Trooperman

1. What would be great would be a commitment from a pro ADR guy to do lines for both Ep. II and Ep. III at the same time (and maybe pickups for Ep. III if needed).

2. That, and an ADR guy who could do a good Jar-Jar and get a commitment for both Ep. I and II all at once. 

Other stuff:

Then we have 2 lines from the blue-horned guy that could stand to be redone (recording quality).

Also, it may be worth addressing the Nemodians now, too.  I got some GREAT foreign voice work for SOTDS (I think they were friends of user Sluggo).  Would be great if I could get recordings for a possible Episode III and I. 

Those could free me up to finish not only SOTDS, but a possible complete PT. 

But Anakin is really the major issue.  Even though I'm probably a better and more honest actor than I was when I did the rough cut, my voice doesn't always mesh with the thin and tall Hayden Christensen.  Something closer to his sound, but a little deeper (remember he is Darth Vader) and not so wimpy and whiny would be perfect.

mrbenja0618 said:

Oh yeah, I know. You basically have to try and make it stronger somehow. That's why many were trying to make Grevious actually be a restructured Maul, because then you have a back story for Obi-Wan. The man who killed his master lives. Gives it purpose. But that would require an eye change.

What if his eyes weren't changed but he was still made out of pieces of Darth Maul?  Maybe all of his facial tattoos got seared off.  I don't know if we would actually get into all of that. 

I know that Maul was a man of few words in Episode I.  I wish the Grievous character were not so flamboyant and over-the-top, although that could probably be edited down. Turn him into a killing machine who only has a couple dozen lines in the movie. 

We discussed this a long time ago, but what would really be great to sell this would be a scene between Palpatine and Grievous, possibly a recut combining Hayden's Frankenstein scene and some Grievous close-ups.

Wait, I just had an idea.  Remember in "Empire Strikes Back" when Vader and Luke have this long, telepathic conversation? 

They were in two completely separate locations but they were calling out to each other.  Irvin Kershner did it with these really short fades. 

Could something similar be done here at the beginning of the movie? 

Palpatine: Darth Maul.....

Grievous: Lord Palpatine

Palpatine: My apprentice....

Grievous: My master.....

mrbenja0618 said:

Trooperman said:

^^That sounds great. A good improvement on the original!

I actually had kind of an off-the-wall idea for Grievous, which may or may not work.  He's an evil, eccentric robot who calls himself "Dr. Maul" and always refers to himself in the 3rd person.  It might bring back the comic-book villain feel from the OT. 

Why is he called Maul?  Maybe Palplatine programmed him that way in honor/memory of his fallen apprentice.  Or perhaps he IS Maul in some small way (he used Maul's heart or something small like that and then enshrined it in this robot).

It's the sort of crazy thing that wouldn't be out of character for Palpatine, considering that he does the same exact thing to Anakin at the end of the movie. 

I know Grievous=Maul has been discussed ad nauseum, but what if we don't get into that  and just let the audience wonder, "Why the heck does he call himself Maul, anyway?"

That's all fine and good. If you did it, it could be cool. Honestly though, I just wish we could Grevious more purpose besides just giving Obi-Wan something to do so Anakin can be alone to make bad decisions. =)

To be honest, I wish I could just cut out that entire part of the movie with Obi-Wan.  It is completely pointless and literally serves no other function than giving Obi-Wan something to do while Anakin turns bad.  But I'm already removing Yoda vs. Palpatine.  If you take this out too, what is there left?

It sounds wonderful on these hi-quality headphones.  Very warm sound.

I'm in my 20s.  I may be crazy, but I'm certainly not old!  I was, however, born early enough to where I was watching the original versions growing up as opposed to the 97 SE.  "Old and crazy" to preserve this?  Where do you come up with that? 

This isn't Xanadu or The Incredible Melting Man or some trash.  This is STAR WARS- one of the most popular movies of all time.  And I cannot wait for this to come out.

^^That sounds great. A good improvement on the original!

I actually had kind of an off-the-wall idea for Grievous, which may or may not work.  He's an evil, eccentric robot who calls himself "Dr. Maul" and always refers to himself in the 3rd person.  It might bring back the comic-book villain feel from the OT. 

Why is he called Maul?  Maybe Palplatine programmed him that way in honor/memory of his fallen apprentice.  Or perhaps he IS Maul in some small way (he used Maul's heart or something small like that and then enshrined it in this robot).

It's the sort of crazy thing that wouldn't be out of character for Palpatine, considering that he does the same exact thing to Anakin at the end of the movie. 

I know Grievous=Maul has been discussed ad nauseum, but what if we don't get into that  and just let the audience wonder, "Why the heck does he call himself Maul, anyway?"

Here's one of the few Ep. III ideas I've had for a long time. 

Enter the cue at 1:25 RIGHT after Grievous says "Kill them- make them suffer" (instead of silence)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D3j1uJ-bEE&list=PL114DAC744C65531F&index=18&feature=plpp_video

mrbenja0618 said:
Did I hear you plan to redub Anakin yourself again? How are you approaching it differently? I wish we could find someone who sounds like Anakin from the Clone Wars animated series. That voice is perfect to me. Just my opinion though.

I was going to use a different mike- also, I consider myself a better actor than 7 years ago.  Still, finding somebody who sounded more similar to Hayden except he wasn't a wimp would be a major improvement...

Erikstormtrooper said:

Along with your resurrection of SOTDS, this is awesome news!

It sounds like you'll be removing almost all of my pet peeves. Will you be removing the buzz droids? What about the different Battle Droid voices that don't match the other prequels?

 

Thanks for reminding me...The buzz droids are toast.

I will have to check on the battle droid voices- would they need to be removed, or replaced.

I'll do rough cut editing on Episode III in standard def (using something like lagarith this time rather than MPEG- that was a huge time consuming mistake I made on SOTDS), but when the movie is cut I want to try and plug in the HD version instead.  I want to do Ep. III in HD- that way after all of the recropping and recoloring and everything it will still be at a high quality for standard anamorphic DVD.

I'll keep Ep. III in stereo because I don't have an adequate surround setup and stereo gives me much more freedom to make major changes. 

My old friends Erikstormtrooper and mrbenja0618!  And ben danger, brash stryker, and the others.  It's feeling like OT.com again!  Now we just need to get MTHaslett and Commander Courage and Darth Chaltab in here....

I want to do Episode III concurrent with cleaning up Episode II because it will give me more of a variety to work on.  Episode II is basically now a dry, technical process- more like restoring a damaged movie than doing anything creative.  Doing a 20 second chunk of SOTDS and then, as a reward, getting to work on a recut of "Revenge of the Sith" would keep me motivated, and would actually get me done with Episode II quicker!  I just know how I work.

Plus, if I do Episode III at the same time, I can make sure there is consistency between Episode III and Episode II revised. 

ben_danger said:
In an ideal trooperman edit i'd rather see ambitious and experimental than off the shelf quality edit.

It may end up being very radical- I just want to keep expectations low for now;)

ben_danger said:
are you likely to revisit any of the ideas from your edit, now considering there has been a considerable amount of new ideas bashed about since its initial completion?

Maybe, but I want to do a more finished audio track that will synch with the original DVD first.  Once that is done I will be free to swap out temp footage and maybe revisit some of the story points.

I'll admit right now that I haven't been keeping up on the new breakthroughs in fan edits.  Prior to doing this one, I found copies of all the Episode 2 edits that had already been done, plus I stumbled across an old thread of a "lost edit"- I think the guy did it and then his computer crashed, and all he had was a written record of the changes.  That had a lot of innovative ideas I used.  Also, Mark Haslett is an actual screenwriter in LA and he is greatly responsible for the love story in SOTDS making sense.  Of course, the members at OT.com had a huge impact on the product because it was an open discussion and lots of people made suggestions. 

Now that I think back on it, I had made a huge Word file where I dumped every single Episode II editing idea I found.  Then I put them all in chronological order.  When a new one came, I would put that into the list.  Then I would pick the ones that I wanted to try.

But no, I have not seen those three Episode I edits mentioned in the post above, and I have not seen any Episode III edits yet, or any Episode II edits that came out after my rough cut. 

I guess I ought to try and hunt down copies to keep myself up to date with what is being done....

EDIT: I see a massive thread called "Prequel Redux" that looks chock-full of ideas.  It looks like I have a lot of homework to do!

ben_danger said:

although this might not be that 'conservative' i'd love to see the ending completely changed so its not building up to ANH so much. SSWR did an edit ages ago of Obi-Wan just flying off into space with baby luke alone, which in tone reflected the beaten ending of ESB much more.

In an ideal trooperman edit i'd rather see ambitious and experimental than off the shelf quality edit.

Good idea- I'd like to do it that way.

I think the ending definitely needs some work.  I was reading through somebody else's edit thread last night, and they had an interesting idea to intercut Padme's funeral with Anakin being masked (rather than with the children being born).

I like that because it drives home the point that killing his wife was his final step in turning to the dark side.

That actually reminds me of the major problem with this movie- the believability of Anakin's turn.  Most of the story changes would be based around making it to where over the course of the movie, from the beginning up until he kills Padme, he is slowly choosing the dark path- not by accident, but in a deliberate way. 

NewSpock said:

... reduces quality and atmosphere of the sound

If it's done badly, yes.  But many movies are redubbed- the original Star Wars had many British actors redubbed.  Even the principals went back to do ADR.

But yes, believability of the dub is key for these new versions.  That will be the biggest difference between the new Ep. II and the rough cut.

Oh, that's right. Would you still be willing to do that?

Hey- I completely forgot about your edit! 

Looking through your list, you seem to be doing as thorough a treatment on Episode III as I did for Shroud.  I might be better off just waiting until your movie comes out.

I'm just trying to figure out how to make a watchable prequel trilogy between all of us, the more consistent the better.

If somehow we could get the same voice actor for Anakin in Episode 2 and 3, and then somebody went WAY back to MagnoliaFan's Episode I edit and swapped out the Nemodian and Gungan voices (for a foreign track that isn't backwards), then we would actually have a prequel trilogy that was

1. Watchable

2. Cohesive as a whole

But I don't want to throw off your edit, which is looking great.  If you are using Hayden as Anakin, that's fine- I wish I could use it for mine, but he's too whiny in Episode II and I cut the movie in such a way that the story cannot work unless Anakin has the new lines. 

You know, what finally swayed me was a friend that came over recently.  We were talking about Star Wars (he is only a casual fan) and he said he thought that Episode 2 had the best CONCEPT out of all the three prequels, in terms of the setting and basic plot. 

I casually mentioned doing this edit back in high school, and he wanted to see it.  I didn't have a DVD on hand, but we watched the dual-layer version on my laptop. And he looked enthralled. 

He even had some place that he had to be, but he was not anxious to leave because he was immersed in the movie.  Immersed in a Star Wars prequel!  A casual fan!  I said, "We don't have to watch the whole thing," and he said, "No, I'm really enjoying this." 

That was such a thrilling thing to see somebody in real life actually becoming immersed in a Star Wars prequel that it was enough to push me over the edge and give this thing the respect it requires.

EDIT: Plus, it's looking like a good year for "Star Wars".  We have coming out

-A 35mm transfer of "Star Wars"

-A 16mm transfer of "Empire Strikes Back" (Puggo)

-The 1978 Baltimore copy of Star Wars

-A new HD version of "Star Wars" (Harmy)

Hopefully I can add a respectable version of "Shroud" to that list.

My motivation for doing this was not necessarily because Episode II was the worst prequel (although it may well be), but because all of the edits up until that point couldn't make it watchable.  Episode I was pretty bad too, but MagnoliaFan did such a radical overhaul of that (despite the limitations of using backwards audio) that I thought that fixing Episode II was a more urgent emergency. 

Now, with:

-MagnoliaFan's Episode I

-Trooperman Episode II

-Pick your favorite edit of Episode III (which felt more like the OT anyway)

we will hopefully have a watchable prequel trilogy.  I also intend to do my own pass at Episode III, but that version may be much closer to a traditional fan edit and not nearly as radical as this one was. 

I just opened the first file for which there was dubbing done.  It is tedious at first because all the files are spread across different hard drives, different virtual machines, and labeled under different folder than 5 years ago.

Once I reset the file paths, though, it is good to go....

Well, don't be too excited yet. 

I am redubbing Anakin using myself again with better acting and mixing. 

It is the quickest way to get this thing going again. 

Hopefully it turns out OK...

-Anakin and Padme meeting by the pillars recut

-Lots of unnecessary dialogue cut in general

-No Chewie tarzan yell.

-Dream sequences with Palpatine now feature Palpatine's voice, like a demon

-No Jedi standing around waiting to be killed by Palpatine when they confront him- he kills them quickly. 

-No "you killed younglings!"  That's just stupid.

-No Yoda tossing the saber into the troopers' chest.

-Preferably a new opening crawl.  "War!...there are heroes on both sides" is terrible

-The comedy with R2 and the burning droid is gone

-Dooku flipping over the railing removed.  Shot of Palpatine watching the Dooku duel removed. 

-When Anakin has the two lightsaber blades around Dooku's kneck, he now says, "I sense good in him.  Conflict."  Palpatine then tells him "Kill him, do it, etc."  This makes it more troubling than Anakin simply slicing down a cold-blooded, evil Sith

-"His fate will be the same as ours" cut

-One thing I would like to do is remove midichlorians from Palpatine's talk to Anakin at the opera. 

-Yoda vs. Sidious lightsaber fight is gone

-Vader's "Noooooo!" at the end is gone

-Anakin and Padme's balcony scene needs some serious work

-Grievous redubbed

-Obi-Wan's giant lizard gone

-Silly faces during Mace vs. Palpatine removed, along with silly noises.  "What have I done" removed

-"Only a sith deals in absolutes" gone

Although this may be a much more conservative edit than was “Shroud of the Dark Side”, I am ambitious to create an edit with at least a handful of meaningful changes concurrent with a more polished audio track for Episode II.

Logistics aside, what would you like to see in a fan edit of Episode III?  What other fan edits have you seen of Revenge of the Sith, and what did they get right?

Even if this is only a light edit or if it only turns out to be a rough cut like the first version of “Shroud”, I think it will be an interesting discussion (if there is anybody still here who’d like to talk about it!)

-TM

I just found all of my old project files (in 20 pieces) and I've found backups of all of the source audio files.  This means I can get back into the audio mix and fix the problems (including replacing the bad dubs).

Work is starting, then, on a new and improved audio track that will synch with the original single-layer DVD. 

If this is well received, I will also put out a dual-layer version of this with some video fixes (for example, to fix the inconsistencies with Mace's saber color, and remove some of the more radical use of temp footage). 

-TM