The streaming quality (both Netflix and P+) for DS9 and VOY is worse than the DVDs in my experience and is the primary reason why I started trying to mess around with my copy to begin with. It was almost unwatchable, especially when compared to TNG remastered or the newer shows. I wanted a version that I could share with my kids.
If you wanted to compress the Harfoot story, you could have either the Stranger leave alone right after he is discovered at the party, or you could have the Stranger, Nori, and Poppy leave together at that point.
The downside of speeding that up all the way to the three leaving would be that the Stranger suddenly becomes more verbal without the confrontation vs the mystics to explain that.
Once more, I’d also caution against the complete divorce of the Harfoot story from the other threads because it seems to be one of the only counterpoints of hope while everything else gets darker and darker. Hope is a big deal in Tolkien, and I strongly suspect that this plotline was invented by the writers to keep that going while the Southlands, Eregion, Kazad-Dum, and Númenor are all falling.
I’ve been talking a little with Anjohan about this, but most of the ideas I’ve had so far are about possibly shortening the Stranger/Harfoot storyline, and I’m not sure I want to actually do that, since they’re kind of the hopeful counterbalance to a lot of the other darker plot threads. I do think that I need for Poppy to somehow leave with Nori and the Stranger since she immediately rejoins them in the desert.
More of my thinking has been about what to focus on in a second film. My idea has always been to do the forging of the three, but I also think that I’m going to add in Numenor and the Stranger/Harfoots in Rhun.
Then for a third film, we’d have the crisis with the Dwarves, Annatar, and the fall of Eregion, but all that would likely need to wait for season 3 so that we’d have something lighter to juxtapose from the continuing Harfoot adventures, unless there ends up being a clear way to split their story from season 2 in half.
The result would be an opening trilogy that covers the forging of all but the One ring.
FYI - My own upscale project just got into s4 and there’s a noticeable scaling shift that actually required me to add a slight zoom (.025) to get the same final dimensions.
Yes, in my own upscaling attempt I was shocked by how bad Dax was. I thought for sure that I must have done something wrong when I saw how blurred the end credits were.
Time to resurrect this thread for 8 new episodes.
Thank you so much for continuing this very long project!
One question based on an initial skim though: is the volume range the same for all of these? It sounds to me like Order of the Phoenix is significantly louder at all times than Sorcerer’s Stone (not sure about the others).
Thank you for the extensive notes. While some of them are things that I’ve never thought about, some were deliberate choices that I’ll try to explain below.
The audio and sequence were lifted straight from the show. The only thing I changed were the visuals that went with the flashback, and the reason I did that is that Finrod’s advice seemed a very odd thing to say in paradise before anything bad had happened. In many ways, it embodied the Elvish mindset after Morgoth destroyed the trees and stole the Silmarils, the mindset that drove them from Valinor to Middle Earth the first time and the same mindset that was now driving Galadriel to make the same choice again.
2 and 3) about the transitions and the look between Halbrand and Galadriel. Good points. I’ll consider those.
Yes, this was a very tricky scene because it was originally intercut with Nori’s father breaking his ankle, which was a plotline I cut entirely. It could probably use some further polishing, maybe using the soundtrack to smooth over some of those transitions.
Honestly, this was mostly done in order to include that Elrond and Galadriel night scene (which I rather liked for better insight into her motivations) without stretching the beginning of the story out further. I can certainly re-evaluate how much of a purpose it really serves though.
Also, I did apply the same slight vignette effect that I applied during the prologue and also during all other flashbacks.
and 7) On extending music further over transitions - sure, I’ll take a look at those.
The cow:
I understand what you are saying, but the black goo really took me out of the story when I was watching it. I do agree that, without it, Arondir seems a bit paranoid, but that’s also kind of how his character starts out even in the original bar scene.
and 10) More music transitions - I’ll look into it.
The Elendil and Isildor transition - This was really tricky since I wanted to cut the rest of their conversation. You make an interesting suggestion about leaving it unresolved until we see Isildor aboard the ship.
The Theo to Stranger and Nori transition - Again, this was tricky to pull off. I tried to overlay the Sauron theme in order to strengthen the implication that the Stranger might be Sauron, but it cuts off very abruptly. Maybe I need a different soundtrack sample of the Sauron music in order to smooth the transition.
Theo and Arondir and the Hilt:
This was a really painful scene for me to cut, because I love it. That said, I needed to get rid of it because my edit has no fake hilt. It always struck me as odd that nobody noticed how basic the thing wrapped up was until that moment, but I suppose I could consider re-integrating it and still imply that it was captured off screen.
Yes, it’s less developed than in the original, but what I hope is communicated is that Nori sees the Mystics tracking the Stranger at night and decides to get Poppy and follow them in order to help him/see what is going on, in spite of everything that happened earlier.
I don’t expect that we will see much of the Harfoots beyond Nori and maybe Poppy until maybe the end of the series when I expect we’ll get some type of founding of the Shire thing. If there is a considerable time before we see them again, it should be easy enough to imply that Saddoc died during the interrum.
Again, thank you for all the notes. I got some from one other reviewer as well, and after a week or so, I plan to go through all the feedback to see what I can improve. Around then, season 2 will also start, and I’ll be able to see if anything needs to change in order to fit that content.
Well the biggest cut is the entire eruption aftermath, forging of the three, and Sauron reveal - all of which I held back for a second movie.
The other biggest cut is that I skipped the entire chain gang story with Arondir and the orcs and baby warg. Instead, he gets captured and taken straight to Adar. They talk, and he gets sent back with Adar’s ultimatum.
A lot of the delay plotline in Numemor is cut, so things with Elendil’s daughter and Pharazon’s son, Isildor and his friends, the loss of the fourth boat, Halbrand going back and forth about whether or not he’ll go along. Most of this was done just to trim fat in the story and runtime.
The only other really noticeable cuts are in the battle for the Southlands. I ended up entirely removing Arondir’s fight with the eye-spike orc. I had first tried to reduce the amount of gore in that sequence but found too many inconsistencies between the shots that were left. After fiddling with several versions, I realized that the mid-stage of the battle could wrap up a lot more quickly without it and still make sense since it’s a fake out. I also removed the reveal that they were mostly fighting fellow Southlanders (since that wasn’t consistently true anyway) and the Bronwyn surgery sequence due to the focus on gore again.
I’ll send you a PM.
This 3-hour 45-minute edit covers the events of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 1 (up through the eruption of Mount Doom, along with the conclusion of the Harfoot and Stranger story).
The edit is available upon request in 1920x800 resolution, mp4 format, 14.23 GB file size.
There are countless edits throughout this film, intended to streamline the story, reduce running time, avoid lore issues, and enhance characterization. That said, the major distinctives of this edit are as follows:
For anyone who has seen my workprint, all footage has been redone to take advantage of higher quality sources. Because of this, all transitions were also redone and several scenes were recut for greater efficiency.
In addition, new VFX have been created in DaVinci Resolve Studio for the following:
Special thanks and inspiration for the following sequences/aspects of the edit:
Additional thanks for the following for their series analysis, which informed my editorial choices:
What about the rest of Season 1 you ask? Well, I’m hoping to integrate it into the first half of Season 2 in order to slow down the pace of those events. Based on this edit, I’m hoping to have a full trilogy of films by the time Season 2 is done, but that will obviously depend upon the content we receive.
Thank you again to everyone in this community who has edited or thrown around ideas for this series. It’s been a joy to work on this project, and I hope that (like me) you can now more easily find a place for the Rings of Power alongside the Jackson films.
I just downloaded v5 and was immediately struck once more by the magic of what you’ve done in this edit. You have taken a movie that I didn’t care about at all and made me excited to watch it over and over and to share it with others! Thank you.
Very excited to see your take on Mando S3. The original version was so incredibly mediocre.
Or you keep it ambiguous, and then as Luke seems to imply, it doesn’t matter how or why or who created anyone. What matters is who they choose to be.
I looked at the Reddit shots. Amazing work! I can’t wait for this to be done.
Looks like it’s about time to start thinking about this story again.
The new voice line isn’t perfect, but if I didn’t know it was fake, I’d assume it was just a weird recording or the distortion of the coms.
If anything, I’d like to hear Din say “I was taught… but…” in this monologue, maybe in reference to the mask of Mandalore.
Very good.
I’m not sure about the back shot of BoKatan right before he asks if it should be hers. Otherwise, the pacing of the lines with the visuals is great.
It seems a little long to me. It may be better with the visuals.
As far as how it sounds, the only line that struck me as really awkward was the words “for Mandalore” after “leader’s vision.” You could probably even just cut out those two words without losing any meaning.
I think fewer non-English lines from the Armorer when they are outside would help. She doesn’t often speak in the Mando language in other scenes.
Otherwise, this is very good. I’m not a professional, but this sounds quite passable to me. I love that this pays off the small eye-contact interaction from the Mythosaur encounter that the vanilla show made very little of.
So then she gets to keep it off so that everyone can see the anointing in her eyes?
Very cool ideas and execution. I was disappointed in season 3, like many, and I’m very excited to see your take on the content.
3 hour Book 6, with a potential re-expansion into 7 parts if new content allows.
I don’t know anything about current activity on this project, but I do know that a couple people on YouTube (including one who is also on the Topaz forums) is working on 90s Trek upscaling.
Independently, I’ve begun upscaling my DS9 and VOY DVDs to 1080p using some custom Topaz settings and then a polish export via DaVinci Resolve. The results aren’t as scene-specific as this effort, but they’re a huge step up from the DVDs and enough to let my family enjoy the episodes.
I follow the following steps:
I agree. We don’t often think about the amount of loss and hurt Leia endured. I mean, even just the long-term trauma of Alderaan.