CaptainFaraday

I am very excited to return to the Mustafar Tree discourse.

That explosion is fantastic.

I’d also love a link. Rebels is my favourite piece of Star Wars media, and I’ve often wondered about doing something like this myself. I’d much rather watch someone else’s!

I agree with Jar, I don’t see any issue with the slowed footage. Even knowing it’s slowed down, I can’t really see it unless I’m really looking for it, and even then, it’s really not noticeable.

I know that NFBisms used some sort of VFX trickery to slow down a few shots for dialogue pacing reasons that kept the framerate smooth. I have no idea how, but my point is it must be possible somehow.

I’d also enjoy seeing a workprint of this. It’s a really different sort of edit, and that’s really interesting to me.

poppasketti said:

jonh! So great to hear from you, buddy! Love the FX breakdown. More and more I find the FX reels themselves are almost as impressive as the FX. I love seeing all of the nodes and layers of detail come together!

Dat_SW_Guy said:

The only thing that bugged me was the last shot of when the Falcon flew away from the sunset, as I felt that it looked too slow and not in-line with the visual effects of the film.

It’s funny, I haven’t really looked at that shot in a year. Snooker and I went through about 5 different versions.

Ultimately we went with version E (pw: fanedit).

There is also version A, which is similar but does have a faster move.

The reason we went with E was because someone pointed out (I believe DominicCobb) that they used an extremely long telephoto lens to get the final composition with the sun/s so large behind Rey and BB-8. Therefore, because of the perspective, the Falcon should be large and not zoom across the screen so much.

And then there is Version D.

Honestly, I think version A looks significantly better; I agree with Dat SW Guy’s assessment.

Let’s hold onto version D for the Special Edition in twenty years’ time, of course.

How did you get scene 38 without the original musical score?

I still think the 3PO translation is such a missed opportunity for something interesting in the theatrical cut - and there’s a bunch of those moments, sure, but this is one that’s within our power to actually change. Even if we don’t replace it with any of the ideas I’ve been part of, I still think it’s an opportunity on a silver platter to dub in something more clever and memorable.

The issue might even be we have too much freedom compared to usual, and that makes it paradoxically more difficult to conceive of and agree on the right creative move.

sade1212 said:

Legends still exists, though. Even in the Disney era, the comics have been republished in large collections and the more famous novels are getting new editions with new covers and all. The old cartoons are being put up on Disney+. It’s all more accessible than ever. The only change is that there’s no new stories in the old continuity, but even that isn’t necessarily a permanent thing. Honestly, I prefer the route of explicitly time-capsuling it and starting afresh compared to what Lucas tended to do with TCW and similar, where it just overrode the existing material and left it up to people like Pablo Hidalgo, Leland Chee, various authors etc. to try to reconcile things. Which is exactly what Lucas’ sequels would’ve done, had they ever actually come to pass, of course - and the Internet would no doubt have been very unhappy about it…

I certainly wouldn’t mind if there was some more room for experimentation in the new canon, however. Some kind of ‘Infinities’ brand or similar for stories which don’t have to adhere to the tone and continuity of the rest of things. There’s a bit of that sort of a thing with the ‘myths’-flavour books that have been coming out recently, though, and obviously the High Republic is offering authors a lot more freedom compared to trying to ram books into the gaps in the main saga. Oddly, the LEGO side material of all things does get to exist in an only-vaguely-canon realm.

I completely agree with all of this. If I could have any Star Wars themed wish come true, it would be a TCW/Rebels style “canonisation” of The Freemaker Adventures.

Edit: I don’t mean remake the whole thing in a way that would destroy the whole point of why I like it to begin with, I mean, like, a one hour special with a new adventure in that animation style. (I know they put Roger in one of the droid books, making the whole show implied deutero-canon, but it’s not the same thing.)

Wow, this thread has really gotten off topic, hasn’t it.

SparkySywer said:

5% as in a tenth of the well intentioned people who end up getting it wrong, or 5% as in 5% of the final total?

…yes.

DominicCobb said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

DominicCobb said:

Swap the 3rd quarter of ROTS with the first and call it episode IX. Swap the first quarter of TROS with the 3rd and call it episode III.

What?

Just think about it for a sec.

This is one of those top tier posts that I didn’t get until about eight hours later when it idly crossed my mind in the middle of the night.

SparkySywer said:

Hal 9000 said:

But isn’t it more or less the same with the NuEU?

If the Old EU is 50% well intentioned writers who just don’t get it, 40% malicious writers, and 10% great writers, the New EU is the same but with the malicious writers removed, at least IMO. Quick math says that’s 83% well intentioned writers and 16% good additions.

I’d agree with this, except maybe 5% of the writers are vaguely malicious. Whoever wrote that Han Solo novel probably shouldn’t have.

Me trying to do the numbers in my head, though:

The majority of the NuEU is good (especially the comics), but there’s the odd bad novel here and there. I agree it’s a lot more regulated than the old EU, though, and in some ways that’s good and in other ways it’s bad. Eventually I hope it’ll be the NuEU’s time to go as well, and we’ll get something new and different again. As a Kamen Rider fan, I’m used to continuity resetting once a year.

I’m excited that this project is coming along so well. I’m looking forward to the first chapter.

Eyepainter said:

CaptainFaraday said:

Eyepainter said:

CaptainFaraday said:

So, I’m currently having a very weird issue; when I play the movie through my bluray player, there’s a static phantom image of the opening crawl overlayed across the entire opening crawl. But when I play the same file on my laptop, there isn’t. I’ve checked and it doesn’t happen in the editing software either. I’ve got the same problem later in the film when some hazy blobs which look like mattes appear in a couple of scenes, which also aren’t there on the computer.

Edit: I’ve tried re-exporting from my editing software, and had the exact same problem.

This is new to me. I’m not 100 percent sure on what you’re describing. If it doesn’t bother you, would you be fine sending me a link? Since I’m the one who sent the crawl, I can look it over and see if there’s a mistake on my end when I have the spare time.

I don’t think it’s anything on your end - it’s not present in the .pngs, nor in the editor, nor when I watch the movie on my laptop. I’ll have to take a photo of my TV screen to show you.

That said, you’re welcome to see my export before I release it to the public; always helps to get more eyes on it. I’ve already found a couple of little errors I’ll fix first.

Understood. Looking over what I’m reading so far, it’s possible that you might’ve accidentally clicked on something in Handbrake to cause the effect. Trying to find out what it was could take forever, so here’s a list of settings that I use for exporting a file. See if these settings fix the problem.

Summary tab
Format: MP4 or MKV
Presets (on right side of the window): SuperHQ 720p30 surround under General tab or H.264 MKV 720p30 under Matroska tab (I would say 1080p but your file is 720p, so that’s probably the better option)

Dimensions tab
Width: 1280
Height: 544
Cropping: Custom
Left and right: 0
Top and bottom: 132
(Note: if you ever decide on 1080p, go with 1920 width, 820 height, and customize the cropping to 130 top and bottom, and 0 left and right)

Video tab
Video Codec: H.264 (x264) (If you have a compatible Nvidia graphics card, you can speed up the export by selecting H.264 (Nvidia NVenc) instead)
Framerate (FPS): 24 or 23.976, if possible. (Most movies are at 24FPS, so this is an ideal choice by default. However, you might want to make sure you edited the film in 24 frames per second, or else, some issues may occur. Check Premiere Pro to see what settings you used for the framerate. If you’ve picked a different framerate, it might be wiser to export it in that framerate instead.)
Constant quality: 0 (for a lossless export. It will slow the export a lot, but the quality is worth it)
Encoder Preset: Slow (Usually, slower results in a better quality image, but like the lossless option, it will also slow down the export. If you want it faster, be warned that it could affect the quality of the file)
Encoder profile: Main or High (Truth be told, the effects of this one aren’t quite as noticable, but I think Main and High look slightly less compressed, so those are my recommendations)
Audio tab
Anything goes with this one, as it’s basically which audio tracks you want the file to have.

Mixdown: I like to make one track a 5.1 channel and the other track a stereo track, but if you only have one track, I recommend a 5.1 or higher mixdown.
Codec: This one’s a really picky one, and the best choice is whatever works. AAC (avcodec) is a very widely used one amongst us fan editors. AC3 is code for Dolby Digital, while E-AC3 is Dolby Digital Plus. I often use the DTS-HD passthru on my fanedits, and that option works perfectly for me. However, your experience may differ.
Bitrate: This option depends on which codec you select, but if bitrate is an option, be aware that the larger numbers are the better options. However, as you probably figured out, the larger numbers make the export slower, so pick your numbers wisely. If you don’t have enough patience, you are free to select a smaller number. Just be aware that the audio quality will be lowered.

This information is like solid gold to me.

I’ve already started uploading my current version to Drive, but the next thing I do (and I’ve got a bunch of ideas for post-TROS-novelisation edits) I’ll use these settings and see how it goes.

joshuabri said:

I’ll second that. I followed the old EU for a while, but after so many planet/Star destroying superweapons and Force users becoming so overpowered that you think, man if Obi-Wan or Vader had half this much power in the OT, they would have been completely different movies, I had to give up the nonsense of it all. Not that there weren’t some excellent stories, just so many ridiculous ones too.

The EU was 50% well intentioned writers who just didn’t get Star Wars, 40% malicious writers who wanted to change what Star Wars was, and 10% great additions.

I personally liked all of the absolute insane nonsense (Luke falling in literal romantic love with a giant spaceship, for example), but I also liked the good bits (eg the Falcon’s triple computer brain that always argues with itself) which they cherry picked for the new stuff.

It was the EU’s time to go, and I don’t miss it. It’s still around as Legends, and it’ll always be a particularly eclectic and surreal part of Star Wars history.

I can understand the reasoning - Padme is the axis that Anakin’s downfall balances on, so finding a Padme-centric way to pull apart his friendship with Obi-Wan sounds like a slam dunk in terms of consistent and efficient storytelling. But in practice, I agree it was right to cut it; Anakin’s falling out with Obi-Wan is already set up thoroughly elsewhere, and adding a mistaken affair would have been confusing in a film that’s already stuffed to bursting.

I know Hal added those scenes back in with LoE, but I don’t remember where off the top of my head. I’d just count the number of scenes they could take place between, divide them by the number of cut scenes, then pop them in at equal intervals. That would at least give you a starting point to begin evaluating their placement.

sherlockpotter said:

Hal 9000 said:

I am looking forward to things simmering down with my job, establishing my new source of livelihood, and family and all that crap and get back to real shit: TROS:A V2.

Yeah, geez, Hal. Forget about the people that love and depend on you. What about Star Wars??

That’s fantastic to hear those wonderful compliments! I really can’t accept any of them myself, since I joined up after V1 came out; but I definitely share the sense of gratitude for everyone’s who’s worked on this film!

I’ve only been here post-V1 as well, but it’s still super exciting that this community I’ve been welcomed into is getting more recognition for its amazing efforts.

Also, I know Hal is joking, but man, do I also get it. All of my fanediting work has so far been done one-handed while bouncing a baby, hahaha.

Edit: That Leia edit also works seamlessly, Sherlock. It’s good that we’ve got options.

It’s not an uncommon word. He probably says it useably somewhere in his filmography.

NeverarGreat said:

Eh, even if everyone runs out, sixty-six pages of bad ideas isn’t too shabby.

It’s like two-thirds of a TROS.

We should finally pick a bunch of the best ones that are actually possible and put together a Worst Fanedit.

Eyepainter said:

CaptainFaraday said:

So, I’m currently having a very weird issue; when I play the movie through my bluray player, there’s a static phantom image of the opening crawl overlayed across the entire opening crawl. But when I play the same file on my laptop, there isn’t. I’ve checked and it doesn’t happen in the editing software either. I’ve got the same problem later in the film when some hazy blobs which look like mattes appear in a couple of scenes, which also aren’t there on the computer.

Edit: I’ve tried re-exporting from my editing software, and had the exact same problem.

This is new to me. I’m not 100 percent sure on what you’re describing. If it doesn’t bother you, would you be fine sending me a link? Since I’m the one who sent the crawl, I can look it over and see if there’s a mistake on my end when I have the spare time.

I don’t think it’s anything on your end - it’s not present in the .pngs, nor in the editor, nor when I watch the movie on my laptop. I’ll have to take a photo of my TV screen to show you.

That said, you’re welcome to see my export before I release it to the public; always helps to get more eyes on it. I’ve already found a couple of little errors I’ll fix first.

So, I’m currently having a very weird issue; when I play the movie through my bluray player, there’s a static phantom image of the opening crawl overlayed across the entire opening crawl. But when I play the same file on my laptop, there isn’t. I’ve checked and it doesn’t happen in the editing software either. I’ve got the same problem later in the film when some hazy blobs which look like mattes appear in a couple of scenes, which also aren’t there on the computer.

Edit: I’ve tried re-exporting from my editing software, and had the exact same problem.

Also, there was apparently a plot thread that got dropped late into the scriptwriting stage of ROTS where Anakin would (wrongly) start to suspect Padme and Obi-Wan were having an affair. It was the right decision to cut it, but you can still feel vestiges of it in the shooting script, when Anakin suspects Obi-Wan has been in Padme’s apartment and when he declares “You’re with him!” on Mustafar.

Eyepainter said:

CaptainFaraday said:

Eyepainter said:

Working on inserting the deleted scenes. The only difficulty I’m experiencing at the moment is where to place the Padme/Rebellion subplot scenes in a way that works. I put them in rather late in the first half, but then I realized, “Oh wait. Padme’s trying to mention a jedi they can rely on, but he’s on Utapau at the moment.” So I’m going to see if I can place them earlier rather than later.

I always thought the Jedi she was referring to was Anakin.

Strange. I’ve always thought that it was Obi-Wan, especially since Padme asks Anakin to see if Obi-Wan can help them with their issues regarding her pregnancy at the beginning of the film. On top of that, it seems odd that she would mention her husband to the rebellion as someone who can solve this problem when their opponent is her husband’s best friend. Why would her husband, the guy who already approved those executive powers to begin with, rat out Palpatine? To paraphrase Rick Deckard, “That’s no way to treat a friend.” On top of that, while Padme does end up having issues with Obi-Wan, particularly at the end when Obi-Wan tries to find out where Anakin is located, she still trusts him as an advisor. And in a situation like the petition of the 2,000, it seems like she would direct the rebellion towards someone who has a level head, something Anakin has had a consistent problem with throughout the prequels.

I figured it was Anakin because she knows she can trust her husband with a secret, and he has a direct connection with the Chancellor, whose mind they want to change. She even asks Anakin to talk to Palpatine personally about resuming diplomacy at one point in the movie, which I’d assumed was originally intended to relate back to this scene - she’s testing the waters.

But what you’ve said makes just as much sense. Interesting that it can be read either way.