Hal 9000

EyeShotFirst said:

On Attack of the Clones, will you be adding grain and adjusting the colors?

 Yes, very slightly. The grain will be about the same level as Cloak of Deception, and the color has been slightly tweaked to try to remove the green tint. It's subtle and you probably wouldn't notice it unless you do a direct comparison. 

We are used to seeing TPM with grain, from the older master with little or no DNR. However, seeing grain in AOTC and ROTS takes a little getting used to, but I think it helps it look like it was sourced from film. It's a small thing, but I like it. You can't really tell at DVD resolution, though. Personally I'd recommend watching the 720p version, as there's much more detail yet not so high res to make the deleted scenes stick out too much. 

I feel your pain, Joel. My prequel edits I'm wrapping up were done on such a machine. It's still got some life in it. 

Thanks, Humby, for the very fair review. You might consider leaving a formal review at FanEdit.org. 

I share your reservations about most of the things you described, but included them in the edit anyway. Other than removing the trip to Otah Gungah, I intentionally kept a little bit more of Jar Jar than most editors do. I think I was pretty merciless with things that make him out to be a slapstick clown, and kept pretty much anything else. I wanted to avoid giving the audience the impression that he is being cut down to the degree possible; he's in the film for better or worse and I want this edit to stand on its own two feet as a film. 

I really would have preferred to have had Qui-Gon say something to Obi-Wan before he dies, but unfortunately there's nothing for him to say. Anything I keep would either contradict the OT by having him request Obi-Wan train Anakin, or reference the 'chosen one' stuff. 

Other than the probe droid deleted scene, the deleted scenes I used were not necessary. I grant that. I kept the 'dawn before the race' scene for a few reasons:

• My Episode I edit is short. It's the shortest of the three, and I wanted to minimize that aspect of it, and keeping this harmless scene served that desire. 
• Episodes II and III will be making use of several important deleted scenes, so keeping this scene helps the audience adjust to having SD deleted scenes in these movies.
• I eliminated most of Anakin working on the podracer, including starting it up. Keeping this scene lets us see the pod up close a little bit and gives us a sense of Anakin working tirelessly on it.

The repair droids during the podrace are only in the edit to help the music. I had edited together the podrace with the same musical arrangement back in 2006, though I did not include it in my first edit that came out later for reasons I can't remember. That musical arrangement has stuck with me for years, so I really wanted to keep it the way it was, even if it meant mixing HD and SD footage. The podrace scoring is not perfect, though I think it makes the scene more fun and now the unscored version seems boring to me. (The mkv version contains an alternate soundtrack that is identical except it does not have any added podrace music.)

Can anyone comment on the added film grain? Does it work for you or not? TPM already has a little bit of natural grain, so I don't think it stands out. I'm rendering Episode II right now, and the grain gives it a very different visual feel because AOTC has no native grain. It's not something we are used to for it, but I think it helps things look just a little bit less digital and artificial. It at least looks like it was printed on film before being shown.  

EDIT: For anyone interested, here is my original attempt at adding music to the podrace, from years ago. This is what I was trying to recreate in HD this time around, and the repair droids from the deleted scenes were necessary to do that. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sIHt9JTkJc

I'm gratified to see the edit received well so far.

Interesting idea about the plasma, but I prefer to keep the crawl intentionally vague. If I mention something specific, I think it falls flat to never have it referenced or mentioned again in the narrative proper. However, I admit that it's pre-existence as an EU idea makes it a little more intriguing. At the end of the day, I think the crawl works better as it is than throwing ideas into it that aren't expounded upon in the film itself. "Abundant resources" steers clearer of this than "plasma resources" would. 

I'm looking forward to this regraded edition of your semi-specialized versions. I would love to have something that roughly is similar to Harmy's colorization of the OT in order to piece together a customized version to my own liking. 

I wouldn't release such a slightly modified version, but it'd be fun to do and have for myself. 

Personally, I think the Samurai Jack styled 2003 'Clone Wars' microseries edited together into one two-hour film serves quite well as an Episode 2.5. 

And I think it needs a good coat of film grain too.

The Hobbit was originally going to be made into two films: An Unexpected Journey, and There And Back Again. But once principal photography wrapped, it was announced that it would be a trilogy instead. In my opinion, this sets up the middle film for failure. Even going into the movie with all this in mind, I was very surprised as how little I enjoyed it. The movie just drops every plot thread it was in the middle of. Gandalf is loitering around in Dol Guldur doing video game shit, the Master of Laketown was introduced and then did nothing else, and the "cliffhanger" cut to black had me leaving my seat in the theater without caring to hear even a little of the credits song. 

Thanks, cuivienor, for the kind post. To set the record straight, the first version of Sharkey's Purist Editions came before Kerr's book cuts, but they weren't very good. I was about a third of the way into doing my own 6-part book cuts when Kerr released his first one. I knew right away that I needed to stop, because Kerr's were fantastic. His book cuts compelled me to go back and do a much better version of the Purist Editions to utilize some of his ideas. I don't really care about recognition; I just want to have the best edit possible. 

Kerr's doing the editing this time around, and I'm serving as a contributor/consultant. The idea at this point, and it could change, is to do both a 4-part cinematic quadrilogy (though it could end up being 5 parts), and a 7-part 'book cut' version. 

I firmly believe in Kerr's ability to put this together, and I think I'm more effective in a backseat role. Given that my only fan edits to date are Star Wars and LOTR, I feel more like a curator than an editor.

And don't get me started on DoS. That was 'Phantom Menace'-level disappointment. It's a garbage film that shouldn't exist, the stale outside pieces of the end of the first film and start of the second.

It's finally done, and I've begun seeding the DVD5 version. First post has been updated.

That much closer to 2015, with the flying cars, CD player hats,  and dehydrated pizza.

Murry Christmas, Mister Potter!

Tobar said:

They were shot in 1080p.

 Holy carp! I had heard about them existing in a 1080p master, but that's crazy!

Did they just suppose the resolution of their monitors was the maximum the films would need to be for posterity? Who does that?

I can conceive of Episodes IV, V, VI, and I being mastered in 1080p at this point because that's all they bothered with when they digitized them. However, were Episodes II and III only originally exported at 1080p resolution, like, when they were MADE?

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Are you telling me the films' best current master has an upper limit of 1080p anamorphic?

If so, at least my new fan edits won't be going out of date anytime soon.

You gotta admit, though, that the video itself is pretty funny. Like a self-parody.

My worst fear at this point is that the plot will pick up on and continue the idea of a Chosen One prophecy.

Hey, I'm not complaining.

This thread didn't stand a chance. 

I already requested that day off work. If I have any luck in my life at all I'll be at a totally different job by that time, but just in case. 

Thanks, You_Too. 

Does anyone know if the 5.1 surround audio for the 1997 SE being used for this project came from somewhere else, of if it is being made by Team Blu? 

Just showed the DEed v2.5 at my house to a group of family and friends. There were five or six adults who aren't Star Wars fanatics, a few young adults (one of which has never seen Star Wars), and my 12 year-old niece who had never seen it either. The DEed was enjoyed by all, and I was totally amazed how utterly seamless everything looked. There was no point when I or anyone questioned anything about what we were seeing. It was indistinguishable from a proper HD release of the OUT. And the best part is that two of the viewers do not know that Darth Vader is Luke's father, and everyone else was prompted ahead of time to play along with Obi-Wan's lies for their benefit. 

Empire is next week, so we're all looking forward to it. Thanks to Harmy for making it truly possible to watch the original version without even thinking about it. 

The sudden movement that George makes at four seconds into the video on the first post always manages to make me chuckle.

SilverWook said:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-Frames/post/458942/

Am I to understand that this has been in development for three years? He must be very proud.