Dear all,

Thanks for the encouragement!

I’ll have a go.

I’m just trying to pump out a base file to edit from now.

So ROGUE, my base thoughts on the edit is to eliminate as much of the WTF moments as well as the plot threads that are either under served or outright dead ends.

Most/all of Finn’s ‘Rey I’ve got something to tell you’ stuff.

I think I might keep his moments of feeling and intuition and let the audience determine that he is becoming force sensitive, but all of his ‘I have something to tell you’ stuff muddies the waters and was never very clear that that was where it was going.

I’m going to see if I can cut Lando’s first appearance on Pasaana.

I don’t feel it really brings anything to the table that I can’t work around aside from revealing the location of Ochi’s ship.

You could argue it sets up his appearance later after Leia’s death but once again there’s nothing that can’t be interpreted that Poe just knows him from historic interactions that have occurred off screen.

See how far I can go in removing Ochi as an ‘important’ character, for someone who has such a big role to the plot and Rey’s history he is hugely under served and so I’m going to see what I can do to cut around it.
Reshuffle the reveal that Chewie is alive.
I want to do something with Hux, but I don’t know what, there’s so little to work with here that I might have to leave it aside from reordering some of the scenes that he is in.
My ‘big’ change is the importance of the Sith Dagger.

My intention is to end it’s journey/inclusion once Rey realises it was used to murder her parents and Threepio has translated it.

I’m aiming to completely omit the ‘Indiana Jones’ moment where the notches on the dagger so conveniently line up with the DS2 wreckage on Kef Bir.

I personally feel that the movie really jumps the shark in this moment and so I’m going to try and settle it that Threepio’s translation directs them to Kef Bir and after that it’s just Rey’s skill and intuition that guides her to the wayfinder.

I’m also looking to just reshuffle a few shots here and there across the entire movie. Just some nips and tucks as I’ve noticed some absolute howlers, that if they were just cut away or re-ordered the flow of the scene would be better.

What I’m not aiming to do is cut away any of the fun.

I personally like the ‘Light speed skipping’ and ‘they fly now’ sequences, as controversial as that may be?

They add some much needed excitement, levity and character interaction so I can forgive some of the silliness in these areas.

There is scope for some trims to both sequences, but I wasn’t planning on deleting them entirely.

The stuff I would like to delete though is silly/comedic dialogue that will ‘age’ or ‘date’ the movie. Such as most of the Stormtroopers talking to each other

ie:-

‘Knights of Ren’

‘Cool!’ etc

Anyhow.

I THINK I’ve got a bit of a road map in my head, but until I get in there on a scene by scene basis and really delve in, it’s hard to know exactly what I can trim away before I break it or start leaving unbridgeable holes.

I’m not looking to radically change the movie. I’ve always said that the problem isn’t what is in the movie, but what ISN’T, so I was really holding out hope for deleted scenes.

Since they aren’t going to be forthcoming, I’m very cautious to start taking away more from a movie that is already trying to rush itself to the finish line.

BUT if I can just try and simplify it by cutting around the plot threads that were seemingly abandoned and get rid of some of the leaps in logic, I think it’s possible to at least have a tighter, more focused movie?

However, my primary issue is taking it back to what I said about the sound mixing or VFX coninuity.

It’s all well and good if I can get the narrative in check, but it’s the technical issues I can’t account for, because I’ve got no idea whether I’ll create issues that can’t be fixed on the technical side (musical jumps, sound mix etc) so my ignorance in this regard means I’m sort of working blind as I’ve got no idea what can or can’t be repaired by re-laying in fresh score or sound.

Anyhow, HAL:-

Absolutely, there’s no sense in me laying down the entire movie, and expecting people to watch for the changes, so as you say, I’ll go for clips and at the most extreme end of the scale, scenes.

Thanks once again guys