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Dakbykayk, I gather that last jdownloader tip I sent you finally got it to download properly? Congrats!
Thank you for your interest and the very thorough analysis you wrote. I always appreciate feedback, even when we have to agree to disagree on a number of points. I'm sorry some story changes I made didn't work for you, and I look forward to checking out your own take on things in the future.
The only thing I'll comment on is your reference to some poor audio & video in various scenes. I am a picky viewer as well, and that is fine, but it is worth noting that a number scenes you referenced as being poorly edited are scenes where I actually didn't change a thing. So some of your complaints you will have to take up with Peter Jackson instead of me! I guess this is why Neglify, wisely, recommended I do a proper cutlist. At some point I will get that posted up and you can check it out and compare.
Thanks to feedback from emanswfan and my own frustrations with how the video quality on the final render turned out, I finally got inspired to re-render the blu-ray video with a few tweaked settings. It looks much better now! It is still a little more compressed than ideal but a vast improvement over the previous video.
I have not taken the old version down yet, but when I do it will be down for a day or two. The old DLC should still work since it just links to a mediafire folder. I will post here when it goes down and when it comes back up.
Ugh, its always something with this edit. MultiAVCHD is suddenly not working for me for some inexplicable reason. The program won't properly start up. Can anyone confirm whether it is working ok for them? I'm wondering if it auto-updated something that has nuked it.
Ugh, its always something with this edit. MultiAVCHD is suddenly not working for me for some inexplicable reason. The program won't properly start up. Can anyone confirm whether it is working ok for them? I'm wondering if it auto-updated something that has nuked it.
It's working fine for me. There are no updates by the way. MultiAVCHD is no longer developed. The last update was on September 9, 2010. Source:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/multiAVCHD
Watched this yesterday, at last. From the ideas and thoughts I had heard Geminigod speak about when it was in the works I had some great hopes for this, even to the point where I hoped that I wouldn't have to finish my own edit of the movie! That didn't happen, and I'll talk about why here. This post will contain MASSIVE SPOILERS. I've included the cutlist here as a reference to what I'm talking about. I appriciate the cutlist very much!
geminigod said:
CUTLIST
*All timecodes correspond to Rebuilt edit timeline*
0:04:27 - Rebuilt title added.
0:15:01 - Numerous cuts in following scenes. Aragorn and crew chase scenes get spliced together & Mary & Pip scenes get cut. Prologue scenes introducing Rohan characters get for pacing reasons and because they tell us nothing we don't learn through our main characters in their journey just like in the book. 0:18:26 - Saruman monologue tightened. section cut after "a new order will rise." 0:19:38 - tiny changes to kids on horse scene & some slow motion. 0:20:29 - cut to fellowship meeting Eomer. here and later through gandolf we learn every thing we need to know about the state of affairs in Rohan. Anything not told we quickly figure out with the characters once arriving at Edoras. 0:25:28 - much reordering, splicing, cutting, trickery, & audio work to keep fellowship scenes together so that we feel what they feel about the fate of the hobbits. 0:26-35 - flashback to Mary & Pip with orcs camped at edge of Fangorn Forest. 0:27:00 - Cut to make Mary more ignorant about Ents & not give away that surprise for audience. 0:27:28 - much splicing, score, & foley work to keep all mary & pip scenes together. also some slow motion. 0:50:34 - Resequencing of Forest landscape pan shots in this scene. Some used for later scene at end. some slow motion & new fades. 0:56:29 - Some cuts & audio work to make it more convincing that Frodo wouldn't be scene running down the hill & trying to rescue Sam. 0:59:34 - Cut the drinking of the ent water for pacing and to skip the getting buried by the roots scene that looks terrible IMO. (this one was a hard cut for me because I do love the banter here between mary & pip). 1:19:00 - Cut mad horse stable scene. Also cut Wormtongue & Saruman discussion about Aragorn. Also cut a few Theoden lines. 1:21:05 - Major resequencing, audio work, & cuts to remove all warg stuff. Two different wormtongue scenes are combined with new voiceover as Rohan people trek toward Helm's Deep. Gandolf reveals his army much earlier and sends them off to war. Time is of the essence for our heroes. Tension maxed (hopefully) for audience right at middle point of this movie. 1:22:39 - All ent scenes except for end battle are now resequenced to come earlier in movie as well so overall timeline is as close to accurate as possible. Here we cut to Treebeard & hobbits watching Saruman's army marching away, and then entmoot begins. (Remember that in order for the trees to march all the way to Helm's Deep in time to squash orcs, they shouldn't leave more than a day or two behind the orcs.) 1:34:24 - Minor slow motion, removal of to be continued, cut to resequenced scene of Aragorn revealing his age to Eowyn. 1:38:45 - The Arwen flashbacks are shortened to the essentials & intercut with Aragorn speaking wtih Eowyn while they march. I very much like the idea that Aragorn doesn't know whether or not Eowyn has departed these shores. His doubts gnaw at him here. Hopefully the way it is cut retains the poinancy of the Arwen & Aragorn relationship while getting through it faster. 1:42:52 - Some purty slow motion & crossfade. 1:43:12 - Resequence and small section cut from conversation between Elrond & Galadriel. No reference is now made to "The Captain Of Gondor" specifically. 1:45:30 - Resequence of scene about dwarf women. 1:46:44 - Many changes. All warg stuff & Aragorn going off cliff and relevant Arwen stuff related to this cut. Instead everyone enters Helm's Deep together. 1:48:04 - A bit of foley work & foreshadowing of what we were told about earlier now regarding the weakness of the wall. The original voice over in this scene was movied to earlier in the movie. 1:48:09 - Resequenced cut to Forbidden Pool. 1:52:08 - Small trim to beginning of Boromir flashback & some audio work. Beginning speach is pointless and works better starting flashback focused on Faramir, considering it is his memory we are seeing. I also prefer the audio fading in with the "For Gondor" chant. 1:55:51 - small trim & fade out tweak for consistent looking flashback transitions. 2:03:16 - Resequenced cut to night entmoot scene (with small trim) in which it is decided that hobbits are not orcs. Audience is left hanging on entmoot decision. (a previous entmoot scene is cut entirely for the sake of pacing & flow.) 2:05:06 - Numerous small cuts to remove some lines where fellowship is pointlessly undermining and questioning Theoden's orders except for Gimly's line about "this is no small band of orcs." That line is relevant. The rest just weaken Theoden's character and make the fellowship sound whiny, or even worse, the fellowship gives bad advice such as sending out riders. That is what Gandolf is doing! And as if riders could accomplish anything at this juncture even if they somehow managed to not get killed by the approaching enemy army. 2:06:38 - Numerous small trims & tricks throughout these scenes to hide as best I could the ripped & bloodied patches on both of Aragorn's arms. The "You must rest" line is kept. It might seem out of context now, but it wouldn't feel that way if you had never seen the original version. You would just assume that this means his is working harder than everyone else and not sleeping in order to get everything ready before army arrives. This is a good thing for Aragorn's character. 2:08:25 - Scenes of Aragorn fight with Legolas and acting like a whiny bitch cut. Pace quickened. 2:10:10 - Aragorn is our superstar giving everyone hope and being the man he needs to be. 2:11:47 - Cute loving fellowship scene that is now an expression of love and support amongst friends before the battle instead of an apology. 2:17:14 - "So it begins" Theoden line cut. 2:19:39 - Beginning here in the battle many cuts start to occur to keep the battle more realistic and serious. Less ladders knocked over, which is completely unrealistic in medieval warfare. (consider the physics involved & consider that if it were possible, why wouldn't they just do that to every ladder before a single orc could climb up?) Legolas shenanigans toned down.
2:22:49 - All of ent scenes removed here and resequenced later in movie. 2:24:20 - Aragorn no longer commits suicide by jumping off the deeping wall into the entire horde of orcs with spears raised and then somehow surviving all alone and getting back on the other side of the wall. Oh, also cut to resequenced osgiliath scene. 2:28:09 - Orc doesn't jump on Aragorn's back like a fucking tard. The remote possibility that Aragorn & Gimli might survive their heroic sacrifice to give time to bar the door now more believable. 2:28:43 - Very important cut back to resequenced osgiliath scene. In original this flows right into next Helm's Deep scene where they fall back to the keep for the last stand. Effectually it makes it seem as if Aragorn's and Gimli's sacrifice was totally pointless since they break through moments later. 2:29:50 - minor trims & setup for major obvious change with all new flashback scene where everything clicks for Faramir at the realization how his brother died. The death of and love for his brother and the revelation coming in this place where he last saw Boromir is the trigger that allows Faramir to break free of the ring's hold over him. NOT SEEING FRODO TRY TO HAND THE RING TO A FRIGGIN NAZGUL! That would only succeed in driving any sane man to take the ring from Frodo immediately and never let that weak-ass hobbit anywhere near Morder. 2:33:13 - Deleted nonsense about there being a way to get the women and children out. How could there be? Plus it was already stated earlier that there wasn't any way out. Why not have everyone escape that way then? Plus it just robs the movie of tension if there is a way out. 2:35:12 - Horse charge down the bridge cut back to a plausible looking length of charge instead of bowling through every single orc down the entire length of the bridge. 2:36:25 - Minor trim to tighten up gandolf horse charge so that horses hit orcs right as the sunlight blinds them instead of when they are only halfway down the hill with time to adjust and reset the defensive line. 2:36:39 - Lots of resequencing, cutting, slow motion, & audio work to quickly segue to Sam speech without jarring audience more than necessary in the transition.
2:38:10 - New forest shots (one shot taken from Planet Earth) for Sam voice over.
2:39:36 - small cuts and audio work to remove lines about "You know the rules of your father" stuff.
2:40:37 - New transition after orcs get squashed by trees at Helm's Deep to Treebeard at Isengard. Treebeard scene is cut to show that Entmoot definitely decided on war. We see the trees head off to chase down the orcs, which hopefully cues the audience in that these events are actually taking place earlier (days earlier) in time prior to the Battle of Helm's Deep. The scenes of Ents attacking Isengard are all spliced together. Even spliced together the scene is still only five minutes long. There is never much doubt that they won't succeed, so instead of intercutting with Helm's Deep and breaking the tension of that scene (as well as confounding the timeline), we now get a happy ending epilogue of Ent ass whooping. Many splice cuts, music, foley & slow motion work in Ent battle.
2:45:14 - Unfortunately quick shot of Aragorn embracing Eowyn was necessarily cut. It just didn't flow properly anymore.
2:45:50 - Small trims to Mary & Pip epilogue scene referencing the growth spurt scene earlier that was cut and some not-so-great comedic lines. Scene ends on the stronger line about "could be a distant relative" instead of "don't be hasty."
2:53:48 - Credit additions & adjustment.
So let's get started!
It's different, watching an edit where you already have your own version planned out. You discover some things that can be done in better ways, and at other times you are seeing what's been left in that you have taken out yourself. I'll try to stick to what works for the movie here, and not get stuck on artistic differences.
First major change in the movie is that we don't see Merry and Pippin at all early on, the reasons for this have been given and make sense. But (always a "but" aint there?) when we first zoom in on Aragorn he states that "their pace is quickened..." and we came to this shot straight from Frodo & Co. Even I, knowing the movies by heart at this point, wondered for a second whom he was talking about. The trouble is that you are not helping the audience at all here. Even if we can assume that they saw the first one, they might not remember exactly what happened at the end of FotR. The names of Merry and Pip and not mentioned, nor anything about orcs.
Suggestion: instead of coming in on Aragorn listening we could come in on the sweeping shots of them running. It gives the audience a moment to think back to why they are running, and is less likely to casue that jarring little moment when you might think they are chasing Frodo.
This decision to take one story at a time also sets up the very tricky edits of the orc camp site, for both parties. For me, this one didn't pay off.
Rohan introduction gone. I totally get the point of following our main characters. We still get some sort of intro later on with the Eowyn/Grima scene, where no protagonists are present...you could skip that one too, to be consistent. I like the Rohan parts (mostly) but they can be removed like this. The fellows meeting with Eomer is a good introduction for him!
I like the line "it's the trees", I think it's well delivered.
Much better scene at the Black gate, though I dislike Sam's falling at all. And the soldiers still get extremely close before Frodo hides them.
I love the funeral scene, but it doesn't have such an impact with so many Rohan scenes gone from earlier on.
Some good cuts follow here...mad horse and some tightened dialogue.
Entmoot earlier on: very good.
I truly dislike that Eowyn does horrible stew.
The Arwen/Aragorn stuff gets a bit much here...I like them, but it gets...slow? Combined with less action the journey and arrival at Helm's Deep feels a little 'meh'. It's odd to focus on Eowyn here, I'd suggest using the "make way for the king" scene as an arrival for everyone.
Much of the Warg stuff is of course horrible, so no problem that it's gone. But you set up a bunch of problems later on...
The main problem as I see it, is that they know nothing about Saruman's forces. As we don't get the scene where Aragorn returns with news of the Uruk-hai, there isn't any information about what's facing them or when. Add to that the feeling of despair that creeps over them, Theoden's speech, the boy saying they won't live the night, the mood of the scenes, it doesn't make sense. You are not providing the characters with the means to feel like they do.
It's very good that Aragorn doesn't undermine Theoden. Thank you.
With the addition of the elves they should feel almost glad, safe!
On the note of the elves: I don't mind them at all. They make perfect movie sense. My issue is that they have all too little impact on what follows. And I don't see a way to fix it.
Legolas saying that Aragorn needs to rest doesn't work. Start in on Eowyn a moment later instead.
At 2:08 you have a sound remnant going in to the shot of the wall. I think it's marching orcs.
Some good tweaks to the preperations, and several good changes during the actual battle. I like the current flow of it.
Very important change of timing for Gandalf's light. Thank you.
Faramir: some bold editing here! I really like this effort. I was moved on the second flash back's last part, the one where the ring is in focus again (in Osgiliath). Something I don't like is that Sam tells everyone about the One Ring right there and then ("You want to know why Boromir died?").
Sam's speech. I'm sorry, I can't like this. It's one of his finest moments in the series, and the imagery you inserted doesn't work. It's a big fat 'huh?' moment. And the nazgul scene before it, and Frodo's "I can't do this"...no. You lost me here :sad:
It is VERY good that Frodo doesn't walk up to the Nazgul and faramir sees it. It is one of those shockingly stupid moments of the movie series. Which is sad, because it is also beautiful!
All the ent stuff in one go - I get the motivation, but I don't think it worked out to your favour. I prefer it the way it was. Very awkward cut back to Helm's for the Legolas/Gimli scene.
I liked a lot of what I saw, I disagreed with more than a few things. I would have liked the editing to be even bolder, but we should remember that this is supposed to fit in with the other two movies, un-edited. So I guess it can't stray too much...
Some editing choices didn't work for me, others were very good indeed. Video editing is great in general. There is the one scene with the flying nazgul that didn't look good (to me) and then there is the fades...I found them ok. Sound editing is great in general, and I know how hard this one is with the sound. I did notice some sudden drops in music level and the like, but only the one bit clearly out of place (as mentioned above).
So, I have finally finished re-doing the BD version of this for myself. There are no editing changes, just an improvement to the video quality.
I am reluctant to re-upload and change links unless somebody requests that I do so with the intent that they will actually download it. I recognize that this edit is very specific to my critical desires for The Two Towers and has less mass appeal than my Matrix edit did from a story standpoint.
That said... if there is somebody else out there who loved it and wants a higher quality video version for their collection, Please let me know.
Based on feedback, perhaps the most disputed scene in this fanedit is the line where Legolas says, "Aragorn, you must rest. You are no use to us dead." Critics have frequently scratched their heads and expressed frustration to me that this was not removed, as if it were some accidental oversight I made. Truly from the context of the original movie, it makes sense why people consider it to be an oversight. In the original Aragorn falls off a cliff and doesn't return for a day. In my edit he does not.
Which brings me to the crux of the great fanediting challenge. Audiences come into a fanedit with tremendous bias based on their knowledge of the original movie. The line was intentionally kept because I wanted to convey the sense that our hero, Aragorn, was not sitting idly by waiting for the battle to start like in the theatrical version but was instead working harder than everybody else to make sure all preparations were in order. I strongly believe that if one had never seen the original this would have been implied and not confusing at all, however because it is a fanedit that was not the case.
Who is at fault for this confusion? The audience with their bias? Or the faneditor for not taking into consideration the audience's bias? I'm not sure there is a right or wrong answer here, but it is an important question for faneditors to think about.
I'm not one to use the word fault here as it has a negative, 'you're doing it wrong' and 'you don't understand my art'
connotation, but I put the cause of such confusion on the preconceived notions that the audience can bring with them when viewing a fanedit. I view this as one of the inherent risks/downsides of fanediting - It is hard to unlearn what you have learned about a movie and character motivations.
I think it is particularly difficult with fanedits which do not radically alter the story to such a degree that it forces the viewer to abandon their previous understanding of the story and characters. Where the story itself remains largely intact, it is a lot more challenging to check yourself at the door
This is an area where a few fanedit rules seem to be at odds with each other, but IMNSHO, really do hold-up under scrutiny,
On one hand you have the 'Edit for yourself' rule. On the other hand, you have the rule that your edit needs to hold up on its own and not require explanations from the editor, or rely on the viewer to either make leaps of logic on their own to reach a conclusion, or rely on their pre-existing knowledge of the material to know why something happened, or that something happened offscreen.
Logically, if you release your fanedit publicly and wish to avoid criticism, then it would seem that the latter rule trumps to former rule.
HOWEVER, while it is important to edit so that the story holds up under scrutiny and shouldn't require explanation from the editor (such as explaining plot-holes etc...) neither should an editor have to OVER-edit in order to compensate people's tendency to not check their baggage at the door.
I guess this is why Neglify, wisely, recommended I do a proper cutlist. At some point I will get that posted up and you can check it out and compare.
