Totally fair, especially considering I don’t have in mind any additional edits of outside prequel material under the Knights name. I’ll update later this month with at least 3 versions including with no subtitle once I’ve rewritten the crawl.
Thanks for the input! I have considered dropping the subtitle and it comes down to the opening crawl. I will post a few variations before rewriting my own crawl to see what feels just right, I thought about including episode numbers or even defining them as chapters, but I landed on the subtitle because it was my original name for the edit and it just sums up the themes of the story, where Knights is really more of a logo like Star Wars to give an impression of the setting. I also don’t mind if anyone else shortens it or just calls it Knights or DotF, or the square one…
DISCLAIMER: This edit is in the very early stages, I’ll be updating this thread with further details as it develops. Images are meant to represent a proof of concept.
“For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times, before the Empire…”
Hello all! After a good amount of time here not to mention years spent as a lurker within the greater fanedit community I felt encouraged and inspired enough to present my own take on the prequels.
My intention is to create a 3-in-1 non-linear standalone prequel story, one that could be seen cold in place of a marathon. Where we witness the fall of Anakin and the republic, the journey of Obi-Wan, and the end of a bygone era through the life and death of Queen Amidala, hopefully within a 2hr 15minute runtime.
If the title seems jarring, that’s on purpose. With all the existing edits and fanedits in the making, most of the best corrective story changes have already been addressed. I will be building off of a few of those suggestions, but I’ve wanted to try something that would be a shift in presentation, as a way of looking back on the PT with fresh eyes. Personally I don’t think you can bend the prequels into the pace and style of the OT, they’re just too different. Though many have warmed to the prequels, myself included, the two trilogies still feel distinctly separate. So rather than fight this I plan to lean in on those differences and highlight the best of them. To take things even further I’m dropping the name Star Wars altogether, because it’s really a prologue to the ‘star wars’ anyway, so that’s where you get Knights of the Old Republic, two distinct eras.
I’ve also chosen as a major style decision in the same spirit to present this era visually in 1.37 aspect ratio, also known as academy ratio (examples below). This is for multiple reasons, the first is practical, by cropping roughly 25% at minimum for almost every given frame not only do I have more personal control over where to direct focus, I have more cutting room to space out timing, create new coverage, and so on. Second, I feel the PT better suits an older cinematic style, at its best the dramatic highs are Shakespearean, the intimacy of the tighter shots can really be compelling against the melodrama, there are also a fair amount of full body wide shots that support this composition nicely.
I’ll also be doing my own color adjustments but that will be one of the final steps.
Wow, feels like a mouthful and still I’ve barely said anything! Here is where I’ll gradually update with a cut list of all the changes I make: TBD
Cohesion is key, the goal is a clean edit that could be enjoyed and understood by someone who had no prior engagement with the prequels (unlikely, but it’s the principle of the thing!).
Making the style not clash with the material, making a bad pan&scan.
Any thoughts, feedback, contributions or questions are appreciated, thank you for taking the time.
TPM: Older Anakin for sure
AotC: More Dooku as a fallen Jedi
RotS: Grievous is Maul
ANH: Instead of the landspeeder, have Luke flying a T-16 on Tatooine, not just playing with the model
TESB: Luke’s cave vision on Dagobah happens in more of an abandoned overgrown ancient temple
RotJ: more from established Leia-Luke force connection
TFA: more Poe/Finn/Rey as a trio
TLJ: Snoke disappears after he dies (no canto bight was too easy)
Sides being judged by their strawmen has to stop, for the most part everyone has been pretty even keel sharing their perspectives, I think the state of heated conjecture comes from a real place and I wouldn’t dismiss it by pointing to the most extreme ends that neither even believe in (IX will flop/ST hasn’t polarized some fans).
This stuff is like predicting the weather, we’re all pouring over our information, we’ll all have a slightly different idea of what it means for the future, none of us will know (always in motion is the future) what the true results will be until we see it. I’d add if this were a board room meeting of executives and market research consultants nobody would be calling heresy when a member raised concerns.
Anyway back to the numbers, I want numbers! I haven’t seen them since page 3. Going for opening weekend here,
based on TFA ($247mil) and TLJ’s ($220) openings I want to say TRoS will find itself right between them at around $235 million.
rotoscoping Anakin out of the Maul/ Qui-Gon confrontation and replacing Qui-Gon with Obi-Wan when Anakin leaves his mother (this scene would now serve as part of the closing montage of the movie. Thoughts?
I like the recontextualizing of Anakin in spirit and I dream of a proper first Maul encounter without Anakin at all, but I worry that without some found extended material there isn’t enough to have a remaining sequence, that might be the bigger problem the further down the rabbit hole this goes the more elaborate the solutions will be.
On a semi related note is anyone here already thinking of how they may incorporate the hours of new material we will be getting once the Kenobi show hits?
“Who would suspect the p-p-poor c-c-cowardly p-protocol droid?”
yotsuya said:
There pieces in there, but a great deal that is new and fresh. Too much is being made of a few things.
This is where I feel it comes down to personal opinion and your mileage may vary.
yotsuya said:
And I begin to get the feeling that TROS is going to rewrite our understanding of things that have happened so far in the ST.
I think so too, TFA planted the seed, TLJ invoked Rashomon, and I see TRoS as the last piece to connect the puzzle. https://youtu.be/bxU2eqZtYmc?t=6
I liked a few things, namely the scope. Felt like that grandeur has been missing after all the emphasis on real sets and practical effects, I want the huge CGI festival or whatever that was, make the worlds big and spectacular again it’s 2019 nobody cares anymore as long as it’s not cg faces. If TRoS is to be a grand finale I want it to be big.
I care. Bigger is not necessarily better. In my opinion, the simple imagery of the single Star Destroyer flyover at the beginning of Star Wars is grander and more intimidating that 100 Star Destroyers in a lightning storm.
Obviously it’s going to be a big finale, but the overuse of big bombastic effects whether CGI or otherwise becomes boring really quickly.
Fully understand, and I agree with the point on the Star Destroyers, felt the same about Starkiller. Still, I mean more set extension type stuff, not so much Michael Bay explosions in my face, but vivid living alien worlds now that they won’t look as uncanny like the CGI of 2002. I think because of the prequels the sequels resisted going too far out in that direction at first and it held TFA back from being a true new generation Star Wars, that’s what I’m looking for.
I liked a few things, namely the scope. Felt like that grandeur has been missing after all the emphasis on real sets and practical effects, I want the huge CGI festival or whatever that was, make the worlds big and spectacular again it’s 2019 nobody cares anymore as long as it’s not cg faces. If TRoS is to be a grand finale I want it to be big.
And while the song you bring up is not one I really care for, it was a #1 hit.
I think a lot of this really is about taste. I don’t care for Avatar but as you brought it into the mix I feel like the same logic you’ve used could all be said in defense of that movie, that maybe it seemed the same to you but there were a lot of new innovations, and it was a very compelling event at the time that felt fresh to many. Even when you say pulling characters directly from other films I think that’s getting back to the same finger pointing you could dish back at ANH.
That is TFA. You see the similarity, but the rest is something else.
Somewhere in the middle there’s complete agreement here, that you can see something similar (which we have been over also isn’t inherently bad but that’s where I’m calling taste), but from there it has its own path, own new characters. For myself that new path is still fairly undefined and the ratio of similar to new leaned too far into the former category, the combination making it difficult to follow the ST as its own story.
Threepio is possessed by the Emperor, hence his red eyes.
So many Darth Jar Jar theories, but nobody suspected the droid hiding in plain sight, built by the chosen one under the influence of Sidious and his master plan…
C-3PO: SLEEPER CELL
It makes sense, no way palps is just going to look the same after everything and anything more official would be too revealing when they want to save it.
This video clip contains 7 minutes of footage from The Mandalorian, so… SPOILERS - https://youtu.be/l0dhPm3vbyE
This clip may be down by the time anyone here can see it but eventually it will be seen, I’m not too surprised to see the amount of references shown especially as it is a sneak peak, but I hope to see the show come into more of its own once he actually goes on some bounty hunts. Of course it’s a treat to see Herzog. 😃
Wicket turns up, happily married to Cindel.
Cue ewok adventures rebooted Disney+ anthology series of Wicket’s hobbit journey.
Official enough to make the wikipedia, makes sense with what has been introduced in the actual teaser so far, probably one of many posters which I expect will have less palpatine emphasis.
Adding to the list of TRoS threads, there’s already a proper discussion thread to talk leaks and official promotional material before December 20th. This is the thread to throw out any baseless speculation, half baked guesses, personal wish fulfillment, gut suspicions without any citation to back it up. Hopefully a lighter thread, not to be taken too seriously and is not about accuracy. Be creative!
4 to get the ball rolling -
I think that’s the heart of it, if people feel like they’ve seen it before they could grow apathetic. Also comes down to variety, how many good space adventures came out around the time of OT? Now how many kids would rather watch Guardians of the Galaxy? It’s definitely not over for Star Wars, the platform it holds hasn’t been completely usurped, but Lucasfilm won’t be able to keep it resting on their laurels. I like the Bond example because it’s undergone many changes to modernize and still play to what fans are after.
DominicCobb said:
Didn’t say anyone was, I just mean there’s a lot of different aspects to any given film that contributes to the whole, and I think often people unfairly dismiss the whole just because of what is, in my personal opinion, a relatively minor aspect (repeated plot points).I just don’t think that’s what anyone means when discussing plot points, that’s why I brought up Steve Yedlin to say even haters will distinguish their distaste for a story as separate from the other components of film making that make up a movie, the story is the discussion, and the piece people are taking issue with. I doubt there would be much if any animosity against RJ if he was only director.
There’s more to a film than the story sure, but most importantly to my point there’s also more to a story than plot beats.
To be fair I asked for some examples earlier on the story.
And I wish to god we could put to end the binary thinking of “similar=bad/not creative.” Ironically not a very creative critique if you ask me.
I think if you’re finding similarities in the critiques it speaks to their authenticity, something just resonates with many fans as TFA treading too much old ground, not just something to dismiss. There is a balance and too new wouldn’t feel like Star Wars to those same people, they gave us the movie we wanted at the time, but after time has passed I’m not so sure they struck the balance. Like Dre’s Under Pressure analogy, I don’t think you can just separate Starkiller from the whole, you can appreciate the other parts, I appreciate things about the prequels, but I have to acknowledge its failings or I’d be kidding myself, even if I find the good parts personally worth it.
EDIT: I’m gonna leave this up but I keep forgetting this is the box office predictions thread! Sorry Dre.
It’s probably better to keep with the flow of traffic unless we divert to a new thread, unfortunately it’s still too early to speculate much further about box office, anyone’s wild guess.
Youtube definitely hasn’t even seen the full results of the impact their algorithms have for better and for worse. I’m disappointed the community pushes for this quantity over quality, most of these people have maybe a few good points or at least their own perspectives but they have to keep putting out videos if it’s going to net them regular income. Youtube has become a daily commentary community and rambling rabble rousers is the consequence.
This is as good a time as any to say this place is like a strange oasis of older internet discourse, from a more civilized age…
Yeah tbh I have a shot in mind it’s just i really freaking hate rotoscoping aaaa
Had to rotoscope 1 frame of the version I posted and it was still the most tedious step. I’ve had dreams of scoping an AotC Anakin into TPM cockpits to retain some of that stuff and skirt around kid Annie…but only so much can be done.
If someone ever figures out a way to do the very cockpit thing you just mentioned, scope shots of AoTC Anakin into a training montage narrated with dialogue from Qui-Gon Jinn as well as into Qui-Gon’s funeral scene, I think I have a way of putting a better story together for TPM that cuts out child Anakin completely.
A future in the distance where deepfakes allow us to insert Hayden reshoots of our own!
DominicCobb said:
Didn’t say anyone was, I just mean there’s a lot of different aspects to any given film that contributes to the whole, and I think often people unfairly dismiss the whole just because of what is, in my personal opinion, a relatively minor aspect (repeated plot points).
I just don’t think that’s what anyone means when discussing plot points, that’s why I brought up Steve Yedlin to say even haters will distinguish their distaste for a story as separate from the other components of film making that make up a movie, the story is the discussion, and the piece people are taking issue with. I doubt there would be much if any animosity against RJ if he was only director.
Also going to push back on the no explanation Lucas method. I do think this was the idea but the truth is while ANH does drop you in the middle of a fantasy world it is packed with exposition, not everything but just enough to know who the characters are and what motivates them along with what’s at stake. ST been feeling more like the Kylo show and our new heroes are blank slates to be filled in later.
In my mind there’s a lot more to a movie than plot points and lore. The movie is an experience in and of itself, separate from its place in the saga as well as a part of it - and it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
I’m not really talking about lore, though world building is appreciated, to me TFA feels like they decided not to deal with almost any exposition for the sake of keeping the ride moving, lot of flash and personality sure,
but when it feels too familiar that excitement for me burns out faster. Makes me want to hook into the new and the details of the new are “a story for another time”.
And I don’t think anyone is deriding the production design or the John Williams score, same way that TLJ haters will still admit to the cinematic quality and fantastic work of Steve Yedlin.
DominicCobb said:
And so, to my point, I think there is a lot to TFA itself beyond what mysteries it sets up (if any), and I think people too easily forget that. Now, if you don’t care for what it offers beyond the “mysteries and fan service,” fair enough, but that’s not all that’s there.
I really don’t mean to be a jerk about this but could you articulate some examples? TFA had rathtars which is a little different, this thing of abandoned fallen star destroyers to be scavenged that’s new, I wish it were explored more but it’s unique to this trilogy, but sticking just to TFA I’m not sure what else isn’t from the past that also isn’t a mystery, I’m racking my brain a little trying to think of more honestly.