logo Sign In

The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 511

Author
Time

Yeah, the 15x speed was really the fastest I wanted to push it, but there’s no speed ramping, just another 25% boost on top of it. I think the issues come mostly with the movement. It’s difficult to find a path that works since it goes from a pan down to the planet right to a pan up to the castle. Like I said, we may have to lose the first part of the shot and just have the Rogue One style rotation around the castle then the TIE shot.

I’ll render out a full quality version of the entire shot for people to play with.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

Author
Time

Yeah I see. Took a look at the original and definitely does speed up at the point it swings around the castle. Would it be possible to slow down a bit to even it out or would that fuck up the tracking and all that? Wouldn’t want to make more work for you (and I might be the only one this bothers). As well I suppose if we only use that moment then its faster speed wouldn’t even be noticed.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Nev, it’s looking really fantastic! Two things stand out to me though:

  • Looking at the clouds in the new shot, compared to the clouds in Ascendant, I think the new shot needs to be a bit more pinky/orangy? I feel like it’s not a 100% match yet.
  • I still personally would opt to keep the original forest flyover shot in the sequence. Like I’ve said before, it’s the shot that feels most connected to the action on the ground, so it’s the shot that truly feels like the bridge into the action. Especially if there aren’t going to be any visible TIEs in the Castle shot, I think there needs to be a visual connection between the ships flying down to the planet, and the ships reaching the forest. (Before we actually land in the forest.)

Also, was someone working on darkening the ground in the theatrical Mustafar footage? Doing a side-by-side of Nev’s new shot and the V1 footage, the difference in color tone is…apparent.

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

Author
Time

Since there are so many moving parts in this shot, I had rendered it out as an AVI to use in the final speed ramping and framing. It wouldn’t be too difficult to slow down the pan around the castle.

And yes, the color is still muted compared to the extreme saturation of TROS. I didn’t want to push it too far and introduce artifacts, but I’m sure it will need that adjustment before the end.

I’m hoping that someone will be brilliant and add First Order TIEs back into the shot somehow, that would be the ideal change. Of course that would happen after all the speed-ramping discussion has been done.

I am uploading two bitrate versions (prores and AVI) so people can play around with the shot and decide what’s best. PM me if you want them, but I’ll probably take a little break from this to give everyone a chance to decide what to do. 😃

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

Author
Time

I still think this might work best as a replacement for the prior castle shot rather than taking up the time of all three shots. It’s good, but its compromises are more noticeable when we have several seconds to see it play out. I’d think if we baked it into the existing three-shot structure and comped in three TIEs, we’d be all set up.

Or maybe use it to replace the first two shots. Could go for two shots’ worth of Nev’s clip, then the TIEs over forest.

My stance on revising fan edits.

Author
Time

I definitely think throwing some TIEs on that new shot, slowing it down, and putting the forest shot at the end is the best thing to do with the intro.

Author
Time

Hal 9000 said:

I still think this might work best as a replacement for the prior castle shot rather than taking up the time of all three shots. It’s good, but its compromises are more noticeable when we have several seconds to see it play out. I’d think if we baked it into the existing three-shot structure and comped in three TIEs, we’d be all set up.

Or maybe use it to replace the first two shots. Could go for two shots’ worth of Nev’s clip, then the TIEs over forest.

I agree. There’s no reason not to use similar timing to the earlier mix of establishing shots. The pacing of it just feels much better, as nice as this new shot looks visually on its own.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Burbin said:

I believe sade actually stitched the shot of Rey to alter her mouth movements, so that it reads as “I’m a Jedi”, that’s what I meant works seamless/flows naturally.

Nope: the only shot I stitched together was to stick the ending of the “I am all the Sith” shot, where Sheev shoots some lightning, on to the “A scavenger girl…” shot which I’d swapped into it’s place, to maintain sync with the original music and all. I did this by lining them up, fading between, and then masking the lightsaber beam back in from both to hide the transition (this little bit of after effects magic I’m so proud of is available as a lossless mp4 on Mega). The rest, including the bit with Rey, is just taken from Ascendant as-is; the lips just happen to line up well enough.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

NeverarGreat said:

I’m leaning toward a two-shot solution myself.

I feel like it should be you’re current shot, then Posketti’ overview leading straight to Kylo in the forest, don’t really need 3

Filmic Crossroads, Daniel L. Isidore

Author
Time

The establishing shot is very reminiscent of Mount doom. i love it.

Author
Time

You know who it’d be awesome to get to record something for the 3PO red eye scene, if we go they route?

The guy who voices Creepio for the Auralnauts. I have zero clue whether they’d be interested in doing so, and imagine likely not. I am not sure how a rando would quickly be able to convince them that this isn’t one of “those” fan edit projects. Probably a pipe dream.

My stance on revising fan edits.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

The Lord of the Fleet: The Two Wayfinders.

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

Author
Time
 (Edited)

^lol.

Hal 9000 said:

You know who it’d be awesome to get to record something for the 3PO red eye scene, if we go they route?

The guy who voices Creepio for the Auralnauts. I have zero clue whether they’d be interested in doing so, and imagine likely not. I am not sure how a rando would quickly be able to convince them that this isn’t one of “those” fan edit projects. Probably a pipe dream.

That would be perfect, and there’s no harm in trying!

JEDIT: I guess you saw their EP 7 trailer.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

Author
Time

Just sent the auralnauts a cordial message asking if they’d be at all interested.

It seems like if we did redub 3PO, it would open the question of how Kylo knew to go to Endor. Although, honestly… it’s hard to care too much about it anyway. The film doesn’t answer this other than allowing one to guess Kylo also had it translated. It does, however, establish then and there that Kylo “know[s] where she’s going” at least. That would be missing from this cut. It seems like the cost for reinstating it here would be to also reinstate the premature reveal that Chewie is alive.

Another issue is that 3PO translating the inscription doesn’t give the characters any solid information. In the theatrical, it provided important information and the heroes had to have both that knowledge and the blade itself. In this proposed plot revision, they would essentially only learn that they… need to get the blade back. All they’d learn is that Rey needs to tap into darkness somehow. Feels a little muddy.

My stance on revising fan edits.

Author
Time

Just saw that Auralnauts posted their trailer for their Episode 7 parody.

The name’s Lawson. Noah Lawson.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

As a counter thought Hal, which you do bring up good points … There is no explanation, in the movie (quite Jar Jar with your books/EU outside of the movie 😉) about Kylo showing up. The Force moves with the plot unfortunately, so even if he does show up without explanation … it doesn’t matter. The only tangible explanation would be the whole Dyad thing. After the Star Destroyer/Hanger/whatever scene … we see these two more connected than ever. Maybe that can be the explanation without having to explain it? Sure. Could Palps have told Kylo behind the scenes “Prove yourself loyal, kill Rey at the DSII where my Wayfinder is you punk.” … sure. Again, remember, the original movies gives NO explanation … so we just have to go with it. Kylo is Rey’s stalker after all…

As for the Rey thing … if there is some solid vision during the scene where she grabs the dagger and shows some CLEAR imagery … and use the Finn line from earlier about him talking about Endor later, as if Rey told him off screen … it can work. I think the key is using a good vision with solid images that points to Endor that will sell it. We literally can use the audio of Finn using the word Endor … which I think Sherlock did some tests to sell it when they were on Orchi’s ship. It works, especially for a movie that already relies on outside sources to explain things … this edit is actually TRYING to make the important things happen in the movie for explanation and not rely on books or tweets to do that. Oh my.

EDIT: Also, I want to give another nod to Nev with what he has done with the castle stuff. It is workin very well and is connecting the dots. Using just that shot you have done (and maybe adding 3 FO Ties) with the first shot Poppa did will blend great. We see an overview of Mustafar that shows more green, and with the next shot we clearly see trees and plant life has grown in Mustafar since the last time we saw it in Rouge One (with Vader not being there … pretty much life has found its way AKA Jurasic Park Reference 😄) and it really helps make sense of things when we see Kylo and the battle on the ground.

My Goodness, it is kinda irritating what we got from this movie without some of these key things fan editors are having to do … to make things make sense. LOL.

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Hal 9000 said:

Another issue is that 3PO translating the inscription doesn’t give the characters any solid information. In the theatrical, it provided important information and the heroes had to have both that knowledge and the blade itself. In this proposed plot revision, they would essentially only learn that they… need to get the blade back. All they’d learn is that Rey needs to tap into darkness somehow. Feels a little muddy.

This is my biggest issue with it all tbh. Eliminating the dagger as the most obvious reason for how Kylo knew where she went isn’t as important as potentially eliminating the entire point of the whole Kijimi side mission (and 3PO’s sacrifice, at that)

Like, it opens up a whole can of worms. Why did the vision only show itself to Rey on the Steadfast instead of on Pasaana? If you say it’s because of 3PO’s translation, I don’t really buy that. What exactly does “embrace the darkness” mean, and why didn’t she qualify for it before? It’s a very vague concept since we don’t have any real life comparison.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think it’s wise to have the vital piece of information the heroes were trying to get for a portion of the movie end up being some abstract concept. Something more concrete is easy to understand and speeds things along without any questions asked.

I hate to say it, but I feel like you’d be creating biggers problems by trying to patch this small one.

Author
Time

I feel like the decision comes down to a tension between these two aims: 1) improve the enjoyability of each scene as it happens onscreen, and 2) improve the overall quality of the narrative.

I’m always in the latter category; even if it means cutting the coolest bit of a movie, I think it’s more important to stay on target thematically. I personally don’t think the proposed change weakens the Kijimi section by being muddy or makes 3PO’s sacrifice feel less necessary overall… but… I haven’t watched a workprint to put it into context. When the scene is put back into the movie, it might feel very different to watching it isolated and just imagining what it would be like in context. So perhaps it really is better to hew closer to the theatrical, I don’t know. But I do think it’s about figuring out the balance between individual scenes and overall narrative.

Also, if we can get someone else to dub 3PO, that would be awesome. It was fun to record the lines of poetry but my goodness do I think someone else could do a much better job.

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

TROS Novelisation: The Faraday Edit, TLJ: Stoic Edition, ROTS: The Faraday Nudge, ROTS Ultracut: Order 66, Kenobi: Faraday Cut, Godzilla Vs Megalon, Godzilla Vs Gigan, Godzilla: Final Wars, The Light Rises, Faraday Jr.'s Star Wars

Author
Time
 (Edited)

My thinking on the RogueLeader Dagger plan was that it would sort of be like National Treasure. You know how they found the cypher on the Declaration of Independence, and that cypher told them what to do in order to read the map that was also on the Declaration? But then they lose the Declaration and have to get it back before they can put the pieces together? Kind of like that here. The visible inscription would say “You must [do this] in order to see the Wayfinder’s location,” so then they have to get the Dagger back and do the thing in order to make it work properly.

Now, I’m not saying that National Treasure is the greatest, smartest movie ever made; but I do think that that’s a hell of a lot less stupid and contrived that an Ancient Sith Dagger pointing to this thingy that only happened 30 years ago. (Or worse, that f*cking Ochi carved the location into the Dagger for some stupid-ass reason.)

What I’m thinking is: slow down the shot of Rey approaching the Dagger in Kylo’s quarters - less a hasty walk and more of a solemn approach. When she picks it up, cut to the shot of the Wayfinder in Palp’s closet, flash to a shot of the throne room. Cut back to Rey, looking at the Dagger, as the camera zooms in. Back to vision, see the wreckage of the Death Star II, flash to the Death Star II, maybe as it appeared in ROTJ, cut back to Rey, still zooming in. Show a flash of Exegol, and then flash-forward to Palpatine, resurrected, sucking the lifeforce out of Rey and Kylo and cackling maniacally. Cut back to Rey - the camera has stopped zooming, but it’s a closeup of her face (rather than the medium shot in the theatrical - we can crop in on the 4K source) and have her say “No…” to actually seeing Palpatine resurrected. And, in this final shot of Rey, her eyes will have gone Dark Side yellow. Cut to Rey’s back. Kylo: “Rey…” Rey whips around, distraught, but her eyes back to normal.

I feel like the yellow eyes would help to convey that this time, she’s gone into the Dark Side, and that’s why the Dagger is working now. Cutting back and forth between Death Star stuff and Rey would help focus the scene on Rey, and would help to match the hyper-intensive way J.J. cuts his vision sequences.

Those are just some ideas I’ve been kicking around in my head over the past week or so. Anyone have any thoughts?

EDIT: I also think this makes Kylo knowing about Endor make a lot more sense. It’s much more believable that he was willing to tap into the Dark Side and saw the vision himself, rather than him knowing how to read Ancient Sith or whatever - a language that had been outlawed in the Republic for god-knows how many generations, and a language for which no translations currently exist.

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

Author
Time
 (Edited)

(To preface, I’m not saying this because I want this idea to go either way. If we choose not to go with it I won’t really mind.)

I don’t think Kylo knowing where she is going is any less confusing than the theatrical.

In the theatrical, we can assume Kylo had the dagger translated, I guess. All he knew was that he had to go to Endor. He didn’t have the dagger to figure out where exactly on the Death Star he needed to go, Goonies-style. Despite that, he still found his way into the Emperor’s throne room. That’s never addressed.

With this dagger edit, we could also assume Kylo used the dagger to get a glimpse of the Death Star ruins, just like Rey would in his chambers in this version of the movie. We could even show a glimpse of the Emperor’s throne room itself. So this version would arguably have a better explanation for how Kylo knew where to go than the theatrical version. Or, we can assume Palpatine just told him. The scene where Palpatine speaks to Kylo through the Force makes it seem like Kylo knew where Rey was going without his help, but since we moved that scene, it wouldn’t be crazy to assume Palpatine told him where the other Wayfinder is.

But like Jar Jar is saying, we would need to make it clearer why Rey received a vision when she picked it up on the Steadfast, but not on Pasaana. Maybe if we had Rey say “Show me” or something could help with that.

But if the Auralnauts actually agreed to it, then I think we obviously would have to go through with this, no question. 😂

EDIT: I personally think the vision/glimpses would need to be on the more subtle side, if we did it.

Author
Time

Hey, Hal. I know you’re trying to find a way to replace Luke’s line, “Leia told me that she had sensed the death of her son at the end of her Jedi path,” with “Leia told me that she had sensed the birth of her son at the end of her Jedi path.” I think I know a solution.

There are voice cloning softwares out there that are like deepfakes but for voices. It’s possible to just clone Mark Hamill’s voice and replace just the one word with “death” to “birth.”

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz8Ll6DQnTc

The name’s Lawson. Noah Lawson.