Loving the changes in this version. Moving the Mace/Yoda/Obi-Wan scene in particular makes that whole section of the film feel much smoother. This just might become my go-to for Episode III from now on. Awesome job!
Well it would remove the way palatine kills the other three Jedi within seconds while also making Mace look more arrogant.
Pretty much this.
Hal, you mentioned in your commentary that the non-existant ideal version of the movie would have Windu charge off to Palpatine by himself to cement this side of his character. Since we can’t do that, making him a quippy douchebag is close enough.
I remember that was one of the planned changes in Adywan’s edit of the film before he decided to give up on the prequel trilogy. I do think it would have been an improvement.
Nah, he should skip straight from Mace’s pre-Palpatine’s-“I am the Senate!”-line dialogue to Palpatine saying “It’s treason, then”.
Yeah, that’s how it’s currently cut and it works well. I just missed the line is all.
I know it’s probably too late to make any changes but have you considered restoring the “I am the Senate!” line? I just watched LOE last night and it was one of the few things I missed from the original movie.
I find myself genuinely surprised at how well changing Vader’s line to Luke in ROTJ to, “Your mother once thought as you do” works. This is due largely to the audio work Sir Ridley and others have brought to bear. I’m not 100% sure, but I imagine it would be worth making at least an alternate audio track for a ROTJ project.
Here’s how the best version so far, from Sir Ridley, sounds when fully baked in. I included a few lines from Vader before and afterward. What do you all think about potentially going this route? Content-wise, it seems to be a meaningful alteration, given that this is a fan project which does not threaten the availability of the OOT. Padme beckons Anakin in ROTS, now Luke echoes this.
I love the idea, and the timing of the line is perfect now, but the Vader-y processing/EQ still needs work to be seamless, I think.
Agreed, I really like the idea if the audio can be made to blend better.
Here’s the color grade for Bail’s apartment. I start out trying to roughly match the hue, though unfortunately not cloud coverage, of the prior scene. As the scene goes on, it gradually crossfades to a rough match of the following scene.
That looks pretty damn good!
I think Order B would serve the main Labyrinth of Evil cut the best with its stated intentions.
If you’re willing to make major changes to your hypothetical conservative cut that keeps Padme’s death, I’d revert entirely back to the theatrical sequence aside from sticking “Yoda, Mace, and Obi-Wan discuss their misgivings about Palpatine” before Grievous lands on Utapau and Bail’s apartment scene in the same place it is in LOE.
I really don’t feel like the balcony scene serves a purpose unless it’s immediately followed by the nightmare sequence. It’s supposed to be a sort of “calm before the storm”. An idyllic moment before the inciting incident (the nightmare sequence in the original ROTS). I also hope you trim some of the dialogue in that sequence, particularly the “love has blinded you?” bit.
That’s how it’s supposed to work, but from a certain point onward the films fall drastically out of sync from about halfway through to the end. It’s been all three prequels, even though I never changed primary sources for Ep1.
Even if a ‘reconnect media’ worked perfectly at this point, it wouldn’t align with me fixing it manually before.Supposed to be easy. And if this was a fresh project that I did correctly and straightforwardly, it probably would be. I have so many nested sequences for the prequels, which I now know is a supremely bad idea for FCP7. It crashes very often when any of them are opened, no matter how much I clean out of them; those nested sequences are just part of what has to be there to get the projects up and running. If I did want to go back, I might as well create the whole video stream from scratch, manually searching for each shot or section between edits and painstakingly checking everything, and I don’t have it in me. Not after just doing close to that for V6 for 2 and 3.
Ah, interesting. That’s a tough one. Definitely not worth the headache then.
Before anyone asks, I would like to address this recent post from Schorman13 in which he announced an update to the source material for this fan edit (and LOE): https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/schormans-HDTV-Star-Wars-Saga-Preservation/id/16702/page/5#1290777
While I welcome an update to his project, I cannot reconcile the idea of manually reconnecting each separate clip in the movie to my existing timeline and all the headache-inducing logistics involved with it with the seemingly mostly academic improvements to be appreciated. My FCP7 timelines for all three prequel edits are so convoluted and barely able to be reckoned with, like a house on fire and on the verge of collapse while you hurry to gather precious belongings.
In other words, my life situation makes it necessary to pass on revising my AOTC edit. I wish this update had come 6 weeks sooner, but I have got to move on. I know you’ll forgive me, and it does pain me not to pursue the best for this project, but I am happy with V6 and have never noticed any issues with the source material. If I went to the, what for me now would be a very tall order, trouble of remastering it yet again it doesn’t seem like there would be much benefit at all.
LOE is already ready to go, so even though the same issues would apply in a lesser degree, I reach the same conclusion for the same reasons.
I remain happy with TAS being complete in finality, and look forward to bringing LOE into the same state soon.
I’m perfectly happy with the quality of V6 and I haven’t used FCP7 in a while, but wouldn’t you just need to use ‘reconnect media’ to repoint the source file to the new file? That should automatically update everything in the sequence since you are swapping out the ‘master’ file that it’s referencing.
There are other characters in Canon with similar armor: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Pyre
I wonder how possible it would be to augment him with other gear like shoulder pads and a second bandolier like was previously attempted for the other shots. The single bandolier is just so trademark Chewie.
MalàStrana said:
As for the Jar Jar stuff, when Dom talked about his own edit he mentioned he would be putting this kind of stuff back, so rewatching those two short scenes I’m like “well, why cutting that in the first place anyway since there is nothing bad ?” (good idea to leave the senate emergency power scene as it was in v5 though). It’s also probably unconscious for most of us, with what we recently learned with Ahmed Best difficult time with the Jar Jar bashing.
Thanks for bringing this up. I was actually really affected by Best talking about his mental health struggles brought about by toxic fan reactions to his character. Obviously he put his all into executing Lucas’s vision for the character, which is what any good actor would do. It made me rethink the way the fan edit community has discussed the character in the past.
I don’t want it to be perceived that I’m advocating removing the character or Best’s performance. My goal in supporting the removal of those two small moments is the same as the Phantom Editor’s, who originally removed those moments in his edit of the film. I believe that by removing JarJar stumbling over his words (and especially Padme seemingly cutting him off because she can’t even tolerate his presence for more than a few seconds) the audience can infer that the character has matured between films and buy the idea that Padme would appoint him to take over her duties while she’s away. The idea is to dignify the character, not to deingrate him.
The removal shots look seamless to my eyes. Still not sold on the recolor. It looks technically proficient, but I think it would be better to remove him from all shots if possible and if the audio could be worked out.
So, I’ve been given Hal’s blessing to create a hybrid version of V5 and V6 for those who feel some of the changes in V6 are not to their taste. To determine what people want to see, I’ve created a survey. I already have a preliminary hybrid edit up on MySpleen, but based on the survey results I may create an updated version.
Here’s the survey link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3H5LC2L
So I created a survey to get a sense of what people would like to see in a hypothetical V5/V6 hybrid version of The Approaching Storm. I intend no disrespect to Hal here, who I think has done a tremendous job of crafting his preferred version of the film and listening thoughtfully to community feedback. Hal, if you’d like me to take this to a separate thread I can do so.
Here is the survey link:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3D98YQ7
I personally wouldn’t worry too much about runtime. The best length for a film to be is as long or short as it needs to be to tell the story as effectively as possible. If you do include that change, do it because you think it improves the film, not because it makes the runtime shorter. Pacing is another issue entirely, as I’ve seen short films that are poorly paced and long films that feel positively brisk.
Wow, that looks seamless! If that’s an option, I’m definitely all for it.
Yes! If that’s an option then that’s it!
My only concern is that when Yoda is attacked there are two Wookiee’s roaring, so perhaps he can be augmented/disguised just for those couple shots.
Maybe it would be possible to rebuild some of the audio in that scene?
For what it’s worth, I made a custom “v5.5” edition of Cloak of Deception that removes JarJar slurping apples and a couple of other bits not to my taste, and I will probably do the same with The Approaching Storm. Right now my plan is just to remove the creepy Anakin moment and a few bits of JarJar that snuck back in, but I could maybe make a version without Dex and the Droid Factory if people really want it. Personally, I think Hal’s new edits of these scenes work quite well in context.
I expected a little backlash for that one, but I feel like
A) It doesn’t end abruptly as it did in prior versions
B) It mediates the smoothed over love story and the very next scene where the two are a little cold toward each other
C) It includes a movie trope that goes way back about the woman initially resisting the man’s advances (the #MeToo thing) which is consistent with the love story’s ‘old cinema’ style (and begins to show us that she is denying to herself that she may have feelings for him, as continued in the family dinner scene)
And mutters D) The Phantom Editor saw fit to leave it in for his cut.All around I felt like it was the right thing to do, though I anticipated some blowback. I’m sorry, everyone.
JEDIT: I actually shortened it slightly, mimicking Attack of the Phantom. I would suggest watching this cut and see how that moment strikes you in context of the whole.
Thanks for the thoughtful explanation Hal. I understand your reasoning, although I don’t agree with it. I felt that ‘old cinema’ trope was tired and outdated (not to mention harmful) in 2002, let alone 2019. Regardless of the real-world optics of the scene though, I think the bigger problem is that it just doesn’t work in the context of the movie. After all, The Empire Strikes Back (my favorite Star Wars movie) employs the same trope, but far fewer people take issue with it because of the direction and performances. Even when Han and Leia are at each others throats, we can tell they have feelings for one another. Christensen doesn’t play the scene with old hollywood charm, he plays it as genuinely creepy. Portman seems firmly repulsed; there isn’t really a second layer to her performance that suggests her defenses might be coming down.
Congrats on finishing V6! Looks promising, and I can’t wait to check it out.
Hal 9000 said:
*Reinstated the original ending to the packing scene
Oh no, please don’t tell me you reinstated the moment where Anakin stares lustfully at Padme and she tells him that he’s making her feel uncomfortable, to which he smiles(!) like an absolute creep. That’s easily one of my least favorite moments in the entire film. My reaction every time I see it is “get the hell out of there Padme”. Especially in the #MeToo era, this moment seems in poor taste, and I felt the way you had handled it previously was completely seamless.
I think if you cut Rose’s line identifying the creatures as Fathiers, you also need to cut the preceding line where she says “are those what I think they are?”, however I also don’t really think that cut is possible so I’d err on the side of leaving both lines.
I agree that I’d also rather see some deleted or BTS footage cleaned up and included over the BB8 coin joke, there’s actually quite a lot of it on the Blu-Ray: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVEoevKRE3M
I haven’t seen your original edit so I cant compare the two scenes but I really enjoyed this 10min footage. The removal of the fart jokes and the two headed alien commentor (I always hated that alien) from the scene gives it a more serious tone. It would be good to remove that American accent commentator to if possible and just leave the Alien language in. I thinking adding Jabba back in doesn’t take away anything from serous tone and adds a bit of fan service. I would be really interested in watching you V2 version. Do you have an ETA?
Thanks for your feedback! I don’t think I will be removing the American announcer voice, but if you’d like to see an edit that does that, check out l8wrtr’s shadow of the sith: https://ifdb.fanedit.org/sots/
The new version looks great, thanks for all your hard work Hal. I have to point out though, that the changelog isn’t entirely accurate anymore. Thumbing through the edit, there are several small visual alterations from 2004 and 2011 that aren’t listed. Also, the Wampa cave scene is clearly the theatrical version and not Adywan’s version. I think these changes are mostly for the better so I’m not complaining, but perhaps it would make more sense to list what visual changes were made from the 2011 version rather than the 97 release?
If it can be done convincingly, I’m okay with it. But with all respect to Poppasketti, I just don’t find that clip convincing, and I’m not sure anything short of painting him out completely would work for me. I already know its Chewbacca, so any edits will always just look like a bad disguise.