vranir

Good question. There’s a lot that matches between my edit and this one. Anjohan and I actually went back and forth contributing ideas to each other in PMs while creating/fine-tuning our edits.

Anjohan’s edit set itself apart early by being very tightly focused. His opening prologue, for instance, was amazing, and mine is very closely modeled after it. My use of a Sauron vision to open the second film and direct Galadriel toward Eregion is also directly lifted from something Anjohan did.

Overall, Anjohan’s edit has evolved to experiment with/solve the story in more radical ways than mine has. For example, in the current version, I believe he has moved the creation of the three Elven rings to the prologue of the story, with the intent of making them less tied to Sauron and more in line with the books.

My edit, meanwhile, maintains more of the vanilla storyline, but with more of a focus on chronology/trying to line up day/night cycles and keeping plot threads feeling in-synch, even if they technically aren’t. I also keep the Harfoot story as a main thread (even the heart of the series), where almost every other edit reduces them significantly as a grudging side story.

I think the best explanation for the mutants is that they were accidents while trying to get the dino/frog/other DNA balance right for the original Jurassic Park creatures.

The big question: Does the episode “Dax” look better than on DVD?

I think it’s a definite improvement over what we get from upscaling the DVD.

Ive heard that the laser disk content quality is only superior for the first 2 (maybe 3) seasons, after which point the filming technique changed and the DVD source became comparable.

Love seeing you getting back on track!

That does look impressive. Since I’m running a Mac, I’m going to hold off until they release the requirements snd framerates for the Mac version of Starlight Mini. (So far it’s Windows only, but they’re working on Mac and Linux.)

I’d love to try it out on my standard go-to scene, the opening of One Little Ship, to see how it handles the com badges, grey uniform piping, and console text. I do like what I can see of the piping in your Nemesis screen caps.

Do you find that Starlight produces a markedly better result than other models like Proteus?

I used a combination of Artemis and Proteus to upscale all of DS9 and VOY for myself last year. I don’t have an active Topaz subscription (and can’t get Starlight because of that) but it is something I’d be willing to consider. My MacBook Pro has 32GB RAM so it should be able to handle it.

I kind of like the 3-part option if only because it would result in 6 total films / 2 trilogies, which is the traditional Star Wars organization.

Any new updates or thoughts on this? I’m really excited to see what you do with Season 2.

Super excited for movies 5 and 6!

(Links sent, as requested, via PM)

And since it’s been a few months, I was wondering if anyone has any feedback (especially on Pt 2).

I’m taking a break from RoP for a bit after taking my own crack at season 2 - after all I think we have to wait a couple of years again for the next batch of material - but I’d love to take a look at these sometime in the next few months. Your original Workprint was a huge inspiration for me.

Agreed with all the above.

I’ve mostly been working on Rings of Power myself, alongside a couple of other editors here. We’ve each taken a different, but overlapping approach - one breaks each storyline into its own movie, one tries to compress as much as possible to focus on only the main events, and I’ve tried to balance everything and it trim into a series of cohesive Jackson-style films (so far about 2.5 films pending season 3 in 2026.

I do expect to revisit the original trilogy in 2030 when all is said and done, if only to blend in some Rings of Power flashback footage and Bear McCreary’s excellent music for cohesion. But that’s a long way off.

A couple of lingering questions, which maybe you could work into or work around in the edit:

• What happened to the captain of the Onyx Cinder after he crashed on At-Atan? Maybe he also confronted the Supervisor AI and got killed by it when his true agenda was discovered? Maybe the AI could drop a line that implies this?

• If the Onyx Cinder was originally a native At-Atan ship and that’s why it was allowed through the barrier, who was its captain and what was its purpose? Was the original pirate captain from At-Atan in the first place, or maybe he captured the actual envoy who was supposed to use the ship to travel back and forth? Maybe that’s why the AI recognized Jod as an envoy.

• And again, as has been brought up multiple times now, why does Jod tell the pirates to attack? Wouldn’t a better tactic have been to simply replace the Supervisor and send shipments of credits out to his crew every few months? Could you somehow imply that this was his original plan but that it had been blocked by something, maybe the kids blowing the cover on him or his ship’s actual identity? That way, just like with the kids, he would start out trying to be a friend, but if needed, he would change angles and use fear to get what he wants.

I did appreciate the involvement of the parents in helping during the finale.

I wasn’t a fan of Jod letting the pirates just attack instead of quietly taking over; it seemed dumb and needlessly bloody for a character who had mostly tried to avoid killing random people.

I did appreciate Jod’s slight smile when the good kids defeated him.

Above all, I appreciated that they actually kept it all self-contained, a fun normal story in a shared universe.

Initial post updated for the release of Part 2: “Udun.”

Happy Holidays, everyone!

The new film covers the forging of the three Elven rings and most of the season 2 side-plots.

Major changes from the show are as follows:

• Galadriel experiences a vision from Sauron immediately after the eruption, pointing her to Eregion
• Halbrand surrenders to Adar before we know who he is to heighten mystery and possible heroism
• Bronwyn is presumed dead after the eruption; her pyre is moved to the camp the night Theo arrives
• The Stoors are more welcoming of the Harfoots and they seem to pass more time together
• There is no sea-serpent trial for the queen; after the shrine incident, all Faithful are rounded up
• The arrival of the riders at the Stoors’ village leads directly into the dialogue of the wizards
• Elrond does not jump off a cliff; he takes the rings straight to Cirdan

Special thanks to Anjohan for his idea of splitting Galadriel’s vision between the eruption and her confrontation with Suaron.

UPDATE: I’ve made a number of small changes and adjustments, as well as attempting to add a 5.1 audio output track and getting Poppy to leave with Nori and the Stranger (thanks for the prototype there Anjohan!).

The other issue I struggled with for season 2 compatibility was whether or not to show Bronwyn looking recovered at the party just before the eruption. Ultimately, I decided that I had to keep it because too much is needed from that scene to simply cut it (we see Galadriel and Halbrand back at the village, and we get Halbrand introduced and hailed as king, wrapping up his initial storyline). I do plan for Bronwyn to be dead when Theo and Galadriel arrive at the camp in the second movie.

I’m going to do a few final watch-throughs before releasing the “final” version and moving on to the second movie. I want to take one more look at streamlining and transitions, as well as double-check both the stereo and 5.1 audio tracks for quality and consistency.

I’m still unclear how much content will make it into the second movie, but I’m currently hoping for it to focus on the aftermath of the eruption and the forging of the three. The season 2 plotlines for Numenor and the Stranger are also things I’d like to fully include, while I plan to hold back the Dwarf and siege plotlines for a third film, hopefully going alongside the rest of the Stranger’s confrontation with the Dark Wizard and tying that off in a trilogy. The only complication I’m dreading is the possibility that Sauron tries to give rings to the men of Rhun, causing those stories to overlap at moment that doesn’t work for me. I’m also not looking forward to another two-year wait in order to move forward!

Definitely. I just finalized my season 2 footage today, so I’ll be ready to start working with it soon.

I’m planning a round of updates. Any specific feedback is welcome as I prepare my potential change list.

In light of season 2, I’m hoping to follow Anjohan’s lead by having Poppy leave directly with Nori and the Stranger. I’m also looking at having Bronwyn die sooner instead of recover over and over only to die suddenly offscreen.

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.