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TFA: A Gentle Restructure (Released) — Page 18

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Sougouk said:

^ Your explanation makes me think of ANH, when the Death Star destroys Alderaan. We never see anyone in Alderaan before it’s blown up. Yet, you still feel sad for all the life that was wiped away off the face of existence, in one fell swoop.
Sometimes less is more!

I thought of that too!

Octorox said:

If the Kor Sella scene is reinserted, I do think we should keep the shots on Hosnian Prime, only to give that thread closure.

Yeah, I suppose it would be more acceptable if the deleted scene was reinserted. But still… I dunno. We’d know she was there, we don’t necessarily have to see her for it to make sense. I still think it might feel too weird coming right after Han’s death. But again, maybe that’s just me.

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Welcome, Batmatt92, and thanks for the insightful suggestion. I can’t help but agree with you, with the real question being whether removing those shots of the planet surface will leave the sequence an abrupt mess. I’ll test it out and see, but I frankly doubt it’ll be as good as it needs to be, given that we’re editing a fully baked final product rather than doing it this way from the beginning.
And, as much as I love the little moment with Leia in the deleted scene, I doubt I’ll use it. The scene, as presented on the BluRay, begins and ends extremely abruptly, with not even a split second of buffer. Given the one place in the movie it would need to go, I don’t think it would be seamless. It’s a shame these deleted scenes weren’t presented to us the way the prequels’ were on DVD: as spruced up finished sequences, for the most part, presented in the same quality as the main features themselves.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Here’s another revision of the crawl that I rather like. This one will probably be what I go with.

Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the ashes of the fallen Empire.

Failing to convince the New Republic to combat this emerging threat, General Leia Organa mobilizes a covert RESISTANCE to gather allies from the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to Luke’s whereabouts…

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

Here’s another revision of the crawl that I rather like. This one will probably be what I go with.

Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the ashes of the fallen Empire.

Failing to convince the New Republic to combat this emerging threat, General Leia Organa mobilizes a covert RESISTANCE to gather allies from the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to Luke’s whereabouts…

I like this crawl, my only critisisms would be is that the middle paragraph seems to read as though it is in the present, where all of the other crawls sounded as though they were happening in the past, until the last paragraph.

Also, I’m not a big fan of the crawl using first names and saying that she is desperate for her brothers help. I think just saying that she is desperate for help, and calling her “General Organa” and Luke just “Skywalker” would fit better with the OT.

But I do like the mobilizing a Resistance bit, and calling Poe her most trusted pilot.
Just my 2 cents

“You can’t polish a turd. But you can shape it to look like candy.”

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Thanks, Jack.
Well, part of what I’m going for in this crawl is a close relationship with the theatrical crawl. While it seems you’re right that the first two paragraphs of all three OT crawls are in past tense, there is no uniformity to the final paragraph: ANH’s final paragraph is in present tense, ESB’s is in past tense, and ROTJ’s is in future tense.
If you factor the prequels in, there is no rhyme or reason to when to break from past tense.
Considering that it’s like this in the theatrical, which is what I’m trying to stick to (in a weird way), I’m happy with it.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

Here’s another revision of the crawl that I rather like. This one will probably be what I go with.

Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the ashes of the fallen Empire.

Failing to convince the New Republic to combat this emerging threat, General Leia Organa mobilizes a covert RESISTANCE to gather allies from the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to Luke’s whereabouts…

This is good! I also like “fallen”, but if you wanted to use a word closer to fractured, you could also say, “from the ashes of the shattered Empire.”

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As Barney Gumble would say, “I like it”.

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Maybe an issue, maybe not, there’s no indication that the FO is after Luke. All the theatrical crawls cue us in to what we are about to see, whereas in this case it might take a bit to figure out what the FO is doing there at all.

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Great crawl, but I concur about the fact we don’t know the FO wants to kill Luke. One solution could be to reinsert one part of the theatrical crawl :

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the ashes of the fallen Empire and will not rest until the last Jedi has been destroyed.

Or you could also change the end:

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to find Luke before the FIRST ORDER does…

Or…

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot to Jakku to retrieve a map, which could lead to find Luke before the FIRST ORDER does…

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I’m okay with the crawl not specifying the FO’s specific goals with Skywalker.

I think V2 is shaping up nicely. Pretty much the only thing left implement is the First Order’s arrival at Maz’s castle. Once you all (Sir Ridley, NeverarGreat) have it how we like it, I’ll drop it in and we should be in good shape. 😃

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

Drakul, thanks and welcome! No, I won’t be editing Rogue One. I sincerely hope not to edit any more Star Wars films after this one, but we’ll see. This limited edit of TFA is sort of a compromise between editing and not editing it, and ideally will be a stairstep from radical edits of the prior three films to enjoying new films as they are. (The original idea for the SKB was too elegant and sublime to pass up.)

Makes sense 😃
I’m downloading TFA but it’s slow going, I’ll keep you posted.

“This cannot be! Is… Is it an omen?”

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Hal 9000 said:

Welcome, Batmatt92, and thanks for the insightful suggestion. I can’t help but agree with you, with the real question being whether removing those shots of the planet surface will leave the sequence an abrupt mess. I’ll test it out and see, but I frankly doubt it’ll be as good as it needs to be, given that we’re editing a fully baked final product rather than doing it this way from the beginning.

Cool, thanks for giving it a shot at least! And I dig the new crawl too 😃

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Hal 9000 said:
And, as much as I love the little moment with Leia in the deleted scene, I doubt I’ll use it. The scene, as presented on the BluRay, begins and ends extremely abruptly, with not even a split second of buffer. Given the one place in the movie it would need to go, I don’t think it would be seamless. It’s a shame these deleted scenes weren’t presented to us the way the prequels’ were on DVD: as spruced up finished sequences, for the most part, presented in the same quality as the main features themselves.

That’s a shame, I’ll probably try at least mocking it up but I wouldn’t want it there either if it doesn’t feel seamless.

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As soon as I heard it existed, I’ve loved the idea of putting the scene where Leia sends her envoy to the Republic capital into the movie.
What we have here isn’t finished, and is presented to us in what I can’t help but view as an intentionally neglected state.
A proof of concept version, like a workprint, would be another story. But I don’t feel it’s got a place in this edit, given the objective of a slight tweak that would not have made anyone blink if it had been what was literally projected in theaters on opening day.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

As soon as I heard it existed, I’ve loved the idea of putting the scene where Leia sends her envoy to the Republic capital into the movie.
What we have here isn’t finished, and is presented to us in what I can’t help but view as an intentionally neglected state.
A proof of concept version, like a workprint, would be another story. But I don’t feel it’s got a place in this edit, given the objective of a slight tweak that would not have made anyone blink if it had been what was literally projected in theaters on opening day.

It was clearly cut earlier than the other deleted Leia scene. It was probably also part of a larger scene that isn’t being shown for whatever reason (someone who’s read the novelization pipe in please).

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Hal
I understand about the crawl, I was just throwing it out there. Are you planing on releasing a list of changes?

Also, I hope you don’t mind that I use your edit to make my own edit in the future?

“You can’t polish a turd. But you can shape it to look like candy.”

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Oh, 100%, Jack, I welcome any feedback. I looked over the other films’ crawls per your suggestion, as part of the vetting process. Ultimately, I’m content to have this particular edit defer closely to TFA’s own original crawl.

I will certainly revise the documentation provided alongside the finished product, including what’s new in V2.

And, YES, anyone is more than welcome to take this edit as a base to work from. I’ll be releasing a balls to the wall version encoded at maximum settings with uncompressed audio output. The audio will be in 5.1 surround, rather than 7.1 due to my NLE’s limitations. However, I am using the DTS 5.1 track direct from BluRay. I… really can’t imagine this affecting any sane person in the world, so that’s where we are.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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I know you’re liking the place the crawl is in, and I don’t mean to try to throw a wrench in, but it seems quite like a missed opportunity to not mention the Starkiller in the revised crawl. One of my issues with TFA is that the base is poorly established and I feel like unfortunately, with this restructure, you’ve only exacerbated that issue, with the base’s operational abilities not clear until well past the halfway mark.

I don’t have a particular suggestion at the moment though (I’m not really that helpful, I know). Just something to think about.