That’s fair enough reason, lol
Yeah that’s what I’m kind of enjoying about doing these again from scratch. I don’t have as major influence from other edits, so I can pick and choose the stuff I personally want to keep. Some stuff some people might not like, but also it’ll be interesting to see how it works as a whole.
That’s a fair look at things. I do agree some edits overcut on him, to the point where it’s a wonder why keep him at all.
I just always felt that one gag drags on far too long as “Anakin warns him not to touch the beam > He goes to pick up a tool, getting his tongue caught > Oh no, the pod’s gonna start up soon but his hand is caught > Padme helps him out, being the only person not blind/deaf enough to somehow not notice him through the entire conundrum”
Hence my suggestion to try cutting it down to “Anakin warms him not to touch the beam, or else his hand would be numb > Oh no, his tongue got caught instead! How hilarious”, or even stopping the gag as he walks away with his hand stuck, since the audience could assume he eventually unstuck it offscreen, instead of Qui-Gon and Anakin just not caring about possibly maiming him.
I honestly agree with you, but on the other hand, I actually find this sequence quite funny. I like it enough to keep it despite your good points.
I actually added some stuff back into AOTC. I realized, through some of the feedback that I received, that the middle section of the movie where it bounces between Anakin and Obi-Wan was a little too choppy. I kept the same structure I had, but let a few of the scene play out a little longer. I also added back in some more of the deleted scenes, like the extended walk to the palace between Anakin and Padme and Padme’s nieces greeting them outside her family home. I think the love story is working as I wanted it to, but a little more time with the two of them helps a lot, even if it’s not “important to the plot”.
This is actually pretty common to the process for me, I tend to overcorrect at first, then realize why things were there in the first place when watching the whole thing put together.
Sounds like a great idea!
Are you gonna leave TPM crawling credits the same as well? If so, might be a good ideia to at least fix the “sent two jedi knights” error (Obi-Wan was still a padawan and is only made a knight by the end of the movie).
I don’t plan on making any changes to the crawls.
Here’s an extended clip from TPM. This features some 3PO removal, masking, music replacement, moving shots around, cropping and panning, etc. Pretty much every trick up my sleeve.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F89lT9WHKJ7EcEYZyW3sVW2iCcHF6Egk/view?usp=drive_link
The 3PO removal is pretty well done!
I personally would remove the jar jar antics though. At least heavily cutting it down to him getting his tongue numb. Him getting his hand stuck feels like the bit sorta dragging on far too long, with no real payoff.
So Jar-Jar is a spot where my edit is going to be a bit different than a lot of other ones. I’m keeping more of him.
I have two reasons for this.
He’s the comic relief in a movie that’s very stagey, stuffy, and serious otherwise. So he does have a plot function, but more importantly he has a pacing function. It was just overused in the original and a lot of it wasn’t as funny as it needed to be.
Him being clumsy, which he was banished for, and then helping save the day by being clumsy and rejoining the Gungans is a good character arc. So we need to see him be a mess throughout the film so his clumsiness can pay off in the battle.
I personally feel like a lot of edits over cut Jar-Jar and the Gungans. My goal is to keep enough of both of them that they have a real presence in the story and an arc, without going over the top.
Here is the podrace in full. I replaced the music and sound effects at the beginning so I could remove some of the racer introductions and Jar Jar shenanigans, removed the whole flag parade part, removed Quadineros’ pod not starting, added some deleted scene stuff, removed the sequence where Anakin’s engine becomes detached, cut some reactions/dialogue, etc. A ton of work went into this, and hopefully you won’t actually notice any of it.
This has always been one of my favorite sequences in all of Star Wars, so it was really fun playing with it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11bIVCqc3NkYLT-_toejDHALcXjPcnj-o/view?usp=drive_link
Have you ever noticed that the part Sebulba breaks/bends-down is prominently visible, intact and in its original position, in all the subsequence shots during his convo w/ Ani?
Yes. Because I think he originally broke the piece after speaking to Anakin and they (correctly) moved it around in the edit.
I can probably crop it out.
Here is the podrace in full. I replaced the music and sound effects at the beginning so I could remove some of the racer introductions and Jar Jar shenanigans, removed the whole flag parade part, removed Quadineros’ pod not starting, added some deleted scene stuff, removed the sequence where Anakin’s engine becomes detached, cut some reactions/dialogue, etc. A ton of work went into this, and hopefully you won’t actually notice any of it.
This has always been one of my favorite sequences in all of Star Wars, so it was really fun playing with it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11bIVCqc3NkYLT-_toejDHALcXjPcnj-o/view?usp=drive_link
Here’s an extended clip from TPM. This features some 3PO removal, masking, music replacement, moving shots around, cropping and panning, etc. Pretty much every trick up my sleeve.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F89lT9WHKJ7EcEYZyW3sVW2iCcHF6Egk/view?usp=drive_link
I’m against cutting the Yoda “warm feelings” line. We needed more lines like that to show that the Jedi aren’t the cold unfeeling assholes people like to portray them as. Might be cheesy but if you ask me the nicest people are also usually the cheesiest.
I’m not sure about that one either.
So, a version of this does exist, I believe Adywan made it. It used an HDTV broadcast that was open matte for the IMAX sequence, so it’s not the full 4:3 aspect ratio, but still opens up to 1:85:1. DM me if interested.
I haven’t gotten all the way through yet, but here are my thoughts on the first half of the AOTC workprint. I think the overall pacing works really well and doesn’t need tweaking so all of my comments are specific nitpicks:
-There were some establishing shots I found a little wonky with the new scenes they were attached to. For example, The establishing shots of Sheev’s office and the senate building ought to be swapped in order to make sense with their respective scenes (I think this is a change Hal made in a late version of the Approaching Storm). There’s also an establishing shot of the Naboo palace that’s pulled from Phantom Menace and I don’t think it really works, since the scene it precedes doesn’t take place in the palace. I would consider maybe reshuffling the order of events so that the establishing shot isn’t needed.
-The cgi in some of the deleted scenes is very unfinished. I realize that you can’t do much about that, but I thought some other edits I’ve seen do a better job of at least cutting around it. For example, there are some pretty distracting shots of JarJar in the senate deleted scene, which I think could be easily cut around.
-There are a couple instances (from the original movie) where characters seem to talk “at” each other instead of actually holding a conversation. A good example is when Yoda tells Padme that “seeing (her) alive brings warm feeling to (his) heart” and Padme seemingly has no reaction, instead launching into talking about something else. Another example is when JarJar tells Anakin he’s happy to see him and Anakin launches into his own concerns about Padme. The latter can arguably be considered a character choice but the Yoda example I think is really jarring since we’re supposed to think of Padme as a kind and caring person. I think this is easily solved by cutting Yoda’s line
-I don’t think all the transitions between Anakin and Obi-Wan’s storylines work in this cut. Maybe it’s due to familiarity with the original movie or other edits, but there were a couple of moments where transitions felt jarring.
-I would cut Padme’s line in the family deleted scene “our relationship is strictly professional”. If she just said “Anakin is a…friend” it leaves more ambiguity about their relationship and it makes her quick falling from him feel more gradual and believable.
-When Lama Su gives Obi-Wan numbers of clone units, I think it is playing the reveal too early, and it detracts from the later scenes when we see more and more clones. I would cut out this mention of numbers.
-The goofy cgi villain roundtable when Obi-Wan is spying on Dooku has always bothered me, and I’ve seen other edits cut down each leader pledging their allegiance to the count. Similarly I’ve seen other edits cut Nute Gunray saying he wants Padme’s “head on (his) desk” to just “I want her head”. These are just moments of camp that I think go a little too far. Obviously it’s your decision to make based on taste, but they are little moments of friction with the movie for me.
Thanks, this is all really helpful!
Sounds great! Are you going to wait to release them all at once or release them whenever they’re finished? I’d love to check them out.
I think I’m leaning toward all at once, as then I can keep tweaking each one as I work on the others. I’m open to making early versions available for feedback in a limited capacity, but the full release is going to be all together.
here’s a rough cutlist for TPM:
This is a high level list, there are small trims, lines removed, shots rearranged, etc. through every scene. Again, I’m not doing anything revolutionary with this one, as to me this is still the best and most functional of the prequels. Just trying to smooth it over and remove some annoyances. It’s about 90% done, which means its time to start on ROTS.
When it comes to that scene, I remember Hal’s edit removed Jar Jar releasing the “big boomas” completely, but kept in Jar Jar landing on the droid tank with a couple trims. I think that would be the best solution: not only does it prevent you from having to recolor that one Gungan into Tarpals, but I think the droid tank works way better as a moment of levity than the “big boomas”.
I actually don’t want it to be a total “moment of levity” I’m trying to make it so Jar Jar releases the big ones on purpose, but underestimates the fact that they’re going to roll down hill at him. I’m trying to make him purposefully heroic in a clumsy way, as opposed to fumbling his way to heroics.
I’m reaching out to see if anyone can assist me with a few shots. I’m trying to adjust the end of TPM so that after Jar-Jar releases the large bouncing balls, the Gungan that picks him up on the horse is actually Tarpals. That way, I can bypass the whole silliness of him juggling the bomb and hanging from the tank. However, the Gungan that picks him up is clearly a more yellow hue than Tarpals, who stands out because he’s purple.
I’m not sure what the best method of recoloring this one specific Gungan is, and my experience with effects and masking isn’t great.
So I’m seeing if anybody has any ideas or would otherwise be able to help me with this. I’m not looking for perfection or anything here, as there’s so much movement in the frame and characters that it doesn’t need to be a full replacement. I basically just need the yellow guy to be purple.
Here are the three shots that would need work done to them. Please let me know what you think!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BmiEVRrf2zp6CodxJ5MySVfYj2H7e7Vi/view?usp=drive_link
Here is the sequence as it will appear in the final edit (ignore the audio editing, it’s nowhere near final)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EvmiUrk4p262yXOxjxDLsEsNEr5mb3uD/view?usp=drive_link
I’m playing with the idea of removing Darth Maul from every scene after Tattooine until he shows up for the duel. I think it’s kind of a neat idea to sort of forget about him for a while and then those doors open. It makes him showing up a bit more epic. All he does in the other scenes is stand behind Nute Gunray anyway.
You could just cut those scenes all together. That’s what I did for my (vanity and amateurish) edit. They kind of diminish Sidious as well.
I’m keeping one, where they inform Sidious about the Gungan army. Pretty easy to cut around Maul in that one and I needed at least one scene away from the heroes for pacing.
I’m playing with the idea of removing Darth Maul from every scene after Tattooine until he shows up for the duel. I think it’s kind of a neat idea to sort of forget about him for a while and then those doors open. It makes him showing up a bit more epic. All he does in the other scenes is stand behind Nute Gunray anyway.
That’s… actually very interesting, might work really well. We don’t exactly forget about him for that long though, because Qui-Gon and the council do openly discuss him and the sith, or do you plan to cut all of that as well?
No I want to keep that. I just feel like seeing him stroll around with Nute sort of dilutes his scariness. I like the idea of only seeing him when he’s an immediate threat.
I’m playing with the idea of removing Darth Maul from every scene after Tattooine until he shows up for the duel. I think it’s kind of a neat idea to sort of forget about him for a while and then those doors open. It makes him showing up a bit more epic. All he does in the other scenes is stand behind Nute Gunray anyway.
I’m really interested to see your takes on these films as I really enjoyed your work on Kenobi. I’ve found the prequels the hardest to find edits of that I’d be happy to put into into my definitive collection, but your AotC sounds like it could be just what I’m looking for.
Out of interest, what’s your stance on multimedia, or inserting Clone Wars/Tales of the Jedi scenes? I know many find it jarring, but I feel some of Dooku’s scenes from TotJ could really add to the tone of TPM.
I’m a big fan of the animated series. But I don’t intend to integrate them into the movies. They’re always separate things to me.
That’s fair enough. I’ve seen a few edits that integrate, and a few that don’t, and to be honest, both can work really well. I’m undecided as to how I’d like my definitive collection to look, particularly surrounding Dooku’s TotJ arc as it works well stand alone or integrated. I look forward to viewing your edits; it might give me some much needed clarity on this topic.
It’s tempting to use some Dooku footage from Totj in conjunction with that deleted scene from AOTC, but I think the merging of the two mediums will just feel too fanedit-y.
I’m really interested to see your takes on these films as I really enjoyed your work on Kenobi. I’ve found the prequels the hardest to find edits of that I’d be happy to put into into my definitive collection, but your AotC sounds like it could be just what I’m looking for.
Out of interest, what’s your stance on multimedia, or inserting Clone Wars/Tales of the Jedi scenes? I know many find it jarring, but I feel some of Dooku’s scenes from TotJ could really add to the tone of TPM.
I’m a big fan of the animated series. But I don’t intend to integrate them into the movies. They’re always separate things to me.
I’ve reached Coruscant on TPM. Again, this is a lighter edit than Attack of the Clones, as I’ve always felt that TPM is an editing pass away from being genuinely good. So Nothing quite as drastic.
Some stuff I’m doing:
Spence, if you’d like, I’ll do a scene-for-scene comparison of yours against Hal’s v8s, to highlight anything that worked for his that you might want to consider?
If you’d like to do that, I’ll shoot you a link.
For those that got the workprint link, if you haven’t downloaded it yet, I’m uploading a newer version. Should be up later, I’ll send a new link out.
That is a solid approach to that scene. One thing to be aware of is the line about Padme seeing him as a little boy. If you keep their later “but I am grown up,” this picks up on that. Certainly not necessary to keep even so.
I actually cut that part of the later scene, but yeah that was in until I decided to cut the later scene.
Wow, that is so much better than the original! Anakin and Obi-Wan actually feel likeable with all the awkward pauses and pointless bickering removed.
I especially like how you rearranged Anakin’s “we will find out who’s trying to kill you” to be a direct response to Padme. It makes it feel like Anakin is actually worried about her safety, rather than just trying to get on Obi-Wan’s nerves after he said there wasn’t going to be an investigation.
Thanks! One of the most important goals for me on this is to make Anakin’s relationships with Kenobi and Padme stronger, so the downfall hits harder. So both are more pleasant throughout, but there’s still some tension with Kenobi. To me, it’s more important to enjoy spending time with the characters than to have a lot of drama between them. There’s plenty of that in the next movie.