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The Force Awakens: Starlight (V1.1 Released!) — Page 7

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 (Edited)

Darth Vader seems to think that it’s worthwhile to calculate the destinations along the Falcon’s last-known trajectory, so that implies that there aren’t a lot of twists and turns in most routes (unless they’re well mapped). The one in TFA looks rather twisty, which tells me that there should be multiple legs of the journey.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Yeah, TFA messed up big time with some aspects of traveling for me, such as how the Starkiller Base was dealt with, and all the confusion of Han finding the Falcon and they had left the system already and wtf is going on, and then the end was a bit too nebulous and rushed so we could have Mark Hamill in the movie. Just a nitpick though. But yeah, you’re right, but I don’t know how you’d pull that one off… (just for the record, I love the idea of doing something like when Indy travels in his movies)

PS: do you think you’ll be reediting Rey vs Kylo in the forest? The way it was executed was a bit off for me, with Rey who was clearly being outmatched all of a sudden kick his ass.

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Collipso said:
(just for the record, I love the idea of doing something like when Indy travels in his movies)

I also thought of Indy and thought the concept would be great in a Ridiculous edit, but better for ANH or TESB. Show a hyperspace route, traveling from system to system with close-ups of Harrison Ford and the Falcon cross-fading in the background!

For what it’s worth, I also like the idea as a serious one for TFA. Admittedly, it does seem to contradict what’s been established, but again, perhaps it is an especially complex route as you said. I’m for it if you can make it work!

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I don’t know how I’d improve on the lightsaber battle. I had some ideas the other night about how Rey might appear to Kylo Ren near the end. The image in my mind was that Rey could take on a more menacing appearance as a result of channeling what is pretty clearly the Dark Side, and Ren is so taken aback by this that he cedes ground to her in surprise and fear. But it’s not a priority for this edit, since I think it was done fairly competently in the original version.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:

I don’t know how I’d improve on the lightsaber battle. I had some ideas the other night about how Rey might appear to Kylo Ren near the end. The image in my mind was that Rey could take on a more menacing appearance as a result of channeling what is pretty clearly the Dark Side, and Ren is so taken aback by this that he cedes ground to her in surprise and fear. But it’s not a priority for this edit, since I think it was done fairly competently in the original version.

That actually sounds like an incredible idea. Anything to give us more reason to believe that she would beat Kylo.

Return of the Jedi: Remastered

Lord of the Rings: The Darth Rush Definitives

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That would be a subtle explanation of finn’s reasoning. I think you should add that.

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

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NeverarGreat said:

Another little idea:

Han's stolen ship

What if Han’s freighter was stolen from the First Order?
That would make Finn’s assertion something other than completely wrong, and it might just give the scene some suspense.

Yeah, I like that.

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NeverarGreat said:
What if Han’s freighter was stolen from the First Order?
That would make Finn’s assertion something other than completely wrong, and it might just give the scene some suspense.

I think adding the First Order symbol a bit excessive in terms of suspense. I remember when I first watched it, my immediate thought was, “Oh no, the First Order caught the Falcon!” so that suspense already is there.
Having it where Han stole a FO ship just opens a can of worms that I don’t think you can fanedit and justify.

The Rise of Failures

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Someone asked me how I removed the timecode on that one shot of the Leia scene. There are certainly better ways of doing this, but this method works so I thought I’d share it here as well.

SirRidley did most of the timecode removal in this scene, I just fixed the timecode on one shot.

I used Premiere, though After Effects would be ideal, but work with what you’ve got. For the shot in question, I had to do several things to remove the timecode. First, examine the entire shot to make sure that you can fill in any missing details. An obscured face, for example, may be very difficult to recover. For this shot I had to recreate the missing detail on the display, and also recreate the back of the technician’s head:
Base Image

Next, in Photoshop, I took a still from the end of the shot where the most display detail was visible and used elements from the visible parts of the display to recreate the rest of it. Then I reduced the noise on the image in Photoshop, so that a new grain layer could be applied to the video later. I then imported this image patch into Premiere. If you’re using another software, you can export this patch as a TIFF with transparency for similar results.
Still Image Overlay
Since I was using the last image in the shot, I worked backwards to animate the movement of the still image to match the gate weave and motion of the shot. I made a keyframe every two frames, but for best results I recommend going frame by frame. Another trick when using Photoshop is to import a still image of the untouched timecode and use that when matching the movement of the shot. This will make it much easier to know that you’re matching the elements correctly, since you’re matching the still-image timecode to the moving video timecode. After you’ve got good image registration you can simply replace the image of the timecode with the patch, and you’re good to go.

Next, I had to fix the top of the technician’s head. This was another Photoshop patch, using detail from the visible portion of the head and clone-stamping this detail into a new shape.
Top of Head Replacement
Because the head is moving through the shot, I had to animate this still image to match the movement. I also blended into another still image at the end of the shot to simulate the light bleed from the spotlight behind her.

Grain Addition
Next, I added grain to the images. Six percent seemed about right for this shot, but if you’re working in a program that doesn’t allow moving grain on still shots, you may need to export your work at this stage and import that video, re-masking the timecode areas so that you can apply grain to a moving video.

For this particular shot I also had to include a braid removal by Sir-Ridley, which is why the right side of the image changes color slightly.

When everything is right, the last step is to color correct the entire shot as one.
Color Correction

And that’s it! This shot took the better part of a day, so you can imagine the work involved for an entire scene. Of course, there are probably better ways to do this in After Effects, but this is the low-tech solution.

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/WK7NNN8X

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Speaking as someone who struggled and cursed through a fan edit, this info was super interesting. I am sure that like with anything, the more one uses it the more proficient one becomes, but it is still pretty amazing work. The skill level of this community never ceases to amaze.

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It’s a pretty fantastic job NeverarGreat! Any ideas to do the same treatment to the Falcon deleted scene? I know someone else did it already, but your work is near flawless.

digmodification.wordpress.com

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NeverarGreat, that timecode removal is great!

Sadly my projects are lost due to an HDD crash… 😦 | [Fundamental Collection] thread | blog.spoRv.com | fan preservation forum: fanres.com

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 (Edited)

At one point in the Restructured thread we discussed adding a scene where the Republic agrees to support the Resistance, but it comes too late to stop the destruction of the Hosnian system.

Considering that the Resistance seemingly comes into possession of quite a few ships right after the events of TFA, it makes such a scene all the more appropriate.

I imagine that the scene would happen during the final cutaway to the Resistance, and be in the form of a transmission from an alien diplomat. Something like:

“General, we have heard your plea for help. Reinforcements are being fueled for immediate launch.”

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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 (Edited)

NeverarGreat said:

I don’t know how I’d improve on the lightsaber battle. I had some ideas the other night about how Rey might appear to Kylo Ren near the end. The image in my mind was that Rey could take on a more menacing appearance as a result of channeling what is pretty clearly the Dark Side, and Ren is so taken aback by this that he cedes ground to her in surprise and fear. But it’s not a priority for this edit, since I think it was done fairly competently in the original version.

I was watching Ironman23’s TFA edit, and he cut out a few shots before they reach the cliff and after Rey goes into overpowered mode more towards the end of the fight, and I actually really liked how it turned out. Better than the original form. It makes it more believable to me, I think. Because she just wins, and barely now, instead of literally kicking his butt.

I have the link for his edit, so PM me if you’d want to watch it.

He also takes out several bad joke attempts that I thoroughly agree with. But I really just commented because of the lightsaber fight thing.

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These ideas, and your work ups are excellent. I particularly like the Rey dream, reordering the sequence of events leading to Rey & Finn meeting, moving the Vader prayer and splitting the interrogation/escape.

I look forward to what other ideas you have!

For the possible message from the republic, could any of the Jakku Message scene be used?

Also I am curious if you were to reinsert the “Tunnel Standoff” scene where would you put it?

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I was, mostly because I was just curious about that scene’s placement.

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Have you considered extending Rey’s force vision which she gets after picking up the Lightsaber? In the novelization, it was suppose to start with Rey seeing from a distance Luke and Vader’s Bespin duel, and you can see remnants of that with the collapsing hallway in the vision which is the Bespin Cloud City Hallway. It’d be kind of interesting if you could somehow work that back in.

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Nerdman3000 said:

Have you considered extending Rey’s force vision which she gets after picking up the Lightsaber? In the novelization, it was suppose to start with Rey seeing from a distance Luke and Vader’s Bespin duel, and you can see remnants of that with the collapsing hallway in the vision which is the Bespin Cloud City Hallway. It’d be kind of interesting if you could somehow work that back in.

I don’t think adding the duel would add anything to the story that we haven’t already seen.

Rey’s Force Vision makes even less sense with the context of The Last Jedi, but I wouldn’t know where to begin in changing that. It’s probably best to wait until Episode 9 before messing with that part.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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 (Edited)

NeverarGreat said:
Of course, there are probably better ways to do this in After Effects, but this is the low-tech solution.

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/WK7NNN8X

Ha, that’s the exact method I used though, but in After Effects. One difference is I could motion track some shots instead of manually moving things around. But I had to manually move many things too. Also I used masks and morphing and stuff, but the basics are the same.

About the key frames, instead of doing every other frame or every single frame I would recommend a different method. First do the first and the last frame. Then do the middle frame. Then do the frames in the middle of the gaps, and so on. Play back the sequence from time to time and adjust/add key frames where needed. Only do as many frames as are necessary to make the motion smooth and accurate. If you do every frame you might end up with a very jittery motion.