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The Force Awakens - Ridley's Edit (WIP) — Page 5

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littlev87 said:

Sir Ridley said:

littlev87 said:

Sir Ridley said:

ChainsawAsh said:

I don’t think it was a question of “who trains him” so much as it was a question of “do we have him trained or not.”

I feel like she puts emphasis on Luke, they probably thought that Luke had the best chance of turning him away from the dark side. I don’t think training in itself would do that. I don’t know. I’m not sure if it matters though. I think the information in that line (whatever it implies) isn’t needed. And there being “Vader” in him is obvious anyway, Kylo is enough of a Vader Junior without it being spelled out.

I think the line about Luke is implying it was their only hope to control his power and stop him from turning to the dark.

The Vader line, at least in how I was using it in my dialog rearrangement, was a way for Han to express that it was a useless gesture to have Ben train with Luke, and that there is no saving him from this point forward.

Ah, yeah I see. I don’t think it should seem like Han has completely given up on Ben though.

I think Han giving up on ben and then later trying to redeem him when he sees him on SK base gives Han a more complex character arc than what he currently has.

Whatever he says in that moment he has given up on Ben to some extent while Leia is more hopeful and tries to change his mind, I think moving a few lines there doesn’t really change his character arc.

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I sent you a PM for a download link, this looks absolutely incredible and i cant wait to watch it!

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Rh_2002 said:

I sent you a PM for a download link, this looks absolutely incredible and i cant wait to watch it!

Happy to hear that, however it’s not done. At the moment I’m helping Hal with one of his edits, but maybe I’ll have time to finish my edit later this year.

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Ok so this thread has been dead for a few months now, I was just wondering if the project is progressing at all. Hope your doing ok!

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Thank you for asking! The edit is progressing slowly. I’ve been helping Hal with some shots for his edits lately and have been busy with other things as well, so I haven’t actively worked on the edit for a while. But I’m still thinking about ideas for it and I intend to finish it at some point, but can’t say when that will be.

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That good to hear. I can understand stresses of trying to balance loads personal projects and so I get when somethings need to be put on the back burner. Its both a curse and a luxury that usually leads to better results even if you may have to wait along time for them. But the best things in life are always the ones worth waiting for. You take your time, don’t let nags like me rush you and good luck with the other edits.

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Sounds perfect, with two minor caveats:

  • The moment when Rey one-ups Han Solo at fixing the Millennium Falcon is cringeworthy. Rey can be talented without outshining original trilogy characters.
  • Ending The Force Awakens before Rey finds Luke is the equivalent of ending A New Hope before Luke blows up the Death Star. Finding Luke is the central goal in The Force Awakens, just as destroying the Death Star is the central goal in A New Hope. Every complete story must answer whether the hero’s quest ends in success or failure.
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I honestly disagree with both of those points, though the second has a significantly stronger argument.

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LordPlagueis said:

  • The moment when Rey one-ups Han Solo at fixing the Millennium Falcon is cringeworthy. Rey can be talented without outshining original trilogy characters.

I always liked that moment, mostly because of Rey’s smile at the end.

  • Ending The Force Awakens before Rey finds Luke is the equivalent of ending A New Hope before Luke blows up the Death Star. Finding Luke is the central goal in The Force Awakens, just as destroying the Death Star is the central goal in A New Hope. Every complete story must answer whether the hero’s quest ends in success or failure.

I agree with this. I’ve never understood why all the TFA edits cut the ending. It’s a great scene, and cutting it leaves the movie without a proper ending.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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There’s a distinction between the plot and the hero’s quest that is getting lost here.

The plot of ANH is certainly to destroy the Death Star, but that is not Luke’s quest. He just wants to learn about the Force and become a Jedi - destroying the Death Star is merely the vehicle by which this happens. As we know, Lucas himself originally intended the Death Star to be destroyed in the third film, so Luke would presumably have had some other experience which required him to rely on the Force. The plot could be anything, as long as Luke begins his spiritual journey, and it might even be more resonant if he didn’t murder thousands of people in the process. 😉

Rey’s decision to fully embrace the Force happens when she calls the lightsaber, and her decision to find Luke is presumed and confirmed when she leaves on the Falcon. Her arc in this movie is complete without the Luke scene. The plot of the movie technically ended with the completion of the map, so actually journeying to the island is an acceptable scene to hold for TLJ or incorporated elsewhere such as in my edit, where it is used as a dream/vision to illustrate the moment Rey decides to ask Luke specifically for aid.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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I’ve actually been thinking about leaving the ending as it is, for a few reasons. I like the idea of cutting it, but it doesn’t fully work for me. First of all I don’t really mind the original ending, and I don’t want to cut a thing like that unless I feel it’s a big improvement. Without it I think the ending feels slightly abrupt, but maybe that’s because I expect the island scene. And a big reason is also that I wanted to save the scene for TLJ, but I haven’t found a satisfying way to incorporate it into that movie yet. Ideally I want the scene to be right at the start of TLJ, but I would need to create a new opening shot in space following the title and crawl. I might leave the scene in TFA for now and maybe move it to TLJ when I edit that one.

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Yeah the ending scene has never been a hug issue one way or another, mostly because neither its inclusion or exclusion has ever felt like it adds anything to the movie (except a big cliff hanger) but that cliff hanger works in both cuts.

Personally I found the scene felt misplaced from my first viewing in the cinema. I was actually preparing to leave when ray and Chewie were boarding the MF and everyone waving and was fully expecting the the iris to close on Leia and 3PO. I very taken a back when the movie continued for a more minutes. After that I started to settle in assuming the movie must not be anywhere close to finishing (it didn’t seem impossible that time had just flown by and there was still 15 maybe 20 minutes left to go), but then boom it ends abruptly.

But I also have grown accustomed to its presence so I can see how knowing it should be there might make its absence lead to the film feeling incomplete. But that’s just my opinions. Maybe you could do an Alternative cut if its not a bother (but if it is then again I should’t think it would ruin anyone’s experience one way or the other.

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NeverarGreat said:

Ridley, I recall you were trying to incorporate the BTS footage of Han’s dice at one point, did you ever manage to get that to work?

I haven’t pieced it together yet, I need a closeup of the dice being hung up which I’ll need to film myself, probably.

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I’m crossing my fingers they put that moment out for real at some point, maybe on the trilogy box set or something.

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Yeah, it would be nice to have more deleted scenes from TFA in general. At least some of them will be repurposed for TROS.

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The thing that makes it plausible in my mind is they already kinda did the slow trickle of TFA deleted scenes (the physical release had a handful, the digital release had all of those plus one, and then the 3D rerelease had a couple extra ones). Plus the trilogy finally being over may make them less protective of revealing the might have beens (and, in retrospect with TROS, they were probably smart to do so).

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I have a feeling a lot of TFA edits are gonna have a bit of a continuity issue on their hands, as I’m sure they’re going to use the Leia “I don’t care” scene in TROS.

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Tobar said:

I have a feeling a lot of TFA edits are gonna have a bit of a continuity issue on their hands, as I’m sure they’re going to use the Leia “I don’t care” scene in TROS.

But how? Since the Republic has been turned into a planet-sized bowl of cocoa pebbles, they would have to change everything except that line.

It’s much more likely to me that they would use a scene that was shot but never released, like the one where Maz gives Leia the lightsaber.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:

Tobar said:

I have a feeling a lot of TFA edits are gonna have a bit of a continuity issue on their hands, as I’m sure they’re going to use the Leia “I don’t care” scene in TROS.

But how? Since the Republic has been turned into a planet-sized bowl of cocoa pebbles, they would have to change everything except that line.

It’s much more likely to me that they would use a scene that was shot but never released, like the one where Maz gives Leia the lightsaber.

Anyone interested in what they might be able to use could probably look to the novelization. I haven’t read it in a while so I don’t remember how much more fleshed out the Leia stuff was, but it certainly utilized some deleted moments. Considering how she specifically mentions the senate in that one scene it might be hard for them to use, but also, who knows. There’s definitely more deleted footage of her they didn’t give us, but I wouldn’t count out that they might repurpose and recontextualize the couple moments we got on the blu-rays.

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DominicCobb said:

The thing that makes it plausible in my mind is they already kinda did the slow trickle of TFA deleted scenes (the physical release had a handful, the digital release had all of those plus one, and then the 3D rerelease had a couple extra ones). Plus the trilogy finally being over may make them less protective of revealing the might have beens (and, in retrospect with TROS, they were probably smart to do so).

True, and some new special features would be good to convince people to buy the complete collection.

Tobar said:

I have a feeling a lot of TFA edits are gonna have a bit of a continuity issue on their hands, as I’m sure they’re going to use the Leia “I don’t care” scene in TROS.

That’s possible, but if they use it I bet they will change it quite a lot. The dialogue and context could be changed (Korr Sella died in TFA so Leia would be talking to someone else), and the setting and Leia’s hair and clothes will probably be different. We’ll see.

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Here’s a look at what I’ve got for the dice sequence so far.

https://vimeo.com/361421335 (password: fanedit)

I (obviously) need to replace the shot with the crew visible with a new one. I’ll create a closeup of a pair of hands hanging up the dice. I also need to create new foley sounds for the sequence.