Topher Grace Screens Star Wars Prequel Re-edit 192
silentbrad writes "/Film (as well as IGN and A.V. Club) reports about Topher Grace's fan re-edit of the Star Wars prequel trilogy into a single, 85-minute film titled Star Wars: Episode III.5: The Editor Strikes Back.' Quoting /Film: 'His idea was to edit the Star Wars prequels into one movie, as they would provide him a lot of footage to work with. He used footage from all three prequels, a couple cuts from the original trilogy, some music from The Clone Wars television series, and even a dialogue bit from Anthony Daniels' (C-3PO) audio book recordings. He even created a new opening text crawl to set up his version of the story.' It continues with what stayed and what was cut. It's just too bad it was a one-time-only screening."
What, no torrent? (Score:5, Funny)
He also seems to want to favor storytelling over merchandising, which is a strange and unusual concept.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This isn't really what your Mother and I had in mind, when you decided to stay here at home.
Dumbass. No wonder Donna dumped you on your sorry butt and left for Madison without looking back.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
-1 BURN!
That 70's Show
Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Separate, boring they are.
Together, one good movie it would be.
Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3 (Score:5, Funny)
Separate, boring they are.
Together, one good movie it would be.
Nah, just cut all three movies together as one. I think the best cut would be about 136 minutes long [imdb.com].
Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3 (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
based on THAT theory, a re-edit of part 2 and 3 into 1 f
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The effects were terrible. The hideously obvious jumps from the real person to the mannequin-like CGI version of them during the action scenes was groan worthy.
Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3 (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing can save that sugar-coated ending on the park bench with the Oracle and the children and the sunset.... It's like someone stole the movie I was watching and slipped in Micheal Jackson's 'Moonwalker' movie.
Matrix 2 and 3 are better forgotten. The first movie stands better alone.
Re: (Score:2)
No. The last 2 movies were tedious attempts at one-ups-manship that quickly grew tiresome. They were failures for much the same reason that the Star Wars prequels were. The producers lost site of the fact that they were trying to make a good movie.
Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3 (Score:5, Insightful)
There were lots of good "Bits" of 2 and 3. Like the first Smith fight in the park, or the highway chase, or the zion fight. The Hovercraft race-against-time chase down the narrow passage. The Merovingian scenes. They had the potential to be really good. But for some reason they weren't.
The problem is that they spent *far* too long on these bits with nothing to break them up. If they weren't fighting for ages, they were talking your ears off. I remember feeling like my eyes were about to start bleeding during that first Smith fight (partly due to the bad CGI). The Zion fight focused on the mech walkers too much and not enough on the foot soldiers, or the drama behind it. It was all action, for the full duration.
The fight scenes were all fighting, and no plot progression, and plot progression happened in massive info dumps.
Remember in the first film where Neo first takes on two agents on top of the building? That was an awesome scene and lasted one minute. It progressed the plot by making you realise Neo IS the One, and it was pretty awesome to watch. The climactic lobby fight scene was 3 minutes long and showed what exactly was possible in the Matrix. The subway fight was 4 and showed Neo going toe-to-toe with Smith for the first time. Between each of these was somewhat of a breather to let the audience relax. The film was well paced between fights and dialogue.
Now take Reloaded. The mid-film vs Smith scene in lasted over five minutes, was mostly blurry, bad CGI and did sod all to move the plot forward. The Architect on the other hand was EIGHT minutes long, 'moving the plot forward' is an understatement, as it pretty much WAS the plot, and such a large dump of information was boring as fuck. If they weren't relentlessly chaining fights they were droning on and on incessantly.
Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3 (Score:4, Funny)
http://xkcd.com/566/ [xkcd.com]
the last 4 frames.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? Humans as 'batteries' makes sense? Not merely sucking out energy of those living, but actively feeding and breeding them?
Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3 (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, the original script had them using humans as CPUs, tapping their brains for processing power... which is at least plausible. Some genius decided this was too complicated for American audiences to understand and thus it was switched to the "humans as power generators" nonsense.
So I just tell myself that's what the machines are REALLY using the humans for, and the "humans as batteries" crap is just Morpheus's woefully ignorant pet theory. It kinda works if you squint real hard.
Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3 (Score:5, Interesting)
I just mentally change everything as if the script had stuck with humans as CPUs. Picture Morpheus holding an Intel chip instad of a Duracel, and it all works out and makes so much more sense.
Not all the plot holes go away, but a lot of them do. (For example, why the Agents can't just break rules in the Matrix willy-nilly however they please, but rather must stick to bending them.)
Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Or you can just imagine that the script stuck with humans as CPUs but still has Morpheus holding a battery and saying exactly what he said about the machines using humans for energy, but that Morpheus is a religious fanatic successfully deceived by misleading propaganda spread by the machines as part of a system of control...
Which, even though it may not ever be stated on screen to be the explanation for that particular statement by Morpheus, is actually entirely consistent with the rest of the series.
You just have to drop the idea of Morpheus as a completely reliable narrator, which, is a pretty unjustified idea to start with.
Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3 (Score:5, Funny)
Really? Humans as 'batteries' makes sense? Not merely sucking out energy of those living, but actively feeding and breeding them?
"Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
Should stop putting first sentence in subject line (Score:4, Interesting)
Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3. Separate, boring they are. Together, one good movie it would be.
That's because they *are* a single overlong movie split into two parts in all but name. Even moreso than the explicitly split "Kill Bill" (where you could enjoy each of the parts in its own right due to its more scene-based nature).
More's the pity because, although it clearly wasn't as good as the original, The Matrix Reloaded was still quite good in its own way (if a bit too long)... but clearly a "part 1" that requires you to watch "part 2" to be complete.... except that "part 2" (i.e. Revolutions) was just lousy, and would have been too long at anything over an hour. I'd personally trim Reloaded and hack all but the essentials from Revolutions.
Even then it wouldn't solve the "resolution" of Revolutions which felt less like a satisfying "tying things up" ending and more like an intentionally incomplete and half-baked non-resolution designed to provide a point to expand the franchise (*) from. Ironically, we *haven't* really seen much Matrix-related stuff in the 8+ years since then (I'm sure they've done backstory comics and such guff for the fanboys, but I'm talking about mass market on the same scale as the movies themselves). Is this because it really was intended as the final movie, or because Revolutions' reception was so poor that it seriously damaged the prospects of more Matrix material?
To be honest, part of the problem may always have been that- although "The Matrix" looks on the surface like it should be one of those films that would work well as a franchise (due to the questions and possibilities it throws up and the expanded world it suggests)... it isn't. What worked about the first movie was wrapped up by the end. You can't redo the sense of wonder and discovery that drove the first movie, and once Neo has made that journey he's no longer really the confused and bemused everyman cipher (that Reeves' criticised acting style actually worked really well for), but a knowledgeable Superman in a much larger world (Zion) of characters with bad dialogue we really don't care about.
(*) Ugh, anyone notice how common that word has become in the past decade? We're all using terminology that makes us sound like a mixture of fanboy and corporate studio types. Though of course it's true- such things *are* moneymaking franchises, but it doesn't say much for artistic integrity, nor for us in that we accept and use the term.
Re: (Score:3)
Past decade?
Franchise has been around longer than that. JMS started Babylon 5 in 1992 by (1) announcing on the early internet (usenet) that the project was being filmed and (2) saying he would not turn it into a never-ending franchise like Star Trek. That word already had negative connotations 20+ years ago.
Re: (Score:3)
Disagree. The plot was fundamentally broken from the second movie on. My personal theory is that The 13th Floor stole their ending and they had to wing it.
Re: (Score:2)
The Matrix Deionized [fanedit.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I take it you've never seen "the matrix: dezionised"?
2 and 3 edited together, removing all traces of zion and various other tweaks.
Ok I'll start.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Video or it didn't happen.
Star Wars: The Editor Does His Job (Score:5, Insightful)
Without Being Prevented From Doing So By Lucas
would have been the name of the Star Wars movie about an alternate reality where the prequels were substantially better.
Re:Star Wars: The Editor Does His Job (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, an 11 gallon drum of crud and a dropper full of water -- a significantly higher concentration of water.
P.S. don't mistake "better" for "good". :)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure! If your name is George Lucas, you get a few billion in the bank. :-)
Magnet Hash? (Score:2)
Interesting concept... (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting concept... could never happen for legal reasons... but I'd be intrigued if people could "cut n' paste" scenes from OTHER films into a meaningfull order to make it look like another star wars film.
For example- Take Ford from the Tom Clancy Films- and Indiana Jones; cut and paste them together- with a few special affects and make it look like episode 7.
C3P0 could be in episode 7- just rip scenes of Rex from "Yo Gabba Gabba". Mark Hamil has been in so many block buster films since Star Wars- should be easy to get footage of him to use.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, but Luke laughing like the Joker would just be creepy.
Re:Interesting concept... (Score:4, Informative)
...but I'd be intrigued if people could "cut n' paste" scenes from OTHER films into a meaningfull order to make it look like another star wars film.
You mean something like this [youtube.com]?
Re:Interesting concept... (Score:4, Funny)
Mark Hamil has been in so many block buster films
As long as everyone is OK with a land speeder that looks like a Corvette.
Re: (Score:2)
Wish granted:
Tie-Tanic [youtube.com]
Although this is actually a CG mashup of Star Wars and Titanic, it's pretty hilarious to watch.
Re: (Score:2)
Mark Hamil has been in so many block buster films since Star Wars- should be easy to get footage of him to use.
"Don't fuck with the Jedi master, son." -Cock-Knocker
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting concept... could never happen for legal reasons...
Of course it can happen. It probably already has. There's a thriving (some might say obsessive) fan-editing community, particularly around Star Wars. George Lucas is, by all accounts, pretty cool about it as long as no-one else's trying to get rich.
FTFY
Link to movie (Score:3)
One Word (Score:2)
NnoooooOOooooooOooooooOOoooooooooo!
Re:One Word (Score:4, Funny)
So what's the point of telling us? (Score:4, Insightful)
He can't release it or George will sue him into oblivion. We'll never get to see it. So why even tell us it exists?
Re: (Score:2)
But a construction worker might see a disk lying on a counter and torrent it. Plausible deniability.
Re: (Score:2)
He can't release it or George will sue him into oblivion. We'll never get to see it. So why even tell us it exists?
The lesson I took from telling us is that George *could* have made better movies if he had concentrated less on merchandising angles, dumbing things down for toddlers and whatever else is rattling around in his addled brain - like making Han shoot first - and concentrate more on telling a good, crisp, clean and, perhaps, semi-adult story. While the original three Star Wars films are not perfect, they're an order of magnitude better than the prequels, especially considering they were made using a lot less te
Re:So what's the point of telling us? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why can't he release a detailed list of every edit he made (allowing someone else with a nonlinear editing suite, lots of time on his hands, and fewer qualms about BitTorrent to piece it together)? Surely he kept records, if he's studying to be an editor?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
One of his geekier friends could even release it as a complete script involving a lot of mplayer command.
Feed in originals... get out the fan edit.
Re: (Score:2)
there are zero legal implications of a list of "frame 456-789 of RotS synced with audio from frame 1024-1138 of Clone Wars S3E2" type instructions.
Or just export the project files without the media...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
there are zero legal implications of a list of "frame 456-789 of RotS synced with audio from frame 1024-1138 of Clone Wars S3E2" type instructions.
Or just publish the project file without the media.
Re: (Score:2)
But he could release an edit list script, that would take ripped movies and cut them in the correct order and produce the final movie output (provided there's no effects). Of course, you'd have to add the disclaimer that you should never ever rip the DVD's and actually run the script.
Re:So what's the point of telling us? (Score:4, Insightful)
We'll never get to see it. So why even tell us it exists?
This is DRM done right. The best way to prevent people from copying it by any means -- especially mentally -- is to not release the media at all.
Machete needs a fan edit (Score:3)
Oh, but keep that scene in there where Danny Trejo is in the swimming pool with the topless women.
Seth
Re:Machete needs a fan edit (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. That movie would have been better if it was about the length of a trailer inserted into the middle of another movie.
Want! (Score:2)
Man this would be fun to watch!
ow To Fix The Phantom Menace In 12 Minutes (Score:4, Interesting)
Listening to this guy describe how he would change the first prequel is really interesting... it would actually make for a pretty decent movie.
I'd love see his take on the subsequent two movies.
This 12 minute video is totally worth your time:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/02/how-to-fix-the-phantom-menace-in-12-minutes/ [gizmodo.com.au]
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, I stumbled on that the other day and watched it all the way through. I was more interested and engaged in his verbal telling of the story than I ever was in any of the prequels. It is exactly what the prequel should have been, with surprisingly minimal changes to the overarching plot... if I were a movie producer in a world with loose copyright and trademark laws I'd greenlight his version in a heartbeat.
Re: (Score:2)
That guy narrating his version of the story was actually better than watching Episode 1. Which in retrospect now clearly and specifically appears to be a tangled mess of no focus whatsoever. Only now I understand how.
So how long has George Lucas to be dead so we can have this kind of movie?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Very interesting.
It'll be released eventually (Score:2)
If there's one thing George Lucus loves is DVD/Blu-ray releases. Eventually he'll release it to make a few extra bucks.
Description Not Copywritable (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As long as you release the edit script with a big disclaimer that basically says "DON'T USE IT," you're probably fine.
Re: (Score:2)
He could upload an EDL to pastebin with no violation.
Re: (Score:2)
And the hardware to apply a list of edits to a DVD while it's playing already exists [wikipedia.org], too!
Re: (Score:3)
Right. That's called an "edit decision list". It would be amusing to have a setup where you could order all the components from Netflix, then run a program which assembled them appropriately. Lucas still gets paid, and Jar-Jar gets cut out.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Standard disclaimer, I am not a lawyer, etc.
CleanFlicks edited the movies and sold the edited copies, which was illegal. ClearPlay does something closer to what we're describing (use special DVD player that you can upload a description of an edited movie to, and have the player apply the edits to an unmodified movie), and it's survived the lawsuits brought against it. Even then, posting a description of the edits is not illegal if it contains no copyrighted material from the original movie, which should be
Re: (Score:3)
There's already been a court case about this, and the company which was doing it lost. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CleanFlicks [wikipedia.org]
If you RTFA, they were actually making the edit and supplying the edited version. So completely different to a bare edit list.
An old saying (Score:4, Funny)
The editing done by Topher Grace is typically referred to as "Polishing A Turd".
Re: (Score:2)
I read the headline + first part of the article summary. I thought some fan of Topher's had some how edited him into the movies. I was hoping for Darth Vader calling him a dumbass and then using the Force to make him stick his own foot up his ass.
Re: (Score:2)
To be called a dumbass he'd have to be edited into Star Trek movies.
Re: (Score:2)
Hold on! Good editing can mean the difference between a masterpiece and a turd.
Ironically, the original cut of Star Wars (EP4) was the penultimate example of this... There are several people who will attest that the first edit was horrible.
"The first cut of Star Wars," Burns' narrator says, "was an unmitigated disaster."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040913-692895,00.html [time.com]
Not much more info at that source,
Re: (Score:2)
So you've seen the Blu-Ray releases of the Star Wars series, then, haven't you?
Including the first one? (Score:2)
He used footage from all three prequels, a couple cuts from the original trilogy, some music from The Clone Wars television series, and even a dialogue bit from Anthony Daniels' (C-3PO) audio book recordings.
He used parts of the first one, that most of us desperately tried to forget? If he was in need of material he should have used the deleted scenes [youtube.com] from episode 3, they tell a much deeper story than the final one.
Re: (Score:2)
Just because the first movie was bad, it doesn't mean the individual *scenes* were bad. The same scene can be part of very different stories.
Hayden's best parts (Score:2)
So, I'm assuming they cut Hayden Christensen's part down to only the parts he did well, right?
So, he's no longer in the movie, right?
Re:Hayden's best parts (Score:4, Interesting)
Not a single damn actor in that movie did well. After watching the prequels I had to go peruse some of Natalie Portman's other films. Because I had thought she was a good actor, but was starting to doubt it. Turns out that yes, indeed, she has acting chops. But there's only so much an actor can do with a terrible script, nothing but a green screen to act against, and a director who isn't happy until the actor does exactly what he wants and what he wants is retarded.
Same with Ewan McGregor. To a lesser extent Liam Neeson, Samuel Jackson, and Christopher Lee, but that's because they had less screentime to erase memories of other things they've done.
So, I don't recall seeing Hayden Christiansen in anything else, but my default assumption is that he can probably act but looked horrible in those movies just like everyone else did.
Re:Hayden's best parts (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a single damn actor in that movie did well. After watching the prequels I had to go peruse some of Natalie Portman's other films. Because I had thought she was a good actor, but was starting to doubt it. Turns out that yes, indeed, she has acting chops. But there's only so much an actor can do with a terrible script, nothing but a green screen to act against, and a director who isn't happy until the actor does exactly what he wants and what he wants is retarded.
Same with Ewan McGregor. To a lesser extent Liam Neeson, Samuel Jackson, and Christopher Lee, but that's because they had less screentime to erase memories of other things they've done.
So, I don't recall seeing Hayden Christiansen in anything else, but my default assumption is that he can probably act but looked horrible in those movies just like everyone else did.
You're right, in general everyone did badly. I have seen examples of good acting against a green screen, so I don't think that's the reason. (Or at least, the whole reason.) I think "what the director wants is retarded" is closer to the mark.
I saw Hayden in "Jumper", a movie that didn't totally suck, and he was a bit stiff in that, but not nearly as bad as he was in the SW movies. This could be because he had a better director.
A good director can drag good performances out of a bad actor. (Example, Barry Lyndon (1975)) A bad director can drag bad performance out of nearly anyone.
Remember the old days... (Score:2)
... when copyrights expired in a reasonable amount of time, the public domain existed, it was legal to do this kind of stuff after a film had been out for few years?
Me either, but I gather it was pretty cool.
The same also occured to me. (Score:2)
I figured there might be enough in the 3 pointless terrible movies, to make one ok, slightly less pointless movie.
In Sequence it should go after ESB. Luke has found out Vader is his father, next movie is the back-story on Vader.
Then finish up in Jedi, now if he could do something about the damn ewoks....
Re:Make something new (Score:5, Interesting)
The goal wasn't to make the prequels not suck. He's learning about editing film, and used the prequels as a medium to do so (and probably make a great test case to show both the potential and limitations of post-production editing).
Calculus and science are great, but I don't think everyone should do that and nobody should do art. Once you accept that the entire concept of movies aren't pointless, then learning about editing is a useful skill.
Re: (Score:3)
The goal wasn't to make the prequels not suck. He's learning about editing film, and used the prequels as a medium to do so (and probably make a great test case to show both the potential and limitations of post-production editing).
Calculus and science are great, but I don't think everyone should do that and nobody should do art. Once you accept that the entire concept of movies aren't pointless, then learning about editing is a useful skill.
Please.
He watched some film student sit at a Mac cutting shit together in Final Cut Pro.
Re: (Score:2)
He watched some film student sit at a Mac cutting shit together in Final Cut Pro.
Who are you talking about?
"He" is the film student who was learning about editing by doing it.
Re: (Score:2)
Hi DNS-and-BIND,
Your Limbaughian attempt to lay your failings on others is nearly masterful, but you didn't quite hit all the marks. You had to know when you posted this that your disproportionate hostility towards this individual had to imply that there was some sort of sad, deep-rooted story here about some personal tragedy in your life. It made people curious as to what could have happened to make you so bitter. Then you threw in the bit about how this person should learn calculus instead. Ah... wel
Re: (Score:2)
Movies = entertainment. Science = not entertainment.
Movies = art (yes even crappy ones that's why the phrase 'crappy artwork' exists)
And yes, other posters may have assumed you weren't good enough to be an artist.
I'm saying something much worse about you: That you're too myopic to appreciate the value of art.
And since you did basically suggest that anyone trying to learn a skill involving "entertainment" should do something useful like learn calculus instead, this isn't a baseless assumption.
Casting everyone who replied as saying the exact opposite -- that
Re: (Score:3)
Have you considered learning calculus?
Have you considered learning editing? Topher Grace has.
Re:Make something new (Score:4, Insightful)
Film editing is a profession that requires both talent and experience. He's developing his abilities towards that goal, and if he can 'polish the turd', so to speak, he'll be able to demonstrate his talent. He could end up doing what he wants for a living.
Basically what I'm trying to say we all know you're not curing cancer, getting us into space, or solving world hunger, so just sit down and shut up.
Re: (Score:2)
*golf clap*
Re: (Score:2)
STOP REMIXING OLD CRAP. It won't be good, ever. You can't put lipstick on a pig.
I disagre... putting new special effects in the original trilogy, like Lucas did, is like putting lipstick on a pig. But re-editing a film can make the story and pacing different, and make it considerably better or worse. Plus, when you trim three films down to one, you have more options.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, no. Please, for the love of God, stop assuming everyone has the same preconceptions as you. "Creativity" = ability to entertain other humans.
No, actually. Not in the slightest. So for the love of god, find a dictionary.
Re: (Score:2)
I prefer the fictionary!
Hey, I just made up that word. I is creatives!
Re:Laugh (Score:4, Funny)
Sure you can... ... although admittedly Episode 4 would be a little strange without the Luke character appearing in it at all.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
You can't edit out bad acting Topher.
The season of That 70s Show without Eric says otherwise.
Of course, that didn't edit IN anything worthwhile, either.
Re: (Score:2)
yes you can!
rm -rf /scratch/footage_dump/
Re: (Score:3)
Red Forman's son on That '70s Show.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Sounds like the perfect man. Do you have any other praise, or can you just pass me contact details?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
New Trek was a remake. Expecting something "newish" is a bit retarded really. It's old material. There's only so much you can do while rehashing something like the Illiad or Batman or Sherlock Holmes without completely jumping the shark.