TFA: A Gentle Restructure (Released) — Page 24

NeverarGreat said:

It’s intended to be a surprise to the Resistance, certainly. But remember, the briefing scene comes directly after Hux’s psychotic rant against the Republic and the senate in particular. So in juxtaposing two conflicting pieces of information, the audience will hopefully understand that the Republic is always the true target, with the Resistance deliberately misinformed so as to lull the Republic into a false sense of security.

I just think it would play as confusing when watching, considering no one acknowledges the disconnect.

As for the problem with blowing up the Starkiller, I assumed that it would have multiple uses after absorbing the star, it is logical to destroy the planet. Also, nobody has called off the Resistance attack, and why would they? Even if the planet had no further shots to fire, there is still a massive amount of FO equipment there.

I would assume the same (though I seem to recall Hal seeing it in his version as a one and done), which is why the firing again solution should work. Without it, the immediacy of the attack is gone. It’s just not like Star Wars to have aimlessness like that.

This isn’t a great comparison for a number of reasons, but imagine the original Star Wars if they had already destroyed Yavin when Luke started his trench run. Sure, logically he’d still have plenty reason to destroy the station, but imagine how much tension would be zapped out of it.

NeverarGreat said:

And it’s true, Poe’s attack is perfunctory, but it feels similar to Rey’s battle with Kylo. Han isn’t chained up somewhere while Kylo twirls his mustache and laughs maniacally, Han is dead. Rey really has no reason to fight Kylo other than he’s a threat that must be dealt with. All she has is vengeance and the will to survive, there is no way to win everything. Both Rey and Poe can only hope for a Pyrrhic victory at this point.

Kylo’s mission is to kidnap Rey and bring her to Snoke. Rey’s fighting to prevent that from happening, and to get Kylo out of the way so she can bring Finn to safety. Unlike Poe, they didn’t go on a mission to fight Kylo or anything, they’re just trying to escape. Han has nothing to do with any of that.

Lightsaber battles are often not much more than good guy is supposed to fight bad guy (especially in the prequels) but this one definitely has a purpose beyond that.

I would cut as much of Poe’s trench run as possible, to both cut down on ANH references and to downplay the perfunctory nature of the mission.

I would say, if there’s no indication that the weapon will fire again, then yes, there’s not much reason to see the trench run.

I remade the crawl in After Effects and put in HAL’s latest revision, looks pretty sweet.

http://i.imgur.com/j2uZxjQ.png

I could render a clip, but it takes an hour and a half. 😛

I agree with Hal. The fact that no target is mentioned in the briefing scene implies that the Resistance simply doesn’t know what the target is going to be. But since they or the Republic are the only logical choice, they would rush to prevent it anyway.

However, I think that it would help the narrative if it is shown that the Resistance is actually trying to warn the Republic and hopes to get their help. That would be possible by inserting the deleted scene in a similar fashion to what NeverarGreat proposed and possibly by using a suggestion I made before that has someone asking if the Republic will send help during the briefing scene. If the proper audio could be found, we could use the cut shot of Leia right before 3PO’s line about the Republic fleet to have her answer that question with “No.” or “No, they won’t.” Then we’d only need to get a shot where we could have someone ask “Will the Republic send help?”. I’d place the added lines right before Poe says: “We’ll go in there…”

Hal 9000 said:

And, Ridley, that looks great! I’m already able to render my own crawls, using JackPumpkinHead’s Blender template that mimics Adywan’s crawls. I just had to tweak the timing. BUT, if you wanted to render a version of yours, it couldn’t hurt for me to compare them and decide if either of them edges the other out. It’s up to you, though.

Sure, I can render a clip! I takes a while, so it might be better to save it for later in case you decide to change the text again. But I might render it anyway, I’ll link it here if I do.

I think technically my version looks a bit closer to the original one (after all, they used After Effects for the TFA crawl). I closely matched things such as the blur on the text in the distance.

http://i.imgur.com/3KBqQuu.png

I changed the font of the title to match the crawls of VI and I-III but I might change it back to the original again (IV, V, VII) as they will probably keep that one going forward.

Hal 9000 said:

Haha, gorgeous. Yes, I would love to have you render out yours, even after tinkering with mine for so long. When someone with power tools offers to help, put down your hand tools. I would, however, request using the same font for the title as the theatrical version of TFA.

No problem! 😃 I’m changing it back to the theatrical font now, it’s probably for the best.

I watched a presentation by the guy in charge of graphics and holograms on TFA and he mentioned how they carefully mimicked the original crawls by replicating lens distortion, film gate weave and other things digitally.

Pretty interesting if you’re into that kind of stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsFvSgg2-Yo

But of course it’s even cooler how they did it originally, by filming actual back lit text.
http://gagarin.tm/statics/images/post/gallery-1432667442-ep4-bts-13904866909.jpg

Anyway, I’ll tweak it just a bit more and then I guess I’ll try a render.

Hal 9000 said:

That’s… a very not bad idea. Good call with the cut shot of Leia. I’ll hunt around for dialogue for Leia, if people would like to send clips of themselves yelling out, “Will the Republic send the fleet to help?” Or something like that.

The biggest problem would most likely be the footage to use during the “Will the Republic help?” line. In V1 there are three shots that were cut, one of Poe, one of Leia saying that they are the target and one of 3PO. The Leia one could possibly be used for her new dialog and I’d keep the 3PO line if that idea is implemented. That leaves a (very short) shot of Poe that could be used. The problem is that having this question asked from someone off screen would probably look pretty terribe 😕 So we pretty much have to reuse a shot of one of the minor characters and give them new dialog unless someone has a better idea of course.

Sir Ridley said:

Hal 9000 said:

Haha, gorgeous. Yes, I would love to have you render out yours, even after tinkering with mine for so long. When someone with power tools offers to help, put down your hand tools. I would, however, request using the same font for the title as the theatrical version of TFA.

No problem! 😃 I’m changing it back to the theatrical font now, it’s probably for the best.

I watched a presentation by the guy in charge of graphics and holograms on TFA and he mentioned how they carefully mimicked the original crawls by replicating lens distortion, film gate weave and other things digitally.

Pretty interesting if you’re into that kind of stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsFvSgg2-Yo

But of course it’s even cooler how they did it originally, by filming actual back lit text.
http://gagarin.tm/statics/images/post/gallery-1432667442-ep4-bts-13904866909.jpg

Anyway, I’ll tweak it just a bit more and then I guess I’ll try a render.

Isn’t it possible to use 3PO to deliver the line in a way he would say “The Republic won’t send reenforcement/ships/fleet ? We are doomed !” ? (note that Daniels made 3PO voice in TCW, I wonder if someone familiar enough with the show would know if there is a line to be taken from an episode)

MalàStrana said:

Isn’t it possible to use 3PO to deliver the line in a way he would say “The Republic won’t send reenforcement/ships/fleet ? We are doomed !” ? (note that Daniels made 3PO voice in TCW, I wwonder if someone familiar enough with the show would know if there is a line to be taken from an episode)

Since he doesn’t have a mouth to sync to the line this would be the simplest solution. It should be possible to piece something together from all the voice work he’s done for TV, games etc.

MalàStrana said:

Isn’t it possible to use 3PO to deliver the line in a way he would say “The Republic won’t send reenforcement/ships/fleet ? We are doomed !” ? (note that Daniels made 3PO voice in TCW, I wonder if someone familiar enough with the show would know if there is a line to be taken from an episode)

Having him ask that question out of nowhere wouldn’t work I think.
Maybe he could be the one who asks about Republic support but I think it’d work better if someone else were to ask that question.

I rendered a crawl! Not lossless, but I’ll do that when the time comes to put everything together. I also included my edit of the stormtroopers in the troop transport ship. I didn’t like the glitchy flashy cutting, it didn’t feel very Star Wars to me, so I toned that down. Oh, and I’ve replaced the main theme with the recording from Episode I, which I prefer.

https://mega.nz/#!GVsGwahZ!nTU7CQLV13UfXPMMvdB2tsBIpuvPeSDloZtSB4LG5Qc

Kexikus said:

Having him ask that question out of nowhere wouldn’t work I think.
Maybe he could be the one who asks about Republic support but I think it’d work better if someone else were to ask that question.

Maybe Admiral Ackbar? With his puppety mouth inserting a new line somewhere could be possible.

I’m glad the crawl is appreciated! 😃

Jackpumpkinhead said:

so did you use these same type of techniques for your crawl?

I don’t know exactly how it was done for TFA but I used the same software and got a close match so it’s probably similar.

Basically it’s just a text layer in 3D gliding past a simulated camera with depth of field, and then there are small adjustments like blur and a slight gate weave motion added.

The prequels just had perfectly sharp steady digital text, but TFA emulated the old analog OT crawls for nostalgia, so I did that too.