ImperialFighter

adywan said:

Now Jedi needs a lot of work. this is supposed to be the finale to the whole saga yet the whole battle is pretty lame and seems rushed. It seemed more concentrated on the Ewoks than the struggle the Rebel fleet was having in orbit. it should have been the other way around. This should be the battle to end all battles...and it will be. There will be the new ending that completes the saga. you will get to see the reason why they seem to be celebrating around the galaxy so early after the Death Star was destroyed. I need to use models for some of the replacements and extra shots. i don't want to fully use CGI. I haven't yet seen a CGI stardestroyer on the net that looked as convincing as a real model. sure the smaller ships can be replaced by CGI but i don't want a fully CGI scene as it just won't fit in. Having the larger ships be real models and smaller ships be CGI will create a great balance that will fit with the original FX.

If ROTJ:R takes the longest to do then so be it. I have a vision of how i want ROTJ:R to turn out and i have to be prepared to put the extra work in to accomplish this. i'm not going to cut corners just to get the movie out as soon as possible because people are becoming impatient.I will never be working on these films again once they are done. there will be no special editions or revisited. So it has to be done right the first time around because i don't want to be sitting there watching them in a few years time saying " damn i wish i had done this or that" because my whole purpose for doing these edits is to do the versions i wanted to see , and if i begin to wish i'd taken a bit more time and added something else then i would have failed.

"This should be the battle to end all battles...and it will be."

Now there's a mission statement from Adywan that we should all be fired-up about!

While there'll be plenty of opportunity to discuss 'ROTJ:R' in general once it's thread comes around, his intention to round off the final movie in the saga's story like this will be worth whatever period of time it takes for Adywan to get round to it.  Like many here, I too wish to see all this sooner rather than later (yesterday would have been nice), but this whole endevour isn't primarily for the benefit of others, but is for Adywan's own personal satisfaction.  Luckily for us all though, he has chosen to share the results of his efforts for those interested.  Considering the hugely ambitious amount of ideas and 'fixes' that he is working into his versions, the fact that he seems to have an amazing workrate on these already, means that we will see his efforts as soon as is reasonably possible.

This mainly one-man creative effort  requires a ridiculous amount of planning, work, dedication, and time by the barrowload, and we are getting something wonderful out of that eventually.  So even if Adywan want's to attempt to build his own full-scale 'Death Star' from scratch to achieve a shot he wants to do, while I wouldn't mind if he borrowed one off the Emperor himself to achieve a similar shot, I realise the fun and satisfaction of making his own if that's what he chooses.  This is a personal project for Adywan, and I can understand that a large part of the kick he is getting out of this ongoing endevour will be the 'process' of doing most things hands-on himself.  That takes longer of course, but it's a huge part of the satisfaction for him I'm sure, which makes doing this project even more worthwhile for him.  And yes, he gets to keep his own 'Death Star' if that's what he chooses. 

I've seen enough of Adywan's work now to look forward to the fact that the new props and miniatures will actually be of his own making, as this makes this whole, mad, years-long project even more incredible than it already is.  It'll be ready when it's ready, and I'll happily wait for Adywan to achieve his usually excellent 'creative choices', no matter how long that takes.

So less Ewok focus, and more Rebel fleet focus then?....with an intended mix of miniatures and CGI, rather than all-CGI?  WOW!  And I thought the wait for 'Empire:R's release was going to be hard to endure....  ;)

adywan said:

yes i will be extensively documenting the model making to include in a making of that will either be released alongside ESB:R or after ROTJ:R is complete. i have something special planned for a bonus disc ( or maybe 2 bonus discs)

Even more than I expected, once again!  :)

That will be a terrific set of 'extras' by the sounds of things.  (especially looking forward to any 'making of' Wampa material)

adywan said:

Serji-X Arrogantus said:

Ady, how do you plan to shoot smooth shots of the Falcon etc... you using some sort of motion control to help with those shots ?

i'm going to have to build some sort of rig. i'm designing it at the moment and will hopefully start building it later next week.

after the trailer is complete and posted i will be taking a break from the video work and i am going to fuly concentrate on building the sets and models.

I'm hoping that ALL your various model / prop-making efforts to do with this edit onwards will be extensively filmed or photographed along the way, as much as is possible.  It will make for a very interesting record of the work you're putting into all this, if they can be viewed somewhere eventually.

Janskeet said:

I really don't see whats wrong with the Millenium Falcon/Tie Fighters in the asteriod/canyon chase. It looks fine to me. I don't see why adywan is going through the hassel of recreating the asteriod/canyon chase with models, I don't see what's in dire need of fixing?

Because the elements/colouration in the couple of shots where the TIEs collide, and when we see the Falcon with the resulting explosion behind it as it goes through the canyon passage, are probably among the worst effects in the entire movie, and spoil what is otherwise a terrific sequence.

Nice work on that latest Bespin city interior shot Adywan, by the way.  The proper colouring to the uniform is excellent, as are the vibrant sky / clouds / buildings seen through the windows.

Don't worry Dr. Inza, there's sure to be a lot more posts on this thread in the near future....

I reckon Adywan's new Emperor here looks terrific.  I always disliked the SE hood previously.

Looking forward to tomorrow's latest new shot!

Excellent work Adywan, and we didn't even have to wait till Thursday for this one!  ;)

I reckon that the colouration looks wonderful in this shot now, and really like the finished placement of your enlarged Obi-Wan behind the protrusion of the log.

Glad to see the back of the hovering 'tiny' Obi-Wan at last.  (Thanks for the helpful comparison shots as always doubleofive)

Had a study of this by the way doubleofive, and I don't think the giant 'roots' behind 'Luke doing the handstand' match these behind-the-scenes ones here (also seen in the footage), that we see in the Obi-Wan and Yoda scene.  BUT I never noticed that the stump (and giant roots) don't seem to be in the shot where we see the front of the X-Wing lowering down beside Luke....until you pointed it out just now!

Maybe Yoda (or even Luke eventually?) moved it into a better position for eventual take-off, afterwards at some point?, lol.

Adywan said: 

the main problem with having the cloud car flying towards the city is then we have 3 consecutive shots of a ship flying away from the camera. First Luke's X-wing which wipes to the shot of cloud city then straight into the fly-though scene with the cloud car. the middle shot really needs to be different or the repetitiveness is glaring. In the clip i did put that it was a temp shot and i always miss the original wipe shot with the cloud car (don't get me started on that refinery again. ;) lol). i have a few ideas about what to do with the shot but just need to do a few tests first.

Just a thought, but what about a compromise in this shot, where you could still have the 'main' cloud-car coming TOWARDS us (ala the GOUT original look) to juxtapose against the preceding shot of Luke's X-Wing RECEDING away, but ALSO have a 2nd cloud-car in the shot, being seen to be RECEDING towards the city too  (which would eventually look as if it ties-in with the start of the following shot showing a RECEDING cloud-car beginning it's city 'fly-through')

The one coming TOWARDS us would still be the dominating 'movement' in this shot, and would continue to give the necessary difference of 'direction of travel' between it and the before and after shots.

Tobar said:

Hey Happy Star Wars Day everybody! May the Fourth Be With You.... =P

This will be a day long remembered....   :)

DuTwan said:

Been lookin thru Empire past few days and cant see anything that hasnt been mentioned or done by Ady. Findin it really hard now to find things to try and change and worse its gettin harder to find pics to do mockups with lol.

What we need really is a kind of quick list Ady that u havent done yet and u wonderin about idea or just wot generally people come up with. Coz we dont know exactly how much uve done or every last thing uve changed lol.

On top of what is just a 'loose', incomplete list of Adywan's amendments on his first post of this thread, here is a separate, more comprehensive (though still incomplete) list of some of the ideas (not all of which are being used) and actual completed amendments that have been gathered. 

Monroville last updated the 2nd page details in February it seems -   http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Adywans-ESB-edit-Suggestion-Terminal/topic/9477/

There's still a few things that have been mentioned, and then incorporated that aren't on this list though, and there's certainly a few things to come that haven't been fully covered yet for Adywan to consider, on top of these.

vaderios said:

Thats the asteroid that i was talking about.

 

This was one of the things I'd intended to bring up too some time soon vaderios.

Lighting issues aside, I never liked how it seemed so uniformly 'rounded' compared to the rest of the irregular-shaped ones we see throughout the sequence, and how it it just moved in a NON-'tumbling' motion that doesn't match the others either.

So it's great to see that Adywan has confirmed it's to be amended now too!

 

Going by the current SE shots, if you choose to look on the 'apartment window' shot as being the WHOLE 'rounded end' of the top section of the building seen in the preceding shot....then the top section is only as wide as the 'apartment' is (quite narrow it seems), and the position of the 'tall, fat building and platform seems to be SIDE-onwards on the right-hand side to the whole of Leia's building....BUT if you look on the 'apartment window' shot as being positioned 'unseen' at the far-edge of a WIDER top section, then the position of the 'tall, fat building' and platform can seem to be facing almost DIRECTLY towards the end of Leia's building, and better matches the positioning seen at the end of the preceding 'fly-by' shot too.

And also going by the current SE shots, shouldn't the single 'wine'-coloured stripe either side of the 'apartment window' be covering the 'strips' indicated just above and below it as well, to better tie-in with the MUCH THICKER 'wine'-coloured stripe seen in the preceding SE shot? (or the one in the preceding shot could be made THINNER)  Especially since it's seemingly intended to represent the same structure?

As far as the 'INTERIOR' of the 2 shots shown here are concerned - 

I agree that Han enters the doorway beside the 'plant in the red vase', and that Chewbacca and Lando BOTH end up entering the SAME doorway a good distance away from Han's one, and which has the 'seashell' beside it (You can just briefly see the 'seashell' on the alcove shelf on the LEFT of Chewbacca when he enters the apartment with the pieces of C3PO). 

And I always imagined that the bottom shot, showing a 'close-up' of 'Leia looking out of a supposed window', is intended to show us an almost DIRECT-on view of the REAR of the apartment's layout, with Han's doorway on the RIGHT of the shot, and Chewbacca's and Lando's doorway on the FURTHEST FAR LEFT of the shot here (which means that the angle of the current 'interior' seen through the 'window' before it, is quite off-kilter).

The current layout of 'doors' seen through the 'window' seem to lead to nowhere, as Chewbacca and Lando would have had to come into the apartment using the same doorway situated somewhere around where Leia is facing in the 'window' shot seen here!  And although the spacing of the SHADOWS on the wall are not perfect between the 2 SE shots shown here, judging by the direction of their angles, I would say that we shouldn't see in this preceding 'window' shot, what  seems to be the TOP of the 'plants in the red vase' beside where Han enters, when compared to the positioning of the NEXT shot....

Therefore, the ways I'd like to see the existing 'window interior' adjusted would be these, if possible -

I reckon the SE hint of 'twisting, glass ornament' that we can make out behind Leia, that is currently on the left-hand side of the interior, should be moved over to the far- RIGHT of the 'interior', to give it a better 'centrally-placed' look in the overall structure as seen through the 'window'.  This would better match the actual set positioning behind Leia in the NEXT shot shown above, to reinforce that the back of the apartment is more to the RIGHTof the 'inside' of this structure....

OR if that's not achievable during this slightly 'zooming-in' shot, could you alternatively consider REMOVING IT COMPLETELY out of the shot (and out of our viewpoint) , ALONG with the 'hint' of what seems like the TOP of the 'plants in the red vase'?   This would give the impression that the 'central ornament' and the 'plants in the red vase' are FURTHER BACK to the RIGHT of the structure, unseen by us.  I know the hint of ceiling curvature is possibly slightly wrong for this, but I'd prefer that to being more distracted by the strangely-positioned 'ornament' compared to it's positioning in the shot that follows.  It's a little thing in the scheme of things, but this subtle tweak could make a good difference, if possible.  Even if the 'ornament' isn't adjusted or removed, I'd definately like to see the hint of the TOP of the 'plant in the red vase' TOTALLY REMOVED, as that REALLY gives a misleading layout to the interior, where it would seem 'vaguer' without it.  (There seems to be something sticking out now on the inside on the left-hand side that passes in front of Leia close to the window's interior.  This is not really a problem, as the camera-angle of Leia's 'close-up' supposedly 'looking out of the window' in the next shot doesn't show exactly how close she is to the window, and isn't at an angle to see this 'protrusion', even if it had been included in the actual set.  It's just an extra detail that could EITHER be left in, OR removed)  The figure of Leia is fine to be seen pacing in her current way, even if any of these interior adjustments are made.

Either of these 2 scenarios would greatly improve the continuity between these 2 shots I think.

Adywan, just wanted to re-suggest these specific points above, that may have got missed in a lengthy post I made a while back.  I still think they are worth considering if you did miss them.  Not a biggie at the end of the day, just a few thoughts on it still.

The removal of the top of the structure was mentioned by a few at the time, and is a welcome improvement for the sake of continuity with the interior ceiling shots.  Great to see you did this tweak.

This shot comes immediately before the one showing Leia pacing through the 'window'.  Comments in the post below -

Glorious preview shots once again Adywan!

Considering how different the sky and lighting looks in the original shot, I've been curious about how your new sky / background buildings would turn out in that particular shot of the Falcon on the platform.  Wonderful as it turns out.

(I sure can't wait to see just how transformed the shots of the Falcon and Slave 1 TAKING OFF from the platform will end up looking)

However, there IS something I'd like to say about your 'Leia in window' shot, now that we see just exactly what you amended in the end.  I'll need to do it over 2 following posts -

adywan said:

 i would never forgive myself that i deleted the cameo by Ralph McQuarrie. :)

Just caught this update before I hit the sack.  I didn't know he was in that shot.  I'm sure even he'd be impressed with all the work you're doing on this thing.

jones1899, unfortunately it's not sufficient to give you the bare basics of what I intended to show.  The basics are that I've got a different 'beginning' which involves various alternative shot arrangements, and a different 'ending' that also involves various alternative shot arrangements, and it' s just not possible to summarise it into a few sentances. 

I really need to lay this out with a lot of screenshots to clearly show what I have in mind.  I'm still in the middle of organising what I need for doubleofive to help me out, and had some coding problems at my end the last couple of days.  These have just been sorted out, but I'm still in a  busy period concerning life in general, unfortunately.

Believe me, I wish I'd looked at all this long before now, and would have liked to have offered this a while back, but all you need to know at the moment is that this will be the longest series of consecutive posts I've ever done on this forum.  (And I reckon I've done a few lengthy ones in the past....)

Thanks for the interest, and if anyone likes them, and wishes to incorporate any of them, then of course they are welcome.  I'm getting through it all, but it's going to take just a little longer yet to do it properly.

By the way it's my Birthday as of a little while ago, and the family have something planned after work that will delay me resuming this till the day after.  But I'll try to finish it all as soon as I can.  Must get some sleep now.

While I can see that a direct 'wipe' from the shot showing Ozzel glowering at Captain Needa, straight to the one of Han atop the Falcon, fixing it, could work out okay....I'd miss this Rebel Base shot not being included for these reasons -

We get to see a lot more of the Base, including seeing some of the actual large 'Transports', in this establishing shot.

We'd miss out on the exposition about the intentions for the 'snowspeeders' which Leia doesn't cover later on, since we hear "Groups 7 and 10 will stay behind to fly the speeders...."

And most of all we'd miss out on Adywan's intentions to totally re-do this shot in his own inimitable way, which has GOT to be worth seeing!

Also, personally I'd prefer if we don't return to a 'blue' hue for the clouds in general during 'Luke's approach to Bespin City", as I really like the 'whitish' / 'greyish' colouring that is going on now, but it's no biggie at the end of the day.

By the way, like vaderios, I'll admit that I too thought teharri was hoping for TWO preview shots per week rather than one....until it was pointed out that the word "DUEL" was used, rather than "DUAL", lol.  :)

,

I hope no-one minds, but seeing as the latest 'cloud' shot has been shown above again (still minus it's X-Wing element), I wanted to see the other recent 'cloud' shot (from earlier in the movie) shown a few pages back, in close proximity to it on the same page for an at-a-glance comparison of the lighting differences between the time periods.

So here it is.

That latest 'cloud' shot looks like a 'Turner' painting in comparison to the original look.  The new lighting makes the city's setting seem truly 'realistic' now, and the brief glimpse of the sun behind the city (which will appear towards the end of the shot) sounds like it'll be a very nice moment indeed.

I guess it might even end in a brief 'lensflare' then, perhaps.  Since the added ones on 'ANH:R', turned out so well, I'm sure it'll look equally great if Adywan has decided to add one here.

Either way, this shot is bound to look amazing in 'motion' eventually. 

Wow!  An early preview....and the shot looks simply stunning, Adywan!  And that's even without the X-Wing in place yet.

The final colouration overall has turned out even better than I'd hoped.  Another success.  

vaderios, I wouldn't worry about any CGI being used here and there if necessary, as I'm sure it will only be included if it's as good as the stuff previously done for 'ANH:R'.

I really liked your speculation on how the background 'cloud' lighting might look in this shot eventually, now that we have a rough idea of how Luke's 'approach' shot is going to look....  With or without any buildings in the distance at this point, I like your effort.

adywan said:

just recently it was suggested that when Luke approaches Bespin that it should be later in the day because the sun is setting shortly after. Now i had spent 5 days working on  the new moving  matte shot of Luke's approach and had just finished it and i loved it until i saw this suggestion.  i've now gone back and had to change most of the elements and start from scratch because i like this idea. luckily i could reuse all the tracking work i had originally done and have now completed it (minus the xwing which needs to have a new element added) but the finished shot is 1000% better than it originally was.

This sounds great for continuity, and your revised version could make a nice option as a future 'Thursday shot' to preview sometime.

Also, it would be of great interest to see even a frame from your original take on this shot, if that is at all possible, for comparison's sake.

Oh, and it was neat to see a little more of the Bespin city 'stem' in your previous recent 'cloud' shot.

jones1899, just a quick update to let you know that I'm STILL compiling my suggestions (only) for some possible changes to the 'beginning' and 'ending' of this movie, using the existing footage.

I've now seen another couple of possible tweaks during those portions that I REALLY like, and that may be of interest to others, too.

At the end of the day, it's still only 'KOTCS', but taken in conjunction with some of the great ideas on this thread for the bulk of this movie, I've definately got a re-arrangement of the 'beginning' and 'ending' that I'm happy with now.

doubleofive has kindly agreed to sort out even more of the screenshots I need to show all this properly, and I'll try and get everything up here, as soon as time allows over the coming days, when it's all in place.

ladyferry said:

Ooh! thats nice, it looks like the Cloud Car hopping to the gas refinery first then onto Cloud City... Just a wee glimpse of the refiery would be cool.

 

Going by the lack of 'engine glow', It seems that Adywan's present intention is to replicate the 'cloud-car' coming away from the city towards us, as it was in the GOUT. And I think this shows the GOUT element at the moment.   I reckon it would work just as well even if he decided to have one heading towards the city in this shot though,  as it would STILL juxtapose nicely with Luke's receding X-wing in the previous shot, and especially well with the receding 'cloud-car' of the new 'city fly-through' that follows this.  I'll love it either way.

sketchrob and vaderios, interesting that you look on the SE shot that way.  The perspective of the 'refinarery' has always seemed fine in the foreground for me personally, as the higher, distant city itself seems to be such a huge structure, and such an indeterminate distance away, that it's quite hard to tell if the perspective is off.  Although I didn't care for the removal of a 'cloud-car' in the shot, I wasn't distracted by the perspective issue.  It seems it's not going to be in the shot at this point anyway, but I'm not against it being included anymore, after seeing Sevb32's mock-up.  Having looked at the current movement of the SE shot and it's clouds, the new shot will be terrific in 'motion' I'm sure.

Davnes007, thanks very much for sticking that 'menu' shot up for me! Nice one.   Although the colouring doesn't match the existing footage, I was keen to see the detail on it.

Adywan, I remember requesting long ago that you consider replacing the SE shot with something that was 'reminiscent' of the original 'cloud-car' shot.

Personally, I was always more than happy to have a 're-used', or 'flipped' existing 'cloud-car' element placed into any new shot you came up with, if it meant getting a bit of faster 'movement' back into the shot again, as well as getting that 'engine roar' sound effect back too.  So I didn't expect it to necessarily be a reproduction of the GOUT version coming directly towards us.  In fact, I thought it was likely that one of the existing RECEDING 'cloud-car' elements would be used, which would have looked good too, I guess.

By the way, can anyone show a shot of the the one that flies in 'close-up' to us on one of the SE 'menu' screens, when you press 'play' on the 'Millennium Falcon landing' one?  I always wanted a good look at it, but it goes by so fast.

Anyway, these are one SE addition that I thought turned out well, so I wish Husker the best in matching the standard of them.

I REALLY like your mock-up there Sevb32, considering I always disliked the 'silent refinery' SE shot.  I guess knowing that the 'cloud-car' is back, makes everything okay for me.  The best of both worlds then.  Looks good.