review of the actual edit later.  Not trying to sound negative, I promise - just some constructive criticism in case you decide to go back and improve anything later.

Oh, and in your "abandoned concepts" video, you say you're going to show us both versions of the Luke/Vader/Han/Lando intercutting climax (which was really cool, BTW), but then you only show us the first one!  (Small, insignificant complaint, I know.)

Also, the "Duel of the Fates" trailer looks freakin' awesome.  It got me really excited for that edit.

Which shot was meant to have the Death Star in it? I think they all were covered correctly.

I did notice one moment of sync issue, something Lando says in the sail barge fight, but I was blending audio from the GOUT plus moving everything around, I guess it just got thrown out somehow. But it's really like one line, and not that far off.

Some of that stuff is just a result of what I am capable of doing vs. what I was trying to do.

And I suck at menu's, be thankful you have motion menus at all, haha.

Haha, the menus are fine, it's just the color range that's off.

And the big sync thing I noticed in the sail barge fight was the whole "saving Lando" bit, including "It's alright, trust me."

The shot I'm thinking of is right after the Emperor says "and the end of your insignificant Rebellion."

Well, we sort of tracked the movement of the battle in the window, so that the DS moves at the same speed as them. So it actually does sync up correctly, even if it seems a bit off.

And yeah, the trust me bit is the bit i had trouble with.

Any more words you would like to share about the content of the edit itself?

I should be watching this tonight. :-)

Okay, since I don't seem to be getting up to go to class (technically, class doesn't start for 4 more hours anyway, I just wanted to get some work done beforehand), here's my review:

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Wow.  You've made me enjoy watching Return of the Jedi again.  Up until now, it's been a chore to sit through the whole thing ... but this is almost perfect.  Not the way it should have been made, but the way it should have been cut once Lucas saw all the crap that had been shot.

Opening with Luke on Dagobah is great.  At first it's a little awkward, since we're so used to Luke having a badass entrance and all, but it really sets the tone in a way the film was severely lacking before.

Jabba is now a dirty gangster - like Lucas always claimed he was meant to be - and Bib Fortuna may in fact be the one who holds the real power in his court (I got this from the "message" scene - getting subtitles for Bib was a very nice touch).

Love love LOVE that you got rid of Boba Fett.  I've been championing that idea for a very long time, and you're the first that's done it ... and it's everything I thought it could be!

I didn't miss the Rancor at all.  The transition from Luke bargaining with Jabba to Han being brought out really wasn't awkward, like I was worried it would be.

The general silliness reduction in Jabba's palace really helped.

Cutting Obi-Wan's ghost was also a very good call - Luke has to figure shit out on his own instead of getting it all explained to him in one fell swoop.

Loved that you went back to the Empire in the middle of the Jabba's Palace stuff.  It really reminds you that the Empire is still a threat, and that the rebels are going to have to deal with them soon.

I wish more Ewok silliness had been cut on Endor, but it's nowhere near as bad as it is in the theatrical cut.

Luke figuring out that Leia is his sister worked so much better than having Obi-Wan tell him.

And finally, the climax.

The whole final battle actually felt exciting!  I was worried about the lack of Ewok traps, but that actually improved the whole "Ewoks beat the Empire" thing a lot.

Loved that you moved the duel to a Star Destroyer.  It works very well, and doesn't require a leap in suspension of disbelief like I expected it would.  It helped that you never had any throne room scenes until Luke was taken there, I think.

I retract any and all negative statements I made about putting the Luke/Vader battle all in one continuous scene.  It works much better, particularly for your edit.

All the added Death Star shots look great, and really help to "sell" the change in location.

The ending seems a wee bit abrupt, but it's very good, and substantially better than Yub Nub or the SE song.

I don't miss the Force ghosts, either.

It's just too bad you couldn't give Han something to do, or better lines (it really hit me this time how much Han in this movie is NOTHING like SW or ESB Han), but there's only so much you can do with what's there.

Anyway, this is definitely my preferred version of Jedi from this point forward.  Five-star work all around, Spence!

Very, very highly recommended for anyone who's disappointed in the official vesions of the movie!

Wow, that's longer than I thought it would be.  Oops.

Hmm... I'm curious to see how this turned out! Mind sending me a link?

ChainsawAsh said:

Oops.

;-)

I'm the same age as Jake Lloyd.  People always told me I looked like Anakin when Episode I came out.

He actually goes (or went) to my school (Columbia College).  Never met him, but some of my friends have had classes with him.

^Today's "Make Frink Feel Old" post.

ChainsawAsh said:

He actually goes (or went) to my school (Columbia College).  Never met him, but some of my friends have had classes with him.

Interesting, he use to go to the same school I went to a long time ago. (Park Tudor)

Thanks for the detailed review dude!

Nothing's downloading properly for me. If I have to wait a month for a .dlc then so be it.

The .dlc won't make a difference.  It's just a collection of links you can drop into jdownloader.  The links are the same either way.

At least with jodwnloader I can just let it run instead of manually starting up each file. Easier that way.

You can load links into jdownloader.  You don't need a .dlc.

^What the old man said. However, the links I got from Spence weren't urls but clickable descriptions, so not pastable into jdownloader as a list that you can parse.

I'm that boat as well.  But I'm good downloading each link seperately.  I'm half way through now and will get the rest when I get home from work.

Just finished watching. I agree with everything Chainsawash said.

I also enjoyed all of the special features. I liked the alternate Vader/Luke battle. But I see why you left it.

I think I prefer this equally to the theatrical version but for different reasons obviously.

Very good job.

Still having MU issues. Will try again later.

I'll be honest, I haven't watched the actual movie yet, I just don't have enough time, but I did watch a few of the little "Bonus" videos. I actually thought the little Boba Fett abandoned shot looked pretty cool! Would have been interesting to see it in the final product, but in the end, it's probably best for him just not to show up at all in the film. And I love the trailer for your new "Duels of Fates". I can't remember the last time I saw Return of the Jedi, so I'm pretty pumped to see this edit!