4throck

The finale was again confusing if you consider the main characters (the twins and Smilo Ren). They are not consistent and have unclear motivations, making them uninteresting.

And then you have poorly explained moments like Sol targeting Mae’s ship and the Basil sabotaging Sol’s ship. Both actions are unclear.

Only Sol had a fully developed story in my view, and that makes for a very underwhelming series.

I’ve been enjoying the series so far. It’s a bit boring, with awkward pacing and poor dialog, yet perfectly watchable. On the positive side, it feels like Star Wars, looks reasonably good, and has an overall interesting story.

Not great, but also not a disaster, just average. Would benefit from a series to movie fanedit!

I’m enjoying the series a lot. The sets and props keep me immersed in the world. Love the ANH style computers/displays!

I’m enjoying Andor a lot!

It’s really well directed and I like the small scenes with little or no dialog. Sets and locations are also very enjoyable.
The only minor negatives are generic music, abrupt endings to some episodes (no resolution), and the Kalashnikov prop.

Overall I’d rank it above Kenobi and Boba-Fett, and on pair with Mando. Good stuff!
The tone is more serious than Mando, but it gives me the same sense of adventure and of being in the Star Wars world.

Great work!

Like the new landing platform!

It always bothered me that they used the shuttle departing shot here. It was originaly part of a sequence showing Vader taking Luke up to the Death Star, along with this: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/d/d7/Vader_leaving_Cloud_City.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20130324062628 (the scenes added to ESB were really from ROTJ)

Well, Sopranos, etc. were the old days. A modern (made in the last 2-3 years) streaming series has 10 episodes per season (or less), and production constraints are publicly acknowledged (usually blaming the pandemic or remote working). So I’ve adjusted expectations based on those clues, given by the production companies themselves.

But quality was going down before that (GOT is a good example). Even on Star Wars TV, the quality drop from Mandalorian season 1 to season 2 and BobaFet is obvious.

Indeed I’ve come to expect mediocrity, but can still enjoy a series as long as it isn’t boring or completely stupid. I simply don’t attach myself to any series as I do with a movie (where I do expect some quality).

(There’s no blame here - it’s fine if you don’t like it or if it doesn’t match your quality standards. These are just opinions, each person will have their own and they can change 😉 ).

Lots of unrealistic expectations here.

It’s a modern TV series. That means generic entertainment/storyline and production values limited by time and cost-cutting. It’s not art, it’s a (more or less rushed) product for binge/consumption.

And it’s from Disney, meaning the focus is on a broad audience and merchandising. They specifically avoid complex themes and try to make things suitable for younger people (defusing tension through humor - Leia’s pursuit, redemption arcs - Reva, etc).

So it must be compared with other similar TV series, not with movies. For what it is, I think it’s really enjoyable.

I did enjoy the ending of Kenobi. It’s clearly a 2:30h motion picture script, padded to make a 6h TV series.
I think a fanedit would be very easy to do.

As others mentioned, the editing on the final episode didn’t give a clear notion of time. That’s because they didn’t use the wipe transitions. Wipes indicate to the viewer that we’ve jumped in time, omitting part of the action. Without them, action seems to take place continuously. Music cues and cleaver montage can also serve the same purpose.

There are problems with visual mastering. Light levels are way too low - unless you have a properly calibrated HDR TV, you won’t see a thing.

But I really liked the series! It strikes the same notes as the PT and OT - the characters do the best they can, but are flawed and make mistakes along the way. Yet they are very likable and human. At the end of Kenobi, I can say that about Bail, Owen, the fake Jedi guy, etc. I’d like to spend more time with them.

I’m very disappointed by the poor art direction in this series. Scenes just don’t look good.

The lighting is bad and reveals the shortcomings of costumes and sets, especially on 4K. Yes, stormtroopers were always plastic, but in this series, they look like toys, with no weight.

And the limits of the volume are plainly obvious because they are simply using it as a back-projection screen. You can clearly see where the studio floor ends, and having background extras standing exactly at that spot doesn’t help! I could go on about the editing or music, but I think you get my point.

Not a bad series, but it’s being brought down by poor visuals.

Not bad, but the display needs to add more to the scene. We need to see Luke adjusting his joystick and external shots of the fighter responding, between cuts to the display. As it stands is a bit static.

Also, the fighters maneuver slow on the external shots, medium on the cockpit shots, and fast on the computer display!
Shadows and rotations are consistent, nothing wrong there, but speed isn’t.

I know I’m nitpicking, but I think you appreciate the input 😃

Great work. The editing is solid, and Luke’s outtakes work really well.
If image quality is a problem, perhaps you can just use the audio over external ship shots.

As for CGI, I do agree that you might want to go with the original effects, as they match outtakes and deleted scenes better.

(You have a clean version of the conference room on the audio drama…)

I’ve mentioned this audio bit because the entire conference room sequence is problematic: you see Vader’s Destroyer approaching the Death Star, and then we immediately cut to him entering the room with Tarkin.

Something seems to be missing there. If you had images of Vader walking down a hall, you could have the dialog play in the background as he approaches the room. Tarkin could be waiting by the door overhearing the conversation.
The boomy audio might work in this situation.

Another sequence I’d like to see restored would be Solo’s girlfriend. A few frames of them on the cantina as Luke looks around, and then a few frames of her leaving as Obi-Wan and Luke sit. That would be enough.

Don’t feel pressured to do any of this, I simply enjoy talking about the possibilities 😃 !
And sorry if this is distracting from your efforts, that’s not my intention!

Good ideas here, and I really like the new scene. You are sort of restoring the original “lost cut”, and that’s great!

Regarding deleted scenes, agreed that Luke in the desert doesn’t work that well, but Tosche Station (repeats Luke on binoculars and lets us know that the battle is over/near their location - therefore the droids land near) and Biggs (setup for the reunion later on) would be good additions.

Another must for me is to (somehow) add the dialog bit mentioning “Sith Lord”, before Vader/Tarkin enter the meeting. Perhaps the dialog could be heard offscreen over an establishing shot of the meeting?

I think the 4:3 version would be interesting to watch. The manual framing is an artistic choice by itself, as much as the editing. It’s worth doing.

“Removed awkwardly long shots throughout”
» Can you explain a bit what was removed?

“New mattes for obvious rear-projection/blue screen shots”
» I’m curious about this. Can you post a link to some before/after pictures?

CGI monsters will feel out of place. My suggestion is to just fix jerky miniature motion, mattes and eventually do motion interpolation to smooth out movements.

I suggest trying to use monster sequences from the 1970/80’s Godzilla movies. Effects are a bit better and camera styles should be somewhat compatible.

There’s no detailed explanation, but you can see it happening on screen in this classic scene. Vader voices his thoughts aloud and becomes quite calm for a few moments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKF9g_BKmXU

Perfectly fine if you interpret it another way - these movies are not as simple as they appear and multiple interpretations are possible!

Vader’s redemption starts on ANH when he senses Obi-Wan. Something changes, and he adopts a more restrained fighting style after that point. But before that, he’s quite violent, even on ANH. So the RO scene is perfectly in character I think - we are seeing the prequel Vader.

NeverarGreat said:

If you wanted to leave the hallway scene, you could just move the bit where the crew is downloading the plans onto the floppy disk and place it after the hallway scene. In this way it is assumed that the plans needed to be transferred to disc before being hand-delivered to the transmission site on the ship (or perhaps the primary comms were damaged and they need to use a backup, whatever). Then you could have a shot establishing the Tantive IV on the opposite side of Scarif or in deep space like RJ suggested receiving the plans and jumping to Hyperspace.

Something like that perhaps. Indeed the hallway scene might be edited to show the disc changing hands before Vader arrives. Some rebels are left behind to stall Vader while the Tantive manages to escape.
As long as Vader doesn’t notice the disc things line up well with ANH.

As others mentioned the scene is important to complete Vader’s arc from the PT, so it should be in if possible.
Thanks for the suggestions and discussion, it’s helpfull.

SparkySywer said:

I kinda don’t see how it would improve the PT enough for it to be worth the effort

The deleted scenes improve characterization and story a lot. Trim some of the “humor” and video game-like sequences and you get a decent narrative, although a bit long. Some effects need updating with better CGI, but that’s not a problem, they have all the assets…

Would work best if edited into episodes by someone like Filoni who understands and likes the universe, but a long movie like Snyder’s Justice League would also be interesting. I’d watch it…

I’m working on a personal edit of Rogue One to bring it more in line with ANH. The ending is indeed problematic. Makes no sense for Vader to see the data disc being handled. He’d simply use the force to get it. And he can’t be aware of the Tantive specifically (must be a ship amongst others).

So Vader in the hallway must be cut (possibly moving it to an ANH edit). From dialog Vader was supposed to handle the rebel fleet, so that’s what he should do - just like in ANH, he should get into his Tie fighter and engage in the space battle. Might be possible to create such a sequence by repurposing some ANH footage.

This way we can still see the disc changing hands (makes sense to be handled manually, no logs or computer records), the Tantive leaving and Leia getting the plans.
In this context, Leia sort of becomes one of the spies mentioned, carrying on the mission into ANH.

I love the movie but it does require some tweaking if you want to watch it back to back with ANH !

This serial is quite interesting.

I’ve thought about editing it into a feature length movie, but I don’t have any ideas on how to really connect the episodes.

What could be the main plot that brings it all together?
The only thing that occurs to me is to have one of the mad scientists behind a series of natural disasters. But it seems like a weak motivation. It needs something more for character development.

Any ideas ?

Avatar_Emil_Borg said:

Bumping this thread to inform you that a Japanese DVD-rom version of “Star Trek: Borg” has been preserved on the Internet Archive.

That’s great! The quality is quite good and the resolution is 480i60.
The 60 fps video works well with the handheld / first person camera work!

This BW footage is a field where AI could work! We have good quality scenes of the actors with similar lighting, framing and clothing, so an AI could easily match it with the low res BW footage…