Hi NeverarGreat!
Your changelist reads like a substantial improvement!
Are there any chances of you releasing an additional smaller filesize versions of Starlight? The current one is sadly too large for my modest internet connection/hardware configuration.
How DARE anyone take precious scenes out of my most beloved movie. Those scenes are gone forever, you hear me: GONE!
(I got to wonder, though: Was that person trolling? Not to encourage folks, but that shit was kinda funny.)
Good job on Episode 4! Thanks for all the effort you put into these edits, WitchDR!
I’m going to take a little break from Andor. But once I get to them, I’ll let you know how I feel about the reworked espisodes.
Thanks Blueffalump!
Episode 4 had huge amount of cuts compared to the rest, so I’m glad that one worked out!
I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the 7 episode cut I’ve done. I re-added a few scenes back in, and trimmed others. So they do vary slightly from the supercuts. But like you I’m pretty burned out on Andor after working on it for a few months lol!
Haha, I can only imagine the hours you must’ve spent with Cassian and co. I sometimes wonder what that does to one’s mind… Feeling a little rebellious lately? 😉
Good job on Episode 4! Thanks for all the effort you put into these edits, WitchDR!
I’m going to take a little break from Andor. But once I get to them, I’ll let you know how I feel about the reworked espisodes.
Just finished Episode 1: The Pursuit (3 gig).
Excellent job! Everything flows really well. Not once was I taken out of the viewing experience and it never felt like anything was missing. Video quality was also top notch, considering the smaller file-size.
Thanks Blueffalump!
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Those first 3 episodes of Andor needed the most trimming and rearranging, and I’m glad it worked out well!Looking forward to Ep2. 😃
I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the version I currently have up!
Episode 2 is the one I’m still making changes to. There’s definitely a lot more of it that could be trimmed. I’m just trying to come up with a satisfying way to rearrange the scenes.
By now I’ve also watched Episodes 2 and 3. I found them equally smooth experiences. Top quality!
Personally, I didn’t encounter anything I’d cut from E2 (which is not to say that one couldn’t).The Episode benefits from all the little character moments before the heist, those really made me care, especially when things got tough later on. Even scenes like the Commandant at home with his family seem crucial to me: The latter is in line with the show portraying those who commit evil as leading ordinary lives. It humanizes the Commandant a bit and shows what’s at stake for him. Furthermore it also serves to underline how the rebels commit evil themselves, threatening the life of the ordinary, innocent boy we witnessed earlier. That kid is traumatized for life.
Just finished Episode 1: The Pursuit (3 gig).
Excellent job! Everything flows really well. Not once was I taken out of the viewing experience and it never felt like anything was missing. Video quality was also top notch, considering the smaller file-size. Looking forward to Ep2. 😃
A more radical edit of Rise of Skywalker? Yes, please!
I just rewatched Hal’s Ascedant cut (V1) and while I feel that it’s a huge improvement and possibly close to the best a conservative edit could do, there were still way to many moments of me not caring at all or just rolling my eyes heavily. At the very least a third of the movie felt like dead weight to me, if not more. Getting rid of a lot of the jokes and sidequests and keeping the focus on the Kylo/Rey dynamic seems like a great idea, as the latter was the only part I found interesting. So I’m very curious about your version.
I hope it lives up to your expectations! 😃 I’ll be happy to send you a PM when it’s released.
Sure, I’d love to have a look at your edit once it’s finished!
A more radical edit of Rise of Skywalker? Yes, please!
I just rewatched Hal’s Ascedant cut (V1) and while I feel that it’s a huge improvement and possibly close to the best a conservative edit could do, there were still way to many moments of me not caring at all or just rolling my eyes heavily. At the very least a third of the movie felt like dead weight to me, if not more. Getting rid of a lot of the jokes and sidequests and keeping the focus on the Kylo/Rey dynamic seems like a great idea, as the latter was the only part I found interesting. So I’m very curious about your version.
Only thing that I’ll probably never get used to is digital dirt. It’s bit too prominent and too regular for my tastes. Having worked with actual film-projectors once, I’ve yet to see these kinds of post-fx implemented in a way that doesn’t look fake to me. Good job regardless!
In my next grindhouse projects (Mortal Kombat in the works, Alien and First Blood being considered to follow) I’ll try to use some real damaged film scans (much more natural looking overlays) and not only digital. I’ve tried to work with adobe after effects plugins but I don’t like the outcome too much, so that will be used only occasionally.
And what you think about what was presented in Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse?
Using real scans sounds very promising!
I’m aftraid I’ve never seen those “Grinhouse” movies, aside from a couple of trailers back then.
I do like those clips, great music choices! I might even prefer them to the original scenes. Tonally they remind me a bit of Thor Ragnarok. Only thing that I’ll probably never get used to is digital dirt. It’s bit too prominent and too regular for my tastes. Having worked with actual film-projectors once, I’ve yet to see these kinds of post-fx implemented in a way that doesn’t look fake to me. Good job regardless!
First of all thank you so much for all the work! I cannot imagine how long it must’ve took you adding all the music and background noise. As a whole I’m really enjoying this. 😃
That said, I’ve got some (hopefully) mild and constructive criticism: Personally I think that the music at times is too loud and/or too dramatic for some scenes (it gets a bit better in later books, though) and that some background sounds can get a bit repetitive and also too dominant (e.g.: That owl whistle sound, Harry’s training sessions with Snape in Order of the Phoenix).
I have to ask a question to everyone here who has listened to Order of the Phoenix. Someone on Archive notified me that there are times where the recording skips ahead a bit. I did encounter and fix this when working on the flight to the Ministry, but that was it in terms of errors. Does anyone else here know about any other potential errors.
In chapter 19 starting at around 9 up to about 11 minutes I’ve encountered some unpleasant choppy distortion/crackling noise, possibly clipping.
Sounds very cool! I always thought the action scenes in the movies were a bit excessive.
However, do you really feel that it’s necessary to crop to 4:3? I get that it’s supposed to feel like a 90s TV show, but the movies were not shot with that ratio in mind. This means that those cropped movie images will lose a lot of their appeal and could possibly end up looking worse than the TV series itself (which was shot with 4:3 in mind).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Blueaffalump! The 4:3 was an idea and then I polled the FE community and most had requested it so I thought I’d give it a go. Yes, the movies were not filmed with 4:3 in mind which has made the pan&cropping a bit of a nightmare, but I’m always up to the challenge. The main issue is that the vertical side of the image is pretty tight on characters in a widescreen format as the image is allowed to breath horizontally rather than within a box. The cropping is almost more intensive than the actual editing itself. I may release widescreen and a 4:3 version, though there are some cropped shots that are used to hide things that are removed in the narrative at times. So I’ll have to figure out how to deal with that.
Sounds like you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you. And even though I might die a little inside every time a well-composed shot is getting altered, I’ve also got a lot of admiration and respect for what your trying to achieve! 😃 Looking forward to the end results.
I’m planning on making my own edits for all four of the DCEU films, the ones I’m most interested in being BVS and ZSJL. For ZSJL specifically, I’d keep the 4:3, but cut out stuff that doesn’t need to be there, and have the whole thing be around 3 hours long.
One of my main inspirations for this edit would be this article-
https://thomasflight.substack.com/p/recutting-the-snyder-cut-thomas-flight
Keeping the aspect ratio intact and 3 hours runtime sounds all good to me! I also agree with basically everything written in the article. There is a good movie hidden under heaps of excess and I think you’re on the right track to unearth it. Good luck with the edit!
Sounds very cool! I always thought the action scenes in the movies were a bit excessive.
However, do you really feel that it’s necessary to crop to 4:3? I get that it’s supposed to feel like a 90s TV show, but the movies were not shot with that ratio in mind. This means that those cropped movie images will lose a lot of their appeal and could possibly end up looking worse than the TV series itself (which was shot with 4:3 in mind).
For me keep the aspect ratio, and just trim down the epilogue and remove mentions of Bruce’s dreams.
Ah, finally a fellow 4:3 defender! These changes would definitely be my top priorities and for a conservative fanedit (that would please even hardcore fans) those would probably suffice.
Throw me into this camp, too. In most cases I’d prefer my bars on the top, but it worked for JL and BVS. It feels as though the films were meant to be shown that way, and the picture looks more exciting and fixes Snyders problem of shooting so close in many cases. I thought the JL we got in full-screen looked awful, and the aspect ratio was part of the visual improvement
You’ve hit the nail on the head, I completely agree.
That said, I’m not a fan of movies that are constantly “in your face” in general. Close-ups should be chosen very carefully and only with a proper motivation behind them, imo. Give me wide shots any day 😉
For me keep the aspect ratio, and just trim down the epilogue and remove mentions of Bruce’s dreams.
Ah, finally a fellow 4:3 defender! These changes would definitely be my top priorities and for a conservative fanedit (that would please even hardcore fans) those would probably suffice.
I agree on The Lego Batman Movie - most recent animated DC movies are pretty bland, so it is a breath of fresh air for sure. (Even though I just complained about product placement earlier, I’m somehow fine with a 100 min LEGO-commercial. Go figure.).
I also think a lot of the slo mo scenes can be trimmed as a lot of them go on way too long and get kind of annoying after a while. Definitely cut the Aquaman choir and the Wonder Woman arrow plot. Cutting the first Manhunter appearance might be good too. I don’t know if I would want any Whedon content in the movie on principle but some scenes might work. Cropping to fit the entire screen would be a good middle ground for aspect ratios too.
I’m on the fence about the Aquaman-worshipping. It is certainly cringy (that woman sniffing his wool pullover…). But in a weird way it also adds personality to the movie. It’s one of those Snyder-isms I’m willing to tolerate.
ed: The arrow-scenes didn’t bother me. I think they’re fine.
I’ve never watched any DC movies
You’re really missing out: Superman, Superman II, Batman, Batman Returns, Mask of the Phantasm - you can’t go wrong with DC!.. Wait, what year is it again?
(Shazam! is actually pretty good. But don’t tell anyone!)
I will also go to bat (hehe) for Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Birds of Prey as well.
I’ll grant you Aquaman: It’s stupid, but the good kind of stupid!
I’ve never watched any DC movies
You’re really missing out: Superman, Superman II, Batman, Batman Returns, Mask of the Phantasm - you can’t go wrong with DC!.. Wait, what year is it again?
(Shazam! is actually pretty good. But don’t tell anyone!)
As someone who dislikes most Snyder films with a passion (Watchmen completetly butchered the source material and Batman v Superman was a joyless mess, Legend of the Guardians was passable, though) this was an alright watching experience. It is far superior to the theatrical release for sure: No digital mustache-removal makes it 90% better alone and while I’m not against a brighter look in general, the color-grading felt really tacked on in the 2017 version. I even like the new 4:3 aspect ratio. A more zoomed in 16:9 version might be too close for some, if not most, action-heavy scenes. But also some of the quieter stuff does benefit from more visual breathing space, imo. It’s a trade-off (I don’t have an IMAX theater in my living room, so black borders left and right), but not necessarily a bad one.
That said, even if I grant Snyder his general excentricities (it wouldn’t be a Snyder-cut without them), this movie still feels unnecessarily bloated. That ending, or rather the third and the fourth ending, are both pointless and Batman’s Joker dream is just terrible and ugly on top of that.
So that’s an easy improvement right there: Either cut the whole epilogue (if you want to have an even shorter, more streamlined cut) or cut everything after Cyborg’s daddy stops monologuing and Superman gets “ready”. No Luthor, no Joker means less cringe! This saves at least 13 minutes.
I also agree that the whole Wonder Woman terrorists-scene should go, as it barely serves a purpose. There is already a lot of Amazon-action in the first third. These scenes would stand out even more with this distraction removed.
Auqaman saving the fisherman is an okay sequence on its own (though the slo-mo music clip with him drinking his booze is a bit jarring), but it is pretty superfluous and should therefore be cut as well.
Having Martha Kent transforming into Martian Manhunter undermines the whole dialogue that came before it. Just leave him out of this movie. The dialogue itself could stay.
Cut all the visions/nightmares.
There are also some smaller moments and details that feel like overkill, even for Snyder. Like when Gordon looks at Batman at around 1:51, there are at least two or three cuts to different angles of Batman posing (right before he poses again with the whole gang) that feel redundant.
There’s probably more, but for now that’ll do.
edit: Fuck product placement! The “I’m rich!” line is okay, but certainly not good enough to justify leaving that car commercial in the film. Just awful. And other close-ups of car-logos or razorblades should be cut or toned down, too.
This seems very interesting. If only I had a download link.
(PM me please.)
Thanks for all the passion and effort that went into these edits, Hal!
Having seen the last official workprint, I want to wait a little before watching V1 in order to avoid overkill. That said, that workprint is a huge improvement over the original and also over the workprint (no.3, I think?) I’d seen previously! What this community has achieved is honestly pretty amazing!
I’m already looking forward to seeing how it’ll inspire other editors and their own takes on RoS.
Thanks Muffy, I’ll have a look at it.
Will do.
All that remains before a final V1 release can proceed:
French subtitles (native speaker is reviewing what Burbin produced)
Cover artwork (when Movies Remastered is able to finish assembling it)That is all! (And nevertellmetheodds has done Dutch subtitles as well. There may be German to follow, but I won’t let it hold up a release.)
I’m a native German speaker. If you like, I can have a look at it and I see what I can do. I’ve never actually worked with subtitles, tbh, but I’ve stumbled across a tool called “Subtitle Edit”, which seems easy enough to use. Would that suffice or are there better solutions?
