NOTE: This project does not contain any copyrighted footage. It only contains a sequence file allowing users to take their own legally obtained footage, and render them into a re-edited film for personal use.
Questions? Contact me at scott.monaghan@gmail.com
This is one Star Wars fan's passion project, taking the mess of Episodes I-III and editing them into a single, cohesive, and hopefully decent film. It is also an attempt to show this can be done legally and through open source. This repo includes only the Adobe Premiere project files and reference stills.
To watch the movie, legally owned copies of the source films will need to be added to the project, and then the film can be rendered. How do you do that? Instructions below!
This is getting pretty long so I added a...
- Create a single cohesive film that is enjoyable and does not require any previous Star Wars knowledge
- Focus on the Anakin arc from Jedi hero to the dark side, plus the arc of the fall of the Republic in the background
- Ensure that the nothing in the changed edit contradicts Star Wars canon
- When watched in Machete order, the cut should have no spoilers and provide everything needed to bridge between Episodes V-VI
- Cut anything that distracts from above
- Keep the fun popcorn action-adventure tone of the franchise
- Play down and eliminate what I consider to be the most unwatchable elements of the sequels:
- Complex political speeches
- Misfired comic relief (Jar Jar Binks, C3PO & R2D2)
- Anakin's childlike emotional outbursts
- The age difference, lack of believable chemistry, and terrible dialogue between Anakin and Padme
- Editor's Note: The way I look at it is, you don't need to understand why they fell in love, just that they did, if inexplicably. Which, of course, happens all the time in real life. I'm sure anyone can think right now of a friend or family member that is in a relationship with someone that makes absolutely no sense to anyone.
Please let me know if you think I succeeded or not at scott.monaghan@gmail.com!
/u/DudeFromThatOneThing's Reddit Review of v1.1
This is by far the best edit of the prequels I've seen yet. My gf has never seen Star Wars and this is the best condensation of all the important parts for Machete viewing order. Super stoked to introduce her to the saga and not have to worry about losing her interest with the crappy parts of the prequels. Awesome job!
/u/Gray_party_of_2's Reddit Review of v1.1
I got a chance to watch this and I will say that I am very impressed. I very good job. I was surprised by some of the cuts but taken in context of the end goal I think I am on board. I think lots of the action scenes that were cut are fun to watch but in the end are not needed for the story to work and get us to a reasonable movie length. I have not watch any cut version before, so I was going in blind. The opening scene with Darth Mal(sp?) looking right at us and going right into the action was a lot of fun. In closing, I LOVED IT. Thank you so much for sharing!
/u/Devee's Reddit Review of v1.1
I'd never seen any fan edit previously, but I was very happy with Fall of the Jedi. Yes, there were a few cool scenes that I missed, but when considering what story this is intending to tell, namely the fall of the Jedi, it tells a very coherent story. Next time I want to watch the prequels, I think I'm honestly much more likely to watch this Fall of the Jedi cut than any of the original source material...
Fall of the Jedi works well by cutting most of the Phantom Menace. I didn't realize how unimportant it was. Everybody's favorite part is usually Darth Maul, and that was still included in the prologue.
I'm a lot happier with Padme and Anakin's romance in the Fall of the Jedi cut than the original. It's hard for me to remember specifics because it's been a while since I watched it, but I remember there being issues with it. One thing that this cut completely removes is the awkwardness of the age difference...
The jump forward in time was well done. The story worked very well opening on the assassination attempt...
The pacing of the RotS arc was great I thought. Everything made sense. Honestly, I didn't realize things were re-ordered until I re-read the reddit post.
The Attack of the Clones segment seemed a bit rushed to me. There's so much to include that there isn't any down time... A little more breathing room might be nice...
There's also a scene at the end of the Attack of the Clones section in which Anakin asks Padme "you call this a diplomatic solution?" She responds "no, I call it aggressive negotiations." I understand the reference to Anakin's mention of aggressive negotiations, but was Anakin's question about a diplomatic solution a reference to something Padme said? I might have missed it, it might have been cut, or it might not have been a reference. It just felt out of place...
It felt odd not seeing Grievous. I understand the reasoning, but he was cool.
I thought the clones felt rushed because we don't hear very much about them...
/u/button_man's Reddit Review of v1.1
I had seen another edit a few years ago but this one is far and away superior...
I like that there was a coherent story and I tried to watch and judge it as if I had no knowledge of the prequels. I think this movie was successful as a standalone...
You also somehow made the Anakin/Padme romance less awkward so well done. I also appreciated how many callbacks in the dialog were preserved in the new cut...
Overall this was fantastic! I will definitely be rewatching it in the future and hope to show friends that have never seen the prequels before and hear their take on it. Also I loved the Marvel-esque mid credits scene for the kids. Great work and thanks again for sharing...
My one criticism would be that (especially in the first half) a lot of moments didn't feel like they had a chance to land. We would see a scene and then immediately transition to something else without a moment for breath...
- Added back in the Dooku battle from ROTS
- I had tried this with my first two releases but I just couldn't get it in cleanly without bloating the film.
- The lack of closure with Dooku as the major-established villian always REALLY bugged me.
- I think I finally got it with this release.
- Shortened the car-chase from AOTC - it just went on for too long!
- Cleaned up the Obi-Wan / Anakin duel significantly
Updated Ending
- Props to http://reddit.com/u/noodle-flinger for inspiration
- Removed excess dialogue and reactions surrounding padme’s delivery and death
- Split Padme’s delivery and transformation into Vader into two separate sequences
- Removed Padme naming Leia as to not serve as spoiler for ROTJ when watching in machete order
- Added rhythmic fadeouts to simulate Vader’s coming in and out of consciousness during his surgery
- Cut directly from Padme’s death to Vader’s rise
- Removed Vader’s zombie walk and NOooOOOOooOOoOO
- Removed “what do we do with the kids and where do we go now” conversation between Yoda, Obi Wan and Organa
- Cut right to “Directed by George Lucas” following Vader, Palpatine, and Tarkin looking over the construction of the Death Star
- Updated the initial (non-scrolling) credits to include credits from all 3 movies without split screen
- Add Mr. Pitiful:) to the credits as one of the editors
- Moved hopeful delivery of Leia and Luke to mid-credits scene
- (an attempt at a humorous take on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s habit of post-credit scenes teasing future films)
Initial Release!
- Wanted to focus on the Anakin's arc plus the arc of the fall of the Republic in the background. Anything that didn't move the story forward I cut, while trying to have it make sense for anyone who has never seen Star Wars
- Cut all of Phantom Menace except the Darth Maul fight as a prologue
- Started right from the 2nd assassination of padme to establish Anakin, Obi Wan, and Padme's characters
- Cut all of Kamino (Obi Wan explains through exposition)
- Cut all references to Padme and Anakin's age difference
- Kept a bare minimum of Anakin / Padme on Naboo to establish that they are into each other
- Cut all of Anakin & Padme's trip to Tatooine and his mother
- Cut all R2 D2 / C3PO slapstick
- Cut all Jar Jar
- Simplified Geonosis
- Cut factory battle
- Cut monsters from arena
- Lowered the cheese level on Padme's love declaration
- Cut opening battle from III (Obi Wan delivers it through exposition)
- Reordered scenes to clarify the fear of losing Padme as Anakin's primary motivation with Palpatine offering his only out and the Jedi not treating him well
- Cut all of the Obi Wan / General Grevious to focus on Anakin just hearing about it, and becoming more resentful he is left out
- Separated Yoda/Palpatine from Obi Wan/Anakin to allow the Y/P to serve as warmup for the OW/A main event
- Removed evidence that Obi Wan was on Padme's ship to Mustafar so we don't see Obi Wan until Padme does, our hopes crushed with hers :)
- Plus a whole bunch of other small things to make it all work
- Download the ZIP file containing the Adobe Premiere project
- Replace the offline source footage with legally obtained footage of Episodes I-III
- Align the footage in the Alignment Sequences with the included reference frames
- Render and enjoy!
- Adobe Premiere CC 2016 or later
- Available for $19.99 - $29.99/mo from Adobe Creative Cloud
- Legal digital copies of Star Wars Episodes I - III
- From iTunes Store (recommended)
- Have non-iTunes legal digital copies of Episodes I - III?
- Don't worry, they will likely still work. You just need to get them into a format that you can import into Premiere
- Email me at scott.monaghan@gmail.com and I can help if you have any trouble
- Noteburner (only for iTunes copies of the movies)
- Removes DRM from iTunes movies to allow them to be imported into Premiere
- $19.99 from noteburner.com
- The latest commit of this Premiere Project!
In order to import your source files into Premiere, you will need to make sure DRM is removed. If you already have legal DRM-free digital copies of Episodes I-III you can skip this step. This tutorial only covers removing DRM from movies downloaded from the iTunes store. If you own legal copies in a different format, (e.g. Blu-Ray), contact me at scott.monaghan@gmail.com and I'll give you a hand. Also, if you happen to be successful doing this yourself and want to update this tutorial with instructions, feel free to update and send me a pull request.
- Be sure you've downloaded all 3 movies on your local copy of iTunes
- Open Noteburner M4V Plus
- Select Episodes I-III (it should look like the screenshot above)
- Press Convert NOTE: This can take A WHILE. You might want to leave this running over night
- When finished, spot check your videos to be sure to check that the audio and video properly converted
- The unzipped file structure should look similar to above.
- Don't worry if the hidden files are missing (.DS_Store, .git, .gitignore)
- After copying the source the file structure should look like above
- Again, don't worry if the hidden files are missing (.DS_Store, .git, .gitignore)
- Open Star_Wars_Fall_of_the_Jedi.mrpitiful_fan_edit.prproj in Adobe Premiere
- In the project window, expand the Source > Raw Footage Folder
- The 3 clips should have question marks as shown below:
- Right-Click (Windows) or Control-Click (Mac) on Star Wars_ Attack of the Clones.mp4 and choose "Replace Footage..."
- Find select Star Wars_Attack of the Clones.mp4 on disk
- After selecting the clip in the Premiere Project pane should have changed from a question mark to an audio/video icon:
- Repeat steps 4-6 for Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith
If you've used the iTunes versions of these movies, chances are, everything is now aligned properly, but it's a good idea to check, and if you are using another footage source, this step is crucial.
To get this whole thing to work, I have a single reference frame in video track 3 of Alignment Sequences of the exact point when the Star Wars logo first appears. As long as you align the clip in video track 2 to match the reference frame perfectly, the edits for the whole movie should be correct.
- Expand the "Episode I" folder under the "Source" folder in the Project window
- Double Click on "Episode I Alignment Sequence"
- In the Sequence pane target the V3 track
- Click on the V3 and make sure it is dark blue as shown below:
- Be sure the Sequence pane is selected and press the down arrow key until the blue scrubber is lined up exactly at the beginning of the clip in V3 as so:
- Click the eye icon to toggle the visibility on and off on V3 while watching the Preview pane
- You should see no change or jump in the preview window.
- If you do, slide the V2 clip left/right until it lines up perfectly to the frame
- The preview window should look like this:
- IMPORTANT: make sure to toggle OFF visibility of V3 when done otherwise you might end up rendering the reference frame in the final cut
- Repeat steps 1-6 for Episode II and Episode III
- Find the "Star_Wars_Fall_of_the_Jedi.mrpitiful_fan_edit.x.x" sequence in the Project pane.
- Right-Click (Windows) or Control-Click (Mac) on the "Star_Wars_Fall_of_the_Jedi.mrpitiful_fan_edit.x.x" sequence.
- Choose "Export Media..."
- Export to your favorite format
Recommended Export Settings:
NOTE: Exporting the video can take a long time, depending on the speed of your computer