aalenfae

As for other vader shots that Ady's changing, I'm putting lots of money on this one.
For the longest time, I wondered why they forgot to put a cape on Vader in this shot, as it looks like he's just wearing that tunic underneath.
Wasn't until the blurays that it was 100% clear that it was just that Vader had his hands behind his back. They probably filmed this plate while Prowse was impatiently waiting between takes, and what we get is a very strange, casual Vader stumbling on set.

Yeah, I just had a chance to skim through the Holiday Special and found the imperial guy footage. This is a lifesaver! I thought I'd have to get a guy in costume and film some new stuff to put an Imperial officer in the screen.

I'd love to oblige, but you underestimate my powers of getting out of doing things!

Because as it stands, this frame doesn't exist in my edit. There were just too many issues with this part of the scene, so I hacked it out.

Also... Ryan, thanks for your holiday special acid-trip edit! It let me see some footage that I desperately needed for RotS.
http://vimeo.com/69182244

I added two sound effects:
-Harsher sound when Anakin's arm is cut off
-Force push sound effect from TPM

Any other sounds are present in the original cut. Though two of the strange echo-like sounds shouldn't be there, because I accidentally left in a repeat shot from when I rearranged some of the shots.

DominicCobb said:

aalenfae said:

http://vimeo.com/69128493

Here's my newest clip from AotC!
Hope you guys enjoy it!

I like it very much!

Couple things (that you're probably already working on):

- I'm assuming you're going to do some color correction?

- Not sure if I like how the music works when Anakin gets his arm chopped off. It's just that act of violence is so sudden and that music just pops in like "yes this is dramatic!" I think I'd probably go with a different cue (something more subtle) or drop the music from that part entirely.

-I plan on color-correcting AotC like crazy! However, the correction needed in AotC is far more difficult than the color correction in RotS, so color correction is going to be the last thing I do to this film.

-And yes, that cue is really sudden (and it ends really quickly, too!). I hadn't really given it too much thought, but especially now that you mention it, I might look into using a different cue there. Like you said, dropping it altogether might work, too. Wouldn't be hard to replace the sounds there.

It's interesting, I never actually thought that I needed to justify Dooku simply leaving after besting Anakin and Obi-Wan. My reasoning? 

1. Dooku from the very beginning of the sequence only wants to leave. And if Anakin and Obi-Wan never arrived in time, Dooku would have simply taken off. He doesn't escape because he's in a pinch. He just intends to leave, regardless of who confronts him. The only reason he brings the pillar down on Obi-Wan is because he knows that he can't escape so long as Yoda isn't distracted. If Yoda never shows up, Dooku should logically just jump in his ship and get out of there.

2. Dooku doesn't show much interest in actually killing Anakin and Obi-Wan. Sure, he goes to chop Obi-Wan when he's down, but after maiming Anakin, Dooku looks like he's had enough, and actually turns off his saber - something he wouldn't do if he intended to still kill with it. 

The fact of the matter is that within the context of the film, Dooku needs no reason to "escape". When Anakin and Obi-Wan find him, Dooku already intends to leave. He easily beats them, and he's not such a 2D villain that he needs to kill them afterwards, either. Dooku's face afterward is a "Phew, that was annoying. Time to get on with things" kind of expression.

http://vimeo.com/69128493

Here's my newest clip from AotC!
Hope you guys enjoy it!

I think - along the lines of Bingowings - we should probably see some kind of glow from the machine itself. It hardly needs to be a radical effect. Even just a blue glow or something. Like this:

I'm going to focus on a different part of RotS for now, and see if new Dooku duel ideas come to mind in the meantime xD


And shadowsabre66, I most certainly am still working on AotC and TPM. I was actually just about to feature some of my newest work on AotC! Expect that in the near future.

bobgarcia74:
Well, Bob - I  think this is probably the next best option. However... it still doesn't explain why Anakin seems troubled over his actions. If he's cocky and gloating when he kills Dooku - which you nail perfectly in your clip - it's a little strange that 1 second later, he looks like he regrets it. It's okay for him to regret it later, but he should at least have a little transition time.  The suddenly-feeling-remorse-in-the-next-shot feels too awkward. The sudden remorse only works in the original context, and in a heat-of-the-moment context, I think. 

If there was somehow a way to get a transition period like... "My powers have doubled since the last time we met, Count," then he kills Dooku. As Dooku crumples to the floor, Anakin lets out a spiteful, nonvocal laugh and gives a "See how awesome I am?" look to Palpatine before realizing what he just did, and feeling some remorse. 

But other than that... it would seem strange. Unless there's a better way to make Anakin kill Dooku in the heat of the moment.



silverkey:
That youtube clip there is bobgarcia's.

Yeah, I think these scenes are supposed to mirror eachother. But thematically/dramatically speaking... I don't think they HAVE to. Especially since - at that point later in the film - Anakin shouldn't still be protesting about "the Jedi way" when he's just moments from selling his soul to Palpatine. It works in the original cut because most of Anakin's motivations simply come from the fact that he's being pressured. He's like a cornered mouse, and it makes him weak. In my edit, Anakin is never pressured into doing things. He either does things off-the-cuff, or entirely willfully. His killing of Mace will be a well-considered action. Think Darth Vader saving Luke in RotJ. I'm going for a more powerful mirror-scene between RotS and RotJ.

MrInsaneA said:

Not gonna lie....the Dooku battle is kind of a mess.Like, it seems that you cut out wayyyy too much DURING the fight for it to make sense when I watch it. Like, why would you cut out Anakin catching Dooku's saber? Or placing the saber's around Dooku's neck? That, and the Obi-Wan stuff REALLY stood out to me. It's just visually confusing, imho.

All noted. But it's honestly a very complex issue.
The primary issue with Anakin catching Dooku's saber, and putting the sabers up to Dooku's neck is that it's all set up for Anakin to intend to capture Dooku, but be manipulated into killing him - something he really didn't want to do.
I feel that the exchange between Anakin and Palpatine there weakens the plot, and especially the character of Anakin.

If Anakin really deep-down wanted to kill Dooku, I think he would have just... killed Dooku. He's no stranger to killing people. But instead, he reveals that he's really just a pushover. He's pressured to kill Dooku, so he does. And that sets off the chain reaction, where Anakin is simply pressured into doing things he doesn't want to do, and BAM, he's a power-hungry Sith lord. I think it's evident why this is a problem for both story and character.

What's the solution? The solution is to have Anakin simply kill Dooku. He's mad. Dooku really wiped the floor with Anakin in their last fight, so Anakin's hurt ego comes in here. He's not going to lose this time. And he still has a score to settle. "You're going to pay for all the Jedi that you killed today, Dooku!" That's never been resolve either. Anakin has a lot of reasons to want to kill Dooku. And in real-life combat, swordfights don't typically have happy endings.

So that brings us to Anakin actually KILLING Dooku. Now, as I mentioned before, the scene is filmed in such a way that it sets up Anakin forcing Dooku to surrender. Seeing as the film is originally cut, Anakin obviously WANTS to take Dooku alive. So he's rather calm and collected as he plucks Dooku's saber out of the air and puts it to Dooku's neck. This is all fine if Anakin plans to take Dooku alive. But that gives us the problem... that he still needs to kill Dooku, and he has to be manipulated to do so. That's a big no-no, as I established earlier. Having Anakin force Dooku to surrender, Palpatine say nothing, Anakin say nothing, THEN just randomly chop his head off feels really forced and random (and I've seen several edits that do just that). 

There's really only one option if we're going to have Anakin kill Dooku un-manipulated. And that's to do it heat-of-the-moment style. Anakin's just fighting Dooku, and he kills him rather brutally. But the current Anakin-plucks-saber-from-air shots do NOT fit with this mood or flow of events. The solution is to not show it happen.

I readily acknowledge that it's kind of awkward to see that Dooku is suddenly headless, and that Anakin suddenly has Dooku's saber, but it actually fixes a whole bunch of problems at the same time. Our brains can easily fill in the details as to what happened. But we can't so easily justify the original cut, or any other arrangement of the shots.


All that being said, I do agree that the duel is somewhat hacked up and random. But the original duel is full of atrocities that really have to go. The entire first few scenes are some of the messiest in the film (apart from the end), and I'm sure that I'll go through several more iterations of these scenes before I'm happy with it.

Ahhh, good idea. I'll have to experiment with that! 

And true... it gives me a lot of freedom to just remove the platform.
Interesting! Because I agree with you - I don't like Palpatine's "Leave him or we'll never make it!" 
Anakin should be like "What's WRONG with you?" Not even an evil SOB would leave a friend behind if he was still alive.

Glad you like it!

http://vimeo.com/68921452
Here's the idea that was being discussed eariler. A concept to reinstate the Dooku/Anakin dialogue, but keep the general pacing of my cut.

Haha, yes - that was intentional xD
Glad you noticed!

I'm currently exporting out a test cut where I include the Dooku/Anakin dialogue in a new way. I'll have to see if this grows on me.

I totally agree about Hayden. He's one of the most expressive actors in Star Wars, but he just has horrible, horrible dialogue. There are some scenes in RotS that - after I've cut the awful dialogue - give me goosebumps with how much better they are.

I understand why you'd want to leave in the Palpy lines here. And originally, I did too. But then I thought, there's just so much dialogue here to express a pretty simple concept: Palpatine is reinforcing Anakin's outburst of anger and the fact that AGAIN, his anger has driven him to kill.
In my edit, Anakin tells us with his eyes that he is NOT okay with what he just did. But Palpatine reassures him, "You did well, Anakin." Anakin looks at Palpatine like, "I'm not really sure that's how you should say it..." but he doesn't protest. We get the same feeling that Palpatine is slowly roping Anakin in, but it's much, much more subtle.
But it only needs to be subtle the first time, to ease the audience into Palpy's role of being a bad influence. He comes on a little too hard right in the beginning.

Concerning the dialogue during the duel, I once thought as you do. But then I thought - the exchanges in the OT had meaning and substance. The dialogue during the duel here feels weak and contrived. But that's minor, realy. The main reason was that it kind of messed up the flow of the duel, the way I wanted to cut it. Though now that I've gone and taken a drink of orange juice, I just had an idea that might work for keeping the dialogue.

I hate the platform. Everything about it. And I still cringe when I see it. To be honest, I wish I could just cut that out entirely. But unfortunately, there's really no way to cut the scene without including it SOMEhow. It's a necessary evil, haha. xD

But thanks! I hope to get a whole lot of work done on this edit in the coming months.

Sure, let me see if I can remember them all xD
-Color correction throughout (Incomplete. Only the first 20 seconds here have color correction)
-Added classic ANH music for the duel
-Cut some silly-looking saber moves
-Removed Dooku and Anakin's cheesy dialogue
-Intercut battle shots during duel
     -Recoloring blue blasts to green (incomplete)
-Shortened duel by consolidating Dooku's force moves on Obi-Wan 
-Created the illusion that battle damage causes the platform to collapse
-Added extra lightsaber sounds akin to the OT (RotS sounds are too soft)
-Drastically recut Dooku's death
-Added new music after Anakin kills Dooku.
-Anakin no longer speaks after killing Dooku. His eyes tell the story.
-Palpatine's manipulations are almost entirely cut. It's too early for him to be so intense.


I'm glad you're liking it!
And you're right - the second half of the clip is not color corrected yet. I guess I just forgot to do that. But don't worry, I won't let any weird cyans infiltrate my final edit!

Coming back to more simple  issues with ESB, I was just watching the film and was reminded of something that always kind of bugged me. Escaping Bespin, Leia points up and says "Star Destroyer!" but when we see the shot of the Executor out the window, it's really not anywhere near where Leia's pointing. 

Does Ady plan on modifying that out-the-window shot to show the Executor to be more above the Falcon?

That's a really good question. It's one I'm torn on, and I'm really not sure why.

I say to myself, "Of course I'll change his lightsaber to blue!" but then when I actually go to do it, I think "Why do I need to?"

It seems obvious, but my mind has this strange mental block on doing it. I don't think it's because I'm lazy, though, haha.

Ronster:
The stop-motion effect was for a little idea I had where I would make the prequels appear as though they had been created in the same era as the originals. However.... to consistently apply a 70's-80's style to the entire prequel trilogy would be nearly impossible. So I scrapped the idea.

Maybe I'll "restore" like... one scene in the future. Just as a tease as to what COULD have been. Or something like that

Burdokva:
I have been working on my edits a good deal in the past two or so months. I was actually planning on uploading a new clip pretty soon!

As for your criticism, it's well-noted. I'm actually still working on getting the colors just right. Especially for the opening battle. The problem is in how I removed the unrealistic colors. It affects other things in a negative way, leaving that strange, unbalanced feeling you're experiencing. The problem hasn't been entirely fixed yet, but I'm working with some talented Color Correction friends who will hopefully help me get that 
 perfect coloration.

Jar Jar's corpse would bring WAY more viewing satisfaction, haha xD
Sorry. Just had to.

Oops, haha. Musta missed that.

Maybe we could see another prequel-era droid, perhaps?
There are plenty to choose from.

I'm all for seeing a battle droid. But... I think Ady already did something like that in the sandcrawler in ANH.

Putting it to a vote is a silly thing to do. 

Ady can do what he likes. ESB:R isn't going to be any worse if it's the Executor rather than a normal SD.
As I said, I can see it going either way, but even if it was intended to be Executor, it was done poorly. And making the tower ever so slightly blue not only doesn't really fix any issues with the scene, it just raises more questions. It just doesn't seem to be in Ady's nature to purposely exacerbate a problem with a scene/shot in Star Wars.