Interesting. What’re your biggest cuts? What’re your biggest changes? What’s the rough chronology? How do you deal with Boba Fett’s flashbacks versus ‘present day’ content?
I’m cool with the reasoning of ‘it’s just Star Wars’, and definitely not looking to shove my opinion around here. It’s just something I feel that only the OT does, that personally takes me out of it, that I can see the special editions (and a fan even-more-special special edition) choosing to excise. But it’s no problem!
All gorgeous, though I question the need for the yellow oval flashes when blades clash. I assumed you’d be removing those, since that’s not how light works!
I’m happy to do all the planning for this if someone else fancied doing the execution (which might feature mainly audio editing, which I’m weaker with). I could produce a very clear spreadsheet to make the execution straightforward.
Exactly! It just feels natural, right? But I don’t want to cut a frame, since that show knows exactly what it’s doing.
I’ve just gone through to check the feasability of this, using the always-excellent technique of editing/planning from back to front. You start with the end, then you work out the pieces that support all the payoff you get there.
So with that, movie 4 opens with Andor and Melchi on Narkina 5 (having escaped the prison), slowly making their way back to Niamos. Vel (on Luthen’s behalf) puts the hit out on Andor, increasing the threat for him and throwing more shade on Luthen’s character, which we’ll explore this arc.) While that’s happening, Maarva has fallen ill, and is being looked after by Bix, and Luthen is notified. He goes to meet Saw, kicking off the cat-and-mouse with the Imperials regarding the Kreegyr storyline (including Luthen’s fantastic speech), which compels Dedra to capture and interrogate Bix. Mon Mothma has her side story about pimping out her daughter. Maarva dies, which then draws many characters to Ferrix in hopes of capturing Andor, leading to the conclusions. I can envision that as one nice coherent content chunk.
Movie 3 then is as above, but without the elements mentioned here.
Luke and Leia have been siblings now for 40 years. Their sibling status is referenced in hundreds of pieces of media, and a major plot point in many. I don’t think anyone’s getting that boulder to the top of the hill - when the far easier path is to trim a handful of scenes in two pieces of media to remove any romantic implication.
Please send me a PM for links.
All four movies are completely complete, highly polished, and available now!
Gorgeous poster by ArtIsDead over on the fanedit.org forums.
This is for people who think “Please don’t edit Andor, it’s already perfect… I’d take it as movies though.”
This is Andor season one, rearranged into four movies of roughly two hours each, removing no content whatsoever, just focused on each of the four main arcs and rearranging some scenes to keep as much relevant content as possible contained to those arcs’ movies, for slightly easier focus and consumption.
I’ve managed to preserve almost every last frame and beat. I’m only trimming anything at all in order to smooth audio flow across transitions, or to enable me to find appropriate new homes for montage scenes which needed to shift. To illustrate how little I’ve had to change beyond rearranging scenes and making the audio work, here’s the (almost) full list:
The movies play out as follows:
NFBisms deserves a huge amount of credit for the highly polished quality of the final (v2.0) versions. He produced over 20 audio transitions, including some covering multiple scenes. He also contributed a major structural piece to movie 4, and an even larger piece of work throughout movie 3, reordering and then fully rescoring whole sections. The last 5% of polish has taken the most work, and I couldn’t have done this without him. His efforts were huge and can’t be understated - thanks so much!
No worries! Friends over on originaltrilogy forums have released other Andor cuts which might be more to your tastes:
Oh nice Nells, cheers for the recommendations! I’d take a look at yours if you’ll share the links, and point me to their threads/info pages please?
honestabe, it’s kind of just that list above for now, I just thought I’d share how I order the movies.
I agree that the non-MCU Spider-Man movies should be watched before No Way Home, but I guess there’s three approaches:
Same deal really applies with X-Men. If you try to interweave them, it muddies the water, but if you try to put them to one side, you eventually have to deep-dive them which interrupts the MCU watch.
As for actual edits, I’m not desperate for radical changes, but I’d be interested to know which edits people recommend. I might start compiling that information.
As for getting more valuable discussion on FanEdit.org or Reddit, sure, but I like you guys more! ❤️
Does it? What does it show?
I honestly haven’t seen many edits of the MCU. The main issues people have had are the misplaced Marvel humour, which I don’t really mind, and a handful of more recent movies and series being a bit weaker than average, which are disappointing but I kinda just roll with.
That said, the Agent Carter TV-to-movie edit tightens it perfectly (I forget who made it but it’s in Reddit), and our boy Spence has made a brilliant TV-to-movie edit of Falcon and Winter Soldier. I’d be interested in more series becoming movies, but most of them I’m happy with in their current form.
I generally really like the whole MCU, and the fact that it’s quickly becoming as chaotic as the comics is fun to me. Hence why I’m not looking to do anything radical here, just making it easier to digest.
If there’s interest I might flesh this out with where I’d put all the post-credit scenes. I’m not looking to make a true-chronological edit, the movies still have to work as their own thing. But I might look to shift the post-credit scenes to make this as smooth as possible.
This isn’t a fanedit (as it doesn’t change the content of any movies) so much as my thoughts on an alternate watch order to maximise coherence when watching the whole of the MCU, and thus maximise enjoyment and minimise cogintive load. I’m really just putting it here for discussion and consideration, to share my preferred watch order. Well, I say it’s not a fanedit, but read through to the end…
Goals:
The main thing I think this improves is the bloat in Phase 4, where almost every movie or show set up plot threads and characters that won’t get paid off for years.
It’s intended to work as pretty-much chronological, but following a more natural flow than the official ordering, without breaking anything. It ignores any on-screen dates (some of which are officially wrong anyway), flashbacks (like Homecoming’s flashbacks to just after the battle of New York) and post-credit scenes set significantly later (like Black Widow’s scene at her grave in a movie set mainly long before she died), so it probably isn’t best for a first time viewer.
I only include direct MCU movies/shows here, not the Netflix or other spinoffs, except when they’re directly and deliberately involved in a significant way.
I’ll add comments in brackets wherever there’s a relevant change.
PHASE ONE: TESSERACT
The Tesseract, Asgardian influence on Earth, and the emergence of Earth’s first wave of superheroes.
PHASE TWO: ESCALATION
The direct result of events in phase one, and growing internal and cosmic conflict.
PHASE THREE: DISASSEMBLED
Deals with the fallout of Civil War, the introduction of the second wave of all-new superheroes, and the conclusion of the Infinity/Thanos arc.
PHASE FOUR: VARIANTS
Introduces the Multiverse and variants of/successors to our existing characters, and closes out the Guardians story.
This is where I’ve done the most ‘cleaning’, removing things that don’t pay off yet. There’s no active Avengers team, with Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and Wanda as the main characters of this arc.
PHASE FIVE: NEW FRONTIERS
Introduces the third generation of all-new superheroes, and more hidden societies emerge on Earth while non-Earth settings get wilder.
This one’s still in flux, but has a few of the items not yet placed (and some future media placed based on pre-release information like casting)
PHASE FIVE CONTINUED - SPOILERS AHEAD BASED ON RUMOURED LEAKS
Other future content we know less about. Echo will lead into Daredevil, and Ironheart will likely lead into Armor Wars, but we don’t know the links between anything else.
RELEASED BUT NOT YET PLACED
NON-MCU MEDIA
While these are due to become relevant, I haven’t decided where to place them yet, so they’re just floating for now.
The big thing for me is that these mainly make sense after introducing the Multiverse, but that then really pads phases four and five. Last time I watched I did a big non-MCU Spider-Man binge just before No Way Home, which was fine, though you might prefer to watch those alternate Spider-Man movies before his introduction in the MCU. I’ve no idea where to place the X-Men, and especially Deadpool, relative to all this.
I’m interested in your thoughts! I don’t plan to make any edits, but I’d consider shifting things like post-credit scenes around to fit this structure if there’s sufficient interest.
Wonderful to hear, buddy! Those synopses serve a very important role so I’m glad they’ve been well received. I put as much effort into the mundane presentation as editing the content itself, but I think it’s borne out! It only gets better from where you are.
Yeah, I think that underwater sequence worked just fine. Best of both worlds.
I thought the wound tending was absolutely fine- basically all of Tattooine I thought flowed really nicely.
I never had a problem with C-3PO being made by Anakin (though Hal’s middle ground is good too), but didn’t miss it too much. How will your edit eventually have him join the plot? I hope in time for the Clone Wars?
The only thing I’d suggest for your consideration is a slight reordering during the final act:
We’re told that the Gungans showing up on the plains is nothing more than a distraction to draw out the droids so that Padme/Qui-Gon etc can infiltrate Theed. We see the Gungans come out, the droids come out to meet them, the opening salvo is fired, and then we cut away to the action in Theed.
But here’s the thing - from then onwards, the plot on the plains, the entire battle, is now completely redundant. It has no jeopardy, because it’s already served its purpose of drawing the droids out of Theed, and whether or not the Gungans win has no impact whatsoever on the battle for Theed palace or the droid control ship. Sure, some Gungans might die, but nobody has any emotional investment in Jar Jar, Boss Nass, or Tarpals, and other than them it’s just faceless CG Gungans versus faceless CG droids.
The only value this sequence has is in showing that the droids are theoretically a threat since they are a functional army that could reasonably threaten Theed, and eventually, the light additional ‘things are going badly’ sense from seeing the Gungans surrendered.
Shifting the Gungan sequence’s conclusion to far earlier during the narrative of the endings would resolve this, and also allow it to serve a further purpose - to emphasise the threat of the droid army and leave it hanging over our main characters, making Anakin’s destruction of the control ship worth a little more.
It’s very achievable too. The closing shot of the first Gungan scene (opening salvo) matches perfectly to the opening shot of the second Gungan scene (closing salvo), and there doesn’t need to be a gap of time here to imply that the salvo went on for a little while - just what we see is plenty, and actually shows that the Gungan shield tech is respectable. The rest of the scenes can be brought forward alongside this change. The only other actual change to this sequence I’d make is that there’s a nice clear shot of droidekas firing off-frame (originally paired with Gungans falling off their horses) with the shot of the shield generator’s exploding (originally with no preceding shot to explain why it explodes).
Very good. Frankly it’s a very smooth piece of work, doing nothing radical but tightening it all up. It doesn’t feel fanedity at all. I quite like how you didn’t go “too far” with anything: Keeping a handful of the elements people tend to object to, such as Jar Jar’s goofiness, has borne out nicely. Edits which seek to remove all of those things can feel more harshly cut, whereas it turns out they’re fine in smaller doses.
I haven’t compared this back to other leading edits, but clearly, this is an excellent version, which even at the very worst would make a great baseline to reintroduce the viewer’s preferred other tweaks into, and at the best, is an extremely strong version of this film.
I’m just watching TPM now, and it seems perfectly smooth so far. I only spotted a couple of edits, all for the best, and everything generally feels a bit more punchy and tight. Can I get a changelog please, or at least a list of the main changes that come to mind?
Pick me, pick me! Looking forward to yet another TPM.
What about using AI for Billy Dee Williams, saying either “I’ve been broadcasting your message” or having Finn ask him to signal boost?
Could the civilian fleet be “stormtroopers have risen up around the galaxy and helped mobilise civilian vessels into a military fleet” or something?
Maybe even mask parts of stormtrooper armour over a couple of random civilians in those shots?
Yes, I haven’t edited that content, it’s just recommended that you watch it as part of this. You can view it on Disney+.
I agree, I think the saber split is relevant here. What we’ve done with the crackle to emphasise that Rey’s struggling with the light is worth trying in to her still being an unknown entity without a settled identity.