I think it looks terrific. I'm not at all bothered by replacing the line Luke Skywalker with Young Skywalker, it's a total non issue for me. I can't wait to see the whole thing.
Bingo:
I appreciate your line of thought on this, and I agree that generally it's a single individual that pushes things. I'm changing much of the dialogue for the federation however. I'm planning to paint a picture of a very powerful and influential organization. Such that this particular move isn't necessarily a game ender for them if it goes wrong. In the senate scene the trade federation won't be claiming ignorance but will in fact be supporting the legality of their actions and demanding that a commission be appointed to determine the legality of their occupation.
A good Star Wars title is a tricky thing. You need something short, dramatic, with a little nostalgia for the old Flash Gordon serials, but not so much that it becomes goofy. That's the real failing of the titles of Episodes I and II is that they're too goofy and too referential to the Flash Gordon tradition. The Phantom Menace is clearly taken from chapter ten of the original Flash Gordon serial "The Unseen Peril". The serial chapters for Flash Gordon are very silly, so you have to be careful when trying to evoke that nostalgia that you don't fall into the trap of being too campy.
Vaderios: I've been struggling with those repeated words. I agree, there's too much repetition of terms in the crawl. I'll be bashing out another draft tonight.
Bingo: I've never really liked the name Gunray. Like many of the names George came up with for the prequels, it's silly and goofy. Also, I think pinning the scheme on one individual is less threatening than having it be the machinations of a powerful and corrupt organization. That's just my thoughts on it.
Frink: Not to worry, if I don't end up using the gathering storm it won't be because someone else has.
Sounds like a good maxim for fan edits: The best fan edits are like Disco Stu.
2nd draft of my Episode 1 opening crawl. Zeroing in on something I'm happy with. As always, suggestions, comment and criticism welcome.
Star Wars
Episode I
The Gathering Storm
It is a period of civil unrest. The Galactic Republic, which has stood for over a thousand generations, is in decline. Corruption, greed and apathy have taken root. The seeds of evil are sown throughout the Galaxy.
The wicked Trade Federation has seized control of the Alderaan system with a blockade of deadly battleships. As the senate looks on, the supreme chancellor calls upon the Jedi, guardians of peace and justice in the Galaxy, to resolve the conflict.
Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, overseeing young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi's trials of knighthood, has been dispatched to liberate Alderaan from the tyranny of the Federation and restore freedom to the peaceful system....
Still looking for a title that I think works and is dramatic. I'm liking The Gathering Storm more than my previous iteration The Coming Storm. All suggestions happily accepted, no guarantees that I will take them though ;)
Jaitea said:
Sorry Ady I couldn't resist using your new Footage over my old mock-up:
The Emperor says "luke"......still needs adjusting, but its not too bad as a concept.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzUk0t0Fo6g
"Luke" taken from here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnsPNzdytlU
J
That sounds pretty good. It needs a little finessing as it sounds a little off, but I think it could be be made to work.
It's looking great, I can't wait to get my greedy hands on this project!
As much as I'd love to be able to do some really radical editing to create something wholly different, my skills are just not up to the task. As such I'm trying to keep my edits confined to what I am capable of doing.
I just don't think it's feasible to cut out Anakin as a child or move some of the major events between films. As much as I would love to do so.
I've written my own prequels which I may eventually illustrate into comic format if I'm so inclined. The basics of my view of the prequels is that the Empire is already in existence in Episode I and Republic loyalists are fighting a losing battle against imperial conquest. The Jedi are mostly gone at this stage. Anakin is a young man, not a child, when he meets brash and daring young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi. The two become instant friends and Obi-Wan takes on Anakin as his apprentice. The clone wars becomes the final conflict of the reformation from Republic to Empire. and in Episode III The republic falls permanently and the Jedi purge commences. At its very basic form. If anyone is interested in a more detailed description perhaps I'll make a thread for my prequels over in the script writing forum.
I think, for me at any rate, it just feels off.
I definitely agree that Jedi of lower rank would refer to their superiors as "master" as a show of respect. Not unlike using the word "sir". But for Jedi of the same rank I'm just not sure. Something about being the same rank as someone but referring to them as "master" when they aren't actually a master seems off.
Here's something I'll need to address: in TPM Yoda refers to Qui-Gon as "Master Qui-Gon" when he delivers his report. That will have to go. I think George made a big mistake making so many Jedi Masters. It tends to feel like if you're a Jedi for X number of years you get to be a master automatically. I think the rank of Master should be very hard to obtain. As such the Jedi Council need not be made up entirely of "Masters" but could easily be made up of very experienced Jedi. It sure would be nice to come up with an intermdiate rank between Knight and Master. Perhaps Paladin or Templar.
One of the things I want to do is make it that Jedi Masters disappear and become one with the force when they die, that's part of what makes them Masters. None of this ridiculous communing with Qui-Gon crap. So when Qui-Gon dies he doesn't become one with the force because he wasn't yet a Jedi Master.
I do want to keep the scene where Yoda confers upon Obi-Wan the rank of Jedi knight, as I like that scene and it's one of the few instances of Obi-Wan being "reckless" by taking on Anakin as his apprentice, the way he said he was in the OT but the way he almost never was shown to be in the PT. I just think it brings more interest to his character if he arrives at a "destination" at the end of the film, that being his ascendance to Knighthood.
The reason I opted for having Qui-Gon be supervising the trials as opposed to them both being Jedi Knights is because of the many, many instances of Obi-Wan referring to Qui-Gon as "master". There's too many to cut out, and if they're both Jedi Knights it doesn't make sense for him to be addressing Qui-Gon that way.
By making Qui-Gon a Jedi Knight overseeing the trials it allows for Yoda to be Obi-Wan's actual master and gives us a reason why Obi-Wan refers to Qui-Gon as Master. It also ties in to the line "Don't center on your anxiety Obi-Wan..." which can now be inferred to mean Qui-Gon believes Obi is feeling anxiety over his trials.
I've been fiddling around with the opening crawl for Episode I today. Originally I was going to go with the title Balance of the Force, the long rumoured title of Episode I before the announcement came down that it would in fact be The Phantom Menace. Alas, it's already been used in the fan editing community and I want to be able to set my edits apart. Further, since I intend to remove the whole chosen one/prophecy nonsense from the Saga the title is no longer as relevant.
Right now I'm leaning towards The Coming Storm. However, I'm always open to suggestions.
Here's my opening crawl as it stands right now. Comments and criticism always welcome.
STAR WARS
Episode I
THE COMING STORM
It is a period of civil unrest. The Galactic Republic, which has stood for over a thousand generations, is in decline. Corruption, greed and apathy have taken root and evil is everywhere.
The wicked Trade Federation has seized control of the Alderaan system with a blockade of deadly battleships. As the senate looks on the supreme chancellor calls upon the Jedi, guardians of peace and justice in the Galaxy, to resolve the conflict.
Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, overseeing young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi's trials of knighthood, has been dispatched to liberate Alderaan from the tyranny of the Federation and to restore freedom to the peaceful system....
Thoughts?
Much obliged ChainsawAsh. GOUT was really throwing me as I couldn't figure how there would be more than one unaltered original trilogy.
I feel your pain, with the release of the blu ray so close it's hard to justify continuing to work on my edits. Still, I might finish a very rough cut in standard quality just to get some feedback from the community. My concern with being able to swap in different source files is what if the Blurays have a longer or shorter lead-in time? it only takes 1 single frame to put all that hard work off.
Maybe I’ll get my knuckles rapped for this:
There are about a million acronyms flying around on the boards. Some of them I’m familiar with, but a lot of them I’m just in the dark. Can anyone enlighten me or point me towards someplace where they’re listed and explained? My searches have been fruitless.
OUT? I’m guessing Original Unaltered Trilogy?
GOUT?
AVCHD?
I’m sure there are others that I’m missing. So is there a list somewhere? If not can we make one here? Just to help those of us who have been out of the loop for a while.
Aaaaand I'm downloading. Much obliged Ady, you're the very best!
Can anyone PM me a link to the .dlc for this release? I've been searching for it but I'm having no luck at all finding it.
Jaitea said:
Hows this for a cool Fett-trooper helmet........"THIS IS STAR-WARS!!!"
J
Hehehe, very nice. Little known fact: Mandalorians are a race of underwear models ;)
The evolution of the clone armour didn't make much sense to me, not because of the Fett angle, but because it seemed pointless for the clones to change helmet design in the span of a couple of years. I would have gone with the RotS clone trooper design from the outset, then when we get to the OT roughly 20 years later we can see that there's been a design change but it's still pretty similar.
Darth Editous said:
Isn't it also the case (I may have imagined this bit) that the prequels were (re-)edited after the music was composed and recorded, unlike the original trilogy, where the music was recorded after the edit was complete?
DE
This is the main reason I'm not a fan of the scores for the prequel trilogy. A lot of the music gets recycled. Duel of the fates never appears in Episode I or anywhere else in its complete form. Part of what made the OT great was how the music flowed through the films. The PT doesn't have that.
I heard a story, and this might be entirely fictional, that John Williams was so unhappy with the way his score was butchered in Episode I that he wrote George Lucas a letter where in he disowned the score as it appears in the final cut of the film. Urban legend perhaps? I don't know. I do know that the way Lucas makes his movies now prevents Williams from scoring them the way the OT was scored. Hence why so many musical cues are recycled over and over in each film.
I just watched your edit of RotJ and thought I'd offer some feedback:
The cuts to Threepio and Bib Fortuna's exchange are quite effective. Downplaying the comedy is definitely a good idea considering the seriousness of the situation.
The new Jabba dialogue is mostly great I think. I particularly liked "Entertain me." which felt very appropriate.
Changing there will be no bargain to there will be no deal feels unnecessary to me. Since Luke specifically states he wishes to bargain for Solo's life, Jabba repeating that terminology feels more consistent to me.
I think the subtitle "Solo!..." is a little too abrupt. I realize that Jabba's actual dialogue emphasizes the name Solo and I'm definitely on board with reflecting that in the subtitles, but I think I'd have the subtitles read as foillows:
- I will not give up my favourite decoration. (note no "...")
- Captain Solo! A reminder that you never cross a Hutt.
The intricacies of Huttese grammar make it entirely possible that the captain title is what comes after the name Solo in Jabba's speech. I'd also extend the length of time that subtitle is on screen for as I find it leaves the screen a little too early.
The cut to the Jedi Rocks intro before Boush appears feels jarring. Mostly it's the music itself. Jedi Rocks is so out of place in the Star Wars universe it shouldn't be included in any capacity. Lapti Nek fits the feel of the Palace and of Star Wars considerably more. Alas a high quality source on Lapti Nek isn't available to us, so I understand. I agree with the removal of the droid torture room sequence, but I think I would have kept Artoo and Threepio being taken away from the main audience chamber.
The first rancor scene. I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand your cut is effective and quickens the pace of the sequence. I understand and agree with your reasoning as well, that there's no need to telegraph Luke's danger. On the other hand, having watched the Jabba's palace sequence with that scene removed, I don't find that the surprise of Luke falling into the Rancor pit is as effective as the tension caused by leaving the original scene in and not knowing what's down there.
I notice that your list mentioned removing the Rancor scene entirely but that that hasn't happened. There are a number of edits in the sequence though, I presume to speed up the pace. Unfortunately I find those edits noticable on a musical level and I really don't think they speed up the pace of the scene enough to be worthwhile cuts. I was pleased with the removal of the Rancor keeper's blubbering however, that worked well.
Boush, once again I'm not a fan of the word "deal". Something about it doesn't feel formal enough for Jabba's palace. I would replace it with "Agreed". Minor point and one based on my own personal preference as opposed to any actual logic.
I'm definitely on board with the removal of Solo's goofy lines and his reunion with chewbacca.
I understand removing Boba Fett from the Sarlaac battle, but the editing as it stands now is a little jumpy in that section because of it. Skipping to Leia, then back to the skiff and then almost immediately back to Leia is jarring. I'd have stayed with Leia on the first edit, followed her through killing Jabba and then rejoined Luke and the gang outside, Luke now already on the second Skiff. We as an audience can assume he got on to that skiff while our attention was elsewhere.
I understand wanting to remove as much Ewok silliness as possible, but cutting the speederbike sequence leads to a really unnatural jump cut. Han tells Threepio to stay put and then we're instantly down by the bunker and Han is luring the guard. The needs to be some manner of wipe there otherwise there's no passage of time and it ends up looking like the film has jumped a scene. Perhaps a trimmed down ewok speederbike chase would satisfy the desire to remove ewok campiness while also providing enough screentime to get Solo down to the bunker.
Your edits to the Battle of Endor. Perfect. There's so much more urgency to the battle now, and the removal of so much Ewok capering really makes a huge difference.
The finale, I like the use of the end credit music in place of the celebration music, it really works nicely. That said, I've never been a fan of the celebrations across the galaxy sequence. Especially on Coruscant. That was the seat of imperial power, these would not be the people celebrating the fall of the Empire. Not to mention the fact that the Empire isn't destroyed, the government remains. It's going to take years for the Rebellion to truly liberate the galaxy. It just seems to me that the last placed that would be celebrating the Rebel victory would be Coruscant.
Finally, and this has nothing to do with the edit, but man do I hate PAL speed up. Makes it sound like the Star Wars universe has a lot of helium in the atmosphere. Ugh.
Great Edit, lots of really good stuff!
So far my favourite edit of Episode II is Attack of the Phantom. He didn't make all the changes that I would have made, but he really turned Anakin's character around and made the romance actually work!
I would go a little further, remove Threepio entirely if at all possible, recolour Geonosis, reintegrate Padme's negotiation scene with Dooku and make Dooku a good guy (and basically the founder of the rebel alliance) rotoscope a new sabre for him (possibly yellow) and see if I can paint out that force lightning on Anakin to make it a force push instead. And of course cut the Darth Tyranus ending. I'd also remove the ridiculous forbidden love angle, They have a relationship, that's it, no one cares.Also I'd see if I could remove Jango and Boba, or possibly just Boba and see if it would be possible to recolour Jango to turn him in to Boba. Long shot but I can dream.
I have yet to see a really good edit of Episode III. I've been looking, but the ones I've seen so far have been kind of sloppy.
The thing is, Tatooine is a big place. We don't have to assume that it looks uniform all over. I think those recoloured shots certainly would do the trick. The bigger concern for me would be the sky. If I can effectively make the sky blue than I'm all on board with making Geonosis into Tatooine.
The trickiest part to me is the editing the dialogue to reflect the change.
Thanks for coming out, g'night everybody!
Needs more sparkly day vampires.
I made the egregious error of watching RotS tonight with a thought towards how it will be edited when the time comes...
Wow man, I found myself saying "I'll have to cut that garbage" or "That's not necessary for the story" almost every scene, sometimes multiple times per scene. Disheartening.
RotS is just so bad and there's so little in it that's worth rescuing. Scenes can be saved individually, but the story as a whole is such a complete mess that it hardly matters. It's kind of funny in a way; RotS is widely considered the "best" of the prequels, and yet I find it to be the least salvageable.
I've got a whole bunch of Ep III edits downloading as I type, hopefully I'll find some inspiration there. I've also been browsing the radical edits thread and there's a lot of really interesting stuff there as well.
Radical edits, of course, carry with them certain challenges. Changing the story of a film to such a dramatic level can be difficult or even impossible in some cases. Still, it's an interesting thought exercise if nothing else.
If I could do some really radical edits I'd want to do away with Anakin as a child altogether and start things off with a teenaged Anakin under the tutelage of Obi-Wan. Or perhapos even better, omit Anakin from the first movie all together and leave as just Qui Gon and Obi Wan.
I would also like the Empire to come into existence much sooner. It's always bothered me that according to the current timeline as established by the prequels, the Empire is only 18 years old in ANH. The impression I always got from the film, based on how the Empire operates, how people talk about it and how Obi Wan in particular speaks of it, was that the Empire had been around for a long time. I would have guessed 50 or 60 years.
If I were making movies from scratch I'd start my prequels with the Empire already in power while the Old Republic fights desperately to survive. But that's me.
I've been mulling over some notions in the Radical edit thread and I definitely think I'm going to implement some of them, many others I'd already decided on using ages ago. I especially like the idea of Naboo becoming Alderaan. That just makes sense. It ups the emotional attachment to the planet in ANH, and it gives the audience a through line for the saga, rather than having an important planet that just disappears in the OT never to be mentioned again.
I also quite like the Geonosis is Tatooine idea. It'll take some colour correction but I think it should be doable. Having the first battle of the clone war fought on Tatooine would also help tie into the whole idea that Uncle Owen is afraid Luke will go off with Obi Wan the way Anakin did.
Jango Fett. I absolutely hated the inclusion of Jango Fett and how he ruins the mystery behind Boba Fett. I definitely like the idea of turning Jango into Boba, and removing all scenes where he takes off his helmet and most if not all of his dialogue, and removing the kid. This one seems considerably more difficult to achieve. I would also not make him the clone template.
Someone made an interesting suggestion that Anakin should use force lightning on Padme instead of choking her. Initially I thought that was a terrible idea, as I've always felt force lightning should be an Emperor only kind of thing, but the argument they gave was really compelling. Firstly, there's the idea that part of the reason Vader chokes people to death is a subconscious anger over his inability to breath on his own any more. I'd never considered that but it's an interesting thought. More pertinent though is this: Having apparently choked Padme to death, would Vader continue to choke people to death? Would it not be a constant reminder of how he murdered his wife? Finally, and best of all, If he uses force lightning on Padme and thinks he's killed her, then when he watches the Emperor use lightning on his own son it's going to trigger some very deep emotional reactions. Now the question is can I produce good looking force lightning?
