You can find that master link on Reddit also. (Search.)
I’ll send it to .info after they’re all released, but it takes time usually for the admin to update the listings.
Sounds like a nice edit. I might have to check it out next time I feel like viewing the film.
FWIW, I find HelloGreedo insufferably toxic, also. Just toxic about other toxicity. Which is no less unhelpful.
I just posted the BluRay compatible mkv version and the rest will follow as they finish encoding and being verified.
I think you’re right, Mala. And Sir Ridley did indeed deliver a fixed scar for two shots. If I hadn’t added that to the change list I prepped a while back, I’ll do so!
I agree, FWIW. That’s an excellent idea and really reframes a problematic scene.
I just remember watching it in the theatre thinking “what the hell is she doing?!”
Currently encoding the BluRay video stream, with an ETA of completion during the weekend. I’m hoping to be able to begin the distribution process by then, also. But it shouldn’t be too long, now.
Here’s a clip of the opening logo and crawl. I spent some more time tweaking it, maintaining a pretty tight crop around the receding logo and as subtle and gradual of a transition as I could after that point. I think it’s better this way, keeping the flickering of the alternate language crawl to a minimum from the start by keeping a tight crop on the logo. Anyway, I think it passes muster.
https://vimeo.com/311913155
password: fanedit
Another very enjoyable read. Keep it comin’!
Thanks for the thougful posts, Rogue. I find myself on YouTube for at least a little while a day due to my situation and strange aversion to watching actual shows or movies most of the time, and Star Wars stuff comes up a lot. It sometimes sucks me into a more cynical mindset than I’d like, I’ll admit.
I would also like to admit to a certain form of (reverse?) jealousy regarding YouTubers who sell licensed merchandise with trademarked images on them. For one thing, if I were for some reason paid minimum wage for each and every hour I’ve spent working on Star Wars stuff on my computer(s), I could pay off my student loans. I won’t even mention what that would look like in the case of someone like Adywan. Why is it okay for people to sell trash with Star Wars imagery on it? I’ve likened our careful efforts to avoid anything approaching profiting from our work to Star Trek’s prime directive, which exists in part to protect us. It kind of makes me mad to see others wantonly endangering us vicariously by promoting what often seems to me like lazy, loud mouthed channels.
For my part, I very much appreciate our solidarity in refrainin from anything that would even suggest any personal gain from what we do; we build safety rails around the safety rails. I don’t ever want that to change. When other people step out from under that carefully maintained umbrella, we all are put at risk while they make $5.
I admire the Phantom Editor and, at least to my own mind, have tried to approach fan editing Star Wars from a place of love and (spirit of) professionalism.
I suppose the brazen disregard for these principles coupled with the unsavory personal gain I see being derived from it rubs me the wrong way. It’s worse when done with pomp and arrogance, maybe.
All this being said, I love all y’all.
I spent about 2 hours keyframing to try to get the logo to transition into the English crawl as seamlessly as I can. I will upload a clip tomorrow so you can see what you think. I don’t think anyone would have ever noticed anything, but that doesn’t mean it’s good enough.😉
The alternate language starfields flicker, but the regular English one is static. They also aren’t a perfect match of color or brightness. So I overlaid a still frame from the alternate crawl at half opacity and key framed a crop that followed the logo as it recedes. The English crawl creeps up by means of a keyframed crop. All the while, the star field beneath (which fills in any blank frame area from the other cropped clips) is gradually fading from the alternate to the English.
Unfortunately, the alternate language crawls’ starfields are not 100% identical, either in color or placement. I’m currently rendering a test clip to see if the best of what I can do pulls it off well enough. I keyframed feathered cropping and crossfaded underlying starfield footage as gradually as things would allow. It gets a little complicated, but everything is as gradual as I can make it, both crossfading and wiping in order to allow the English crawl to come into frame.
I had to leave the house before I could look at the final clip. If it seems seamless, great. If not, I’m okay with the oddly-speedy opening logo for two reasons:
Could mix and match this edit with a TLJ edit that has Luke survive, and exclaim, “Just this once… EVERYBODY LIVES!”
No, I already have. I used the Despecialized edition, which I understand was NewGuy’s source also. It was very easy, because they’re only a total of three brief shots taken from the same angles as the offending shots, and they matched closely already.
L3 made me hungry when watching Solo because it sounded like the menu numbering scheme at a Long John Silvers/Taco Bell conglomerate that used to be nearby.
I can furnish you with the footage, certainly.
I’d like to think ROTJ could be out in time for a pre-IX viewing, but it’ll depend on a color corrected source becoming available, Adywan most likely.
If you did want to tackle this, I can send you all the relevant shots from both versions, take the results, and sync Hairy Hen’s, the 1997 SE, and the BluRay audio to it in order to hand off a finished sequence ready for use by whomever.
Don’t get me wrong, if you want to volunteer for such a task, I’m sure there are many who would be elated at having such footage available. In that event, I think working from the un-recolored BluRay may be a good idea in order to just present it for modification from there on the part of any recipients.
I can imagine a Sir Ridley voice saying in imitation of a stern line from Anakin: “Don’t ask me to do that!” Haha.
Given the option of the OOT and SE Sarlaccs, for this ‘so you chose to pull the Special Edition off the shelf this time instead of the original version that is also there’ version, I’ll take the beak and all for the reason that I understand the desire to do something about it for a SE.
But I do prefer the gaping maw approach overall to a beak. Seems more… psychologically interesting, similar to Luke milking the walrus things in TLJ.
Anyone know what the Sarlacc is going to look like? I interpret the description as perhaps the original version but with the SE’s CGI tentacles. Not sure if he’s commented further about this one.
Things should be synced to the BluRay until the ‘look Sir droids’ scene, then again through MOs Eisley, then through Jabba, then from there until the end. There are very few sync-affecting changes, by quantity.
No particular release date; no rush.
Thinking ahead to ROTJ, the biggest hurdle will be the Sarlacc. If I go for the full-on original version, it’ll be tough to get the DeEd or other source to blend well, I imagine.
In a perfect world, we’d have the option to keep the added cgi tentacles but leave the beak behind. I have no idea how difficult it would be to remove only the beak, but it looks like a total of 10 shots would stand in the way of that option.
(I can’t tell from the description, but this may be just what Adywan is planning to do. If that’s so, I might just have to leave the beak in and hope to do an update whenever Revisited is complete.)
By the way does Adywan’s regrade correct the saber that turns green aboard the Falcon ?
Forgot to answer that earlier; yes, it does. It’s a right-seeming blue throughout the film.
I’d probably be okay with the SE trooper hallway shot, given the less than ideal look the footage I have available isn’t when placed next to the BluRay. It’s a little silly, but for a custom SE next to a good presentation of the OOT, it might be all right.
Now that’s a good idea! Consider it done.
And Mala, I can send you a reference file if you’d like to. That’d save me some trouble for sure, if indeed you are willing to.
ANH is looking (and sounding) really good! I’m very pleased with how its coming together after a short time of working on it. (Partly because of my extreme familiarity with doing exactly this sort of thing.) I was pleased to find a handful of shots which 4K77 ended up being better to use than the Despecialized, such as reinstating the Wolfman.
Things that aren’t 100% perfect:
I am not going to alter the timing of the crawl or opening shot, since doing so causes unnecessary problems.
I was going to make the lid to the escape pod blue again as 3PO and R2 wander away from it, since it appears blue again during the “look sir, droids” scene, but the 2004 master’s colors are beyond my ability to un-fuck up. It’s such a tiny thing, anyway.
Upon taking a closer look at the long shot during the sale of the droids to Owen and Luke, the added CGI vaporators aren’t really more than a very slight continuity issue, since most of the added vaporators wouldn’t be in frame in the subsequent shot from that angle anyway.
Sir Ridley is graciously re-adding the cone of light to R2’s projector for three shots in Luke’s garage.
I am currently using the Despecialized for three shots of the entrance to Mos Eisley. The two front-facing shots of the speeder during the checkpoint don’t blend 100%, but are fairly close.
The Despecialized edition was also used to remove the added Jabba scene, which itself uses GOUT footage. It’s… not fantastic, but the best option available.
I’m not going to use another source to re-animate the blinking light on the Death Star which the SE mistakenly omitted, since any of these would see a change in aesthetic far too distracting to be worth something no one in a million years would have noticed anyway.
The shot of Han cornering troopers down a hallway uses Despecialized, which itself uses GOUT. The 4K77 version of the shot stands out as too obviously from a different source, so this shot isn’t great, but it works for how brief it is.
Obviously, it’d be nice to have Adywan’s project completed in order to show the Falcon in hyperspace after escaping the Death Star and to better accomplish the SE’s creative solution to trimming the Biggs scene. However, I’d rather put this to bed than wait that long. Both fall outside the focus of the project, anyway.
I am keeping both ‘praxis’ shockwaves in ANH. The Alderaan explosion from the OOT needed to be redone, so I don’t have much choice but to keep it. And, while I don’t love the shockwaves, I do think it would be a slight mistake to feature the Battle of Yavin sourced entirely from the SE and then revert to the OOT for only the explosion. I’m not sure how to argue for it, beyond my intuition.
I gave a snarky answer, partly because I often have a baby in my arms while trying to post here nowadays. But, I really don’t have an issue with the space Leia scene.