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The Force Awakens: Starlight (V1.1 Released!) — Page 41

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RogueLeader said:

I have only gotten to the Falcon escape, but I do have some thoughts.

I think Jakku regrade was a massive success. I genuinely love this look for Jakku. Some might find it too bland, but that feeling will make seeing the green of Takodana much more cathartic, imo.

I do think the BB-8 night shots are rather quick as well, but I get why it cuts to him at that point. I did have another thought though. Since we moved Ren’s line “I’ll leave that to you” Maybe in its place you could put something like, “Kill the pilot.” Poe gave them the information they need, he is no longer useful. Maybe when Finn walks in, he could say, “The Captain wants the prisoner.” So the audience might think he is about to be executed, maybe by Captain Phasma on Hux’s orders, then it turns out to be Finn trying to escape. Maybe that could help the transition between those two scenes?

I’ll have to comment on your other questions as I get farther into the edit.

That’s a great idea.

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 got a chance to sit down and watch the whole edit last night, and I thought it was a treat! I can’t offer technical feedback in the way ziggyonice did, but I will offer some of the thoughts I had while watching.

From the jump I loved the Jakku regrade, it does a lot to showcase the idea of Jakku as a kind of purgatory. Just the simple brighter colors make it look much more hot and miserable, so when Rey keeps insisting she has to go back there’s even more of a feeling of “Why would you ever want to?” to it. In addition with the scenes of her scavenging and fighting and tinkering, it really hammers home that this is really all she’s been doing all day long for most of her life.

I particularly enjoyed the darker undertones to Rey as well, and the whispers/voices that accompany her Force feats definitely shine. She’s obviously a person with issues and, as Snoke and Kylo said, a lot of latent ability, and especially having just watched the rest of the saga and Clone Wars, Rebels and so on, it’s clear cut that she is on a dangerous path. She has no formal training yet already taps so deeply into these emotions and into her buried feelings of being left behind in order to get ahead. I think this leads quite well into Luke’s horror in TLJ when he accuses her of going straight to the dark. I’ll be seeing TROS this evening, but I’m hoping that it will continue the themes of Rey being far closer than she knows to falling. I personally never really clicked with the complaints of Rey being a Mary Sue, but I do think were someone who does to watch this edit they might feel that there’s better reason for her to do the things she does.

I absolutely loved the Leia and Han voiceovers when Han touches Kylo’s saber, especially after coming off of the psychometry in Jedi: Fallen Order and seeing Kylo dig around in Poe and Rey’s minds, and with the SFX used. It plays out so naturally and matches up so well with the expressions on Kylo’s face that it feels like a part of the original scene. Bravo on that! I do agree that Leia seems to react pretty late.

I remember reading somewhere in this thread that you intended to place in some kind of voice that names Hosnian Prime when Starkiller Base is preparing to fire, and I definitely think that would help since we as viewers have no reason to know that isn’t Coruscant unless we’ve read some EU material. Likewise, the transition from Takodana to D’Qar is not immediately apparant, in my opinion. I don’t believe it’s ever stated that they’ve gone to a different planet, and I remember when I first watched TFA I thought that it was a different place on the same planet as Maz’s castle. Some kind of throwaway line to contextualize that, maybe just a simple “Welcome to planet D’Qar” or something, might go a long way on that matter, more so than a wipe transition and suddenly we’re somewhere completely different that also is green and pretty.

In all, I feel absolutely that your hard work has paid off in spades, and that you’ve already made the definitive fan edit of The Force Awakens for hardcore fans and to show to newbies alike. I believe that your future plans such as new alien subtitles, voiceover for TR-8R, Phasma triggering the silent alarm and so on will only serve to make it even better. Once more, bravo!

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Only have been able to watch half of it but I must say the change in color when Kylo first takes off his mask is amazing and helps that scene so much!

After being beaten and battered by prequel hate, I promise not to be that to the next generation.

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JKMaxx said:

I got a chance to sit down and watch the whole edit last night, and I thought it was a treat! I can’t offer technical feedback in the way ziggyonice did, but I will offer some of the thoughts I had while watching.

From the jump I loved the Jakku regrade, it does a lot to showcase the idea of Jakku as a kind of purgatory. Just the simple brighter colors make it look much more hot and miserable, so when Rey keeps insisting she has to go back there’s even more of a feeling of “Why would you ever want to?” to it. In addition with the scenes of her scavenging and fighting and tinkering, it really hammers home that this is really all she’s been doing all day long for most of her life.

So glad you like the grade. I was worried that it might be too bright (and in some cases I’m still planning on toning down the highlights due to clipping issues) but overall I’m pleased.

I particularly enjoyed the darker undertones to Rey as well, and the whispers/voices that accompany her Force feats definitely shine. She’s obviously a person with issues and, as Snoke and Kylo said, a lot of latent ability, and especially having just watched the rest of the saga and Clone Wars, Rebels and so on, it’s clear cut that she is on a dangerous path. She has no formal training yet already taps so deeply into these emotions and into her buried feelings of being left behind in order to get ahead. I think this leads quite well into Luke’s horror in TLJ when he accuses her of going straight to the dark. I’ll be seeing TROS this evening, but I’m hoping that it will continue the themes of Rey being far closer than she knows to falling. I personally never really clicked with the complaints of Rey being a Mary Sue, but I do think were someone who does to watch this edit they might feel that there’s better reason for her to do the things she does.

Yeah, my intention to give her more reason for her power was actually secondary. The primary reason I wanted much of her power to flow from a dark place was because it gives her a much stronger internal struggle, as if she’s well-composed on the outside and outwardly quite competent but at the cost of burying her lifelong traumas beneath the surface. All this existed in the original of course, but the Dark Side angle helps to throw it into sharper relief.

I absolutely loved the Leia and Han voiceovers when Han touches Kylo’s saber, especially after coming off of the psychometry in Jedi: Fallen Order and seeing Kylo dig around in Poe and Rey’s minds, and with the SFX used. It plays out so naturally and matches up so well with the expressions on Kylo’s face that it feels like a part of the original scene. Bravo on that! I do agree that Leia seems to react pretty late.

That’s quite a relief to hear, it was one of the changes I was most worried about. The Leia reaction unfortunately must stay where it is unless I restructured that section back to the way it was which would leave a hole between the Oscillator X-wing damage and the end of the lightsaber fight.

I remember reading somewhere in this thread that you intended to place in some kind of voice that names Hosnian Prime when Starkiller Base is preparing to fire, and I definitely think that would help since we as viewers have no reason to know that isn’t Coruscant unless we’ve read some EU material. Likewise, the transition from Takodana to D’Qar is not immediately apparant, in my opinion. I don’t believe it’s ever stated that they’ve gone to a different planet, and I remember when I first watched TFA I thought that it was a different place on the same planet as Maz’s castle. Some kind of throwaway line to contextualize that, maybe just a simple “Welcome to planet D’Qar” or something, might go a long way on that matter, more so than a wipe transition and suddenly we’re somewhere completely different that also is green and pretty.

I wonder if regrading Takodana to sunset will help with that transition. In Restructured I had to cut a lot of the establishing shot of D’Qar for music purposes, so that certainly doesn’t help.

As for naming the Hosnian system, the only time it is mentioned is by Poe in the original, which was of course cut. I’ve included a faint version of that line in the final scenes of the film (has anyone picked up on that yet?) but I agree that it needs to happen before it is destroyed. There’s just no way I can see of doing it short of recording new dialogue.

In all, I feel absolutely that your hard work has paid off in spades, and that you’ve already made the definitive fan edit of The Force Awakens for hardcore fans and to show to newbies alike. I believe that your future plans such as new alien subtitles, voiceover for TR-8R, Phasma triggering the silent alarm and so on will only serve to make it even better. Once more, bravo!

Thank you very much!

dgraham414 said:

Only have been able to watch half of it but I must say the change in color when Kylo first takes off his mask is amazing and helps that scene so much!

Excellent. I’m sure someone will still say it’s too dark and I’ve gone and crushed the black levels (it’s all true) but I think the benefit to a more shadowed and frightening Kylo is worth it.

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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Is there any way of reinstating Hux’s speach?

Peace is a lie
There is only passion…

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 (Edited)

I was thinking the night before seeing TROS about a more radical version of this edit where I cut out the opening scene entirely and maybe a few other little scenes in an attempt to have a more gradual, atmospheric opening. It’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since making the mockup of the false starfield open but the first scene feels very important for a lot of characters. It is the introduction of Poe, Tekka, Kylo, and Finn. However, most of these character introductions are problematic in this scene and create slightly or mostly false impressions of future character arcs:

Poe - He’s fairly one-note throughout the film, so cutting his scene here doesn’t feel too destructive except that it removes even more of his character minutes.

Tekka - He dies in this scene and isn’t mentioned afterwards, so cutting this character doesn’t really hurt the film.

Finn - This is important stuff for him, but I’d argue that beginning his journey with shock at the death of a comrade paints a picture of a trooper now driven by conscience and compassion and refusing to take any life, especially those of his brothers and sisters in arms. This is proven false again and again throughout the film so taking out this moment might do more good than bad. I think the moment of him refusing to fire on the civilians is necessary to keep, but I have an idea about that.

Kylo - This edit paints Kylo in a more conflicted light. As such his cutting down of an unarmed civilian and ordering the murder of the whole village makes him far too villainous, especially considering later events in the saga. Other than Tekka’s murder, Kylo doesn’t kill anyone onscreen until Han so it’s more plausible that he will turn.

Removing this scene allows the edit to open on Rey and her life. BB-8 is a total mystery to the audience when Rey finds him, and only in the following interrogation do we learn of his importance. Cut from Rey and BB-8 walking home to the house at night, where BB-8 looks into the sky and bring in the opening shot of the film of the destroyer eclipsing the moon, sans transports. The interrogation could be expanded to include some voiceover from Tekka establishing the map and its importance. Cutting back to BB-8 at the house after the interrogation wouldn’t feel so out of place if it merely bookends the interrogation, then we move into the rescue and our first image of Finn.

As for Finn’s moment on the firing line, it could be placed after Finn’s big confession in Rey’s Force vision after the image of Luke and R2. Using the footage from the trailer without the added rain, move from that orange and firey scene to the burning village and Finn refusing to fire on the villagers. This would segue more cleanly into Rey’s past in the desert.

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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Will you be adding anything to foreshadow the events in TROS?

Peace is a lie
There is only passion…

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NeverarGreat said:

Kylo - This edit paints Kylo in a more conflicted light. As such his cutting down of an unarmed civilian and ordering the murder of the whole village makes him far too villainous, especially considering later events in the saga. Other than Tekka’s murder, Kylo doesn’t kill anyone onscreen until Han so it’s more plausible that he will turn.

In my opinion the opening works well as an introduction to Kylo, especially. I think he needs to be introduced as the main villain, even if the truth is more nuanced. His interaction with San Tekka hints that there is more to Kylo, with lines like “I know where you came from” and “The First Order Rose from the dark side, you did not”. And then Kylo kills him, which shows his unwillingness to face his past (“let the past die”, literally) and makes Kylo feel more like a threat. I agree that it could be a good idea to tone down Kylo’s evil side, but it still has to be there to some extent. You could remove his order to kill the villagers, though. Killing San Tekka was personal, but I doubt he cares about what happens to the villagers. RogueLeader had an idea about using a different line for Kylo there and have him say “I leave that to you” (later said to Hux) to Phasma. I did that in my WIP edit, so the dialogue goes like this:
Phasma: “Sir, the villagers”
Kylo: “I leave that to you”
Phasma: “No survivors!” (a line from Battlefront 2)

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Maybe it’s possible, maybe not, but at least you consider every angle! I like that.

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What a nice way of saying I overthink everything 😉

Speaking of, I’ve had an idea about Finn’s characterization in the opening scene. In it, he seems shellshocked by the death of a fellow soldier but using a deleted scene that same reaction could instead be applied to him accidentally shooting an innocent villager.

https://vimeo.com/381248592

Password: fanedit

With some effects work I think it might be fairly passable, and wouldn’t give the impression that he was suddenly awakened to the suffering of his fellow troopers so much as he was horrified and guilt-ridden at killing a civilian. It would also certainly give new meaning to his line about being ashamed of what he was.

Is this worth pursuing?

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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This is interesting! I actually had a similar idea of using that scene awhile back, but for a different purpose.

https://vimeo.com/354559668

I had this idea that maybe the bundle that woman is carrying is actually a baby, and you could add baby crying sound effects to that scene. The next time we see Finn, when the officer puts him in formation, you could alter his line to say, “The children are on board, now stay here.”

I like the idea of Finn realizing he is perpetuating the cycle. He was kidnapped as a child, and now he is kidnapping more children. Finn and Rose help give the children of Canto Bight hope for a better future in TLJ, and we get some mentions of more children harvesting in TROS, so it’d be interesting if somehow that arc came full circle by the end of the trilogy.

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That is a good point. I do appreciate that you’re putting some thought into setting up more with Finn’s story from the beginning. Now we have the full trilogy, it’d be nice to see how we can set up in things in TFA that can pay off in TROS.

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The way she is holding the bundle makes it difficult to sell the baby idea. Maybe you could edit her covering the child with her right arm instead of holding on to the wall. Ideally you could insert an over the shoulder shot (the women merely in the frame) with the child’s face in the foreground and Fin lowering his weapon in the back.

“Vader! Hologram, now!”

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That might be a good idea.

Nev, if you go with Finn killing the villager, I wonder if it would be easier fx-wise to have Finn turn the corner, shoot the villager, but maybe cut on the impact to the shot of Finn. Then you could add foley of someone falling to the ground in pain, while Finn lowers his blaster realizing what he has done.

Because as it is now, it feels like it would be hard to make it seem like she has actually been shot, based on her reaction.

Also, how would we know it was Finn that killed her if he doesn’t have his blood marks?

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I think the music would have to do a lot of the heavy lifting in this scene. Definitely need foley of the falling, but I think it could work to have the shot of the woman after she has been blastered if we can see the wound, just a circle of black with singed clothes around it, with maybe a wisp of smoke. It’s the classic delayed reaction. Cut back to Finn (without bloodmarks on his helmet) and the foley of her falling to the ground.

To sell the idea that it is the same trooper, maybe just have the shots of the flametrooper and Tekka walking through the flames then immediately cut back to Finn hovering over the woman as she dies so that it is clear that this is one continuous series of events. He also has a somewhat distinctive blood splatter on the jaw of his helmet which might be enough to distinguish him before the larger blood marks.

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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Those are good ideas! So he shoots, we see the shot burning in her stomach, then it cuts to Finn and we hear her fall down. Right?

Also, maybe Finn could make some kind of sound, enough to where we could recognize his voice later. Like his distinctive heavy breathing? 😂

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NeverarGreat said:

Fair. I don’t think the first scene can be removed, I just really want it to be 😃 I also use the ‘I leave that to you’ line here.

Yes, do remove it please. Intruducing the film with a worthy stance on visual storytelling, rather than uncessary dialog is a much better approach.