The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 436

I do like the lava shot, but I see what you mean. The flow of the two-shot version already feels pretty natural.

As a filmic piece I love having the lava in. Feels alien and raw. Nods heavily to Mustafar from the battle at the end of RotS.

Even though I helped dim the castle lights, I’ve never been a fan of that castle shot, I agree that it’s slightly off in execution, but I’m also not a fan of it in principle. Because the castle is not really relevant to the sequence so I don’t think it should be highlighted front and center, MR’s castle in the background shot alone works far better imo just as a small cameo.

So I think the best sequence might be to only have the other two shots: TIEs flying towards red lava planet > Establishing shot of the planets surface, revealing a forest growing amidst the lava > The TIEs, now descended to the surface, fly over the forest > cut to Kylo on the surface of said forest.

EDIT: DM me for link.

If I made some edits, whats the best way to share them?

I trimmed all the bits of Rey and Leia talking. Not only eliminating some odd performances, but also clarifying things (at least to me).

Now when Rey comes back from her training session it goes (Im paraphrasing)

• Didnt finish the training course, got distracted
• I know it looks like Im making excuses…
• Leia looks at Rey
• Rey hands back saber
• from offscreen, “General” line comes in
• Then Leia delivers her line “Dont tell me what things look like, tell me what they are.”
• Then Leia walks off and Rey says “Yes master”
• No lines about droids or being tired.
• Nothing about earning the saber. Clearly Leia is the one holding onto the saber most of the time as Rey hands it back to her twice.

I also removed the entire sequence of Finn asking Rose if she wants to come. It’s established that she is accustomed to working behind pipes, not one to go running around blasting people. Felt unnecessary.

I trimmed the best I could the Nambi Gima scene so that right after Rey says “I’m Ray” she hears cannon blasts and turns away.

Trimmed out Rey and Finn being surprised Poe can hotwire. They’ve been running together for awhile now, they shouldn’t be surprised by this.

When the crew meets Zorii, I trimmed it down so Zorri doesnt say she likes Rey. Instead they have a stare down, then Rey extends her hand in friendship.

Added a flash of Chewy when Rey realizes he’s alive. She has visions all the time, felt like a more impactful way to show the audience instead of just telling.

Removed Ren talking about them being a Dyad. Now, Palpatine realizes it himself at the end. The puzzle of why the are so connected is held until the final climactic moment now.

When Jannah and Finn are talking, I cut it right after Finn says his code number and Jannah goes “you?!”. To me this hints that she had heard of him, like how Rose had heard of him in the previous movie.

Trimmed some of Mas Canadas lines about Leia to make it a little less on the nose.

Trimmed a little bit of Luke’s dialogue to Rey.

Probably a few other little things, but wondered if anyone wanted to watch and see if any of these would make it into a final cut. I didnt know how to get proper audio splits, so that was my biggest issue.

Nothing about earning the saber.

Then you’re removing the thing that reinforces her core belief of self-worthlessness.

TestingOutTheTest said:

Nothing about earning the saber.

Then you’re removing the thing that reinforces her core belief of self-worthlessness.

I took at that since she is staying home training, instead of, to the anger of her friends, going out and helping, she realizes she is not up to snuff. And Leia taking back and giving the saber indicates to me that both of them know Rey isnt ready.

I think the castle is just… cool! Ha. And it harkens to Vader. It’s a bit of a deep cut, but isnt that what you are making here? Something that honors the lore. For that reason I think seeing Kylo go to where Vaders castle is, it just completes his obsession to me.

My suggestion is flip the added lava field shot so that the lava is on the right side of the screen.
That’s where it is located in the Vader’s castle shot and your eyes aren’t shooting all over the screen following the brightest source of light.
It is a simple tweak to the scene that would go a long way.

I think we’d probably want the audience to focus on the fact that there is a forest growing on Mustafar, so it might not be necessary to add TIEs to the establishing shot, we could just have the noise from the TIEs slowly creep in to lead to the flyover shot.

As a moderately long time fan editor who’s not super invested into star wars stuff (only been checking the thread once in a while, only seen the original film once) I have to say both versions work absolutely fine IMO, it’s really up to you Hal, or do a poll.

I think the best part about the lava shot is that you establish close up that the terrain is similar to RotS, but you can see on the far side, there’s a bit of a forest that’s grown, either signifying the planet has changed or we’re just in a different area than where Anakin/Obi Wan fought. So after hinting a bit of the forest in the first shot but mostly showing lava, we cut to the castle shot, and then we return to the middle of the forest.

As for the 2 shot version, there’s obviously one less geography change so it’s more right to the point.

But to be fair, (and no offense, this is totally reasonable in a fan edit thread) it seems like a lot of over analyzing - only us, who know the context, know the edits, and know what’s possible, will be the ones to pick apart these details, which is fine, BUT showing it to a clueless audience you have to think what they would find more visually interesting and better for the story. And in this case, the lava scene helps to aid the whole Mustafar atmsophere, but of course, we don’t want that at the expense of technical aspects making things look confusing for more attentive audiences, it’s really just hard to choose.

sherlockpotter said:
Those are really interesting ideas, I’d love to check them out! Most test clips are either uploaded to Vimeo or to Google Drive. I also use Streamable if I’m just mocking up something quickly and want to dump it somewhere without worrying about an account.

DM me for a link to a drive. Has the video and the full changelog. I had started this a few months back before Hal9000 put the pink lightsabers and force ghosts in, so I had done a version myself using fanedits found on these forums. Not sure how it matches up to what you guys have in the latest version.

The Burbin version misses a transition, you go from lava field to full trees.
The benefit of the Vader’s castle is that you have a transition, however brief, in the landscape of the biome.

I’ll never understand why people think the Vader’s castle shot feels out of place. Kinda like how I don’t understand other things people feel are out of place…

I’d rather just stick with what we’ve currently got than implement the new shot, especially if it means we have to remove Vader’s castle.

I’ll never understand why people think the Vader’s castle shot feels out of place.

1. It’s obviously a reversed Rogue One clip.

2. The way the camera moves.

3. The way the TIE fighters move in comparison to the camera.

I actually watched Rogue One and had a hard time figuring out exactly where the clip was taken from. And as for the TIE movement contrasting the camera movement, that was something I never really noticed, so it shouldn’t be an issue for the average person.

You probably want to cut those Drive links, nluckett; it’s against the rules to openly share them in threads. That said, I’m very interested in checking out how you’ve executed your ideas, since the Leia scenes in this movie are very offputting to me.

Hal 9000 said:

Here’s the ‘Burbin’ version to consider, too: https://vimeo.com/529837651

I don’t think flipping the shot works, whether it is for this version or the three shot version. The focal point of that shot is the lava flow so it’s disorienting to flip around to the right since the previous shot has our attention on the left side of the frame, with TIEs flying onward, the contour of the planet and SD (with the flow of the lava on the left it almost mirrors the contour of the planet in the previous shot so it fits really well), and whether we cut to the TIEs flying over the castle or the forest, the focal point would switch back to the left again. Don’t know if I’m making sense…

And besides for this version it makes more sense for the lava to be on the left and the forest to the right, since the TIEs in the next shot move ‘right’ into the forest. Otherwise, unsurprisingly, I think I like the ‘Burbin’ version the best, and I agree with Testing as to why I’m not a fan of the castle shot, it stands out too much for it to work as the second or third shot in the whole movie.