I think this idea is best for V2, at least. I remember really liking Neverar’s first attempt at this when he originally posted it. Snoke and Hux basically say “The Republic is destroyed, and now we can destroy the Resistance!”, and I think it shows how useful Starkiller base is. They can destroy all their enemies at once, from across the galaxy. The Republic, the Resistance, and finally Luke (if they had ever discovered his hiding place). And with the First Order apparently being smaller than the Empire, it makes seem smarter. I think it also shows that Snoke does play a part in these machinations, rather than Hux just playing off Snoke’s fears. Here is his original version
Alternate take on Snoke and friends:
https://vimeo.com/221526067
Password: hux
I think going back to this simpler idea is good, but it might be worth trying to get closer to Neverar’s original dialogue. Instead of Hux saying, “The Republic, it is wreckage” you might be able to piece together the word “destroyed” from “destroy” and “droid”, then you could have “We [have] destroyed the Republic” or something similar. Hux says both ‘we’ and ‘have’ in the second Snoke scene. Cutting words together like this can be really jarring and noticeable, but it might be worth the attempt.
On another topic, regarding the Starkiller explosion, I think the reworking of the music you guys did for it was incredible work. The music always felt very victorious and triumphant to me, and even though they destroy Starkiller base, it doesn’t really feel like a complete victory in this edit (which motivated the removal of the pilot reactions at the end). Anyway, several months ago I stumbled across a YouTuber (who seems to have removed the video since then) who rescored this scene with a cue from the track Yoda and the Force. I thought it fit really well, even leading me to think it may have been used as part of the temp-track during post-production. I think the Burning Homestead cue was used in a similar way, but they liked it so much that they decided to keep it in the final cut rather than use what John Williams wrote for that part (since different music for that part appears in the soundtrack).
Anyway, I don’t want to get things sidetracked now that we’re so close, but I thought I’d share it just in case. I put off sharing it for months because I didn’t think it was relevant to the edit, but I think the more melancholic/hopeful music could fit better with the restructuring. Or maybe someone else might find use for it in their own edit. I don’t like the transition I made at the end but it could be reworked. Regardless, I definitely wanted to thank you guys for going through this process on a public forum and allowing other people to build off things you are working on; that’s how I was even able to do this in the first place.
no password
https://vimeo.com/214002065