Ashdogg

Star Wars Return of the Jedi: Renewed

I came upon this Fanedit by accident, and was one the rare times I did not know what to expect. The edit was created by IlFanEditore. Without hesitation I can say it’s worth a watch, right from the beginning the changes are obvious, or at least obvious to anyone who has watch ROTJ a thousand times 😃, and it does affect the way the movie is paced compared to Lucasfilms editions. There were occasions, mainly on Tatooine, that it felt the pace was too fast and much of the tension was not as effective as I’m used too.
Enhanced special effects can be seen throughout the movie, most were very impressive. Though I did spot one or two effects that seem to suffer from feathering issues and, at least in one instance, the cut out was not as good as it needed to be. But otherwise the effects were really well done.
Where this fanedit shines the most is in the ending. IlFanEditore really nailed it, an improvement on anything I’ve seen previously. Overall the movie has more of a serious tone and feels more in line with The Empire Strikes Back.
So definitely a fanedit that has been welldone, and nicely sits along with Adywan’s Revisted fanedits.

Your fanedit looks amazing. If you can send me a link, that would be terrific.

It is always enjoyable reading alternative treatments of the prequel trilogy. I think when writing just getting to the end is a reward in itself. I’ve written my own rewrite and had many moments of writers block. So I am not going to make story suggestions or criticisms because it is your personal vision of how you see the prequels. I think writing the prequels made me realize just how difficult it is compared to doing sequels.

I have been watching the progress of Despecialized and have been rather disappointed that Harmy has chosen to publish it’s development on youtube as manner to gain income via live chat. I realize that Harmy is a great guy and his work on despecialized is amazing. But I think it’s important that fanedits are not made for profit - no matter how small.

Hi, well I am undertaking the self imposed task of trying to preserve and restore the old Star Tours ride footage from the old classic Disney ride that existed from 1987 to 2010 - to a decent consistent quality. I have found 90% of the footage I can use. But I have some footage that, well, I’d rather not use as it’s resolution is too low from the rest. Mainly footage of when R2D2 is lowered onboard the Starspeeder 3000. I don’t if anything exists - maybe it might be better if I recreated it?

Another point of interest is the actual main screen ride footage - what I have is jumpy. Can anyone suggest a program that will stabilize the footage and do it well? Or may have other footage of it?

Cheers

This post got me thinking of what I would do - what improvements I’d make.

1. Add 20th century fox
2. Swap Lucasfilm logo for another (I prefer the older more colourful one)
3. No intro text after a long time ago
4. Movie starts with Han already in the Imperial Navy - everything before that gets chopped.
5. No Darth Maul

I seem to remember it being on the 1995 VHS. Are you sure?

Hello. I was wondering if anybody knew when George Lucas made the Dianoga blink in the trash compactor in ANH? I seem to remember it was released as early as the the VHS version that came out before the special edition was released in theaters. Maybe it was earlier?

Really interesting thread. I was watching a video on YouTube about whether fans are too hard on George Lucas, that are we to blame as to why Disney is now at the helm? But I remember all the criticisms that George has made over the years about Hollywood, that executives don’t know a decent movie when they get one. That it’s our fault that we don’t like “experimental” movies. I also remember how hyped all the fans were in 1999… and all the Jar Jar merch… yet all we wanted was a good movie. Are the fans too hard on George? I don’t think so. I don’t think we’re the reason why he sold his company. From my observations, fans are just giving their honest opinions.

Rodney-2187 said:

Is it correct to call this the GOUT? I thought that term referred specifically to those crappy DVDs George included in one of the boxed set releases. Do they just mean a 70mm print of the unaltered version?

I never knew such a print existed… so awesome. Just to clarify GOUT (George’s Original Unaltered Trilogy)is any published media, that’s source is the original version of each movie released to the public. Though with Empire Strikes Back there is a 70mm version that is GOUT, as it differs from the 35mm and was released earlier.

I saw 4K77 a week ago, and I have to say, I felt, for my small donation, it was priceless to watch something so caringly restored. It was like a painting, that had been cleaned and brought back to the state, when it had been originally painted. I’m amazed what they managed to achieve.

For me:

10,000s of Jedi battle 10,000s of Sith. The Republic is born out of the war and one of its few survivors; Master Yoda, decides to maintain a small knighthood, as he learnt too many Jedi Knights turned to the dark side and the slaughter wasn’t worth the amount of death.
2.
Obi-Wan Kenobi discovers corruption in the Republic and is forced into hiding.
3.
Two senators seek Obi-Wan Kenobi in the hope he can help save the Republic from the corruption, and in doing re-discovers the existence of the Sith and a promising new apprentice.
4.
The Galactic Empire rises.
5.
The Republic falls.
6.
A rebellion is born and manages to steal the death star plans.
7.Despite the odds, the Rebellion destroys the empire.
8. A criminal Militia rises
9.The militia fails and a new republic is born

I don’t know if someone has mentioned this previously (my apologies if it has), but if LFL released the OT Special Edition it won’t likely be a true 4k format. The CGI effects were no doubt rendered at 2K, so even if you upscale them to 4K - the quality of the video will be equal to that of 2K (half of the prequels were shot at 2K) and you could end up with a 4K/2K hybrid. It shouldn’t be impossible to overcome this - but it certainly wouldn’t be a simple process. From a financial point of view it would make practical sense to do the Theatrical Editions of of the OT - even there, I expect it’d be still be somewhat an involved process. It really comes down to how far they’re willing to go and for what price.

Jedi Rocks hands down. It irritates me the most. Coming 2nd would be the Jabba the Hutt scene in ANH, followed in 3rd Greedo shoots.

That sounds good. Especially with Joruus, I am not a fan of cloned Emperor, Luke etc.

Looking at the Empire Strikes Back crawl, it says that Luke Skywalker led a group of freedom fighters to Hoth - which when you consider A New Hope… surely that role would’ve been assigned to Princess Leia?

Next the crawl it says Vader was obsessed with finding Luke Skywalker. Why? I would’ve thought he would be seeking revenge against the Rebels, as a whole, for blowing up the Death Star? During the time Luke fired his torpedoes, Darth Vader only knew that “the force is strong with this one.”

It seems to me Vader is not given permission to find Luke Skywalker until when Vader chats to the Emperor. He knows he has a son but it’s the Emperor provides him his name. Though this contradicted when Vader had earlier in the movie said "That is the system! And I’m sure the Skywalker is with them. Set your course for the Hoth system. General Veers, prepare your men.”

So does it make more sense "That is the system! And I’m sure the Princess is with them. Set your course for the Hoth system. General Veers, prepare your men.”? Vader had met the Princes in the previous movie and he knew she had, at least, a significant role in the Death Star’s destruction and had a vendetta against her?

Am I missing something?

I only saw Solo once in theater, and when I left, I yawned 2 or 3 times. Why? The ending just sucked… the pirates and that awful scene with Darth Maul. But the movie suffered right from the beginning. In my opinion when it comes to story telling you don’t need to show anything that has no real relevance to the story… the audience can be informed by dialogue (like in ANH when Ben explains the force and about Anakin to Luke). So I was perplexed why they showed Han and his partner escaping Corellia - for her to get left behind. Then later on they abandon the story of Han finding her. To me the movie should’ve started when they were robbing the train.
After that things got better. The middle section of the movie was enjoyable. To me Chewbacca and Lando saved Solo, from being bad, to being okay. Not a re-watchable movie, at least not for me. All the action was necessary to try and distract from the fact, there was barely any story.
The droid was annoying, the main bad guy was dull. I would put this on a par with the Phantom Menace and just below Rogue One. That just like those movies, they could’ve been made better. Considering its big budget, there was no excuse for it being middle of the road. 6/10

I agree, I’d need a huge amount of convincing to see a movie like that. I have to question how true the quote actually is. But these days it wouldn’t surprise me if George Lucas said it.

I found this quote interesting from George Lucas:

"[My sequel trilogy] was going to get into the microbiotic world. But there's this world of creatures that operate differently than we do. I call them the Whills. And the Whills are the one who actually control the universe. They feed off the Force .... Of course, a lot of the fans would have hated it, just like they did Phantom Menace and everything, but at least the whole story from beginning to end would be told."

In my opinion it assumes the majority of fans (us) are incapable of enjoying any star wars stories outside of the kind of formula established in the original trilogy… and that is why so many didn’t like the Phantom Menace. To me it just shows how out of touch George Lucas is. Ultimately what anybody wants is a good movie, aye? Interesting, watchable characters (from good acting), who can take us on a journey that is fascinating and maybe, even, moving. George Lucas himself has freely criticized the Hollywood studio system over the years, for not producing movies to acceptable standards, by making them with poor creative processes. Now surely with the mega $$$ and resources Lucasfilm has, I don’t see it as unreasonable to expect well made films (maybe not masterpieces, but solidly entertaining none the less)… I don’t believe in supporting something just because its Star Wars! Any movie has to earn our support. Also I’ll just say I am cool that some people like certain star wars movies that I don’t like and vice-versa. Even with some of the star wars movies I like, I can see elements of poor movie making, drifting in and out. Poor movie making deserves criticism. And if George Lucas didn’t like the criticism he received, then he shouldn’t have created all the hype. If he or Lucasfilm don’t want criticism, make better movies.

I don’t like fan bashing and I don’t like arrogance. I like good movies. This is all my opinion though, and I appreciate your opinion. If you have something you’d like to add, please do… Please Episode 9 be good!

Mode Edit: a link to the above quotes from George Lucas on what were his Sequel Trilogy plans, can be found here:-

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/06/george-lucas-episode-vii-episode-ix-1201974276

Yes that’s the problem. I exported the image sequence the same speed as the video frame rate (24fps). When I play the new image sequence it looks awful.

Hi, I am doing a Force Awakens fan-edit. I have reconstructed the end credit sequence. I split the sequence into images .png and made my changes. When I recreate the sequence into video it scrolls a little shaky. I’m using adobe premier pro. Any pointers would be terrific.

“TPM
That Darth is a title, not a name. I mean, why the hell not? First of all, it’s a solid portmanteau (“Dark Lord of the Sith”). Second of all, maybe this is just me, but I think Darth is kind of a funny name, but works fine as a title. Also, despite what people say, there is nothing in the OT that would suggest this shouldn’t be the case.”

I have always considered that “Lord” is the title, hence “Lord Vader”. To me it seems “Darth” is used in the tradition of the Asian way of naming - placing the family name/surname first, followed by the christian name after it.
The best example I can give is with Jackie Chan who was born “Chan Kong-sang” and his father “Chan Chi-Peng”. When Jackie Chan trained in martial arts, under master Yu Jim-yuen, he became known as “Yuen Lung Chen”.

This is my interpretation:

I agree, I think Space Fantasy is more accurate of what Star Wars is. The term Space Opera comes from the likes of shows like Flash Gordon, Lost in Space etc, where the story seems to go on and on and on… like a soap opera. And initially that was what I think George Lucas was trying to achieve. And then he seemed to abandoned it for a 9 episode saga where by the end of the 9th episode the Emperor would be destroyed. But of course by the completed script of Return of the Jedi he had decided to make ROTJ the final conclusion to the Saga. Now with the new movies Snoke was introduced to fill the role.

I am interested if anybody knows when George Lucas abandoned his initial idea of making Star Wars a Space Opera? My own guess is between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. And I guess it leads to the question… now with Disney in charge and so many movies in the pipeline. Could Star Wars be now reconsidered as a Space Opera?

For TFA I have written down what I’m going to do. I am going to add a 20th Century Fox intro with “A subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company”, change the “along time ago…” into the old font. And essentially remove all scenes of Rey arriving at the island. Finally change the credits; remove Mark Hamill’s credit and insert 20th century credit.

I have decided to do TLJ in 4K. I will need to split the movie up into quite a few segments. My biggest problem is how to deal with Poe’s mutiny.