Thank you for the detailed notes, I hadn’t noticed even half of these issues!
ziggyonice said:
- In the crawl, is “Episode VII” centered? It looks too far off to the right above “THE FORCE AWAKENS.”
It’s probably off center. I’ll have to fix that for the final crawl.
- What’s with the speed increase at the end of the crawl? It should move as the same speed throughout.
This crawl was modeled closely off of the original crawl for Star Wars before the '81 crawl changed the timing. In the original the crawl actually does increase in speed toward the end. For the '81 crawl and all subsequent films the crawls have been standardized in speed and format for the most part, but this has thrown off the original musical transitions which occurred in the original at the paragraph breaks. The goal was to return to this musical synchronicity, but I could try to make the speedup at the end less noticeable.
- When the village gets shot up by stormtroopers, Phasma says, “On my command.” Listen close, you can hear her repeat the last syllable happen a couple times (maybe due to a duplicated audio segment). I would recommend headphones for this, but it’s definitely there.
Duly noted.
- Why did you cut Unkar Plutt’s introductory line? “What you brought me today is, hmm, worth one quarter portion.”
This was the last change I made before finishing the workprint, when I realized that Rey’s introduction is almost entirely wordless. I thought it would be cool to make it entirely wordless (sans alien gibberish), and I think it is still fully legible despite the dialogue.
- The Poe/Kylo Ren interrogation scene looks great.
Thanks! I have thought about going in and standardizing the look of all the visions/dreams to match the island dream from the end of the film, but that’s probably the only change I’d make to this scene.
- There is just some clipping on some of the audio (again, can be heard through headphones).
- Maybe add some fades at the beginning/ends of those clips to prevent the clipping sounds.
Will do.
- Not seeing the point of the nighttime BB-8 scene after Poe’s interrogation. It looks pretty but doesn’t serve a purpose if its that short.
Fair, that’s another late change from when the scene was going to include a dream sequence from Rey. I still think the scene has merit if it is lengthened slightly with more finesse from BB-8 (maybe he looks up at the stars and then goes around the foot and inside as the camera pans back up). I feel like there needs to be some sort of buffer between Poe’s interrogation and Finn’s rescue, and having a nighttime scene would help this, especially if I change the lighting somewhat in the rescue to imply that the crew is in night cycle.
- Just as Snoke’s first scene occurs, is there a way to have Hux say Supreme Leader Snoke’s name or something? For people new to the series, they don’t know who this giant holligam is. If Hux said it, it would help — even if just as a voiceover in the clip leading up to this one.
Hm, I don’t know. That’s a good point, in the original he does say ‘Supreme Leader’. I suppose he could say that line again and have him be cut off by Snoke’s ‘SO…’ when standing, to indicate that Hux is being thoroughly ignored.
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Clipped audio at Snoke scene / line: “Our strategy must change…"
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I’ve seen edits before where they put an effect on Snoke to make him look more like a hologram.
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Is that possible here? Since when did holagrams go HD?
I was never bothered too much by the advancements in hologram technology here. I know it’s been done fairly well in other edits, but I don’t think it’s super necessary.
- The transition from Kylo Ren praying feels a little weird
- Is there any shot of Kylo Ren walking down the hall of his star destoryer that could be used after he stands up from praying but before the shot of Finn preparing to leave? Like as a transition?
I don’t think so. Maybe TROS will have something, though that would have the new mask…
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Turn down the music volume just a tad when Han says “where’d you get that” when Maz hands him the lightsaber
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When Rey returns to Maz’s castle during the battle, you can hear Han’s voice say, “Oh no” (probably from a duplicated audio clip).
The ghosts of fallen ideas still haunt my timeline…
- I feel like the music is just a tad too loud when Leia and Han are having their talk about Ben while they are inside the Resistance base.
Fair. I feel like most of the music for this film is buried in the ambience, but here I went too far in the other direction.
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Another clipped audio just before Leia says, “The First Order, they’re charging the weapon now”
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When Rey hides from the stormtroopers while on Starkiller Base, the scene cuts to Phasma saying, “Take no chances, I won’t tolerate sloppiness,” then back to Rey, then back to Phasma. Why not just have Rey hide, then have one cut to Phasma? It feels a little choppy having to switch between the two.
I experimented with that, and it feels weirder to go from Phasma being captured to Phasma lowering the shields. At one point the Kylo on the Falcon scene went between these scenes but that was moved, leaving this little segue. I don’t know what else to put here other than Rey starting to climb down the wall, which eats into the later scene where she hides from the TIE launch.
- Moving the Leia reaction scene to Han’s death… I’m debating on this one. I feel like it actually flowed better having her reaction take place after Han dies but before Chewie goes crazy. You did the opposite here (that I do see the reason to why!); however, I’m just a little unsure.
Fair, the scene packs more immediate punch there, but even in the theater I remember thinking it was weird to interrupt the continuity of the scene for a single shot cutaway across the galaxy. The big reason the scene is there now is because I want there to be a bit of ambiguity as to Chewie’s fate, and Leia’s sorrowful reaction seems to have two parts.
Everything looks awesome. I’ll have more comments after I can watch it again, but these are my initial notes. Thanks again for putting this all together — it’s really great!
You’re welcome! Thanks again for the feedback, it’s really helpful.