TFA: A Gentle Restructure (Released) — Page 57

FWIW, I agree with DominicCobb on this subjective question. Given the aim of the project, I’ll err on leaving it alone, but welcome anyone to make any alterations to it they want in crafting edits from it.

How about this compromise on the Main Title music:

Use the opening blast of the MT recorded for the TFA Trailer:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jX1puBHadHc

It still isn’t perfect, but it’s a little more impressive.

I’m pleased to report that I am exporting a test file of the entire film, to send to Mala to get subtitles going. I can still tweak audio and put in foley, but I think we’re good in terms of sync. We could spend another year easily on further tweaking things, but I really like where we have ended up here in the eleventh hour.

Crawl from Ridley: really a beautiful job. It lines up perfectly, and there are no problems. We went over the wording a while back, and I like what we arrived at.

Maz’s castle sequence: Wonderful, just what we were waiting for. Finn’s new line sounds pretty damn seamless.

Snoke scene: This sequence has come a long way in a short time, and I think Ridley has got it about as good as we’re going to be able to get it. I’m not ruling out a V3 if compelling new resources become available, but I am happy with what’s here. For all it’s weirdness, I do “buy” this version as a legitimate scene, which is valuable in the fan edit economy. (And that superfast, awesome FX work… Jeez Louise.)

Ridley has been able to make the slowed down shots look unrecognizably seamless. If you haven’t downloaded them to check, trust me.

About the opening theme. I agree with DominicCobb on this one, as I said, for the reasons he outlined. I actually like that, aside from AOTC and ROTS, each film’s opening has its own characteristics. To hear it come on and be able to tell, “Ah, that’s ____'s opening theme,” makes me happy. But, I have zero problems with anyone making a second audio track.

On my to do list for tomorrow is to add X-wing and Resistance base foley to the Starkiller firing sequence. But, you guys, other than that and any problems the test export may reveal, I think we’ve got the edit locked in for V2.

Great to hear!

Here’s the V1 cutlist, updated to the best of my memory to include the new changes. Italicized changes are ones that I’m not sure are being included. Does everything look right?

New Crawl.

Added the Falcon jumping to Hyperspace after leaving Jakku, then being ripped from Hyperspace soon after.

Removed General Hux from the first scene with Snoke, where he suggests using the weapon to destroy the Republic. (FX by Jackpumpkinhead to paint out Hux walking offscreen during first shot)

After Rey flees Maz’s castle after her Force vision, replaced the Hosnian system being destroyed in the sky with a Star Destroyer.

(Color correction of Maz’s Castle battle to make it seem like it takes place at late afternoon)

New deleted scene of Leia discussing the Republic.

When Finn is introduced to Leia, removed mention of the Hosnian system’s destruction.

R2 now has a blinking light to indicate that he’s searching for the map.
(3PO walking away foley)

After Rey resists Kylo Ren’s mind probe, added the portion of the Snoke scene from earlier where General Hux suggests using the weapon to destroy the Republic. (FX by Jackpumpkinhead to overlay Kylo Ren’s face over where his mask was for one shot)

Moved General Hux’s impassioned speech to after Kylo Ren overreacts to Rey’s escape from her cell.

After the speech, the nearby Sun beings to be drained, as Hux and the troops gaze upon the stream being sucked into the planet. (Recolored to yellow-orange, and reversed so as to appear to be going down into the ground)

During the briefing scene at the Resistance base, changed and added dialogue to indicate that the Republic is still unresponsive to their messages.

Cleaned up the smoke and debris around the Starkiller weapon exhaust when X-wings approach.

During a brief cutaway to the Resistance base as Han and Chewie infiltrate the oscillator, removed Threepio’s line, “It would take a miracle to save us now.”

Immediately after Kylo Ren kills Han, the Starkiller fires and destroys the Hosnian system, as Leia senses it through the Force.

As Finn and Rey start to head outside the oscillator, cut to Snoke and Hux planning to destroy the Resistance.

As the Falcon flies away from the imploding planet, removed shots in which the fighter pilots appeared more joyful than the galaxy’s fresh loss would lead one to expect and re-scored and re-foleyed the entire sequence.

Extended the shot of R2 as he finishes searching his backup data.

(Chewie cropped out of shot at the Resistance Base)

Final shot stabilized.

JEDIT: BTW, is this still being called Restructured, or is it The Starkiller Edit?

Sir Ridley, your effects work and speed at which you can whip out such high quality work literally blows my mind.

Congrats Hal on finalizing the edit. I bet it’s quite the relief 😃

Thanks for that cutlist. I was going to write one up this morning anyway, so that’ll help. I’m not going to crop Chewie out of the shot with Leia, though. I’m doing something slightly different with the ‘late afternoon’ grade of the Maz’s Castle battle sequence… Since the color corrected versions overlays perfectly with the original, I am going to fade in the effect very gradually until it’s just slightly less pronounced than when it originally appeared to be sunset. Sort of a middle ground, and subtle.

I did, and I didn’t begin fading in until after your sequence! But it doesn’t matter, because now that I look at the output, it does add a very slight degredation of the video and noise. Oh well, no color correction for that scene. It was just a “may as well” thing. It’ll be in NeverarGreat’s edit, though.

I’ve done some vetting of the test output, and found a few things that needed fixing. These have been attended to, and I am exporting what I expect to be the final output for the BluRay version. Should be something like 33GB in size, and will include 5.1 640 kbps AC3 and a (lossless? very low loss?) 5.1 2GB PCM track.
There’ll be chapters stops, as well as English and French subtitles. It’s a 53 hour encode time on my 2011 MBP.

Once this is muxed and pretty, I will simultaneously encode the DVD and 720p versions. (I encode these from the BluRay version rather than the NLE timeline because other, non-Apple converters do a better job.)

I plan to host these myself for now, as there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that they’d be able to be zipped and uploaded to Mega, let along listed on FanEdit.info in time. I plan to post about this soon on Reddit, so they will be easy for you all to find.

I thought that this change had been implemented, but maybe I’m remembering a different edit.

I think we had considered it, but to my mind it’s outside the Starkiller Restructuring idea pretty cleanly. (I guess it’s another mirroring of ANH; a WTF Chewie/Leia moment at the end.)
And once the encode gets going, the ETA went down, should be just over a day.

Ah, I see. 😃

Haha! Hey, NeverarGreat, I noticed as I was reviewing your cutlist that you include Leia denying that the Republic has sent word during the briefing. I don’t recall, but I thought we decided not to use that. It seems a little forced, according to my memory. I think it’ll be something for your edit, though not this one.

Okay, I wasn’t sure.

          FINN
       Yeah, the Ileenium system, that's
       the one -- get us there as fast as
       you can.
      A smiling Finn gives BB-8 a THUMBS UP. BB-8 quickly extends
      his WELDING TORCH and TURNS IT UPWARD, then retracts it.

                      REY
       I'll drop you two at Ponemah Terminal.
       I need the bonding tape, hurry!

                      FINN
       (searching for tape)
       What about you?

                      REY
       I gotta get back to Jakku!

It sounds like she will get them partway to the Resistance, then turn back to Jakku. I don’t think she ever changes her mind, she’s just elaborating on the plan.