GMatias

From October 2023

adywan said:

A long overdue update…

Things are progressing really well with ANH:RHD. There’s only about 40 shots left to do. It may sound like a lot of shots but it’s not. Most of the film is complete. The remaining shots are mainly the CG work for the Yavin battle with a few shots here and there in other places. It’s looking very likely that it’s going to be a 2024 release now, hopefully mid year. The one thing that could hold things up is shooting the replacement Sandtroopers. I was hoping to get the shots i need filmed this year but we have had such a shite summer it became impossible. So that’s going to have to wait until next year when hopefully we’ll have some sunny days.

[snip]

There’s no way i can do any serious work on the video side of things for ROTJ:R until ANH:RHD is complete and released because ANH has almost filled up all of the new internal drives and most of the external ones i purchased because they are the backups. One 8tb external developed a fault that couldn’t be fixed but luckily i was able to replace that and recover all but one of the files that were on it. So once ANH is done and dusted i can start to empty the internal drives to continue work on ROTJ:R. So, at the moment, i have just enough space to complete ANH:R and render out the master file. Then it’s on to the audio mix.

But i will be starting to build the models etc for ROTJ:R early next year so i’ll keep you updated about those.

So ‘hopefully mid year’ is where we’re getting summer from…

Quick update: still here!

Man, I did not mean for it to be almost a year since that last post. Unfortunately I don’t have any new material to show off with this post, but I can confirm that I (1) have not abandoned the project, and (2) I’m now back to actively working on it. Not full-time, unfortunately, but if not on the front burner, it’s at least back on the stove at this point.

Quick update: work continues to continue!

The biggest bit since last update is the decision to include essentially all of ANDOR Season 1 as part of the overall series. There will be some very light editing to place the events in this new post-OT context.

Overall I’m shifting things slightly so we’re seeing Luthen & Mon Mothma trying to start a new uprising/insurgency inside the smaller post-OT Imperial Remnant territory to finish what the original Rebellion started years earlier. While most of the New Republic has written off the Empire as no longer a serious threat, they (and Leia) don’t agree and are trying to incite rebellion without restarting a Galactic war.

The changes themselves will be minor dialogue or setting tweaks, like changing Coruscant to Had Abbadon as thd Imperial capitol ‘in exile’, for instance. I’m really excited about how nicely this can slot right into my overall story with so little changes.

Quick update: work continues!

The REBEL DAWN chapters are basically assembled and output processes tested, with only general audio work and the editing of one small scene left to go. I’m thinking of waiting until January to start releasing these on a weekly basis a la the style of the original serial cliffhangers. That will also give me more of a headstart in getting later chapters ready.

One thing I’ve been doing lately (like the majority of us, it seems) is enjoying the hell out of ANDOR. I’ve known I would be incorporating some of the material into the later episodes, but with D+ giving me access to JPN audio streams, it really opens up how much material I can comfortably and seamlessly use. Enough for a whole episode on its own? An Episode IV.V? Not sure yet…

NeverarGreat said:

You could change Yoda’s dialogue in ESB:

“That boy was our only hope.”
“No…he will choose another.”

In this way, when Luke is hanging from Cloud City at the end of the film, he reaches out to Leia and thus ‘chooses’ her to be custodian of his destiny if he should fail.

Then the dialogue for ROTJ would need to change:

“Luke…there is another…” (Cut out the word Skywalker)

Then when Luke speaks with Obi-wan, remove references to Leia being his sister:

“You were our only hope.”
“Yoda spoke of another.”
“The other he spoke of is your twin…your sister in the Force.”
“Leia. Leia’s my sister.”
“Your insight serves you well. Bury your feelings deep down, Luke. They do you credit, but they could be made to serve the Emperor.”

I imagine Obi-wan is used to stretching language to convey a point, and him saying that Leia is akin to a sister to Luke is in keeping with this. Luke may or may not understand that Leia is not his literal sister, but the later scene with Luke telling Leia that she is his literal sister could remain, as Luke continuing Obi-wan’s mystical language or by simply misinterpreting the meaning. The later canonicity of Leia as Luke’s sister would make sense based on this, and feels in keeping with the mythological nature of Star Wars to have a spiritual character like Luke to treat the mysterious machinations of the Force as literally analogous to biological systems.

The change fixes the issue that Yoda both knows about Leia as Luke’s sister and is willing to let her die in ESB, and Obi-wan’s confusion as to whether there is one or two last hopes. With Luke racing off to face Vader unprepared, Yoda is saying that the Force will choose another champion, and Luke will be the instrument of this choice. It also makes clear that Vader could never have sensed Leia’s Force ability in ANH since she isn’t chosen until ESB. Finally and perhaps most importantly, it keeps the universe from shrinking to nothingness in ROTJ as this new hope could only be someone Luke knows.

I love this!

This is absolutely a major milestone! Congratulations!

Another quick update: the thread title and first two posts have been revised and updated to give a more accurate view of what the project is aiming for and where it stands at the moment.

The biggest change, I think, is in how I’ll be presenting the OT-era material. Since I had planned to do very little editing on ANH and ESB, and can accomplish what I want to do for ROTJ without needed to use a foreign dub, I have decided to include English audio options for releases I, II, and IV. There will still be a JPN audio/rewritten subs option for those releases, but the changes will be more like little grace notes than anything else. So viewers not wanting to deal with subtitles can at least have a serialized OT-era experience in various English audio options! I’m also making the OT-era serial episodes with TN1 reconstructed video to go along with the older audio options, while the feature-length edits of the OT-era material will use Adywan’s Revisited edits as the base (or the 2019 blu-rays until he finishes ANH:R and ROTJ:R in HD).

So think of the OT serials as theatrical releases, and the feature-length edits as proper special editions!

I’m almost done with the serial chapters for REBEL DAWN and am tentatively aiming for the end of October to release all five chapters. Fingers crossed!

Quick update (work continues!) and general opinion question:

I’m considering having a different / more open aspect ratio for the Force Color scenes. How many of you folks out there watch SW films with the video cropped/zoomed to remove the black bars?

Congrats on the classes! Especially something that gets you away from the computer (at least kinda)!

I think they look good!

Quick update: work continues!

I mentioned this on another thread but my full HD recreation of THE BLACKENED MANTLE is now in beta-testing stage and available via PM. A lot of the export workflow stuff I hammered out for that is applicable here, as well as 90% of TBM being the basis for an entire episode of this project, so time well spent!

I’m focusing on getting EPISODE V up to full release status next. Within that goal I know I’ll be hopping around to work on other episodes to keep things fresh for me. One thing I’m really struggling with is not trying to do a full BW grade as I’m working on other aspects. It’s soooooo hard not to get lost in the weeds tweaking Lumetri levels because the controls are RIGHT THERE…

le sigh!

Anyway, that’s where things stand. PM me if you’re interested in either the TBM file or the EP V workprint file.

So v1.0 of my BLACKENED MANTLE recreation (16GB 1080p mkv file with burned in subtitles) is finished and available for review via PM. I’ll probably do at least a 2.0 release with whatever fixes are needed from this version and selectable subtitle options, and I’m planning on throwing this up on a torrent as well at some point soon.

Sorry; it’s still a WiP at the moment. But when it’s ready I will certainly do that!

I believe he’s just commenting on the fact these movies, especially the OT, were geared towards entertaining & engaging children with straightforward and uncomplicated plot & thematic elements. They were built for kids specifically, but done with enough care & sophistication that adults can enjoy them too. Which isn’t necessarily the same thing as they’re built for everyone.

So the first poster saying or implying that these films are brought closer to their original intent or appeal by automatically reducing or jettisoning kid-friendly elements is setting themselves up for a sarcastic response.

Octorox said:

That said, this edit is a bit rough around the edges. Rough in terms of video quality, and inn terms of some of the edits. I really feel like if someone recreated this edit from scratch with blu-ray quality footage, smoother editing and a few minor story tweaks here and there (Some of the flashbacks like the Coruscant city chase run a little longer than they need to), I would never want to watch the prequels any other way.

Since I’m using this as the basis for one of the edits in my own SW film saga, I’m doing a full HD recreation of this edit as another training exercise right now actually. Hoping to end up with high-quality 1080p and maybe a 4K version of this by the time I’m done. Using 4K/5.1 rips of the films and not going to do any extra modding of that material other than cutting & fading/blending like Darth Lunar, so hopefully it works out!

Looking good!

I’ve been doing some behind-the-scenes work updating/replacing my source files from 1080p to 4K, and in the process have noticed that these new 4K files are a few frames off from the 1080 ones, which means any render I do will now have a ton of non-matched cuts until I fix them.

(I know that if I trim off the excess frames (or add blank frames), I can get the 4K source files to line back up with my edit cuts. But I’m also realizing that I would like to include closed caption info as a captions track. The workflow I’ve come up with for doing both is juuuuuuust easy enough to justify going back & doing it as basically another quality control pass.)

Since that will take a while and be quite the ton of gruntwork to accomplish, I figure my latest WP render before that point will just have to suffice as the WP render that I make available for comments!

The EPISODE V file is about 15gb and is uploading to Mega as I type this. Feel free to PM me if you’d like a link!

Jumping over to a different movie for a change of pace, I’ve been tinkering with the idea of tinting each of the different eras shown in my Prequels 3-in-1 movie THE TRAGEDY OF ANAKIN SKYWALKER. I’ve tried not to have any color in the series other than Force-related instances, and I don’t want to use tinting to denote flashbacks when I use them in other places, BUT I feel like its a necessary evil here to help guide/ease the first-time viewer through the narrative as Darth Lunar set it up and as I’m following it for the most part. Thoughts?

(ROTS era / TPM era / AOTC era / Present day)

Eyepainter said:

Glad to see that you’re still at work on this! Hope things are going well for you!

They are! Thanks!

Work is surprisingly progressing on pace to hit the July 1 workprint deadline I mentioned earlier, which is kinda unexpected and actually exciting.

I think I’ll do a new thread for each film/season to have a release’s particular comments on their thread, and leave this one for the overall project.

I’m also heavily considering changing the name of this particular film from THE NEW ORDER to something else because I just found out that’s the title FixingDisneySW is giving their edit and I want to avoid confusion (among other reasons).

I’m currently temping in FLASHPOINT or OUT OF THE SHADOWS as substitutes, but they probably won’t make it to the end. Titles are hard in general, and SW more specifically. I feel I lean a little closer to old school SW/sci-fi titles in my preference of more punchy (like the radio dramas or comic scripts) than grandiose, so that might give me more leeway than usual, but a lot of really good ones are already taken!

Back to the drawing board…

Looks pretty good!

1-3-2

Eyepainter said:

The bottom one is different from the previous grade in that it’s done via adjustment layers instead of timelines. This makes the bottom grade more time-consuming, but on the plus side, it means that the grading is customized for every scene. So in this instance, the greenish effect you’re referring to is only during the droid control ship scenes.

That’s what I was hoping!

I think the bottom is my fave of the three as well. It certainly has the most detail revealed. It almost looks a little too green (or well in the yellow range and heading towards green) that I’d keep an eye out to make sure it didn’t go any further in that direction. Nearly-yellow green has a kinda sickly feel to it that something closer to the bluer end of the spectrum doesn’t, at least for me.

[accidental double post]

Since I’m neck-deep in rotoscoping at the moment (even these low-res garbage mattes take me forever), I thought I’d share a random something from the output screen…

One other thing I’m doing with the full film releases is having chapter breaks with title cards where the serial episodes would start & stop.