Eyepainter

stretch009 said:

Recently Wraith did an extended Chronological fanedit of T.H.8. What do you think of also doing yours in chronological order? (alternate version)

I have no plans to do a chronological version for two reasons: 1. Wraith already did it, and 2. I prefer Tarantino’s non-linear storytelling over the linear stuff he did in his later years. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are my two favorites from Tarantino, and I just don’t have any enthusiasm for trying to go chronological with this.

Anyway, it took me longer than I expected to take a look at the edit, but I finally looked for any exporting issues. I found some compression artifacts on the coffee pot during the Domergue’s Got a Secret flashback. I’m proceeding to correct it at once. I also felt like the full-color Chester Charles Smithers flashback scenes looked off compared to the rest of the film since I had already messed with the color grading on The Four Passengers and the Domergue’s Got a Secret flashback. So I decided to once again mess around with the color grading on that scene. I thinking, this time, of throwing in a magenta-ish cast to give it the look of a bad '70s film print where the color is fading. To give you an idea of what faded film looks like, here’s a video:

https://youtu.be/WMjEW1W9rpU?si=fs1m-VppxEgYo4bw

Just to reiterate, I haven’t decided whether to stick with this aesthetic or not. It’s just the first one that popped into my head. Let me know your thoughts.

It’s been a while since I last updated everyone, so here goes.

I’m currently working on the finishing touches and gonna try to give my edit a look soon for any exporting issues I may have missed. In a nutshell, the edit is almost complete. I don’t know when I’ll start releasing it, but I’m confident it will be soon.

Back from vacation. Edit is released now. You are free to send PMs.

I’m gonna be on vacation with my roommate and friends until Tuesday, so I will not be working on the edit until I get back. Rest assured that things are going well with the edit so far, and if things stay on their projected course, we could have a finished edit sometime in the next couple of weeks. Until then, I’ll see you guys later!

Okay, my apologies. I am about to go on vacation now, and I forgot to work on releasing the edit. Rest assured that I will be getting to work on releasing the edit as soon as I get back. Until then, I’ll see you guys later!

Just checked up to make sure everything is looking fine with the edit. I think everything checks out except for the subtitled commentary track. For some reason, it won’t work when I watch the edit via my blu-ray player. However, the track works perfectly with VLC, so I guess that will have to suffice.

I will be going on vacation with my roommate for a week, so I’m anxious to get this uploaded before I leave. Be on the lookout for a change in the WIP status this week.

I’m gonna do some testing on the subtitles, but I think I’ve gotten the technical difficulties sorted out. Once I’ve gotten all the kinks sorted out, the edit should be ready for release.

Got some technical difficulties going on with exporting the commentary subtitle track. My apologies. I’ll let everyone know when I’ve gotten it sorted out.

Paradox changes subtitle track is just about complete. Gonna work on polishing things up, and I think the edit will be close to ready.

Got another change to report. I decided to change the flashback of Domergue’s Got a Secret to from color to black-and-white. Since I already gave The Four Passengers the sepia tone treatment, I felt that it wouldn’t hurt to take it further by doing something similar to the Domergue flashback. The main reason I don’t just go for sepia like The Four Passengers is because Tarantino is notorious for being inconsistent with the visuals, and thus, it felt more stylistically appropriate to go with B&W this time around.

I’ve just come up with another change. In the edit I’ve made so far, I didn’t know what to do about John and Daisy’s entrance into Minnie’s haberdashery. There are two versions of the scene. The first is the one where we don’t know who the bad guys are, and then there’s the extended scene where the bad guys give Daisy the signal over what’s going on.

Originally, both scenes were in my edit. We would start off with the extended scene at the end of The Four Passengers, just like the theatrical release, and then, when Minnie’s Haberdashery begins, we would show the same scene without the inner workings going on. I thought both scenes would provide information the viewer might need to know. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt that having both was more repetitive, as we’re mostly just going through the same scene twice, just from different points of view.

So here’s what I’ve decided to change. I decided to get rid of the original first scene entirely, and I replaced it with the extended scene at the beginning of Minnie’s Haberdashery. Meanwhile, The Four Passengers ends with John Ruth kicking the door open, much like the theatrical version.

I will be updating my changes list shortly.

Paradox script comparison subtitle track is mostly done. Gonna look it over and check for any grammatical errors in the future, but it should be pretty close to done now.

Just made a late change and trimmed the beginning of the breakup scene. The Paradox script did in fact go for a shortened version of the scene where Clara breaks up with Doc (It originally began with Clara saying “Goodbye? But Emmett, I don’t understand…”), but I felt like I shouldn’t do it for fear that the pacing might be affected. And besides, I felt like the change wasn’t that big of a deal in comparison to a lot of the other cuts I’ve made. However, looking back at the edit as a whole, I feel that the shortened version of the breakup is far more impactful than keeping it in full, so I decided to, well, follow the script again. My apologies for those who prefer pacing, but hey, I said I would try to get this edit as close to the Paradox script as best as I could, so I might well keep my promise.

Just sharing a quick update. The changes subtitle track is about two-thirds done. Currently on 1885.

In an unexpected first, I have decided to use AI to fix a technical issue in the Part II section of the edit.

One of the peskier things about fanediting is what to do when you plan to add a new scene to an area with a transition. I added in the burned down high school deleted scene (restored by Bobson Dugnutt, and I owe him my thanks for the work he put into it) right between the 1985-A Strickland scene and the introduction to Biff’s pleasure paradise. But if you have a strong ear, you might have noticed that Sammy Hagar’s “I Can’t Drive 55” begins right on Strickland’s line, “Eat lead, slackers!”

This made the transition extremely hard.

Not surprisingly, I had to get rid of the music from that scene in order to transition to the next scene. So, I decided to jump on board and use voice isolation AI to fix the issue via Elevenlabs. I was introduced to that program while working with the Red Apple Crew. I don’t remember who assisted me with voice isolation on the ending to my Death Squad edit, so instead, I’m just gonna leave a special thanks credit to the entire crew unless the person who introduced me to Elevenlabs would like to have all the credit himself. If it wasn’t for the crew, I probably would’ve had a rather odd sound issue going on in the final edit.

Hopefully, that tiny little transition is the only time where I will need AI for this edit.

Below is a sepia tone test of the Four Passengers section of the edit. I decided to do this in reference to the B&W chapter in Kill Bill, Vol. 2. Nothing about this is final, and the reason I’ve selected this particular scene is because it was the most G-rated scene in the chapter. Feel free to chime in if you wish.

https://youtu.be/qjm0YeCKRdA

When I first saw The Hateful Eight, I watched it in a theatre (the digital kind, not the 70mm kind, mind you). And like most of Tarantino’s filmography, I loved it. A lot. I had a good time with The Hateful Eight and I had no regrets going in.

However, a lot of other folks didn’t feel the same way, and after giving it a few rewatches (as well as a watch for both of Wraith’s edits of the film), I started to see a few cracks that needed mending. I didn’t feel like going around to try and fanfix a movie that I loved, especially since most people on fanedit.org seemed to enjoy Wraith’s edit of the film enough. However, after playing around and seeing what I could do to make The Hateful Eight a better film, I found that my approach was different enough and have decided to tackle on another fanfix for Tarantino’s 8th time in the director’s chair.

Because I live in the US, no copy of the extended roadshow edition is available, so I decided to resort to Wraith’s extended cut for the extra footage in my edit. I don’t think Wraith will mind if I used it. The rest of the edit will stem from my trusty blu-ray disc of the theatrical cut, and I believe that will suffice.

So, with that out of the way, let’s talk about the stuff I’ve changed.

Wraith’s edit was a very light cut, and the only major change he made was the removal of Tarantino’s voiceover at the beginning of Domergue’s Got a Secret. For him, the voiceover was at the heart of what was wrong with The Hateful Eight. For me, however, my thoughts are more in the vein as Hannibal Lecter. “No, that is incidental.” A lot of that voiceover is classic Tarantino in the style that he goes for. The deeper issue, like in most cases, is in the structure and the way that it’s told.

I have made three major alterations from the norm with this edit to fix the structure and put it back on track. The first thing that I have done is cut out the opening scene in Last Stage to Red Rock. The problem with opening the film with that scene is that it didn’t set up anything for us. At least, anything of importance beyond introducing Russell, Jackson and Leigh. Instead, my edit begins with the close-up shots of the horses set to the Exorcist II music followed by Kurt Russell’s character asking Samuel L. Jackson about how his horse died. It really isn’t important to know how these three ended up together. They’re there, and they’re heading for a fateful encounter at Minnie’s Haberdashery. I found that this was a better way to start the film, and I also decided to move the opening credits to a later point turning what remains of the opening into a prologue of sorts. This gives the exposition more weight, including foreshadowing elements such as the Lincoln letter, “When the hangman catches you, you hang,” etc.

The second major change I’ve made is that I have moved The Four Passengers to the beginning of the film, not the end. In fact, it’s Chapter 1 now. This is the biggest alteration, and changes the film from Agatha Christie mystery into Hitchcockian thriller. Knowing who the villains are almost immediately fixes the longest and most tedious chapter, Minnie’s Haberdashery, because there is tension from the very beginning about what’s going to happen. It also simplifies the ending, as there is no “whodunnit” going on, meaning that everything now hinges on the choices that Chris Mannix has to make at the end of the film.

Another thing that should be noted is that I’ve also changed the color of The Four Passengers section from color to sepia tone, taking a reference from Kill Bill, Vol. 2, and giving it a western flavor. It also gives off a non-linear vibe at the beginning, perfect for a Tarantino film.

The third and final major change I have made is that I have added in as many of the extended roadshow scenes into the edit as I can given the changes that I have made above. The only extended roadshow scenes that didn’t make it into the cut are the ones that focus on O.B. and Warren’s financial negotiation, since the opening scene has been cut. Everything else, however, has been kept. And yes, this does mean that my edit is gonna be long at 3 hours. I’ve even kept the intermission and overture cards from Wraith’s edit, and thrown in some music from the soundtrack during the intermission for good measure too.

It is my hope that these changes create the most complete version of the film, and that they give this film the electrifying experience I had when I first saw this film in theaters back in 2015.

Current restructure

Overture
Prologue: Last Stage to Red Rock, Part II (No title)
Opening Credits
Chapter 1: The Four Passengers
Chapter 2: Last Stage to Red Rock, Part III, Son of a Gun (Titled the latter)
Chapter 3: Minnie’s Haberdashery
Intermission
Chapter 4: Domergue’s Got a Secret
Last Chapter: Black Man, White Hell
Overture/Exit Music

Changes list

– = Deleted
++ = Added
/ = Altered

– Deleted the opening panoramic shots of Wyoming that start the opening credits
– Removed the first scene in Last Stage to Red Rock
/ Opening credit music begins at the point Daisy and John Ruth are punched out of the carriage
/ Opening credits moved to the point when John Ruth tells Daisy “I’m gonna sit back on that wagon wheel, watch, and laugh.”
/ Added “Eyepainter Fanedits presents” over an orange graded still shot of John and Daisy to the start of the opening credits
/ Customized and randomized the fonts and effects for all the chapter cards for a more Tarantino-esque flavor
/ The Four Passengers is now Chapter 1
/ Changed The Four Passengers color scheme from full color to sepia tone
– Deleted the first few shots of The Four Passengers carriage, including the “Earlier that morning” shot due to the change in timeline
++ Added Roadshow extension where Oswaldo and Joe give Daisy the signal that’s she’s in the presence of friends
/ The remainder of Last Stage to Red Rock moved to the beginning of Son of a Gun
++ Added the Roadshow scene where John Ruth speculates on what surprise Daisy has for him
++ Added Roadshow extension where John Ruth forces Marquis to wear handcuffs
– Removed the first version of John and Daisy’s entrance into Minnie’s Haberdashery
/ Substituted the first entrance with the Roadshow extension where Oswaldo and Joe give Daisy the signal that’s she’s in the presence of friends
– Deleted Marquis, O.B., Chris, and Bob taking the horses back and nailing the stakes for the path
++ Added Roadshow extension where John Ruth asks about Joe Gage for the first time
++ Added Roadshow scene where Chris makes a toast to Chester Charles Smithers and the state of Georgia
++ Added Roadshow scene where John Ruth gets mad at Senor Bob over the half plucked chicken
++ Added Roadshow scene where John Ruth sees the shotgun hanging on the wall
++ Added Roadshow audio argument between Mannix and Smithers over the politics of sitting with Marquis
++ Added Roadshow Intermission
/ Added “Apple Blossom” and “Sei Cavalli” to Intermission
/ Changed “Domergue’s Got a Secret” flashback from color to black and white
++ Added Roadshow extension where Marquis asks about why John Ruth made the coffee
++ Added Roadshow extension where Joe Gage attempts to get Mannix to make a deal
++ Added Overture after the end credits as exit music
/ Added “Neve - #3” and “Now You’re All Alone” to exit music

calisto said:

Looking forward to seeing this edit.

Glad to hear. I hope you enjoy it once it comes out.

Currently working on a Paradox changes track showcasing where the edit follows the script and where it doesn’t. Should be exciting.

Now that I’m moving on from the Red Apple Crew, I decided to tackle my longest edit yet. This is one that’s been on my mind for quite a while.

When it comes to feel-good movies, Back to the Future reigns supreme as my favorite and the best in that category. I have probably watched Back to the Future more times than any other film in existence, and it’s my go-to comfort food when I’ve had a bad day.

The sequels, however, are another story. I found Part II to be only half as good as the first film, and Part III even less than that. I decided to rummage around the special features of my DVDs and blu-rays of the trilogy (even going so far as to watch the surviving footage of the defunct “Back to the Future: The Ride” at Universal Studios). One thing that stood out from watching the special features was in how Parts II and III came into existence. Originally, the sequels were one entire film. A lot of the cast and crew loved the script, but there was a major problem. The script was roughly 3 hours in length, and as a continuation of the just-under-2-hour Back to the Future, it was less than ideal to release such a long sequel. So in order to fix this issue, a decision was made to divide the story into two parts, resulting in the trilogy we’ve had since 1990.

But that story behind how the sequels got made left me curious. What would the Back to the Future franchise have been like if Spielberg, Gale, and Zemeckis had decided to shoot the 3-hour long script and took the risk of making a really long comedy sequel? Would it have worked? I decided to look around online for scripts of the original 3-hour long version. I did not find a 180-page script, but I did find a condensed 114-page script, titled “Paradox.” This is the only script on the internet that combines both sequels together (at least, as far as I know). I have provided a link to the script in this post for those who wish to read it in full.

https://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/bttf2_3.pdf

Unfortunately, no fanedit can fully replicate everything that is in the Paradox script. Several changes and alterations have been made that are virtually impossible to fix. Clara is arguably the biggest casualty. But what I can do is make a version that is as close to the Paradox script as one can get and/or be faithful to it in spirit. That is what I am attempting for this edit. A roughly 3-hour or so edit of the Back to the Future sequels that attempts to give viewers a taste of what could’ve been, and perhaps a peek at the script that the cast and crew loved so much before it was split in half.

I have added asterisks to the legend to give everyone an idea of which changes stem from the Paradox script and which ones do not.

Changes list

–= deleted
++= added
/= altered
1 Based off the Paradox script
2 Partially based off the Paradox script

++ Quotation from the Paradox script: “The only thing more uncertain than the future is the past. – Soviet proverb”1

Part II changes

– Marty seeing the abandoned crime scene1
++ Deleted scene: Marty finds the burned-out high school1
++ Deleted scene: Marty meets Dave1
/ Extended Sammy Hagar’s “I Can’t Drive 55” during Marty meets Dave deleted scene
– Doc explaining the 1985-A timeline change1
– Doc and Marty’s discussion on the big deal with 1955 and the issues about Jennifer and Einstein’s fates1
– Doc’s conversation with Marty on how to deal with the Biff’s, the other Marty and Doc, and getting some clothes for the time period1
– Biff waking up after being knocked out by Marty
– Biff encountering Marty and stealing the almanac back2
– Marty and Biff’s climactic Part II tunnel confrontation1
– To Be Continued, Part III trailer, and Part II end credits (Obviously)

Part III changes

– 1955 Doc waking up after the events of Part II2
– The mine blast scene
– The library scene introducing the audience to Buford Tannen1
– The McFly farm scene1
– Marty stepping in the horse manure
– ”You did.”
– 1985 Doc’s discovery of being killed by Buford, discussion on who Clara is, falling in love at first sight, and the ice cube joke
– Marshall Strickland and son’s confrontation with Buford at the festival1
– Buford explaining that he hid a gun with one bullet to his gang1
– Marty waking up and Taxi Driver/Dirty Harry references1
– Trimmed the beginning of the breakup scene1
– Deleted Doc walking into the bar after the breakup scene and talk with the romance expert2
– Deleted the “run for fun” joke1
/ Moved Marty hiding from Buford after Doc’s capture just a scene earlier
– Deleted all of Clara getting on the train and discussion with the relationship expert (except for two shots of the train leaving the station to increase the tension of the showdown)
– “That was good.”
– Marty giving Seamus the gun and belt1
– “Stop the train just before you hit the switch track up ahead!”

Credits

/ Custom-made end credits
/ Extended ZZ Top’s “Doubleback” during end credits
/ “Marty’s Letter” is song 2 during end credits
/ “Doc Returns” is song 3 during end credits
/ “Back to the Future Theme” is song 4 during end credits

Running time: 190 minutes

Special thanks

Bobson Dugnutt
The Red Apple Crew
Everyone at fanedit.org
And everyone at originaltrilogy.com

Edit is out now! Send me a PM if you’re interested.

Alright, the trailer is going on too long, so I’m gonna work on releasing the edit instead. I do intend to complete the trailer, but for now, I think the edit is sitting around long enough, waiting to be seen. I’ll update when PMs are ready.

It didn’t go swiftly. My apologies, but the trailer is taking longer to work on than I hoped. I might release the edit before I finish the trailer, but I want to see what I can accomplish first before I release it.

Started work on the trailer today. Here’s hoping it goes swiftly.

In response to Garstazi’s advice over on fanedit.org, I have updated sound isolation test number 3 below to make the transition between music and dialogue smoother. I have also gotten some further advice from VarsityEditor on ways to improve the scene. This clip has entertained quite a few ideas, so if you would like to pitch in and give your two cents, feel free to let me know what you think.

https://youtu.be/9ebDCoHuYZA

Below is the fourth and what I hope will be the final sound isolation test I will do for this edit. This one’s a bit of a tricky one because on the one hand, the removal of the air supply hiss does make the dialogue more audible, yet on the other hand, when the music comes to a close, the silence seemed a little off. This one’s got me torn, and I could use some feedback on it.

Be warned, though. If you have yet to see 2001 yourself, and don’t want anything spoiled, you might want to watch the movie first before watching the clip.

https://youtu.be/BbjZ3kTfexc