Scratctong

I honestly think you got it right with Chewie3.

It looks much more believable and far more natural.

I gotta be honest with you g00b, I hate that goat scream meme you put in the beginning of Spark of Rebellion v4.14.

What commands had the Queen given up to that point? I don’t recall her actually giving any commands at all, aside from the decoy Queen asking for Artoo to be cleaned!

The decoy queen’s command would still be the queen’s command, but besides that; Panaka’s line is: “Her highness commands”, giving Qui-Gon the opportunity to give a witty retort in response.

We can assume that Padme has given many commands throughout the day since Qui-Gon and Kenobi rescued her, however, the reason that the Jedi were sent to Naboo in the first place, was to be ambassadors to negotiate with the trade federation on behalf of the supreme chancellor, as per the queen’s command. Why? Because the queen: “Would not condone a course of action that would lead us to war”.

She’s basically the whole reason Qui-Gon is now stuck on Tattooine in the first place and he now has to take charge AND protect the queen at the same time, and now, the queen is demanding she come along. Why? Because she’s bored? or she wants to explore? or she believes that she will be safer? This is something Qui-Gon resents to a certain degree, after all why would he have the stuck up rich kid, Obi-Wan, stay with the royalty and he go to the poor slum towns? Perhaps because that’s the kind of company he prefers or perhaps he’s just had enough of royalty and nobility for one day.

Either way, Qui-Gon is enjoying this opportunity to speak a bit more freely and do things his own way, and he gets to do right in the face of the queen herself, and she can’t do or say anything about it? Even better.

Yoda’s line: “Qui-Gon’s defiance I sense in you” at the end of the movie, reflects this.

This is actually quite fascinating to watch, you can almost see why they went in the direction they did, with the goofy moments, the silly noises, the ill fitting music. This movie suffers from the pit falls most sci-fi movies fall into, great ideas, bland execution; a great story told in an uninteresting way.

The original Star Wars movie almost certainly would have suffered the same fate, were it not for the ideas of other talented people working on it, the script doctoring, the concept art, the special effects, the edits, the score. Without any of that, the Star Wars we know would not have existed, it would have been lost in the landfill of time where so many other lower quality movies (sci-fi especially) have been relegated; it would get a brief notice on shows like Mystery Science Theatre and Best of the Worst on Red Letter Media and almost immediately be forgotten about again.

Let me be clear, this is not your fault, you can’t frame the shots in a more interesting way, you can’t change the pacing of the story (anymore than you already have), you can’t allow a scene to breathe, you can’t better establish the stakes (anymore than you already have), you can’t make the actors say more interesting dialogue that better establishes who they are to each other or what their place is in the story.

What you have done is provide a far more, much needed, serious tone to the movie, that has disorientated me and left me wishing, “My god! Won’t someone please lighten the mood around here?” “Where.Are.The.Scat.Jokes???”

This became most apparrent to me whenever Qui-Gon and Obi Wan were just hanging around inside the naboo ship just talking about space things and tinkering with the ships mechanisms, I realised, damn I’ve seen this movie before, like a thousand times in every other sci-fi film attempt. I honestly think this movie needed that for me, a moment of realisation that this is just another messy sci-fi story, like any other, it wasn’t constantly trying to key-jingle at me with ‘flashy’ CGI or references. In this instance me being bored but engaged, as opposed to rolling my eyes and losing focus like I so often do with the prequels is honestly a great improvement for this film.

This probably sounds like a bad review but it’s really not, bland and serious is a definite improvement for this film that I didn’t think was possible.

This is still easily the best version of this movie. The star wars fan edit obsession with making the runtime still be at least 2 hours long is a baffling one to me and I deeply respect that you didn’t do that here. Streamlined is a very appropriate name for your edit and the story definitely benefits from it.

I do however have some nitpicks:

• The beginning of the title crawl reads: “Fora” when it should read: “For a”
• I actually do think you missed a trick by not including the underwater city scenes, this establishes some great world building that you could greatly improve upon, it adds some flavour and intrigue to the geo-politics of the story. It better establishes what Jar Jar is and what he could contribute to the story, it better expands upon the journey the Jedi had to take to reach the palace and it also better establishes them as problem solvers, negotiators, and peace keepers, and seeing them leave in the submersible could nicely tie into the shot of them showing up at the palace. The gungans coming out of nowhere at the end is a bit weak and feels more like a deus ex machina, Jar Jar speaks to Padme about Gungan warriors being strong and fighting to the death, but we have no frame of reference here.
• The line of dialogue “There will be no more commands from Her Highness today” really should be there, not only does it lend a much needed sense of personality to Qui-Gon, (he’s not just a loyal knight following orders, he’s got attitude and ideas about how things should be done) it’s the leading line of dialogue that follows the rest of that sequence, that he knows who the real identity of the Queen is. The line, “The Queen trusts my judgement handmaiden, you should too” is not present here either and would make for a nice trifecta in which Qui Gon is being quite cheeky about it now, it also helps us to understand what kind of person Padme is.
• I feel the same can be said of Obi Wan’s “pathetic life forms” comment, it creates friction between him and Qui Gon, who then goes on to say to the council that “He is head strong and he has much to learn of the living force, but he is capable”. I noticed you left in the scene where Obi Wan clearly doesn’t like that Anakin shook his hand and Qui Gon laughs at him, or the scene where Obi Wan says “What’s this?” when he sees Jar Jar. I’ve always seen Kenobi as a privileged rich kid who thinks he is better than everyone else, contributing to his failure as a mentor to Anakin, I think this line is far more important than you think it is. I really don’t think you should be so absolute on moments of light and levity, especially when it contributes to a characters personality traits or how they grow and change over the course of the trilogy (limited though it may be, there is no need to limit it further).
• The Gungans (including Jar Jar) either need to be better mixed into the audio or need to be re-recorded or both, their voices distractingly stand out whenever they talk, and do not feel like they are a part of the environment. The Naemoidians however, sounded fantastic and I really enjoyed their new dialogue, I loved the moment where they become noticeably nervous whenever Palpatine shows up or when Maul is mentioned but not in a way that they make it too obvious.
• The scene where Sebulba is attacking Jar Jar has some shots in it that look a little too tinted green, I don’t know if this was the best result possible but it was a little distracting.
• Would it be possible to delay Anakin’s “What is it?” by a second or two after Qui Gon destroys the probe droid? As it is, it’s way too immediate. I feel as though he would need to take in the scene before saying anything, there is plenty of time in between Qui Gon destroying it and saying “a probe droid”. This one is SUPER nit-picky I know, but the scene would benefit from it, as it is, it’s far too immediate.
• Inconsistent audio levels all throughout the movie, some scenes are louder than others, some better audio balancing would be much appreciated. Not really an issue with headphones, but with speakers it’s really noticeable.
• I respect your choice in ending and even agree with it, though perhaps some sinister music playing over Yoda and Mace’s conversation is needed that swells upon a slightly longer hold on Qui Gon’s funeral pyre (if possible) before closing with a wipe and music change would work better. As is, it feels a bit lack luster and abrupt, almost comical, almost.

SUPER, SUPER nitpicks that probably don’t need changing:

• At around 1:05:46, someone’s foot step sounds like an audio pop for the beginning of the much louder transitional music, it may be best to remove that one footstep sound.
• At around 54:57, when the screen wipe for the establishing shot of the Jedi temple completes, the colours seem to change ever so slightly, I don’t know if this is the case for the original version as well, may want to adjust that, may not, it is a super minor thing after all.

Great work Phase3, can’t wait to see what you do with 2 and 3.

So, I’ve watched Untold twice now and I can safely say I like it a lot, I didn’t love it, if I had seen the original theatrical version then maybe I would have loved this. I am certain it has nothing to do with your work and everything to do with the source material you salvaged this from.

I loved that you gave Kylo agency and purpose, I loved that Luke Skywalker’s actions in The Last Jedi actually meant something and had inspired people across the galaxy, I loved that in all three of these edits Rey’s pull to the dark side was teased and felt like it had actually culminated into something almost resembling a plot point, I loved that it could be interpreted that Palpatine hadn’t returned but the force was using what little was left of Palpatine to turn Rey to the dark side, and when that plan failed, resurrected Palpatine instead as a last resort. All things that (at least to my understanding) were not present in the original.

I made notes since I believe you said you were looking for feedback:

• inconsistent audio levels, it was either too quiet at times or too loud, the dialogue suffered the most from this.
• new dialogue needs better audio mixing, it’s pretty obvious which dialogue was new to this edit as it often wouldn’t blend well with the rest of the audio track.
• The Sith voices were perfect, (I believe you said you voiced them?) absolutely incredible, they sounded like they were meant to be there in the theatrical version all along. However, they are too quiet, they definitely need to be louder. Don’t be shy, you did a great job and they deserve to be heard.
• So when Rey first speaks to Leia, it is dead quiet all around them, it’s quite eerie and distracting, it’s on desperate need of some atmosphere, I believe it’s raining in that scene? Maybe some rain would help with that and maybe some sounds of busy people really quiet in the background as well would help with that scene.
• The intelligence drop scene with the Falcon coming in for the landing (on my second watch, admittedly this seemed like less of a big deal but…) It feels way to quiet and could definitely use some music nothing too loud or too energetic, that comes in later for the chase but definitely something small, quick and establishing could really grab your attention as it is, I swear, on my first viewing I almost lost interest in what was going on.
• Poe and Fin’s return to ‘Not-Yavin-4’, Poe’s little establishing shot before he pops up out of nowhere with Rey and Poe is a little bit jarring, I’m sure your options were limited but I was left wondering if there was a better solution.
• The sequence of events then goes: (Rey reads book) to (Fin, Poe, Rey) to (Rey training) to (Fin, Poe, Rey) to (Rey reads book) to (OKAY NOW WE’RE LEAVING). Again, I have to assume you didn’t have many options, in fact I seem to recall hearing that this ROS in particular was just constantly moving with no room to breathe but it felt a bit weird so I had to mention it.
• The scene where Rey is looking off into the distance and Poe says, “What is it?” and Rey says, “Nothing” and then the scene ends doesn’t seem to serve any purpose and I would say maybe it should be removed but given my previous point maybe it’s more necessary than I realised?
• The Storm Troopers talking about the Knights of Ren are barely audible, especially with the music blaring over them.
• The Knights of Ren could probably be a bit quieter in certain scenes, funnily enough, because of their voice modulation, they don’t really seem like they need any additional mixing, their voices seem to occupy the space they are in the most convincingly, second only to Kylo’s sentence mixing.
• When the gang fly away in Ochi’s ship, I couldn’t help but feel as though things got a bit messy around here, I think the shot of the Millenium Falcon being towed should be moved to later on in the timeline, so that we have Ochi’s ship taking off and then immediately wiping to an establishing shot of Ochi’s ship floating in space. This way it’s easier for the audience to keep pace with where the gang are now (they’ve just gone from desert to ship to space) and keeping that unbroken for as long as possible is for the best. The falcon being towed can be placed later, when it starts to become relevant again, just before the shots of Kylo revisiting it.
• The Victory cry on Kijimi is great but it too easily can go unnoticed. When Zorii says, “listen” that should be the immediate cue for it to start and it should be much louder, perhaps there could be an initial victory cry just before Zorii says, “listen” to prompt her, or perhaps it should go dead quiet just before Zorii says, “listen”.
• D-O’s voice sounds very unnatural, some kind of voice modulation would do really well here, it also needs to be lower in the mix and could use some kind of an effect depending on the environment it’s in, so that it can blend in with its surroundings.
• I’ll simply put, C-3PO’s new dialogue does not sound like C-3PO, the dialogue is good, but if you’re using an AI to get it, you need a better AI model.
• Again, I couldn’t help but find the editing around the “The ship was attacked” dialogue to be a bit choppy and unconvincing and again, I’m sure you did the best you could with what was given to you.
• There’s a distinct audio pop in one of Kylo Ren’s sentence mixed lines, it’s somewhere around, “I can sense the darkness in you, such pain”.
• I imagine Hux would be giving commands in his own star destroyer, so scenes where Hux and Pryce appear to be sharing a command centre don’t really make sense to me, but perhaps it makes sense to you, I know you have them dying together in the same attack and that part looks good but they’re very obviously not in the same room together.
• Fin and Poe reunion: Fin and Poe making eye contact with each other is sandwiched between some very ill-fitting and repetitive additional and unnecessary shots.
• The first shot of Pryde when Palpatine makes contact with him looks very unconvincing, is this a shot of Hux with Pryce’s face stitched on? The biggest issue is the lighting around his eyes and his face isn’t very well attached to the neck, I would maybe recommend shrouding most of the body in darkness with the eyes lit up in that scene … maybe?
• I think Palpatine’s monologue to “his faithful” should be moved to much earlier in the film, I don’t know where exactly but we already know he’s back, putting him in earlier builds him up, it gives us some time away from Fin, Rey and Poe to let their side of events breathe for a bit. It keeps things tense you’re anticipating him a lot more, it’s honestly kind of weird to just hear that he’s back but not see or hear him until the very last thirty minutes or so. If the speech is placed earlier, more time passes between that scene and the scene where Rey slowly makes her way into the Sith Temple, which should provide the audience with an ‘oh damn’ moment because we just got a little reminder to what she’s about to walk into.

This is the section of issues I had with the film that I’m assuming are a part of the theatrical cut:

• Kylo appears to come out of hyperspace when he reaches Exegol, but that shouldn’t be the case as we just watched him navigate there by hand.
• Why is C-3PO going with them?
• Rey just has a blaster now? She pulls it out of nowhere.
• Why does Fin question Poe’s hot wiring skills? Seems like a pretty standard and important skill to have as a Resistance Fighter (I know this “sets up” Poe’s criminal past but it’s weak and lazy).
• Poe’s arm seems fine in the final battle but is in a makeshift sling again after the fact. (I mean, I get it, life and death and all, but it just seems a little disjointed).

Anyway, I fully intend to watch this a third time with your commentary track playing, which will almost certainly explain everything and make me disagree with everything I just wrote XD .

Great work sherlockpotter, I hope you’re proud.

Oh, and it makes total sense that Rey and Kylo never kiss, I never really saw a romantic connection between them anyway. 😃

Are you aiming to make it look like it did on 35mm in regards to the colour grade? I definitely preferred that look over the blu ray, it’s just so much more … convincing?
Either way, while the change in colour is drastic, I am also super interested to see the other changes you have made to the movie, it sounds like the ideal version.

It sounds like you are planning on making similar treatments to II and III as well, am I understanding that correctly? Or have you already made those edits?

Hi sherlockpotter, did you get my PM about a certain, let’s say “The-Legend-of-Zelda-protagonist”?

Fair enough. I admit I have jumped the gun somewhat, your edit has been sitting on my hard drive for a little while now and I’ve only just started to watch it, I’m currently about to start the last 3 episodes of season 2.

Your work has been fantastic, I’m constantly amazed at how I’m watching a giant story play out with each episode influencing the other (or at least having some connection via the opening text).

When I decided I was going to finally watch the vanilla clone wars from start to finish a couple of years ago, I found I was watching a sort of mish mash of disjointed ideas, and quite frankly embarrassing references, dragged out across multiple episodes, with filler in between. Had I known about your work then, I’d have been all over it.

Discovering you, led to me discovering a whole community of people making star wars (and other properties) better, and when I watched rebels for the first time, I didn’t make the same mistake twice, I went with ‘Rebels Recut’ by g00b because you had recommended it, and they have been absolutely smashing it. Every version they release has been an improvement on the last. I see plenty of other promising fan edits on the horizon 😃 .

Hey Eddie, I’ve been thinking, would you consider doing an episode similar to your ‘Tales of the Lost Clones’ episode, but for the senate. Probably called: ‘Tales of the Senate’?

Showcasing the corruption of the senate and the few senators trying to make a difference in the republic like, Padme, Chuchi, Organa and Mothma.

I don’t recall with exact clarity all of the episodes you haven’t used, but I did notice that there were a couple revolving around senators that were not used and wondered if that was a blind spot that could create a clearer picture?

Hey Goob, I don’t know if you saw my last message or not, but I have been doing what I can to track down that 5.1 version of Ian’s performance. I think it’s actually technically S02E00, some listings refer to it as a season 2 premiere TV movie so its numbering can vary.

First off, in my previous message I mentioned that Disney may have updated their catalogue, I don’t know if you’ve checked Disney+ recently but they may have uploaded it there, since it seems Amazon’s license has ran out.

However, if it’s not there, there is an official upload of it on YouTube by Star Wars Kids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf42o4OEw-o
Maybe it will yield a better quality source for your edit? If you have any trouble downloading it let me I know I should be able to share it with you via google drive if necessary.

BTW just watched your latest version of S01E01 (13 versions now, WOW!) I have to say this one flows much better than the previous. I really enjoyed it, the transition from the star destroyer arriving at Lothal to moving above Ezra’s head was inspired, the new atmosphere on Kessel is perfect (I’m not sure if that was the work of the general recolor or if you specifically made the scenes on Kessel look greener and dirtier) and the boost in visual quality was very much appreciated.

BTW, what exactly did you mean by: “Updated Kallus model”?

And I hate to nitpick but I noticed 3 grammatical errors in Old Jho’s subtitles, it should be:
“There’s an Imperial shipment coming through here soon.”
and:
“From what I’ve heard, Vizago will pay for its contents.”

Sorry for the text dump, if you’d prefer me to contact you about this sort of thing in private messages, please let me know. 😃

Interestingly, in the comments of that video, there are people saying that the Disney+ version was replaced with the Ian dub. One of the comments is as old as a year ago, and another as recent as 6 months ago speculating that it could be region based. I don’t know how recently you checked the Disney+ version but they may have changed it? I’m not able to verify those claims myself right now but perhaps you or someone here can?

Hey Goob, there’s a torrent for Rebels S02, it’s a blu ray rip and it boasts 5.1 sound.

Edit: Ah okay, I did some further research and I see why you specifically need the Amazon Prime version. Yeah, shame it’s no longer for sale, that’s a bummer. I could find it on YouTube just fine but obviously that’s not 5.1.