Just watched your film!
I can not say I remember much of the series, but the time flew by and at no time did I feel like I was missing anything. Your editing was (almost) flawless and you managed to put together a fast-paced, cohesive story.

Obviously, it was a bold decision to cut Maya’s plot line, and I am not sure if that helped or hurt your film.
In my opinion, you could go one of two ways: you could remove her from your fanedit entirely, or you could include more of her story, making your cut a little longer.

If it were me, I would have kept the original opening instead of Yelena’s mission (although it’s a cool scene), I would have kept the Tracksuits’ dialogue to a minimum (so ridiculous), and I would have removed the LARPers completely (making Klint get the suit off-screen) leaving more room for Echo.

But all in all, it was a very enjoyable experience and a fun way to revisit the series!

Since discovering your Mandalorian edits, I have begun experimenting with my own versions of Mandalorian films, adopting elements of your edits.
It’s nothing special or extremely different from your versions, just the movies I want to watch again upon rewatches.

With the release of Season 3, I was also looking for ways to incorporate all of the Mando stuff from The Book of Boba Fett into the third instalment of my Mandalorian film series.
And I think I have found a good way to introduce Mando’s quest in the mines of Mandalore by combining the scene in the Mandalorian hideout from BOBF with the dialogue from the Armorer’s cave, while also setting up his visit to Grogu.
The audio needs some more work, but here is a sample:

https://streamable.com/4ue7oa

I do not know if it fits your plans, but I’ll definitely use it for mine.

(FINAL) UPDATE

His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass, the fifth and final film of this collection has been released.
A complete catalog of plotlines and changes has been added to the original post.

I came across numerous setbacks while editing and rendering this cut, but I think I am finally ready to share it.
This film also marks the end of this project that took almost two and a half years and many restructurings to complete.

This adaptation of ‘His Dark Materials’ hasn’t always been perfect (if it were maybe I wouldn’t be here now), but it stayed true to Philip Pullman’s grand ideals all along. And it has always been a project of great passion and care for me that impelled me to expand and improve my fan-editing skills and knowledge.

I am not saying that I won’t ever experiment with this project ever again (there is always room for improvement), but this certainly feels like the final step of this creative process.
I am grateful and extremely happy for those who reached out to me and spent the time to watch my edits and shared theirs ideas and thoughts with me.
Thank you so so much!

As always, I am open to any kind of feedback and suggestions.

UPDATE

His Dark Materials: Republic of Heaven is now avaliable.
The film covers Episodes 1-4 and parts of Episode 5 of Series 3 and has a runtime of 2 hours and 34 minutes.
A complete catalog of plot lines and changes has been added in the original post.

His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass is coming soon.

Bunce said:

Hi
Was reading your comment on the titles for the final films. Could I suggest “The Republic of Heavean” as a suitable finale? Can then shift “The Amber Spyglass” one film back as the penultimate.

Alternatively, part one as “The Kingdom of Heaven” and TAS as the finale?

I am a sucker for unique titles!

Great suggestions!
While the amber spyglass plays a part in both films, I could see the first film as “His Dark Materials: The Republic of Heaven” and the last one “His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass”.

I’ll have to think about it, but this is a very strong possibillity.
Thanks!

UPDATE

Happy new year, everybody!

The finalized versions of the first three films are now available.
I said that I wouldn’t touch on The Subtle Knife before the release of The Amber Spyglass, but I couldn’t hold myself.

The last two films are on their way…

Alexvincent1 said:

Could I possibly get links to check out these ST edits? Thanks!

PM sent.

feronstost said:
I cannot wait for your third one! I still haven’t asked for the first two but I shall eventually!

I hope your patience will be rewared!

So… Season 3 is over.
And I am afraid I have to repeat myself once again. There were tons of stuff I enjoyed throught this season, and many that I did not. I will not touch upon every single change and deviation from the book, I am well aware that each adaptation must take its own route and I fully support creative freedom, however good the source material might be. My concerns are about the characters and the events that ended up in the final product and how and if they could have been handled differently.
That being said, I have to say that I still believe that this adaptation stayed true to the overall message of Philip Pullman’s work and that the final episode brought tears to my eyes and warmth to my heart. And I consider this a big success.

At some point I will make a list of every single change I chose to make for my project, but for now I just want to share my thought process for the final piece(s) of my film collection.

As for now, my decision is to split Season 3 into two films.
I usually don’t like two-part movies and I don’t mind an extra long viewing, but in this case I think this is the only way. Despite its complex concepts at times, I am fully aware that this series targets mainly young audiences, so a longer than a three-hour movie wouldn’t really be fit for this kind of collcetion.
So on their current forms both films have a runtime of approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes and are titled His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass, Part 1 and His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass, Part 2 respectively.

Initially I thought it would be cool to name the first part differently (like the fisrt film is titled The Golden Compass -a material- the second Northern Lights -not a material- the third The Subtle Knife -a material- the fourth -not a material- and the fifth The Amber Spygalss -a material-) but I still can’t think of a suitable title.
But as always I am open to suggestions.

Unfortunately I can’t give a release date at this point. All I can promise is that the updated versions of The Golden Compass and the Northern Lights will be available on January. As for The Subtle Knife I am quiet satisfied with its current form. The only change I would like to make is to put back a couple of not-so-necessary-for-the-plot scenes, which I will do eventually, but maybe after the release of the final films.

As always, I am grateful for your patience and the kind messages you send me.
I hope everyone has a happy new year’s eve!

Anjohan said:

FILM VII RELEASED

Film VII, The Wars of Ice & Fire, is now released.

Great news! And great title!
I will watch it as soon ass possible!

Wow. Just wow.
I am not so sure about the color grading, but maybe once I see it within the film it will make more sense.

Nevertheless, amazing editing skills!

Anjohan said:

So, the work on CoS Ultimate Edition is progressing nicely, although the task at hand is monumental.

CHANGES ARE FOR INSTANCE:

-> Most Hogwarts Walls are changed from brown to gray, as in PoA and onwards.
-> The Whomping Willow is no longer in the Hogwarts Courtyard, but in the forests outside of Hogwarts as in PoA and onwards.
-> Tom Riddle Flashback is heavily altered, with new effects and colors to make it seem like a corrupted memory and more in style with what we see in HBP.
-> A ton of new establishing shots, made from ground up. Tons of effects work.
-> A new ending soundtrack (new soundmix).
-> New soundmixes throughout the film (new atmospheres). A lot more sinister atmosphere outside the castle walls (thunder, rain), complimenting the darker look and visual style of the film.
-> Almost all continuity errors are fixed (Whomping Willow, Hagrid’s Hut, Spells different sounds and colors, wall colors, night sky outside windows etc).

And so much more I can hardly remember half. Hoping to release before New Year’s Eve.

Also, all John Williams copy-paste soundtracks from SS/PS are replaced with new John Williams mixes of existing HP score. Like the dark Library Theme from Film I that’s overused. New sound pieces are existing and kept, to let the film have its own identity and musical style.

Τhese sound very exciting!
Can’t wait!

Season 3 of His Dark Materials has begun.
And the first two episodes reminded me of all the reasons I love this series. And the reasons I sometimes don’t.

As always, the show does a good job at adapting Philip Pullman’s world and its complex values, while providing some great imagery and powerful performances. But… once again the pacing is all over the place and the editing does not allow the content to reach its proper levels of epicness.

So with that, I have already strarted my editing process in order to create the final piece of this collection. And I think I have an idea on how the film is going to open. So here is a first draft of the first 8 minutes:

SPOILERS

• Kingdom of Heaven
  The film starts with a “history lesson” for the Kingdom of Heaven, same as Episode 1 does, only with an amber filter on top instead of green… for obvious reasons.
• Will’s quest and the Angels
  I put together a montage of scenes of Will searching for Lyra in multiple worlds with ‘Play the Serpent’ from the original soundtrack that leads to him meeting with the Angels. I removed Will asking the old lady about Lyra and I added some footage of Baruch searching for Asriel, presuming he was lookng for him thus making their first encounter less abrupt.
• Lyra’s Dream
  Cut to Lyra’s dream about Roger in the Land of the Dead from Episode 2 and back to her sleeping in the chapel and the reveal of her location from Episode 1.
• His Dark Materials intro with ‘The Amber Spyglass’ sutitle.

I realize that this opening is very similar to my ‘Subtle Knife’ opening, but it feels right at this point.
https://vimeo.com/779294194
password: edit

This project has been very close to my heart from the beginning and I put a lot of care on these films and that’s what I am planning to do with this one too.
That being said, once Season 3 is over, I am going to release an updated version of each film in order to complete this collection with a uniform style both on an aesthetic point of view and storywise.

I hope there are some fans of the show here, so that we can discuss the progress of this project.
I am always open to feedback and suggestions.

editbetter said:

That sounds awesome. Would love to take a look. May I have a link? I’ve been pushing this show on anyone who will give me 5 seconds of their time since the first episode. Thanks

PM sent.

I’ve been following this thread from day one and I’ve been reading all of your interesting ideas.

Since the first episode of the show I knew that this show could turn into a great fanedit and I am so happy that your vision is coming to a completion.

So excited to watch it and ready to discuss.

daniilvegas said:

Thank you very much for your work. I can’t imagine how long it will take you to do this.

Thank you for appreciating my efforts.
It is first and foremost a project of passion and love and it is something I enjoy doing. And seeing other people enjoying my work is just the best thing I could ever take from this.

TTR said:

Flawless.

Thank you, friend!

UPDATE

Hello, everybody!

Within the following days I will upload an updated version of ST4: The Monster and the Superhero.
It is basically the same film with some minor audio adjustments and a trimmed sequence of the boys at Suzie’s house, as suggested by user @TTR.
https://streamable.com/vqdc3u

This version will replace the current one.

J_Scarp73 said:

I have watched all of these. Fantastic work Thanos. Great work indeed.

Thank you! Much appreciated!

JamisenRocks said:

don’t know how to PM

PM sent.

Congratulations on finishing this project! I have loved your previous edits and can’t wait to check out this one as well!

UPDATE

Frame rate issue has been fixed and the video file has been replaced.

Tiktaalik said:

Im seeing a similar frame rate issue as in the Barb funeral in the season 4 part 1 edit. Not seen the issue that I’ve noticed in part 2

I spotted and fixed the frame rate issue in Bard’s funeral and the updated version will be uploaded soon.
Could you tell me where exactly did you spot the same issue in Stranger Things 4: Part 1?

Tiktaalik said:

I was just thinking about how since a good chunk of each season has distinctly separate plot lines following different groups of people. Scenes from each could be broken up or consolidated quite a bit without breaking continuity. Though transitions would be a bit of a headache.

That’s an interesting thought that could bring something special.
Maybe I coulg give it try sometime in the future.

incrediblyhugeoverpoweredman said:

Why did you not combine the monster and the superhero with the rest of stranger things. Its kind of annoying because you still consider it important.

I do consider it important but only as what it is.
I don’t think that combining it with Part 1 would have helped the pacing of the film at all. Not to mention that the final runtime would have been close to 5 hours.

What exactly did you find annoying about it being a separate film?

Tiktaalik said:

I noticed that season 1 in terms of pacing doesn’t seem to work as well as the next two when you cut it down. I have to figure the writing that season was more episodic feeling than the next two which do feel movie-like.

This is true. Season 1 definitely had a different structure compared to later seasons and that may have had an impact on the film’s pacing, although I had never really noticed it before.

Tiktaalik said:

I noticed in the season 2 edit the scene of Barbara’s funeral, the framerate seems to be stuttery.

I will check on that and see if I can fix it.

Tiktaalik said:

When you were working out how you’d cut these down, did you wind up moving much or anything around from what they were in vanilla? Or was it just straight forwardly trimming things?

Mainly I was trimming each episode down before putting them all together. And I think that -mainly- this approach has worked. There are however a couple occasions (especially in my s4 edits) where I rearranged and restructured several scenes in favor of pacing and storytelling.

There are other faneditors, Anjohan for example (who I admire greatly) with his GoT tv-to-film edits, who deviate significantly from each episode’s and each seasons’ pacing and narrative to create basically a whole new story. And I think that his approach works perfectly for his occasion. But regarding Stranger Things I don’t know how a similar approach could work, because of its movie-like writing as you have mentioned.