Darth Venal

Cool, what are you working on at the moment? You sure must put in some man hours. I take it the wife is still in control of the TV remote?

:-)

By the way, I rewatched ANH:R and I've got to say the one touch that I just love more than anything is when the droids escape in the pod and you've made the Star Destroyer recede faster than the starfield. It captures the great height and descent perfectly.

You got it! Can't say I'd be too keen on doing one myself, either.

 Did you have a chance to see my test shots for the Alderaan destruction? I'd love to get an expert opinion. Honesty is appreciated, I'm a big boy, I can handle it. *eek*

I'd love to hear all your insights, but if you don't want to do a commentary, why not type up a detailed breakdown of your changes and reasons behind them - all the stuff you'd say in a commentary without having to do one. A time-coded style breakdown, for all us nerds to show our kids why professional film-makers don't always know best...

Yeah, they could have just used Alderaan in the prequels I'm sure, and it would have had far more relevance to those of us waiting for the backstory. To new viewers who don't have the history of knowing the OT first it doesn't matter so much, but it really would have been better. And they're practically the same planet anyway, small, Earth-like planets which are peaceful.

Adywan, why not do a commentary track with someone else, so you'd find explaining things easier? One-handed commentaries often lack spontaneity because the person is just monologuing.

Yeah, I've considered a few inserts - the planet surface, ships trying to get away, and even cutting inside one of the ships to see an older Bail Organa being whisked away - and although I'd love to see most of these, I just feel they interrupt the momentum. So I'm most probably going to stick with just the extended destruction from the shockwave.

Besides, we might have found a pretty organic way of including some Alderaan footage, including a shot of a young Leia and Bail Organa on the balcony of the palace looking over the landscape, without it interrupting anything. And it also hints at Leia being Force-perceptive, which I like. It involves her in her prison cell dreaming or thinking about Alderaan, trying to think of something pleasant. But as she thinks about it, the Death Star intrudes into her dream/daydream, and then we cut to the Death Star having arrived at Alderaan.

I know, that is some mighty tinkering, but as an experiment I think it's worth trying. And it hints at Leia's Force sensitivity, but only if you know she is, which I really like.

And very welcome two cents they are. I know exactly what you mean. I really hate to say it, but it seems the emotional detachment Lucas was lambasted for with the prequels is just as present in the original movie too. I mean, you're absolutely right; Leia's muted response to Alderaan being destroyed is really rather unsatisfactory. If you've heard the Radio Drama, you'll know what real pain should sound like with those wonderful scripts and performances.

However, as much as I find the emotional impact wanting, there is also the fact that Star Wars is a war movie, and the mentality of war and in the underground movements wasn't dissimilar to what we see. Loss was a daily occurrence, where anyone could disappear or die at any time, and you had to carry on regardless. As the exchange goes:

Rebel Commander: "When we heard about Alderaan, we feared the worst"

Leia: "We have no time for our sorrows, Commander."

So I can let it go with that perspective. But then, as you said Darth Plagueis, if I'm trying to imbue more emotional impact will it fit with the responses of the characters? Well, I guess we'll have to see. I must say I'm inclined to remove the planet surface shots, even if they work visually, as I like the momentum of the entire planet being obliterated by the shockwave uninterrupted.

Hm, now I like that idea. I won't have time to do any mock-ups till Thursday, I'm working 15 hour days at the studios, so I'll try to get something done Wednesday night or Thursday morning. They don't take long to do, which is definitely a bonus.

Yeah, Bingowings is right, I think. The people on Alderaan had to have had some idea they were in peril. After all, Bail Organa was well aware what the Death Star was because of his affiliation with the Rebel Alliance. And he surely would have tried to get his people away. Also, given that there will always be space traffic coming and going, it's fair to say that a few ships must have had a chance of escape. I may try to show one getting away into hyperspace, but I'm inclined to show a total wipeout as that is what the scene is aiming to convey. Even one ship escaping undermines it dramatically, and at this point in the story that's not really desirable.

Actually, I prefer it without the planet surface shots, too. The momentum is much better without it.

The problem is a dramatic one, however. Alderaan blowing up in Star Wars barely registers to me, it never did, and main reason for that is that we never see anything of it, or anyone on it who is being destroyed. Sure, blowing up a planet is dramatically impressive, but it's impersonal, and so, for me, emotionally lacking. Exactly the same mistake is made in Star Trek Generations, where the entire fight with Soran is to stop him killing 230 million people on a planet we never even see except in stellar cartography! If we can at least get a glimpse of what is being destroyed it feels more valid. But again, I do agree that it works better faster. I feel the original explosion is far to brief, but mine with the few seconds on the surface is too long, so I'll probably cut it.

Bingowings:

The emphasis is on the sudden silence, it doesn't prove that the whole process was instantaneous.

Well, exactly Bingowings. I mean, if you really want to take Ben at his literal word, but honestly, what's the difference between a planet exploding instantaneously, and somewhat improbably, to a planet being obliterated by a shockwave in about five seconds? I mean, your entire planet blowing up in a few seconds isn't sudden? The timing with Ben then feeling the event in the Force is fine.

Monroville:

I can understand where you're coming from, but also think atomic bomb or anti-matter.  Those don't take too much time to instantly vaporizing large areas.

No, they don't take too much time, but they do take some time, which is my entire thinking behind the new sequence.

Bingowings:

That's interesting as it makes out the super laser is more than just a very big laser.

I love the way the atmosphere seems to be getting hit by an enormous aurora (which it possibly would be for a fraction of a second).

Well, I never bought the notion that one big laser can hit a planet and obliterate it as soon as it touches it. Something doesn't have to be quick to look powerful, and if anything, when dealing with a body as massive as a planet, I think it really should take time.

That aurora effect is quite nice, and I figured, just because it's destructive doesn't mean it can't also be beautiful. With audio, of course, it's going to sound like an awfully destructive aurora!

Funny, I really like the fact that the red refineries are so strong. I am working on night and evening mattes, too. The evening one is trickiest because of the lighting, the night one shouldn't be too hard.

I've added a few more frames to the Alderaan sequence, just mock-up frames of the sort of effect I'd like to achieve with the shockwave across blasting the surface.

I would like to enhance the deleted scenes, very much so, but that will take time and they are never going to be anything like DVD quality, so I may keep them for a seperate workprint and use the new mattes for my Special Edition where I'm trying to keep everything the best possible quality. You're right, that SE painting of Ben's hut doesn't really work. Sure, it has more detail than the shot in the original, but it just isn't a very good painting.

These are two others I'm considering for my Star Wars project. I really like the Tosche Station scenes, but they could only work in a "workprint" because of the poor quality available, so that's maybe what I'll have to do. And I never liked the Special Edition matte of Ben's house, so I've just touched up the original live plate and made the speeder look like it's actually floating.

Oh, they'll put effort into the work, krazyscotsman, it just might not turn out how you would like it to. And don't we all know that feeling!

Well, that's not strictly true, as you most definitely can claim legal ownership of something created from manipulated imagery that someone else produced. I work in graphics for a rather large company and I'm well aware of image rights. Anyway, let's not get into that exchange as it's the sort of thing that people don't agree on and I'm not up for that.

Thanks.

As for the watermark, those images are less than 15% of the quality of the originals so it doesn't really matter. And all my work is automatically copyrighted through my job, so even if someone were to try ripping off my full-res stuff I'm still the legal owner. Not that I'd ever sue a fan editor, but it's nice to know I have legal claim to anything I produce. I'm only protective over fully original work.

I'm really hoping the final product works as well as we're hoping. But when you've looked at it so many times while working on it, it can really be hard to have an objective eye. I just think the way Alderaan is destroyed is lousy; it literally explodes - an entire planet - the second the green beam hits it. I don't care how big your gun is, a planet is going to take a bit more time to tear apart than that. So that's where we're going with it.

Well that's very kind of you to say. I've got something of an obsession for anything Bespin/Cloud City. Always have, ever since I was a kid. I'm trying to do a couple of nice sunset mattes too, but the lighting is so much harder to pull off.

And anyway, Adywan is just going to blow me out of the water when his edit is done hehe. I wish I had the patience he's got. I'm glad I can work pretty fast because I don't have the patience for big projects.

Bingwings:

"I like the way that the far one appears to be tilting in a breeze."

Yeah, it does. I remember toggling it trying to decide how much to rotate it because it adds a tiny amount of movement into a pretty static image. It was only 1 degree in the end, yet it offset it just enough.

Yeah those spas do have that retro-future thing down pat, don't they? That's what I love about anything Bespin, the whole thing has that retro-futuristic vibe. And I tell you, it was an absolute nightmare to recreate. From the reduced image I posted it looks almost the same, but the model I made is very highly detailed, same for the tibana mines. I hope to show you the HD versions soon.

Thanks! Yes, it's all mine except the Cloud City painting, although I did touch it up. I absolutely love that original painting so I didn't see much point redoing it for that shot, beyond a bit of recolouring and shading. I have created a new Cloud City for my other Bespin mattes, but with that particular concept I'd use the original whenever possible.

It's two different angles, but when you see it in motion that's clear. And in the reverse shot it's impossible to leave the Death Star out; we tried it and it looks like the camera is avoiding the Death Star. When you see it in motion you'll see what I mean, and the new audio for the beam enhances that.

Well, I'm learning, so it'll only get better, I hope. And as I said in the other thread, that Death Star really isn't the final image, I only put it there for positioning.

These are a little more on topic I hope...

I love those McQuarrie Health Spas and Tibana Mines.

The Golden Idol:

"Very, very nice mockup, Darth Venal. I do think that the Death Star should point lower, though. Can you post a video clip of this?"

Actually, it's nowhere near finished and I only stuck the Death Star in to show where it will be. There will also be at least two ships flying away from the reverse of Alderaan but getting obliterated by the debris. If our tests go well, we'll also be putting in an insert of an aged Bail Organa on one of the ships (probably a Blockade Runner, even though it's not the Tantive IV).

One thing about the Death Star, though; in the original scene, the beam is clearly coming down at Alderaan at an angle, and to match that with the firing dish makes the Death Star look like it's off axis. Maybe that's why you don't see it in the same shot when it fires. Hmm, I'll see what I can do...

Oh, about this being the wrong thread, I wasn't sure where to put it! Sorry, bit new to all this, not sure what goes where just yet.

Hey guys.

This is a sequence composite of my new and hopefully improved Alderaan destruction for my own Star Wars edit. The keen-eyed will know that I've borrowed the shockwave around the planet from Star Trek Generations. I could create my own, but it wouldn't look any better and it would take a very long time.

Hope you like it. Any suggestions welcome.

DV.

(PS Thanks to my buddy Mr Ghostface for uploading it)