JoyOfEditing

G&G-Fan said:

How do you compensate for the Force not being explained in any of the Prequels? That’s one of the biggest issues I’ve had with the chronological order. Ep 1 assumes you’ve already seen Ep 4 where it’s actually explained as an “energy field” that binds the galaxy together. The only way I’ve been able to brainstorm a fix is placing it in the opening crawl of Ep 1, which I myself am skeptical of due to not wanting to bombard the audience with too much information.

Man, you’re always coming up with the great questions that are hard to answer, lol!

Here’s the crazy thing: For my money you don’t need to compensate at all, in fact you shouldn’t.

I think George purposefully kept detailed explanations about the Force (Except for Qui-Gon’s midichlorian chat) out of the Prequels on purpose. The reason for this has to do with STAR WARS’ use of a Christian-style narrative structure.

This is a MASSIVE simplification, but this is how STAR WARS’ two trilogies copy the narrative structure of the Old and New Testaments.

Let’s take Moses (OT): He’s an Israelite born into slavery who is adopted by an Egyptian princess, where he abuses his princely power and kills an Egyptian slaver master. He then runs away into the desert and lives as a Shepherd for 40 years, where God reveals himself to him in a Burning Bush. Moses then returns to Egypt and frees his people from slavery, but Moses’ anger (The same uncontrolled anger that led him to kill the Egyptian) gets the best of him, and he is unable to fulfill his destiny and bring the Israelites into the Promised Land.

Now Jesus (NT): He’s born during a great political crises in Roman Palestine, where there have been waves of Jewish rebellions against the Roman Authorities. Caesar has just ordered a worldwide tax to be carried out over the whole Roman World to reassert his power. After Jesus’ Baptism (his calling by God), he goes into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the Satan. When he returns from the desert he preaches the good news of the Kingdom of God (a new way of being human), and sacrifices himself to bring unity between God, man, and creation.

Now STAR WARS (Which mixes elements of the OT/NT): In a time of great political turmoil and taxation, a young boy is born in the desert, but is then adopted into the powerful political/religious order of Jedi Knights. Instead of being trained in the Spiritual Ways of the Force, Anakin is unwittingly pulled into the political machinations of the Jedi and the Sith. He tries to return to the desert to free his mother from slavery, but instead his anger gets the best of him, and he massacres the Tuskens. This same uncontrolled anger leads him down the path to the Dark Side, and he is unable to fulfill his destiny to bring balance to the Force.

After spending 20ish years in the Desert and the Swamp, Obi-Wan and Yoda, who were once more concerned about the politics of the Clone Wars than instructing Anakin in the Mystical Ways of the Force, have reconnected with the Living Force and are now ready to instruct his descendant, Luke, in the way he should go. Because Luke has learned to control his anger and see through the eyes of the Force, he is able to return to Tatooine and free his friends from Slavery, and when the Ewoks take his friends prisoner, he doesn’t see the little Teddy Bears as an enemy to be destroyed, but as future brothers brought together by the Force (that is why such a big deal is made about the Ewoks adopting Luke and Co into the tribe.) Finally, Luke understands that the will of the Force is for him to sacrifice himself to save his Father and the Galaxy. THE END.

In Short - A Biblical cycle tends to go: Political Machinations leading toward destruction, a reconnection with God in the desert, a leader called out of the desert to free God’s people from slavery (physical and spiritual), and then the success or failure of the leader based on their trust and obedience to God. STAR WARS follows that pattern by NOT revealing the Force until the deserts of Episode VI, just like God doesn’t reveal Himself to Moses until the burning bush, or Jesus isn’t revealed to be the Son of God until AFTER his temptation in the desert, with the first section of the Gospels focusing on the Political Turmoil that engulfed his childhood.

That’s just my take. You could easily approach that problem a million other ways, but as the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. 😉

This is all Phase3’s fault. . . He shot me the cut shots from the Naboo Space Battle that he’s restoring, and I decided to see if I could figure out where they went. . . This is the result [music is a temp-track to check pacing and color/sound is WIP]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1864hKUDsi9-FnuZUda_rxcb_S3fe763I/view?usp=sharing

Phase3 said:

JoyOfEditing said:

I’m looking for those reels as well. . . Here’s a good list of names from the “Rebel Mac Unit” at ILM that worked on most of the fighter shots. You might have more luck searching than I currently am.

https://www.lucasfilm.com/news/digital-road-rebel-mac/

Thanks so much for the link - that helps a lot! Yesterday I found a very large amount of VFX reels online, however without the names of the staff who worked on the scene, I’d be endlessly searching through each video. Now I can narrow down my search!

If you PM me some of the reel links, I’d be happy to help scan through them. Mindless work like that is great when I get stuck on an edit, lol!

YouTube would never allow me to post this much copyrighted content, but if any of y’all want to see the full recut covered in the most recent episode, here it is: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1esLN36PG8O-2t6KnJrW9WLuoodHb1CCf/view?usp=drive_link

For my money, you can’t really get an idea of the way how well the story flows in this rework without seeing it in full, but y’all will have to be the judge of that. 😉

Phase3 said:

An update:
JoyOfEditing sent me a message, in which he reminded me of the footage in one of the early TPM trailers, which shows the Naboo starfighter spinning out of control. I had forgotten about the trailers!

For the shot of the starfighter, I will extract the footage from the trailer and upscale it. I’m also looking through ILM VFX reels uploaded by ILM staff; hopefully I’ll find some more starfighter footage.

Here is a comparison between the DVD footage, and the 35mm trailer:
DVD:

35mm trailer:

I’m looking for those reels as well. . . Here’s a good list of names from the “Rebel Mac Unit” at ILM that worked on most of the fighter shots. You might have more luck searching than I currently am.

https://www.lucasfilm.com/news/digital-road-rebel-mac/

BedeHistory731 said:

I rather like how you’ve implemented the changes, especially cutting from the conference room to the paltry search effort. The only gripe I have is the skeleton suddenly appearing behind the droids in the scene. Would it make sense to incorporate it into the establishing shot?

I’m not gonna lie, the thought totally crossed my mind. The two problems I ran into were that I don’t have a good shot of the skeleton from an angle that would make sense to insert it, and the continuity of the unaltered Threepio sequence is itself kinda wonky (So is the scene were the droids split up. . .). If you pay attention the dragon actually does a bit of teleporting shot to shot in the original sequence.

In the end I decided that the skeleton is in on a dune in front of the camera for the whole sequence until it pulls back at the end. The close shot of Threepio is still a bit wonky with this logic, but I didn’t feel like repainting and roto-ing that shot, because the sense on the sequence still gets across to the viewer clearly.

G&G-Fan said:

Color-matching the ESB Imperial scenes to match the stark black look of the ANH Death Star

I ended up going with a color grade halfway between aNH and tESB for the final look of the DEATH STAR. It’s about halfway through the video linked above.

Whaddya think?

Phase3 said:

For anyone interested in the extra footage of the Jedi & Sith duel, I’ve had some success in removing the “ghost frames” and heavy interlacing:

Before:

After:

Once the upscaling process has finished, I’ll upload them and share them.

Bro, you just gave me flashbacks to my early days as a producer, when basically all I did was de-interlace BETACAM footage. . .

EPISODE 4.2 IS FINALLY LIVE!!! - https://youtu.be/SF0DdwLG-CI

Enjoy the Edit!

-JoE

Fantastic work as always, boss! Given the original picture quality, I think this pass is about as much quality as you can possibly squeeze out of those frames. That must have been a ton of work to get the settings right!

I’m not familiar with the extra laser sword footage. How many extra shots of Duel of the Fates are there? And do you reckon any of them in particular are worth re-inserting?

G&G-Fan said:

Color-matching the ESB Imperial scenes to match the stark black look of the ANH Death Star

I’m probably gonna stick with switching the Death Star to the ESB colors, because then the Imperial look will be consistent across the OT, but now you’ve got me curious to see what aNH’s idiosyncratic colors would make Empire footage look like. . . If I get a chance today, I’ll play around with it and post the result.

G&G-Fan said:

I’d kinda prefer the reverse. I think a more stark black look fits the Empire perfectly.

So are you saying you wish tESB was recolored like aNH? Or am I just really confused?

JoyOfEditing said:

HAPPY STAR WARS DAY!!! - Here’s my recut of the Bespin Duel from tESB in the style of the Prequel fights: https://youtu.be/WCWVJhDJyhA

In other news, I finished the script for 4.2 of the Editing Show, so if work doesn’t get to crazy, the next proper episode should drop next week.

Speaking of Episode 4.2, I’ve been working on trying to match the Death Star Scenes with the Imperial “look” from Empire Strikes Back.

Here’s a comparison of happens when you color match the conference room with the Executor’s bridge:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12y0SU2SG173NqzlHLdyP_kH0RYhkycrO?usp=sharing

HAPPY STAR WARS DAY!!! - Here’s my recut of the Bespin Duel from tESB in the style of the Prequel fights: https://youtu.be/WCWVJhDJyhA

In other news, I finished the script for 4.2 of the Editing Show, so if work doesn’t get too crazy, the next proper episode should drop next week.

Bingowings said:

JoyOfEditing said:

Aloha!

My work schedule finally slowed down a bit, so I’ll be back to working on proper editing breakdowns later today, but in the meantime here is one of my favorite recut scenes from Attack of the Clones: https://youtu.be/ZaOsg-B0iqg

Enjoy the Edit!

-JoE

Between yourself and what SomethingStarWarsRelated was attempting to do I can see a fun watchable Star Wars peeping out. Be careful with cranking the contrast up too much. Some of the footage is very difficult to see at times. The action cuts are really good. Big plus being the lack of research rubbish changeling effects, even the name sounds stupid

Cheers! Yeah, the contrast is set correctly (to my tastes) in the source file, but YouTube’s compression system flattens all of the black information, and I don’t have the patience to develop a custom codec to make it happier (I just upload my custom HQ H.264 codec that I use for final renders). If you ever want to see the uncompressed HQ version of one of the clips, PM me, and I’ll shoot you a link. It still might be darker than you’d like, but I’m going for a dark look overall for compositing/aesthetic reasons (The darks hide effects seems and the contrast increases the perceived speed of the speeders + I’m taking inspiration from the look of the original Blade Runner).

On the changeling thing, I totally agree that it’s a distraction from the main plot. The fact that Zam is a changeling is interesting, I guess? But it has no bearing on either how she tries to kill Padme, or how she tries to escape from the Jedi. Personally, I think it’s WAY funnier if that final (and only in my cut) face shift is actually what a Kamino Saber Dart does to somebody when it hits them. I mean they are cloners after all, so developing a poison that causes instant and lethal genetic mutation is kinda on brand.

BedeHistory731 said:

The match cut (is that the right term?) between Anakin on the stretcher and Padme on the hearse might be my favorite touch in the whole sequence! You’ve done fantastic work in condensing the falling actions of III.

Technically it’s a “cut on form” (I only know that because my teacher at film school hammered all of those terms into our heads, haha!). I think I got the idea from seeing somebody else make a similar cut ages and ages ago on YouTube, but I can’t find it anymore. That hearse to hearse transition is so smooth, I can’t believe George didn’t use it in the original cut. Ending on two funerals sums up the tragedy of Revenge of the Sith really well in my opinion.

My favorite touch is the Necklace Transition to the Lars Homestead. I like the idea of Padme’s love for Anakin being symbolically passed on to Luke, since that love is what will bring balance to the Force in Return of the Jedi.

Yo! Quick Update:

I’m working on the script for Episode 4.2 of the Editing Show. I’m aiming for a STAR WARS day release, so we’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, in honor of Revenge of the Sith’s 20th Anniversary, here’s my recut of the ending: https://youtu.be/YAsmcEc7cjI

The falling actions of Episodes I-II and VI-VI range between 2.5 and 5.5 minutes. Revenge of the Sith clocks in at just over 14mins. . . So this recut’s main goal is to align it with the rest of George’s SAGA, as well as to get rid of as many spoilers for the Original Trilogy as possible (The DEATH STAR, Tarkin, Darth Vader’s iconic suit, Leia is Luke’s sister [Padme dies after giving birth to Luke but before giving birth to Leia], Yoda and Ben’s exiles, etc.).

Lemme know what y’all think and enjoy the edit!

-JoE

Dang it! His motor died. . . Jeff, get over there and spin the dang thing!

BedeHistory731 said:

The Despecialized .mkv has Hairy_Hen’s 5.1 mix, which is a recreation of the 70mm six-track.

Thanks Bede! That is precisely what I need. Do you know who I should PM for that? My version of Despecialized is Stereo.

Hey y’all, this is a shot in the dark, but I was wondering if anyone had gone to the trouble of remastering the original, non-specialized audio track for STAR WARS in 5.1? The specific scene I need is the “Look Sir, Droids!” sequence, because I need the original music and timing.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Cheers!

-JoE

Rors said:

JoyOfEditing said:

Rors said:

JoyOfEditing said:

Aloha!

My work schedule finally slowed down a bit, so I’ll be back to working on proper editing breakdowns later today, but in the meantime here is one of my favorite recut scenes from Attack of the Clones: https://youtu.be/ZaOsg-B0iqg

Enjoy the Edit!

-JoE

Not from my taste, but everything you’ve been working has been incredible.

Cheers Buddy! What’s been your favorite scene so far?

I love the way you edited Obi-Wan and Anakin vs Dooku, it reminds me of “Dune: Part Two”. By the way, I also love the Droid Factory scene, even though, I wish you kept the scene where Obi-Wan talks with Dooku.
I will use some of your ideas to my own cut(When I have time).
And I agree with you, AOTC is great if it’s reedited.

Early on when I was breaking down which scenes I was gonna keep and which scenes I was gonna toss for Attack of the Clones, I took a long look at the Obi-Wan and Count Dooku scene, but just couldn’t find a way to use it, based on the way I reworked AotC as a whole. If you reinsert the Padme scene where she addresses the senate, the natural bookend to that scene is the other deleted scene where she’s interrogated by Dooku. My two cents is that the Padme Addresses the Senate Scene is ESSENTIAL to the plot of Attack of the Clones. It improves the sense of so many other sequences. In order to get the Obi-Wan and Count Dooku scene to work, you’d need an entirely different version of AotC to the one we got (and a totally different RotS). I think I’m with you, that that theoretical version of AotC would probably be a lot better, but at the end of the day, I’ve gotta work with the footage George gave us.

Rors said:

JoyOfEditing said:

Aloha!

My work schedule finally slowed down a bit, so I’ll be back to working on proper editing breakdowns later today, but in the meantime here is one of my favorite recut scenes from Attack of the Clones: https://youtu.be/ZaOsg-B0iqg

Enjoy the Edit!

-JoE

Not from my taste, but everything you’ve been working has been incredible.

Cheers Buddy! What’s been your favorite scene so far?

For better Prequel Continuity, Darth Vader says, “Now this is podracing!” when he smokes Gold Leader during the Trench Run.

BedeHistory731 said:

Now that’s certainly better-paced! So much simpler than the overdone set piece from the original cut.

Don’t tell anyone. . . But I think Attack of the Clones is becoming my favorite STAR WARS film. . .

The writing/editing of original version is ABSOLUTELY BONKERS, but when you sit back and think about just how many cool sequences George crammed in there, it’s kinda mind-boggling.

Aloha!

My work schedule finally slowed down a bit, so I’ll be back to working on proper editing breakdowns later today, but in the meantime here is one of my favorite recut scenes from Attack of the Clones: https://youtu.be/ZaOsg-B0iqg

Enjoy the Edit!

-JoE