Eyepainter

Issues are corrected. File looks right on my TV. I think testing is done! Here are my specs for Episode IX:

Lossless 1080p
Codec: H.264 - MPEG-4 AVC (Part 10)
Resolution: 1920x804
Frame Rate: 23.976fps
Audio: AAC 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo
File Size: 11.5gb
Running Time: 1:42:41

Lossy 720p
Codec: H.264 - MPEG-4 AVC (Part 10)
Resolution: 1280x720
Frame Rate: 23.976fps
Audio: AAC 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo
File Size: 4.37gb
Running Time: 1:42:41

Thank you to all who have contributed to this edit, and to originaltrilogy.com! It’s been an honor editing these films.

After a lot of last minute adjustments, I’m happy to say that I’ve finally (finally!) completed testing for Episode VIII. Here are the specs for the files:

Lossless 1080p
Codec: H.264 - MPEG-4 AVC (Part 10)
Resolution: 1920x804
Frame Rate: 23.976fps
Audio: AAC 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo
File Size: 10.6gb
Running Time: 1:33:56

Lossy 720p
Codec: H.264 - MPEG-4 AVC (Part 10)
Resolution: 1280x720
Frame Rate: 23.976fps
Audio: AAC 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo
File Size: 3.80gb
Running Time: 1:33:56

…And for ExpandedUniverses…

Episode VIII in Glorious Blue!
Codec: H.264 - MPEG-4 AVC (Part 10)
Resolution: 1280x720
Frame Rate: 23.976fps
Audio: AAC 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo
File Size: 8.32gb
Running Time: 1:35:32

Thank you to all who have contributed to this edit, and to originaltrilogy.com! It’s been an honor editing these films.

No, the Goonies are not good enough.

JackNapier said:

I have a date today

Congratulations! Go into it wisely!

Just saw Fantastic Planet, a 1973 animated film.* Overall, it was good, not great. The first third was the best part for me. I think if the movie had put all of its cards on the relationship between Terr and his child slave master, it could’ve been a classic.

Unfortunately, once Terr runs away from the Draags and meets his fellow Oms, the movie loses its way, and it devolves into a generic rebellion story instead. Maybe if I had been around in the 1970s, where rebelling against things was as popular as LSD, I might appreciate this one more.

It isn’t a bad film. The visuals are trippy for all the right reasons, the Monty Python-esque animation is more effective than you might think, and I’m a sucker for electronic music, which this film has plenty of. All in all, it’s worth a watch if you love watching crazy stuff by people who may or may not have been on drugs. I just wish it was greater than the sum of its parts.

*Not a kids film. An animated film. There’s a difference.

I thought it was ready! 😦

I just noticed that my opening crawl has the word, “Resistance” in all caps twice. I’m going back, fixing my mistake, and re-rendering the crawl again. I’m sorry to say it, but yes. I have to delay releasing my sequel trilogy edits. Hopefully, this is the last hurdle I have to overcome, and things will go smoothly from here.

StarkillerAG said:

EddieDean said:

Burbin said:

I think a big issue with pushing the gungan battle scenes forward is that this plot line can’t be resolved until the control ship is destroyed, so even if you push most of the battle forward it’ll still feel like a hanging thread all the way through to the end anyway. If anything I feel it puts a bigger strain on the audience to keep the captive gungans in mind while they’re watching the other three plots unfold.

The gungan battle also has a clear function in giving a sense of urgency to the other plots, they need to either capture the Viceroy or destroy the control ship before the gungans are wiped out, you lose that if the battle is already over by the time you get to those scenes. Yeah the gungans have been captured, but they’re no longer in any immediate threat, so there’s no real urgency. It’d be like if the Death Star was no longer looming over the Rebel base during the climax in ANH.

Yeah, I feel like if you were to pull the Gungan scenes earlier, you’d risk the film feeling like ‘save the Gungans’ was the backbone, which I think most would find pretty unpalatable. And especially if we don’t have equivalent footage of the humans of Naboo also being oppressed, I think that’d feel weird for Padmé. You’d also have the issue that the Gungans appeared captured throughout the entire movie, without moving, even though it’s over a few days.

I think he was referring to moving the battle scenes to the beginning of the climax, not the beginning of the movie. Which is honestly an issue I hadn’t considered before: if we don’t show the Gungans at all between the scene of the pilots taking off and the control ship being destroyed, is that even more confusing than the 4 overlapping plotlines in the original? It might result in the audience almost forgetting about the Gungan plotline by the time it’s resolved, which wouldn’t work for our goal of increasing the dramatic tension.

I think an alternate way to simplify the climax, without that issue, would be to just delete one of the plotlines: either the Gungan subplot or Padme’s subplot. If the Gungan subplot was cut, then Padme and the others would just sneak into the palace without any diversion; and if Padme’s subplot was cut, then the ultimate goal would be to take out the control ship, without the added goal of capturing the Viceroy. I’d personally advocate for cutting the Gungan subplot: it’s by far the most visually bland part of the battle, and if you cut Jar Jar’s antics there’s not really much left.

I think somebody has already said this, but the problem with cutting out the Gungan battle is that it leaves a gaping plot issue where Padme and friends storm the castle without any issues. If I remember correctly, the whole point of the Gungan battle was to distract the droid army from being stationed at the palace. Without that battle, Padme and friends breaking in becomes unbelievable, since their group is tiny. Even if you were to suspend your disbelief, there’s no way they could’ve gotten past the droid army, even with two jedi in the group.

By no means am I saying that the Gungan battle is great. I think most of us (if not all) will agree that it’s terrible. But it does serve its purpose.

I found another issue during testing, and it has to do with the color grading. I noticed on my monitor that the black levels of the file had some pixellated noise. This still of the Lucasfilm logo revealed the problem to me right away. Look closely at the black background and you’ll see it:

Worse, it isn’t just the logo. I saw this noise in the black bars on the top and bottom of the first generation file, and even after the conversion to get rid of them via Handbrake, I couldn’t unsee the noise in the actual film. So, I’ve lowered the black levels in the color grading just a smidgen to fix the problem:

Hopefully, the difference won’t be too noticeable, but if the edit looks a little darker than what the screencaps advertise, this is my way of letting you know, “that’s why.”

Play the Quincy Jones’ song, “The Dude,” every time Darth Vader appears in the saga.

T-202 said:

I think it works pretty well, but I wonder how are you gonna put Kylo in the Hallway scene?

I’m in the middle of reading Edward Dmytryck’s book, “On Film Editing.” The most recent chapter I’ve read has a rule to cut for proper values rather than for proper matches. To quote the book:

“If the cut is dramatically correct, it is remarkable how often the bad match will be completely unnoticed by the viewer. The important thing here, as in so many areas of cutting, is to know where the viewer will be looking. The mismatch which the cutter sees so clearly on the moviola is probably far from the viewer’s center of interest.”

JadedSkywalker said:

Watched Spider-man no way home. Liked that he ended the film finally as Spider-Man, and no longer Spider-Boy or Iron Man Jr. It was the best of the three Disney MCU linked films, and still had nothing on Raimi’s films. It was okay-ish. But why did this movie have legs like the original Star Wars, it wasn’t that special the villain end battle was very anti climatic. Honestly Into the Spider-verse is superior in almost all ways.

And i’m so tired of movies being commercials for another movie. Its the thing i hate the most about the MCU.

I like the MCU more than you do, but I agree. Into the Spider-Verse is my favorite Spider-Man movie, and there were times in No Way Home when things started to feel a little too familiar. Things like a relative getting killed as the lowest point, fan service and nods to previous Spider-Man movies, the ending consisting of Spider-people vs. a roster of villains in a universe-bending light show, etc.

The movie did have enough tricks up its sleeve for me to like it, and I like that this one finally gave Tom Holland’s Spider-Man some serious consequences for his actions (because great power, great responsibility). But it wasn’t the “Godfather” of superhero movies some are claiming it to be (I think Avengers: Infinity War is the MCU film closest to that level, but that’s another topic).

Lastly, though unfair. The visuals of Into the Spider-Verse are superior to No Way Home. I have no doubt that the animation of Into the Spider-Verse will age well, while the cookie-cutter Marvel look of No Way Home will grow stale through the passage of time.

JackNapier said:

A rabbi I liked recently was revealed to be a rapist

I hate it when life throws those kinds of plot twists. My condolences.

I think testing is done for my Episode VII edit. I’m gonna work on finishing up my tests with VIII and IX. If all goes as planned, I’ll release all three of my sequel trilogy edits either this week or next. For now, here are the specs for my Episode VII files:

Lossless 1080p
Codec: H.264 MPEG-4 AVC (Part 10)
Resolution: 1920x800
Frame Rate: 23.976fps
Audio: AAC 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo
File Size: 13.1gb
Running Time: 1:54:26

Lossy 720p
Codec: H.264 MPEG-4 AVC (Part 10)
Resolution: 1280x720
Frame Rate: 23.976fps
Audio: AAC 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo
File Size: 4.88gb
Running Time: 1:54:26

Thank you to all who have contributed to this edit, and to originaltrilogy.com! It’s been an honor editing these films.

CaptainFaraday said:

Eyepainter said:

Digitally turn the entire wampa sequence from ESB into it’s own coca-cola commercial. Start by making the wampa the coca-cola polar bear. And instead of Luke and his tauntaun being attacked, the bear gives them both a cola. Luke and the bear go to a cave. Luke plays a game with the bear while hanging upside down. Finally, instead of Luke slicing the bear’s arm, Luke uses the force to give the bear his own cola. They wave a nice, friendly goodbye to each other, and the scene continues.

Instead of snowspeeders, edit in the Coca-Cola Christmas truck driving up to rescue Luke and Han.

Now you’ve done it! Now we have to make all of the snowspeeders Coca-Cola Christmas trucks. We have to!

Digitally turn the entire wampa sequence from ESB into it’s own coca-cola commercial. Start by making the wampa the coca-cola polar bear. And instead of Luke and his tauntaun being attacked, the bear gives them both a cola. Luke and the bear go to a cave. Luke plays a game with the bear while hanging upside down. Finally, instead of Luke slicing the bear’s arm, Luke uses the force to give the bear his own cola. They wave a nice, friendly goodbye to each other, and the scene continues.

CaptainFaraday said:

The water trough that Finn drinks from in TFA is colour corrected to look like Coke and has the in-universe logo on the side of it.

Plus, instead of Finn grossing out, he is digitally manipulated so that he gets up and says, “ahh…” from the refreshing taste.

You took the words right out of my mouth, Eddie. It’s about how, not why. I had to restructure the ending for my edit because I wanted to execute all four plotlines better while also making it simpler to follow.

And I agree, sirlegion. If I had to pick a favorite Jar Jar scene (although that’s saying very little), that conversation with Amidala would be my top choice, too!

“There’s been no one for so long. Who are you?”
“I’m Rey.”
“Rey who?”
Rey looks out to the distance. She sees the ghost of a gungan out in the distance. Rey turns back to the old woman.
“Rey Binks.”

Found some issues with the file. Gonna work on correcting them!

I think both versions are an improvement, although if I had to choose, I prefer 3 slightly more than 2. Regardless, both versions work for me!

Anakin Starkiller said:

I feel like the “Are we the baddies” conversation would work best as a conversation between the stormtroopers Ben maneuvers around to deactivate the tractor beam. They’re already chatting about something in the movie, and it’s funnier yet more fitting when it’s low-ranking personnel asking these questions.

This isn’t the best edit ideas thread.

Servii said:

Splice this scene into the Endor ground battle, as a conversation between a Rebel commando and his commanding officer, who’s high on Death Sticks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibLLLhhFywA

Is that Mitchell and Webb I see? You have excellent taste!

Speaking of those two, re-edit the entire “I find your lack of faith disturbing” scene in ANH so that it’s the “Are we the baddies?” skit. Leave the rest of the film as is.

EddieDean said:

Here’s a little thing.
I think it’s a little too fan-edity though, because Anakin doesn’t really react.

I do agree. It does feel sort of fan-edity. I think a simple solution would be to insert a shot of Qui-Gon while he’s communicating to Anakin, giving the moment a more organic feel.

Alright. I’ve exported the file. Gonna test it out.

Poe: I know a black market droidsmith. But he’s on Kijimi.
Finn: What’s wrong with Kijimi?
(Insert Oscar Isaac’s dancing scene from Ex Machina)
(Cut back to the film)
Poe: I had a little… Bad luck on Kijimi.