The Last Jedi: Legendary (Released) — Page 17

Credits roll at 2hr13m, total time is 2hr22m.

A few things I noticed from skimming the workprint…

Why did you decide not to include the “Luke has a Moment” deleted scene? It greatly improves his characterization early on in my opinion. A re-score could help it.

Why keep Finn & Rose’s kiss? There is ZERO romantic strings between the two beforehand and it still feels very out of place.

Okay, just finished watching your workprint, version 1.0.

I fully admit that some of this is just me thinking out loud. Some of these are things specific to your fanedit, and others are just points about the film that I wish were changed. You may agree or disagree with some of my comments, but these are just my gut feelings on what I just watched. I hope this helps.

• The Poe & Hux "telephone call"
  • MUCH better — your edit retains the humor without making it over the top
  • Absolutely my favorite rendition of this scene that I’ve watched so far
  • I wouldn’t touch this any more: it’s perfect in this form
• BB-8 fixing Poe’s X-Wing
  • Full disclosure: I’ve never been a fan of this sequence
  • Having BB-8 stick his whole head into the panel seems silly
  • I really have no idea if there’s a way to improve this, so I might just have to get over it
• Paige Tico (bomber pilot) sequence
  • After she climbs the ladder to grab the remote, she falls
  • She keeps kicking the ladder again and again to get the remote to fall, but I think this goes on for way too long
  • I find myself screaming at my TV, “Just get up and go get it! You could have gotten it by now!”
  • I understand that maybe she’s injured, but we never see that, so it just looks like she’s lazy
  • I would recommend cutting it so that the remote falls on perhaps her third kick of the ladder
  • Also, I would cut the shot of the remote flying past her (keep the slow motion and her catching it, but the shot where she just watches it fly past her head is annoying).
• Luke lightsaber toss
  • Still not sold on Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder
  • Other people’s edits have Luke simply dropping the lightsaber, which is a good alternative
  • But this alternate take of the throw (from BTS footage) remains my favorite
• The space attack on the Resistance cruisers
  • Is it possible to trim or cut the shot of Poe being thrown back from the explosion in the hanger? It looks ridiculous, he’d be dead
  • I cannot support the floating Leia / Mary Poppins sequence whatsoever
  • My suggestion: have the explosion on the bridge, but the next time we see Leia is when they put the Oxygen mask on her
• Ahch-To Stuff
  • Great job on cutting the “sad eyes” porg. The scene remains funny, but not over the top
  • Also, great work to you (and the community) for the work done to remove the caretakers from the island
  • Getting rid of the “Luke tickling Rey” scene was smart, but I do admit that it felt rather rushed
  • After Rey says, “Okay,” you currently have it cut to Luke throwing away the leaf and telling her to breathe. I would suggest having her say, “Okay… but what is it?” (just as she does in the actual film), and THEN cut to Luke throwing away the leaf. I think this would make the scene feel more complete. Maybe I’m wrong.
  • When Rey confronts Luke just before she leaves Ach-To, I really would like the idea of us seeing some of the TFA “force back” / flashback clips integrated into the moment when Luke looks into Ben Solo’s mind… that way when he ignites his lightsaber, it truly seems like it was out of instinct. Maybe not in your edit if you don’t want, but I would like to see it done by someone.
• Canto Bight
  • AMAZING. The fact that I can make Canto Bight into only one bullet point should tell you that it was a success. It’s so much faster paced, and I’m all for removing the political BS. You nailed it.
• On the Star Destroyer
  • I’m not crazy about BB-8 driving an AT-ST, but I don’t know if there’s a way to cut it
  • When Hux is looking at Snoke’s dead body, his lower half falls out of the chair for no reason… cuttable?
• Finn’s sacrifice scene
  • I’m just sort of thinking out loud for this one
  • I’m still of the opinion that Rose shouldn’t run her speeder into his ship… instead I wish we could make it look like his ship gets shot or maybe that it breaks down before he can sacrifice himself
  • But if we really have to keep Rose, then I like the change you made to cut the stupid “love” line. While I wish they didn’t kiss, that’s going to be hard to cut out, so I guess I’ll deal with it.
• Luke facing down the First Order / Kylo Ren fight
  • Selfishly, I still like my edit to play The Jedi Steps during this sequence. But to each their own. 😉

Only other thoughts…

• Was really hoping to see a few of the deleted scenes
  • The Finn / Poe deleted scene where Poe is catching Finn up on what’s happening
  • “Luke Mourns,” though I don’t know exactly where it would fit, to be honest
  • And the stormtrooper / elevator deleted scene… the fan-edited one that removes their voices and just makes it more of a tension building sequence is pretty great
• Finally, I’m curious about your reasoning for moving the Luke / Yoda sequence later in the movie? Not sure how I feel about it because it seems like a much slower scene compared to all the fast paced stuff going on before/after its new placement. Maybe I can appreciate it if I understand the reasoning why it was moved there.

Great work for this first version. I really enjoyed this immensely more than the actual film. While I still have little things to nitpick about, I would absolutely take this over what we initially received. Once again, awesome job.

DZ-330 said:

A few things I noticed from skimming the workprint…

Why did you decide not to include the “Luke has a Moment” deleted scene? It greatly improves his characterization early on in my opinion. A re-score could help it.

Why keep Finn & Rose’s kiss? There is ZERO romantic strings between the two beforehand and it still feels very out of place.

I intend on using Luke’s moment snippet, but I haven’t wrangled the source material together yet. But yes, that’s the one and only deleted scene I plan to use.

About Rose kissing Finn… I don’t know, but I feel like it’d be going too far to take that away. I don’t want to gut their plot to the point that it feels… like a fan edit. I’m going to stand by the existing movie by default, but I can hear out reasons why it would be a good move to make.

Thanks for previewing it, and I hope the ending didn’t make your eyes bleed!

ziggyonice said:

Okay, just finished watching your workprint, version 1.0.

I fully admit that some of this is just me thinking out loud. Some of these are things specific to your fanedit, and others are just points about the film that I wish were changed. You may agree or disagree with some of my comments, but these are just my gut feelings on what I just watched. I hope this helps.

Thanks for previewing this!

• The Poe & Hux "telephone call"
  • MUCH better — your edit retains the humor without making it over the top
  • Absolutely my favorite rendition of this scene that I’ve watched so far
  • I wouldn’t touch this any more: it’s perfect in this form

Thanks very much. I’m rather pleased with it as well.

• BB-8 fixing Poe’s X-Wing
  • Full disclosure: I’ve never been a fan of this sequence
  • Having BB-8 stick his whole head into the panel seems silly
  • I really have no idea if there’s a way to improve this, so I might just have to get over it

I agree. This deserves playing around with a bit more, but in this cut we will still get a fair bit of BB8’s antics later on (implied binding and gagging of multiple prison guards, and hijacking an AT-ST), so perhaps this opening waterpipe gag sets us up for that a little more gently? (At least with BB8, there’s no already defined physical limitations which seem to be violated, the way that R2 and 3PO were violated in AOTC.)

• Paige Tico (bomber pilot) sequence
  • After she climbs the ladder to grab the remote, she falls
  • She keeps kicking the ladder again and again to get the remote to fall, but I think this goes on for way too long
  • I find myself screaming at my TV, “Just get up and go get it! You could have gotten it by now!”
  • I understand that maybe she’s injured, but we never see that, so it just looks like she’s lazy
  • I would recommend cutting it so that the remote falls on perhaps her third kick of the ladder
  • Also, I would cut the shot of the remote flying past her (keep the slow motion and her catching it, but the shot where she just watches it fly past her head is annoying).

This never bothered me, and I’d prefer to more or less leave things alone unless I have reason not to, but I could experiment with these ideas. Given my restrained approach to TFA, I feel like I ought to continue that somewhat.

• Luke lightsaber toss
  • Still not sold on Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder
  • Other people’s edits have Luke simply dropping the lightsaber, which is a good alternative
  • But this alternate take of the throw (from BTS footage) remains my favorite

Luke dropping the saber, on paper, is great. I sincerely hope to be able to use it in a fan edit, but only if it is absolutely seamless. The alternate take is beautiful, but I don’t think it works to cut to it with the footage we have available.

• The space attack on the Resistance cruisers
  • Is it possible to trim or cut the shot of Poe being thrown back from the explosion in the hanger? It looks ridiculous, he’d be dead

Eh, seems peripheral at best to the issues I want to address with this movie.

• I cannot support the floating Leia / Mary Poppins sequence whatsoever
• My suggestion: have the explosion on the bridge, but the next time we see Leia is when they put the Oxygen mask on her

I’d rather leave the sequence alone, weird though it is. To me it’d be too awkard to dance around it, and it didn’t bother me anyway.

• Ahch-To Stuff
  • Great job on cutting the “sad eyes” porg. The scene remains funny, but not over the top
  • Also, great work to you (and the community) for the work done to remove the caretakers from the island

Thanks!

• Getting rid of the “Luke tickling Rey” scene was smart, but I do admit that it felt rather rushed
• After Rey says, “Okay,” you currently have it cut to Luke throwing away the leaf and telling her to breathe. I would suggest having her say, “Okay… but what is it?” (just as she does in the actual film), and THEN cut to Luke throwing away the leaf. I think this would make the scene feel more complete. Maybe I’m wrong.

Rey’s eyeline aligns with the shot that is placed afterward in the workprint immediately after she says, “Okay.” I agree with you in theory, though. I am not sure whether I will ultimately keep or discard the leaf gag. It does fit with Luke’s character, to be fair. Moreso than the Jakku joke I already relented about cutting.

• When Rey confronts Luke just before she leaves Ach-To, I really would like the idea of us seeing some of the TFA “force back” / flashback clips integrated into the moment when Luke looks into Ben Solo’s mind… that way when he ignites his lightsaber, it truly seems like it was out of instinct. Maybe not in your edit if you don’t want, but I would like to see it done by someone.

Eh, the movie leaves it to our imagination, and I don’t see reused footage adding anything helpful.

• Canto Bight
  • AMAZING. The fact that I can make Canto Bight into only one bullet point should tell you that it was a success. It’s so much faster paced, and I’m all for removing the political BS. You nailed it.

Thanks. This is the biggest single thing in need of addressing in a fan edit.

• On the Star Destroyer
  • I’m not crazy about BB-8 driving an AT-ST, but I don’t know if there’s a way to cut it

I’m with you on this one.

• When Hux is looking at Snoke’s dead body, his lower half falls out of the chair for no reason… cuttable?

Eh, it adds some very light humor and motion to Hux gazing out over the destruction. No reason comes up in my mind to remove it.

• Finn’s sacrifice scene
  • I’m just sort of thinking out loud for this one
  • I’m still of the opinion that Rose shouldn’t run her speeder into his ship… instead I wish we could make it look like his ship gets shot or maybe that it breaks down before he can sacrifice himself
  • But if we really have to keep Rose, then I like the change you made to cut the stupid “love” line. While I wish they didn’t kiss, that’s going to be hard to cut out, so I guess I’ll deal with it.

The Finn and Rose subplot exists. Much like how I approached Jar Jar in my TPM edit, there has to be enough remaining to feel like it belongs and hasn’t been modified by a trigger-happy fanboy.

• Luke facing down the First Order / Kylo Ren fight
  • Selfishly, I still like my edit to play The Jedi Steps during this sequence. But to each their own. 😉

I like your rescore, but the existing music accompanying Luke as he marches out there was my favorite moment of the film. “The moment you’ve all been waiting for since 2013… it’s Luke Skywalker, motherfuckers! And he’s gonna lay down some MLK style nonviolent Resistance on you!”

Only other thoughts…

• Was really hoping to see a few of the deleted scenes
  • The Finn / Poe deleted scene where Poe is catching Finn up on what’s happening
  • “Luke Mourns,” though I don’t know exactly where it would fit, to be honest
  • And the stormtrooper / elevator deleted scene… the fan-edited one that removes their voices and just makes it more of a tension building sequence is pretty great

The Luke having a moment scene is the only one I plan to use, I just haven’t done it yet. The Poe and Finn scene would virtually require that I also include the BB8 recording scene and shuttle heading to Crait. The scene doesn’t really add anything important, other than also requiring I add more scenes to an already overlong movie. I would, though, reallllllly love to include the deleted scene with Finn and company on the Star Destroyer, but it is full of unfinished set extensions and is unsuitable for that technical reason. Shame, really.

• Finally, I’m curious about your reasoning for moving the Luke / Yoda sequence later in the movie? Not sure how I feel about it because it seems like a much slower scene compared to all the fast paced stuff going on before/after its new placement. Maybe I can appreciate it if I understand the reasoning why it was moved there.

At this point in the movie, we’ve seen our characters fail and reach their lowest points, and this scene with Luke and Yoda reflects back on Act 2 before launching into Act 3. In the theatrical, Luke seems to have this realization ahead of the action. Now, it serves a bridge between Acts 2 and 3. Also, the transition from the ending of the Yoda theme to Finn and Rose felt unpleasant to me.

Great work for this first version. I really enjoyed this immensely more than the actual film. While I still have little things to nitpick about, I would absolutely take this over what we initially received. Once again, awesome job.

Thanks very much. I hope to be able to do more with it before laying the tools down.

Hal 9000 said:
Thanks for previewing it, and I hope the ending didn’t make your eyes bleed!

Hahaha, it actually works much better when the garbage of Canto Bight is removed. With less Canto Bight I can appreciate it more 😃

Possessed said:

Last time I watched TLJ I had the thought of just removing Poe’s x wing getting damaged in the first place therefore no bb8 fixing it? I mean it never comes up again. Just have him run through and take out the guns, then it’s all about the bombers like in the theatrical.

That seems so simple I don’t know why it hasn’t been discussed already. Just cut out Poe’s X-Wing getting damaged and there’s no need for BB-8 to have to fix anything.

A quick thought before I have to run off for the day. The Canto Bight casino scene now seems to be a big joke, but in a good way. There’s a long establishing shot, immersing us in the environment, and we see the glamorous master codebreaker… only to be tossed out on our asses and change scenes.
Given the subversion theme of the film, I think this change works well!

What do you all think about potentially reinstating two things?

The leaf/reed scene - Luke is sardonic, and it fits in with his character, makes the point the scene is going for that Rey doesn’t know the first thing about the Force, and is a genuinely funny moment. With the surrounding caretaker humor gone, maybe this one is worth keeping.

“…not about fighting what we hate, saving what we love.” - This line sucks, but perhaps it’s worth it to cap off the Finn and Rose plot’s point. It harkens back to the opening act, and shows her (dumb) growth throughout the movie. I do not like the line. But… eh?

First one, yes.
Second one, meh.

The milking scene is still in; I loved that right away and wouldn’t want to remove it. This film has a lot of latent sexuality, in keeping with Star Wars. That’s also why I will be re-adding Rey asking Kylo to put something on when he is shirtless; it helps set up their “touching hands” scene.

RogueLeader said:

Also wanted to mention I posted some thoughts on the Wisecrack video Hal posted earlier on the TLJ discussion thread if anyone would be interested in reading them.

I’d be interested. What’d you post? There are thousands of comments.

Your not alone on removing the solo Hux/Snoke scene Mala.

I finished watching your workprint yesterday Hal and very much enjoyed it 😃

-The new Poe/Hux scene works really well. I now get a good chuckle out of it without things getting too drawn out.
-Caretaker removal is absolutely awesome. I love the feeling of Luke truly being alone on the island.
-The removal of Canto Bight was quite good. Everything flows smoothly and I love how small this section of the movie is now.
-The cuts on the Battle of Crait are seamless and nicely implemented.

Really great job Hal. Only question left is how much further you wish to go with the edit.

MalàStrana said:

The “put a cowl” line is also the opposite of a latent sexuality since it clearly denies it. I thought it was a very clever removal.

What better way to include latent sexuality than by ‘clearly’ denying it? 😉

And thanks, Darthrush! That’s a good question. I think this edit will be a fairly lightweight one. Sort of like my old prequel edits (2006ish). If I can trim away what cringe moments I can (subjective), perhaps the rest won’t be as bothersome. And if I can remove a good swatch of the Canto Bight digression, perhaps the subplot can still feel solid enough while reducing the runtime a little.