Replace all Imperial, First Order and Sith iconography with actual swastikas.
Be sure to have Darth Vader and the emperor proclaim a bunch of sieg heil’s too.
Add in football commentator voices whenever a space battle occurs in the saga.
Digitally add a smiley face to Darth Vader’s helmet.
I really appreciate that analysis, eyepainter. I assumed you’d be in the right mindset to consider it fully. I haven’t watched the movie in a good while, but I thought it was likely that Theed would need some CG additions as you say, which I think we’re still just a tech evolution away from right now. I might still just do a very simple pass edit of the movie to cut that out though, along with anything else that mandates, just to see what’s still broken that would need fixing in order to make that work.
You’re welcome to give it a shot. It’s one of the reasons this site exists after all. Plus, there’s nothing in the world like doing it yourself.
Anyway, I just took care of the first 10 minutes of sound editing. Got 82 more minutes to go.
On a happier note, I found a loophole where I can overwrite the Episode I file, and change the stuttery ec-3 audio that’s been giving me a headache, to AAC 5.1 without any major issues. I still have to see if the audio channels have been changed around, and I may have to go back and fix the audio transitions I’ve made, but I’ll manage. If nothing else, Resolve takes AAC very well. I can work on the sound editing and audio transitions for real now.
I love the level of thought that’s going into this. It’s fantastic that you have L8WRTR’s and HAL’s excellent versions to mull over and help inform your own changes. This definitely feels like the first of the ‘third generation’ of prequel fanedits.
This might be too much of a tangent for your thread, eyepainter, and it’s certainly not a request for you to make this change, but I wonder if you’ve got any insight into the idea of removing the Naboo ground battle between the Gungans and droids altogether.
It’s something I’ve been considering for a while, and like I say not a request of you, but since you’ve been interrogating the movie so completely lately I’d be interested to know if you think it’s workable (in any edit, not necessarily yours).
For me, the ground battle always takes me out of it, firstly because we have no emotional investment in any of the characters there, but secondly because it’s so CG. The landscape itself looks fake and unnatural to me. I wonder if the sky battle and Maul fight, with the threat that the droids are in Theed, could be sufficient to close out the movie.
To quote the X-Files, I want to believe. I don’t want to say that it’s impossible or that it can’t be done. Yoda would disapprove of that mindset. But getting rid of that battle and re-editing things down to the situation you’ve described above would require some Adywan levels of editing. We’re talking about throwing in CGI, removing major lines of exposition, and re-structuring the ending altogether. You might even need to get some soundalikes who are willing to record their own voices for the edit.
One of the biggest downsides of being a fan editor is that you’re limited only to whatever footage is on the DVD, blu-ray, 4k UHD (If you have the tech), and whatever deleted scenes are available for the public. The actual movie, however, might have run about 4 to 4 1/2 hours when it was first assembled in the editing room (Lucas and company have said that Lap 2 of the pod race was originally 25 minutes in length, and the opening action sequence in Episode III was roughly an hour long. They had to reduce a lot of footage from both of those scenes). Now, I do not have 4 to 4 1/2 hours worth of Episode I, so I can only work with what’s around. But based on what I can get, I see four major obstacles.
The first obstacle that springs to mind is how to explain Amidala’s plan. In the theatrical version, Amidala’s decision to send the gungans out to fight the droids is a response to Panaka’s concern that they can’t win the battle against the droids due to how massive the army is. Taking out Amidala’s line “The battle is a diversion. The gungans must draw the droid army away from the cities.”, would be a major challenge. You could try and find someone who sounds exactly like Natalie Portman to dub some lines, but that’s a lot of trouble. Plus, I’m as introverted as a person can be, so that option is out of the question on my end.
The second obstacle would be to remove a lot of major stuff. By taking out the gungan/droid confrontation altogether, everything involving the gungans becomes useless, so having Amidala unite with Boss Nass would have to go, as well as Amidala asking Jar Jar for help. Those two scenes alone are heavily embedded in the plot, so taking them out becomes a major issue, since they could break the story’s structure.
The third obstacle is geared more towards my edit and l8wrtr’s. The train of thought used in l8wrtr’s re-edited ending is that the destruction of the droid control ship gives the gungans free passage to Naboo due to all the droids being shut down. This is how Amidala is saved from Nute Gunray (The part where the decoy distracts Gunray and Padme forces a negotiation on Gunray doesn’t exist in either of our versions due to logic). Taking out the battle creates a serious plot hole.
The last obstacle that comes to mind is CGI. Even if you manage to find a way through the first three obstacles, you’re still gonna have to make the droid army larger at the Theed palace. I’m thinking something similar to Adywan’s ANH: Revisited when he added more CGI TIE fighters to the death star climax, adding more tension to the ending of the film. Except in this case, it’s a bunch of droids. I’m no expert in CGI (although I am learning how to make a donut thanks to Blender Guru), and given what I know about it, it’s likely gonna be a pain in the neck to make those droids. This alone is why I say you’re gonna need some Adywan level editing to pull it off.
So, those are my two cents on the issue. It’d be nice if someone found a way to get rid of the battle, but you may have to be a serious talent to accomplish it.
When Luke introduces himself to the droids in ANH, he should call himself Luke Lars.
When Obi-Wan tells Luke about his father, he should spell out his father’s name was Anakin Skywalker and thus his name is actually Luke Skywalker.
Ok but how is that terrible? It’d help explain why he was never a target for the Empire or Darth Vader. Is this just a thread for “Edit ideas that acknowledge the prequels” (even though this wouldn’t even be exclusively dealing with the prequels)?
Well first, it’s laughably bad. Second, it’s so insignificant that it barely registers as important to the plot despite the explanation for why the Empire didn’t find Luke. Once Obi-Wan tells Luke he’s a Skywalker, the Lars name might as well disappear from the movie entirely since it doesn’t serve any purpose. So all it does is complicate the movie for no reason. Third, it’s laughably bad.
As for this thread being “edit ideas that acknowledge the prequels”, I’d argue that this thread is way more cruel towards the sequel trilogy. But that’s only my opinion.
Instead of Han shooting first or Greedo shooting first, have the bartender say, “Hey, that green-skinned creature isn’t welcome at the bar. Let’s all kill him.” Everyone pulls out their blasters and shoots Greedo dead. Han Solo then gives the bartender a great big hug, and everyone in the bar hugs each other over this momentous achievement. Overly happy music plays in the background…
…Then, the movie goes on.
While I’m still working on the difficulties and hardships of sound editing with ec-3, I think this is a good time to say that I’ve taken out two more scenes. The first scene I’ve removed is this one:
The scene where Obi-Wan apologizes to Qui-Gon is one that gets removed from a lot of fan edits. l8wrtr removed it. HAL9000 removed it. Even the Phantom Editor removed it. I guess you could say I was soft on this scene compared to other fan editors.
My reasoning for keeping this scene at the time was because this is one of the few scenes where we see some character development between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. For all of its faults, we never really got to see any relationship between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, and they’re the two characters we follow for most of the film. I figured it would be helpful to throw in something for these two jedi, however haphazard it may be.
But as I watch the edit repeatedly (thanks to the great computer crash I had a few months ago), I’ve noticed that this scene sticks out like a sore thumb the more I watch it. The main problem I’m noticing is that it distracts from what we’re all focused on at the moment. A.K.A. Amidala’s asking Jar Jar for help. Focusing on Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s friendship in the middle of this does nothing but distract us from the main plot. On top of that, resolving Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s little spat over Anakin seems unnecessary when it’s far more effectively resolved at the climactic Darth Maul confrontation. As much as I want to keep it in, I feel it needs to go.
The other scene I’ve removed is this one:
This is the scene most noted for Palpatine’s line: “This is an unexpected move for her. It’s too aggressive.” I think the reason I kept this in was for Darth Maul. I confess that I was trying to keep in as much of Maul as possible for v1 and v2, since he’s arguably one of the strongest parts of Episode I. I also thought it might be a good idea to know what the baddies are going to do next due to Amidala’s return to Naboo.
The problem with that line of logic, however, is that we get another scene where Palpatine talks with Gunray about what they’re going to do a couple scenes later, and that one ended with “Wipe them out. All of them.” That scene gave us enough information, and it made Gunray and Palpatine look much stronger. This scene, on the other hand, makes them look weaker. I get that it’s typical for a movie with a three-act structure to show the cracks in the villain’s plan just before the third act kicks in, but this scene (in fact, a lot of scenes) made the villains look incredibly stupid. Palpatine is the one who suffers most from this one. Him looking so dumbfounded over Amidala’s choice to go home ruins the sinister atmosphere his character is supposed to extrude. He might as well be saying, “I can’t believe she did that! Gee, I wonder what she’s thinking! Hey Maul, could you let these people make the first move? Because I’m absolutely stumped over this.” It just kinda ruins his superiority as a villain. I know it’s a Darth Maul scene, but I think the movie will be just fine without this one.
Anyway, that’s it for now on the editing changes. I’m working on the sound editing in the film’s climax, so I will be checking the edit to see if any mistakes showed up due to Resolve’s dislike of ec-3 soon.
After Anakin saves Palpatine’s life and swears his loyalty to the dark side, add this video to the scene:
Captions are finished. Still working on the sound editing.
Change Jar Jar’s accent to a black rapper’s accent, and give him his own rap somewhere in Episode I.
It should be in the scene where Padme is cleaning Artoo and she asks how he ended up with them.
Now, this is a story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I’d like to take a minute
Just clean that R2
I’ll tell you how I became a passenger on this starship with you
In west Otoh Gunga born and raised
Being clumsy is how I spent most of my days
Freakin’ out, stressin’, my dad’s a pro whaler
He tried to kill himself when I proved an awful sailor
Then General Tarpals, my boss and harrasser
Saw me making trouble when I boom de gasser
I wrecked one little heyblibber and Boss Nass got riled
He said “go up to the surface because you’re exiled”
I begged and pleaded with him day after day
But he flapped his jowls and sent me on my way
They threatened my death and told me where I could stick it
I put my brown vest on and said “I’ll forage by this thicket”
Then chased by mechaniques, yo this is bad
When this Jedi tackled me flat on my ass
Is this how the Jedi help those in strife?
Hmm, I owe a debt for my life!
We whistled for a bongo and when it came near
We went through the core while sea monsters appeared
“Better dead in the core!” I thought, and the Jedi agreed
But we made it safely through the waterfall to Theed
We pulled up to the palace 'bout seven or eight
And we rescued the Queen and helped her friends to escape
Then we break through the blockade while the Trade Fed pursues her
Now I sit in the hold of this Royal Naboo Cruiser.
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Change Jar Jar’s accent to a black rapper’s accent, and give him his own rap somewhere in Episode I.
Working on the captions.
Awesome! I’m now starting work on sound editing. For some reason, though, the audio is being a pain in the neck. I don’t know if it’s because the file size is the largest of the three movies (I have no clue why that is), or if it has to do with the audio being e-AC-3, but for whatever reason, Resolve hates playing the audio. It isn’t problematic enough to be a severe problem, but it can be annoying when Resolve stutters on an audio channel or two (especially on the center channel. That’s the worst).
I might export a bad, lossy file once I’m done with the sound editing to find out if I messed up on the audio somewhere; go back and try to correct the mistakes again. Then, rinse and repeat. For this reason, I think the sound editing might take longer than usual, but that’s a guesstimate. I won’t know until I’ve heard everything myself.
I’m using the official 2011 blu-ray release for this re-edit (although the still of the jedi council is from schorman13’s preservation, which is also 1080p). Trust me Atom-88. You are seeing the full range of the color grading on your display.
Anyhow, I decided to reset the secondary controls and only reduce the contrast while increasing the midtone details instead. Hopefully, this is it. Only the Tattooine shots are most affected, while the differences between the other shots are miniscule. Here’s the HDR cinema grade, again at the top:
…And here’s the HDR cinema grade readjusted. And yes, it’s on the bottom:
Click the expand tab for the rest. Does all look well?
I have seen… a security hologram… of him… -BEEP-ing younglings…
I thought it was pretty good. I’m not sure it was necessary, but I’m not disappointed. As a tribute to the original trilogy, it works.
Just worked on the contrast, and also realized I forgot to adjust the secondary levels too, so I’ve corrected that issue with the HDR cinema grade as well. I’m not sure how much of a drastic improvement this is, so feel free to let me know of any problems. Here’s a sample of the HDR cinema grade again. In the two examples, it’s the one on the top:
Here’s the corrected version. In the two examples, it’s the bottom:
Click the expand button below to see the rest of the examples. Do you like what you see, or does it still need some work?
Sounds like there’s a unanimous decision on the grading. However, I do agree with Eddie and Faraday that the contrast is too high. I’ll see if I can lower the contrast down a notch or two.
I’m just curious: has anyone watched the end credits?
I have!
I guess now would be a good time to talk about the color grading. I’m juggling between not one, not two, but THREE different grades right now. Yeah, my apologies if this post is long due to a bunch of jpeg’s, but it’s understandable.
I’m just gonna get to the point and explain all three grades. Grade #1 uses the same techniques I used in grading Episode III, in that I used the HDR color wheels to adjust it to whatever looked best. I’m calling this one the Episode III Grade, and in the three examples, it’s the one on top. Here’s the first still for the Episode III grade:
Grade #2 takes on a different approach. I’ve been stubbornly trying to make the prequels as film-like as I possibly can because of how overly clean and digitized the prequels are. I’m going to call it the theatrical grade for this reason alone, and in the three examples, it’s the one in the middle. Here’s the first still for the theatrical grade:
Grade #3 takes a similar approach to the theatrical grade. However, the theatrical grade was done using the standard color wheels, while grade #3 uses the HDR color wheels instead. HDR theatrical grade is a mouthful, so I’m going to shorten the name and call it the HDR cinema grade. In the examples, it’s the one on the bottom. Here’s the first still for the HDR cinema grade:
So, to recap, Episode III grade is the top example, theatrical grade is the middle one, and the HDR cinema grade is the bottom. To see all three comparisons, click on the expand button below. Which one looks best to you?
At the end of Empire Strikes Back, just as the credits are about to roll, have Luke say, “I love you, Darth Vader!” at pure random.
Update time!
So, as it turns out, I’ve changed things a little more than I expected. It’s still around the same length (only 92 minutes), but I’ve made a few improvements (or at least, what I hope to be improvements).
First, let’s talk about everybody’s favorite character, Jar Jar Binks. Now, when I first started out on this editing journey, I was trying to get rid of Jar Jar Binks as much as I could. A relatable cause, no doubt. Unfortunately, I might have taken out a few too many things associated with him. In v1 and v2, I took out Jar Jar’s first shot. A.K.A. this one:
I’m bringing this shot back for v3, because in v1 and v2, he just appears at random. I’m not doing it because I’ve suddenly softened up to Mr. Binks. Far from it. He’s still a terrible character, but alas, he is a character. One who has a part to play in this movie. Giving him no introductory shot at all feels… Off.
Another shot I’m bringing back is this one:
This was another shot I deleted in v1 and v2, and looking back, I have no idea why I cut it beyond the fact that Jar Jar is center stage in this shot (If you’re panicking, rest assured that “How wude!” is still on the cutting room floor). Having this shot of the guards is necessary to establish Jar Jar’s arrest.
Let’s get away from Jar Jar now. I’ve reinserted Qui-Gon’s line “We are ambassadors for the supreme chancellor.” Originally, I wanted to make Queen Amidala the person who sent Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon as ambassadors for Naboo. This was an attempt to try and water down the political stuff and make it less important to the plot. Unfortunately, the mentions of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon being sent by Chancellor Valorum were all too frequent. This particular line transitioned the moment where Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are rescuing Amidala to the moment when they discuss the outcome of the negotiations. Taking it out turned that transition into a cut. A cut that seemed oddly placed. So, I admit defeat on this, and I’m bringing it back. I will also be rewriting the crawl so that Valorum sends the jedi for this reason as well.
I know this was a l8wrtr inspired moment, but looking back on it, Qui-Gon’s telling the droid that he’s taking people to Coruscant is kinda dumb. All that happens is the obvious. The droid responds with “You’re under arrest!” and Qui-Gon slices him away. So, to raise the IQ of this film, I decided to just remove the conversation altogether, let Obi-Wan walk up to the droids, and then cut to Qui-Gon slicing a droid. I’m not sure if that’s the jedi way, but by this point, it’s obvious that negotiations are over.
Then, there’s the pod race. The pod race was the hardest scene to edit for Episode I. Specifically in the start and finish of the race. The beginning was especially awkward on v1 and v2. All I did was keep the opening shot of the podrace, then I cut away to the flags. A lot of this is because I had no idea how sound editing worked. So my approach was just to delete anything with a bad line of dialogue. Knowing what I know now, I can easily remove any dialogue I hate from the following shots and put them in without any problems, giving the scene a little more room to breathe:
And if you’re still upset that I added in more Jar Jar, you can breathe a sigh of relief that I also removed a bit of Jar Jar for v3 as well. I’ve taken out the gasp Jar Jar made during the pod race as a reaction to Anakin’s pod spinning out of control. At the time, I thought that the moment needed a cutaway because the next shot was similar, but after having edited the whole prequel trilogy, I’ve made an observation. I can just remove Jar Jar’s reaction and the next shot and it works seamlessly. Now, the pod race has no reactions from the characters in the sidelines.
However, I think I need to address the announcer guys. Since I was doing what I could to remove every last thing associated with them (Once again, due to l8wrtr), I might have gotten a little too perfectionistic about it. I was going so far as to be disappointed that I couldn’t really take out a line like “Start your engines!” even though, in context, it’s totally necessary. So, I’m just going to let some of their lines slip, but only in the background. We still never see them visually. It also means that the starts of laps 2 and 3 are in a little more too. Lap 3 didn’t exist at all in v1 and v2, so I suppose it’s a good thing I’m reinstating them.
The next thing I’ve done is reinsert Yoda’s line: “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” I removed it due to Mr. Plinkett’s reviews of the prequels (Which I still recommend, but only if you’re a responsible adult). Here’s his criticism of the line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot4PccEafW0
While I do get where he’s coming from, looking back, I’ve noticed that this line is one of the more popular lines from the prequels. And it’s one of the few things in the movie that actually had some form of depth, which is why it’s memorable. In context, it’s a line that demonstrates an all-too-human truth that fear can lead us in the wrong direction. Sorry Mr. Plinkett. Please don’t kill me.
As I’ve said, I’ve restructured the ending. By now, that isn’t gonna be a surprise if you’ve been following this thread a while. However, I’ve done another major restructure. I’ve swapped two scenes and switched them around. Scene 1: Amidala’s decision to return home. Scene 2: The jedi council’s rejection of Anakin. Now, Anakin’s rejection comes first and Amidala’s decision to leave comes up soon after. This little switcharoo fixes a major structural problem in the plot and establishes that the jedi council’s rejection of Anakin is the film’s lowest point in the second act, and therefore, Amidala’s decision to leave for Naboo is the springboard for the film’s third act. It also means I can remove the jedi telling Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan to go with the queen to Naboo as it hasn’t happened from a continuity standpoint. Plus, we lose a lot of useless exposition (Because obviously, these two jedi are just going to throw the queen under the bus after everything that’s happened to them unless the council tells them to go. Makes perfect sense).
Anyway, that’s most of what I’ve changed from v1 and v2 for now. Hopefully, those are all the biggest changes I plan to make. I’ll send an update if anything else comes up.
I was thinking to foreshadow his breathing condition.
Who wants a pizza roll? Post a comment on this webzone if you want a pizza roll.
I don’t… I want a chimichanga…
Are you sure? They’re really good pizza rolls. They’re hot, and pizza-ey, and tasty. In fact, it’s all I really eat.
