Burdokva

adywan said:

I'll release the 720p mkv (or AVCHD) first followed by the DVD's and the Blu-Ray a few months after due to al the work to be done for the menus, extras etc.  It will be towards the last quarter of this year but maybe sooner if things go according to plan.

 Ady, are you keeping the source files for VFX, color editing, etc. ? I'm asking because with UHD coming around in a few years, it might not be bad to have the option to render (or upscale) this to 1080p.

Don't get me wrong, I live in a country that's still watching broadcasts mostly on a 4:3 format and only this year digital signal is becoming nation-wide standard... but...

Looking forward into the future, TESB:R will be my personal definitive version of the movie and it would be nice to be a bit future-proof.

Great to hear you're nearing the end of it! Looking forward to the release!

Any specific plans for the audio editing ? It may not be as glamorous as the video but I'm very interested to hear what the  new adui mix will be like.

I wasn't sure if this should go to the Radical Prequel ideas thread, but since it's based around on a much more tamed ideas, I think it's more suitable for a Revisited idea.

Now, I know this is a subjective opinion but I think that the TPM is the best of the Prequels, or at least the one with the most potential to be turned into a decent movie. The underlying basic plot structure of TPM is good enough and far closer in spirit to the space-opera genre of Star Wars than the other two prequels.

What is the biggest problem, and I'm not going to bash on Jake Loyd, is that Anakin is a child. This can hopefully be edited without reworking the movie too much. I do not know if this was established somewhere in the EU but the Originals never actually state whether or not Owen and Beru were Luke's actual uncle and aunt, and if Owen was Anakin's brother respectively. We only know that:

• Owen told Luke that Anakin used to be a "spice freighter captain" that did not fight during the Clone Wars;
• Anakin was actually a great fighter pilot who did fight, and was a powerful Jedi.

So, going on from here, TPM can be fixed with keeping the basic plot structure and removing the siliness and childish stupidity from the movie:

The Republic is crumbling as numerous rich and powerful star systems are declaring themselves separatist. Queen Amidala of the small planet of Naboo, however, is a vocal supporter of the Republic and defends the creation of an army to protect it. The separatists blockade the planet of Naboo in an effort to threaten the Queen to withdraw her support for an army.

Qui-Gon Jin and Obi-Wan Kenobi are two two Jedi Knights who are sent to the blockaded planet in an effort to peacefully resolve the crisis. Once landed on the flagships of the Neimodian separatists, however, their starship is destroyed and they are attacked. Here, some parts of AOTC can be inserted into TPM. Palpatine's hologram does not appear at all and is replaced by another villian.

Qui-Gon senses the presence of his former master, Count Dooku, a powerful Force user who has gathered the various separatist leader on board the Neimodian flagship to propose the creation of a Confederacy of Independent Systems to defend the separatists worlds. He convinces them to occupy the planet of Naboo and to arrest the Queen in a show of strength to prevent the creation of an army of the Republic.

We follow TPM's plot with heavy editing of the Gungan section up until the rescue of the Queen Amidala in Theed. Once the Jedi save the group of pilots in the hangar, it turns out two of them are two young freighter pilots in their twenties called Anakin and Owen Skywalker who were stranded by the blockade. While Owen is more reluctant, he and Anakin join the refugees and propose to help. Thr Jedi sense Anakin has a very strong in the Force. As the Queen's ship escapes, Anakin takes the controls from the injured captain Ric Olié and manages to slip past the blockade. Anakin receives the gratitude and trust of the Queen.

But the Queen's ship is severely damaged and need repairs. It heads for the planets Geonosis that is under the control of the criminal Hutt cartels. Once again inserting AOTC scenes, Tatooine/Geonosis could be recolored to match. This could be to lessen the familiarity of the audience with Tatooine until it appears in ANH (and to make it more believable as in unimportant backwards planet). As Anakin is very strong in the Force, the Jedi take him with them and a handmaiden, Padme. In an effort to gather enough money for the repairs, Anakin:

• agrees to join a risky pod-race, despite the protests of his brother, who is ultimately his main mechanic; he wins as he's a great pilot;

or: 

•  participates in an arena fight simlar to gladiatorial fights, along with the Jedi (and the forced Padme) but survives thanks to his strenght with the Force;

Either of these depends on availability and ease of work with the footage. The group is hunted by a Dark Jedi / Sith warrior, and apprentice of Count Dookue but they manage to escape. We proceed with the Coruscant section which can be edited from various Prequel scenes to make it better paces and Palpatine's coming to power a bit smoother. The Senate votes for the creation of a powerful army of clones as a desperate measure to protect the Republic. However, the army will not be ready in time and Queen Amidala, fearing for her people, decides to go back to her planet and fight. Anakin decides to go back and help her, while Owen decided not to get involved and pull an actual Han Solo-get-away on Coruscant with his reward.

Most of the separatist fleet has left Naboo to proceed to attack other, stronger Republic systems, now that effectively the war has started. The queen's ship slips in and we proceed with TPM's plot. Now, there are several way to re-edit this - when is Amidala revealed to be Padme (if at all); whether the Gungans play any role or the Naboo simply infiltrate Theed, etc. But it in essence, it follow TPM. the Queen's guards storm the hangar and the small Naboo star force, along with Anakin, assaults the droid control. Meanwhile the Queen attempts to capture the seperatist leaders on Naboo, Newt Gunray. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan fight the Sith warrior, Maul.

The droid control ship is destroyed, Qui-Gon dies but Obi-Wan decides to train Anakin (who has already expressed interest in becoming a Jedi despite being too old). Newt Gunray escapes with the help of Count Dooku.

TPM with a celebration of the liberation of Naboo, or with the Republic clone army going to war (from AOTC), or a combination of both.

I know this has many weak points. But these can be cleared by better writers than me.

What I think is best by such an approach is that not only it fixes  the issues with TPM (Anakin being a helpless child) but it's also (more easily) doable from a technical viewpoint than a radical edit.

Essentially:

• you can use either Heiden or another actor to substitute Jake Loyd;
• use existing scenes, sets, designs, etc. from the Prequels, and establish some visual continuity for the next movies;
• introduce Count Dooku as the main villain and the Separatists as the main antagonist faction early on, and have them throughout the trilogy;
• keep Palpatine's character and schemes actually hidden until ROTS; 

Also, I kinda like TPM ! :P

PS. My browser crashed and I had to retype the whole thing. My initial draft was better written but hey, at least I hope you'll consider the ideas.

Throwing some more random ideas around, I think one serious issue of the Prequels is the lack of design consistency. I do not mean only visual design and aesthetics, as Episode 1 clearly looks like the odd one (although certainly the best one, IMHO) but how consistent the universe is. Of all the designs to appear in the Prequels, the only one that appears in the entire trilogy are the B-1 battle droids, and the Neimodians. That's it.

Now, take the Original Trilogy. You have a great diversity of designs but coherence too. Ships and vehicles are characters in themselves and clearly help reinforce the overall feeling of the different factions. You can easily distinguish who's vehicle is on screen, and it helps set a mood and tone to the scene. The OT had several designs appear in the entire trilogy with a lot of screen time:

1. Star Destroyer;
2. Millenium Falcon
3. TIE Fighter 
4. X-Wing

In the entire trilogy with more limited screen time:

1. Blockade Runner
2. Y-Wing
3. Super Star Destroyer
4. Rebel Frigate

Additionally, there were many designs that appeared in two movies, or had enough visual coherence to be immediately identifiable (Rebel Runner / Gunship, TIE Bomber / Interceptor, etc.).

What does the prequel have, appearing at least in two movies, disregarding the horrible battle droids (admittedly, there's enough footage of these guys to edit them into decent adversaries)? The Trade Federation "donut"ship, at least a memorable design, the N-1 and... eh... ?

Te Confederacy looks like a toy store, not an actual military faction. At least not one that is coherent enough visually so as to be easily identifiable as an adversary in a movie.

We need more ships to actually be characters in the Prequels just like the Falcon was in the battle against the Empire. I'd really like to see some of the Confederacy ships, like Grievous' Invisible Hand cruiser, introduced as early as Episode 1 and other, like the AAT tank or STAP speeder persisting throughout.

Not to mention a central ship acting in the fashion of the Falcon. The Prequels desperately need that. For a movie called Star Wars there was most definitely not enough space, even as a setting, much less space combat action, in Ep. 1 - 3.

PS. Excuse me horrible English, not my native language and I'm dead tired as I write this. I hope it is comprehensible ?

Maybe I got something wrong but didn't Ady also announce an 1080p version once he switched from HDTV sources to the BluRay ?

Of course, if he keeps the source effects files, it wouldn't be too difficult to render them again for a 1080p Revisited? Right? Right ?! (Sorry, overly exited).

Now, from someone who does not care at all for the Sequel and has only passing interest in seeing the Prequel trilogy edited, purely out of curiosity - it think working on several project at once could be both easier for Ady, as he said, and keep him interested and productive.

I'm not sure why is everyone concerned about "continuity"? Wasn't a big pint of this forum exactly to preserve the Originals without bothering about continuity with the newer movies ? Maybe it's a cultural thing but if I don't like something Star Wars - related, I have no issues just ignoring it's existence.

I appreciate Ady's work because it's mostly related to updating visual effect (hopefully audio too) and actual film errors (reverse shots, props, etc.) rather than story or characters editing.

True, ANH:R did have some more drastic changes than TESB:R but Ady also released a Purist edition.

PS. I have to admit I am very intrigued what emanswfan can pull off with his edit of the Prequels video. It's not necessary but it would be great if the editors can collaborate on their edits, IMHO.

timdiggerm said:

There is a shortage of those kinds of wizards in these parts.

 Has anyone checked various sci-fi scale modeling communities such as starshipmodeler.com or scalemodeladdict.com ? There are some truly fantastic modelers there that might be glad to help.

I certainly would but I haven't built any scale models in years and I wasn't that good to begin with...

Regarding colorful ships in the Prequels, it's not so much that there is color, it's that it is too much.

Bingowings is right that the Rebels were differentiated from the Empire by their more colorful ships. But what bothers me is not fighters or smaller vessels having color-distinctive marking, it's the huge capital ships. Even the Rebel cruisers in RotJ were "bland" and gray(-ish). What distinguished them was their uniquely different design than the Star Destroyers; one was angular, industrial, aggressive looking ship. The cruiser was smoother, rounder, more organic looking.

And I think that the difference of having no or very little color helped with the issue of scale. Every time I watch the Battle of Coruscant in RotS, which has numerous other issues, I have the feeling I am looking at over-blown A-Wings. The ships don't have scale and look far too colorful and plastic for supposedly huge, tens of millions of tons of metal-clad warships.

The TPM as an example. Sure, it had some of the most colorful designs in the Naboo ships and the pod racers. But the Trade Federation designs, and the Republic diplomatic cruiser, while being color-distinctive still looked realistic. Their colors were more dull, muted. It was the overall coloration that distinguished them (the Trade Federation had brown and beige hues) rather than bright, flashy markings.

And the "donut ships" looked far better in TPM, even in AotC, than the flashy version in RotS. Due to it's distinctive design, not color markings.

Just my humble opinion. :)

There are definitely at least six Rebel speeders - Luke, Wedge, Hobbie and at least three more unnamed that get destroyed by Imperial fire.

Okay, this will probably get lost fairly soon and it's not a major request, but - am I the only one bothered at how colorful the battles of the prequels, especially the opening to ROTS look like?

I mean the ships specifically. The Originals did have some colorfully painted ships (X-Wings and Y-Wings at Yavin, for example) but whether these were miniatures and colors looked more real and muted, or because it was offset with the pure grey/blueish hues of the Imperial fleet, it didn't look bad.

Watching a brief cut of the opening of the battle of Coruscant made me think that ships, especially capital ships, have way, way too much coloration in the prequels. Especially with the far too saturated and bright "low orbit" setting, it makes for an eye-soring festival of colours not unlike that in Rio, but definately not serious as a battle should be.

 Maybe this could be toned down and have fleets be differentiated mostly by the design of the ships (as in the battle of Endor), or leaving only partial color markings? Like leave only the three red stripes on each side of the Venator Star Destroyer "wings" instead of the entire red hull.

Same for Confederate ships. Far too colorful, IMHO. 

adywan said:

I've played about with the binocular shot. Here is the revised version. Make sure you watch the 720p version though because youtubes compression on the SD version is pretty crappy

http://youtu.be/HNfl0K3iRmA

 

EDIT: It still looks pretty crappy in HD. Here is a download link for the 720p mkv of this shot:

https://hotfile.com/dl/197542645/33e9732/binocs_revised.mkv.html

Watching this and the Revisited trailer sequence, this is a definite improvement. Looks a lot less CGI than before and now I can honestly say I feel it's an improvement over the original TESB binocular sequence, too. Thank you very much for looking into this again, Ady! You're awesome !

While a little snow being thrown into the air due to the shock generated by the AT-AT foot would be nice, I don't think it's necessary to render the whole thing again.

 

Mithrandir said:

Glass/Something in the cockpit would help to make it look more real.

 

 

That's a fantastic mockup! Hope Ady could integrate that idea in TESB:R. It's brief shot but feels very off...

I have a suggestion about handling the inconsistent AT-AT blast marks. Excluding the very obvious large one, that appears in the middle of an AT-AT while Luke's speeder is passing underneath it (the shot is from the perspective of Luke's cockpit), which would work best of being a result from the fire of the speeder, maybe the other could be generated by the Rebel turrets and portable weapons?

Once the speeders get into action, it seem that the Rebel ground forces have almost stopped firing at the Imperial walkers.

 Which also reminds maybe, is there an AT-ST that gets hit and damaged/destroyed in the background by Rebel ground fire? Poor grunts on the ground don't get to do much on Hoth other than die...

EDIT: I see Ronster also proposed a similar thing, my apologies for repeating the idea, took a while to write the post. :)

Also, I know it's way, way too soon but... damn, I want a ROTJ space battle of Endor trailer now !

Hey, any chance for a video or at least more shots soon ? I'm very interested how this turns out. The Prequels are horrible movies but they do have the occasional great scene, sometimes held back only by too obvious CGI and that "plastic" feeling. I hope that the 35mm treatment can cure those issues. ;)

Best luck, looking forward to more updates!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECtBrplXf9Q

Just great memories.

Anyone remember a certain mission from XWA, where you have to capture a supposed Imperial defector? You are escorting the famous "medical frigate" Redemption when it gets ambushed by a Star Destroyer and an Interdictor.

One of my all-time favorite Star Wars moments, when the commander of the cruiser Liberty says "Stand by, Redemption. Help is on the way" and a few moments later, the cruiser drops in from hyperspace firing away at the Imperial ships...

Don't know why, but the entire scene is so powerful and epic. Maybe the voice acting? XWA had superb voice actors (and audio, as per usual for Star Wars games).

TV's Frink said:

doubleofive said:

 

Have to agree. Best shot of the trailer and a shining example that CGI can work when used carefuly and modestly. But it does add so much...

Thank you so much, Ady! Been following this since 2008. Can't wait !

This is brilliant! Everything looks amazing in motion. The small details really add up - functioning displays, AT-STs, more blaster bolts. And the colors are outstanding!

My favorite shot by far is the two speeders climbing after an attack pass, with an AT-ST acting as air defense and shooting at them. Just looks... natural. And I too noticed that these are the "chicken" AT-STs with longer legs and slightly different cupola. Bravo!

Now, I have to say it and everyone will hate me, but...

The binoculars scene looked somewhat off. Maybe it's that the new CGI AT-ATs do not have the characteristic wobble/swaying of the actuals models, or it looks too pristine? I can't exactly put my finger on it but it somewhat breaks the feel of the scene.

Which is strange, as the CGI is otherwise seamlessly integrated and I'm having hard time distinguishing it from the physical models.

Maybe consider adding more grain to the black area (the binoculars), and slight camera/hand shake?

LexX said:

These games are best SW games there is. Even though I'm a huge TIE Fighter fan I think XWA beats it with its story. I think it's the last SW thing that really captures the OT feel.

Cannot agree more... I miss the adventure spirit of XWA in more recent Star Wars games.

X-Wing: Alliance does have its flaws but I consider it one of the best non-movie Star Wars stories. Fantastic game that manages to establish a serious military theme, while remaining light-hearted and adventurous like the original movies. Plus, unlike X-Wing or TIE Fighter (although I do only vaguely remember these after so many years) it has a more personal stake. At it's core XW:A a family story, with actual characters.

Definitely recommend.

If LucasArts had any clue about what they should be doing, they would have released X-Wing, TIE Fighter and XWA with massively upgraded visuals; same for Republic Commando.

...

Let's hope Disney has more sense.

Thanks, fishmanlee !

I admit I have not heard some of these but they seem to have been released with various accompanying media, mostly games, rather than in the movie soundtrack itself.

Still, as it was presented in the movie, the soundtrack was mostly forgettable and did not have any strong themes. Be they bombastic and loud as the Imperial March, or something more restrained and emotional, as Leia's or Yoda's themes.

Williams is by far the best thing to happen to the prequels and he still did a fantastic job, especially considering (if this is true) that he was forced to cut and re-arrange his music due to Lucas re-shooting and re-editing scenes. But I still feel that AOTC and ROTS were not his best efforts.

Just my humble opinion, of course. Wouldn't mind him at all scoring any future movie, to the contrary.

TPM has a wonderful score, near the greatness of the originals, even if just not-quite-there. I admit that it is my favorite prequel (read as: the one I don't hate in my guts) but this is in large part due to the great music, not the other way around.

To be honest, AOTC did have a great love theme and a few decent tracks; can't remember anything good and truly memorable from ROTS... too bad he didn't develop on TPM for them, rather just constantly rehashing the same themes (Lucas insisted?).

I am rather surprised no one has mentioned Michael Giacchiono's work on the Medal of Honor series? I am not so much familiar with his other works, as I haven't watched many of the movies he's scored (LOST and Super 8 being examples) but MoH has fantastic soundtracks that are quite similar in tone to William's great scores for the Indiana Jones series.

Try "Allied Assault", "Panzer Attack", "Medal of Honor" themes. All are fantastic and well worth hearing.

So, what's the definitive version?

I've listed through several while ABC was working on this and the latest I have is the 2012 Audiophile 2CD Edition. Is there a newer one? If there is, would someone be kind enough to provide a link?

Also, has anyone played creating proper tags for the different themes? 2010 AE doesn't have any tags and it's very time consuming to arrange and name each one.

This looks great and I wish you luck !

There's a reason that TPM is my favorite prequel. I find all of them deeply flawed movies but despite the vastly different vehicle and costume designs, TPM actually looks like the originals; it has a texture, it feels real and tanible.

AOTC and ROTS feel like plastic. I hope you can improve this, especially when adding film grain!

Color correction seems great so far, too. The last screenshot is striking!

Is the new 16 min. preview available for download or available for online viewing anywhere else than on YouTube? Those -insert a long line of curses- from Sony have blocked the Revisited videos for my country... as well as half of all of videos on YouTube recently, it seems.

Mithrandir said:

Besides, I wouldn't underestimate the market, surely they'll find someway to solve this "piracy" problem and keep making money.

[...]

Don't know, perhaps I'm giving my point from a very parcialized place, our market is not as extense as yours; bands here rarely have "merchandising". What's more, it's common between musicians to measure their success by "being" (appearing in) a sticker, a t-shirt; a student bag, etc, but while they're in the underground time of their careers, no one pays for copyright, or commercial name rights, and at some point, they're ok with that if it leads them to a path of success and an increase in public recognition. Not that here people are not jealous at all of their own production, but it seems to be that they're less than in other lands.

 I highly doubt the first part of your statement. I don't know where you live, but I know the problems of a small market, because I live in a small country.

To be honest, ten years ago I had a worse opinion of piracy than I have now. I understand economic standard isn't exactly an excuse (although it's hard to understand how much a pain it is to actually want to buy something and can't because food and bills take up 90% of your monthly budget, if you have a decent salary that is), but it's an economic reality. Piracy is an economic factor just as much as shipping costs, information storage device production costs and a plethora of other things. Music isn't exactly the best point for my argument below, and maybe that's why music isn't pirated as much as other stuff where I live, but the movie industry and, above all, software marketing specialists are, to put it mildly, idiots.

What's the best way to incite people to buy instead of pirate? Fair prices and good cost/value ratio. Ten years ago software and games were the exact same price as in the West, same content, only added shipping and VAT. Fair, even if (very) costly. Now they're full of awful non-functional DRM systems, more expensive due to (non-existent) localizations and local support (and more inflated pricing due to currency), content is often cut and resold as ridiculously expensive DLC's or region locked. What...?

And then some guy behind a desk is scratching his head wondering why the hell Eastern Europeans are lazy bums who pirate stuff and tries to put even more draconian measures, instead of coming up of a functional marketing plan. *facepalm*

Eh, if I could have received back my time spent trying to get overseas support just to get perfectly legal copies to work...

Movies are a bit different - sometimes the release will be a late by a month (or several), DVD's may get extras cut and so on, but it's mostly "OK" and on par with other markets. So there's a functioning, even if small, DVD market that's fully legal.

I don't have a Bluray player because BluRays costs a lot where I live, unlike DVD's which have finally gone down to pricing levels bearable for the local market, but my plans to buy one went down the drain after reading that new BluRay movies don't work well with cheap players - and my local market doesn't have exactly high-end models, even if I could afford one.

To change the subject a bit, but thanks for fixing the star destroyer conn tower that gets hit by the asteroid. The simple fact (well, I'm sure it wasn't simple to do , though) that it doesn't just disappear when hit makes the scene far more believable and pleasant to the eye.

I kinda like the "still" Emperor. It's almost surreal how he can be so calm and lifeless. And no, I'm not trying to mock Ady's work, I think it's leaps beyond the 2004 DVD, and I think it's fine as it is.

Ady, did you do some work on the star destroyer that gets hit by an asteroid? Maybe it's placebo, but the scene looks far more detailed than the DVDs. Or did the higher resolution/colour correction pick up more details?

Not only does the Revisited version slam the 2004 DVD into the ground in terms of color correction and continuity (gah, the prequel Emperor is awful), but Ady's hologram looks like an actual hologram, not just blue-tinted CGI inserted into the scene.

Fantastic, Ady! :)

Ady, will there be an HD Purists version, like with the original Revisited release?

ChainsawAsh said:

The vast - and I mean VAST - majority of consumers don't understand how something shot on film can look as good as - or better than - HD video.  If it wasn't made digitally, it's not as good, period.

I've encountered this many, many, many times, both with members of my family (*cough*my parents*cough*) and complete strangers in many different cities (at a Sony Style store in Vegas, a Best Buy in Chicago, the list goes on).  To the average consumer, film = old, blurry, grainy, inferior, and digital = crisp, clear, lifelike, and superior.

 Really?

I'm just surprised, personally I can't stand grain-less movies. Especially the Prequels. Film grain gives and sense of depth and texture, character if you wish, to movies. Digital cameras? Pristine, sure - flat and lifeless a lot more than "lifelike" though.

I even play games with film grain if they support it (Mass Effect / Mass Effect 2 would be a good example).