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Star Wars: Rise of Lord Vader WORKPRINT NOW AVAILABLE

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EDIT: The workprint is now up on Myspleen, if you don't have Myspleen access, PM me on how to get it.

So, this is going to be a cut I'm working on inspired by two things: the fabled Topher Grace prequel edit and the Machete viewing order, which suggest the films be watched IV, V, II, III, VI. I haven't decided whether or not this is going to be two seperate edits: one for Episode II and one for Episode III, or if it is going to be one combined edit of Episodes II and III. Either way, before Episode II there will be a short prologue summarizing some aspects of the Phantom Menace. Here is a very rough sample clip showing how this might play out in a sort of flashback structure.

The source for the rough clip is the Phantom Edit and Attack of the Phantom, simply because I had files of them on my computer. The real version will be sourced from the Blu-Rays and obviously will have a real crawl, not the Phantom Editor crawl.

I would appreciate any feedback or ideas, but keep in mind the clip is meant to be more of a proof of concept than representative of the real cut.

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I'd say if you're abandoning the titular "Episode I, II, then III," just make it one prequel film for the machete viewing order. That'd be a logical parenthetical flashback between ESB and ROTJ, given that the episodic numbering is being interfered with either way. 

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

I'd say if you're abandoning the titular "Episode I, II, then III," just make it one prequel film for the machete viewing order. That'd be a logical parenthetical flashback between ESB and ROTJ, given that the episodic numbering is being interfered with either way. 

 Good call. That would also probably put me at the 2:30-2:45 mark which I consider more acceptable for a Star Wars film than the typical 1:30 prequel edit.

I also might drop the idea of the Episode I prologue. It was a fun idea to test out but I don't think I'll be able to execute it professionally enough to make sense and feel seamless in the final edit.

However, my only concern with this approach is that the transition between between II and III will be disorienting. My current plan is to cut from Yoda's line "Begun the clone war has" to the opening battle of ROTS, with an accompanying "3 years later" graphic. I'm just hoping that new viewers wont be disoriented by the fact that the chancellor has been captured and the Jedi are trying to rescue him, since there's no crawl to explain that or who General Grievous is.

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And I rather like what you've done for a prologue. It's rough, as you said, but I like the duel as a frame. 

It might be cool to (this phrase should prompt you to ignore what follows) have the Obi-Wan/Luke dialogue play over the opening logos as you did, then have it get quiet during the ALTAIAGFFA title card. Once the audience expects the opening logo and musical blast, kick in abruptly with the duel of the fates score. 

You might be able to do without the "fear leads to anger" scene. I think the key beats to keep in your TPM prologue are Anakin's difficulty leaving his mother, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's (identities, and) relationship with each other, the idea that the Sith are out there, and some clue as to why they are fighting a lightsaber duel in the first place. You hit almost all of these on the head, so I look forward to what else you'd come up with. 

Going the route of a single film would allow for more creativity than a three-film structure. Among other things, you might be able to use ROTS for the majority of the film, and make it seem as though Anakin really was an all around good guy until the latter end of the Clone Wars. 

Nice idea, and good work so far! I'd love a good go-to single film as a stand-in for the prequels for a machete viewing. No offense intended to anyone, but I personally haven't cared for any of the prior attempts at crunching the prequels into a single film. But coming at it with the intent on viewing it between ESB and ROTJ make just make it work.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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^Just read your reply after posting mine. 

Actually, it might be a good idea to use ROTS as the frame narrative, with a few flashbacks to the events of AOTC. There'd be a few tricky pieces, such as establishing Dooku's identity.

When Palpatine reminds Anakin about what happened with his mother and the sand people, you could easily insert a flashback sequence to those events. 

You could insert some of Anakin and Padme's backstory right before Anakin's first nightmare about her death, though I can't rattle off any specific suggestions. 

Eh, it might help make it feel like a more cohesive single film... because it basically would be to start with. 

My stance on revising fan edits.

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That might work, I'll play around with both ideas. If I did Episode II-III rather than the flashback structure you suggested, I'd probably try to cut down Episode II much more aggressively than III, so it only makes up about 45min-an hour of the film.

My main reservation around the flashback structure are the ones brought up in the original Machete order post:

You might be wondering if it’s worth skipping II and only watching III, just to establish young Anakin in time for Jedi. I don’t recommend this, every character you need to know for Episode III who was introduced in Episode I is reintroduced in Episode II with a quick line of dialogue, but Episode III just assumes you know who everyone is. Ham-handed as it is, Anakin’s love for Padme is the ultimate reason for his fall to the dark side, and Episode II has most of that. Additionally, without seeing the Clone Army being created in Episode II, seeing the Jedi fight alongside them in III would be extremely confusing, since they look almost exactly like Stormtroopers in III.

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Hal 9000 said:

And I rather like what you've done for a prologue. It's rough, as you said, but I like the duel as a frame. 

It might be cool to (this phrase should prompt you to ignore what follows) have the Obi-Wan/Luke dialogue play over the opening logos as you did, then have it get quiet during the ALTAIAGFFA title card. Once the audience expects the opening logo and musical blast, kick in abruptly with the duel of the fates score. 

You might be able to do without the "fear leads to anger" scene. I think the key beats to keep in your TPM prologue are Anakin's difficulty leaving his mother, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's (identities, and) relationship with each other, the idea that the Sith are out there, and some clue as to why they are fighting a lightsaber duel in the first place. You hit almost all of these on the head, so I look forward to what else you'd come up with. 

Going the route of a single film would allow for more creativity than a three-film structure. Among other things, you might be able to use ROTS for the majority of the film, and make it seem as though Anakin really was an all around good guy until the latter end of the Clone Wars. 

Nice idea, and good work so far! I'd love a good go-to single film as a stand-in for the prequels for a machete viewing. No offense intended to anyone, but I personally haven't cared for any of the prior attempts at crunching the prequels into a single film. But coming at it with the intent on viewing it between ESB and ROTJ make just make it work.

Hey, I updated the prologue clip with some of your suggestions. It's at the link in the OP. I think they're a big improvement. I also removed all the prophecy talk (not 100% sure on this yet) and cut out the scene with Obi-wan and Yoda because I felt it was superfluous. Obi-wan says at the funeral that "the council granted him permission" and that's all we really need to know.

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That's the first I've heard of the Machete order - but I believe it, because Episode I adds virtually nothing to the series as a whole. In fact arguably, we could renumber the other five into that order, maybe modify a few of the crawls, and Lucasfilm would be happy!

Ol’ George has the GOUT, I see.

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Yes, the new clip is a big improvement. Looking good so far. There are a few things, and I know it's just a rough mockup, that would be curious if this is the first ten minutes of a single film. Things like Qui-Gon seemingly ending a phone call as Shmi walks up, and Yoda's line, "More to say have you?"

And I'd suggest cutting anything you wouldn't want to include, since it's a single film. If you don't want the prophecy stuff, may as well lose it. It's not set up in ANH or ESB and has no payoff in ROTJ. You might give Threepio some thought too. Watching the films in machete order made me expect to see some sort of revelation in ROTJ for the characters about the droids having been present for the events of Anakin's rise and fall. 

This could be a good project.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Excellent! I’ve also long pondered a Machete Order fanedit inspired by Topher Grace’s cut and came to a similar conclusion: use just the Darth Maul fight, ending with Obi-Wan’s promise, as a cold open in between A Long Time Ago and the Main Title.

I love your voiceover intro; very smoothly sets up the shift in time period without resorting to an out-of-place ’35 Years Earlier’ subtitle, wasting words in the opening crawl or even spoiling the surprise cold open.

As I’ve never tried editing this, I don’t know if the Darth Maul fight's energy could be sustained without cutting to the space and Gungan battles. Your flashbacks sidestep this issue nicely.

I’m glad you're putting it into action – ideas are worthless without execution!

I do have one suggestion. The cut after A Long Time Ago needs to be as explosive a start as the usual Main Title and possibly Duel of the Fates can’t pull it off by itself. It may work better to cut straight to the flash of a lightsaber strike – possibly from the flurry of blows just before where you started the scene – and amplify that striking noise.

Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

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One thing I'm mulling over. Can anyone think of a convincing way to imply in ROTS that Anakin thinks Padme is cheating on him with Obi-Wan? Yes, I normally hate love triangles as well, even fake ones, but I really feel there's not enough there to justify him turning so completely on Obi-Wan and Padme at the end (I don't think "he turned to the dark side" is really a sufficient explanation).

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I think in one of the deleted scenes about the building of the Rebellion, Palpatine implies something to Anakin about Padme's relationship with Obi-Wan.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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Octorox said:

One thing I'm mulling over. Can anyone think of a convincing way to imply in ROTS that Anakin thinks Padme is cheating on him with Obi-Wan? Yes, I normally hate love triangles as well, even fake ones, but I really feel there's not enough there to justify him turning so completely on Obi-Wan and Padme at the end (I don't think "he turned to the dark side" is really a sufficient explanation).

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WXdodWmOxqc#t=43

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I´ve been doing an edit exactly like this for the last 6 months or so. A prequel edit inspired by Topher Grace that´s meant to be viewed only in the Machete order. It´s almost done and I´m not using any of TPM.

I want my edit to be in line with the OT, one of the things being that Obi Wan was trained by Yoda and that Obi Wan took it upon himself to train Anakin. TPM pretty much negates these facts so that´s why I ain´t using anything from it.

Check out my Episode I edit.

Sorry for Bad English.

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Brief update. The working title of this project is now "Star Wars Episode V.I : Rise of Vader." I'm going to be starting with an SD workprint taking bits and pieces from other fan edits and then once I'm satisfied with the movie's flow, I'll redo all of the edits from scratch myself with the Blu-Ray footage. I'm currently shooting for around 3 hours with a 15 minute Phantom Menace prologue, about 40 minutes of Attack of the Clones and then a full 2 hours of Revenge of the Sith, which will be the meat of this edit. Stay tuned for updates.

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While TPM is undeniably the worst Star Wars so far, I'm always surprised so many things happen in AOTC. ROTS is even better than ROTJ IMO.

Good luck with your project, the prologue you posted is a really great start for this.

"Let's face it, the Ewoks sucked, dude" -Hurley, Lost 5x13-Some like it Hoth.

Please bear with me if I tend to get too excited about anything or say too much, I have issues.

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johnlocke2342 said:

While TPM is undeniably the worst Star Wars so far

 I deny it.

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TV's Frink said:

Octorox said:

New clip:

https://vimeo.com/97185098

 Not bad.  But what font is that "3 Years Later"?  It's...ugly.

 It's an English Aurabesh font. I could try something different, but I want it to be distinct from the other fonts like the "long time ago" font, subtitle font and crawl font. I'm open to suggestions.

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TV's Frink said:

Octorox said:

New clip:

https://vimeo.com/97185098

 Not bad.  But what font is that "3 Years Later"?  It's...ugly.

 Yo Frink, I made that font!

(But truth be told, I never envisioned it to be used in this way).

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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The transition is very nice minus the "3 years later" text. In fact it isn't needed because in ROTS Anakin's hair is considerably longer than it was in AOTC which indicates some time has passed. 

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Octorox said:

TV's Frink said:

Octorox said:

New clip:

https://vimeo.com/97185098

 Not bad.  But what font is that "3 Years Later"?  It's...ugly.

 It's an English Aurabesh font. I could try something different, but I want it to be distinct from the other fonts like the "long time ago" font, subtitle font and crawl font. I'm open to suggestions.

 I really like the transition, particularly the audio work, but I have to agree that the font is funny.  In fact, I'm not sure I like having text on-screen like that at all - I'd prefer a placard akin to "a long time ago", but that would probably ruin the video editing as is.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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So has anyone ever attempted prequel color correction before? I really dislike the color timing on AOTC, I think it looks oversaturated and soap-opera-y with too many oranges and cyans. I'd like to look at any work others have done before taking a stab at it.

EDIT: Here's a new clip from AOTC with color correction and a grain plate added. I based the color palette on Star Wars 1313 concept art which itself I believe was inspired by Blade Runner.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/we503b56auijldg/toxicdart.mp4