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Hello! I’m new(ish) to this site, but I wanted to spread the love for Darth Lunar’s The Blackened Mantle, especially the black and white version. There’s so much I adore about it: I think the new dialogue is fresh and full of great character specificity, the Japanese voice acting breathes new life into the weaker performances–and most surprising of all, to me the cartoonier/cheesier bits of early-generation CGI look super-stylized and “design-craftey” when rendered in stark black and white (to my eye at least). For anyone who feels the same way, I thought I’d share what I’ve been working on lately…
I just finished a high-res updated edition with a few changes to hopefully improve the viewing experience, working from a brand-new 1080p Blackened Mantle reconstruction by GMatias for my source (THANKS AGAIN!). The biggest change I’ve made is that since casual viewers struggle differentiating the present-day main story from the interspersed flashbacks, I tinted all the flashback scenes a lighter-toned sepia (which I think lends them a warm “past tense” vibe). I also reworked the opening titles to lean into the overall Kurosawa vibe, which involved cutting the prologue so now the story begins right away in the present with the Battle Over Coruscant (but to preserve the original editor’s intent, the Darth Maul duel now appears as brief cutaways during Obi-Wan and Dooku’s flashback scene on Geonosis using the same visual language from the scene where Anakin kills Count Dooku). I also did what I could to smooth over a few of the clunkier transitions, of which there weren’t many but hopefully the move flows a tiny bit better. (NOTE: I also want to be VERY clear about not taking credit here: this edit represents the hard work of other insanely talented people, including whoever added those amazing Japanese title cards to the original B&W edit; if anyone knows who did it, please let me know so I can thank them from the bottom of my heart! I’m infinitely grateful for the opportunity to add a few comparatively miniscule touches to Darth Lunar’s brilliant work. THANK YOUUUUU!)
SAMPLE OPENING CLIP: https://vimeo.com/808475869
SAMPLE FLASHBACK CLIP: https://vimeo.com/808474683
I’m still learning the forum rules, but I think it’s okay to say if you’re interested in the full version to PM me? There’s also some posts about it on reddit that may provide more info. Thank you all for being so passionate about these movies!
Nick
