I watched Hal’s TROS edit over the weekend and I really enjoyed it. I sent him my thoughts (and compliments), but I thought I’d share them here as well. Maybe they could help in the discussion.
Very nice addition of the establishing shot on Mustafar. It makes for an smoother transition and the scene breathes a bit more.
Very cool to see that vat with Palpatine clones. It gives a much stronger explanation than some half-assed line.
Maybe the line “I’ve died before” could by laid over the shot of the cloning vats? It would be a strong way to communicate to the audience how Palpatine survived. It would mean rearranging the dialogue a bit, but I feel it’s very repetitive anyway.
Removing the ‘ticking clock’ element of the plot helps the movie a lot!
Moving the scene of Poe and Finn meeting Boolio to after Rey’s training sequence didn’t really work for me. The energy of these scenes is very different. I think keeping all the scenes on Ajan Kloss back to back will allow the movie to stop jumping around and slow down a bit.
The line “They sold you to protect you” has always bothered me, as it doesn’t paint Rey’s parents in the best light. Perhaps that could be modified to “They gave you up to protect you” or something?
Personally, I’m not a fan of the Dyad thing. It feels like an obvious way of communicating that Rey and Ren are two sides of the same coin, which the movie already clearly states. The concept isn’t really further explored anyway and mostly leads to an exposition dump in the finale. If the goal is to make the movie more streamlined, then maybe that is something to drop.
Really cool (re)introduction of Endor! Maybe the establishing shot with the Ewoks could be recolored a bit so it matches a bit more with the more muted/grey shots of the following scene?
I liked the removal of the “Only this blade will tell” scene on (now) Endor, however, the scenes of Rey retrieving the dagger on Ren’s ship are sort of useless now.
Since the destruction of Kijimi was cut, does the line “Hit those underbelly canons, every one we knock out is a world saved” still make sense?
Really awesome to see all the Jedi appear when Rey fights Palpatine! Impressive effects work!
I really enjoyed seeing more planets during the ending montage.
Nice and creative way of re-using the Dejarik scene for the ending. It implies that these characters will go on more adventures together.