Mr Ghostface

Actually Mr Ghostface has a lot of other things to do besides come here all the time because, as you asked, yes, I work in the industry. Before this goes any further, please let me say that I don't feel a negative criticism demands deeper explanation than a positive. If you feel disrespected, I'm sorry. Insulting you wasn't the intention. But if I can't say I think the blue planet sucked without getting demands to justify myself, then sorry, delusions of grandeur have taken hold. So what if it was a hi-res NASA photograph? When you composited it and did whatever you did to it, it didn't look very good. And while I'm busy not defending my point of view, and my right to criticise, let's all just take a look at how freely we all lambast George Lucas for what he's "done" to our beloved trilogy. I'm sure I don't need to cut and paste negative opinions of the special editions, or indeed Adywan's own feelings which motivated him to make his edits. But that's okay? Despite the fact that he created these movies in the first place, it's then perfectly okay for people to throw harsh criticism at some of his decisions over the special editions. Yet when someone like me criticises further changes made by a fan editor, I'm out of order? That's more than a little hypocritical. Yes, Adywan has put a commendable amount of effort into his work. I think his dedication to it is truly impressive. But that means I can't say some of it doesn't work? Or that some of it is just plain unnecessary? Nonsense.

Star Wars was a moderately budgeted sci-fi flick which happened to do big business. If there are minute discrepancies between the position of R2-D2 in one shot and the next, because of the practicalities of the shoot, who cares? Not very many people. If some scenes don't have music, maybe Lucas and Williams know what they're doing? And so who cares if someone spends hours of their time "correcting" something that never needed correcting?

Oh, I wasn't offering suggestions for ANH:R, I was just pointing out that it's not all that special and some of the praise Adywan gets for it seems to be borne of an ignorance of how much simpler this is to do than a lot of people realise. And didn't he say that the new CG stuff isn't even his, that another guy did it. I'm not saying this to pull him down; it's more that I feel other editors don't get the same praise when their editing skills are just as good, and some of them are definitely more seamless than Adywan's.

Well, now you do. And every single friend of mine who watched it spotted it right away. For one thing, it still has the tint that the effects in Empire have, which is slightly blue, whereas in A New Hope the Star Destroyer shots have a warmer temperature to them, and they are very distinct. But yes, he just lifted effects from elsewhere in the trilogy and composited them together, with mixed results.

I actually thought the added music in ANH:R was one of the worst elements. It doesn't fit at all. The music is neither stylistically the same as the score for A New Hope, and the scenes where it was added never needed underscoring. Adywan bemoans the travesties that were the special editions and DVD editions, but then he goes and commits some of the same "crimes" that Lucas is accused of. Don't get me wrong, Adywan has made some truly wonderful tweaks, but also loads of mistakes. He seeks to correct every tiny doscontinuity, regardless of whether it actually made any difference to the movie. Like the recolouring of R2 to red because of the positioning of the unit when the camera tracks right as they approach docking bay 94. It's just totally unnecessary. And while new sequences are technically excellent, many of them are totally undermined by a lack of spatial awareness within the frame. The big Tie reveal is an obvious example. Yes, they have been rendered really well, but the frame is crammed with them all over the place and not in a good way. The positioning of them is haphazard and uneven to the eye - not in a chaotic dogfight way, I mean the way they are framed. The electricity on the torture droid needle in Leia's cell is another example of overkill. And the scene in Ben's house no longer flows properly with the reordered shots. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that scene in the first place.

Again, the rendering of the new CG shots is really impressive, but the other "new" shots are just elements taken from other FX shots in the trilogy composited together with the occasional new element. The Death Star reveal is a prime example. The first shot of the Star Destroyer is just taken from Empire and flipped horizontally. It's obvious to anyone who knows these films. And the second or third shot where the background Star Destroyers disappear behind the Death Star when they would still be in front at that size highlights Adywan's failure to understand the scale. Add in a badly drawn planet and you've got what? 10 for effort, but really, all this praise being heaped on Adywan is a little, well, fanboyish.

As for the general trend of edits, I totally agree with your comments about the "darker" and "grittier" spin, though. And there is way, way too much back slapping by the fan editors. They all take far too much credit for the "work" they've done.

Blimey, I why is everyone around here so touchy? You can hardly call what I put off-topic, considering it's entirely relevant to the very fan edits we're discussing. And to the poster before last, I wasn't trying to scaremonger, I was just being pragmatic.

Wow.

C3PX, you're right in that this sort of fan community is safest when it operates on a sort of private level. But none of us should ever make the mistake of thinking this is any less illegal. The penalties for copyright infringement are enormous, something no-one would want to face. Over on fan edit, the disclaimer about owning a copy of the original before you up or download any of the fan edits really is redundant. It's redundant because the links are not private. Fan editors sharing between themselves when they all have the original is one thing, but anyone can download from the site, and fanedit.org could get itself in a lot of trouble. I'd hate to see that happen and I don't want people getting in trouble out of naivete, but the site is illegal.

Does anyone know where Adywan got his HD source from when he started his edit? I don't want to just lift everything from his when I get on with mine, I'd rather be able to start from scratch.