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The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 437

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sade1212 said:

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.

Thanks for the heads up!

There are still a few things to work out, including some audio gremlins and making a few cuts more smooth, but I think it introduces some cool ideas. Let me know if you check it out.

Ill probably take Hals new version and put that whole end battle version into my cut now.

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The “lava” shot should be color-corrected to match with the TIE shot and the rest of the sequence.

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Burbin said:

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.

Agreed on the orientation of the shot. I think both sides have an argument to be had, but yeah when I saw the original shot with lava on the left and trees on the right it seemed good to me.

Anyways I’ll be back to check and see what you guys decide on, keep it up everyone 😃

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Here’s a tweaked version of the 3-shot option. I brought the highlights toward orange and lowered them slightly to get the smoke to match the forest shot more or less, and finessed the added music to remove the double-sting. I was able to loop the drum beat that repeats twice, so that was lucky.

https://vimeo.com/529875645

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Agree with Burbin, the shot before and the shot after have you focusing on the left of the frame, so this one should too. And like sidshady12 points out, the continuation of the trees makes more sense if it’s on the right of the frame, rather than the left.

I do really like the lava shot - it feels like the most definitive way of establishing “This is Mustafar” to me. I like Vader’s castle too, so I don’t have a strong preference which one (or both) is included. The only thing I feel strongly about is that the forest should should be there. It’s our main anchor into the Kylo Rampage shot.

EDIT: Nice job with the new coloring, Hal! The only thing that’s missing for me is the sound of the TIEs panning left to right across the audio channels. 😉

The Rise of Skywalker: Untold - A “Rey Nobody” edit of Ep. IX | Looking for voices and VFX - Please reach out if interested!

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Hal 9000 said:

^sherlock, what pan do you speak of? You mean you’d like to hear TIEs during the lava shot?

I believe he means in the forest shot, I mean I can hear the panning, but I think he means he wants it to be amplified, so like no tie fighter on the right ear at first, then it fades over. But maybe that’s just the stereo mix on Vimeo with the center channel ruining the panning. And of course, the shot is more of the Tie fighters going left to right AND moving away from the camera, so it shouldnt just be a blanket left->right effect, its also fading away with distance in volume. I think it’s good though with those things considered.

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Pretty much, yeah. Unless it’s already there and I’m somehow missing it? I just hear lava, mainly. I feel like I should hear the TIEs flying overhead, crossing the frame, and moving away.

This is a quick example (I’ve also incorporated Nev’s newest grade so that people can see it in action - nice work, man!): https://vimeo.com/529886419

The Rise of Skywalker: Untold - A “Rey Nobody” edit of Ep. IX | Looking for voices and VFX - Please reach out if interested!

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Oh I was wrong, u did mean the lava shot. In that case I think it’s okay to not have it because we can’t see any Ties, if anything, near the end of the lava shot, we should hear Tie fighter sound start building up if you really want, then boom, cut to shot of them at Vaders castle, and the audio continues panning the same. Either that or no Tie sound on lava shot IMHO.

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The way I see it playing out in my head - the whole time, we’d be tracking the TIEs down to surface level. For those who think the shots feel disjointed, I think that would “tie” (pun intended) the three together; because yeah, if it’s a shot of the ships, a random shot of some lava, and then back to shots of the ships, I agree that feels awkward.

To put it another way, if I were Joe YouTube Critic watching this scene, I would be thinking, “Wait, what’s with the lava? How is that related to this castle thingy?” If we include the ships in the lava shot, then they become the connection. As far as the story itself is concerned, the point of the sequence isn’t “Lava!”; it’s the TIEs making their way down to the forest. Lava, castle…whatever landscape they fly over, it’s all window dressing.

The sound’s one part of that. Ideally, we would be able to comp in the fighters themselves. I also suggested earlier that it might look cool to just see their shadows flying over the surface of the planet, to imply that they’re still pretty high up at that point - and it would also help to make the shot more visually distinct from the other two flyovers, and therefore less “tedious”; but I’m not sure how the shadows will look in practice.

The Rise of Skywalker: Untold - A “Rey Nobody” edit of Ep. IX | Looking for voices and VFX - Please reach out if interested!

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Jar Jar Bricks said:

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.

Just being bluntly honest the Vader’s castle shot just looks ripped from Rogue One, doesn’t feel naturally part of the sequence in my opinion, Tie’s especially stick out as clearly over layed and not tracked in properly,

However I do really want to see it. Would like to see something else composited together similar to the Naboo / Coruscant shots for Vader’s castle rather than directly taking footage from RO.

Filmic Crossroads, Daniel L. Isidore

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This may seem like a really stupid question and maybe I have missed something along the way but here we go, Kylo is looking for the wayfinder on mustafar where Vader’s castle is also located right but wouldn’t you expect the wayfinder to be hidden in Vader’s castle and not out his back somewhere?.
I know it may seem like a bit of a stupid question but only just really thought of this lol.

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Honestly, when they filmed all of this, I don’t think it was originally meant to be Mustafar.

But you can come up with some Watsonian answer for it regardless. Maybe the cultists put it in the forest for some religious purpose.

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If we’re only keeping two shots, I vote for Vader’s Castle to be left in.

If we’re keeping all three, I think going Vader’s Castle -> new shot -> forest works best, since we go from a lava area, to a lava and forest area, to a forest area.

“It’s like rhymetry. They poem.” - Leorge Gucas

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I can add the TIE sound coming in softly at the tail end of the lava shot but I don’t want it to draw your attention.

I see the lava shot as similar to a shot in ROTS of an eruption (the one from the trailer). It’s super brief and may not be immediately connected to the location where the characters are. It just sets the environment very quickly.

That’s an interesting and plausible idea, that it wasn’t meant to be Mustafar initially. Even though the castle shot uses Rogue One footage, I think these three shots form a natural progression: Lava as we expect from the planet, Vader’s castle with lava in the background, and a shot of a scorched forest that blends well with the castle shot.

Now that the music has been addressed, I’m liking the three shot version. There’s a little drum sting when we cut to the lava shot that I put there but you can barely hear it, though it felt wrong to boost it to the point that it was audible. Regardless, this feels pretty good to me on the whole.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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RogueLeader said:

Honestly, when they filmed all of this, I don’t think it was originally meant to be Mustafar.

But you can come up with some Watsonian answer for it regardless. Maybe the cultists put it in the forest for some religious purpose.

Apparently it was always meant to be Mustafar. (The opening section of this script looks like it was somehow actually ripped from the real one.)

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Atom-88 said:

This may seem like a really stupid question and maybe I have missed something along the way but here we go, Kylo is looking for the wayfinder on mustafar where Vader’s castle is also located right but wouldn’t you expect the wayfinder to be hidden in Vader’s castle and not out his back somewhere?.
I know it may seem like a bit of a stupid question but only just really thought of this lol.

It’s an answer that takes a lot of vague canon stuff.

For one, the wayfinder was supposed to be under the protection of the Eye of Webbish Bog, who would have needed to be submerged in water.

For another, these particular cultists were obsessed with returning Mustafar to its original state, when it was a lush garden. As a result, they wanted to hang out in the forested area. Look up Lady Corvax if you want to know more.

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Atom-88 said:

This may seem like a really stupid question and maybe I have missed something along the way but here we go, Kylo is looking for the wayfinder on mustafar where Vader’s castle is also located right but wouldn’t you expect the wayfinder to be hidden in Vader’s castle and not out his back somewhere?.
I know it may seem like a bit of a stupid question but only just really thought of this lol.

I’m pretty sure MR is incorporating something like this in his edit.

Hal 9000 said:

I can add the TIE sound coming in softly at the tail end of the lava shot but I don’t want it to draw your attention.

I see the lava shot as similar to a shot in ROTS of an eruption (the one from the trailer). It’s super brief and may not be immediately connected to the location where the characters are. It just sets the environment very quickly.

To be perfectly honest, that eruption has always disoriented me, even as a kid watching Ep. III. It completely throws off my sense of geography. What just happened? Where is this happening? Where are the characters in relation to it? Is it nearby? Far away? What’s the connection? It just doesn’t make sense when trying to track the scene in my mind. I really don’t think that’s what we should be shooting for - we should do what’s most intelligible to the average audience member.

Like I said, the important thing about the sequence shouldn’t be “Oh look, there’s lava on this planet. That’s neat-o.” The focus should be on the ships flying down to the planet. The lava in the background just adds to the immersion.

The Rise of Skywalker: Untold - A “Rey Nobody” edit of Ep. IX | Looking for voices and VFX - Please reach out if interested!

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Yeah i’m with Hal on this for the Tie sound effects, that just makes the most sense to me from an editing point of view. Panning left to right the entire shot seems a little too distracting and then it gets repetive when we have 4 shots in a row of Tie fighter panning. Splitting it up is good, it’s fine to just have a lava establishing shot. Having the tie start to fade in early could be neat though I’d have to hear it first, but not during the whole thing.

Anyways, I think it’s honestly coming down to personal preference on the 3 vs 2 shot versions, because (trying to be neutral) both work and it seems like we’re starting to confuse objective vs subjective critiques.

Is there anything else though in the meantime to discuss, test shots, etc?

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sidshady12 said:

Is there anything else though in the meantime to discuss, test shots, etc?

I did have two other changes I’ve been tossing around in my head:

  1. Slightly reconstructing Rey’s death. The original cut is a little awkward, I think - There’s a lot of “character is in danger, character is immediately saved” going on, which doesn’t leave much in the way of tension. I thought it might work a little better if we move Rey’s death to immediately after she defeats Palpy. Plus, this flows better conceptually, as it’s more apparent that the effort of facing Palpy killed her; unlike in the theatrical, where she pulls a Leia and just decides, “Whelp, guess now’s the most dramatically relevant time to die!”

It also means that the audience has to wait longer for her to be saved, which would help to raise the suspense of her revival. Plus, it gives a nice bittersweet undercurrent to Poe’s celebrations; and it also slows down the pacing a little bit more, effectively giving us a chance to “exhale” after Palpy is defeated, before we get to even more ship explosions. I’m thinking a fade to black on Rey’s body, a brief pause as the music cue rounds out, then come back in with Jannah and Finn blowing up the ship. Lando rescues them, then cut back to Rey, still lying on the ground. The shots of Finn reacting to her death could be moved to while Ben is holding her, so it’s like the two of them are mourning Rey together.

  1. Removing Lando’s line about “Leia sent me a transmission.” If we cut that line, it would increase the tension in that moment, as the audience wouldn’t know until he removes his mask if this weirdo with the crossbow can be trusted. There are also some really awkward implications to the line when you think about it, such as:
  • If Leia knew Lando was here, why didn’t she mention him to Rey & Co.?
  • If Lando is in communication with Leia, why hasn’t he been helping out in the war so far? What’s so important about this desert wasteland? Get off your butt, leave your retirement behind, and get involved! There’ll be plenty of pig people to pork when you get back!

(On that note, I wonder if it would be possible to tweak the scene to draw out the fact that Rey has to push him to come back, or that Lando is only just now learning that the First Order actually represents a significant threat beyond a few random stormtroopers. Some more pauses, a slightly tweaked music cue, a sigh of defeat…; it would mirror the larger idea that the galaxy is starting to be inspired again by Jedi like Luke and Rey.

But the scene is so rushed anyway, I doubt there’s enough there to make that work.)

If we need something to fill the gap from removing Lando’s line, we could add in Poe’s line “You with the Resistance?” from TFA.

The Rise of Skywalker: Untold - A “Rey Nobody” edit of Ep. IX | Looking for voices and VFX - Please reach out if interested!

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Hold up Sherlock, weren’t you the one complaining earlier about how there’s no reason Lando should be on Pasaana unless he was just chilling for 30 years? Why would we remove the one line that shuts down that misconception? lol.

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Jar Jar Bricks said:

This is a tough one for me… I thought the reason we selected this shot from the documentary was the trees so that it could line up better with the forest shot. But the order we currently have it in would kinda disrupt that since the castle shot has no trees in it.

That’s right. I think the issue at the moment is that the shot has no TIEs in it, so it feels weird to put in after the castle shot. Personally I would not include the shot at all if we had no TIEs, but with TIEs it would certainly be a preferable replacement for the forest.

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I mean, yeah, I still don’t understand why Luke abandoned him on Pasaana. But I don’t see how this line explains that? All this line tells us is that Leia and Lando are in communication, which just adds more layers of convolution, imo.

Like I said though, if we could flesh out the scene to give Lando some actual development, that would be swell; but that’s a separate issue from this one line.

EDIT: Half-agree with Dom. I don’t think it should replace the forest shot, but I do think that it doesn’t flow well and should be cut if we’re not going to include the TIEs with the lava shot.

The Rise of Skywalker: Untold - A “Rey Nobody” edit of Ep. IX | Looking for voices and VFX - Please reach out if interested!

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Well obviously the reason Leia doesn’t tell the characters about Lando is because they didn’t have the resources with her to convey such an idea. So that gets a free pass imo.

I would say the line “Leia sent me a transmission” conveys everything you need to know. Leia notified Lando, perhaps as a second thought, that the gang is coming to Pasaana. She likely knew that he had helped Luke with the search there, and sure enough he decides to travel there to help them.