TFA: A Gentle Restructure (Released) — Page 17

NeverarGreat said:

DominicCobb said:

NeverarGreat said:

Here’s my ideal version of that scene without the pilot celebrations. It’s music only at this point, but I’ve also removed the lightsaber pickup shot because it feels like a prequelism.
https://vimeo.com/200626043
password: music

Ooh, nice I appreciate trying to preserve that utterly splendid musical cue (though I can’t abide the removal of that lightsaber pickup, nor the calling it a “prequelism”).

Thanks!

I guess my main problem with the saber shot is that it detracts from the almost equally brief shot of Finn beforehand, implying equivalent importance. This rubs me the wrong way, since Finn is (and should be) much more important to the viewer than a mere weapon.

Is it a mere weapon though? The rest of the film seems to suggest otherwise, both literally (through its pronounced connection to the Force) and symbolically (through its meaning for Rey’s character arc).

I’d say equivalent importance is justified. The lightsaber represents Rey’s call to the Force. Finn (and the others) represents the friends and family she never had. She starts the film alone and with squandered potential, and by the end, she turns that around. In that moment, we see what has become of her: her priority is saving Finn, but she’s not leaving behind the Force. She says after the vision that “she’s never touching that thing again.” Obviously the big moment of her finally touching it again is when she summons it to face Ren. But symbolically, showing her make sure to grab it before she leaves emphasizes the new direction she’s taken.

NeverarGreat said:

True, it is a big part of the story, but we need to see how her arc in Episode 8 plays out to know how much importance is placed on a weapon. Perhaps she is embracing the Dark Side in her fight with Kylo Ren, so she’s going down an Anakin Skywalker path. In this case the importance of the lightsaber in this scene is justified.

Well, that’s an interesting way to look at it, and I’d be curious to see if they explore that at all. But I tend to believe the importance that is placed on it (in the film in general and that scene specifically) has more to do with what it means for Rey (the call to the Force) and less to do with its history (and dark side usage).

Apologies for pulling us off topic a bit.

NeverarGreat said:

Here’s my ideal version of that scene without the pilot celebrations. It’s music only at this point, but I’ve also removed the lightsaber pickup shot because it feels like a prequelism.
https://vimeo.com/200626043
password: music

You know: I’m very fond of removing the sounds effets here. Williams’s cue is sort of “mickeymousing” what’s going on screen, so it works and it does justice to the score which is not in competition with sound effets.

NeverarGreat said:

Here’s a new version with the lightsaber shot. 😃

https://vimeo.com/200702407
Password: music

wow, the music timing is better than the theatrical.

Typo in the last paragraph, “discovered” is spelled incorrectly. Overall coloring looks really orange too, in a Phantom Menacey sort of way. Otherwise it looks good!

NeverarGreat said:

Here’s a new version with the lightsaber shot. 😃

https://vimeo.com/200702407
Password: music

I like this but has a Star Wars film ever completely cut out foley audio like this? Even the “musical montage” sequences usually have some sound effects, they’re just lowered in the mix.

Hal 9000 said:

Here’s the new crawl. I am working on getting rid of the slight red flicker at the beginning. Very strange, and I don’t know what’s causing it!
https://vimeo.com/200772174
password: crawl

I assume you’ve removed the “last Jedi” since Episode 8 title is known ? Too bad, it was a cool way to finish the crawl. Otherwise the text is good, but I feel there is still room for a little improvement over the vocabulary used. “Fractured” for instance does not seem necessary since it’s already said “ashees”. Or maybe “Fallen Empire” ?

The new crawl is definetly a big step in the right direction. I have some suggestions though:

Write “has secretly risen from…” instead of “has risen in secret from…” as I think the latter sounds weird. To me it feels like the “in secret” is connected to the Empire that the FO has risen from, but that might also be because I’m no native speaker. I’m also not sure about the “fractured Empire”, but your explanation does make sense, so I’d say it works.

I really like the second paragraph except for “combat” in “convince the New Republic to COMBAT this emerging threat.” I think something like “convince the New Republic of this looming threat.” would sound better.

And I quite liked the “whereabouts of the last Jedi” in the last paragraph but I just noticed that your wording is actually from the theatralic crawl, so I’m fine with it^^

NeverarGreat said:

Here’s a new version with the lightsaber shot. 😃

https://vimeo.com/200702407
Password: music

The music timing here is really great! So if someone were able to add proper sound effects to the scene, I am in favor of using this.

“Combat” sounds fine to me.

NeverarGreat said:

the fallen Empire.

My man 😄

To counter this deadly threat, the Republic
mobilizes a covert RESISTANCE led by
General Leia Organa, to gather allies from
the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

… hum… are you sure about that ? Does the NR really cover the Resistance ?

MalàStrana said:

… hum… are you sure about that ? Does the NR really cover the Resistance ?

Covert as in concealed, secret or disguised.

I thought it was more complex than that, but in the movie itself it’s never fully clarified (Hux could be wrong for all we know). If TLJ contradicts that, it won’t be too time consuming to change the crawl again !

Hello! What a great idea for a fan edit. I quite like TFA as-is, but this really improves the only aspect that I thought was lacking in the finished film - Starkiller Base. I just watched V1 last night and thought it was great. I did have just one suggestion, though. And I think my reasoning for it might be hard to articulate, but I’ll try my best…

So, I think the surface shots of Hosnian Prime as it goes kablooey should be removed. For the hypothetical first-time viewer, the death of HAN FRICKIN’ SOLO is gonna be a pretty big deal, yeah? So as the Starkiller fires, the viewer is still gonna be reeling from that I think. That’s a very personal, human-level tragedy.

Now, I’m totally fine with the Starkiller firing on the Hosnian system right after that. I like the symmetry - Han’s death sort of signaling the turning point where EVERYTHING goes down the crapper. But! It seems to me like those shots on the planet surface were there in the original scene to add a human dimension to the event, like “Look! There’s PEOPLE here! They’re all gonna die! It’s SAD!” And yeah sure, that kinda sorta works in the scene’s original placement. But where it is now, I think the viewer doesn’t have much time to care about a bunch of random folks when they just saw Han Solo die. It’s enough to just see the planets explode from a distance. Han fulfills the human-level tragedy in a way, even though he’s obviously not on any of those planets.

It may sound strange, but he’s much more important to the audience than the billions of faceless, nameless people that die on those planets, ya know? So cutting away to the people on the surface kind of dilutes Han’s death, at least for me. It feels like the movie’s going “Oh yeah, Han Solo died, but also THESE PEOPLE!!!” and it’s too much. Does that make any kind of sense? I’m worried it doesn’t. Anyway, just a thought that I had. I can pretty easily do it for my own version if Hal doesn’t want to.

^ 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!

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