By the way, Dazman and honestabe – if you watch this edit, please stick around for the end credits; I have listed you both in the ‘thank you’ section!
Very familiar work you are doing on this edit with all the lightsaber errors and whatnot, but also good new catches.
Thanks mate! I really want the Lightsabers to look amazing.
I see you don’t need my fix for this shot anymore. 😭😉
Haha sorry about that mate!! I really love what you did in your edit; I wanted to tackle the shot myself, in order to learn more about compositing and erasing parts of a shot etc.
I must admit that your version of the wall looks amazing! Although, R2 would still fall backwards with his legs in that position, don’t you think?
Thanks very much! Not long after I posted that work-in-progress photo, I finished off the colour grading, to have the wall properly blend in, and the pipes be the correct metal colour.
With Artoo, I left it in its original position, since in ANH during the droid sale, Artoo also has that same position – it looks like the droid will fall over, but never does haha!
Oh man, this looks good! 😛 It’s surprising how little we see these hangars in PT, next time is at the beginning of ROTS with that visible force field, so it fits within the continuity.
Thanks!! Seeing the shields in ROTS is what prompted me to make shields for TPM. 😃
Hey Phase3, I was wondering if you could also DM me the deleted scenes? cheers
No problem.
For anyone wanting the AOTC (or TPM and ROTS) deleted scene upscaled, just send me a private message.
I never thought someone would make a semi-revisited style edit of the prequels. I know Dazman worked on this movie, but you are taking this to another level. I really liked your work on these deleted shots.
As long as it takes, you are going to leave unique extra restored footage for these movies. Looking forward to it.
Thanks for your kind words - it’s much appreciated! I liked Dazman’s version of TPM; he did some really good revisions to the film. I hadn’t thought of my edit as a semi-revisited style of edit haha!
Considering your desire to streamline things, did you intend to add any more of these types of shots if they are presumably a few seconds?
That’s a good question! I don’t want to add in every tiny bit of footage that exists; I mainly want to add in shots that either enhance the story, or are visually appealing (such as this shot of the Naboo starfighter being shot).
It really depends on the footage, and what impact it will have on the overall story.
A new work-in-progress shot:
The documentary on the TPM DVD has a deleted shot of a Naboo starfighter being shot by a Droid Fighter; the quality on the DVD is quite poor (much worse than the deleted scenes), so I’ve rotoscoped and upscaled the Naboo starfighter, added in a new starfield plus new Droid Fighters, laser bolts and explosions, in order to create a new shot.
This shot goes before the shot of the Naboo starfighter spinning out of control, which can be found on the original trailer for the film.
To note: this is not the final colour grade.
I’m stoked for this edit. It’ll be interesting seeing your cut of the pod race. Spence’s edit has been my goto for a while and his cut of the race is one of the best out there.
I hope that you’ll enjoy it!
My cut of the podrace removes the anouncer, Jabba, and cuts the lengthy introductions to each racer. I’ve trimmed the race to be fast and dynamic!
I haven’t seen Spence’s edit yet, however I know that he always makes great edits. 👍🏽
Thanks for posting the technical breakdown; it’s great to see that so much attention was paid to making the video look as good as possible. I’m very keen to see this, and will PM you about it!
The list of changes has been revised with the following:
Removed the scene of Padme cleaning Artoo and chatting with Jar Jar; the audience already knows how and why Jar Jar is there, so the recap during their conversation serves no real purpose other than more exposition. There is also no need for Padme to introduce herself, as the Queen called her by name in the previous scene.
Removed Anakin saying “Your buddy here was about to be turned into orange goo”.
Removed Anakin saying “Whoa!” when Qui-Gon lifts him up and into the Podracer.
There are many instances during the end duels where either the VFX was unfinished, or there are compositing errors. That’s not a complaint though, as I know that ILM had limited time and budget, plus the VFX shots are very difficult to do.
The stunt blade is partially visible in several shots, plus the Lightsaber blade is incomplete in several shots, giving the appearance that the blade is cutting through legs and arms!
In one shot, Obi-Wan’s blade is in front of Maul’s blade, instead of behind it, with the hilt of Maul’s blade as well as his hand not being visible.
I’ve been steadily making adjustments to the blades and VFX; it’s a slow process though, as I’m going through the scenes frame-by-frame.
Flipping the sandcrawler to match the now-flipped Threepio makes the most sense.
During the duels on Naboo, there are several instances where the Lightsaber blades become slightly translucent, with Maul’s blade having a pink colour, and Obi-Wan’s blade having a pale blue colour, with one shot having almost no white core at all.
I’m adjusting the blades and restoring their colours:
The shields in option A look more visually appealing to me.
Keep up the great work.
Thanks for your kind words!
I love the shield implementation!
I’m glad that you like it!
The shields draw visual attention away from the Queen’s Starship, so option B seems like the best one.
I was also leaning towards Option B, as I wish to direct the eyes of the viewer to the Queen’s starship.
Actually, I think that the shields are a bit too bright in both applications of the concept so far, to the point of distracting the eye.
Neverar is correct. Though you might be tempted to think shields look cool, the current mock-up is way too bright and eye-catching.
These are work-in-progress shots – these are not yet finished, and don’t have the final colour correction, or the final luma / brightness levels either. 😃
The final versions will match what is seen in ROTS.
But actually I’m not sure you need the shields. It’s a hangar staffed entirely by robots. They don’t need atmosphere.
This is something I’m doing purely for fun, and to add some visual interest — it’s all totally unnecessary haha!
In one section, I was going to add in new shields on a Trade Federation starship, but also thought that closed hangar bay doors would look good too.
I’d like to get the input from the SW community on this – which do you think looks better:
Option A: shields added in
Or:
Option B: hangar bay doors closed
my god that is so cool. I’m so looking forward to this
I’m glad that you liked it! 👍🏽
I want to see more of your version bro!!
Thanks very much! I will post more pictures as I go along; there are some VFX shots to do prior to releasing the edit, however all is going smoothly.
A quick update:
I have animated the shield and ship, to create the illusion of the ship passing through the shield:
love that added shield! great choice!
Thanks very much!
During the duel on Tatooine between Qui-Gon and Darth Maul, their Lightsabers appear to be very dim. Even with all of the sand being kicked up, their blades are still much more dim than they could be. I’ve updated the blades for both of them:
Something that I wanted to do mainly for fun: to add in shields to some of the starships in TPM, similar to what is seen in ROTS.
I don’t think they are ever hot in the OT. Plus wouldn’t the hilt get too much to handle after a while, if they were?
The hilt likely wouldn’t conduct the heat, much like when you hold the handle of a frypan.
Of course in the Phantom Menace we see lightsabers melt through a set of strong looking metal doors in the first five minutes of the movie. Compare to Luke cutting the hatch on an AT-AT, which should theoretically be sealed better than “a space door.” *
In a fantasy adventure film, it’s about doing what is in service to the story, and to maintain a certain pacing in the film. In TESB, Luke had to find an opening in the AT-AT, in order to plant his explosive. Taking 5 minutes to cut open a hatch would have been ridiculous, and greatly slowed down the pacing of the scene.
It’s less about what is “realistic”, and more about “what looks cool and will keep the audience interested?”.
The heat has also been used to explain why lightsaber wounds aren’t horribly bloody… (Someone please tell Ponda Baba)
That particular shot (of the arm on the ground) wasn’t filmed by George Lucas - from memory it was done in the US by the second filming unit (I don’t recall the exact details off the top of my head).
It’s relatively easy to adjust that shot though – I think that Adywan’s edit changed the arm. This is something I’ll do for my own edit.
Remarkably, in Return of the Jedi, we see Luke’s saber acting like a baseball bat against Jabba’s thugs. Not sure if it’s hot or not.
During filming of ROTJ in 1982, Lucas had a baby to raise, and stated that he wanted to make more of a child-friendly film, which means the film’s violent shots were reduced or removed, and the film became more cute and happy. Aside from that, if there were limbs being lopped off, and lots of visible wounds on Jabba’s cadre, the film wouldn’t have gotten a PG rating back in 1983.
*Ok I guess it’s not just a space door; the room must be sealed if the Jedi are to be poisoned, but who has poison cannisters in their AC system?
The production team did two things:
#1 Took inspiration from some real-life office building safety systems: fire suppression systems that activate when there are fires in certain rooms (such as a CRAC unit or Server room). This gas is poisonous! These systems lock the doors, and flood the room with fire suppression material.
#2 Did things to push the story forward – as mentioned above: doing things in service to the story. The Neimoidians want to get rid of the Jedi, so they activate their version of an internal fire suppression system, which in the case of this fantasy adventure film, is a type of poisonous gas.
phase3 I kept thinking about your Darth Maul edit. I really didn’t understand my own reaction. Blood spray? Blood, uh, powder? No blood at all?
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Are-lightsabers-hot/id/138722
For the purposes of this fan-edit, the Lightsabers are intensely hot, so there would be instant cauterisation of the wound (and no blood spray!). 😃
Another update: I wanted to revise the colour of Darth Maul’s Lightsaber during the scenes of the duel with Qui-Gon on Tatooine. For several frames, the blade is translucent magenta, and for the majority of the duel the colour is more orange than red.
This isn’t the final colour grade, but this is to give an idea of the changes to the blade:
For those who haven’t seen it:
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1620853/action/topic#1620853
I looked into using the original footage, but restoring the Jedi – as in, changing them from invisible / partially invisible in a few frames to fully visible throughout, then adjusting the speed for a “normal” running speed.
There isn’t enough visual information in either the 35mm scan or the Blu-ray for the rotoscoping to work unfortunately.
Does anyone know of any good behind-the-scenes footage or photographs for this scene which show them running?
If so, I could rotoscope the footage, create a new composition with a corrected running speed, and share it with Hal9000 and any others who may want to use it.
Correcting a continuity error:
Here are some shots where I have removed Threepio:
For this shot, I removed both Threepio and Jar Jar; this was done by using portions of photography done by an ILM artist – no AI image generation!
Note: this is not the final colour grade.
I have removed the scene of the children talking to Anakin whilst he is building his podracer. I didn’t want to have Kitster magically appear in a few shots, so I have added him into a few of the earlier scenes.
Seriously how the hell does someone do that. It’s amazing.
It feels like magic to me. What do you do? Photoshop it frame by frame?
I’m glad that you like it!
I mainly use After Effects for these shots. Each scene has different requirements, however they usually have a few things in common: rotoscoping, creating clean background plates, then replacing / adding / changing footage. The new footage has to be tracked to the original footage, so that it all flows smoothly.