7 ms·

I really like the idea of torrents being used to distribute anonymous derivative works of copyrighted media. I recently created a fan edit of "Star Wars: Episo

I really like the idea of torrents being used to distribute anonymous derivative works of copyrighted media. I recently created a fan edit of "Star Wars: Episode II - The Phantom Menace" for my dad for Christmas. I removed Jar Jar Binks and the entire Gungan subplot. I tried to keep the edits as subtle as possible, and I learned a lot about the editing techniques and transitions used in the film. I wanted to release it, but I decided that the risk outweighed my confidence in my anonymity skills.

dudurocha 11y ago
You can send to him "The Phatom Edit" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Edit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Edit. It is already widespread all over the internet (even in youtube) and has the same objetive of your edition (Jar Jar binks is gone as well).
- deckar01 11y ago
  How did I not know that existed? I named mine "The Gungan Minus". We watched it together on Christmas Eve.
  - david-given 11y ago
    There's a bunch of Phantom Edits; the name's been reused several times. The one I watched was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9LEhOZZbuk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9LEhOZZbuk All three prequel movies edited down into a single 2-hour film. And you know what? It's actually... still not what you'd call good. But it's embarrassingly better than the originals. But there are others, like the Phantom Re-edit, which tries to improve on characters like Jar-Jar and the Trade Federation by scrambling their speech into traditional Star Wars Alien, and subtitling them. With different dialogue. It's supposed to be pretty good, but I've never tracked down a copy. I do wonder if the lasting legacy of the terrible prequels will turn out to be teaching an entire generation about film editing!
    - sawwit 11y ago
      How come this is still on YouTube? Isn't this copyright infringement?
      - zaroth 11y ago
        "All trademarked and copyrighted liscences are property of their repsective owners." Obviously some magic YouTube incantation to protect against take-downs :-/ With 1m+ views, it's nice to see it's made it so long. Don't feel good about its prospects for much longer though!
        Flammy 11y ago
        The 'magic' is called Content-ID and it looks for video and audio matches with content uploaded to a private (and unviewable) system by copyright holders and it takes automated action if a match is detected. Theoretically any matches are reviewed by a human, but they make it quiet easy to automate the 'review' process. Automated actions are typically Claim-Remove (claim content for copyright holder, remove from YouTube) for some content types (Movies, TV shows, some music) or Claim-Monetize (claim content, ad advertisements if there were not already on, and if they were already on all revenue is redirected to claimant). This automated system is actually what causes the majority of 'this content is not available in your country' messages, as if it gets claimed by a studio / copyright holder who only has the rights distribute in USA and UK for example, everyone else would see that error message after it has been claimed-monetized. In case anyone was curious.
        xkcd-sucks 11y ago
        How does a group get upload access to ContentID? Can a small independent record label or filmmaker use ContentID to protect their works, or does one have to be a member of a AA?
        Flammy 11y ago
        You can apply. Manual approval and doesn't seem to be the most consistent. https://www.youtube.com/content_id_signup https://www.youtube.com/content_id_signup
- CWuestefeld 11y ago
  Another movie I'd love to see something like this for is Fast Times at Ridgemont High. There exists a TV-friendly cut that removes all nudity, and inserts a couple of extra scenes (like Spicoli in the boys' room bragging to his stoner buds about what he's going to do to Mr. Hand). I'd love an edit that starts with the R-rated release, and adds in the extra TV-friendly footage.
  - sixothree 11y ago
    I'd like Breakfast at Tiffany's without the racism.
bane 11y ago
You should probably also know about the "Despecialized" editions of the original trilogy which removes the CGI crap and restores the original movies (more or less) as they were, with some color correction and other odds and ends.
- cptskippy 11y ago
  > with some color correction and other odds and ends. So they removed Luca's artistic touches and replaced them with their own?
  - emergentcypher 11y ago
    No, the goal is to remove Lucas' artistic touches and get as close as possible to the original theatrical releases. Color correction means reversing all the color changes that Lucas made to the movies. Where higher quality film of a scene exists, they splice it in. Etc. If you google a bit you can find a detailed explanation of the changes.
    - cptskippy 11y ago
      Ok, the way it was worded it sounded like the color corrections were embellishment and not restoration.
    - zodPod 11y ago
      For the record, the proper way to make a possessive out of a name that ends in s is just to use 's. It should be Lucas's. s' is only for when something is owned by more than one object. Think animals' house where there are several animals. http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/possessives.htm http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/possessives.htm
      - bane 11y ago
        Some writers will say that the -s after Charles' is not necessary and that adding only the apostrophe (Charles' car) will suffice to show possession. Consistency is the key here: if you choose not to add the -s after a noun that already ends in s, do so consistently throughout your text. William Strunk's Elements of Style recommends adding the 's. (In fact, oddly enough, it's Rule Number One in Strunk's "Elementary Rules of Usage.") You will find that some nouns, especially proper nouns, especially when there are other -s and -z sounds involved, turn into clumsy beasts when you add another s: "That's old Mrs. Chambers's estate." In that case, you're better off with "Mrs. Chambers' estate."
ergothus 11y ago
I was shocked when I discovered that if you just removed every scene with Jar Jar + pod race, the movie REALLY tightened up. Not because Jar Jar is offensive/stupid, but because a lot of of the pacing and tension are thrown off. It's like he was added into an existing decent script, with minimal effort made to integrate the new parts. (No idea if that's true, but that's how it feels)
- Pxtl 11y ago
  I watched Ep 1 again recently and IMHO Anikin is the worst part, not Jar Jar. Most of Jar Jar's scenes are blissfully short and at least the kids enjoy slapstick. Anikin entertains nobody, and he's critical to the plot. And he destroyed the enemy force by accident.
  - ergothus 11y ago
    I can't argue about any of that - I just found that Jar Jar was STRUCTURALLY problematic, not plot problematic.
    - tim333 11y ago
      Jar Jar's also unusually annoying.
rsync 11y ago
"I really like the idea of torrents being used to distribute anonymous derivative works of copyrighted media." This reminds me of fan-provided (third party) commentary tracks. Are those still a thing ? When I first heard of this, many years ago, I was very excited about the idea of seeing interesting films with interesting background/commentary/metadata provided by well-informed commentators. Did that ever go anywhere ? Do people still do that ? Any golden examples of this kind of work that I should look into ?
- stordoff 11y ago
  Giant Bomb have been dabbling with this in their "Film & 40s" podcasts (more for entertainments sake than being well-informed though). For anyone with a GB Premium account, links are: Rocky IV - http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/film-40s-rocky-iv/1600-1151/ http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/film-40s-rocky-iv/1600-115... Hunt for Red October - http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/film-and-40s-the-hunt-for-red-october/1600-1303/ http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/film-and-40s-the-hunt-for-...
- MarkSweep 11y ago
  There is RiffTrax: http://www.rifftrax.com/ http://www.rifftrax.com/
  - MikeNomad 11y ago
    Wasn't that originally MST3K?
    - milkey_mouse 11y ago
      Yes
- soylentcola 11y ago
  I mostly just know of the usual comedy sync-tracks like MST3K and its successors in Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic. Also, if you're at all a fan (or not) of the Harry Potter movies, there's a great alt audio track called "Wizard People, Dear Reader". For that one, you either turn off the audio in the movie (or at least turn it way down so you can still sorta hear the music) and play the alternate narration. The premise is kind of the story as told by someone who's never heard the actual narrative, but I think the humor shows that he was at least a bit familiar with it.

dudurocha 11y ago

You can send to him "The Phatom Edit" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Edit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Edit. It is already widespread all over the internet (even in youtube) and has the same objetive of your edition (Jar Jar binks is gone as well).

deckar01 11y ago
How did I not know that existed? I named mine "The Gungan Minus". We watched it together on Christmas Eve.
- david-given 11y ago
  There's a bunch of Phantom Edits; the name's been reused several times. The one I watched was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9LEhOZZbuk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9LEhOZZbuk All three prequel movies edited down into a single 2-hour film. And you know what? It's actually... still not what you'd call good. But it's embarrassingly better than the originals. But there are others, like the Phantom Re-edit, which tries to improve on characters like Jar-Jar and the Trade Federation by scrambling their speech into traditional Star Wars Alien, and subtitling them. With different dialogue. It's supposed to be pretty good, but I've never tracked down a copy. I do wonder if the lasting legacy of the terrible prequels will turn out to be teaching an entire generation about film editing!
  - sawwit 11y ago
    How come this is still on YouTube? Isn't this copyright infringement?
    - zaroth 11y ago
      "All trademarked and copyrighted liscences are property of their repsective owners." Obviously some magic YouTube incantation to protect against take-downs :-/ With 1m+ views, it's nice to see it's made it so long. Don't feel good about its prospects for much longer though!
      - Flammy 11y ago
        The 'magic' is called Content-ID and it looks for video and audio matches with content uploaded to a private (and unviewable) system by copyright holders and it takes automated action if a match is detected. Theoretically any matches are reviewed by a human, but they make it quiet easy to automate the 'review' process. Automated actions are typically Claim-Remove (claim content for copyright holder, remove from YouTube) for some content types (Movies, TV shows, some music) or Claim-Monetize (claim content, ad advertisements if there were not already on, and if they were already on all revenue is redirected to claimant). This automated system is actually what causes the majority of 'this content is not available in your country' messages, as if it gets claimed by a studio / copyright holder who only has the rights distribute in USA and UK for example, everyone else would see that error message after it has been claimed-monetized. In case anyone was curious.
        xkcd-sucks 11y ago
        How does a group get upload access to ContentID? Can a small independent record label or filmmaker use ContentID to protect their works, or does one have to be a member of a AA?
        Flammy 11y ago
        You can apply. Manual approval and doesn't seem to be the most consistent. https://www.youtube.com/content_id_signup https://www.youtube.com/content_id_signup
CWuestefeld 11y ago
Another movie I'd love to see something like this for is Fast Times at Ridgemont High. There exists a TV-friendly cut that removes all nudity, and inserts a couple of extra scenes (like Spicoli in the boys' room bragging to his stoner buds about what he's going to do to Mr. Hand). I'd love an edit that starts with the R-rated release, and adds in the extra TV-friendly footage.
- sixothree 11y ago
  I'd like Breakfast at Tiffany's without the racism.

bane 11y ago

You should probably also know about the "Despecialized" editions of the original trilogy which removes the CGI crap and restores the original movies (more or less) as they were, with some color correction and other odds and ends.

cptskippy 11y ago
> with some color correction and other odds and ends. So they removed Luca's artistic touches and replaced them with their own?
- emergentcypher 11y ago
  No, the goal is to remove Lucas' artistic touches and get as close as possible to the original theatrical releases. Color correction means reversing all the color changes that Lucas made to the movies. Where higher quality film of a scene exists, they splice it in. Etc. If you google a bit you can find a detailed explanation of the changes.
  - cptskippy 11y ago
    Ok, the way it was worded it sounded like the color corrections were embellishment and not restoration.
  - zodPod 11y ago
    For the record, the proper way to make a possessive out of a name that ends in s is just to use 's. It should be Lucas's. s' is only for when something is owned by more than one object. Think animals' house where there are several animals. http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/possessives.htm http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/possessives.htm
    - bane 11y ago
      Some writers will say that the -s after Charles' is not necessary and that adding only the apostrophe (Charles' car) will suffice to show possession. Consistency is the key here: if you choose not to add the -s after a noun that already ends in s, do so consistently throughout your text. William Strunk's Elements of Style recommends adding the 's. (In fact, oddly enough, it's Rule Number One in Strunk's "Elementary Rules of Usage.") You will find that some nouns, especially proper nouns, especially when there are other -s and -z sounds involved, turn into clumsy beasts when you add another s: "That's old Mrs. Chambers's estate." In that case, you're better off with "Mrs. Chambers' estate."

ergothus 11y ago

I was shocked when I discovered that if you just removed every scene with Jar Jar + pod race, the movie REALLY tightened up. Not because Jar Jar is offensive/stupid, but because a lot of of the pacing and tension are thrown off. It's like he was added into an existing decent script, with minimal effort made to integrate the new parts. (No idea if that's true, but that's how it feels)

Pxtl 11y ago
I watched Ep 1 again recently and IMHO Anikin is the worst part, not Jar Jar. Most of Jar Jar's scenes are blissfully short and at least the kids enjoy slapstick. Anikin entertains nobody, and he's critical to the plot. And he destroyed the enemy force by accident.
- ergothus 11y ago
  I can't argue about any of that - I just found that Jar Jar was STRUCTURALLY problematic, not plot problematic.
  - tim333 11y ago
    Jar Jar's also unusually annoying.

rsync 11y ago

"I really like the idea of torrents being used to distribute anonymous derivative works of copyrighted media." This reminds me of fan-provided (third party) commentary tracks. Are those still a thing ? When I first heard of this, many years ago, I was very excited about the idea of seeing interesting films with interesting background/commentary/metadata provided by well-informed commentators. Did that ever go anywhere ? Do people still do that ? Any golden examples of this kind of work that I should look into ?

stordoff 11y ago
Giant Bomb have been dabbling with this in their "Film & 40s" podcasts (more for entertainments sake than being well-informed though). For anyone with a GB Premium account, links are: Rocky IV - http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/film-40s-rocky-iv/1600-1151/ http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/film-40s-rocky-iv/1600-115... Hunt for Red October - http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/film-and-40s-the-hunt-for-red-october/1600-1303/ http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/film-and-40s-the-hunt-for-...
MarkSweep 11y ago
There is RiffTrax: http://www.rifftrax.com/ http://www.rifftrax.com/
- MikeNomad 11y ago
  Wasn't that originally MST3K?
  - milkey_mouse 11y ago
    Yes
soylentcola 11y ago
I mostly just know of the usual comedy sync-tracks like MST3K and its successors in Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic. Also, if you're at all a fan (or not) of the Harry Potter movies, there's a great alt audio track called "Wizard People, Dear Reader". For that one, you either turn off the audio in the movie (or at least turn it way down so you can still sorta hear the music) and play the alternate narration. The premise is kind of the story as told by someone who's never heard the actual narrative, but I think the humor shows that he was at least a bit familiar with it.