ChainsawAsh

PM sent with mono mix links.

Cap, I really, really hate myself for saying this, but ... that actually kind of makes sense ...

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

Well here's that 'Luke training on Dagobah' idea we were talking about the other day...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFBmHpcX4eA

This is how it would fit in with the fan-o-matic edit. Needs some more tweaking...ideas? Is this scene too early to show Lukes new saber?

Wow ... I like that a lot.  Not much else I can say about it other than that.  I'm quite impressed!

Fixed ;-)

And I haven't noticed a green tint myself, but I'll definitely give it a closer look when I get to actually editing it.  Thanks for pointing it out.

I think "Young Skywalker" in the trailer sounds perfect.  In fact, if it weren't for the fact that McDiarmid seems to croak his lines really awkwardly, it would pretty much be a perfect match to ROTJ.

Seriously?  I've never heard that ...

The Episode III theatrical/DVD comparison is very nitpicky - the only difference is the one transition, which was a wipe in the theatrical cut, and is a hard cut in the DVD version.

... and knowing is half the battle!  (To finish your reference, Gaff)

Yeah, that was officially released on DVD in 2006 (the 2-disc set with the pre-SE trilogy on "bonus discs," which we not-so-lovingly refer to as the GOUT), and before that nearly every fan preservation attempt had been made using the 1993 DC/1995 Faces set, which is what you're referring to.

PM sent.

Yeah, that's skyjedi's job.

He didn't write ESB - Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan did.  He just got a story credit.  He got a co-writer's credit for ROTJ along with Lawrence Kasdan.  Point being, you can't say that they were "ghost"-written, since that implies that the writer who worked on it didn't receive credit (like the Star Wars novelization, written by Alan Dean Foster, credited to Lucas).

The only one of the PT films that he didn't receive a sole writer's credit for was AOTC, co-written with Jonathan Hales.  But it wouldn't surprise me to learn that some aspects of the PT were, in fact, ghost-written.

--edit--

Bingo beat me to it.

I will not be using Under the Hood at all.  The style doesn't fit.  And I'm tentatively thinking that I won't need to add in more Black Freighter, either - while I haven't seen the short film, I'm guessing that it's had things added to it from the GN in order to make it a more complete, standadlone story, and that those added elements were removed for the "Ultimate Cut."

And at any rate, even if I do end up adding footage, it still won't approach 4 hours by any means, what with everything I'll be cutting, and the limited amount of available material to add.  So I feel safe saying that there will be only one version of my edit, with Black Freighter included.

So it turns out that the "Ultimate Cut" of Watchmen (with Black Freighter cut in) is going to be 251 minutes long, which shakes out to 4 hours, 11 minutes.  I'm going to try to keep my cut down below 4 hours, and am strongly considering doing an alternate cut that doesn't include Black Freighter, to keep it to a more manageable length.  I feel that the film could benefit greatly from some alterations, even if Black Freighter is gone.  (This version will most definitely not be called "The Graphic Novel Cut," though.)

The "Ultimate Cut" is coming out on November 3, so I expect work to start on this after the end of the semester (mid-December), seeing as how I'll be busy as hell editing stuff for school during the rest of the semester.  It'll give me plenty of time to watch the UC and make a more detailed plan for changes, though.

--edit--

It appears that 251 minutes was a typo on TheDigitalBits' part - the actual runtime is 215 minutes, or 3 hours, 35 minutes.  Compared with the DC's 3 hours, 6 minutes, that's 29 minutes added - Tales of the Black Freighter is 38 minutes long, so that's 9 minutes cut from TOTBF, at the very least.  Bear in mind that additional footage has been added to transition to and from Black Freighter.

So I guess it's not so much a cut-and-paste job, and they're actually cutting it to make it work within the story.

And seeing as how the final run time is about 3 and a half hours, which is what I was aiming for at the maximum, I will not be doing two versions - it will be just one, with Black Freighter intact.

I think this runtime news also means that none of Under the Hood has been cut into the "Ultimate Cut," as some had speculated.

Wow, way to drag up a 3-and-a-half year post!  I'd forgotten I've been here for that long ...

My points still stand, though.  Now I'd probably change it - for practical purposes - to be disc 1 super ultra final cut, disc 2 1997/color-and-audio-fixed 2004 cut, disc 3 original 1977/1980/1983 theatrical cut with selectable crawl for SW and 70mm seamless branching for ESB (I'm fairly certain now that there never were any 70mm differences for Jedi).  Then disc 4 is all trailers, deleted scenes, etc.

Granted, I'd never put in discs 1 or 2, but it'd be nice to get the Blade Runner/CE3K treatment for each film, no?

To go even further than an OOT set, I give you the complementary PT set:

TPM
Disc 1
- Super Ultimate CG-Yoda Cut
- New Surround Mix
Disc 2
- Seamless-Branching 1999 Theatrical/2001(?) DVD cut
- Original 1999 5.1 for theatrical cut
- DVD 5.1 for DVD Cut
Disc 3
- All 2001(?) DVD features, plus new ones

AOTC
Disc 1
- Super Ultimate Cut
- New Surround Mix
Disc 2
- Seamless-Branching 2002 35mm/2002 DLP/DVD/IMAX Cuts
Disc 3
- All DVD features, plus new ones

ROTS
Disc 1
- Super Ultimate Cut
- New Surround Mix
Disc 2
- 2005 Theatrical Cut (only difference between theatrical and DVD is one cut vs. wipe transition)
Disc 3
- All DVD features, plus new ones

Not that I'd buy any of those 3, but there you have it.  I'd also like to add that I'd never buy a 6-film set - they should keep it as two separate 3-film sets, PT and OT.

Okay, I just did a quick and dirty edit using Quicktime Player and the Eclipse AVI's.

Here's how the ORIGINAL, UNEDITED episode list plays out:

1 - Fullmetal Alchemist (episode will be removed entirely)
2 - The Day It Began (most, but not all, will be used, just rearranged)
3 - City of Heresy (will be used with minor additions from the first two episodes)
4 - An Alchemist's Distress (will be untouched)
5 - Rain of Sorrow (will be untouched)
6 - The Road of Hope (will be untouched)
7 - The Hidden Truth (will be untouched)
8 - Research Laboratory 5 (will be untouched)
9 - Artificial Feelings (will be untouched)
10 - Separate Ways (will be untouched)
11 - The Miracle At Rush Valley (will be untouched)
12 - One Is All, All Is One (split into two episodes with flashbacks from The Day It Began added)

Beyond that, everything will be the same.  The quick and dirty edit I did didn't include the two episodes from the original anime that I'll try to include, but here will be the episode listing with those episodes included, if I can get them to work:

1 - City of Heresy (opens with very short "legless" flashback taken from original first episode - the ONLY part of that episode that will be used - and a short version of the "complete" flashback will occur when Cornello realizes what they've done)
2 - Be Thou For The People (reedited version of FMA1 Youswell mining town episode that introduces Yoki)
3 - The Man With The Mechanical Arm (reedited version of FMA1 train-hostage episode, introduces Mustang, whose Brotherhood introduction is removed with the removal of the first episode)
4 - An Alchemist's Distress (will be untouched)
5 - Rain of Sorrow (will be untouched)
6 - The Road of Hope (will be untouched)
7 - The Hidden Truth (will be untouched)
8 - Research Laboratory 5 (will be untouched)
9 - Artificial Feelings (will be untouched)
10 - Separate Ways (will be untouched)
11 - The Miracle At Rush Valley (will be untouched)
12 - One Is All, All Is One (reedited to include Day It Began flashbacks up until Winry's "We're having stew tonight!" - then cuts to rain flashback from OIA,AIO, which plays out the same until "You might be able to if you ever reach the truth," "Truth" door slams, credits)
13 - The Day It Began (reedited - begins with the full flashback of the actual failed human transmutation, then Mustang meets them, then Ed gets his automail attached, then alchemy exam, then Ed gets his "Fullmetal" title, then it goes back to OIA,AIO where Izumi's flashback happens and she tells the story of her failed human transmutation attempt - episode ends as OIA,AIO originally did.

Beyond this, it will be exactly the same.  This would, of course, mean that every episode after this would need to add one number to it (i.e., 13 - Beasts of Dublith would become 14 - Beasts of Dublith), but I won't be releasing edited versions of any episodes beyond City of Heresy, Be Thou For The People, The Man With The Mechanical Arm, One Is All All Is One, and The Day It Began.  I'm also not sure what I'm going to do about episode title cards for BTFTP and TMWTMA.  And I don't think I'll be creating "fixed" title cards for the episodes beyond #13, so you guys'll just have to deal with there being two Episode 13's.  Just look at One is All, All is One and The Day it Began as one hour-long episode, I guess ...

miker71 said:

I've never really understood the relationship between Tarkin and Vader. Why is Tarkin able to command Vader and disrespect the force and belittle as a religion he obviously has no belief in? Compared to the Moff of the second death star in ROTJ who nervously receives Vader. 

This bugs me a lot.  Mainly because it's something that could have been very easily explained in the prequels, but guess what?  IT WASN'T, in favor of overexplaining a lot of things that didn't need to be explained.  Tarkin was in, what, a single, 3-second long shot in the PT?  HUGE wasted opportunity there.

99 issues, 23 tank?bon "volumes" - list here (grouped by volume, each "chapter" is an issue, they come out once a month). It's not done yet, either, but it's in the middle of an immensely epic climax.  It can't last much longer than 4 more issues, 8 at the most, if you ask me.

My first reaction was, "Oh, come on, is that really necessary?"

My second was, "Yes.  Yes it is."

Then I finally actually thought about it, and came to the conclusion that there's no way Jabba would give her undergarments in that outfit anyway, and thought, "Well, it actually makes sense, believe it or not ... "

This one’s very simple and quick to do, and I may not even do it at all. I still have very concrete plans for this project, but they rest on my being able to procure the 2003 series on Blu-Ray for a price that isn’t absurd, which might take a while.

To summarize, there are two Fullmetal Alchemist anime series - the first, which is loosely based on the manga for the first 20 episodes or so (the remaining 30 have nothing whatsoever to do with the manga), and the new one (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood in America), which is based much more strictly on the manga.

I’ve seen the original anime, read the manga (up to the current issue, 99 - it’s supposed to be coming to an end very soon), and seen Brotherhood to its current episode (23).  Brotherhood is, in my opinion, far superior to the original anime, simply because it adapts the manga much, much more closely.

But it isn’t perfect.  The first episode is an “intro” episode that has nothing to do with anything.  The second episode is a flashback episode detailing the Elric brothers’ histories.  The third episode opens in Lior, which is the beginning of the first series and the manga.  There are also two events from the manga that were not adapted for Brotherhood - the thing with First Lieutenant Yoki in the mining town (which I think may be “flashback”-ed in a later episode, as Yoki becomes important later on in the manga), and the thing with the hostages on the train, both of which were adapted (quite faithfully) in the first anime series.

So the plan is simple - restructure the opening of Brotherhood to match the manga (a short “teaser” of Ed’s missing leg bleeding after the failed attempt to transmute his mother, followed by the intro credits, then the Lior episode), and repurpose the two episodes from the original anime to become episodes of this series.  (The problem here is that the original is not in widescreen, while Brotherhood is, and that Brotherhood uses a different voice for Colonel Mustang and some other characters, but I don’t think they’re insurmountable problems.)  The flashback scenes will be moved from their spot in episode 2 and placed where they were in the manga (mostly after they meet up with Izumi around episode 10 or 11).

Now, the reason I bring any of this up is simply to gauge interest in such a project.  It would be SD widescreen, in Japanese with English subtitles (burned in), and I would likely only provide the affected episodes in 480p MKV or AVI format.  This may require whoever downloads them to re-number the remaining episodes, but since I’m removing two episodes and adding two more, it may not be an issue.

So, how about it?  Anyone care?

Oooh, I like that - putting Jabba in shadow is a good idea.  It makes him less campy and more threatening.

Yeah, I know.  Like I said, I'm not quite happy with it just yet.  The whole thing feels a bit ... clunky to me, for lack of a better term.

My current draft, obviously subject to change:

RETURN OF THE JEDI

The rebellion stands on the brink
of destruction.  The GALACTIC
EMPIRE has begun construction
on a new armored space station
even more powerful than the first
dreaded Death Star.

As the rebels gather in preparation
for a last-ditch offensive against
the Empire, Han Solo is imprisoned
by the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt,
and Luke Skywalker remains
with Yoda to complete his Jedi
training.

Unwilling to await Luke's return any
longer, Princess Leia has rashly cobbled
together a desperate plan to rescue
the man she loves, while the Emperor
sets into motion his own plot that could
spell certain doom for the rebels. . . .

I'm still not 100% happy with it, but that's what I've come up with so far.  I won't start work in earnest on ROTJ until SW and ESB are finished (and even that will be a pre-Revisited rough draft), so I've got quite a while to worry about this.

I like the idea of holoprojector glows, but I don't think they need to be very in-your-face.

I also think a slight "video" effect should be added, like the other holograms in the trilogy.

I think the separation of preservation and edit forums is a fantastic idea.  I'm also quite fond of the new avatar sizes. But I think the best new addition is the ability to delete more than one private message at a time.  That's been needed for quite some time!

I don't like the avatars next to the threads, though.