JasonN

The "Version 2" DVDs of these fanedits are nearly finished - I just have to finish trailers for my EP2 and EP3 edits. The types of updates/changes on the DVD version (from the AVI version) will include:

ALL EDITS
- improved audio cuts/transitions
- fixed the SW title crawl for better pacing/speed with the soundtrack
- spelling corrections to title crawl and alien subtitles
- rewrites to a few portions of the title crawl and alien subtitles

EP2
- added the Anakin/Obi-Wan "Came to rescue you" exchange at the start of the Arena sequence (ends with Obi-Wan's "Good job" line) back into the film

EP3
- added most of the "Wookies/Clones VS Droids" opening battle back into the film (except for the droid voices and stupid "Tarzan Wookies" - they're been cut out); I realized that this scene is kinda needed as a "setup scene" for the later sequence where the clones try to attack Yoda
- remove the readded-deleted scene of "Padme confronting Palpatine in his office"

ChainsawAsh said:

shanerjedi said:

That's right. Open it on Dagobah and walla

 

I still disagree with this - opening the film on Dagobah causes pacing problems.

Totally agree, as I found out in recent "story rewrite" experiments in my ROTJ edit:
the problem with restructuring the "Yoda on Dagobah" scenes to the beginning is that the following "Tatooine/Jabba" subplot has nothing to do with the "Jedi/Yoda/Vader/Emperor" subplots (which dominates the majority of the story) - for story purposes, it's better to get the "Han's rescue" part out of the way at the beginning so that the remaining 2/3 of the movie can be focused on the Rebel/Empire struggle and Luke dealing with Darth Vader & the Emperor.

shanerjedi said:

I like the idea of mirroring,not copying Star Wars. Then you have Episode 3 mirror ROTJ by inverting that whole story.

Egh, I never liked that concept of "mirroring" the episodes of the OT and PT - for me, it comes across as being a lazy writer and relying too much on the original films that came before the newer ones.

rcb said:

Janskeet said:

I don't understand why they didn't use David Prowse for the face of Darth Vader. He was the man behind the mask in all three films, I think he should've got the glory of it. Surely they could've made up his face with prothstetics and make-up to look like that anyway. David Prowse's face looks more like I imagined as the face behind the mask anyways.

 

 GL felt hayden deserved it since he was playing the character who would become darth vader.

And he was WROOONG!!! :p

ChainsawAsh said:

I wouldn't recommend either Lynch's film or the Sci-Fi channel's miniseries (though of the two, the miniseries is better overall).

Not the Children of Dune miniseries :/
(god damn, that show pissed me off something fierce...)

AxiaEuxine said:

It's interesting and well done as always but it wouldnt fit in with what we saw in the Clone Wars movie.

Oh, bullsh*t.... that movie is a fanfic, at best. :P

Tobar said:

Just watched Twilight of the Republic the other night. I loved it! There's just one minor thing that I'm hoping you can fix for the dvd release and this is something that's been an error in the movie from the beginning. In the opening scroll it says thousands of solar systems have left the Republic. In actuality we only call our own system the solar system, all others are called star systems. Just like in ANH when Leia said, "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Yeah, that's been fixed to "star systems" for the DVD version (although compared to the other batsh*t-insane decisions that Lucas made with the Prequels, it seems like a pretty minor thing)

Still working on this bit by bit (although it's about as painful as when I had to edit through AotC, as there's so much crap to go through...).

I looked into rearranging "Yoda's Death" to after the opening scene of Vader arriving on 2nd DS, followed by the Tatooine/Jabba sequence, but I don't think it works as well for story structure - I think it's better to do the "Rescue Han" subplot at the beginning and get it over with, since it has nothing to do with the Jedi/Vader/Emperor subplot (which takes over the rest of the film afterwards). I also tried cutting Obi-Wan from the story (so Luke never meets him and learns more about Vader), but removing it creates some plot holes later when Vader captures Luke on Endor, so I'll probably keep most of it (except for the "Leia is your sister" parts.

I'll probably won't be able to do is remove Han's "General" status either (which I thought was a ridiculous idea, since he's been gone from the Rebelion for how long???), since so many characters keep refering to him as General.

On the plus side:
- I've completely removed that damn "Alien Musical" scene in Jabba's palace (Why, Lucas? Why?!)
- rewritting Jabba's subtitles is kinda fun
- editing the "speeder bike chase" for better pacing and action

Progress on the DVDs are going surely, but slowly - I've been ill this past week and now have college work that I need to catch up on, so the DVDs completion has been delayed a bit.

Obama 1 Kenobi said:

My 1% of disagreement is - why are the opening titles blue? I like the original yellow. I'm also not sure if it is necessary to remove Sidious face - but I can live with it.

Making the titles and text crawls blue was inspired by the titles in the original Empire Strikes Back trailer (which were also blue). 

Obama 1 Kenobi said:

I definitely thought Ep 3 was far too heavily edited - out of all the original films this was the best as it was.

Sorry, gotta disagree with you on this - I thought it was as equally flawed as EP2 (yes, AotC was a worse film than RotS, but RotS was a more disappointing SW story to me)

Obama 1 Kenobi said:

I think you have made an editing error near the start - Grievious ship is blown in half and then a scene later is back intact again!

I seriously doubt it - the opening was edited in its original timeline (I didn't rearrange any scenes chronologically).

Obama 1 Kenobi said:

I think you should put more of the Wookie fight back in though I can see your reasons for removing. I also like the Yoda/ Sidious fight.

 Said it before, I'll say it again: I will never add the Yoda/Sidious fight back into my edit.

Obama 1 Kenobi said:

I think from the point that Padme is giving birth the film should be left in it's original edit as for me this was the best part of the entire prequals. Except the additional scene with Yoda travelling to his home planet should be added in.

 So you want to see:
- Padme "losing the will to live"
- Padme saying that "there still good in Anakin" (despite Anakin being a murdering psychopath at this point)
- Darth Vader himself yelling "NNNNOOOOOO!!!" like a little girl
- Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Bail Organa basically explaining to the audience everything that's gonna happen between RotS and ANH
- Yoda telling Obi-Wan some bullcrap about Qui-Gon being back from the dead and teaching him the "path to immortality"

Obama 1 Kenobi said:

All references to younglings should be removed.

Ok, I see absolutely no logic behind this - so are you saying that Anakin shouldn't kill children or that no one should talk about him murdering the kids (just because the word "younglings" is used)? 

Obama 1 Kenobi said:

I can understand the logic of removing the Death Star however for dramatic value I think it should stay.. don't forget in ROTJ the new Death Star was never completed - also we do not know how long the Old Death Star had been complete before A New Hope - it could have been hanging around complete for 10 years!

Geez, not this crap again...
I'm done talking about my reasons why I added Coruscant to Vader's end scene or why I think showing the construction of the DS at the end of RotS was total horsesh*t on Lucas's part.

Obama 1 Kenobi said:

Octorox said:

I hate how everyone changes the pan in AOTC. That it was reversed was one of the truly poetic aspects to that movie. The idea is that the universe in AOTC is somewhat "flipped" from it's state in the conventional Star Wars movies. We don't know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. It's a curious oddity and it establishes that something isn't quite right. Flipping the shot is dumbing down the movie IMO and ruining a really poetic moment. 

Yeah I agree. Panning up is one of Lucas's better decisions. Nice twist.

Hate to burst your bubbles here, but I seriously doubt that Lucas creative decisions on the opening of EP2 were that deep (in fact, from editing these three films, I know that they weren't).

The way I'm handling Luke's "final attack" on Vader is fairly close to how it was done in the original, but the context of Vader's words have changed due to Leia no longer being Luke's twin:

Vader: "Yes, your feelings are strong for them. Especially for... Princess/Highness/etc." (I'm still working on the audio editing of this scene and haven't decided which lines sound the best)

Vader: "So... your feelings have now betrayed her, too. If you will not turn to the Dark Side, then perhaps she will."

So in the edit, Vader's not offering to tempt Luke's sister to the Dark Side, but rather the person he cares for the most (who's not related by blood).

Monroville said:

Actually, it would be the other way around.  If you edit out the Federation reps (no trade, just Federation), the reasoning for giving General Zod a "no confidence" vote would come down to him not wanting to start a war with a competing republic that has been expanding, whereas they have tempered their warrior ways and have been managing the Republic for eons and have become rather weak in the process.

What "other Republic"? Who the hell is "General Zod"? (what, Chancellor Valorum? When was he ever made a General in the PT?)

I was refering to SSWR's post of removing the TF from the Senate meeting without any rewritting to the plot or settings (unless you're refering to TheoOdo's post of rewriting the TF into a separate GR, which was posted later and not what I was talking about).

I hate to state the obvious here, but what is the point of making all the lightsabers blue in AotC only?

There are still green and purple Jedi lightsabers in both TPM and RotS, so unless you're going to change the color of all the lightsabers in the ENTIRE PT, what is the purpose of changing them for just one film?

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

Now the whole Naboo/Federation thing...I haven't watched TPM in a while but if we simply removed the Federation from the actual Senate meeting....could that work? I'm still a bit confused by the whole political side of things...

I don't think that would work, because if the TF weren't at the Senate meeting and did not (essentially) force the Chancellor to merely appointing an "assessment committee" to check Nabbo out rather than just stop the TF's invasion, Queen Amidala would have no reason for giving a vote of No Confidence and forcing the Chancellor out of office.

JediMasterFisher said:

That youtube reviewer knows nothing about the story of Star Wars. He says the Jedi were bad because they did not lead an army to free the slaves. Doesnt he realize that would start a war with the Hutt clans and that wouldnt be good. 

How could he?
Apart from seeing Jabba in the first 1/3 of RotJ (oh, and that bullsh*t scene in the SW Special Edition), the Hutts play absolutely NO purpose to the story of the six SW films, so why would the reviewer (or for that matter, the majority of the audiences who saw these movies) have any knowledge of that "Hutt war" concept???

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

"Removing Anakin's admission of guilt to Padme turn's his massacre of the Tusken children into a dirty secret he shares with the only person he trusts (the last person he should)."

I also had this same idea a while back...if I were to do my own edit I might even leave out the Anakin killing sandpeople scene ENTIRELY! Crazy huh? :D

Well, I did exactly that with my Twilight of the Republic and I thought it definitely made the Anakin character into a much stronger and better person than he was ever presented in the original version - now he's actually is that "Good man" that he was described as by Obi-Wan in the OT before he fell to the Dark Side.
(of course, a lot of additional cuts and edits didn't hurt, either :D )

Octorox said:

He brings up a lot of good points but he also misses the point on a lot of things. (Yes the political stuff in TPM is confusing and contrived, yes the Jedi are kind of assholes THAT's THE POINT! That's why Anakin turns to the Dark Side!)

Which I (just like that reviewer) thought was complete bullsh*t:
The Jedi were suppose to be the supreme guardians and good-hearted protectors of the universe - not a bunch of incompetent, bullheaded morons who have their heads so far up their asses that they allow a whiney, self-obsessive brat to be the downfall of their entire order.

EDIT: Oh, and his reaction to the end of RotS... ah, priceless. :D

AxiaEuxine said:

oh yeah, some one else that hates the prequels, what a breath of fresh air that was.

Not as refreshing as someone who's so in love with the PT that they can't accept it when others bring up issues that they'd like to see corrected or fixed...

EDIT: Oh, and that guy's reviews are totally spot-on and exactly what I thought when I first saw the prequels at the cinema.

bigbaddaddyvader said:

Loved the twilight edit Jason.Torrents for the other two would be hugely appreciated!

I believe guitarfan01 was going to be uploading the edits to Demonoid.

Ok, I corrected the title crawl by syncing it with Adywan's Revisted crawl - it's not 100% exactly like his crawl, but it's pretty darn close and should be much closer to the soundtrack cues than the previous versions.

Will start on the rewrites and spelling corrections for the EP2 and EP3 crawls (only change to the EP1 crawl was that I rewrote "the greedy Trade Federation" line to "the corrupt Trade Federation" instead).

sketchrob said:

Uh... JasonN the DUEL was badass, I think you sped it up considerably too from the Shadows edit or am I mistaken??? It really feels as cools as teh Maul fight now to me and your Ep 3 just flowed really well, I think your editing there was closest to OT style editing.

The EP3 duel wasn't that much different from the one that was in my Shadows of the Old Republic edit, apart from a few tweaks for pacing and some improved audio cuts/transitions - the major of the changes were to the beginning of the sequence (where Padme and then Obi-Wan confront Anakin).

Bingowings said:

Mark in Slipstream would make for a good battle hardened Jedi (the face fuzz gives him a bit of an Obi-Wan look and makes him look even older than he was at the time), shame that movie is such bobbins because he was really good in it and I love the late Bob Peck, if anything could be rescued out of that film I would be pleased beyond words.

I'm not sure if it got a DVD release however.

 

Quick search shows that it was released on DVD at one point:
http://www.amazon.com/Slipstream-Bill-Paxton/dp/B0000A03KA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1239388665&sr=1-3

From the looks of it, though, its only in 4:3 "Pan and Scan" and the video quality may not be that great (just reading a few of the reviews). Still, the character that Hamill plays would make a pretty good "older Luke".

I'll look into killing off Lando, yeah - at the moment, though, I'm editing the Luke/Yoda/Vader/Emperor scenes (maybe as a way to starve off working on those damn Ewoks....) and doing research if the "montage" ending is technically feasible.

Right now, I'm rewatching some of Harrison Ford's later movies see if there are any scenes that could work to portray an older Han Solo (Indy 4, perhaps). Now finding actors to use as older Luke and Leia, that's going to be more difficult (the actors need to somewhat resemble older versions of the characters and the film scenes have to be close to the ones I want to portray in the ending)

DarkFather said:

A suggestion for the montage:

Have you ever watched the Sandlot? You could have a voice-over of an older Luke keeping a journal entry (call-back to the journal of the whills) to upload into R2. Have footage from the previous films showing the characters, and whenever a character's "fate" is done being revealed by Luke, the image of the character sort of vanishes into thin air.

"You ready R2? All right. Journal entry of Luke Skywalker. 40 ABY." Maybe start off with something like that.

Show Han cleaning the Falcon in preparation for its take-off from Mos Eisely: and when Luke is finished saying "last we heard is that he had a run-in with bounty hunters. We haven't been in contact with him for years." have the figure of Han gradually disappear, leaving the Falcon alone in the docking bay.

That's one example.

Yes, I've seen The Sandlot (good movie, btw) - interesting concept, although I was looking to keep the montage just music without any voice-overs.

ben_danger said:

if you are unsure about the celebration ending, could you have it end with the pyre, then when we pan up, there are no fireworks, but maybe just end there? if we pan to stars it would be like a reverse of the star wars opening.

That was my other idea for the ending (except I do kinda like the scene of Luke seeing Obi-Wan, Yoda, and older Anakin, which would have be cut if the celebration is removed from the end)

doubleofive said:

OK, check it out.  Re-edit the Conference Room.  Ackbar already never says that the fighters attempt to leave after attempting to knock out the main reactor.  "General Calrissian has volunteered to lead the attack".  Have Lando look not so cocky (or leave it, he's awesome).  Cut straight to Ackbar handing off the briefing to General Madine, cutting out Han's "Good luck.  You're gonna need it."

I'm not sure how to re-edit the "I want you to take her" scene in the hanger bay.  I'd want to keep the "funny feeling", but if he just sent Lando on an obvious suicide mission, he would know he'd never see either of them again.

Having it be a suicide mission makes sense when Lando sends the rest of the fighters to the surface.  Wedge is the problem here.  It's pretty much unanimus to keep him alive.  So how about this:

Insert Wedge's "I'm already on my way out" instead of "Copy, Gold Leader" when Lando sends them to the surface.  Have Wedge's ship leave last so we can keep the shot of him exiting the DS and flying towards the fleet shortly before Lando makes it into the main area (A).  Matte out Wedge's ship for the rest of the sequence, as Lando silently heads towards his doom (B).  From there cut to the Falcon firing (C) and the shot of the thing Lando shoots (D).  Either end with E or F, depending on if you want to keep the shot of the power thing falling.

Death Star explodes.  Lando sacrifices himself.

Now that is a very interesting concept and mockups.
Hmm, maybe something I might have to look into for my edit....

With my Prequel Trilogy more or less finished (although I will be doing to revisions for the DVD versions to improve their quality further), I've now started work on this edit. :)

Without going into too much detail into it yet, I will say that I am trying to see how possible it would be to make an entirely new ending to the film, which would essentially be a "10-20 Years Later" montage featuring the fates of the main characters:
- Leia is ruling her planet and people by herself
- Han Solo continues to get into trouble with Bounty Hunters (Chewie may or may not be with him)
- Luke is either the head of a new Jedi Order or alone as the last Jedi (possibly including the ghosts of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and the "Shaw" Anakin)

Now, I should say that I am completely unsure as to whether or not this is even feasible; it would require an insane amount of rotoscoping/compositing and reworking of footage from numerous films. If this is not possible or I am not satisfied with the results, than I will just reinstate the original version of the Jedi ending for the fanedit's ending (with Sebastian Shaw as Anakin and without the planet celebrations of the Emperor's death)