ChainsawAsh

I just finished watching all 3 of your fanedits.

Let me preface this by saying that your A.I. fanedit has not only become one of my favorite fanedits ever, it's become one of the few that I put on my shelf as if it were originally made that way.  I've shown it to friends and they love it as well.

Your prequel edits are nearly as good.  In concept and story, they're all absolutely fantastic.  I love that you got rid of Leia (makes my planned ROTJ fan edit easier, even though I was doing that with the intention that the prequels just didn't exist), I love that you made the love story believable, and I love that you made Anakin's turn believable.

I also love that you made me enjoy Episode II for the first time ever.  I've never seen a version of Episode II that I've enjoyed.  Ever.  You trimmed all the bullshit out, and the film is much better for it.

One change in particular I'm very happy with: Count Dooku.  In your edit, he's ostensibly the villain, but in the reality of the situation, he's actually right.  He's the good guy, and if he'd been allowed to win, the civil war never would have happened.  But Palpatine is so damn good at twisting everyone against each other until they destroy themselves that no one sees this until it's far, far too late.

As I watched the edits, I made a list for each film as far as my suggestions for improvements between now and the DVD stage.  Some of them you might not be able to fix, some you might not feel the need to, but these are the only things that prevent me from forgetting that I'm watching a fanedit the way your A.I. edit did.

Star Wars Episode I: Attack of the Federation
Notes and Suggestions
- The crawl proper seems to start too late.  I'd suggest modeling the timing of the crawl after Ady's REVISITED crawl, since after the "Episode" tags were added, the timing was screwed up - Ady fixed it to match the pre-ANH crawl, while retaining the "Episode" title.  Also, not too sure about the blue coloring, but that's not a big deal and other than the timing it looks fine.
- 8:05ish - harsh music transition between invasion scenes and Queen's palace
- The music at the starting line before the podrace feels a little awkwardly edited
- At around 1:14:50 or so, there's a harsh music transition between the ship landing and the meeting in the forest.
- In order to make the Gungans' speech patterns more understandable, I suggest that (using a mashup of foreign dialogue tracks) you make dialogue between Gungans that isn't meant to be understood by humans ("Jar Jar, who are these others?" or whatever he says there, for instance, or the entire battle sequence) be spoken in their language with subtitles.  Just a suggestion, but it would IMO make more sense.
- 1:37:55 - jump in the music when it cuts from Qui-Gon's funeral pyre to a shot of Padme, Palpatine and Jar Jar
- In the celebration, there's a shot of Ani smiling at Padme, then a shot of Obi-Wan, then a shot of Padme smiling back at Ani.  I'd swap the shot of Padme smiling and the shot of Obi-Wan.

Star Wars Episode II: Twilight of the Republic
Notes and Suggestions
- The timing of the opening Fox/Lucasfilm logos seems off to me.
- The crawl proper starts WAY too late - there's actually empty space between the STAR WARS logo and "Episode II," which there shouldn't be - the crawl itself should start before the STAR WARS logo disappears.  See my Episode I note about the crawl.
- Typos in the crawl: "has lead to" should be "has led to."  I'd also change "Senator of the Galactic Senate" to "Senator in the Galactic Senate," and add an "of" between "capital" and "Coruscant."
- Good job getting rid of the "changeling" aspect of Zam, but there's a shot during the chase when Anakin falls on the speeder - she looks up at him and her face shifts to look like she does when she dies.  If you could remove that, it'd be great.
- 34:06 - The transition between the kiss and Obi-Wan on Kamino is VERY harsh.  I don't really have a suggestion for improvement, but still ...
- "Brave, but foolish, my old Jedi friend" is out of sync with the video
- 1:17:46 - harsh music edit after Dooku's ship enters the cave or whatever it is

Star Wars Episode III: The Black Knight Rises
Notes and Suggestions
- The crawl proper starts WAY too late.  See my Episode II note about the crawl.
- Typos in the crawl: "have past" should be "have passed."  Also, "the rebel Count Dooku and his Droid Army has swept" should be "have swept."  I'd also add an "of" before "CORUSCANT."
- There are some slightly awkward music transitions throughout the film, but not really bad enough to point out individually

Well, that's what I've got for you.  Thank you for these amazing edits - easily the best PT edits I've seen to this point!

So here's what it is, exactly:

- Remastered stereo for all albums, released individually, plus the US Magical Mystery Tour, plus Past Masters 1 & 2.  Help! and Rubber Soul will be the late-80s remixes here.
- Boxed set of the above.
- Boxed set of all the mono mixes (will not include Abbey Road or Let it Be, which didn't have mono mixes.  It'll be interesting to see if they release Yellow Submarine with the unreleased mono mix or the "official" mono mix that's just a fold-down of the stereo.) - the mono versions of Help! and Rubber Soul will also include (on the same disc) the original 60s stereo mixes.  This boxed set will also include a Past Masters-style collection of all the non-album tracks that were mixed in mono.

My only complaint is that it seems that in order to have the complete collection the way I want it, I'd need to get the mono box set, plus buy Abbey Road, Let it Be and Past Masters 1 & 2 separately (assuming the stereo-only tracks of PM aren't included in the mono set).

I'm interested to see if these sound any better than the Dr. Ebbetts bootlegs I have, which sound absolutely perfect.  Modern remasters tend to be, for lack of a better word, terrible (with the notable exception of much of the Rolling Stones' remasters, but not all of them), so we'll have to see how this set turns out.

I'm also curious if Let it Be... Naked will be included in place of the original version.  I sure as hell hope not.

And to anyone who's never heard he mono mixes of Help! through The Beatles (White album), you need to.  They're far, far, far superior to the stereo mixes, especially Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, and the White album.  (Please Please Me through Beatles for Sale were released in mono on CD in the 80s, so the stereo versions of those will be the new ones.)

And yeah, the new game is a Beatles Rock Band game.

I say kill Lando or Han.  Either one.  Doesn't matter.  As long as someone important dies, it gives a sense of sacrifice the film sorely needs - we need to feel that while the rebels won, it came with a price.  So go ahead.  I say you can even kill Chewie.

The point is not killing a character and just leaving it be - we also need to see the other characters react to it realistically.  Everyone needs to feel the loss.  So as long as that can be accomplished, kill anyone you want in ROTJ except for Luke.

And this comes from the guy who loves the Thrawn Trilogy.  To me, making Jedi better is more important than preserving the EU.

Now I'll go back and read everyone else's posts in this thread. :-)

If you have an expanded outline, I'd very much like to read it as well.  It could come in handy with the first-draft script.

I'm iffy about Lando dying, but I'm all for Han dying.  I know it completely ruins the EU, and I do enjoy the Thrawn trilogy, but as it is, in ROTJ you never really *feel* like the characters are in danger.  Killing Han would really help that.  Lando, on the other hand, would die at the very end, when it doesn't matter anymore, though sacrificing his life to end the Empire after betraying his friends to them would be rather poetic.

On second thought, go for it!  Kill Lando too!

-edit-

Right, this is the ESB:R thread ... sorry ... back on topic!

Bingowings said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Bingowings said:

fossilised telephone sanitisers.

I have no idea what this means, but it made me laugh so hard I spit my drink out all over my keyboard.  Well done, sir.

Don't panic!

And don't blame me for your keyboard, blame the late Douglas Adams.

Golgafrincham is a red semi-desert planet that is home of the Great Circling Poets of Arium and a species of particularly inspiring lichen. Its people decided it was time to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population, and so the descendants of the Circling Poets concocted a story that their planet would shortly be destroyed in a great catastrophe. (It was apparently under threat from a "mutant star goat"). The useless third of the population (consisting of hairdressers, tired TV producers*, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, management consultants, telephone sanitizers and the like) were packed into the B-Ark, one of three giant Ark spaceships, and told that everyone else would follow shortly in the other two. The other two thirds of the population, of course, did not follow and "led full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone".

The B-Ark was programmed to crash-land on a suitably remote planet on one of the outer spiral arms of the galaxy, which happened to be Earth, and the Golgafrinchan rejects gradually mingled with and usurped the native cavemen**, becoming the ancestors of humanity and thereby altering the course of the great experiment to find the question for the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, or so Ford Prefect presumes. A lot of them didn't make it through the winter three years prior to Arthur Dent's reunion with Ford Prefect, and the few who remained in the spring said they needed a holiday and set out on a raft. History says they must have survived.

Makes you wonder where Ronald D. Moore get's his ideas.

Wow.  I feel stupid now - I've been listening to the original H2G2 radio plays all day, and I still didn't get it!

And the keyboard isn't ruined - I had an Avid keyboard cover on top of it, so it just got all over that.  No worries - and thanks to you (and DNA) for the laugh!

Ziz said:

Hey Ady,

We all know you're plugging away on ESB:R but can you guesstimate at a "pause point" where you can at least do the AVCHD of "Jedi", just to complete the OT set?

He said in the ESB:R thread that it won't be until after ESB:R, so sometime in 2010 unfortunately.

adywan said:

There was a reason why i did a purist version for ANH:R and that reason doesn't count for ROTJ:R. In fact i might run a competition sometime to see if anyone can figure out the real reason behind the purist edition.

The only two reasons I can think of:

1) To please people who were put off by some of the Revisited changes
2) As a sort of test for ... something (the AVCHD version?)

And I think you should at least strongly consider talking to the people over at the Replica Props forum.  Sure, there's risk involved in transit, but it's possible that some of the people in posession of the needed prop replicas might live close enough to you to render that a moot point.  You never know.  I understand that you enjoy the prop-building aspect of this, though, so I can understand if you'd rather do it yourself than rely on someone else's work.

Bingowings said:

fossilised telephone sanitisers.

I have no idea what this means, but it made me laugh so hard I spit my drink out all over my keyboard.  Well done, sir.

Well, you asked what he's planning on doing.  We don't know.  There really isn't much more we can discuss about it at this point, since we also have no idea what he's planning with the PT in general, much less ROTS.  Hell, we know very little about what he's planning for ROTJ, other than that it's going to be extensive, and the ending battle will be expanded considerably.

Now, if you want to discuss ideas about what Ady could do with his Vader suit for ROTS, by all means go for it, but most of us aren't thinking anywhere near that far ahead and probably won't until at least TPM:Revisited comes out so we know the general direction that Ady wants to take his PT edits.

Serji-X Arrogantus said:

Boards such as the the Replica Prop Forum http://www.therpf.com/ and the Replica Prop Board http://theukpropparty.yuku.com/ have guys making Studio Quality Miniatures of Star Wars models and Costumes etc... that would be perfect for some of the shots, there are even Stop Motion Replicas of the Taun Taun and the AT-ST getting built.

Never been there myself, but I hear the guys over at the Replica Prop Forum are cool, and they're definitely sticklers about accuracy.  (Adam Savage from Mythbusters frequents those forums if I'm not mistaken, as well.)  I'm sure if you ask around there, they'll be willing to help you out in any way they can, Ady, especially if they're familiar with the Revisited project!

ROTJ definitely needs a complete restructuring.  There is a good movie in that mediocre jumble somewhere, but it can't be brought out by new effects and continuity polishes - it *needs* major story changes, in some ways more so than the prequels.

While I'm pretty sure Ady said there will be *no* purist version for Empire, I think it's a real possibility for Jedi.

And yeah, ESB:R will definitely not be done by Christmas.  I'd say spring/summer 2010.  May 21, 2010 would be really cool - 30 years to the day after its theatrical release.

Darknikos said:

Page 33: you suggest to change Thrawn's line to "I've decided to give the Noghri one last chance.  I'll personally deliver C'Baoth that message." but in the original Thrawn didn't say that he will be delivering the message to C'baoth personally, but to the Noghri.
So he say to tell C'baoth that he allow the noghri one last chance, and he'll be taking the message to the noghri personally.
Are you agree or I've missed something?

 

You're absolutely right, I completely misread the line in the book.  That was my mistake.  He wants Pallaeon to deliver the message to C'Baoth, but he'll be talking to the Nogrhi personally.  I misread the "them" as "him."

Darknikos said:

Page 34 (yes, it was in the original): So, right, they were on the forest moon of Endor, not on the planet. And, now that I think about it, if we want to be rigorous, on that moon isn't begin the New Republic... but the Alliance of Free Planets, like we can see on the Marvel comic books.
Anyway, I've always thought that she's speaking to her yet to born children... maybe we can make this more clear.
So, I'm now thinking that the line can be changed in something like:
"You see that, my dear children? That's the forest moon of Endor, where the Rebel Alliance triumphed over the Empire."
What do you think about it?

"Dear children" sounds a little odd, but I can't think of anything better.  And I'd change "triumphed over the Empire," to "won the war against the Empire."  "Triumphed" sounds a little strange dialogue-wise.  But yeah, that doees improve the line substantially.

Ziz said:

FF,

One more suggestion while you're in "remaster" mode - on the Chapter Selection menu, put an asterisk * next to any chapter names that have SLV footage in them relative to the theatrical cut.

 

Side thought for anyone interested - disc and case art would be nice.

I can whip up some disc/case art.  Not tonight, but tomorrow I should be able to do it.

Or you can download the EPS here (same place I got my 90s VHS-style logos):

http://vectorlogo.blogspot.com/2008/10/star-wars-logo-eps.html

The good thing about EPS files is that they're vector-based, which means you can resize them all you want and they'll never pixellate.

It looks really good, however the text you use feels like long, run-on sentences.  It just needs some commas:

Turmoil had engulfed the Galactic Senate, with several star systems having declared their intentions to leave the Republic through a separatist movement led by the mysterious Count Dooku.

Senator Amidala returned to the Senate to vote on the critical issue of creating a Grand Army for the Republic to assist the overwhelmed Jedi, who were meant to maintain peace and order in the galaxy.

[EDIT: It seems I've been beaten to the above note - but I'll keep this here anyway]

I also noticed that your text said "lead by the mysterious Count Dooku," when it should be "led."

And if I'd never seen a Star Wars movie, I'd have no idea who the hell Senator Amidala was - is there a way you could add something of a brief explanation, such as "Senator Amidala, former Queen of the peaceful planet of Naboo, returned..."

Other than that, it's good.  I love the music, and really like the look of the text.  A nice break from the standard opening crawl.

I am iffy on the logo, however - I don't like how the "T" and "A" connect.  I'd suggest using one of the 70s logos:

It's different, but still recognizably Star Wars.

vaderios said:

I can give invitations.

Who wants PM me

-Angel

Seconded.  I won't, however, give invitations to everyone - I've still got to cover my ass so I don't get kicked out.  So if you send me a PM about it and I say no, don't take it personally.

No, it's still happening.  I won't be able to really work on the script like I'd planned until the semester is over, which will be around mid-May (no idea why I wrote "March" last night).  Editing 1 and Motion Graphics 1 are killing my free time.

Definitely a good proof-of-concept, Davnes.  Rough, yes, but it proves it can work without looking like it's unnecessary or "there because we could do it."

I don't suppose anyone would be kind enough to upload these to Demonoid? :-)

Bingowings said:

Now you know why GOUT ain't OOUT (or at least one of many reasons).

It's just the framing, really - it happens to any telecined film.  The entire image to the edges of the frame is NEVER seen, even in theaters.  Different transfers will always have slightly different framing.

Oh, one change I forgot to mention that's very important to me:

- Remove first 2 SE dewback shots.  They're entirely pointless additions that fuck up the music and have always bugged me in general, and I was very disappointed to see them remain in ANH:R.

Late post, I know, but I'm watching ANH:R right now because I can't sleep, and I just got to that scene.

The Han's vest thing is B.S.  It was a shadow, not a jacket.  This is proven 100% in the Empire of Dreams doc, where they show Harrison Ford getting into frame for that shot, you can see as he steps in he's not wearing a vest or jacket, then when he steps into the lights that shadow is cast.

Besides, they "fixed" it for the 2004 DVDs.  Though I personally would like to see Ady restore the original shot - I don't like how they fixed it.

And I've noticed the lightsaber thing, and I feel it's just a matter of perspective.  I don't think it moved at all.

Linktalk has the Rapidshare links, but you need to register with their site and in order to see the links you either need to have a cerain number of posts (20?) or post in the thread that contains said links.  You don't need to install anything.

Is there anything in the radio drama that the movie needs?  I've never listened to them, but I don't think anything really needs to be added.  ROTJ is a different matter, naturally.  I'm really hoping Ady does a lot of the things I want to do with ROTJ so I don't have to do so much work :-P