SPECULATION STAR WARS PREQUELS RE-CUT/"NO-FARTING-AT-THE-POD-RACES-EDITION"

RE-POSTING THIS HERE IN FEAR OF SITH-FACED-MODERATORS

Well now, it seems I've "made the cut", no pun intended.

So, apologies are in order, I guess; I assumed too much at first glance and stirred your pot,
hope it still tastes the same, I never wanted to upset the balance of anything, only assumed I'd be ignored.
I suppose things would have gone over smoother if I played my original card of
"OMG !! LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND ON THE INTERNETS!!"

but I digress-

Around nine months ago I re watched the prequel trilogy, and when the credits rolled, again, though this time with a predetermined readiness for disappointment, I sighed.
A long "why does anyone bother anyway" type of sigh.

See, the prequels were meant to be another decade or so of adventure in a galaxy far, far away, not a joyless thrill-ride in to the shaky origins of one of the most menacing characters on screen. I feel like my childhood truly took it's last breaths as the Attack of the Clones stumbled through it's harrowing 3 hour run-time.

It was bad, ok ? It was just bad.

It killed the Jedi before Anakin had the chance to, and it made the whole Force thingy with them Midichlorians less magical than I'd deemed the Jedi worthy. A slap in the testicle when expecting something completely different. Makes you nauseous and shames you in a way that you find hard to handle.

For Lord Vader to blurt out "it's not fair!" at every adversity was just out of place, the fall of Anakin felt forced and at arms reach at all times, as if Lucas was "just getting it over with"
We can spend a small eternity discussing what should, could, would etc etc
but I'm far too curious to just talk the talk.

So, I made a snip there, and a snip here, moved this there and flipped that over yonder, using very basic rules of "making movies", quickly noticing that to make something work, actually have a kick, everything leading to that point has to carry meaning.
So, I went in to Episode One.

I'm an editor, you see,
I do "this" for a living, if you can call it a living, on a almost daily basis for 15 years now.
My passion is story and narrative; what makes a story tick. The cogs on the Prequels were wonky at best.

Nine or so months later .. I'm here.

I'm still not in the habit of lying, so, to clear the table a bit-

I did not join to talk Star Wars for the sake of talking Star Wars,
I joined because this seemed like a vibrant fan-community.
I'm not in to discussing movies before I've seen them, and there's only so much you can say about a lore until it takes on a world of it's own, and Star Wars is waaaay out there.

This is where you come in -
The movies I've come to share are not the Prequels as I see them, I would have done a whole bunch of stuff differently, but no one cares about that, not even me - so-

and this is key -

I did not go and remake the prequels,
I simply put them in logical order and the emotional context that they were so desperately bumbling towards.


The "patch notes" are faar too long to list and not that interesting either, but a few rules I followed will give a description -



Removed "lag" between frames
- frames that slow down the cuts, general practice but eats at momentum in fights, for example.

Removed "failed fx"
- fancy moves that make you cringe and slow down narrative making the movie "drag"

"fixed" force powers
- again with the lag

Merged scenes to follow one arch to the end
- biggest killer of tension in the Prequel saga; jumping from one spectacle to another without creating pull, or push.

Added "matte-black" and "highlights"
- to blend in digital effects and for a "splash" of color.

Switched placing of some scenes
- to combat the "all over the place" feel of things

Eliminated hammy lines
- they be hammy

Tweaked dialogue
- flipped lines to convey more of the meaning and emotional charge that the scenes were trying to create.

Enough with the Jar-Jar
-this guy has too much screen-time, with a few snips I find him actually compelling.
This applies to all characters, and staying true to their purpose and placement in the story.



And a buunch of other stuff, a whole bunch, but always, and I do mean even when "my" idea would have made me feel better about it, following the narrative set by the movies themselves.

My hands were luckily tied through most of it because I did not have the score separate from the rest of the audio, this unfortunately will make it seem like Williams has gone senile at times, but only at times.
I'll get to the audio clean-up once I've decided not to go back to these ever, but they should be very watchable on a lo-fi speaker system. On headphones you might experience the occasional "bump".
(especially on epII, that movie was a WRECK . .)

So, not to be overconfident;
this is not a YouTube mashup, this is not a "re-invisioning", this is not a new story,
nay, it's the same story told with basic rules of cinema,
so close to the originals that Disney killed them every time they appeared on YouTube.

And I'm sorry if it offends you, but they. kick. ass.
I will NEVER-EVER-EVER go back to watching the og prequels, unless I want to laugh out of spite.

I went through way too much trouble to see past the fog of war known as merchandising, and it was gooood.
The best part about them is that I feel like I've done nothing at all, it was all there all this time.

To see the work of all the people involved not "go to waste" due to slip-ups, boredom or careless narrative is with a word, magical. It's "all" there, I promise.
(well .. the Gungan city isn't, but I don't think you'll notice. .)

All of that being said, and probably not read . .

I still don't need your permission to enjoy these myself
I just hope you'd give Ani a chance.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B37jrYBE21mwWmtiakVoYVV4eXc

(you can stream them from g-drive full-screen or download them.
If you deem them worthy, make someone happy and share them.)

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU, ALWAYS.

 

I thought so too, but challenged myself non the less (I like puzzles), and if I didn't think these would warm the heart of a jaded Wars fan, I would not have struggled to get 30 posts and be so desperately trying to get someone else to watch them right about nowish..


Yes it's, like, 3 full length movies totaling at 6 and a halfish hours.
I cut all three individually, with purpose, to resemble the original films as much as was possible.

If you're on the fence, here's a challenge:

Start with "The Phantomenace" and see how far in to the trilogy you get without feeling "that way".
(the titles btw, are just that, a title, don't let them sway your mood.)

I dare you, no, I DOUBLE dare you, to re watch the prequels, like you've never seen them before

 

Haa, no, I'm a full-fledged one, for a decade or so,
but one can only get better at one's craft, so ya, sure, why not, I aspire to edit

These were really a puzzle I went to solve, never intended to finish, just to learn something new, a personal master class in editing if you will.
But once I watched them, in their current form .. well, I wanted to share that feeling. I thought it only fair.

I still think it's a weird thing to do, I'm not stupid like that, but I think the possibility of a single Star Wars fan seeing them as I have is worth all the noise.

--- Double Post Merged, Sep 5, 2017, Original Post Date: Sep 5, 2017 ---

Oh, and don't be a Nerf-herder and vote on them without watching them, you silly silly internet -person -you.

 

Well .. I watched them again . . really, um . .

Let me elaborate -

This is almost fan fiction , but not really, the fan fiction part is in .. "what if the movies were more like Empire" - and that's not a boast mind you, unless you agree on what I agree; Lucas made a fantastic trilogy filled with thril-rides and epic moments from characters we only knew of from hushed tones of veiled lore, and only then it's a boast on figuring out what Lucas was building.

Making movies in such a caliber is probably not the simplest thing in the world
And time will always be the issue.

If you want me to fantasize, I wish Lucas would watch them and go " Yeah, I liked them, that's one way to do it." :'D
But that's a stretch of the imagination, hence the emphasis on -fantasize-

I mean the man himself kept digging in to them and flipping stuff around, adding and subtracting at every dvd/blue-ray release
That seems really insecure to me, and therefore I figured .. there must be a puzzle here.. a puzzle a whole bunch of people have been piecing by the looks of it.

I couldn't resist

I dunno, next time you feel like getting your prequels on, give them a try, it's what they're for.
6 hours of smooth pure Star Wars bliss (if you're in to the kind of Star Wars I am), a work in progress, mind you, a work that I am inviting you,
the community, to participate in.


But I do want some feedback, I would LOVE some feedback, kind or bad, but words that I can read