LordPlagueis said:
The Hux monologue is a thousand times better than the Hux prank call, which turns a menacing fascist general from The Force Awakens into a bumbling idiot.I’d prefer if the Hux scene was cut completely. Hux was menacing in TFA, we don’t need to re-establish that.
I thought the "activating magnetic bombardment was a nice touch.
This isn’t Star Trek though, it’s fantasy. Not everything needs an explanation.
I am not against the Finn-Rose subplot, but I hated the Maz Kanata hologram action scene and DJ’s stuttering.
I hated a lot more than that: Rose fangirling over Finn, the wacky casino, the unnecessary war profiteering message, freeing the animals and not freeing the slaves, Phasma returning only to die again, and BB-8 in an AT-ST.
Ivan Ortega’s cut of Finn’s sacrifice was far preferable to the theatrical version. Stopping Finn from sacrificing himself endangered the Resistance and dishonored her sister, who similarly sacrificed herself. Although I prefer edits where an AT-At shoots down Finn, this is an improvement.
Why can’t an AT-AT shoot Finn down? Other edits have shown how easy it is. Including footage of Finn dragging Rose back to base just asks more questions than it answers.
The mention of spies is necessary to explain why Holdo never reveals her secret plan.
No, it isn’t. Poe’s recklessness destroyed half the fleet and got him demoted. That should be enough of a reason why Holdo never tells Poe the plan.
I am surprised anyone would complain about Ackbar replacing Holdo in the hyperspace kamikaze. Holdo never had a character arc: She refuses to reveal her secret plan for no reason and then dies. If an established character sacrifices himself instead, the scene carries a greater emotional weight.
It’s less Holdo’s arc and more Poe’s arc. Holdo is a plot device that teaches Poe not to let his emotions control his actions. If Holdo, a character that Poe thought couldn’t be trusted, sacrifices herself to save the fleet, it emphasizes that lesson. Ackbar taking Holdo’s role in the suicide run is just blatant fanservice that sacrifices storytelling.
Hi, first post on this forum which I discovered yesterday. Hello to all.
Just to give my opinion as a TLJ hater, I think most of you are really harsh with Ivan Ortega.
Yes his reedit looks more like a WIP and from a technical point of view is really disappointing as a finished product. Imho he stopped working on it last fall for whatever reasons, possibly personal ones, and it is the state the project was in which he released.
Yes the fact he got money to finish a work he wasn’t 100% into lately is questionable. I gave 1 dollar monthly to him and I don’t regret it one bit. Maybe those who gave much more will, I don’t know but I understand people being upset by the technical low quality of the final cut.
Coming to the movie, the audio is flawed on most of the parts he changed, I don’t understand how could the Luke and Ackbar voices be recorded so poorly, there are some syncs problems, some sound of previous deleted scenes being noticable after the cut, and the battlefront space dogfight does not fit well especially the tie fighter cockpit because the xplosion are clearly coming from a console (the Xwings in formation fit better imho)and the quality of the bonus scenes cut from the original drops inexplicably whereas the very same scenes included by Forceghostrecon in his edit are of the same quality as the movie. There are also some parts where both the original soundtrack and the music he added are intertwined. I understand those issues especially when brought by people used to do some editing work. But the rel problem of this reedit does not lie with those mistakes or flaws, it comes rather from the difficulty to redeem RJ’s work and the structure of the story which has to be changed.
Nonetheless from a narrative point of view he had really good ideas and really managed to restore some characters butchered by Rian Johnson, mainly Luke, hux, Finn.
I especially like the fact he did remove most of the jokes which destroyed the pace of the movie. To quote what the director of The Empire strikes back said 4 decades ago, there shall be humour but no gags, something RJ completely disregarded.
@StarkillerAG
HUX:
I don’t see why TLJ shouldn’t emphasize again that hux is a deadly character, really threatening. It works. Making him a menace is really important especially if he is to play an important role in the last movie even if I know lack of foresight and no preplanned story do not garantee his character will be preserved by Abrams. But I really like the part within the rebel base where he watches silently Kylo Ren from behind, biding his time. Not making him menacing would lessen that scene imho.
Ivan Ortega really managed to turn this character from a buffoon into a ruthless first order general, able, skilled, fanatical and deadly. Keeping his speech really underlines those points.
I really think it was important to remove both the jokes, the spanking by snokes which does not make sense especially if the 1st order anticipated to follow the resistance through hyperspace, and … the PUPPY FACE when thing do not go the way they should !! (please Forceghostrecon, I really like your edit you kindly allowed me to watch, but remove those puppy faces, they really kill the character)
The editing problem we have is the tone Hux is using when ordering to open fire on Poe. It feels like a continuity problem if you remove the joke which upsets him. Looks like bad acting when seen alone. But the idea of him losing his nerves after venting his hatred of the resistance is not bad.
Activate magnetic bombardment:
The very fact many viewers criticized the way the attack unfolded with bombs falling in space shows there a was a need of explanation imho. Magnetic bombardment was a nice touch, short smart and efficient.
Unnecessary scenes :
Yes I agree ‘Rose fangirling over Finn, the wacky casino, the unnecessary war profiteering message, freeing the animals and not freeing the slaves, Phasma returning only to die again, and BB-8 in an AT-ST.’ were all useless. But they are the movie which in itself is useless. There are the story Rian Johnson tried to create. Even if filling the blancks TFA left would have been much more useful, those scenes create some kind of context. The casino with the race cliché and the war profiteers kind of give some information on why the republic failed again and was swiftly swept away by the first order. Corruption. It seems the republic was unable to properly rebuild the galaxy after the war against the Empire.
Ortega rightfully kept the Casino but reduced it to the barest minimum. He also removed the liberation of the animals and not the children. (coming to think of it, not freeing slaves is a recurring theme within the SW universe, after all Anakin also fell to the dark side because the Jedi Council was too stingy to pay to free his mother ^^ )
Rose Fangirling over Finn is unecessary but who knows, Rose could be an interesting character in episode 9. Probably not but once the forced one sided romance is removed, why not.
Finally Phasma. I like how Ivan Ortega dealt with Phasma, removing the stupid dialogs and keepîng the rest, editing a bit the scene which is much better now. Phasma is officialy dead. There’s no harm giving some closure to another story arc ruthlessly savaged by Rian Johnson. At least in Ortega’s cut, she dies a bad ass.
BB8 in an ATST is amlost removed so nothing to say here.
FINN:
I have to say I really like how Ivan Ortega restored or should I say healed the character after Finn suffered from the ominous Rian Johnson treatment. Finn is a storm trooper, a child stolen from his family (please Disney don’t make him Lando’s lost child) and the only people who showed him respect are Rey and Poe. Without Poe he would have been brainwashed again and without Rey he would probably be a lowlife in the outer rim far from the war. First Rian Johson made of him another buffoon almost on par with Hux then as a pervert he undermined the growing romance between him and Rey.
This is where Ortega’s reedit shines imho. First it removed the ludicrous awakening, it removed the fall from the table and perfectly inserted flashbacks showing Finn really caes about Rey and his kind of obsessed by her. The scene really works and the return of BB8 small jest to ease his mood and the holo projection of Rey telling goodbye while he was in a coma really adds to that relationship making his run for the hacker in order to save the fleet all the more justified by the need to ensure Rey will return safely.
I like the fact Ivan kept Finn’s attempt to sacrifice himself showing the character evolved and is at the end of the movie fully part of the resistance.
I agree here we have continuity problems when using a tie to shoot him down instead of a walker. Ivan probably wanted to add some tension and make Finn almost reach the canon but being prevented from crashing into it by an attack from an unexpected quarter. The walker finally shooting him down would perhaps have been better but it would have shown the futility of the attack. It’s a bit tricky here. Granted showing Finn coming back with Rose created more problems then it solved.
The Spie and Poe demotion :
'The mention of spies is necessary to explain why Holdo never reveals her secret plan.
No, it isn’t. Poe’s recklessness destroyed half the fleet and got him demoted. That should be enough of a reason why Holdo never tells Poe the plan.
’
I totally disagree with you here.
TLJ is full of plotholes and this one is pretty big. Poe disobeyed direct order and got demoted right after the attack. OK.
But in the end, if Poe had not disobeyed, the dreadnought would have destroyed the fleet directly after emerging from hyperspace. Therefore Poe saved the fleet. It doesn’t make sense not to inform him. He’s the best pilot and the last flying officer left, he’s the guy who shot starkiller base down, he’s a hero and he’s the last one left to do the job.
Therefore the spie idea is not bad but it would have required more work, more editing to fully work. And the holdo scene is perhaps the part I like the least, it"s still cringing and it still doesn’t make sense and they don’t talk about it at all ever again.
Holdo:
I’m with Lordplagueis on this. The holdo character is poorly written and while I understand the attempt to show some character evolution for Poe, it just doesn’t work. The whole story doesn’t work anyway and the hyperspace ram is another plothole create in the bakground for no other reason than just showing something spectacular.
She should have been removed all together and more work would have been required.
Making ackbar do the suicide attack is not just some fan service. Why put Ackbar in this movie just to throw him litterally out through the window? There’s no point. Make something useful of him is much clever.
Again Ivan Ortega’s vision was right but the execution is poor. The idea is good, I really like that kind of farewell for an old character, it’s much more satysfying than useless holdo at the helm. Now of course there is the problem of ackbar escaping the explosion of the CIC unscathed while Leia is in a coma.
Which leads me to speak about the Leia poppins scene. Ivan Ortega used a shot from Poe and Finn watching Leia return and running to the airlock to take her in and put that shot right after Leia being sucked out to the voide in order to make the audiance think they’ll make something about it, some rescue attempt which is not shown. It’s not stupid to use an ellipsis here. Lack of material makes it harder to show more.
I have to say I really like Forceghostrecon reedit showing luke saving Leia, I thik both work but the later is stronger.
Luke : The attempt is flawed but I also like how Ivan Ortega turned luke from a whiny hermit who had tried to kill his nephew into a jedi teacher, someone who did not let his nephew down but tried to find a solution.
Ivan tried to show Luke did not light one his saber when he explored Kylo Ren’s mind, finding the darkness to come, and Kylo out of fear of being discovered thought he would get killed and lashed out at his oncle.
But again Ivan made a technical mistake, there’s Luke’s saber glow in Ben’s eyes despite the fact . I think here it is a really gross mistake which undermine the narrative. If there was something to criticize, that would be mistakes like that.
I’ll stop here because I could write dozens of pages.
So overall, from a technical point of view, Ivan Ortega’s reedit is a clear disappointment. But from a storytelling perspective, it’s a huge improvement and I think it is why so many people seem to be pleased with it.
my 2 cents