So I watched this with my wife, who also watched HotF with me. We really enjoyed it, and definitely appreciated the attempts to make Luke feel more consistent with the OT and Legends. The pacing was MUCH better and the inclusion of a number of deleted scenes helped with that.
Nice, glad to hear as a whole it was an improvement or at least a new enjoyable experience for you. Thanks so much for writing out this lengthy review. It will really help me refine for the final version. I’ll go through your points and see what I can fix.
Here’s the notes we had on things that we thought were weird or needing improvement.
Like I said in my other post, I think the shots of Luke & Rey staring at each other from a distance don’t work if we’ve already seen them as a vision. It is especially weird to have the shot of her holding the lightsaber out to him from a distance and then without the shots of her walking to him have her handing it to him. So just trim out the repeated shots of the staring and have her hand it to him asap.
After Luke hands Rey back the lightsaber, cut her putting it in the pack, just go right to him storming past her. I get the impulse, but it’s not really necessary.
I’ll definitely take another look at this whole interaction and try to tighten it up so the exchange feels more natural.
The cut to Luke saying “you think what, I came to the most unfindable place in the galaxy for no reason at all?” is rough, it feels like something is missing.
You feel like it is missing something at what point in that phrase? Before, in the middle, or at the end?
During lesson 1, right before Luke smacks Rey’s hand, she says something really garbled. I get what you were trying to do with trimming the joke down, but unless you can just have her reach out and get hit without the weird cut of her talking, I think it would be better to leave the full joke.
Hmm, I’d rather cut it all if the whole joke has to be in it. They’re talking over each other in theatrical so I tried to splice it so it happens really quickly but maybe it’s too confusing without the context. I’ll see if anyone else feels the same and if so I might just remove it all. I wanted to show Luke with a little bit of ESB Yoda-like behavior, but it’s not terribly important if the cut detracts from the scene.
I really like the training montage, however by having it in the middle of the lesson, and ending on the lesson, it doesn’t quite give the impression of time passing. It needs something else, maybe a recolor at the end to give the impression it’s not the same day.
I was banking on the inclusion of some of the training segments occurring at night being the indicator that days had gone by. Did the night time shots not give the impression that time was passing during the montage?
Also intercutting Kylo’s mask when the ground breaks kinda took away from the impact of being with Rey & Luke. Cutting right to Kylo after Luke says his thing about sensing that raw power before is enough to establish what he means.
The intention was more to explain the Kylo/Rey mind link. Her venture to the dark was tied into the future connection between her and Kylo. But again, sometimes a good intention is more distracting than leaving things unchanged so I’ll re-evaluate that.
During the fleet escape I don’t think cutting to Kylo’s broken mask on the floor adds anything, it kinda felt like an artifact.
It kind of was. More of a callback to a Vader scene of telling someone to prepare his ship, and we also get to see that state of his mask which is great imagery. But it is sort of forced into that area of my cut, so I’ll try and find somewhere else I can move it rather than cut it outright.
Kylo taking the shot on Leia is well done.
Thanks. Do you think it is better for his character to ‘kill’ her rather than his hesitancy in theatrical?
And Luke saving Leia/them doing it together makes it feel like a much stronger moment and cuts down on how much focus is on Leia’s still body shooting through space. My wife and I really liked this moment, it was really poignant.
Awesome! I’m always nervous to include any of the Space Leia scene, but I also felt like this edit really worked. The power of the Skywalker bond!
During Rey’s training the cut from “the legacy of the Jedi is failure” to the fleet is both musically and “lyrically” upsetting. By lyrically I mean, it feels like there is more to what luke was saying and it got cut off, and the musical cut is too abrubt. I was really enjoying this training sequence and it was over too soon imo. Maybe even having Luke repeat the line “It’s time for the Jedi to end” again here could help.
Agreed. It is too abrupt and I really struggled with getting it even to that flawed state. It’s very difficult to find a smooth transition to the next part of the story here, but I do need to find an alternate solution. I’ll try to play with your suggestion, maybe even recut the timing of the “It’s time for the Jedi to end” line so it seems different than the other time he says it.
Finn messing with Rose’s hair during their break in is an odd moment that doesn’t add to characterisation and isn’t really good humor. I would cut it.
True, I didn’t even pay attention to that at first, but now that I see it I don’t like it. Cut!
I think there should a moment or two longer with Snoke after he “welcomes” Rey aboard.
Believe it or not, I didn’t actually cut anything there. Theatrical cuts at that same spot so there really isn’t any footage I can add in. I do agree with you though that it should linger at least another second, but there simply isn’t any footage of that.
In the Yoda scene, as much as I enjoy the scene, I don’t know that it adds anything to this version of the film. In the theatrical it’s part of Yoda teaching Luke, but in your edit Luke already learned the lesson of failure. It’s what he’s been teaching Rey, so for Yoda to tell it to Luke doesn’t work, especially with Luke’s facial reactions. Maybe some trims will help. Idk.
I was trying to show that Yoda also has reached the same conclusion that Luke has, that the Jedi must end. Yesterday, I re-watched the Clone Wars arc of Yoda’s journey, and I feel this scene is very consistent with what he learned. I’ll go through this scene and see if I can alter some of the face shots or something that will make it feel more thematically focused. I want Luke to feel comforted that his old master is supporting his decisions.
If you can, adding a shot of Holdo on one of the transports before it blows will help, because my wife was wondering what happened to her and I shouldn’t have to explain what was going on based off your notes.
Of course, the story should make sense without having to read an explanation. I don’t see any way to visually add a believable death scene for Holdo. There is an audio line that states that Holdo is onboard a transport, perhaps you missed that? I think the best I can do with her is keep that audio line and have the audience deduce that she died before making it to Crait. It’s not perfect, but I don’t have any other way to write her out of the story.
I think you should include Kylo’s version of the events at the temple, it’s part of him getting Rey to doubt Luke as a teacher, part of him tempting her and is necessary I think.
I considered it, but the problem is that then there is no resolution to his lie. That would be the last time this flashback is ever referenced and so people might start to believe that’s what actually happened, and that is something I wanted to run away from. In theatrical, Rey confronts Luke about Kylo’s “lie” and Luke confirms the truth. I have cut that whole discussion so now there is no way to resolve that Kylo’s lie is actually a lie. It would be weird of Rey to hear this side of things and then never bring it up to Luke after that, so I don’t think there’s any way for me to include this.
I don’t know if this is a you issue or a FGR issue, but in the shots of Luke after he retracts his blade, you can see it’s Anakin’s hilt, not Luke’s.
It wasn’t originally from FGR, but a professional VFX company. Unfortunately that’s all the VFX work that was included. I don’t have any way to add the hilt into the other scenes in a way that fits with their work, so sadly I think that has to remain as an annoying inconsistency.
And in the film Luke’s “I won’t be the Last Jedi” as it showed Leia was a really nice moment.
Great! I’m trying to set up some Episode 9 changes with that inclusion. I’ll start writing on that soon.
Also, having watched the whole film, my suggestion for needing some visual context for the WbtW, such as showing the island fading away from Luke still stands. My wife was completely thrown, and while I appreciate the attempt to have ambiguity, there’s a difference between ambiguity and having no in-film context for what’s going on. But it was still cool to see Leia and Rey sensing him there. Well done!
Has she seen Rebels? I don’t doubt that without proper understanding of the WbtW it would be very confusing. As a standalone movie, it should never include anything that completely confuses new viewers. However, I would also say my cut is not intended to be the best experience for people who don’t have a very deep understanding of Star Wars. The reason behind my Legends edits in the first place isn’t something that someone could clearly gleam only from only the movies, so my edits are meant to be watched with the context of KOTOR, TCW, and Rebels etc.
Overall really well done. Looking forward to what you put together next.
I’m getting ready to engage with the No Palps edit again, cus after watching these two edits, I can’t imagine a version of tRoS with him in it that works at all.
Thanks! I still need to watch the No Palps edit, and part of the reason for my delay on working on my TRoS edit is that it is a daunting task to fix, even moreso than TLJ.
Edit: After some more thoughts, I have to wonder about the effectiveness of some of this ecits goals. I think it succeeded it a lot of ways, but there are some aspects about Luke that I want to address.
In this edit you are attempting to do away with the part of TLJ where Luke is there to die and has cut himself off from the Force. That he’s ready and able to help those he cares about.
This raises the issue however of why he wasn’t helping in TFA. Why didn’t he prevent Starkiller base from firing, why didn’t he save Han, (and why doesn’t he know Han is dead) why did he only start helping after Rey showed up?
If he wasn’t helping before what is the impetus for doing so now?
It’s a valid question. I would say that all of Luke’s activity in TLJ is due to the threats against Leia. He has a special force bond with her. Luke wouldn’t necessarily be able to sense Han nearly in the same way that he can with Leia, so there’s no reason for him to know when or how Han died. He doesn’t have a force bond with him. The only acts of greatness in TLJ are Luke intervening for Leia. Not fighting a war, not getting involved in NR politics, but simply saving Leia. Also the fact that Rey physically shows up in front of him is something that motivates him to teach and become more active instead of simply studying and maintaining his balance.
And if reading the Jedi texts is what brought him his better understanding of the force, why attempt to burn the books? Again, this scene only confuses your narrative more. Are the texts good? Or bad? If they’re bad and him burning them is good, then in the next film Rey having them should lead her down a bad path, but if the texts are helpful, like they are in RoS and are what helped Luke, then burning them needs to go.
After seeing that Rey had failed his training, he felt like the lesson itself is too dangerous. He realized some of the flaws of the Jedi in the texts, but Rey’s fascination with the Jedi took her down a dark path so Luke felt that it was better if those texts were destroyed entirely, because Rey didn’t understand his teachings. The texts aren’t inherently good or bad, it’s what lessons you take from them that matters.
And during the third lesson, when he’s explaining that according to the texts “a true Jedi only acts to maintain balance, but that’s bs cus thr galaxy needs people who are always ready to help.” you need to clarify what lesson us and Rey are supposed to take from this. Is she only supposed to act when she can maintain balance even if people die, or should she save her friends? It was unclear. I would suggest trying to have him say that the OLD jedi are the ones who only act when trying to maintain balance, but a TRUE Jedi would be what the galaxy needs and save people. Or something.
I think this leads to a deeper discussion on what a True Jedi or an Old Jedi is, and what they would/should do. Luke is trying to teach Rey a simple lesson about intervention. He isn’t pointing to a definitive right or wrong, or attempting to resolve millennia of philosophical debate here. He’s merely showing Rey the different sides, her options, and the consequences of her actions.
And if possible these are things that need to be addressed in the film, and if you can’t make a change work cohesively in a way that is at least somewhat coherent to the viewer, my thought is that you might have to walk back a change or try a different approach.
TLJ is a film that was meant to spark debate. I think I would want my cut to do the same thing, but for different reasons. No, Luke’s new philosophy isn’t explained in depth, but I don’t think it has to be. Luke doesn’t even have all the answers in my cut. He is a powerful, and flawed force-user looking to do his best to make the galaxy a better place. That is to say that I don’t think there needs to be clear, definitive answers to these questions. Again, I will reference Yoda’s journey in TCW. You leave those episodes with a million questions. Does Yoda want the Jedi to end? To change? What’s his new philosophy of the force? Why doesn’t he tell others everything? None of these things are answered, but we can speculate his reasons, and that’s the fun part of it! I do wish there were ways to flesh out Luke’s stances because I find them so interesting, but I don’t think a lack of specific answers detracts so much from the film that the original goal has failed. I will show to a few more people, my own wife included, and if there is far too much confusion then I definitely would look into recutting a lot, but at least from my perspective now I don’t think there is anything that is so blatantly contradictory or confusing that it takes anything away from my goal.
Good luck!
Thanks so much for the well thought out review! I really enjoyed going through everything and I know my next release will be even better because of the time you took to help me. I appreciate it!
Hi! can you send me the link, please?
Hey, can I get a link to both your TLJ and TFA edits? Would love to check them out!
Sent to both!