NeverarGreat said:
I made this mockup a few weeks ago and forgot to upload it until now:
https://vimeo.com/221051395
Password: leia
The intention was to find enough footage to cover the entire Starkiller cue without cuts, though I did have to slightly truncate the end since I wanted the original musical placement with the Hosnian shots. It’s more of a ‘what if’ than a serious suggestion.
However, I do really like the shot of Leia directly before the destruction of Hosnian Prime. In the original film, it is very obvious that Leia reacts to Han’s death through the Force, but here it is unclear whether she knows of his death at all. The development of her latent Force sensitivity is irrelevant to the film, and could even undercut the value of Luke to the story if Leia was strong enough to feel the death of a single person halfway across the galaxy. It may even be more tragic that she cannot sense his death, depriving her of even his final moment. This humanizes her and quickly reframes the sequence as being about her relationship to the system which is about to be destroyed. Leia is our only substantial character connection to the New Repubic (through her backstory and through Sella), just as she and Ben were the only substantial character connections to Alderaan. It is through them that we feel the loss of the planets, and so placing Leia directly ahead of the destruction and the death of Kor Sella, it allows the audience to ‘feel’ the destruction in a personal way.
NeverarGreat - while I like the previous clip that Hal put up well enough, I reckon the way you’ve done this sequence looks even more effective overall - and that this ‘what if’ makes for a serious contender indeed! And I certainly agree with your way of looking at Leia’s response, if this version was to be included in anyone’s edit.
Here’s a few impressions on it - even though I’m not bothered if it’s left in or not, the removal of the stardestroyer from the ‘laser’ shot works very well overall. And I like seeing the ‘base technicians’ preparing to fire the weapon, as well as your use of the 2 ‘X-wing pilot’ shots. And of course, I really like the use of Leia’s profile at the end of the reaction shots.
But there’s just one major issue I have with your sequence - and that’s the inclusion of the substandard, ‘time-coded’ reaction shot in the mix - however, I wanted to propose something which might possibly help to improve that a bit -
Here’s what I’m thinking - assuming that your aim is to keep the score in your clip the EXACT same length it currently is, then how about ditching that reaction shot of the guy altogether…and REALLY embrace some ‘slo-mo’ in that portion of the sequence, and just s-l-o-w d-o-w-n the rest of the remaining reaction shots, to give them all a ‘SLOW MOTION’ effect at that point in the sequence - so that these reaction shots (including Leia’s profile) end up being stretched out to fill the time between 01:02 secs and 01:13 secs in your clip.
The excellent melancholy music of this overall sequence flows through this sequence right up until we see Chewie fire in rage, and your version has a more epic feel to it than any version I’ve seen so far. I just think a bit of ‘slo-mo’ for those remaining reaction shots might fit in quite nicely at this point in the sequence, especially since some of the ‘laser’ shots already have an almost ‘slow motion’-like quality to them anyway.
As things stand, I reckon your version has a more epic flow to it than any previous version I’ve seen so far, and is worth a bit of further tweaking one way or another. Good stuff.