G&G-Fan

There were conflicting ways with which Lucas tried to reconcile making Anakin and Vader the same person (I don’t say this in a negative way; I think is the best creative decision in all of Star Wars, personally).
In Ben’s monologue to Luke in SW77/ANH, he describes Anakin as if he’s a peer, and Vader as “a young Jedi” and his pupil.

I think the idea is that, when the characters were combined for ESB and ROTJ, it was retconned so that Vader and Ben were closer in age. As said in ROTJ, Anakin was still his student, but they became peers after Anakin became a knight.
I think there’s a slightly noticeable shift in Vader’s portrayal between ANH and ESB in making him appear more “mature”. He’s more stoic, his voice is deeper, and he moves in a more deliberate fashion. I think that’s a result of Vader, behind the scenes, going from being just Ben’s former pupil, separated by decades in age, to his former friend, around the same age, as well as being a father. This is solidified by Anakin’s unmasked self and Force ghost in 1983 being a similar age to Ben.

When it came time for the Prequels, it seemed that Lucas changed his mind and went back to the idea that Anakin/Vader is noticeably younger then Obi-Wan, leaning more towards his description as a young Jedi. The Prequels establish that he was only 22 upon turning to the dark side, when Obi-Wan was 38. This is what led to the Force ghost change. I’m sure Lucas handwaves his rough appearance when unmasked to being roasted by lava (I prefer the idea of dark side physical corruption).

I think a middle ground is better. Anakin should’ve been more in his late twenties when turning, with Vader being in his 50s in the OT. 22 is just too young. But I don’t think Vader should be like, in his 70s in the OT either.

The theatrical version makes more sense. The stormtroopers are only pretending to try and capture the heroes, and are trying to convince them they escaped based on their own skills. To lead him to an entire barrack would leave Han wondering why the entire garrison didn’t follow him.

Just use DigiModification’s

Whenever I’m put into a position (mostly involuntary) where I’m looking at the 2004/2011 grade of Hoth, I like to pretend that it’s not actually a snow planet. It’s a planet made up of Walter White’s blue meth ground up into powder.

Make “Han Solo Saves Christmas” already, you cowards

Is there a visual comparisons for ESB:R? There are so many changes that it’s almost hard to spot them all.

I’m planning on it for my Prequels. But my project has expanded so much in scope from what I originally envisioned that I’ve really only just started.

I like the idea that Darth Vader was widespread knowledge but Luke doesn’t know because he’s a scrappy farm boy in the far reaches of the galaxy. In my mind, Motti and Ozzel were just narcissists who didn’t believe in the Force and paid the price. Being that the Empire was made in the image of the Sith, self-obsessed arrogant assholes are gonna be the guys in power.

On another topic, the redwood forests in ROTJ were also used for filming for Walking with Dinosaurs because its conifers resemble those from the Mesozoic, when conifers dominated the world’s flora. I think it’s interesting how the Endor moon appearing primeval contrasts the technological advancement that is the Death Star II, and how the Empire’s defeat shows that what is ancient is not necessarily inferior. Maybe Endor could be given a more prehistoric vibe?

I’d be interested in a link as well.

He won in the duel against Palpatine. And whilst one is free to interpret that Palps threw the fight, according to Lucas, Mace actually beat him.

DZ-330 said:

• Alternate Version (“Yoda Unleashed”)

I read this in 2007 epic trailer guy voice.

Hal 9000 said:

Thanks very much for facilitating this, and to Ryan for taking the time. Trying to be objective, I find myself preferring the AI line delivery. It feels more authentic to me, so I plan to go with that one. As we’ve all learned around here, though, it is awesome to have choices.

All good. I wanted the line for my own edit anyway, so it definitely won’t go to waste.

There can be multiple reasons a character does something.

The Emperor’s insistence on being there to witness the Rebellion’s defeat is a form of unintentional self-sabotage.

He spent his whole life on this conquest for power, and when he finally gets it… there’s no thrill. He spends all day sitting in a chair. How boring is that? He needs to put himself in positions where he can get a new high off of showing off his power.

That’s why he needs to be there for the Battle of Endor. He needs that high, because otherwise he’s just feels empty. And it’s ultimately his undoing.

Many say Vader got the short end of the stick in having to do the Emperor’s dirty work, but what I find interesting, especially in Canon, is you can tell that Vader does get a thrill out of his missions. He likes to show off his power, like the Emperor.

The Emperor and Vader are essentially in a toxic codependent father-son relationship: they can’t live without each other unless they have a replacement (for both, this is Luke). Otherwise Vader doesn’t have a mission, and the Emperor doesn’t have a throne to sit on. You can’t have politicians without enforcers, and you can’t be the Sith Master if you’re not the Master of any Sith. Vader may be a slave of the Emperor, but in a twisted way, the Emperor is also a slave of Vader. What’s he gonna do without him?

Thinking about how they could’ve done something like Transformers One where Anakin is knighted Darth Vader at the same time Obi-Wan is given the rank of Jedi Master (or names himself Ben Kenobi).

Ryan Golden’s read of lines for Vader for the Vader-Fett subplot discussed for the first act.
I incorporated the idea of Fett using the Sarlacc to capture Luke. The last line is my own idea: Vader kills Fett for his failure.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/159XcW70MwSRVj4Ce8ThuxNHrsO5Hkg87/view?usp=sharing

If one uses this lines, please always credit Golden, and do not use these to train AI.

Ryan Golden’s read of Vader saying “Your mother once thought as you do”.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xcpjwvi5-6F5Gko15ldeUV3gvtqpnkWE/view?usp=sharing

Make sure to credit him for any usage, and do not use his lines to train AI.

AlbertKleppin said:

This looks pretty good and I really think more artists doing this could lead to a lot of great PT edits that bring them that much closer to the OT. My one critique is I feel I can see just a bit too much of the “painting” texture artifacts, as if it were actually painted. The amazing things about the mattes in the OT, at least most of them, and at least in my opinion, is that you can barely spot the fact that they’re paintings, and the painting/canvas texture is barely visible. Just my two cents, but nice work!

Thanks!
The painting texture artifacts are something I tried my best to keep on the down-low, but unfortunately that’s actually the least painting-like I could make it look.

One way to think of it is, I like the idea of trying to make the Prequels look slightly older then the Originals. As if they were actually made in order. I want this because the Originals are still gonna be the best no matter what you do, so trying to make the movies actually be able to be watched in 1-6 order is pretty great IMO.

Theatrical OT
Canon Marvel Darth Vader comics (2017 and 2015 runs, haven’t finished reading 2020 yet)
Rogue One
Andor
Mandalorian S1&2

First two shots of Padme’s Ruminations with classic style matte paintings.

https://streamable.com/hrrw0u

It is regraded, as will be the entire movie. I want to give Padme’s scenes this angelic yellow color.

SparkySywer said:

G&G Fan, can you give a clip of the matte painting being used in the movie?

That was just an initial test on a pic of I found to see if I could accomplish making a CGI image look like a matte painting.
So I started working on an actual scene. I decided to continue with Padme’s Ruminations. These are the first two shots.
The clip is regraded, as will be my version of the entire movie.
First thing I did was stabilize the shots. A user on thestarwarstrilogy.com pointed out to me that the OT shots are mostly stable, so removing the digital zooms brings it closer to that classic feel, whilst also making this more convenient. Then I took a snapshot of the shot within Premiere.
I imported the image into Photoshop, selected the backgrounds and used the Oil Paint filter, tuning it to my liking. I used Generative Fill to remove all of the traffic cars, not only because they don’t work as a painting and I don’t want to painfully rotoscope them. I also find them irritating: it makes the shots too noisy and distracting.
Then I exported those elements separately from the rest of the shot as a transparent pngs and placed them on top of the video, adding grain in Premiere so that they weren’t just flat still images.

https://streamable.com/hrrw0u

The next and more difficult step will be figuring out how to do this process when there’s a character standing in the matte. I can’t just slap the image on like I can these shots.

I have made a new version of this edit. The first post is changed to reflect this, as has the listing on IFDB.

My ADHD meds (Adderall) aren’t really working all that well anymore. My head is cluttered again and I’m not happy except for when I’m doing stuff related to my hobbies (Star Wars, Marvel, Paleontology, Godzilla, etc.) or talking to a friend, which doesn’t happen as often as I’d like. I’m cluttering myself with amount of hobby projects I’m working on bc my focus is gone, I want to do so much all at the same time, but I can’t. I have to focus and that’s hard.

I miss when my meds were new, when my own head felt like a nice place to call home for the first time.

1. If one wanted to add more monsters/creatures to the OT, you could take stop-motion creatures from classic Harryhausen monster movies. Not much more then a cameo, but it’d add some atmosphere.

2. Turn CGI backgrounds from the SEs into matte paintings using the same technique I used to make Coruscant look like a classic style matte painting (which I plan to do with the entire trilogy). This way you could keep the Cloud City windows and not have them be CGI.
   

3. Ambitious. Make to make some of the CGI creatures in the SEs look like stop-motion, like the Dewbacks for example. Would probably involve sharpening the textures and changing the frame-rate. The effects look so primitive I think with some tweaks you could convince a viewer that it’s stop-motion.

First attempt at Coruscant turned into a classic style matte painting