Jacobss

Yeah, you always wonder if someone is so stupid or so smart.

Anyway, I've said already a couple of times, that the edits NEEDS to be made for much broader audience. Of course, I don't want here to complain about them, because most of them are fine and really improving the movie. They do the job well, but I'm afraid mostly only for us. There are many things which bothers us (Ewoks or fake looking enviroment in prequels), but for the general audience they are ok. Certainly there are a few things, which bothers even the general audience - Jar Jar (although, it depends, mostly on your age) or love story in AOTC.

The only one edit I would shown to non SW fans is SW:Revisited. But still, for the first time, I would go with the official DVD version (or BD in the near future). For ESB maybe I would use the theatrical reconstruction from the greatest editor of all time, ADY :).

As for the sister from Darth Bizzaro - well, she is certainly no SW fan, but she is not alpha and omega. I mean, showing someone SW for the first time (I know how it is, because I made that with someone from my family year ago) and seeing what reaction and comments we get, depends on with which kind of person we are watching the movie. For example, when you are watching the movies with 10 years old boy, he will certainly love Jar Jar, fall asleep during politics talks or love story. But he will love the actions sequences or Ewoks. Maybe he will hate young Anakin, I hated him when I was a boy in 99/00/01. On the other site, when you are watching it with man who is 27 years old, he will for 99% hate Jar Jar and all the "comical" scenes, but he will maybe be interested in politics (Palpatine rise to power), or Vaders sacrifice for his son or Lukes adventures. His will understand his frustration and willingness to get off from this rock.

I don't believe that any real SW fan could write such shit. I think that this people are Lucasfilm employers and they try to spread propaganda. It's actually not so hard to believe, because blu-ray.com is visited by many film studios employers. This is funny, because their comments about Lucas and his movies, that he can do no wrong etc. do the opposite effect.

Lucas himself is a person who like to be adore by others - he always wanted that people will believe that he is so great, that he has planned the whole saga from the beggining etc. We know it is not true, but we are in the minority.

Adywan - No offense, but I think you've made a mistake registering on blu-ray.com with your famous nickname. I know you have stayed calm about your edits and you have not mentioned them, but there are some people who recognized you there and mentioned them. I know that Lucasfilm is very liberal about fan edits (not like other film studios), but still, you need to be careful. There are many people on blu-ray.com, who can alarm appropriate people from the industry. Considering that you are not coming from third world country and your edits are becoming more and more popular, I think someone might get interested about it.

Just be careful. And congratulations for fighting with those idiots, who are kissing Lucas ass on blu-ray.com - I lost my willingless to do it long time ago.

First of all, congratulations for your effort. I've seen it already and it's definitely a step forward in the right direction, but still, it is not the film I would show to someone who has not seen the SW prequels. Not that I would show someone the original version, but this movies (I-III) still needs more tweaks to be good. Not that your edit isn't good, it's brilliant, considering how much limited your footage resources are.

Things that I liked are definitely:

The love story, relationship between Anakin and Obi and much faster pace, which is what this films NEED. Great idea that Anakin and Padme kiss for the first time before Arena - this is how it should have been done in the original cut. Anakin is now much more likeable, altough I still don't like how he looks like (but this is something you can't repair) and his acting is still wooden. Also, the opening crawl is brilliant - Looking forward how you will improve this in ROTS. Great thing was removing Jettster Dexter - this subplot was so lame, god, I can't believe Lucas could wrote such shit. I was always thinking that Zam Wessel should have told them about Kamino, like in your edit. There are many minor things that I also liked.

Things that I think that could be improved or I didn't like:

Still some stupid lines from Anakin left - Like the one where he is standing and meditating on Naboo and Padme comes in. I think it would be better if Anakin would come straight to the point - When Padme told him that she heard him in the night, he should have say her about his mother and his nightmare - Without this stupid "Jedi don't have nightmares bla". Yoda still does feel Anakins emotion, what makes him blind and stupid (thanks to RLM for pointing this out). If he felt that Anakins was struggling and using more and more dark side, why didn't he do something about it? There are still some problems with the plot - I know why you have removed the dialogue in the senat between Yoda and Mace, but without it, the audience have no clue how could Yoda come with all Clone Troopers in the deciding moment. Mace and the Jedi's coming to Geonosis is alright - he said earlier that he will deal with Count Dooku, so the audience will understand that. Although you have done a great job, improving the romance, there are my thoughts:

When Padme said to Anakin - "I'm not afraid to die", it should be everything and they should just kiss. Not this shit "I love you", bla bla, because Padme sound like she would reading the script. It's weak and sound like from a bad romantic movie. This scene is just perfect with "I'm not afraid to die", Anakins looks at her and they kiss. I don't know what to think about Anakin arguing with Obi about Padme on the ship, when they are following Dooku. I understand why you left it, but Obi sound again like a dick (hello original cut) and Anakin is stupid and can't understand that capturing Dooku is more important. I think it's to early for Anakin to care more about Padme than Jedi order. Look, he just met her again after 10 years a couple of weeks ago. On the other side he was Jedi for 10 years. Too early. In ROTS it would work (3 years later), but not here. And the last most important thing to the casual viewer - why do they get married so quickly? Not that you would understand in the original cut, of course not, Lucas showed again a middle finger to the audience. Maybe he doesn't understand that when young people loves eachother, that doesn't mean they are going to get married right after they realised they are in love. Unfortunately, because this is impossible to explain, I would suggest to cut the marriage out and in the ROTS cut out all statements that say they are married. Why does Anakin and Padme even need to be married? They can still have children. It is even not important for the plot in ROTS, that they are married. The movie can still be great without it.

I always thought that Anakin and Padme should have been hiding their love  from other people (like Obi-Wan). Because in the original cut and sometimes in your edit, Obi is just stupid not to see it (Padme kissing Anakin when she jumps on this beast and caring so much about him when he lost his arm)

There are of course some minors things which disturbed me, but I don't want to point everything out, because it's hard to get ride of this things. You have still done an excellent job removing them.

BEST AOTC EDIT I HAVE SEEN so far. I'm waiting for your ROTS edit. Also, I wanted to ask something - do you plan to update your edits (also future edits) to HD? I mean not upscale, but do it from scratch? Because today, it's really pain in the ass to watch DVDs, and I'm starting to cry when I think that there is new BD set coming in September and I can't watch the prequels in beautiful HD, because it's so awful.

I'm not saying that this moment is bad, just because it wasn't "BIG" reveal. I'm saying it's bad because it's played and edited inconsistent, also there is no emotion at all. It happens quite often in Star Wars prequels. As I said, I blame Lucas technique for this inconsistent feeling. He often said that he makes his films from nothing. I read ROTS making of book by J.W.Rinzler and parts of this sequence were filmed again during pick ups. Yes, I know how films are made and that the pieces are taken from different takes, but you must be careful with this. You can screw very quickly all emotions in the sequence. That's why I think editing is the most important moment in the film making. Look at this edit and compare it to the original cut. So much better and you have to consider that there is very little to work with. Imagine what Cutter could do, if he got all pieces recorded on ROTS stage, during the filming days. It would be breathtaking.

Anyway, I don't have willingness to discuss this sequence anymore. We can go back to it, when Cutter will start with it.

Cutter - Can't wait to see more. When can we expect something? Cheers :).

Edit: rpvee - I have read that book and this scene is indeed very good. If only the film was that good :). I just don't understand why Lucas didn't use Stover's dialogs in the film. It would've been so much better than that crap he wrote. You have to remember that Lucas approved that book himself - Stover said that himself. He also was dissapointed when he saw the film.

There are of course some moments where the book is as weak as the film - for example the dialog between Anakin and Obi on Mustafar before the fight. But this moments are rare.

fishmanlee said:

too bad the "Battle of the Heroes" motif couldnt be twisted into a heroic/noble motif for Anakin and Obi-wans relationship....

and....

Jacobss said:

PALPATINE: Use my knowledge, I beg you . . .(Here I wanted to laugh - 5 seconds ago he was winning and now he has to beg Anakin? Very inconsistent dialog - written and played inconsistent.

That is kind of the Point, he does not have to beg, but its him trying to sound like a good guy

Sidious....seems to fear Anakin which is laughable, because in the OT Anakin is his slave.

Well in the OT he is crisped, crippled, (not to mention past 30) and stuck in a (heavy) suit, Instead of young and in his prime soooo.....

Trying to sound like a good guy? For God's sake, he is a Sith Lord! He started a war on massive scale, killing bilions of people only to become a dictator. Is Anakin five years old, that he can't see it? That is one of the many things I hate about the prequels. The characters are so stupid that it is impossible for the audience to connect with them. How can you connect with someone who can't ask even ONE logical question or undertake ONE logical decision? Anyway, the time for Palpatine being a good uncle has passed. The only thing he could have done was to reveal himself to Anakin and hope that he joins him. He did that, only 5 seconds later to undertake the complete illogical action and opposite of what he has done before.

About Anakin's condition - This is something what contradict one of the BASICS laws of SW universe, established in the OT. In the OT we saw and heard that the size matters not. It is not that crude matter, which makes us strong, but the force. Yoda, a small, old and unequipped creature, yet a very strong Jedi master.

Sorry, but this dialog between Palpi and Anakin is so dump that any logical attempt to explain that will fail.

One of many things which we didn't like about the prequels was that there are
almost no twists, surprises or drama. That's why I have 2 new ideas:

In the original cut when Padme gets onboard her ship and goes to Mustafar we
see Obi-Wan getting on board, closing the door with the force and staying on
the ship. I would remove everything about Obi-Wan. We see just Padme getting onboard and starting. At this point, the audience doesn't know where Obi-Wan is and what is he doing. We saw him just last time when he left Padme's apartment after telling her that Anakin turned to the dark side.
Then we have the conversation between Padme and Anakin on Mustafar - at one point, Padme says: "Because of what you've done . . . what you plan to do" Now we see that Anakin is looking somewhere and we see Obi-Wan. I would left the shot where Anakin is looking but I would cut the shot where Obi-Wan is shown.

Padme is still talking "Stop, stop now. Come back! I love you". Anakin screams: "Liar!. And the audience is confused for one second - why does he say that? And suddenly we see Padme turning and for the first time we see Obi-Wan. Of course it's only the beginning of the whole sequence because there is much more do to. It's just a rough idea I had in my head.

The next twist should be about Palpatine - I would remove every sequence or words which would indicate that he is Lord of the Sith, before his reveal to Anakin. Because in the original cut it is  obvious from the beginning that he is the Sith Lord. When he is revealed I always hated that there is nothing emotional about this sequence. The music is good, but we need something more dark - like Palpatine theme from ROTJ. There is also nothing magical about the enviroment. In ROTJ (besides the dark music) everything was dark. Here we have no dark music and no dark enviroment. Something HAS TO BE DONE about it. Such a great moment and so poor done. There is of course some work on the dialog to be done. At some lines I get the impression there are talking about the weather and suddenly we get very serious lines. I would say that Lucas technique is here to blame. He makes his films from nothing. He is doing to many pickups taking to many shots from to many cuts and the actors and their emotions feel inconsistent. Example:

Palpi: "Learn to know the dark side of the Force, Anakin, and you will be able to save your wife from certain death" - He seem here very powerful and we can see that he is already seducing Anakin. Also he is smiling very like Darth Sidious.

ANAKIN: What did you say? (Lol, are you deaf Ani? - And of course it does feel very out of place)

PALPATINE: Use my knowledge, I beg you . . .(Here I wanted to laugh - 5 seconds ago he was winning and now he has to beg Anakin? Very inconsistent dialog - written and played inconsistent.

After that we dont see (I hate that) Sidious but some whiny politician. He seems to fear Anakin what is laughable, because in the OT Anakin is his bitch.

Sorry for my english. Sometimes I have troubles to express what I want to say. But I think you get what I mean.

Someone on Bluray.com compared 04 release to the video from blu-ray specials with Ewan McDonald. Is to possible that it is a new transfer? Yes, the colors are still wrong (pink and blue), but the crushed blacks are not a bad as in 04. What do you think about it? I also compared it with 1977 (pictures in the middle) release on Laserdisc.

The Cutter - Have you seen this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R7-siYau3E&feature=related

And this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOHPhrNaE58

I think it could be a great inspiration... I would love to see something like this, or even better in your edit :).

The Cutter - First, I'm glad that you are back and you are still working on this project.

You are great editor with alot of great ideas. Your Darth Vader scene is just beatiful. Almost as I have imagine it for years. Darth Vader is again badass, who does not care for Padme - I love it.

I hated this whole "nooooooooooooooo" sequence.

I think it is great, that you are also sound editor, because it's one of the things that this movies are lacking.

Last year, when you've showed your first videos, I gave you some propositions. If you have nothing against it, I will write some ideas, which you can consider if you want.

Have you already thought about the scene, where Anakin and Obi-Wan are meeting on Mustafar? I think it's one of the most screwed moments, even if it was very important for the plot. That scene is lacking pace and sense. Dialog is boring and the actors are behaving, like they were  talking about the weather. :) The most crucial moment is when Anakin is chocking Padme and Obi-Wan is going slowly down and saying slowly and boring "let her go". The music is good, but not in the Star Wars style. Do something about it :)

Have you already thought what will you do with the duels between Obi-Wan vs Anakin and Palpatine vs Yoda. What about the music in them?

I stopped to believe that they will fix anything. For sure they will throw 2004 transfers with 2004 audio mix, crushed blacks etc.

The only worth thing are documentaries for OT. Nothing more.

Just read some of the commentaries on blu-ray-com - Apart from famous Kenkraly and his repetitive comments, seriously I can't stand anymore people, who believes Lucas lies that all original prints of SW are lost forever. Let's take a look on some of those comments:

It never ceases to amaze me at the shear ignorance of the "unaltered theatrical" anal retentive fanboys on this issue.

Don't you people get how the restored '97 SEs were made to begin with? And actually much more importantly, WHY? Because by '95 or '96 (whatever year they started work on them) the original prints were in such bad shape thaty they had to restore them then, or lose them forever. But because they were altered with new CG stuff and whatnot, the frames that included these new effects were only restored in this state...not in the original way. So the unaltered frames, even if they still existed, are in 15 years worse shape now than they were back then. And remember, we're talking '70s film stock, which wasn't the best film stock to ever grace the film world. And I'm mainly talking about ANH here.

Why do you think the "bonus feature" of the unaltered versions on the 2nd DVD release was just a port of the LD version? And no, I doubt there are some better prints of the unaltered film out there in some warehouse somewhere. Because if there was, don't you think they would have been used during the restoration in the first place?

I mean, com'on folks, use your noggin for something other than a hat rack!

Guys, I don't know. Does it even make sense to explain people that they are utterly wrong?

Adywan - Is the whole film unusable or only certain sections? Because theoretically, you could scan only elements which were replaced by SE and then combine it with officials BDs. Is it even possible? Maybe it would be better than replacing this elements with GOUT, like you did with Empire reconstruction or Harmy with his editions. I'm just curious if it would give any positve results.

It does look indeed great, but I have a few question:

1. What possible quality can be achieved with this transfer? DVD, BD or even something better? (the screen on other forum was almost 4K)

2. Will the transfer contain all 3 films?

3. What about sound? Will it also be restored? No chance for 6 track dolby?

Anyway, it does look so great, that I just can't believe it. I pray that one day it will see the light and show how poor Lucasfilm is. No crushed blacks, correct colors and beatiful quality. Speaking of colors,  I'm wondering how much Adywans color correction was right and how much the colors from Lucasfilm editions were. I'm curious if Death Star walls are green or grey...

If someone has a bad day, I would recommend to see this topic on bluray.com:

http://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-movies-north-america/141915-star-wars-complete-saga-original-prequel-trilogy-september-27-2011-a-452.html

Good laugh, after a bad day :).

Kenkraly calling me and people from here trolls, because I'm "bashing" GL and telling me that the colors and sound mix for Episode IV will be fixed.

What a shame he didn't say "colars". Some other things are also funny. Example:

Those trolls at originaltrilogy.com are mean and disrespectfull.

Here we go again:

kenkraly2004 said:

Star Wars will look greet on blu-ray hands down and all of the errors that where on the 2004 dvd's as far as picture and sound will be fixed for the blu-ray release. Some people say I'm crazy to think that will happen but it will trust me folks. Now the reason I think that both Fox and Lucasfilm have'nt released any details on the saga and prequel and original trilogy BD boxed sets is because they haven't started work on them and I think they will start work and when they are ready to release a date it will be either in May or June. So don't rush yo judgement on the Star Wars blu-rays until they are finished and they are out in September.

Source: Comments on Blu-ray.com

I'm really starting to believe that he is working for Lucasfilm. Otherwise, how can he be so stupid?

I posted it in new topic, but I will post it here too:

Interestingly, it seems that Lowry Digital, the firm who restored the films for the previous DVD release are once again restoring the trilogy with a little more time up their sleeve than the 3 months they had to previously work within. Interestingly, Chairman John Lowry allegedly made comments that implied that they were also restoring the original cuts of the film too, but no announcements in regards to content have been confirmed. I guess this time next year we will know for sure...

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3768/the_top_20_films_unreleased_on_blu_ray_part_iv/index2.html

Interestingly, it seems that Lowry Digital, the firm who restored the films for the previous DVD release are once again restoring the trilogy with a little more time up their sleeve than the 3 months they had to previously work within. Interestingly, Chairman John Lowry allegedly made comments that implied that they were also restoring the original cuts of the film too, but no announcements in regards to content have been confirmed. I guess this time next year we will know for sure...

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/3768/the_top_20_films_unreleased_on_blu_ray_part_iv/index2.html

I pray that it would turn out to be the true...

Wow. Hard to believe, but we will see. Still, it would be funny to see if what Kenkraly said would turn out to be the true...

Anyway, I saw this interview on IGN:

http://uk.ign.com/videos/2011/01/07/ces-2011-star-wars-on-blu-ray-revealed

And what surprise me is that Chris Carle, who was at the presentation, mentioned at the end that we will get the SE and not the untouched set "which a lot of fans are looking for". Wow, it's good to now, that there are still people out there who now that SE are not the original version of OT.

This leaves to the one conclusion - there are tausends of people out there who thinks the same as we do, but they propably never heard of this site and our petition. We must do something to get them all here.

Any news about sound mixes in BD release? 5.1 or 7.1?

I'm not 100% sure if the footage showed in the trailer is going to be present in the BD set, because the trailer for DVD edition showed the 97' edition and not the 2004. Perhaps it will be same this time.

Trailer for the DVD version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8vcTbQqzE4

I agree ofcourse there is little chance for changes, because Lucas think everything is alright, but still... maybe.

A long time ago, I've read an idea on this forum, to buy Star Wars 35mm print, scan it and color correct it. What has happened with this idea? Did someone actually tried to do something like it?

I understand this would not be an easy task, because we have to get:

Star Wars 35mm print (sometimes someone sells it on ebay)

Scanner with high quality (how to get something like it? Lend it?

How much would it cost together? If everyone interested would give for example 50 Euro, how much could we get?

Could it be any SW 35mm print or must it be something special?

What's then to do? Remove grain? Color correct?

And what about scanning only frames which were replaced by SE? And the rest take from your corrected SW AVCHD Adywan and combine it?

Question to people who are familiar with colors and TV calibration:

If I buy new HDTV with THX certification (that means with an option to enable THX color mode) what will the colors of the 2004 set looks like? Will Darth Vader lightsaber still be pink? And will others color errors be present too?

Is here someone who has calibrated his TV/monitor with THX and saw Star Wars DVD set?

Can someone (maybe Adywan) explain me the whole thing?

Yes, yes, yes! I am 100% for that.

Only please let Lucas write the story and someone else direct the movies and write the scripts. Then we would have another ESB.

I agree with almost everything you said, but disagree with pittrek about ruining surprise. First, everyone knows that Vader is Luke's father because it's one of the most famous scenes in the movie history. Second, prequels were made to show the backstory so there is no point to do any "surprise". I think there was room for others surprises - for example Palpatines identity. There was some potential there.

Well, there is nothing to complain. It's only 3th original vision of OT from Lucas. It was always intented to be like this. 

To be honest, I would not wonder if Lucas would replace Alec Guiness with Jar Jar Binks.