Artan42

TheAlaskanSandman said:

Skybatman said:

New scene from Anakin looking at the sunset.
A younger Count Dooku in TPM.
Is this … the ultimate version of the prequels?

Another dreaded “Special Edition” lol Gotta include some random creatures walking past the screen and blocking out everything

Make sure you edit the Trade Federation doors to be three times larger on the outside than they are on the inside as well then.

Anakin Starkiller said:

One more thing, I’d love it if upon regenerating, Hartnell glowed yellow, despite the rest of the show being black and white. Would be visually striking and a nice nod to the Modern Series.

I was hoping we’d get that in Twice Upon a Time’, either refilmed with Bradley or colourised and enhanced footage of Hartnel. They teased it several times with the golden wisps coming from his hands but we never got as far as seeing the full thing.

I’m enjoying all this technical detail. I have no bloody clue what is being said (it may as well be in Klingonese for all I know) but it looks like there’s several people who really know what needs to be done here.

As for CBS, every time somebody uploads a test video, I go watch a couple of episodes on Netflix. I think it’ll be the viewing figures for DS9 and VGR that make the case to CBS that they might have to pull their fingers out eventually as they’ll be the only two of the nine produced TV shows without a HD release.

I’ve only had time to watch one so far (The Return of Darth Maul) but it’s phenomenally well done. The quality is really high.

Yeah it’d be better to correct RotS to pure white.

I quite like it, the Death Star looks less stark and washed out and the uniforms align more with the rest of the OT (more grey-blue than grey-brown).

Animaxx said:

the 4K-Version will be ready to upload some time tomorrow,

Excellent, I can’t wait. I’m excited about the potential this project has.

Animaxx said:

If anyone is interested, I could make a sort of guide on how my workflow goes, if you’d like.
I just have to find the time, for my vacation time is almost over and my dayjob is 12 hours/day.

Glad you like it. Here’s to many more episodes 😃

Without wanting to eat into time you use for processing the actual episodes, I would like to see that. Beyond just general sharpening I have no idea what actually goes into upscaling video.

Animaxx said:

Hello guys. Great news: I’ve just finished the 4K Preview (first 90 seconds of the pilot) in 4K.
The original post at the beginning has been updated accordingly.

Here the link for the Original SD-File from the NTSC-DVD (67,5 MB) so you can compare:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nL19DeM87_kHtksh-XaGyQDPr_nX3F_K/view?usp=sharing

Here the link for the enhanced and upscaled 4K-File (106 MB):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qQrcY66SVMnGMSrIB52MTuzMfV_-IRHH/view?usp=sharing

The 1080p-Version preview is still in the works but should be finished soon, I will also post it here and at the beginning of the topic.

Afterwards the work on the full episode will procede. For the full episode please pm me around the next two days, ok?

Well that’s impressive. It really looks like footage from much later in DS9s run now. If it wasn’t for the black bars preventing widescreen you’d think it was a TNG style remaster.

I defiantly can’t wait for the full pilot.

Edit: the 1080 version looks a little funny in the way it’s enhanced the opening text as it’s cut off the first full stop and some of the letters have a shadowed lines after them. The sharpening on the Cube is also a bit odd in places and I think that’s because it’s made up of a lot of lines which may confuse the AI.
I haven’t noticed these effects on the 4K version.

Animaxx said:

And as far as hdtv broadcasts go: I have noticed a disturbing trend towards “chopping episodes”.

In the past, it was mostly related to the opening and/or end credits, which was ok I guess. But in the last years or so when I stumbled across an episode and thought “I could watch that again” … I don’t know what they are thinking!
They are editing out lines of dialogue, sometimes complete scenes where there really is no need (no offensive language, nudity or violence).
A few days ago I found Voyagers “Year of Hell” and it had several minutes missing and it whoever edited it did such a clumsy job, even someone who didn’t knew the episode would have noticed that some sentences certainly didn’t end where they did.
But just an hour later I saw some show that depicted a guy who got shot with blood splattering and some boobage … I guess that’s ok then ???

So I have become a bit distrustful of tv broadcasts …

I started watching the remastered TNG and Buffy on Sci-Fi when they started re-airing them here in England, however I picked up they basically cut things out at random episode by episode so I gave up and went back to my DVDs.
It’s not even consistent censorship, some episodes you can say ‘bastard’ and in other episodes, in the exact same context, they cut it.

Animaxx said:

Perhaps the project “Star Trek Axanar” rings some bells around here, it was a damn disgrace what they did to those people who merely wanted to bring a new chapter to Trek.

Axanar was shut down for using the Star Trek brand to sell extra material, branded items and so on, which they had no right to do. Star Trek Continues was allowed to continue with CBS’ blessing because they never sold an IP they didn’t own.
They also never even had a working script, lied to donators about how much they actually had filmed (the material for the documentary teaser), and funnelled the donated funds into the main guy’s personal studio.

Your concern is valid but Axanar is a terrible example to use as they effectively shut themselves down due to all the fraud.

TheAlaskanSandman said:

Toying with the grading for the “Battle of the Heroes”. Trying to get rid of a bunch of the red and make it look more natural. Not final yet.

I’m torn. On the one hand I like it and it helps composite the actors into the background better and gets rid of the unnatural hue they’re bathed in and it looks good. However, on the other hand, I almost prefer the vivid red lava and ash as it has a real feeling of Obi Wan being in a physical hell as well as his emotional hell.

This looks really good. It’s always going to make me sad that the best Star Trek series isn’t going to ever get a HD remaster like TOS and TNG did because all the CGI would need rebuilding. Fan made upscales are about all we can hope for.

I’d be interested to see how your process works on large battle scenes like ‘Sacrifice of Angels’.

Google Drive should be an okay place to host them, it seems to be where a lot of fanedit stuff goes.

OutboundFlight said:

I think adding extra color and contrast makes the movie look so much more dynamic and interesting.

Well it certainly makes it very red.

I’ve been able to get around to watching it now and it’s impressive how much the recolouring does for the film. The pacing is good and the removal of the musical numbers helps sell the tension of the Jabba stuff.

Could you PM me a link please?

TK-422 said:

Now that season 7 is out, do you think Padmé’s line to Anakin at the beginning about “there were rumors that you were killed” should be cut? We see them speak to each other while she’s visibly pregnant in the Bad Batch arc, and it’s established that their communication with each other is a regular thing. Rex even knows what to do without being asked, so it’s happened a lot. If they talk to each other that often, why would Padmé not know if he was dead or not? It’s a minor line, so it can be left in without taking anyone out of the movie, I was just wondering if you were planning to cut it.

If it’s when they’re reunited after he reaches the capital it’s more likely she means rumours he was killed in the giant chaotic space battle directly above her head, not that he’s been killed in the Outer Rim Sieges.

CMMAP said:
If it is possible.
then cut “henceworth you should be known as darth vader” — therefore cut palpatine rescues anaking on
mustafar, keeps the mystery of vader intact, audience would assume anakin died on mustafar or at least leaves a
questionsmark. Also i think the surprise in rebels with ashoka and vader would be more powerful. Up to discussion is

Whenever this is done in any PT edit it completely ruins the film. There is not a single life form on this planet of nearly 7 billion people who does not know Vader is Anakin. Not one.

The story of RotS is the fall of Anakin Skywalker. If he doesn’t become Vader at the end then he is not fallen enough. The emotional weight in ESB is Luke finding out who his father is, not the audience. And the tragedy of RotS is watching the hero of the Clone Wars fall as low as he does, not to trick the audience into pretending not to know something they already know.

Same with the Rebels connection. It’s Ahsoka who’s shocked by Vader, not the audience, and it would be impossible to manufacture any scenario whereby you could take the emotional weight out of RotS successfully just to serve as a punchline for a little watched show and a decades old film.

Same with Padmé naming her children. There’s also nobody on the planet who doesn’t already know Luke and Leia are twins, all you’re doing by removing that is removing the flow of the story to pretend to preserve a long dead idea of suspense.

It’s manufactured and pointless and worse, breaks up the flow of RotS.

CMMAP said:
1:55:28 – cut empire scene with vader, palpatine and death star, therefore we got Rogue One
so 1:55:28 end of the movie.>

Maybe mask out the Death Star, but even if it’s not, there’s no need to change this scene. There’s decades of experimentations that need to be done to the Genosion weapon before it reaches the stage seen in Rogue One.

NFBisms said:

Thank you, MuMu!

---

So I revisited the preduel Mustafar scene, but decided to go for every idea for it I felt might be too radical to be accomplished, and here’s the result:

ROUGH (like, more than usual) Anakin/Obi-Wan/Padme on Mustafar Clip

I, uh, don’t think it quite works. But I thought I should share it for the good of furthering the community’s collective thinking about how to edit the film.

Rough or not I think the first half works really well.

Having both Padmé and Obi-Wan from the start is good, it allows for a less hostile start, more trust of Anakin, Obi-Wan letting Padmé have a crack at sorting Anakin out, and a less sudden jump to aggression. The addition of ‘no, Anakin. No’ is perfect.

The second half shows Obi-Wan as more reluctant to attack Anakin than Padmé was, and in return, Anakin talks with Obi-Wan for longer than he did Padmé. I like that.

Obi-Wan is stalling in this version, not to save Anakin, but to put off what ‘he’ has to do.

NFBisms said:

Some more experimentation.

Tried some alternate dialogue instead of silent nodding to replace Yoda’s reused lines in the Windu/Obi/Yoda deleted scene
Not super sure about this but I prefer lines there to nothing. Anything to justify why we saw that minute long piece of a conversation.

Testing an alternate exchange in pre-duel sequence
As sure about this one as I was with “You weren’t there,” which isn’t much (probably more) - but I actually like the context this one creates more than that one - technical stuff aside. ¯\(ツ)/¯ (again, Padme shot credited to the wonderful snooker)

For the first one I think I preferred the nodding. Sometimes words aren’t needed. Both human actors have good enough body language that you can buy their contemplation of the treason they’re suggesting.

For the second one, I’d say it’s near perfect. The volume balancing of the new lines is good, the dialogue flows nicely, and it builds up to a lightsabres drawn fight, rather than starting off with Anakin massively aggressive.

One thing that I have an issue with in the original is Obi-Wan’s line ‘You have allowed this dark lord to twist your mind until now, until now you have become the very thing you swore to destroy’. I think the second ‘until now’ is overly theatrical and not really in keeping with how short the other dialogue is. Even in the original, the phrases are short and to the point, but that line is just a bit over the top.

I like all the extra dialogue in the opening scenes (apart from the added laugh when R2 appears during the ray shield trap). Having watched most of TCW very recently the two of them never shut up 😄, it’s constant banter in almost any situation. That fit well when you did your edit of the opening as if it were a TCW episode.

I’m ambivalent towards any of the Kashyyk stuff. If it wasn’t necessary for Yoda I wouldn’t even notice if it was dropped from the film. I’ve always felt it breaks the tone of the film up a bit too much.

By the point Anakin arrives late to the briefing wouldn’t Ahsoka already have captured Maul rather than just having arrived on Mandalore?

Leave out ‘What have I done?’, I think it’s right that the different voice can be interpreted as internal thoughts.

The added dialogue of ‘Luke’s Father Wanted Him To Have This, When He Was Old Enough’ is still quite difficult to hear. I can make most of it out but the transition from ‘how old were you when…’ to ‘I want to have our baby…’ is quite abrupt as the second line is much louder.

You already know my thoughts on Mustafar, any additions or removals you can make to make Padmé a character with agency and her own agenda is welcome.

I don’t know how much you want to be influenced by TCW episodes that never made it to production but series 6 and 7 and deleted arcs involving Yoda and the Bad Batch on Kashyyk so would indicate a Republic presence even before Kai-Adi and MAce agree they need to send an attack group there (maybe add ‘another’ attack group), the other was Padmé returning to Man Cala where she was basically working with the Quarren senator to act against Palpatine, leading into her Rise of the Rebellion’ stuff in your version of RotS. She’s already made her childhood friend Palps into an enemy which puts Anakin, retroactively, being pulled between Palps, Padmé, and the Jedi, meaning both Obi-Wan and Padmé are working off slightly different angles on Mustafar.

On the fence about: Fully removing the scene with Mace/Yoda/Obi-Wan.
I say don’t. The fact Yoda and Mace are happy to create a council within a council is reminiscent of Ahsoka’s trial where it was done with only 5 members and not the full lot, and also they are the main three who are following the whole Sidious and the origins of the clone army plot from TCW series 6.

On the fence about: Leaning towards keeping original “Don’t lecture me Obi-Wan” because I can definitely see how “You weren’t there” doesn’t work seamlessly.
I like both. The former plays into Anakins insecurities about not being a master and being Obi-Wan’s padawan and not his friend, but he latter works towards how isolated Anakin is feeling.

As for the colour grade, RotS has always been one of the best looking SW films that never got damaged as much as it got transferred between mediums. It has some issues where whites look tan and greys look blue and a lot of busy elements in places. I don’t think a full regrade would work for RotS, I think it’d have to be taken scene by scene to sort out. Comparer how blue the interior of the Invisible Hand is in RotS to the CIS ships in TCW and how busy the bridge looks compared to the ones in TCW.

I like all of those recolours. All except the inside of the Bunker, it looks too green and doesn’t match the other Imperial interiors like the Star Destroyer.

NFBisms said:

And with a similar accent to his Obi-Wan lines.

It would be an issue. Most things I’ve seen him in he’s either using his natural Scottish accent or an American one and not the English one he uses for Obi-Wan.

NFBisms said:

Oh and for anyone with the link, the folder will be empty for a few days, as I put up a new revision in light of some really bad audio problems, and maybe whatever new changes I come up with.

Ah that explains where it went earlier.

IlFanEditore said:

And here’s a video with that sun-ish glow (and with new soundtrack).
https://vimeo.com/408857603
password: fanedit

I like that a lot.

It certainly looks more interesting and alien and less like California.