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.
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.
When we first see Anakin in Watto’s shop and he talks with Padme, add a cigarette in his mouth and/or hand.
Have a pizza roll walk down the stairs, talk to the audience and then tell you to murder your wife and kids.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Quick-ish update:
Work has continued full steam. With a project of this scope, I’ve found myself bouncing around the timeline a bit, but mostly focusing on the Sequel Era chapters as they require the most reconfiguring with the combination of RONE, TFA, TLJ, and TROS into one narrative.
Right now I have the Sequel Era breaking into roughly 15 chapters (or three ‘films’ of roughly 2hrs each). A few chapters are straight uninterrupted chunks of one movie, but most mix & match a little bit. The first chapter, for instance, pulls footage from ROTJ, RONE, TFA, TPM, and an AOTC deleted scene, so you can see how things can get tricky.
My July goal is to get the workprint of that first 2hr film done & available for review. I’d say it’s ~80% there now; the big tasks left are another subtitle editing pass and audio transition fixing. So I think July is a reasonable goal.
And I’d put the rest of the Sequel Era footage at about ~60% ready. The assembly is there but all the above work needs doing plus some extra narrative stitching needs attention (like having Poe at the Battle of Scarif…whuh?).
And I ordered a copy of the LEGO STAR WARS: FORCE AWAKENS PS3 game in Japanese to hopefully get some rips of isolated Sequel Era SFX & dialogue, especially from processed voices like Kylo or Snoke. Because again why the hell not, at this point?
The more I read this, the more excited I become.
Luke was like “That was a great adventure and I’m glad I could help, but it sure is good to be back home.”
“And you were there… and you… and you!”
Oh auntie 'em, there’s no place like home!
At the end of ROTJ, as Luke takes off his father’s helmet, replace Sebastian Shaw’s face with Jar Jar Binks instead.
I have finished Episode III (for now), so I am beginning work on the re-edit starting tonight. I will bring in updates when I can, although I intend to let this one follow closely to what v1 and v2 was like (although the restructured ending, color grading, and audio commentary are still going to be new). Most of my efforts will be spent on polishing up things. That is, cleaning up a few mistakes and odd decisions I made from the last two versions. Still, if I decide to make another editing change, I will throw in an update.
Anyway, the trailer is online now. Here’s the link:
So i was able to watch your edit. I do like the much more shorter film length, but i think on some scenes you could reintegrate some sources for a little more breathing and context e.g. last moment of fight between palps and mace. You establish anakin arriving without him flying to the scene (which is fine) but he standing besides maces last blow and out of the blue anakin interfering feels absurd (even though i think you tried to make him look impulsive? This didn’t worked for me).
On a technical hand, the only thing that really occurred to me were the audio transitions in ~60% of the time. Some examples:
- 0:37:46, before next scene and new soundtrack, there is starting another soundtrack from another scene for a brief moment
- 0:36:25/26, audio transition not fluent, kind of abrupt
- 01:04:46, same
- 01:27:55/56, same
Understood. The moment where Anakin kills Mace was a bit of a challenge, to be honest. I think I might be able to replace the shot of Anakin standing there with a shot of Palpatine. That might work in a future version of this edit.
As for the audio transitions, this movie went through more sound editing than the previous two. A lot of it is mainly a consequence of the dialogue and sound effects for this entry. I did try a few attempts to make the transitions less abrupt, but alas, I can only do so much with the material that I do have. I don’t have the soundtracks on me at the moment, so that isn’t an option for the time being. Although I might buy them in the future, since it sounds like I could use them for these edits.
Change the ending of ANH to this instead:
How did i miss this new take on RotS? We‘ll never know 😄 But your colour grading looked very interesting. Did you made an sdr and a hdr version or „just“ a sdr with iterations like hdr?
I used DaVinci Resolve 17 for this version and finally ripped my blu-ray for this edit (A vast improvement over the last two, which were edited on Resolve 16 and used Schorman13’s preservations). It’s 1080p, but I utilized the new HDR color wheels for the grade, which is why it looks the way it does. The only challenge was keeping things from going orange and teal like a lot of modern movies tend to do, and fixing up the skin tones which is, sadly, a consistent issue with the blu-rays.
At the end of ANH, when Darth Vader is sent flying out in space on account of Han Solo, have Vader say “I’LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, LUKE! NEXT TIME!!!”
…And yes, I am still working on the trailer. I just didn’t feel the need to keep holding back the edit until the trailer was uploaded seeing as everything else is finished for the time being.
I will be going back to my I and II fanedits, and focus on updating and remastering them with my blu-rays once the trailer for III has been uploaded.
Episode III is now online. Sending PM’s now.
Just finished watching my edit. Everything looks good, and I think it’s ready for release. Gonna start uploading it soon.
Busy weekend is over. All the pieces I need for the trailer are ready. Just started (or restarted) editing the trailer.
I will also be watching my edit tonight to see if everything is ready for release. If it is, I’ll be sending PM’s very soon.
Digitally insert Groucho glasses onto everyone’s faces.
Replace all sound effects with looney tunes-style effects instead.
Oh, wow, that reminds me of a similar idea that was explored at a certain spot in Disney World.
My memory is pretty vague on it, but it was basically an arcade setup showing the Death Star I battle, and you got to hit different buttons for different sound effects, such as Goofy’s scream, etc.
I’ve only been to Anaheim, and even then, that was back in 2008. I’m guessing this is disney world only, since I’ve never heard of this particular attraction.
Still, having an x-wing pilot die while yelling a Goofy scream would be quite an experiment.
Bad news on the trailer. I just found out that I accidentally made a copy of the film that is stereo only. The main reason this is bad is because it makes it harder to separate dialogue from the soundtrack and sound fx. I’m re-uploading a 5.1 version of the file right now, but this means the trailer is gonna be delayed some more. My apologies for the inconvenience.
Other than that, I’m gonna be downloading and testing the MKV file to see if it works on my HDTV. If it does, I’ll be sending out those PM’s. I’ve got a busy weekend, but I’m hoping to get the edit sent out next week.
Replace all sound effects with looney tunes-style effects instead.
