vranir

Here’s my detailed feedback and custom follow-up edit list for the final three episodes of Season 1. As always, most is subjective, but feel free to take anything that you want.

Please do note the text issue for “Children of Night” and the two text issues for “The Future of the Force.”

CHILDREN OF NIGHT

• The opening text uses the word “Whilst.” Though technically correct, it is the only instance in any of these crawls where you use an archaic term like this. I suggest replacing it with “While” for consistency.

• Made a slight trim to ObiWan and Anakin’s conversation during the initial fighter battle, just trimming mildly corny banter.

• Trimmed the most over-the-top “Master!” during the Ventress flashbacks, since it just took me out of what was otherwise a pretty serious sequence.

• Trimmed the appearance of Ventress right after the witch contacts Dooku. This leaves the plan a little more vague for a few more minutes, in order to build intrigue.

• Trimmed a redundant “Yesss” from Ventress.

• Shortened Ventress’ speeder ride to only include her arrival in the male village. I just got tired of seeing people go past those fleshy bag trees.

• Trimmed a redundant line about letting the challenge begin. Now, only Ventress says it, as a VoiceOver.

• Trimmed Savage’s line about his brother being weak. Now, he simply kills him, without dialogue or clear emotion. He is a machine.

• Trimmed Ventress’ advice to Savage so that it is now simply to never sympathize with the enemy.

• Cut all of Dooku’s analysis of the situation on Deveron. Instead, he says that he needs proof of Savage’s skills and is sending him there.

• Cut the scene where word of the massacre arrives at the Jedi temple. A lot of what was said was redundant and a tiny bit corny. Instead, we now transition immediately from Dooku calling Savage his apprentice to their lightsaber training.

A STRIKE AT THE HEART

• Made small times during Bane’s planning scene so that the story moves ahead faster and more of his cards are held close to his chest. The plot will become clear enough as the episode progresses. I also minimized the conversation about the safe, since that’s not really an issue in the edit.

• Significantly trimmed Anakin and Padme’s dialogue to be less cringy. Yes, it matches their tone in “Attack of the Clones,” but I think it works better and maintains its heart if toned down.

• Minimized the dialogue between Bane and the fish-like hacker, mainly because I didn’t care for the hacker and wanted him to simply do his job.

• Trimmed Bane’s redundant line about the senators giving him their com links, both before and after the Palpatine scene.

• Trimmed Bane’s recognition of Anakin (in two instances). Now, Anakin is considered simply a random Jedi who got in Bane’s way.

• Made a number of small trims during Anakin’s fight with the IG unit, tightening the flow of the sequence.

• Trimmed Anakin’s vocal reaction to being shot at by Bane’s team.

• Trimmed some of Bane’s dialogue immediately after breaking into the temple. Again, his character doesn’t seem like someone who would tell his colleagues his plans beyond exactly what they need to know in the moment.

• Trimmed much of Anakin and ObiWan’s conversation about the security breach. Because this is a compound episode, the conversation completely ignored what just happened in the senate building, which should be at the forefront of Anakin’s mind. By cutting the dialogue right after Anakin says that something’s happening, we can infer that they went on to talk about the entire situation.

• Trimmed the dialogue by ObiWan and Yoda about someone being disguised as a Jedi and Ahsoka needing to check on the librarian. It all seemed like intelligence that was gathered in a cut scene. Now, Yoda just tells Ahsoka to be vigilant because he senses deception, and she figures the rest out on her own.

• Trimmed Ahsoka trash talking Bane after his arrest.

THE FUTURE OF THE FORCE

• There is a typo in the opening text: “Artefact” > “Artifact”

• The opening paragraph also reads very awkwardly. I suggest “is reeling after the senate hostage crisis and a simultaneous heist from the Jedi temple.”

• Cut several establishing shots and Bane scenes during the opening battle, in order to move into the central plot faster.

• Trimmed some of Yalaren’s exasperation with Anakin. They’ve been together all season, and he should be used to Anakin by now.

• Trimmed Rex’s line about waiting for orders while Anakin is trying to figure out a plan to board the ship. It just felt awkward to me.

• Agan, cut some of Bane’s monologuing to the droids. He doesn’t seem like someone who would readily share what he is doing with the people around him.

• Cut Anakin repeating that Ahsoka should wait for him as she chases Bane.

• Cut some of the short scenes aboard the Venator and some of the exterior shots of the Separatist ship, in order to keep the focus on Anakin, Ahsoka, and Bane.

• Cut Ahsoka calling Bane “Slimo,” both times. The second cut (in the Gungan city) was not as smooth as I’d like, but I really didn’t like that line.

• Cut Anakin almost staying behind on the ship to chase Bane some more. Now, he and Ahsoka run straight to the launch bay to evacuate.

• Cut Anakin’s odd “hmm” after Ahsoka tells him that the holocron was destroyed.

• Cut the final scene of Ahsoka at the temple. I know that you really like having it there, but to me it still feels a bit random and my personal preference is to end the episode on Anakin and Palpatine.

Thank you, as always for your extensive work on this project. I can’t wait to get into Season 2!

Oh, one quick issue I noticed - there appears to be an extra vertical text line poking through during the opening crawl, kind of like an echo of the text behind it and slightly to the right. I’m not sure if it’s a lower layer showing up or what, but it does catch the eye in an otherwise pretty flawless production.

I was hoping everything was okay for you.

I’m definitely interested in both of your new projects - EFC is uneven but wildly underappreciated and SG1 is just classic. That said, I’m most interested in getting a decent number of episodes released for whatever projects you choose to focus on. I’d rather have a full season of 1 or 2 shows than 4 episodes each of 6 different shows. If splitting your efforts more broadly prevents burnout though, maybe that is the best way to go.

Since he doesn’t remember getting out of the sarlac in his armor, maybe don’t show that part? You could cut away after he uses his flame thrower inside the sarlac or start with him disoriented, being found by the Sand People.

I am looking forward to this more and more with the airing of each episode.

Thanks. It’s there now.

I watched the new intro. It wasn’t bad to start with, but it’s much better now.

I’m afraid that the new version of Ryloth doesn’t have a link in your spreadsheet.

My audio transitions aren’t likely as clean as yours. What I tend to do is split the track in iMovie as close as I can around the line that I want to get rid of. I then separate out the audio, shorten the video on one side or the other until it reaches a new camera shot, then overlap the residual audio, fading the pre-cut audio out, while fading the post-cut audio in.

Often this results in a transition that blends pretty naturally to my ear, but I don’t use any fancy speakers, and I’m not an audiophile. There are definitely times when I can’t make a cut like this due to a more dramatic change in the background music, though sometimes I can hide that by fading in and out a third layer of audio with other background noise or music.

I ended up cutting Rex’s introduction. Cody gets introduced while Rex just takes his helmet off offscreen.

Feedback, based in part on further edits that I made. As said before, a lot of this is subjective, but if you find anything useful, feel free to copy it from my files or recreate it yourself.

Please do note the typo in the opening text for Resistance on Ryloth.

ASSASSIN

• Trimmed some initial shots of the Jedi. Now we go from the ship exterior to her talking to the guard on the screen.

• Cut some of the dialogue when the guard meets the clone outside the interrogation cell.

• Trimmed some of Ahsoka’s threatening. It’s still there, but it’s faster and doesn’t call him a worm etc.

• Made a few of small trims to tighten up the battle and boarding sequences.

THE 501ST

• Cut part of the dialogue by the mercenary clone trainer. Cut clone requesting a transfer to another squad. Jumped straight from failure to Heavy getting out of his bunk. All of this was done to make the opening of the episode faster and more fluid.

• Made small trims around the arrival of the commando droids to get them to the door faster and to reduce their chatter.

• Trimmed out the rock worm (both appearances).

• Trimmed a bit of dialogue between Grievous and a bridge droid to make them less goofy.

• Trimmed another battle droid line when Heavy is sneaking around to reduce goofiness.

• Removed some redundant and non-sequitor lines when Anakin, ObiWan, Rex, and Cody are talking about the need to defend Camino.

• Moved Anakin’s line about pressing the advantage and re-added him returning to the planet to make the cut of underwater scenes with ObiWan sequence more naturally.

• Trimmed a few lines when Fives and Echo are assigned sniper duty just to tighten the scene up.

• Cut a few redundant scenes of troopers firing at droids and squid ships.

• Trimmed some of the banter between Grievous and Ventress to make them a bit more direct.

• Cut Anakin’s line about Ventress saying hi.

• Cut the battle droid knocking on a door.

• Cut two instances of Grievous recognizing ObiWan and calling him by name.

• Trimmed a few more redundant combat shots.

• Moved Greivous entering his escape ship to a slightly later point when it is more clear that they’ve lost.

• Trimmed Ventress and Anakin lines about her being executed. Now she just says they probably want to capture her, but that’s not going to happen today.

• Ended the episode on the eulogy for 99.

RESISTANCE ON RYLOTH

• Typo in opening text: “defences” > “defenses”

• Suggestion in opening text: “their newly established space blockade” > “a newly established space blockade”

• Cut Wat Tambor strategy session after he says to target the villages. Cut scene of Twileks being marched out of the city. The scene is good, but the whole civilian-shield thing never becomes relevant in the actual battle.

• Trimmed the Mace and troopers overlook scene after “which means they can’t be that far.”

• Cut the close up shot of the lucrehulk bridge area. The first establishing shot of the whole ship seemed sufficient.

• Cut a battle droid response when ordered to launch fighters.

• Cut a few corny lines from Ahsoka and her pilots during the fight.

• Trimmed down Ahsoka’s most directly disrespectful line to Yalaren.

• Cut the establishing shot of the Venator after their retreat, along with Anakin’s initial dialogue with two clones. Instead, the scene opens with Ahsoka beside her fighter.

• Made several trims to remove corny droid talk about older models. Now they just march past.

• Cut the Nemoidian’s talk with Wat Tambor about Anakin. It wasn’t bad, but it seemed unnecessary, and the transition without it seemed to serve the story better.

• Shortened the establishing shot of the Venators snd fighters preparing to depart.

• Trimmed the battle droid repeating himself to the Nemoidian captain.

• Made several small trims to make the collision faster.

• Cut the dialogue about the droids taking a while to attack the Venator.

• Ended the episode with Mace’s line “You’ve earned your freedom, general.”

THE DEATH WATCH

• Suggestion in opening text: “While Senator… Its Death Watch radicals…” would get rid of two paragraphs in a row starting with “But.”

• Trimmed the initial mention of an assassin by Dooku, in order to leave everything about their plot a surprise.

• Trimmed the bit about only being a “friend” to slightly dial down the drama with ObiWan and Satine.

Beautiful. This powerful sequence has always been one of my favorite parts of your series.

Congratulations!

I’ve almost finished my personal pass for The 501st, but I can’t say that any changes are worth calling out (just several minor trims for smoothing). Well done.

I’m finally getting back into these.

Not much to critique at all for “Assassin” except for one crazy idea - What if this were 1x01? A few dialogue trims and a new intro text could set this up as some sort of thing where this youngling Ahsoka is being sent to rendezvous with her new master on the front.

The appearance of Gunray, Dooku, and Sideous would link viewers back to Star Wars I, setting this up as a new chapter in that universe. The introduction of Ashoka would also clearly establish our new focus character, who would then become part of the more familiar team in the next episode.

We’d get a proper intro for Ventress, and maybe even the implication that the interrogation (brief as it was) provided the initial knowledge of Grievous and his weapon.

At the end, perhaps Ashoka could be delivered to Yoda, who then would send her to ObiWan and Anakin.

Like I said, it’s kind of a crazy idea, and it may not be worth the effort, especially as you’ve moved on again to the end of season 1. I just thought it might be interesting enough to mention.

Nice timing also, as apparently today is DS9’s debut anniversary!

I’m saving and converting the file right now into my standard format. Thanks a ton. I can’t wait for more.

Very cool. I need to catch back up, having gotten distracted by my own projects.

I think I prefer option 2, as it creates more of a mini-arc in the background, but I’d need to see it implemented to know for sure.

Impressive as always. I’m planning to do a rewatch and even possible edit on the series as these come out.

Don’t worry about it. We’d love to see the episodes, but you clearly have other things going on that should take priority. Take care of yourself. We can wait.

Thanks for the update though.

Thanks for taking the time to respond and explain each of your choices. It’s an excellent edit.

This is by far my favorite Hobbit edit. Your work smoothing away the stuff that you cut is nothing short of amazing - Tauriel and Legolas, Fili’s injury, Azog and Bolg, the more overtly sinister aspects of the ring, etc. I love it.

In that light, know that the following observations are meant as constructive nitpicks. I truly appreciate the edit as is.

The opening has a lot of short sequences. Most make sense, but I’m not sold on the one with Frodo outside by the gate. I think the opening as a whole might flow better without it.

60 years earlier font? - same as subtitles. This is the only setting label in the film. Is it even necessary?

You use a combination of white and grey dialog subtitles. I understand that it’s done intentionally, but what does LOTR use? I recommend matching as much as possible.

I think in cutting the White Council, you lost the reason for the company leaving ahead of Gandalf. They later mention him planning to meet up with them, but it’s curious that there’s no earlier explanation.

The transition from the first to second movie is still awkward. That’s a lot of distance for the orcs to cover so quickly. Maybe reduce the implied distance of the eagle flight. Maybe also reduce/remove the feeling of resolution atop the aerie so that the tension translates more easily into the next sequence.

I like the intermission but it seems awkwardly located, only placed where it is in order to cover the scene transition from the first movie to the second. A more logical point would be after the barrels, when mentioning the barge, as many other editors have broken it.

It’s twilight when the company is deciding to go to Beorn’s house, then suddenly bright day when they are running to and inside Beorn’s house, then night again? Can the lighting be adjusted to make it more cohesive?

The wandering in Mirkwood drags a bit. It’s thematic but is not pleasant to watch for so long.

Without the flashbacks with the elves and Thror, the jewels, and turning away during the dragon attack, Thorin’s hatred of Thranduil seems a bit unreasonable. I agree that it’s fun to get the backstory alongside Bilbo, but I do think that there may be good moments in the first half of the movie for contextual flashbacks, like the one you include when talking about Gurion in Laketown.

Getting out of the river seems a bit abrupt, but that may be unavoidable if you want to skip all mention of battle/injury.

It’s unclear how Bard, Bilbo, and Gandalf got back to Dale ahead of the orcs.

It’s not clear why Bilbo ran off to ravenhill.

Thorin and company get to ravenhill almost instantaneously. Maybe a fighting montage would help the transition.

What is the purpose of the bats flying down over the armies? The shot cuts away, and it draws attention to the gap of time between them flying past Bilbo and them arriving at the battlefield itself. I suspect it’s enough to see the bats arrive with Bilbo, then see them intermittently fighting eagles etc during the rest of the battle.

Did you show the part where the axe gets out of Bifur’s head? You do show him without it at Bilbo’s departure.

Credits music - consider the closing song from Five Armies, since Misty Mountains appears in the film already and it’s a nice closing that seems a personal touch for Bilbo and for the entire production team. I do like the full Misty Mountains version you use though. Consider also using the cast and concept sketches during the closing credits. That would tie Hobbit in more aesthetically as a companion unit to LOTR as a whole, not just a prequel chapter. You already support this understanding by including the main “The Hobbit” title screen and no follow-up white chapter title.

Have you considered making companion HD edits for each of the LOTR films? You could add musical intermissions, make slight edits, fix the appearance of Gollum in Fellowship, and maybe even incorporate select flashback footage from cut Hobbit content.

This sounds excellent. I’d love to see it. PM sent.

Sounds very interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing the result.

Congratulations on the 1x05 milestone.

I’m just now getting caught up, so here are mg thoughts on “Assassin.”

• I like how you dialed back the familiarity of Ashoka and Ventress. This works much better.

• The episode is pretty tight. Good pacing, lots of action, but nothing that really feels unnecessary.

• In the opening text, I still find the phrase “Meanwhile, the Republic… now fears Separatist spies” to read awkwardly. I suggest the following:

“…that the Malevolence attack plan WAS leaked to Count Dooku, SPARKING fears OF Separatist spies.” This removes the odd personification of the Republic.

• The initial conversation between Dooku and Sideous has an odd focus on Ventress’ failures, even though we haven’t really seen much of that in this edit series. Maybe consider removing those line portions to leave the impression that she is very competent.

• Early on, when Ashoka and Luminara are boarding the Venator, there is a noticeable difference between what they are saying and their mouth movements. This wasn’t an issue in the 1.? version; I’m not sure what changed.

• There’s a very abrupt music transition around 18:24, which maybe could be smoothed out.

Other than that, another solid episode. I’ll watch the new 501st and give some feedback there soon.

Welcome back. Beautiful work. I’ll be eagerly waiting for each episode of both series.

^ Agreed

How about…

As Anakin and the decorated 501st Legion widen the net, he sends Captain Rex to inspect the Republic’s long-range listening stations.