The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 349

dgraham414 said:

The concept art may not show a broken crystal but the movie clearly shows it in two pieces

Oh, I thought it was just a part of the hilt, but you’re probably right.

jarbear said:

Oh dear…

Ha, I understand. I personally don’t like the stormtrooper scene, as I feel it’s “too video-gamey,” has weird camera movement we don’t see elsewhere, and doesn’t add anything of value that our establishing shots didn’t already.

But, perhaps hypocritically, I’m still hoping that Ajan Kloss can somehow be made passable enough, because I thinks the breathing room and sense of geography it provides may be worth it looking like a shot from Revenge of the Sith.

I took a shot at the Ajan Kloss clip Neerb sent yesterday:

https://vimeo.com/512005892
pw: fanedit

I denoised it a little first, then re-interpreted the footage to playback at 24 instead of 60, giving you a much slower shot. Then, re-added some film grain and blur to try to soften it a little, and I tried a neutral color balance.

There’s a few issues with it.
(I’d recommend downloading it to look at it closely, link is downloadable and the “original” file is prores).
For one, the original game render has a few glitches, which you can see in the flickering elements towards the bottom of the frame at around 2-3 seconds in (near those barrels? things?).

The main thing that bugs me is all the moire and aliasing around the leaves. Denoiser and blur didn’t fix that unfortunately. I don’t know much about video game render engines, but if it could be rendered with a bit less sharp detail it might provide a more usable clip. I think?

Here’s a new recording to use as a base, this time with the previous washed-out problem corrected (there’s an issue with trying to record HDR on PS5). It’s got better color and more noticeable level of detail now. As an added bonus, the random falling leaves were much kinder this time around (the last clip had two giant leaves fall right in front of the camera).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ykKDRBGA7bsezMyXcnCIvswzp5ad9DDM/view?usp=sharing

Unfortunately I’m not sure I’m gonna get a better source than this without building a gaming PC (not happening soon lol), finding a better recording online (haven’t succeeded so far), or Battlefront 2 getting an official PS5 upgrade (not impossible, but I’m not betting on it). But poppasketti’s try on the last clip looked pretty good given the circumstances imo, so maybe this new recording can push it a little farther?

Edit: the game does have a few visual settings on consoles. Motion blur, filmic effects (chromatic aberration and vignette), film grain, and lens distortion. But I’m not sure any of those solve any issues in a way that wouldn’t be done better by hand in post (I had them all turned off here).

DZ-330 said:

Quick mockup of Mustafar:
https://vimeo.com/512027766

The shot before Kylo needs to be cleaned and slightly extended.

I think this sequence of shots works better for me, but the castle shot still needs a lot of work. The TIES look like cardboard cutouts and not 3 dimensional objects.

Honestly I agree with jarbear. None of the video game footage works for me at all. Also, I feel like any/all of the castle shots need more work put into them. At this point I feel like V2 should just be V1 untouched.

I want to be clear that I’m not trying to disparage the work of anyone in this community. Creating new effects shots that don’t feel out of place in 275 million dollar movie is not easy. I just feel like we haven’t quite gotten there yet.

And here is one last attempt at this shot with a new set of filters using the newly provided recording by Neerb. Colors remain a bit more saturated this time and the black levels/shadows should be darker and more natural. I’m also keeping it at very high bitrate 1080p for now and using a very tiny amount of blur to reduce the AA effect. Not going to bother with the 4K version this time without a native 4K recording.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZOBeK0gF5uQv0NnbfBBk2mrUrzOfaSFv/view?usp=sharing

Without eliminating things like the tiny amounts of pop-in, I’m not sure how much more we can reasonably improve this.

I’m sure this point has probably been discussed before, but what do you guys think of this edit?

https://vimeo.com/512114042
pw:fanedit

I delayed the “my boy” line to slow the pace of Palpatine’s revelation, and give it more weight. Having the line “I made Snoke” during the reveal of the twisted technology of the Sith Cultists gives a more subtle context to Snoke’s origin. It takes on the subtle connection that maybe Snoke was created using similar devices (without showing a jar full of Snokes).

Personally I hate the line “I have been every voice…” because it’s not only a dumb excuse to hear Vader’s voice for nostalgia/fanservice, but it also takes away all agency from Snoke, and thus completely undermines the struggles of the previous two movies, where Snoke stood as the big evil. I think it’s fine to imply Snoke was a manufactured being, just for the sake of closure to Snoke’s mysterious ‘origins’ that were never dealt with in the previous movies (and that’s also something The Mandalorian seems to be expanding), but he should be kept as his own character.

If Palpatine only says “I made Snoke… the First Order was just the beggining” we get enough to connect things without raising even more questions, such as whether Snoke was even a real character or just a puppet. Now it could even be seen as Palpatine taking too much credit, where he might have had something to do with Snoke’s origins, but Snoke built his own Empire on his own, and found and turned Ben Solo on his own, and the events in TFA and TLJ are not painted in a lesser context. Unless you read expanded material which this change wouldn’t contradict.

Furthermore the idea of Palpatine “altering” his voice is really odd and it’s not something we ever see again, and the implication that he talked to Kylo using Vader’s voice all this time is a pretty dumb and unnecessary “explanation” for Kylo’s obsession with Vader in TFA, it takes away from Kylo’s character and it further takes away from Snoke being the one who turned him to the dark.

Movies Remastered said:

The issue with the Ties is because it’s a pre-rendered 720p greenscreen clip next to the castle and Poppa used Element 3d for the Forrest flyover but I don’t think anyone else other than Poppa knows how to use that program on here so that’s all we have right now.

Yeah I’d like to help with the Cinema4D effects work, but I’m afraid I just don’t have the time.

Agreed about the Ajan Kloss clip. It was worth a shot. Thanks Neerb for providing those recordings, and hedgesmfg for your efforts as well!