Masquerade Overture

Recently watched the Alternate Redux. Way too much fluff added to the first half of the movie that just murders the pacing (also unnecessary re-use of music cues when there should be silence).

The 2nd half is on point though. I may make a definitive edit using some of the Redux as a blueprint whenever the 4K disc comes out (which I believe is later this year / in time for Villeneuve’s version).

God damn I’m liking this already.

Are you doing this project in 4K HDR by any chance?

Here’s the original cue sheet from John William’s scoring from a longer cut of the movie circa 11/10/19 if anyone wants to take up what’s “missing” (or even the order of the scenes, which ended up being totally restructured for the first half of the movie):

https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/31290-jwfan-exclusive-the-rise-of-skywalker-partial-cue-list-revealed/&do=findComment&comment=1686208

M=Reel (which equals to about 20 minutes each)

NeverarGreat said:

The problem with Mustafar is that it’s not really a scene. It’s just ‘Kylo goes to a place and finds a thing he was already looking for’. For it to earn a place, something has to happen that changes a character or plot element, otherwise it could just open with Kylo arriving at Exegol.

Maybe the crawl tells how Kylo is trying to make good on his promise to end the Jedi and the Sith, and this has brought him to Mustafar to wipe out Sith cultists. When he finishes killing them, the ‘Find me’ can lead him to the wayfinder.

This would at least help give the scene some element of interest as Kylo may not have realized the wayfinder was here.

I mean someone could try to recreate this cut scene and not delete Mustafar at all (assuming the official footage of this scene is never released):

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/1/13/Eye_Webbish.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200217161234&path-prefix=nl

Also maybe have force ghost Luke taunting Kylo with voices or something?

I want to know if anyone “in the know” has access to any of this footage:

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2493274/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalkers-deleted-scene-has-a-terrifying-spider-creature-so-prepare-for-more-calls-for-the-jj-cut-abrams

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2487483/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalkers-domhnall-gleeson-reveals-deleted-scene-for-hux

Plus anything Finn, Rose, Jannah, or Lando related that could flesh out those stories more.

This stuff has to exist in a hard drive somewhere. If someone were to, you know… “borrow” it…

Aight, now that all the Saiyan Saga is done and the first of Namek is loading onto Google Drive and I can finally go on a forward trajectory with this thing, I’mma place some more minor details about this project here. Speak some truth:

• As stated in the OP, the first 23 episodes of this cut uses Level Set footage, but it’s been very slightly de-grained. The reason for this is halfway through Episode 24, the Level Set footage runs out. From there I switch to a combination of Kai and Funimation’s 30th Anniversary Set, which I think I did a pretty good job with matching the color timing with (and also adding a 3% Gaussian blur to the 30th so that annoying edge enhancement is gone). The Kai and 30th Anniversary Set combo will continue up until Buu. From that point to the end, the project will switch to 16:9 with color corrected Final Chapters footage (which while I’m not a fan of cropping anything originally shot in 4:3, Kai: TFC actually makes up for what’s lost on the top & bottom with extending the sides by an equal amount) and the 2013 Blu-ray (which suck ass but I’ll try similar techniques with it like I’m doing with the 30th footage).

In terms of the specifics of what filler this project is cutting out / leaving in:

SAIYAN [Done]

Keep:

• Goku goes to Hell (albeit cut down slightly in my edit)
• Princess Snake
• Arlia
• Gohan & the robot
• Yamcha’s stadium intro
• Gohan running away & joining orphans (cut down to 1 episode instead of 2)
• Pendulum Room

Erase:

• Gohan & the friendly dinosaur
• 99% of Launch scenes
• Tien at waterfall home
• Dueling Piccolos (this one hurt me, but there was no space)
• Holographic moon projection
• Goku’s eventually-retconned ancestry
• Yajirobe dicking around Saiyan landing pods
• Fight padding

NAMEK / GINYU [W.I.P.]

Keep:

• Goku vs. needles
• Goku escaping hospital to train
• Goku and Gohan moment alone before the latter leaves to Namek
• Friends or Foes?
• Goku vs. hurtle towards star
• Vegeta in the tank
• Frieza attacking Guru’s hideout

Erase:

• Fake Namek
• Fight padding

FRIEZA
Keep:

• Destruction of Vegeta backstory

Erase:

• Everything else (including Bulma & Frog Ginyu)

GARLIC JR.
[Keep, but cut from 10 episodes down to 7 to improve pacing]

TRUNKS / ANDROIDS

Keep:

• Mr. Shu
• Goku learns to drive

Erase:

• Fight padding (if you didn’t get it by now, most of the show’s filler is the fight padding)

CELL
Keep:

• Select Time Chamber moments

Erase:

• Everything else

Add:

• “Oh Shit!”

GREAT SAIYAMAN / WORLD TOURNAMENT

Keep:

• All of Other World Tournament
• Gohan’s first date
• Saiyaman movie set

Erase:

• Everything else

BABIDI / BUU

Keep:

• Vegeta’s original atonement left entirely intact

Erase:

• Everything else

FUSION / KID BUU
[All filler erased]

Obviously leaves us with more episodes than Kai does, but will still cut DBZ down to 200 episodes or something instead of 291.

This is amazing. Can’t believe how such a simple change turns an already good (albeit too Member Berry-ish) movie into a great one.

Quick question though, do you plan on doing a 4K HDR release of any of your edits after this set is released around March?: https://comicbook.com/starwars/2019/12/26/star-wars-the-skywalker-saga-4k-blu-ray-box-set-limited-edition-best-buy-amazon/

OP updated.

The hiatus is over. Finally in the process of encoding the rest of the Saiyan Saga.

Episodes finished so far:

SAIYAN SAGA (Complete)

01 - The Arrival Of Raditz
02 - Reunions
03 - Unlikely Alliance
04 - Gohan’s Rage
05 - No Time Like The Present
06 - Gohan’s Metamorphosis
07 - The Strangest Robot
08 - Terror On Arlia
09 - Goz & Mez
10 - Princess Snake
11 - Plight Of The Children
12 - Pendulum Room Peril
13 - The End Of Snake Way
14 - Counting Down
15 - A Black Day For Planet Earth
16 - The Saibamen Strike
17 - The Power Of Nappa
18 - Time’s Up!
19 - The Return Of Goku
20 - Lesson Number One
21 - Goku Vs. Vegeta
22 - Saiyan Sized Secret
23 - Spirit Bomb Away!
24 - Mercy

Work has also commenced on the editing the Namek Saga-onwards, which should be a lot easier & faster now that I have all the materials and know what the hell I’m doing.

Quick update: The Saiyan Saga is complete (24 episodes total, very much trimmed down the original’s 35 but not as rushed as Kai’s 16). Haven’t updated this in a while thanks to a mix of procrastination and waiting for word on an Blu-ray series release by Toei (just so I can have a consistent video source from Namek and onwards), but here’s a sample comparison video for this project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFeOkDTDF0Y

First is the original, 2nd is Kai, and 3rd is my edit.

“Oh boy, another one of these?”

I’ll admit my reasoning’s a little different as it’s a bit more dub-centric. Have nostalgic feelings for the original FUNimation dub but think the pacing’s too slow / voice acting’s too stilted / or the script’s awkwardly translated? Like the tightness in pacing and superb voice acting of Kai but miss the Bruce Faulconer score, some of the old voice actors who unfortunately didn’t return, too distracted by the MS Paint-like replacement animation, or even think that some of the cuts in Kai were too abrupt and missed some of the more endearing filler here and there?

This is Dragon Ball Z: The Ascended Cut… my feeble attempt at making a “perfect” version of DBZ.

Video:

• The Saiyan Saga uses the footage from the tragically discontinued “Level” Blu-Ray Sets from 2011. Namek onwards will use a fusion (lol) of color corrected footage from Kai and the Spanish Selectavision upscales. Although not edited as much as Kai, there’s still enough cut where the pacing reflects that of OG Dragon Ball (which in my opinion is perfect).

Audio:

• The Saiyan and Namek sagas’ soundtrack consist mainly of a Faulconer re-score, as well as some Nathan Johnson placements. The Ginyu / Frieza Sagas onwards will be entirely Bruce Faulconer (with the occasional “Easter Egg” from the Japanese OST such as insert songs).

• Voice acting will be an equal combination of both FUNimation’s 2005 revision and Kai dub up until the Android Saga. From there it’ll be primarily Kai, however I will retain some character’s V.O.'s from the original (mainly Bulma, Gohan, and Android 18).

Tech Bits
Video: 1080p h.264 AVC [MKV]
Audio: 2.0 Stereo PCM (English Revision)
File Size: 6 MB - 6.5 GB
Run Time: 23:50 to 25:20

• I would LOVE for someone to come along and make a Japanese track & subtitles for this. I would give you all the materials needed, but 1). You would have to be a native speaker and 2). I don’t keep edit notes around so you’d have to play it (quite literally) by ear.