I wander why Dale has a bigger visual scale than Minas Tirith... similar to what happened with the PT technology being more advanced than the OT in star wars...
Or Erebor being greater or richer than Moria...mithril!
MrInsaneA said:
brash_stryker said:
That is the only way I can imagine sorting it for ANY edit. My idea is not specific to Ady's (though this is a Revisited thread).
You simply cannot get around the slave thing without either ignoring how retarded it is, or filming enough extra material that Anakin isn't a slave in the first place and for that matter we might never see or hear about Shmi (what a fucking stupid name) at all.
Lotta aggression here. XD
Listen, I have no problem with her being a slave, the issue for me is that Anakin never frees her, either on or off camera. So does anyone have any ideas on how to accomplish that?
If Anakin's to be the perfect knight by the code he shouldn't free her. He's not assigned to. In fact, he's supposed to look after Padmé and that's what he does.
He needs to have a vision and care or be trouble about it but to be stopped in his action by the superego of duty. After that he'll be remorseful forever, and that's a solid reason why to be so concerned about padmé.
I'd never have him go to tattoine in the middle act. Just have a dream, or a vision, or even a line about it when he's watching the horizon like vader does. Maybe the movie should end with anakin and padmé in tatooine instead of Naboo, with anakin kneeling in his mother's grave.
He has the vision, then the bunch of stuff, and then it all was true. The movie would end in a dark tone as Empire.
I think Anakin should go down Harvey Dent's route. However, i'll make the point after some differences between Star Wars and Rings.
At some point, Anakin's story is the exact opposite to Frodo's story. Lucas set up an order where anakin fell because he was too human. He wanted the jedi order to be morally more than humans, he didn't want them to commit to anybody, nor to help or show compassion, not even to marry.
While the Jedi keep this rigid behaviour, everything develops just fine and the galaxy is in order. But then comes Anakin, who acts like a normal person, chooses his wife over his duty, and so he falls (and the republic falls) because of their forbidden love. Cleary it is wrong for him to be and act just as a common folk would.
Now take LOTR. The ultimate success in Frodo's mission comes from love under the form of pity, because he spared Gollum's life, because Faramir let Frodo go when he wasn't supposed to, etc. In a general way, we are trained (culturally trained) to identify ourselves with characters that show some human scale while heroes are determined, heroes have goals of grandeur and stay on their path. Characters we all emphatise with are the ones that are set in a path that wasn't theirs, and solve things the best they can (Han solo, anyone?)
I'd make a hero of Anakin if I were to make these movies. I wouldn't want anyone to like him but to admire him. Anakin should be incorruptible, the perfect soldier, always proceeding by the book. This blind commitment to civil duty, this inflexibility is what puts him just two steps away from being a monster. He should fall because he denies his human emotions, not because he follows them.
In the end, he falls because the institutions of the republic are rotten. this is the key: The jedi are monsters which is why Luke's Jedi Order wouldn't be just a copy of the preceeding one. You can't prevent humans from being humans, this should be the real tragedy of Anakin Skywalker.
Again: it's the Harvey Dent route, from hero to vilain in two minutes, when he realises he's let so much go and it wasn't worthy. That's the first step to messianism.
CP3S said:
Mithrandir said:
I wander if this sort of reveal will have any input in ady's version of PT...
Reveal? There was nothing revealed. Fans have known all of that stuff for as long as I can remember, and those things are part of what made the PT so very disappointing to us. It seemed like a really cool story, and we waiting so many years to see it, then it was nothing like we expected. Not being like we expected would have been totally fine, maybe even a really good thing, but it was done really poorly, and established continuity from the first films was ignored and forgotten.
The only part of it that was new to me was Lucas saying that Yoda doesn't fight. Between being a wise sage and making statements like "War does not make one great", I think most of us just assumed that he doesn't fight and that he'd just use the force to protect himself if it came down to it. It is nice to hear young George agree on this, though.
Mostly off topic, but an interesting somewhat related mention: There was an old animated chess game called Star Wars Chess, Yoda played the role of the white Rooks. Anytime one of the white Rooks/Yodas captured a piece, he'd use the force against them. For example, white bishop taking black pawn would be a Stormtrooper pointing his gun at Yoda, and Yoda waving his hand and saying, "Backwards is your gun" which caused the Stormtrooper to flip his gun around shoot himself instead of Yoda. To take out the black rooks, which were AT-ST's, Yoda would levitate it into the air and use the force to squeeze it into a ball, if I remember right. Hardly canonical, being a silly chess game for Star Wars fans, but I played it when I was fairly young and I think it went a ways into shaping my perception of how Yoda might go about a fight. I mean, when you have the ability to lift space ships out of swamps with just your mind, why use a stupid laser sword?
I never believed in Lucas when he said it all was planned. Even if there were things we knew previous to the PT, this document shows a rather high level of plot elaboration for that time. Which is surprising for me at least.
Based on this fact, that even while a lot was changed, some other structural elements of the plot have always been there, my concern was wether now ady's prequels will be "the closest possible to the 1981 prequels plot", or if he will keep his creative freedom when he approaches the trilogy.
Ofc, I've no dubt he will be taking some points of that story treatment, but those are the exact points he said he would be taking before this document came out:
yoda doesn't fight
continuity with ot
no midiclorians
However how important will this new information be for those elements that go beyond these basic pilars of his PT:R, which have always been part of his pov.
I wander if this sort of reveal will have any input in ady's version of PT...
Audacity noise reduction filter it is
emanswfan said:
Mithrandir said:
Here's the first vid. The source file to get this was the center channel of the AC3 file, so compare to that mono track and not to the complete audio if you wanna hear what was lost, specially SFX-wise.
That's pretty well done. Though was the gating really that needed, because the voices sound very unnatural as they pass in and out of the gate. Has there been a way to eliminate the music just as much and have the dialogue sound more natural?
I couldn't tell you that, because I didn't try. I worked with tracks, noise-reducted in different frequencies using the original score as noise profile.
Today I returned to this problem, using the Rear Surround track as noise profile, and despite what seemed, results were worse.
Anyway, I made a masked version of the dialogue back then, using random music (It was anakin vs obiwan theme i believe) and some of the artifacts got slightly camouflated.
I don't have means or an account to upload it, so it's up to eric
Here's the first vid. The source file to get this was the center channel of the AC3 file, so compare to that mono track and not to the complete audio if you wanna hear what was lost, specially SFX-wise.
Who said there had to be battledroids at all?
Love it!
aalenfae said:
Burdokva said:
How could I not have seen this before ? Amazing videos, watched them all and was sad when they were over - I want to see the entire movie now !
A question - it seems that you've slightly slowed down CGI scenes, am I correct ? I think it looks much better now. Details can be more easily seen and appreciated, and movement has a sense of weight. Computer animator tend t accelerate everything far beyond normal, and it looks fake.
The displays are great ! Also, love your work on the fate of the Invisible Hand. Always hated that in RotS it seemed to be crewed with morons who had no clue what they were doing. Looks like a competent crew now.
As to your special effect.. no words ! Amazing !
One suggestion - have you considered adding film grain ? I know I'm a minority in this but I think film grain adds a lot to a movie when it's not excessive.
Thanks! I'm glad you like them! I can't wait until I can finally say I'm done, haha.
I may have retimed some of the CGI scenes, as I've entirely reconstructed the shot order of some of the scenes. It gives me a lot more flexibility with stuff like that.
I am considering doing some overarching visual effects once I finish the film, which might be trying to achieve a more film-like appearance. Grain, wobble, and some slight lens distortion are in order.
mrbenja:
Really, to remove music - I have to remove EVERYTHING. Mithrandir got a decent music removal process, but it has low fidelity for sound effects, and certain frequencies of dialogue.
For any music I replace, I have to replace everything.
The shot at the docks has no music in the original cut, so that was easy.
timdiggerm:
As for the Death Star cue, I'm not wild about it either. What I would really want, is to get a clever musician to get me that exact cue in a major key.
Though I do think the cue works well after Anakin's darker look at the end of the scene, as well as an indication that things start to get bad from this point on.
This is what we were discussing in another thread. There isn't a 100% effective tool for music removal. In the end you'll always end up replacing everything. What I tried to do is to achieve a way to isolate dialogue, in order to be able to replace longer shots and acted shots.
But if done right (which I didn't) it would be a very long process. Firstly you have to remove most of the music leaving the lines untouched (as possible), then you would have to silence or mute the resulting audio in all the parts that aren't dialogue and haven't been rmoved. Only then you would be getting a more or less decent dialogue track.
After that, rebuilding all the audio effects (or the new effects from the OT) in the right spots and in dolby 5.1 would be a quite heavy task too. And once you combine those two, dialogue and SFX, only then you start thinking of the music.
No magic tools, as said, so even if doing all that there isn't a guaranty that you'd be getting something with good quality.
Most of the retrofuturistic dials and instrument pannels seen in Captain America could be really accurate to illustrate how the interior of PT ships should look.
Regarding architecture, I think that while visually impressing, they didn't hit the spot with Coruscant. They should have gone with a sharper Art decó instead of the fluid lines of Noveau...mainly because if there had to be a progression, it's more easy to trace the path deco - modern movement - industrial look of the OT, since they are all based in a certain angular take on geometry, while there isn't an "evolution" or progression from noveau to an x wing, for instance
I don't have an account or time to prepare and upload the file, It's 23 min long.
Talked to Aalenfae tho, and he said that if he has time will trim it and upload it somewhere.
Well, it's not easy, but it's possible to get a decent result if you choose the accurate track to do the masking
Aalenfae and I made some experiments on this matter. Thing is you can't fully isolate the voice if mixed, but it is possible to reduce the music to very low levels and to mask it with the new score
All you need is the complete score exactly as it sounds in the movie, audacity and patience using the noise reduction filter in different levels.
Oh, I gave up the recipe ;)
Wow, crossed feelings about this. On one hand, I fully support your decission of optimizing the times of work in order not to loose time, as this means more Revisited, more material, more updates, and thus more donations and eventually, more followers.
On the other hand, your OT work has very clear goals. Keeping aside ROTJ:R, which allows more space to play, OT:R is pretty much an intervention of brilliant technique centered in audiovisual changes/improvements.
Even ROTJ:R is included in this, for it is the closing chapter after two untouched episodes, and you (and we) know what would be happening in the end of the movie, so whatever plot changes you will be doing on this one, they will be done in an evident direction, reassuring the quality of every creative decission made.
But with PT:R, I hoped you took your time to think, to design (or re design) the structure of the films. You've posted several things that will be in/out the movie for granted, though the thing with the PT is that those movies are such a mess that there are plenty of choices to be made, of which your tips are just the beginning. And since you have top-notch abbilities to sort out a lot of challenges, it would be a shame if you hadn't explored all the possibilities both plot and visually wise. What I'm trying to say (and my english isn't helping) is that you can "make" the revisited OT on the road, because it has linear parameters (I'm not talking about the logistics), but you would need to stop and think about the prequels as an organic thing if you are to really squeeze something good out of the existing footage. Therefore, I'm not sure PT:R could be "made" without being designed.
I don't know, I always thought of it as a different moment in your production, with new and different challenges. Before I say this, I want to make as clear as I can, that I understand these edits are your babies and no one else's, so I don't mean to plebiscite your decissions at all, but I think an interesting thing to do would be to unfold your work into PT:R plot and visual "ideas" while you work in ROTJ:R, and then, after Jedi is out, make a retrospective re-evaluation of those plot ideas (and their feedback, would you let us fans suggest plot wise?) and start on proper work, centered in the visuals just as OT:R is now, which isn't so experimental.
Star Wars is and dies with Vader. They know this, so be sure that at least in one shot anakin's ghost or vader's suit will show up, or come back in some form.
I just hope they bring up something from the past that would put Luke in a different quest. Pretty good formula, as seen in ESB. He would have to look for this ancient thing from the old republic in Dagobah, The old Jedi temple, Vader's fortress, etc. And he would find some truth in those places, that could have an impact in his persona (for good or bad) and eventually set up a new mision that configures the general plot of the trilogy. Meanwhile Han and Leia have their politics in the new republic, and their issues with the imperial remnant. We see best from PT and OT.
Pretty much like in The Hobbit, where the bad guys don't have a personal problem with Bilbo, having no antagonist for Luke doesn't mean it won't be a good movie. Have him go down a meditative lone path, if he is the oldie he could make for a Gandalf too.
I'm following improvement on this recolouring process of the PT. Very interested to see what comes out!
The sky lacks detail, that's true, but from that height ground should be seen. Maybe not as much as in the mock up, perhaps placing the horinzon a little lower could work and still preserve the sense of scale of the walker, but never have it be taller than anything else on the planet.
For reference, the shot when Luke's speeder passes through the AT-AT legs and then heads up is taken from a similar height and mountains get seen as well.
Glass/Something in the cockpit would help to make it look more real.
emanswfan said:
Bingowings said:
One shot that still sticks out for me is this one:
which appears largely unchanged in the sequence as it stands.
If you could possibly add a hint of the interior (you wouldn't see much) it would create a greater impression of scale.
Something like :
Maybe changing the background could also help since currently it's just a blur and screams out minature. Also brightening the dark might help.
Rough Mockup:
I think the background detail is fine, perhaps too blurry, but mostly fine. What feels "weird" about the shot is (again) the perspective. In absolutely every perspective there must be an horizon line where the ground meets the sky (unless it's a space or sky flyby). In that line is where the vanishing point always happens to be.
It could be claimed that the camera is pointing up, or that the shot is taken from a certain height. Unless the camera was in a higher position than the highest point of the mountains of Hoth, the horizon line made of the peaks in the distance should be shown. Question is if the AT-AT is taller than the mountains.
And that's it for the weirdness of the background. However the shot is too short for anyone to notice it.
What sticks out to me is the lack of a cristal with reflections in th cockpit.
I think I might post a mock up soon.
Noticed the same thing on the binocular shot, looks too polished for a couple of reasons, being the lack of blur just one of them.
Just a personal perception when I check and re-check the shot, it all looks too ordered to be real:
Symmetry of the AT-AT formation
Coordination when the machines move their legs
Frontal perspective, meaning that the binocular stands precisely in front of the middle AT-AT. This made the walkers look two-legged at some point, because the rear legs were hidden behind the front ones.
Position of the binoculars, not just by being right ahead of the walkers, but also how it's perfectly parallel to the ground the whole time, while in a more "real" movement the camera should start wrong, rotate a little (this doesn't happen in the original footage neither) until the position is right.
Blur when it zooms out.
However it is true that except for the blur and rotating tweaks that could be done with After Effects, the shot couldn't be tweaked to solve some of the perspective issues (IF ady considers them issues) without re-rendering the whole animation again, . I don't think it's justified at all, for the sequence as it is now is really an improvement opposed to what we had.
Never thought the line "I know" could be better used than in ESB, but it worked very well at the end of the episode, Ahsoka pulled out Anakin's inner thought very smoothly with it.
The score was rather nice too. The last variation of the force theme could be a nice alternative for the order 66 sequence if it covered the whole musical phrase and not just half of it.
Very nice episode, loved the masked guards of the Jedi. Had a strange feeling of series finale though. If the series comes back with a sixth season, how will they manage to reverse all this situation with Ahsoka, which was pretty conclusive?
muddyknees2000 said:
The only real interesting way to change the Dooku character into something meaningful is to have him mean something in the overall story or better yet in Anakin's specific story arc.....it makes Anakin's killing of him a bit awkward........AND then you can show Anakin struggling with the fact that he ENJOYED killing him
You've blown my mind with it. Very strong idea. I think that with the material we've got, one very plausible way to have Dooku be influential on Anakin's arc should be centered on how Anakin killed Dooku, the fact that he enjoyed it, and that Palpatine is the only witness of what happened. Like officially Dooku died in the duel, but only Anakin and the chancellor know the "little secret" that he was killed as an un-armed prisoner.
Good reason to remove or reuse some bad lines too. I think of the sequence like this...
Anakin defeats Dooku, and cuts his hands off. Then the Chancellor orders to kill him and Anakin does it without hesitation at all. Cut to a shot of Palpatine showing some interest or curious face about what happened. Finally, Anakin's face of doubt or strangeness, like he's feeling something he's never felt before.
It might not even be needed to have Palpatine order to kill Dooku at all, that way Anakin's violence would take the Chancellor by surprise and therefore the "impressive" face.
After that, no dialogue, just cut to them escaping.
The following scenes in the Emperor's office during the movie should show how this new "sensation" weighs on Anakin, and how he trusts it to his new confident. One of this scenes features them walking away though the office, and having them backwards is a good chance to reimplant lines from another part in which case I suggest one of two dialogues:
A: "I know there are things of the force they're not telling me" (based on what he felt when he killed dooku
P: "It is only natural, he cut off your arm, you wanted revenge"...
Or:
A: "I shouldn't have done that, it's not the jedi way"
P: "It is only natural..."
A: "I know there are things of the Force they're not telling me"
I think the elliptical way of referring to what happened would help a lot to give depth to the characters as well as it would imply that there have been similar dialogues between Anakin and the Emperor about the subject which haven't been shown in the movie... this meaning that Anakin is getting "obsesed" with the matter.
Another nice instance would be to have the Emperor, later, tell Anakin that he has to kill Padmé, though I don't know how to pull that out with the existing dialogue. All I can think of is "...including your wife is now an enemy of the republic" but that hardly fits in the context of "every single jedi".
I just don't like the line, mainly because of the fact that while Palpatine can lie to the Senate about what happened, he can't ever tell Vader what really happened in that office. Anakin is smart enough to know that the republic is an excuse, he must know it's a coup d'Etat.
A less epic, but more grounded line would feel more natural in the context, or at least it wouldn't show the Emperor lying to Vader as if he was dumb:
Every single Jedi is now our enemy./ enemy of the Sith.
Our enemy, not the Republic, because at this point Vader should clearly know Palpatine doesn't give a f*ck about "the republic". It's a pivotal part of the movie, Vader must show a change of values, from "duty" (the Republic) to "interest" (I, me, mine) and make that clear is the neat difference between a full bad Vader and a "confused" Sith Anakin.
Hey there! The last updates were awesome as usual. Eric keeps poving that the PT problem must be engaged as a whole as it gives plenty of oportunities to try new things that would probably work better than the original stuff. Luckily this thought will continue to spread among faneditors, following Bob Garcia's, Eric's, and in the future Ady's works.
I hope not to deviate the topic too much, though every now and then it's useful to throw ideas in the pot and see what comes out. I've been watching clonewars lately, and found out very good CG enviroments specially in the currently developing arc (today's episode featured republic/imperial military installations in Coruscant which look very very OT. There was a scene in the drains (straightly copied from the Fugitive) that could fit easily in the CG context of the PT (considering how badly its CGI has aged) almost without any retouch (I'm saying this as a proof of a visual standard, not argument wise, why would you want a drain scene?)
Then there's the 100 episodes trailer of the series. When I was watching it, I realised how an excellent source of dialogue lines this series would be. Even in this little 5 min video there are better lines than in the actual movies!
http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/01/02/star-wars-the-clone-wars-watch-exclusive-clip-from-100th-episode-video/
Windu "he's too emotionally attached to her" aplying to Ahsoka could be used to show the Jedi suspecting on Anakin and Padme's marriage in ROTS or their affair in AOTC....
Another case, imagine this dialogue opposed to the poor "destroy the Sith we must":
Obi Wan: I can't not kill Anakin, Master!
Yoda: (Then) bring back this lost child before it's too late.
Then even more, if it was possible to assamble lines, you could actually have Yoda say "stop this lost child before it's too late" (this line, and editing Anakin's no return point, the children slaughter, out of the movie and you would make Vader's line in EPVI "OW once thought as you do" have a lot more depth).
I'm actually watching the series with different eyes now, and I suggest the others fan-editing muggles (?) to do it too; not just for inspiration, but to have a real sense of what new things could be accomplished dialogue wise (and therefore indirectly plot wise).
Keep the good job Eric, and sorry for the little huge off topic!
EP VII: Dawn of the Past
EPVIII: The Ancient Shadows
EPIX: The Order of Light
