Hey guys, took a lot longer than I thought but I now have a thread about an Chapter 16.5 of the Mandalorian. It’s here: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Mandalorian-Improved-Chapters/id/103346
This thread is a place for telling about my modified chapters of the Mando series. For now there is only one:
This edit is a chapter of The Mandalorian 16.5, set between Seasons 2 and 3. It reunites Mando and Grogu on the Luke’s training planet by combining the mandalorian parts of Book of Boba Fett episodes 5,6 and modified shots of 7 into one episode. With this edit, BoBF can be skipped for those who thought that show just didn’t work. It was a baffling choice to put the reunion into a different show since it’s such a big plot point. 13 modified shots were needed to reunite Mando and Grogu. They go by pretty fast in the final footage. 😅 Some of these were more difficult than I thought initially, so I didn’t get this out before season 3 start as I planned. But this can help with re-watch marathons.
ALSO: No spoilers for Season 3 please! I’m trying to set aside some time to binge me some SW
4K shots of episode 7 were used to make some of the reunion footage. It had to be stabilized in AE because the original reunion happened on the moving cart. The resulting HD image is “zoomed in”. Also the motion blur caused problems on those shots. I had to replicate and delete some frames and animate stills into footage to reduce it’s effects. The result is not 100% authentic but close enough for my taste. Also some AI tools used to help with the result.
In the edit chapter 5 plays out as original on the ring world but the edits begin when landing on Tatoiine to build a custom Naboo N1 starfighter. Jawas are gone and jokes about dating them plus some other silliness that was easy to cut without extensive audio editing work. The test drive and the run-in with the x-wing “cops” continues straight to episode 6 footage and to the Luke’s planet.
The training scenes have been moved around. In the original Luke and Grogu leave the hilltop to go for a walk. When Ashoka takes Mando near them, they are back on the hilltop. In this edit Luke & Grogu start with running/ walking scenes and end up on a hilltop for Mando to see them. In the hut Luke doesn’t give Grogu a strict ultimatum to choose between armor shirt and saber, it’s implied that he just wants Grogu to understand that the training will dominate the jedi’s life and he won’t be seeing Mando much. Ashoka is a more strict one in this edit with the old jedi code. Luke also doesn’t offer Yoda’s saber to Grogu because giving a lethal energy blade weapon to a toddler is not wise teaching. He just shows it to him to give more motivation for training.
There is off course the question of what Mando is still doing on the planet after sent away by Ashoka. This is up to the viewer. Maybe he was still a little upset and was using the lively environment to relax or maybe took a nap on the bench made for him by the builder droids. 😉
There are also a couple of smaller changes:
-I cut Ashoka’s two fan service lines that require knowledge from the animated shows.
-Lighsaber colors for Luke’s and Yoda’s sabers are switched more to pure green from tealish color. Also the effect of lightsaber prop’s dim core is fixed to look like the old school effect:
-Grogu gets his order 66 PTS incident during Luke’s lighsaber training. That way it’s more fresh on viewer’s mind and plays into his choice in the hut to reunite with Mando.
-I modified the training remote to fire smaller lasers and recolored it more to the orange which was the remote’s laser color in ANH I believe. Also the first blast near Grogu is smaller and not in his face so much. The thought here is that Luke sets the remote to smallest setting to compensate for Grogu’s size.
Runtime: 1 h, 9 mins
File: MKV, contains MP4 video and 5.1 EAC3 and AC3- tracks
Size: 4,7 G
My other edits:
The Phantom Menace - Improved Edition: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Phantom-Menace-Improved-Edition-10-years-on-the-forum-edit-Released/id/91544
Avengers: Age of Ultron – Improved Edition : https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Avengers-Age-of-Ultron-Improved-Edition/id/65907
Prometheus - Improved edition: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Prometheus-Improved-edition-Released/id/68622
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 - Improved-Edition: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Guardians-of-the-Galaxy-Vol-2-Improved-Edition-Released/id/73451
Iron Man 3 - Cut and Chromed Edition: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Iron-Man-3-Cut-and-Chromed-Edition-Released/id/87734
I’m trying to cook up something just like this before next season starts. A bridge Mandalorian episode between seasons 2 & 3 using BOBF episodes 5, 6 and some bits of 7. Any ideas for the title? Anyway, I’ll try to have a lean work process so hopefully it’s out before first of March.
I would be interested in the newest version as well, looks awesome!
I agree with many of you, this show is amazing! Gilroy manages to expand the GFFA with new aspects and stories and make them interesting with great writing and the actors deliver with their performances. Tired, easy tropes are left in the background, we barely see x-wings, TIEs show up for a few moments and stormtroopers are in the background until the season finale. Gilroy not being a big SW fan really helped the show, as he probably had sort of a outsider eye for the whole thing. And they still have some hardcore fans in the production to make the world’s details match with what has come before. The fan service is organic and not in your face.
The first two episodes could probably have been edited down to one episode but otherwise I really liked the pacing too. This feels like a proper series it was developed as when comparing to Boba and Kenobi with their their six episode runs that still didn’t have enough plot (or it was stupid). This and The Mandalorian compete for the best SW tv, depending on the mood. Andor is way more original though and I have a big respect for it because of that.
I was looking for the deleted scene of Duel of Fates when I found my way here.
Only to find that you guys have integrated all those deleted scenes into the actual movie!Can you send me a link, please?
I sent you a PM, if you like to check out my edit. It only has shots of BTS footage of the fight that I added effects to. If you are after more shots of the fight in reactor room and other deleted scenes, then The Phantom Menace - Expanded Edition by Bobson Dugnutt might be for you. It has all the deleted scenes added to the movie.
PMs were sent your way.
I would like to get the link too please!
I had the same idea to (at some point) try to reuse the Reva on homestead- scenes as a Tusken attack! And try to get Obi-Wan have some role as well. It will get rid of the stupid Reva conclusion and give us more footage of protecting Luke from everyday threats on Tatooine. Interested to see the final product!
Has anybody tried completing the deleted scene of Maul jumping onto the ship and getting knocked off during the desert duel?
Thanks for the reviews!
That extended fight on the ramp is even lower quality than dvd BTS footage despite being on Bluray extras. It’s so raw that it’s just not usable.
After some tinkering and training, I’ve officially given up on putting Samuel L. Jackson’s face onto the background fill-in. It would just be better to digitally map Jackson’s face onto him. I’m moving onto my planned Qui-Gon deepfake, which I may upload to my YouTube channel.
I tried tipping my toes into deepfaking to replace the double’s face for my edit. I think the algorithm doesn’t like faces far away in the picture. It managed to only generate a frame here and there. I ended up using those frames as reference for where the new face should be and just masked Samuel’s face to the shots using Ep2’s deleted scene for the face footage.
I also have always disliked Dooku having a lightning force power, for the same reason: It should be saved for Palpatine to show he’s the most evil of the Sith.
I have been toying around with the scene myself in the past. It’s easy to remove against Obi with editing but the problem is Anakin. I tried to switch the lightning into some kind of force wind type power by taking the blue color out and blurring the lightning bolts. Better result could be to remove as much as possible, as you have done Mxylv, and use some kind of effect on top of it.
I would like to see how far you can take the removal. It would be a valuable asset for fan editors if you are willing to share the shots in high quality.
I surprise return but a welcome one!
I think many of us have been worried this project would not be continuing but I’m so glad it is! Of course sorting out the other stuff in life when needed is more important, so you don’t owe us anything. Your work has been influential already as you are credited in at least one of the TMP edits. 😉
Let’s hope you can retrieve your old files!
I’m just surprised you’d make that decision based on a lightsaber spin.
I can’t believe we’re having a discussion about the believability of a spinning lightsaber and it’s not the double-bladed levitating helicopter sword.
It doesn’t have to be a levitating helicopter sword for me to break the suspension of disbelief. Weren’t the hilts of the sabers illustrated as being full of tech needed to produce the blade in the visual guides? There’s no way all that tech fits in that small piece of metal that spins with the blades of the Grand Inquisitors weapon. I know it’s a design from Rebels but it’s just a little too unbelievable in live action, even for a space tech.
Otherwise I’m hoping to get a pretty good series.
What was the source of this version? The 2011 Blu-Ray, or the 2020 Blu-Ray? The former is 2.35:1, and the latter is 2:39.1. I’m asking because I prefer the latter, to match the 4K Star Wars Blu-Rays I own.
The edit uses the the Kk650’s regraded version, based on the 2011 bluray version as a source. KK’s version also has an added layer of grain to make it look more filmic and “bring out” some detail lost in the original DNR process.
I wouldn’t give too much credit to the 2020 versions. They seem to be made lazily from the same source file as 2011, only cropped and colored slightly differently. In case of the TPM, the picture barely has any new detail if at all:
https://ultrahd.highdefdigest.com/82130/starwarsepisodeithephantommenace4kultrahdbluray.html
OT did receive an update in resolution but even those films don’t seem to have the color range of real UHD, I think it’s safe to assume the same of the prequels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGZmMjPJiAk
So you get (almost?) no improvements but less picture with the 2020 cropping.
What programs and settings did you use to fix all of those continuity errors? Is it possible for me to replicate them on my own?
All my fixes are done with the Adobe programs, so if you have Premiere, Photoshop and After Effects you could replicate them with a lot of time and patience.
Your edit is great, especially the extended version of the Duel of Fates with BTS footage. And could I ask you to send me the fixed shots of Obi-Wan on Naboo from above, but in their full length without cutting Jar Jar moments, if you have them, please?
😀
The problem here is that I cut the footage first and then added the effects to not make any extra work. The automatic tracking of the new braid was not good enough and I had to manually do corrections frame by frame. Even if I would have the whole shot of the speech done, in the next shot (“This way, hurry!”) the braid is also on his back and I cut that shot completely. 😄
The other shots in the post above are complete though. Because of KK650’s source file, my continuity fixes would look little different from the rest of the footage though, if the basic bluray was used as the source elsewhere.
I was supposed to write this last post about the edit changes many months ago but other things came up so here I go…
CONTINUITY
There are many shots altered subtly or more noticeably to improve the continuity of the movie. One of these scenes is the resque of the queen at the beginning of the movie. The lighting of the scene of droids taking the queen’s party to the camps changes from shot to shot. Some of the shifting of the shadows can be waved off as the convoy just taking some turns around the corners off screen. But there are two shots back to back that have totally different lighting… A dawnish looking shot on the balcony, where the jedi are drawing their saber hilts out just before jumping down and the next shot of the convoy with completely overcast weather. When the jedi actually jump down, the shot has again dawnish lighting with orange sunlight hitting the top parts of buildings in the background. So I added that dawnish lighting to the overcast shot to mix better with the shot preceding and following it.
To previous shot I also added an effect of it getting cloudy to match the lighting to the following shot (some tedious masking needed to be done for both shots):
There is a closeup of Shmi looking at her view screen during the podrace. The problem is the screen looks totally different in that shot compared to the rest of the shots with her holding that screen. So I added a photoshopped element to the closeup with the side holding handles and other more subtle details to make it match.
Obi-Wan’s braid
I really wish that they had a ”Jedi braid continuity person” on set at all times because Obi-Wan’s padawan braid keeps changing sides. The most famous shots must be on Tatooine desert. I guess they just attached it to the wrong side on the day of filming and nobody noticed. With the shot from the front I had to build a new part of the tunic and a new part of the neck for him to cover the braid up. I also had to have a partly new background with a moving Eopie no less AND add a new braid to the right side. I decided that it rests on his backside and is mostly hidden though, to give myself some slack.
In Otoh gunga the whole Obi was flipped, maybe on purpose to look in the same general direction as Jar Jar. So I flipped him back and changed Jar Jar’s eyeline a little bit to match his instead of the other way around.
There is also the ”If they finds us, they will crush us” scare speech to Jar Jar where the braid is on his back side and twitches visible during his speech. The braid doesn’t match the previous shots though so I wanted to fix it. This was another really brutal amount of work, because I had to replace parts of his head, tunic and background and make a new braid and it’s shadow. Techniques used were some photoshop layers here to cover things up, some ebysynth there to automatically generate some frames and an AE rigged animation element for the new braid consisting of many image parts.
The saber fight
During the end saber fight Obi falls to the platform below. However his lightsaber rolls and stops between a lit platform tile and a normal one. It doesn’t match the shot when he jumps back on the platform since there the saber is neatly between two lit tiles. Also the tile pattern changes between shots. So I decided to make those shots match better.
After been done with the previous shot I also noticed that in the latter shot I had to flip the saber to face the other way to match the new saber rolling on the surface in the previous shot. The saber is briefly off screen when Obi picks it up so you have to just suspend your belief that he flipped it to face the right way as he was picking it up. In hindsight it could have been easier to just make the saber in the second shot match the first shot. 😅
When we come back to the reactor room fight after the Queen’s vertical zip lining, there is a frustrating cut in the middle of the fight. We start with a stylish vertical pan shot, but then the movie cut’s straight to closeups of the jedi swinging their sabers at Maul. In the next shot the fighters are suddenly right in front of the beam. So there is a missing footage of them moving to the front of it. You can see the missing fight choreography in the DVD behind the scenes documents. It’s puzzling why they even cut only about 4 seconds of the fight and created this continuity error. I mean if it’s because of the running time, surely there would have been plenty of some other less exciting seconds to cut in the movie. Anyway…
In the BTS footage you can see the crew filming the fight so it’s not exactly footage meant for the film. It’s handheld and I also don’t know what camera they used to film it but I decided to try if I could finish the effects in it. I again used the Topaz video upscaler and run the footage through it. I then ran it through AE’s stabilising algorithm to get a more stable picture. I decided it was good enough upscaled to try to add the effects. The upscaling had some side effects: check out Qui Gon’s nightmarish face. So some of his face had to also be replaced from footage elsewhere.
I brought in Photoshop- and footage elements I borrowed from other shots. I had to recreate the platform in this first shot because the crew was blocking some of it and my upscale didn’t work on its rectangular shapes that well. I also needed to create a layer for the beam’s glow and place it behind the beam footage. I was too lazy to learn any new techniques at this point so I just used the same kind of method I used for the lightsabers. I had to make a mask in the new layers for every character to get them to show on top of them and to get the beam glow to wrap around them. Also some glow and shadows were added to the platform. New elements are all in HD and only the fighters themselves are upscales. The first shot is only 2 seconds long and the glow of the beam that they fight in front of hides the lower quality footage of the fighters quite well during that time.
I also ran this second shot through the AE’s stabilising algorithm after the upscale. Twice was needed this time but it gave it a nice slight zoom out effect. This time I could leave in the original platform, but for the first frames of Obi entering the shot I had to build him some legs in Photoshop, because the dolly of the crew was blocking the view of them. Otherwise the process was kind of the same though I manipulated the color of the fighters a little bit, taking out the blue haze that was bleeding onto them form bg bluescreen. This is only one second long shot and I think it works fine as well.
The score and sound effects had to be extended for the scene’s new length. For the new shots I recycled some lightsaber sounds from elsewhere and added the original music. I isolated the fighting sounds from the next shots of the jedi swinging at Maul and put in some Duel of the fates- beats from the end credits. This way the original score rhythm already returns before Maul kicks Obi off the ledge.
Now with the two finished shots from BTS footage, the fight does not have such a clear continuity problem and it flows a lot better:
At the very end of the fighting, Maul force pushes Obi with his left hand now as he is holding his saber on his right hand in the wide shot after it. Also some saber color and braid position fixing applied.
Oh and Maul gets a facelift for his shot of tumbling down in the reactor pit. 😉
Hey it’s great to have this thread to collectively try new things. This could produce some great new shots for future edits. And all the new helpful tech like AI speech softwares… my oh my. 😛
About the idea of Qui Gon speaking to Anakin through the Force while still alive (some pages back): While the idea is pretty well executed in the test video, I always thought that the one ability the Jedi can harness only in the force afterlife is giving wisdom straight to the pupils mind. For me, that’s one of the main points why Obi sacrificed himself in Ep. IV as he was getting old for the ”living battles”. I mean, what is the benefit of the sacrifice otherwise?
I’m interested about the ideas of reshuffling the beginning, from the effects point of view. Ships and escape pods are probably the best way to start practising 3D modelling since they have very few moving parts. Does anyone know which is better for creating cinemating objects and environments now, Blender or Unreal engine 5? And which is easier to learn from scratch?
And very cool to get a mention in the first post.😉
Damn, that looks impressive! The Endor forest looks much more lush and appealing. Is the light between trees some sort of out of the box effect? Where do you pull your new background from, are they work found from the net, do you make them in photoshop, 3d models? I’m interested in your process.
Hey Venny, you might want to check this out, some group called Double ‘O’ Productions has done the CC and audio fix plus a lot of subtle effects work to fix some continuity problems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vAzeRnOUF4
Haven’t seen their version yet, but their work does seem impressive in the youtube video.
A PM has been sent your way, JKMaxx!
Could i please grab a link - i’d love to check this version out. On a real TPM fan-edit binge at the moment trying to see what is the one that works well for me.
Thanks 😃
You re a brave one watching TPM many times in a row. 😉 I sent you a PM. My edit is guaranteed to have a few shots that aren’t found on any other edit to keep it a little more fresh!
I find the community month focus quiet interesting to gather further ideas 😃
Thanks to eddie
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Community-Focus-Month-1-The-Phantom-Menace/id/92079/page/1
Yeah, I checked the thread out, very interesting! And funny that after we talked about it, we now have a collaborative effort for the movie. Maybe Alaskansandman’s ideas can be done now!
Would you mind muxing in a AC3 track with 640 kb/s?
The audio is mixed as 640 kb/s but Premiere cs6 only gives you the output option of ACC when working from AC3. I would be interested in getting tips how to convert it to AC3 of higher quality if someone knows.
- the lights of naboo are neat, but as we see the ship approaching closer to the planet (second cockpit shot), they are gone.
I checked this again. I have modified the shot to have a brighter planet so leaving out the city lights was a decision I made because the ship moves quite a lot in relation to the planet. So you could just think the previously seen lights are off screen. The real reason being that adding the lights was difficult to track and time consuming. But I might try to add them for a future update to get the shots more consistent.
I did this quick edit just to see the gag but I think it’s too jokey. I’m on the fence whether to keep that single Jar Jar moment at all, in its proper place, but definitely cutting the first tongue shot. I go between not liking the antics and thinking a Gungan creature is not theoretically a bad idea that can work if toned down.
Okay that is brilliant.
I agree, that is a great edit. 😃 I don’t think it’s too much humour for the scene and shows that even Qui-Gon is annoyed with Jar Jar.
Some PMs have been sent
So, i watched it today. Overall i grew fond of it. The technical changes are impressive.
I took some notes while watching:
- video quality various often (in theatrical scenes ), especially on tatooine and deleted scenes pop out (maybe use topaz AI again, if you have the paid version?)
This is a problem of the source so probably not all shots can be fixed. I only have a 50" screen and I think it looks OK there but difference in quality might be more noticeable for larger ones.
- did you do something to the audo stream? the center channel with the dialogue is quite low-keyed. Overall the audio seamed to be quieter than usual, because i had to ramp up my volume by +16. When i switched to another movie had to turn it down again by -16.
I didn’t turn down audio on any channels. Off source it’s only in ACC format so it might not have the ooph of larger file size tracks.
- the lights of naboo are neat, but as we see approaching the ship closer to the planet (second cockpit shot), they are gone.
Damn, you are right! I can’t believe I missed it! 😦 Welp, I guess I have to do version 2.
- the beginning with the ambassador (jedi): place ship explosion after gas entering room where jedi sit. My suggestion even though i know you had written “supposedly” the jedi didn´t notice, i found myself questioning while watching “why do the jedi sit there and we didn´t even see them flinch an eye as the ship in the hangar with its people got blown up?”
This is a small problem created by the editing of the scene but there is no footage to make the jedi react more subtly to explosion. So they are just not “showing their hand” yet.
- force jump to escape the droidika, nice idea (but contradictory to later when obi-wan is running towards maul and qui-gon, why isn´t he using it there). So maybe get rid of it?
This is kind of needed to end the scene. The force speed is maybe dangerous to use in environment of big vertical drops? Doesn’t bother me too much.
- 15:00 journey underwater to naboo, i think it´s not necessary. It can be cut completly
I know the scene is unpopular, but it’s the Random Monster of the Movie- scene. Personal preference thing.
- 29:30 why is anakin suddenly with them after qui-gon and padme left wattos place?
I mean to imply that he ran into them while going home from work. It kind of happens the same in original too.
- Also during the visit subtitles for watto and anakin talking would be nice
- 41:52 sebulba and anakin subtitles would be nice, too
I thought I muxed the subtitles in, are you sure they were on?
- 44:12 jar jar talks, no sound, frame that shouldn´t be there?
He’s meant to be sighing silently in relief. Not the best looking shot I know, but the footage of him being subtle is very limited. 😄
- 1:18:23 gangun subtitles, would be nice also
Official subtitles don’t include gunguns, so I didn’t add them either.
Thanks for the feedback, this is good info. I see what I can do and might publish V2 at some point.