Dat_SW_Guy

Another thing, I’m thinking of revamping the cut list by alot to incorporate more visual changes than “making it fit canon-wise” like other ANH edits.

(still torn apart between using the original crawl or the 81 crawl)

However, I’ve been thinking about reinstating Biggs’ scenes from the SE (and the “Biggs, Biggs!” radio part) as I do wonder if George’s reinstatement of the scene was really effective helping the audience sympathize with the Rebels alot more, and thus care for their deaths when they do die during the Battle of Yavin. Thoughts?

Hello there! I finally have the time to push forward with this edit with a potential V1 or workprint release sometime early next year.

This project was literally years in the making as it was mainly hindered by my inexperience in editing (I was literally in high school when I started this edit in 2019, lol) and lack of equipment (which I do now have)

However, work on this will be quire slow as I’m doing this in my free time as I’m currently studying in college as of the moment and can’t give too much time on this project.

Hopefully, if I’m lucky, I’ll probably do a V2 of this edit and lean towards more “fixing” changing Revisited-style than doing a normal SE fan edit, but thats in the future.

Overall, this project taught me alot about waiting for the right time, and it took alot of patience to get where I am. So I’d like to thank all of you guys for sticking through this edit that’s clearly 5 years too late!

Oh I see. I didn’t fully finish the video when I made the post, so I didnt get to the part where he was talking about fan preservations. I guess he probably took it too far. Do I delete the thread or something?

EDIT: I finished the video and yeah… there are some things that kind of make it more like a sensationalist hit-piece than an unbiased take on RocketJump’s video. Although he does point out the inaccuracies and ““narrative””(?) RocketJump is making, from the perspective of Nerdnonymous? I honestly think he’s done more bickering than actual evidence.

I edited the post and post title to reflect my current thoughts.

You all may be familiar with the famous RocketJump video of their discussion as how “Star Wars was saved in the Edit” which painted a very specific narrative about Lucas and his editors, and how the editors basically saved Stat Wars, which wasn’t actually the case and is more complicated than the narrative told in the video.

Furthermore most of the claims made by RocketJump seem to have vague basis to actual truth, and the video itself is not all that objective of the information.

Just recently, I watched a video by “Nerdonymous” debunking some of the claims from RocketJump, and although the overall tone of the video seems to be a bit “ad hominem” in making fun of RocketJump, he actually makes fair points and assumptions based from sources such as Rinzler’s ebooks, Making-Of books and other material.

I suggest you guys to give it a watch, its 2-hours long (mostly due to the editing of how Nerdonymous likes to hone in on RocketJump’s use of words) but its worth a watch:

EDIT: Upon further watching of this video, although Nerdnonymous did point out some inaccuracies and errors in the way RocketJump simplified certain event lines and general misinformation, they are few and far between the amount of actual ad hominem that he constantly does and the amount of contradiction he makes to the point of hypocrisy in terms of misrepresenting information, I think the video dives moreso on mocking the channel, rather than actually providing an objective, unbiased view of the video itself.

I shouldn’t have made this thread while watching the video, as I first made it within like 10 minutes of his 2-hour long rant when he actually brought up a point of the mix-up of RocketJump and J.W Rinzler’s information of Brian De Palma’s involvement in the creation of the crawl, and which crawl was which in the shooting script, third and fourth drafts and the final version. The further I went on in the video, the more confused I became, especially as he tried to convince the audience about how the “Rough Cut” was better than the Theatrical cut, because that was Lucas’ vision, but that isn’t the case apparently because it was edited wrong and the final version is Lucas’ Vision?

He also tries to defend the deleted scenes, and only apart from the conference scene, which only kinda vaguely works in introducing the Force first before Obi-Wan does it, the majority of his opinions are wrapped up in layers of contradiction solely to belittle RocketJump and make him look wrong at every turn.

On the topic of who “really saved Star Wars” it is a complicated question to answer in and of itself, as every producer, editor, propsman, could’ve helped in contributing in the success and/or failure of this experimental sci-fantasy film and was a combination of Lucas, the editors, the producers, and even the actors themselves on fixing the wooden dialogue on the script, that Star Wars became… Star Wars.

Well, I think your asking the wrong person about that lol. In my opinion, I guess it’s hard to remove the ret-con in ANH unless some A.I exists that clones Alec Guinness’s voice. And I think that the ROTJ explanation, although a bit “obvious” to clearly fix the discrepancy with the “certain point of view” thing, atleast provides an explanation to the audience, which at the moment, I don’t really have any problem with.

sent you a PM!

Happy New Year!

I have finally gotten the courage to finish this edit, and I am going to re-do the master cut on Davinci Resolve instead of Premiere to better take advantage of the color grading, node compositing and advanced stuff rather than Adobe constantly crashing on me. The expected release date of this edit will be on “May The 4th” or May 25 (Original release date of A New Hope) and the changelist will be hardened and finalized within this week to begin doing the more VFX-heavy changes.

As a quick teaser here is the recomposited version of Sky_'s speeder shot with a more visually accurate shadow that matches the surrounding shadows of the surrounding people and droids, and added the SE shuttle at the end to tie it in better to the rest of the sequence which will heavily borrow from the SE version. Note that this is still WIP as I didn’t color grade it to match the other shots, and the detail on the guy’s legs are a bit hazy since it’s sourced from 4k77.

To be honest, I forgot that this project started back all the way in 2019, and how COVID + Lockdown + Lack of Motivation just really hit me like a brick wall in terms of forcing myself to make this edit as clean and visually appealing as possible, which caused the long hiatus due to personal issues, as well as technical issues in my lack of literacy in VFX and slow hardware. But now I have the tools and the laptop necessary to finish this edit so I can finally put this 4 year old beast to rest.

https://streamable.com/evvfwv

Hello, its been a while.

I’m conflicted as to whether or not I’ll continue this edit, as I feel that it is redundant compared to ANH: Devastator’s Edition, ANH Revisited and Hal9000’s ANH edit. Especially since I’m basically doing the same thing as Devastator and Revisited but less extreme.

It’s also been challenging to port over my Premiere Pro files from the old PC to the new laptop, as the PC keeps turning off every 10 seconds due to overheating and faulty RAM and I can’t find a way to transfer the files directly from the hard drive itself, which forces me to re-do the master cut again.

I hope you guys understand, and let me know if there is a place for my edit in the endless void of SW edits.

I don’t know, it doesn’t look quite right and you can kind of tell that its the binary sunset background.

Also, the new background contradicts the position of Threepio and Luke, as the camera in the original version shows that they were facing to the right of where the binary sunsets were earlier.

I suggest you keep the original version of the shot.

Thats a bit too specific and nitpicky at this point.

Okay, everything looks good! I’m wondering if u added motion blur to the shadow aswell. Also, just finish composting the shadow itself to match the other shadows and we should be good. Also, if you can send me the clean plate (speeder without shadow) and shadow element, I’ll try and composite it myself.

I suggest you to just do a 2D reconstruction of the guy’s legs, it’s a bit easier puppetering it rather than doing a full CG model, although an alternative can be to project the leg texture to the CG model, which can be difficult. Also I suggest to match the speeder shadow to the surrounding elements, and some of them do periodically “light up” which you should match to retain consistency and shot believability.

Also I think you should base the SE shadow as reference, and if you can, also trim down the speeder a bit to make it thinner like it is shown here:

Sky_ said:

Here you go Dat_SW_Guy… I still need to Roto out the guy at the front as you can see he disappears, and still a few bits that need doing in this clip, no point explaining them as you can see it… anyway just an update dude

Looks amazing! My only issue with it are some parts were kinda lagging out, and the shadow color looks a bit too grey and not sandy-colored but other than that its amazing!

This seems to be a very straightfoward edit, essentially following the story in the most linear and effecient form possible (in my opinion atleast!) without the added fluff that dragged it out for 6 episodes, which is really nice and what I wanted. Is it alright if I can ask for a link to this?

Personally, I feel that it’s like trying to cut in the SC38 Obi VS Vader fight to the original 1977 version. The cinematography is too different, the camera and lenses are too different, and the dead giveaway would be the global illumination due to the background literally an encapsulating volume of LED lights, while back in 2002 they used green screen and reasonable yet outdated compositing to try and the Coruscant background in AOTC.

NFBisms said:

I was one of those suckers who was actually really excited for Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) because Deborah Chow and Kelley DIxon’s work on Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad fuckin’ rule. Needless to say, that was a bit misguided.

So I took a crack at editing the show to be closer in tone and style to what I expected out of BB-verse alumni.

I don’t think I’m going to do the whole show, but it was just a fun little experiment. The edit isn’t supposed to be like BB/BCS fwiw, just approaching the material with some of the storytelling philosophy I learned from them.

At the very least, Deborah Chow’s sensibilities as a director were still conducive to being arranged in this way so at least some of my excitement wasn’t unfounded

I love the visual storytelling here, but theres a few nitpicks I would like to add:

• The fade-in to the womprat shot is very un-Star-Warsy. It needs to be a hard cut to that, then you have to extend it by around 5 - 10 beats before the Womprats get in the frame so the audience starts to get invested and ease in better into the film.

• The zoom in from Obi-Wan’s back looks fake and digital. Keep that locked in I think.

• I think the intro goes on for too long. To sell the repetition of the work and make it go faster is to cut a bit more and speed it up so that the audience can get the idea of same work over and over again without the baggage of it being long.

• The flashbacks thrown into the sleeping scenes right next to the work scenes are so jarring. I’m not sure what you’re trying to do or if this is intentional.

• If you have the VFX skill, try and match the flashbacks to the ones from ROTS, and also try and mute the colors from the Prequels to match the already mute tone from the show.

I’m going for a “faster and more intense” route that Lucas wanted for ANH, but at the end of the day, its completely up to you.

I’m digging your project so far, I can give you my exploding Alderaan scene, it’s essentially the SE version but without the stupid rings around it.

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

This de-aged Anakin showed up on my feed today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL-N2ywWhOw

It’s certainly going in the right direction.

I mean it looks janky and smooths out his face too much. If this was what Lucasfilm did, then there would be outrage for the overuse of CGI.

I’d rather have Hayden himself just do it, as it doesn’t really matter since he still looks youngish.

Overall, Episode 5 truly cemented my feelings that this show needed a bigger budget, or atleast a wiser set designer or crew that could work with small budgets to make lived-in worlds ala George Lucas Prequel-Trilogy style. I’m digging this show more and more despite the few hits and misses and I really like the story it’s trying to tell here, especially with the flashbacks on this episode serving as a framing device as mentioned here earlier.

Just a couple things linger on my mind now:

• I don’t think Hayden does a good job portraying David Prowse’s body language as OT Vader, although that can be justified as hes like in his mid 30s in the timeline, so theres still that brash anger, hatred and angst in his movements.

• It’s funny how Lucasfilm spends so much money for deepfaking Luke, but they decide to throw Hayden in his Prequel-era clothes and went “that will work haha” on it.

• I also have a wild theory that since Episode 6 most likely has the actual duel on it, and thus the biggest percentage of the small budget this series had to work with, the earlier duel (from EP3 or EP4, I can’t remember) was sort of an after-thought and looked like a sleazy low-budget fan film, which also works unexpectedly since the original Star Wars also ran with a shoe-string budget for it’s sets. (However comparing to Kenobi, they do look alot more authentic and lived in rather than the spray-painted dirt on the buildings like in the show)

Just one more thing… (POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 6)

I read the rumors or leaks(?) that Reva will save Luke and thus ret-con the entire OT, which I think gets more and more unlikely as time goes on as long as Luke doesn’t even know about it and is happily playing in the homestead, which I think is what the show will likely do. Reva will probably do some self-sacrificing manuever like convincing Vader that nothing is on Tatooine, or killing herself off or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqJbJYViUog&t=574s

This video breaks down the entire Battle of Yavin sequence in the best way possible.

I totally now understand why the Prequel or Sequel, or even ESB and ROTJ didn’t have much of an effect on the space battles than it did on A New Hope. The scene was shot and edited so cleverly, from the juxtaposition of militaristic lingo and terminology from Red Leader to the freeflowing soundtrack, and the brilliant use of sound design (like how the soundtrack completely mutes itself when the TIE fighters arrive, adding tension without the need for a score and only using the sharp distressing sounds of it’s engines) and the thematic aspects (as the title suggests, that the targeting computer was never going to work, which is still in line with one of the many themes in the story: technology can not overpower the Force) all lining to create such a brilliant scene that makes such a lasting memory to the audience.

Now that I think about it, all the space battles thereafter it (like the Battle of Hoth, DS II spacefight, prequel and sequel fights) were more flashy and couldn’t capture the same the thematic importance as the first movie. Even the pilot’s lingo was more loose just to sound superficially cool to the audience.

On the defense of the duel looking atrocious, I feel as though the way they shot it with the blocking and cinematography reminds me of late 70’s B-movie horror flicks in it’s amateurish way of it being filmed. In a way, it circles back to how A New Hope’s lightsaber duel looked and how absolutely atrocious and terrible it was with Alec and David swinging the spinning rods as carefully as possible. I can forgive the fight for being off as it kinda reflected how the fighting style in ANH would look if you were to watch this chronologically.

So far I’m pretty okay with the series and I feel indifference towards all the characters except Kenobi and Vader, and I don’t really have much to complain or praise for Reva, the Grand Inquistor or anybody else. I just think that you can miss this show and nothing wouldn’t really change since we do know what happens after this show and all that.

Well, I think there are 3 pixels in Luke’s X-Wing in the Battle of Yavin that wasnt there when they show his ship after they destroyed the Death Star. I think that should be fixed!

Hal 9000 said:

ANH is waiting on Dat_SW_Guy’s project, but the slight audio update to the others could be put out soon but I’d like to wait a little bit to see if anything else presents itself for them first.

I can send some files for you if you want, as I think my project is still at a snail’s pace as it were last time.

First post here, I finished the final episode but it just felt lackluster in how it was done. The fight and blaster scenes look quite bland and not enough power or veracity, making them look like they were toy props with a blaster effect slapped over After Effects. The choreography also felt uninspired and not enough “action” to it. (I know I shouldn’t expect much but this is just… eh.)

I wish they could’ve done more with it, especially with Cad Bane and Grogu. Speaking of which, the one thing that really didn’t sit right with me is how they reunited Grogu and Mando and completely took away the somber ending of Mando S2.

All in all, I expected a little bit too much out of this show and it eventually bit me in the ass with it. There were some great parts (my favorite being Episode 6) but overall it didn’t stick the landing for me and ended up become a let-down. I hope they do something else next time and do it right, especially with the Kenobi show coming around the corner.

May I ask for a link?