NeverarGreat

Possessed said:

Yeah even for star wars for me honestly. People go on and on about how terrible the Blu Ray look and how botched the colors are and some even say they are unwatchable and I’m like… Yeah I guess they are a little dark sometimes?

(Content changes aside obviously)

It’s a little dark alright.
I don’t mind the altered colors in most movies, believe it or not, since I don’t have a frame of reference. There was a time when I thought the 2004 master of ANH looked good. But once you start investigating the differences, it’s easy to get a little obsessed.

Valheru_84 said:

Don’t know about the best 3 hour cut per se but having a quick look around fanedit.org I’d say this version sounds like it could be my definitive version of Dune once I get a chance to download and watch it.

https://ifdb.fanedit.org/dune-the-alternative-edition-redux/

.Val

Just finished watching this, in two sittings. I had high hopes for it after reading the glowing reviews, but sadly it falls far short of what I’d like in a David Lynch Dune movie. There are now two prologues when there should be only one. The first 20 minutes are even more of an infodump than they were in the Theatrical version, and much of the extended material fails to add anything of substance. The Harkonnens are still entirely too gross, the story still entirely too somniferous.

One bright point is the addition of more Gurney Halleck. Never say no to more Patrick Stewart. Some of the additional Fremen scenes added welcome perspective. The ending is much more in keeping with the spirit of the book.

In summary: I’m glad I watched it, but I’m still waiting for a leaner, more dynamic edit of Lynch’s work.

JJ Abrams is entirely unsuited to third acts, at least in a writing capacity.

I noticed this as well.

I mean sure. I had a teacher in college who was probably in her 50’s and had just seen 1-6 in numerical order. She said she liked Episode 1 more than the others while not caring much for the rest, but she taught Mythology so perhaps she saw the brilliance of the Ring Theory. Such people exist. I just doubt that they make up the majority of the positive ratings.

After more than a decade, who’s seeing these films again except for children who’ve watched Clone Wars and Rebels? Again, they have the lightsabers and special effects, and when watching them in numerical order the Prequels ruin the originals to such a degree, and the ‘originals’ are available in such poor quality, that the quality difference between the two trilogies isn’t that great.

So in summary, you have the initial inflated reviews from people who saw them before the effects became dated and before the story was revealed for the empty exercise it was. Then the bulk of the reviews are from people who are actually nostalgic for the prequels since they saw them as children in conjunction with a cartoon that apparently did the main character justice.

If Episode 8 is a smash, they should get Rian to write 9 and get someone to direct who has a strong vision and ability to conclude character arcs.

Editroid said:

What’s weird is that despite all of the constant bashing of the PT I always see on sites like this, the critical ratings towards them have actually been mostly mixed to positive. If they really were that bad, then they wouldn’t have a 6.5, 6.6 and 7.6 rating on IMDb.

I expect that most people think that Star Wars is lightsabers and special effects, which the Prequels did have. Also, most people tended to view the prequels more favorably in the theater on first viewing (when the effects were better integrated on actual film), and that’s probably where the bulk of the good ratings originate.

joefavs said:

I absolutely LOATHED Safety Not Guaranteed, which is the one of his that people seem to like. I’m fine with this.

Agreed.

The name ‘Spielberg’ keeps floating through my head, I don’t know why. It won’t happen, but I can continue to dream…for now.

I wonder if the person putting this together even noticed the error.

http://www.theonion.com/article/trump-fulfills-campaign-promise-pushing-major-immi-56844
Once again, the Onion says it better than anyone in the media.

joefavs said:

It bothers me that there’s nothing from ROTJ on that poster. Surely Slave I couldve been replaced with something specific to the third film.

Is the TFA Star Destroyer not good enough for you?

moviefreakedmind said:

I own old copies of the Bernstain Bears and sure enough, it’s stain.

Berenstain Bears.

Are you from another universe?

I assume you’re focusing on Luke for this edit, so anything not involving Luke could be cut. This includes Leia’s scenes in ANH, Han and Leia in ESB, and Han, Leia, Lando in ROTJ.
ANH would work if the last we saw of Leia until the rescue was her being marched away on the Tantive.

Potential Cuts to ANH:

After crashing on Tatooine and remarking on its desolateness, Threepio could see the sandcrawler in the distance and call for help, thus skipping all of the meandering droid activity. You’d probably have to edit out the large skeleton for continuity.

To take out the Imperial Conference scene, you could hold the Homestead kitchen scene until after Ben’s Hut, so it’s Ben’s Hut - Homestead kitchen - Sandcrawler Destruction -(wipe to)- Burning Homestead -(Wipe to)- Return to Sandcrawler.

You could remove the Han/Greedo scene as well, just cut from ‘Get back to the ship, get it ready’ to ‘Okay I’ll take it’.

Taking out the destruction of Alderaan would require some tricky editing, but you could have it work by placing the chess game right after the jump to hyperspace. Then Obi-wan feels a disturbance in the Force, and Han enters the scene.

You could cut the Trash Compactor scene entirely. Just cut from Han jumping into the compactor to Obi-wan at the tractor beam control, then back to Luke and friends toweling off outside the compactor. While you’re at it, you could cut right from ‘you’re braver than I thought’ to a shortened Obi-Vader lightsaber battle, then right back to our heroes after they’ve regrouped across from the ship.

Potential cuts to ESB

Cut the Wampa cave and Han’s search for Luke. Luke is attacked and knocked off his Tauntan, but remains in the snow until Obi-wan’s Ghost shows up. Then Han shows up and in the next scene Luke is in the Bacta, presumably rescued that night. This removes the Han/Leia bickering as well.

Cut a lot of the Walker Battle. Keep it from Luke’s perspective, with minimal cutaways to other actors.

Cut the asteroids entirely. After Han discovers the Hyperdrive malfunction, he turns the ship around and immediately lands it on the back of the Star Destroyer. During this time, the two of them can share a kiss.

If you wanted to get artistic, you could show brief snippets of Han and Leia’s misadventures in Cloud City as Luke is in a Jedi Trance (3PO being blown up, Han being tortured and put in Carbon Freeze, Leia looking frightened in the direction of Darth Vader). If we weren’t shown anything about Lando or Cloud City beforehand, we are left in suspense about what is actually happening to Luke’s friends. The first time we visit Cloud City is with Luke.

Cut Yoda’s ‘There is another’ line.

Shorten Luke vs Vader by removing the bit where Vader throws things at Luke.

Potential cuts to ROTJ

Move Yoda’s death to before Tatooine. This is why Luke is taking so long to get there. His speech ends with ‘Pass on what you have learned’. Cut Obi-wan’s ghost.

Keep the Droids entering Jabba’s Palace. Chewie is already captured, as per 3PO’s dialogue. Show Leia trying to rescue Han after the droids are captured, and then Luke can arrive. Cut the Rancor scene - Jabba has decided that they will all die simply because Leia ruined his favorite decoration. Anything not directly relating to Luke is cut.

Cut Leia’s first scene with Wicket. Shorten the fire-building scene by having 3PO’s Godlike pronouncements work the first time, then cut directly to his story. Shorten Luke and Leia’s conversation.

Cut most of the ground battle and the attack on the Death Star. The focus should be on Luke vs Vader.

This glitching in the highlight areas has always been a problem, and is a big reason I never used this method in in my project. The artifacts look similar to artifacts generated by Photoshop’s Hue/Saturation tool, where shifting the hue of a particular color runs into problems when it encounters high luminosity or low saturation areas. These areas are shifted to the same extent as saturated midtones, leading to blocks of darker or lighter colors in almost colorless walls or skies. I don’t know if this is what the problem is in this case, but perhaps the program would benefit from an algorithm which takes this into account and shifts color less and less as the luminosity approaches 255 or 0 and the saturation approaches 0.

Here it is:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vKx1Rq8-zRRmE3N2xzbS1iUEU
If you get the free trial of Premiere CC, it has the ability to create a LUT from the file (File > Export > Color Lookup Tables). I only have CS6, which is why I can’t do it myself.
JEDIT: Updated the file so that the shadows aren’t quite as strong.
JEDIT2: New version: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vKx1Rq8-zRdGNEZnBlYXN6MjA
JEDIT3: Final Version: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3vKx1Rq8-zRVjlwLTRwMnIzOEU
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/2CNNN8TU


http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/ZLNNN8TX


For the regraded version, I just added 1.5% noise.

The regrade looks rather green in the highlights. I had a go at a regrain and regrade, here’s what I came up with:
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/PGNNN8TX
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/2MNNN8TU
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/PPNNN8TX

If you want the Photoshop file with which to generate the LUT, I can provide it.

Yeah I like a lot of these ideas, it was just an impressive amount of text.

The point was that the 19 year gap increases the canonical age of all but one of these characters past the actor’s real ages, and the 24 year gap returns most of the characters back into a more believable age bracket. It makes sense that Owen and Beru would be older than they looked, and there’s still a substantial age difference there as expected.

And now for something completely different.

Whole number rankings are insufficient. In an attempt to quantify the quality of the films, I have divided each film in half. Bold for OT, Italics for PT.

ANH, Second Half: 1
ESB, Second Half: 1.5
ANH, First Half: 2
ESB, First Half: 2.5
ROTJ, Second Half: 3
TFA, First Half: 3.5
RO, Second Half: 4
ROTJ, First Half: 4.5
ROTS, Second Half: 5
TFA, Second Half: 5.5
TPM, First Half: 6
RO, First Half: 6.5
TPM, Second Half: 7
ROTS, First Half: 7.5
AOTC, First Half: 8
AOTC, Second Half 8.5

Editroid said:

Anakin was Obi-Wan’s padawan. It’s natural that he would be younger than him, and not necessarily his “contemporary.”

It always struck me more as a brotherhood rather than a father/son relationship, so the 16 year age difference in the prequels always strained credulity for me. But having an 82 year-old play someone who is supposed to be 45 is really stretching it, even granted the terrible deformities and rough life.

What would make the prequels and the OT play nice is if there was a 24 year gap between the PT and OT.
Alec Guinness was 62 in ANH. With a canonical age of 38 in ROTS, this makes him perfectly cast in terms of age, and is more in keeping with the ‘old fossil’ talk in the movie.
Mark Hamill was 25 in ANH. This de-ages him by only one year.
Carrie Fisher was 20 in ANH. This ages her by 4 years, but since she acts older than her age anyway, it’s quite believable.
Phil Brown (Owen) was 60 in ANH. With Joel Edgerton in ROTS being 30, he would be de-aged by 6 years. The years have not been kind for him.
Shelagh Fraser (Beru) was 56 in ANH. With Bonnie Piesse being 22 in ROTS, she would be de-aged by 10 years. The years really haven’t been kind.
Sebastian Shaw was 82 in ROTJ. Hayden Christensen was 25 in ROTS (canonically 23), this would make him 51-53 in ROTJ, a de-aging of about 30 years. It’s an extreme aging, but at least he’s beyond middle age at this point.

doubleofive said:

Why do we keep talking about the Prowse documentary being a possibility? David Prowse is 82 years old. How would that be better then Shaw in any way?

Because we’re not using the prequel timeline? Phil Brown was 60 when he played Uncle Owen, Shelagh Fraser (Beru) was 56, Alec Guinness was 62. For Anakin to be a contemporary of these people, it would make sense that he would be in his 60’s or 70’s, and he would probably look older than that anyway.

Angly said:

I’m sure there will be suggestions aplenty in this thread, so let me just say that your (relatively) few substantial, well considered changes are worth more than many hundreds of small cosmetic alterations. I’m glad that this edit seems focused on those big changes. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

Couldn’t agree more, Cut and Paste Bot.

Holy shit.

Death Note.

Having seen the Anime and now the Netflix movie, I’ve gotta say it is a real step down from the anime.

The main character goes from being a privileged kid playing out a power fantasy (in the anime) to being a guy who has a genuine motivation for killing people due to his difficult family history and bullying at school (the movie). I know this makes it seem like the movie did it better, but much of the power of the anime is that Light begins killing because of latent nihilism and savior complex endemic of most adolescents, and giving him such a troubled past obliterates this subtle yet powerful impetus and serves only to alienate him from much of the audience. The rough acting doesn’t help matters.

At the outset, L is a casualty of the accelerated pace of the movie. We have no time for his though processes, no cat-and-mouse game with Light. Instead he is supercharged with an intense desire for justice which occasionally manifests in violent outbursts, and by the end he becomes the best thing about the movie. The acting was excellent, and in the hands of a more competent writer and director he would have surpassed the L of the anime.

Ryuk and Mia were as expected, merely functional.

One thing which surprised me was the (unintentional?) comedy of the action, which grew throughout until the climactic action setpiece. It is impossible to take it seriously, but at least it’s so over-the-top that it’s memorable.

Recommendation: Don’t watch this unless you’ve first seen the anime and want to laugh at some amusing ineptitude. At least then it will be a fun time.