SpenceEdit

I always liked Phantom Menace and thought George did a great job directing it. To me it has always been far superior to the other prequels. While it's not perfect, it does have a certain sense of fun about it all, and some of the performances are quite good, especially Neeson and McGregor. Darth Maul is great, all of the action is great, Jar Jar and Watto are pretty amazing technical achievements, and it was just awesome to see some new Star Wars. The other prequels feel like they had been adjusted to fit what the fans wanted or what was going to be popular, but TPM has a certain pureness to it that feels imaginative in the way the OT does. It also felt to me like a director that hadn't worked in years, having fun with his new toys and firing on all cylinders.

I'm late to the party, but I just downloaded all of these and man, harmy, your work here is mindblowing. As a plus, everyone I know is now going to get a copy of these instead of the blu-rays because I've been gushing about them so much.

All around excellent, and as close as I'll ever get to a high quality version of the original movies I grew up with. Thank you!

theprequelsrule said:

Some of these other guys don't seem to get it. This is not 2004 or 2006. George has escalated the conflict and we must reply in kind or else appear weak to the Russians!

 Wolverines!!

I think you've convinced me. I don't have a preorder so I'm going to wait for a used copy. I will have my week old cake and eat it too.

Sebulba's going to say "I have a bad feeling about this" 1138 times in 327 seconds.

Fang Zei said:

-The blinking eyes - so now they've actually created a continuity problem as the ewoks don't blink in the ewok movies.

 

You're absolutely right, and by that regard, we should actually have the Ewoks speaking English in ROTJ, since they do that in the Ewok movies. And they should CGI in 100% more Wilford Brimley. Who should blink.

So I'm the problem because I'm a Star Wars fan and am looking forward to purchasing the blu-ray set?

I get why this site exists, and I agree that George should release the Original Trilogy in good quality. He really should. But me buying Star Wars stuff is not part of the problem. The petitions won't work, boycotting the release won't work, and not buying a Commander Rex ultimate silver plated action figure will not work. Lucas has to decide to release the movies as they were, and he doesn't want to. That's the "fucking problem" as it was so eloquently put.

Can I just enjoy my Star Wars stuff in peace? Can't we all just get along?

I don't think that's the point though. I'm still hugely excited to have a big nice blu-ray boxset of the Star Wars films with 3 discs of special featues. But I'm a features hound. If they just sold the features for 90 bucks I'd probably buy it.

Well I'm personally still going to buy it. Those deleted scenes are something I've wanted to see for years, and though I wish I could just pirate them, I can't bring myself to do that. I want the CGI Yoda. I want the documentaries. There's enough there for me to justify the purchase. If it was just the movies with these changes, there's no way, I'd just stick with the DVD's and fanedits/preservations. But I think George has made it worth my while. At the end of the day, it's still Star Wars on Blu-Ray with tons of features we've never seen before.

And to clarify, I'm not particularly excited about these OT changes, I'm merely doing the old "Hey, it could be worse!" and it has been. These pale in comparison to the 1997 changes.

Yeah I see your point. I think I've just accepted that that will never happen. I feel like I have satisfactory versions of the OUT by way or preservations.

Either way, anyone who says they aren't buying the BD set because of the changes is going to miss out. Look at all those special features. The deleted scenes are enough for me. Can't wait!

I'm already pre-emptively hiding from this, but are any of these changes really THAT bad? As far as the Nooo! goes, it kind of ties the prequels in nicely to the OT, the Krayt dragon call is incredibly minor, and Adywan made the cantina aliens blink, so why can't the Ewoks? Is any of this as awful as Greedo shooting first? Jabba's Palace dance number? For the first time, I feel like I actually get why he is making these changes. And the CGI TPM Yoda is a huge improvement. That puppet looked like Kermit and Miss Piggy's ugly middle child.

Don't get me wrong, I would generally rather watch the Original Versions. but I find the special editions sort of cool in that Lucas is changing all six movies to gradually make them work together as a cohesive whole. If you look at them that way, they've almost become an interesting fanedit of themselves.

I'm going to go hide behind my ray shield now...

Don't write me off yet Frink!

Things are in the works, but my job is kicking my butt at the moment. I'll get some more time to work on everything once the summer ends.

Yeah, I'm still mixing that. I think you're right, the music is too quiet.

There's been some movement on this project lately. Here's the latest updates. The best news is that Jar-Jar is officially out.

Here's a test clip of the Darth Maul battle. All the music is in place, but there's no sound effects or voices yet. There will be. It's important to note that there is a point where the music drops out. That section is meant to be sound effects only.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5RN0AZ6O

And this is an early test of the podrace. I haven't finished removing the original music or some of the silly racer reactions. Also Jabba will go as well. I just left them in so the music would fit for now. This gives you a good idea of how that will play.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=C4Q5W6XO

I'm going to try and get some more clips of Jar Jar removal out there after I smooth it out a little bit more.

Feedback is appreciated! And sorry I disappeared for a while. There was a combination of working constantly and being a little burnt out on fanediting. All is well now though!

I’ve had this posted over at FE for a few days, so i figured I’d see if there’s any interest over here.

After posing the question of whether the Lord of the Rings movies can be pared down to 2 hrs. a piece, I got very intrigued by the idea. In dire need of a break from George Lucas’ universe, I decided to play in Tolkien’s for a bit.

The idea with these is to only include relevant information, and make them darker and more action oriented. I’m a fan of the movies, but I don’t always feel like watching a 3 hr. + version of them. As far as the story, nothing’s that different but I’ve made some special modifications to fix some things that I personally don’t like.

Some major changes:

• New titles (The Third Age: The Shadow of the Ring, The Shadow Grows, and The War of the Shadow.)

• Shortened just about every scene to its bare essentials.

• Different prologue narration by Gandalf (Taken from The Third Age video game.)

• Removed Arwen’s chase scene.

• Removed Faramir from the films entirely.

• Put the focus more on Aragorn than the Hobbits.

• Remove Eowyn/Aragorn pseudo-romance.

• Remove Aragorn falling off the cliff.

• Have Frodo not lose himself to the Ring’s will when he reaches Mt. Doom.

And tons of other stuff, that’s just the major changes. I’m going to release them all at the same time next month with commentary tracks.

Discuss! 😃

I gotta keep some surprises you know!

I still haven't changed my mind on it, but it's only going to get used once, it seems. In the prologue where you guys have already seen it. I think I've found a piece I like better for Order 66.

As much as I love this project, I've been finding myself getting a bit burned out on Star Wars. So I'm taking a very small break from it to clear my head of the Galaxy Far Far Away so I can come at it with fresh eyes. I'm working on a Lord of the Rings edit just for funsies over at FE.org, if you're interested in checking that out.

And that version of Duel of the Fates... lets just say I already have that. And I like it a lot.

It sounds very climactic, don't you think? :)

So I've been thinking about how to release this. Here's my ideas.

The original plan was to do a DL DVD release of the entire thing when it's all done. However, having a finished version of the first part completed and sitting there seems a bit silly.

So what if I released these as AVI's as they are completed? For instances part 1, which would be the prologue through to the end of TPM, would be done first, so I could release that, then do the same with AOTC and then ROTS with the epilogue.

This way, I can get some feedback on the individual pieces so the versions in the full DVD can be improved. Also, it gets the thing out there, so there's less waiting.

What do you guys think? If I go this route I could probably have part 1 released in about a month.

Yeah I didn't know that was coming, and I laughed out loud. Then I felt like I had wasted almost three hours of my life watching this stupid edit. There are so many glowing reviews for it on HIS website too, who would've thought?

What a jerk.

The fact that his edit isn't very good annoys me even more. It sounded like a good idea, but it just devolves into random sequences and events without any emotional through line. His "twist" in the final scene is ridiculous and is executed very poorly. The only thing I would say I liked about it was his Jar Jar removal, which is admittedly very well done.

The edit has zero handle on the actual plot and character arcs of the movies, nor does it try to change and improve them. His structure is interesting, but he makes everything that happens in the movie almost pointless. Without Anakin's end to his story, there's just random people we don't care about doing random things. Basically he took what's wrong with the prequels and made it infinitely worse.

I just don't like his "I'm awesome" attitude. Most people that are awesome don't know it, and if you think you're awesome, chances are you are in actuality a douche bag. Which I would say is definitely the case here.

I will not be asking to borrow anything from this edit. Anyone with that sort of attitude I wouldn't want anything to do with anyway. I'll find my own way with removing Jar Jar.