poppasketti

With Rings of Power and House of the Dragon, I was hoping to dislike one or both or them for the sake of my free time/sleep. Unfortunately, my wife and I like both!

Very different styles obviously, but they feel connected to me.
Both first episodes felt a bit clunky, like they were rushing to capture their audience. And it feels like every fantasy piece since LOTR tries to match the brilliant prologue and it just never works for me. The Game of Thrones cold open worked so well in part because it didn’t do this and instead set the tone.

For Rings, I think it was a great idea to release two episodes up front. As dgraham414 wrote, the pacing and character interactions in episode 2 were much stronger and the show hit its stride. The design and feel or everything is excellent — it actually feels like a younger Middle-Earth in both the visuals and characterizations.

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Love the look, Hal! This is much better, without the big black bars you typically get with .srt files.

Just curious, in the third frame, is showing two languages at once something these .sup files make possible? Or was the english a burned-in line that was always there (sorry it’s been so long for the prequels for me)?

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The Star Wars Purist said:

replace duel of the fates in TPM with a crappy recorder cover.

https://youtu.be/snpS8Qa42nc

How have I not heard this before? There’s a whole mess of them on YouTube.

In the TLJ, when Kylo turns around shirtless during his force meeting with Rey, add an Obi-Wan “hello there”.

• Replace the Cantina music with Duel of the Fates.
• Replace all lightsaber sounds effects with Duel of the Fates.
• Replace Lando Calrissian with Duel of the Fates.

This is really beautiful, NFB. You’re right, there’s a lot of good visual storytelling in the direction.

There are so many moments in the show where characters say things out loud that we can clearly see on their faces. I wish they would’ve either cut away before they spoke or shot a version without the line (for example, when Roken changes his mind about helping).

Congrats, Hal!!!

I also like the Reva arc, although I understand the need to trim it down. I admit I too was confused about her motivations with Luke, and it was my wife who pointed out that Reva was trying to kill Vader’s children the way he slaughtered the younglings, as “revenge”. Not sure it makes a whole lot of sense since Vader doesn’t know about Luke, but Reva is acting more out of rage than rationality.

I enjoyed the ending and think this is really how the prequels should have ended. The canon stretching doesn’t bother me anymore. I think of each trilogy, series, or standalone film as self-contained entities that are only loosely connected, because the writing, direction, production style, and plot details just don’t match up with each other.

But one piece of canon that I will never understand is why Vader has a castle on Mustafar. Do you think maybe you could end the Palpatine/Vader scene with a profile shot of Vader? It’s nice to hear the Imperial March, but he just looks so silly sitting on his throne in this empty room staring straight at camera in a frustratingly symmetrical wide shot. It just calls too much attention to itself. Like, what was Vader doing 15 seconds after this shot?

Hal 9000 said:

He calls it his ship also in ESB. “Take the princess and the Wookiee to my ship.”

I think they’re remembering the menacing way he said “Bring my shuttle” in ESB, which, for some reason was replaced with a poorly filtered “Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival.”

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Anjohan, I do like the piano version concept and the tone you are trying to set. I also agree that it may be a bit risky to mess with such a key scene too much. There are some moments the piano hits (like when it’s under dialogue) where I feel it wouldn’t if it was written for the scene, and so it doesn’t quite work 100% for me. Still it’s very interesting to see it put together this way!

I also have a nitpick and I wonder if it bothered anyone else. In the scene of Vader’s construction, was it strange to anyone else to see Vader’s helmet lowered as one piece? Even in the “previously on” for the first episode we are reminded that in ROTS first the faceplate is attached and then the dome “cap” is lowered to finish the seal. This also matches how we see it in ROTJ. This careful assembly made it seem more realistic somehow, like it was designed with great care to not damage the remains of Anakin’s head.

Seeing it lowered as one piece kind of made it look like a Halloween costume to me. Is this just me? (Sorry if it’s already been mentioned and I missed it)

Acbagel said:

When Kenobi seemingly runs right back into the same area because of the faulty left/right relationship of the camera, it almost appears as a comedy sketch where he runs back into the scene “oopsies, forgot my lightsaber!”

OMG thanks for pointing this out. There were so many little moments like this that made me chuckle.

It did feel like they didn’t have much of a set built and thought they could just work with a few mounds of sand and add the rest in post. Like you said, though, some of these things can be fixed by something by as simple as flopping a shot.

EddieDean said:

Both Nev’s TFA Starlight and Poppa’s TLJ Rekindled leant into the Palpatine angle, adding hints and forward references, but that makes them less suitable to precede a TROS Nobody finale.

Probably TFA Legendary, but I’m less familiar with TLJ edits.

Hey Eddie! There’s actually two versions of Rekindled V3, one with the Palpatine teases and one without. The ‘without’ version should make for a smooth transition to the ‘Rey Nobody’ TROS.

Hal 9000 said:

Also, I don’t actually have a fixed version of that one shot from poppa. If he does send me one I’ll use it but otherwise I’m not bothered by it.

Yeah I’ve fallen behind with work and everything, but I’ll try to get on that color fix soon. If you don’t have it before you’re about to render a master file, ping me one more time and I’ll get it done!

Thanks to the kindness of user KetchupGore, we now have a German audio track as well as supplementary German subtitles for the deleted scenes and title crawl (just the parts not covered in the audio).

The audio is in DTSHD and can be found along with the SRT file on the drive.
Note: This is only for the Palpatine version.

Thank you KetchupGore for your generosity!

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Also, at the wise suggestion of EddieDean, I added a link to PM me in the OP so hopefully this will keep the thread a little cleaner!

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Sherlock, that’s just beautiful!

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