Neerb

There has been a little talk before about possibly doing a “v1.5” later in the year, but that’s all ultimately up to Hal, both with his satisfaction with the project and his availability to work on it. Some of this stuff is pretty close to completion, though, so maybe a bit more patience would be best (or a few more talented volunteers, and fewer peanut-gallery members like myself).

The crackling saber has proven especially challenging, passing through several hands due to the scale of the project and irl personal priorities. Movies Remastered at least is still active on the forum, but I’m not sure if they’ve had time to work on it lately, or how much is left to be done on the project as a whole.

oviniboy said:

Guys, what about the island scene? What’s left to complete it?

According to the front page:

• Leia sensing the end of her Jedi path. Sherlockpotter was working on it earlier this week and it seems to be going along well. The v4 is sounding really great.

• Luke’s haircut. Jonh has been gone since May, probably busy with real life, but last we heard he was still working on it.

Agreed with Jar Jar. Captain Hux isn’t seamless enough to pass yet imo.

I wonder if it might sound more natural, should no other option be available, by removing the “Hux.” Kylo says “Captain?” and Hux timidly answers, still getting the point across. Maybe with a slightly longer pause before “Captain?” in this scenario.

I never minded him being General, personally, though I appreciate the idea behind the demotion.

Puppet show is excellent btw.

Size definitely played a part in it. The Supremacy was sliced like a knife (though the debris went crazy), so it’s clear that a collision results in a ship-sized puncture rather than completely atomizing the target as some people speculated.

There’s any number of other factors potentially at play too. The Supremacy’s shields were likely at low power or even off due to pursuing at max speed while firing volleys at their target, and the Resistance ship was close enough to collide during the start-up of a light-speed jump before properly entering hyperspace. Who knows, a second more of preparation by Hux may have foiled the whole thing.

Which is exactly why I, and others, dislike that line in TROS. As Hal9000 mentioned in his notes for his edit, the “Holdo maneuver” being extremely impractical in most combat situations should already be understood by the characters in-universe. The critical nerdy audience may say “why don’t they just do that all the time,” but the obvious answer is “because they normally can’t.” We didn’t get characters saying “why don’t we just kamikazee the Death Star at light speed” in A New Hope, and we didn’t need them to say that; they studied the building plans, they know how lightspeed works, and they came to a non-kamikazee solution based on their knowledge, and none of those details matter to the audience.

Not to mention the chipper delivery and naming of the move are horrible in context of the scene. “Why don’t we just commit a bunch of suicide bombings, like that admiral that had to make a split-second sacrificial decision in a horrible lose-lose situation? Mass suicide bombings is a good plan for us to come up with now, while we’re sitting safely at our base concocting a strategy for a future battle, with very few ships in our fleet, and no pilot droids who could do it for us, if droids’ programming even lets them do that. So who’s volunteering first?”

The line is purely an awkward, out-of-place 4th-wall wink to fans that hate that the maneuver even exists, so why even have the line at all to remind people?

oviniboy said:

oh god how i crave for this V2 lol

This really is an incredible project. Even if we never finish Luke’s haircut or the crackling saber or the various weekly-debated new ideas, the list of already completed stuff for v2 is astounding, on top of the existing 1.0 already being a surprisingly big improvement over the theatrical.

Hal 9000 said:

See the OP for things I’m waiting on from others.

Was the puppet show not completed? Or has it just not been exported yet?

DMC said:

Click on the link, 'twas a joke I believe. At least I hope so.

Yeah lol. I looked up the line on Youtube and found this thing, and found that it was shockingly relevant to this thread, so there you go. Apparently the guy’s whole channel is Star Wars “what ifs?,” and it seems this particular one was a joke video.

Hal 9000 said:

Just mute the whole line.

Unfortunately this can’t be done, as it creates a massive hole in the logical progression of the character-driven storytelling.

Plus Leia works better as a retcon for the scene in Empire where Luke talks to her through the force. Post-ROTJ, now it kinda looks like Leia sensed Luke with her latent abilities, and not just that Luke reached out to the only human he knew was nearby.

natestarwarsfan122 said:

Out of the Shadows isn’t a terrible name if you really want a sentence

That’s not bad. Hal did use book titles for his prequels after all, though OotS is a High Republic book and not a IX tie-in. Which is just as well; I think the only big IX tie-in was Resistance Reborn, which isn’t a great movie subtitle.

Hal 9000 said:

Out of Darkness

If I was making a TROS edit that changed the title, I’d unironically pick this one. Both for the sentence thing and to purposefully reference Abrams’ other terrible sci-fi franchise sequel that brings back a classic villain in a bad way and has the protagonist come back to life at the end.

It also just sounds like a good pulpy sci-fi title and fits TROS really well, better than it did Trek’s actually. The Final Order coming out of the darkness of Exegol and the unknown regions, Palpatine returning from death, Rey learning and rejecting her dark heritage, and Kylo coming back to the light.

I don’t think it’s necessary to change anything. Nothing is stated outright, it’s just kind of a lighthearted jab from Yoda leading into his serious lesson.

Luke could just have easily been about to say “Well, it’s been a while,” or something to that effect.

Luke kept his journal in his hut, with his wallet and valuables. Rey just robbed him blind.

A lifetime of scaveging is hard to break.

I don’t think it’s an issue. Luke’s journal was among the Jedi texts Rey took, the rest of which were ancient. No contradiction.

And Luke technically never said he didn’t read the books. More likely Luke read them at some point, but perhaps decades ago, and has not remained devotional.

That’s not how the memes work!

Hm, it’s pretty subtle, but I do think it’s an improvement. Of course, because it is subtle, don’t feel like you need to go too out of your way if implementing it proves difficult. The movie’s still great as is!

BTW, sorry if, between this and the TROS thread, I tend to be too critical without having much to offer. I don’t intend it, but I’ve noticed lately that I have a habit of only chiming in on this site to say “I’m not sure about that idea/execution.” You’ve done incredible work on all of your edits, as have the others here who have offered their talents.

DrVibble said:

Hi Hal, here’s my next review.

I absolutely loved this edit. AOTC is probably my second-least favourite SW film (TPM being my least favourite), as it’s just so painful to watch. But this edit simply transforms the film, and for the first time in my life, I got genuine, even considerable enjoyment out of watching Episode 2.

I’ll start with the biggest part: the romance plot. This was the biggest improvement of The Approaching Storm for me; where this romance was previously fatal levels of cringe, it now comes across as genuinely quite endearing. The largest factor to this is of course the way you re-arranged the scenes, giving the whole romance a far more belivable and compelling development. Even the cringey-but-inescapable scenes like the tick-cow ride and the floating pear dinner come across as much less painful than before because they flow much better, they feel more believable. Moving the kiss to the end of the romance arc, and removing the oh-so-infamous sand monologue, raised the sub-plot as a whole by a considerable amount. I will say that the musical transition out of the kiss scene to Obi leaving Kamino felt quite abrupt, but that’s pretty much my only problem. Although, I can’t help but notice that after the kiss at sunset, the next time we see the two is in their pyjamas the next morning…

My next favourite part was Anakin’s improved characterisation. It’s incredible the impact a few removed lines and some re-arranged scenes can have, but Anakin comes across so much more mature in TAS. I particularly loved his trimmed conversation with Padme (“Master Obi-Wan manages not to see it.” “All mentors have a way of seeing more of our flaws than we would like. It’s the only way we grow.” “I know.” This just flows soooo much better, and it’s such a simple change at that) and the now wordless embrace before Anakin leaves to find his mother. It says so much more about their growing relationship, and is more emotional.

The deleted scenes sprinkled throughout were all great, particularly Padme’s Senate address, which combined with the brilliant new opening crawl (despite how many times I’ve seen AOTC I still can’t remember a single part of the crawl, but this one jumped off the screen) was a very efficient and effective opening. Padme’s family was a far superior scene to the convo with the Queen (that scene always bugged me because you can see a very clearly contemporary building right outside the Queen’s window). The brief conversation with Anakin, Padme and Dooku raised one very interesting line: “The Republic cannot be fixed.” I felt that one line adds a whole new element to the political plot of the PT; though the Separatist movement is a smokescreen for the Sith, that line is actually still completely true. Food for thought. The scene between Obi-Wan and Windu on the landing platform did come across as quite wooden, hence why it was probably excised, but it’s much better story- and character-wise than the Jedi Temple convo with Obi, Windu and Yoda.

There are too many other things I loved about this edit to list here (the more focussed third act, the clever way you cut the factory set piece to have Anakin free Padme, less grating presence of Boba, generally improved action throughout), and I can only really think of a handful of small problems: the intercut nature of the romance plot with Obi’s investigation could feel like a bit too much of a juxtaposition (though this’ll likely fade with future watches), the aforementioned abrupt musical transition out of the kiss, and I felt that the cuts to get around Yoda v Dooku were a bit (unavoidably) clunky. In short, I think this is a miracle of an edit, a permanent replacement of AOTC. Awesome work!

I hope I’m not laying it on too thick here, I just really loved this edit.

I think the abrupt cut from the kiss is a limitation of the original source, where Padme cuts their kiss short out of regret. I think the transition could be smoothed by inserting a different shot of the lake area at “sunset” after the kiss, letting the audience use their imagination and giving time for the music to linger before the transition, but I’m sure Hal doesn’t want to go back to these edits again (and there might not be a good shot to use/reuse).

As for editing the movie to imply they slept together, I believe that originates all the way back to the original Episode II edit, “Attack of the Edit” by The Phantom Editor. And there’s a good reason people keep editing it like that: it sells the forbidden romance so much better than the theatrical, because they’re actually having a forbidden romance instead of just discussing whether or not they should have one.

Hal 9000 said:

Deepfake live action actors onto the CGI shows’ characters’ faces.

Are we also deepfaking the voices with AI? Hayden Christian-bot delivering all of Anakin’s lines?

“Leia told me… that she had sensed the end of her Jedi path.”

Reading/thinking about the text alone, I think a quick pause in this spot would be most natural.

I like sherlockpotter’s attempt, if we go that route, but I also have no problem with keeping the theatrical line as-is. It was never really a problem for me, even if foreshadowing Ben’s death so obviously isn’t really necessary.

Also interested in Master Lawdog’s version. That sounds like a promising idea, but it’ll depend on Luke’s tone when he says “burn.”

I think Burbin’s concern about clarity with the “clone body, real spirit” thing is fair. Accidentally giving the impression that this Palpatine is just a clone with no presence of the original could cheapen the whole thing for a new viewer (and the theatrical is pretty cheap already).

But Jar Jar makes a good point too with the “my spirit will pass” line placement. I guess it could go either way.

Maybe some wording less literal than “clone” could get the idea across more safely, but no specific term is coming to my mind for the situation Palps is in. I thought maybe “husk” or “corpse” or “phantom” or something, but that could be even more easily misinterpreted.

I think technically Palpatine is a “lich” at this point, but that would be a ridiculous word to toss into a fan edit of Star Wars.

The funniest part is that you know some expanded universe writer would feel compelled to write a comic or book or TV episode elaborating on the symbol’s in-universe origins and meaning.

Master Lawdog said:

I feel like we’re getting close to V2 being done.

Between jonh’s ghosts & haircut, the unstable lightsaber blade, and the puppet show, I think it’s still going to be a while before V2. Unless Hal is itching to get a v1.5 out.

I’d say Rey’s arc had climaxed pretty well in TLJ at the time of viewing. Her rejection of Kylo in the throne room is when she decides that she’s going to be a Jedi, no matter what Luke or Kylo say or who her parents were. It’s only in retrospect now that her story was “incomplete” then, with TROS saying “nah, she’s still not over her parents and still doesn’t feel worthy of being a Jedi, even though TLJ showed her successfully overcoming both of those personal challenges.”

You could argue it goes even further back than that. In TFA, Rey taking the saber and fighting Kylo is where she accepts her destiny with the Jedi and Maz’s words that her future is ahead of her, not back with her parents on Jakku. It was only after that in TLJ that they say “well maybe she only agreed to bring Luke back, not become the hero herself, and she’s still concerned about her parents and external validation even if she’s not going back to Jakku just yet.”

Rey basically has the same arc in each of the three movies, just going a bit more into the details each time. Obviously now that internal story ends with TROS, but which of the three climaxes was most satisfying at the time of each movie’s release is up to the viewer, as 8/9 could have just as easily said “that part of Rey’s internal conflict is over now, here’s a new challenge for her.”

Why not Binary Sunset?

Go ahead and make every other movie end with Binary Sunset while we’re at it.