Hal 9000

All right, having thought about it a bit more, here’s what I imagine for the ‘alternate’ set of edits as companions to my main edits.

• Original film titles, same crawls otherwise as main edits (ideally, if possible)

• Not sure whether to reinstate midichlorians! Current canon projects have seemed to dodge explicit mention of them, and even if one needed them for its story they would be probably be introduced there just fine

TPM:

• Reinstate the trip underwater to Otah Gungah and a few scenes that come with it which were only removed due to depending on it

• Reinstate Anakin being stated to be too old to be trained

AOTC:

• Reinstate Yoda with a lightsaber

ROTS:

• Existing alternate stuff about having Padme die would be part of this

• Reinstate youngling murder scene and a few references to it

• Reinstate Yoda vs Sidious and the explicit plan of Yoda and Obi-Wan to assassinate the two Sith (using the AI ‘Your mother once thought as you do’ line in ROTJ will help here)

In order to avoid having THREE versions of Episode III on offer (current/main version, alternate version, alternate stuff described above but Padme still lives on Alderaan), I could simply reinstate the youngling stuff into the main version as an update and have the fully alternate version in which Padme dies and Yoda fights Sidious.

Or, we could really just legitimately offer three cuts of Episode III to fit with anyone’s taste on these points:

• Padme lives, Yoda does not fight Sidious
• Padme dies, Yoda fights Sidious
• Padme lives, Yoda fights Sidious

All three would feature youngling murder, for the reason that a major canon project closely tied to the Skywalker Saga (The Kenobi show) makes central use of this story point.

Thoughts? Outrage?

A glimpse into how conversations with myself can go:

Not sure why the image won’t load. It’s the Simpsons clip of Krusty interviewing Robert Frost, covering him with snow, and being told, “We discussed this, and I said no.”

‘Lightspeed slip’ is what I ended up going with, so you likely have the right version.

No, it’s a very fair observation. Sometimes I think maybe it wasn’t corrected enough, then look at the original and am like “wow damn that’s a lot of blue.”

Everything looks fine to me.

Original:

Ascendant:

Original:

Ascendant:

I’d feel good about having one alternate version of each prequel edit, catering to (and hedging against) unforeseeable developments in the ongoing Star Wars continuity. Not replacing the existing cuts, which to me will remain the ones I’d recommend and stand by.

Everyone would be presented with the ‘Main/Recommended’ and ‘More Canon Friendly’ presentations.

Still haven’t even had a chance to check, but hopefully it just doesn’t look like it but I’ll confirm! Thank you.

I PM’d Ridley to see about that, but didn’t want to include the idea in the post in case it wasn’t possible.

Since I had put out an alternate version of my ROTS edit, I think it would be prudent, while I’m still able to, to put out a more thorough alternate edit of all three of the prequels to comport with wider Star Wars canon. These three ought to play nicely with just about everything else out there. I’d still consider the main edits as the ‘recommended’ versions, though.

Here’s what I anticipate doing for each:

TPM:

Underwater trip, and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon apology scene later

Midichlorians, blood test

Mention of Anakin being too old to be trained

AOTC:

Younglings scene (to fit with ROTS having younglings)

Boba Fett being stated to be a clone

Darth Tyrannus name

Yoda using saber, and line foreshadowing it during chase scene on Coruscant

ROTS (other than what is already done for existing alternate version):

Younglings scene and references to it

Yoda vs Sidious duel

Looks great!

Gorgeous work, and glad to hear you’re on the mend.

I’ll take a look when I can, thanks for pointing it out.

If true, a mistake. At what point do you notice it’s not there? Like what part of the movie?

I’d highly recommend stitching together new video stream using one single primary source and not sourcing from other edits directly. No problems, fresh video, good feelings.

iestynx said:

The more I Watch TLJ the more I enjoy it, apart from the Canto Bight sequences.

In that case, I’d suggest TFA: Starlight, TLJ: Legendary (mine), and TROS: Ascendant (mine). Sending you links.

You could swap any of my sequel trilogy projects into an otherwise-theatrical watch and be just fine. And TROS would be the one to do!

Very slightly, yes. Not fundamentally different though.

Is Darth Vader an obscure figure in the Star Wars galaxy? In the old EU he was portrayed as famous, a well-known second in command to the Emperor.

In the Kenobi show, Obi-Wan does not know that Anakin/Vader lived until ten years later when Reva mentions his name. You’d think that would be hard to miss, even if he was spending most of his time getting stoned off his ass on Tatooine.

Also, in ANH Luke does not appear to recognize the name Darth Vader when Obi-Wan names him. Is Vader meant to be a little-known figure outside the Empire’s military hierarchy?

It’s a real problem, that they recycled the plot (not necessarily whole story, but certainly plot) of the OT for the ST characters and world. Something should happen next that couldn’t have happened as a direct extension of ROTJ’s ending, and what that is isn’t intuitive or natural. Luke’s arc has been recontextualized to involve “hubris” and “failure,” so that would need to be part of Rey’s trajectory even if she ostensibly going on to “finish what [Luke] started.”

But what is that? Does she bring something feminine that Luke was lacking? Does she foster a collaborative, nondogmatic effort to train up a new generation of Jedi with great humility?

Or does an evil remnant hidden in space re-emerge with a superweapon and pose an urgent threat over the course of two hours?

Luke’s line in ANH to Obi-Wan reads as weird, given the world building we’ve seen in other media since in which people seem readily familiar with both the Jedi and the Force. Even in the Kenobi show, the Inquisitor rightly presumed they didn’t need to be introduced and that even the population of Tatooine knew they hunted Jedi.

That line in ANH is simply, “The Force?”

Obviously, it’s to get exposition going. But it seems weird for Luke to be familiar with the Jedi and be baffled by mention of the Force.

Not sure the line could be removed seamlessly, though. Maybe an AI line can give Kenobi’s line about the Force a different on-ramp.

[Redacted]

One episode in. I’m already looking forward to the movie-fold-down fan edit. Okay so far but it just feels like the first 15 minutes of a movie stretched out. The final sequence felt at least 7 minutes too long.

As long as my gracious host doesn’t object, I’d be glad to host it too. Makes sense to; anyone who’d like that variant would be able to get it when they look at the edit.

G&G-Fan said:

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.

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.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Hal, was v7 actually just the integration of a bunch of AI-upscaled deleted scenes? If so, did it make a pretty significant difference?

I believe that is correct. But, if you’d like a copy of shorman13’s source for AOTC let me know and I can get it to you.