logo Sign In

The Force Awakens: Starlight (V1.1 Released!) — Page 64

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Narrative-wise i´ve no addition to make, but i´ll watched it a second time because just wanted to enjoy it first. Perhaps i spot some things.
Colour grading look to-notch, more contrast just great.

Author
Time

I’m planning on downloading and watching this later today and I was wondering, did you ever end up putting Maz and Leia in Rey’s vision?

Author
Time

😳awesome thanks Nev really can’t wait to see this but can’t download til after work tho😬😭.

Thank you once again Nev.

Author
Time

I’ll take a link, you scruffy nerf herder please!

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

Author
Time

Absolutely amazing release, and certainly is the best version of TFA I have ever seen by a long shot.
I do have some minor notes/criticisms, which I feel dirty just saying because of how well done this edit is.

  1. You can slightly hear the very end of Hans cut line right at 41:58-41:59 when he previously told Rey and Finn to “get out of there”.

  2. when Kylo is looking at Starkiller base drain the sun at 01:30:11, the reflection of the Sun on his helmet is red, but I feel like it should be more orange, closer to the sun.

  3. I love the added sith whispers to Rey throughout the movie, however I feel that the whispers added to when Rey mindtricks the stormtrooper doesn’t quite work. As it doesn’t seem like she’d be tapping into the darkside there, and feels a little out of place compared to the other whispers added.

  4. This last note contradicts what I said previously about Rey’s Sith eyes months ago, but I think Rey’s sith eyes, while close to perfect, are slightly too brown/dull and could maybe glow slightly more. It’s a hard thing to balance for sure.

“You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view” — Obi-Wan Kenobi

Author
Time
 (Edited)

And another review!

The vital:

  • This could have been released in the cinema. It’s of absolute release quality, without glitches.
  • This edit is absolutely additive, and in my opinion, easily the best version of TFA I’ve seen. Definitely my archival version of the movie herein.
  • This was, to my memory, particularly clear. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been specifically focusing on the audio and narrative in my TCW edit, or been thinking about audio balance more recently because Dune didn’t quite nail it, but even compared to my memory of the original film, this was particularly clear and coherent. The edit really spoke very clearly to the audience, and it was always precisely understandable what was happening.

The excellent:

  • This edit is GORGEOUS. The colours are beautiful across the board, and I noticed it a lot while watching. They never feel artificial, they’re always just the right side of natural, but the film looks great.
  • In particular, the whitening of Jakku works really well, making it feel purgatorial, and then the lush greens of Takodana really feel like a breath of fresh air, which syncs very well with Rey’s emotional experience.
  • All of the added voiceover effects are really additive. Kylo interrogating Poe, Rey’s lightsaber visions, Rey tapping into the force to survive on Takodana, Finn’s combat with the trooper on Takodana (seriously, well done here - is this you?), Kylo reading Han and Leia’s doubts.
  • The trims and darkening of the rathtar sequence worked really, really well. Far more scary and less goofy.
  • Revealing Kylo’s inner conflict and weakness earlier, and his family ties a little later, also worked really well for his character.
  • Having Starkiller base spend far longer charging - including the changes from Hal’s Restructured, your extra visuals added in a good few shots to achieve this, and the dialogue changes - all worked to really ratchet up the tension before the double gut-punch when it fires. The trims to the air battle served to keep the focus on our emotional investment characters and keep this part of the plot clear and tight.
  • It’s really clear - clearer than the original - that while Rey’s a natural force user, she also gets a lot out of her counter-interrogation of Kylo Ren. The moment with her sith eyes hits EXCELLENTLY well. It’s meaningful and powerfully applied here, but it really serves TLJ’s “you went straight to the dark”, and TROS’ main reveal. Probably the single most additive change in this edit, based on the rest of its trilogy.
  • Snoke’s “There has been an awakening” is also way more emphatic of this new interpretation than “It is time to complete his training.”
  • The entirety of changes brought this film about as far away as I think it can be from the criticism that it’s a rehash of A New Hope.

The great:

  • Nothing in this edit breaks canon - it is purely additive and sits perfectly as a replacement to the original. One of its strengths is the few subtle nods forward which pay off in later movies and will serve to make the entire trilogy feel more coherent and planned in advance.
  • The new crawl is simply an improvement over the original.
  • The trims to humour, while subjective I’m sure, were spot on for my tastes. It retains a lot of the humour whilst just cutting back on going too far in a couple of places as the original did. A few of the jokes some have traditionally objected to in this movie felt less objectionable in light of the broader tightening. That said, I could maybe have dropped the garbage chute callback.
  • Your goddamn etched vision of Ach-To, man. Ridiculously good, and I assume even the first-time viewer would spot that, and then match it with Kylo acknowleding her visions of an ocean, to realise when she reaches Ach-To that she’s naturally strong with the force. (Is this a real object you etched, or just CG?)
  • All of your other restored and edited scenes were seamless and additive.
  • The trims to have BB-8 not reveal the resistance base worked perfectly.
  • The subtle hints at Finn’s force sensitivity are welcome.
  • Having Rey run explicitly toward Finn on Takodana served both characters well.
  • The tension between Ren and Hux felt sharper.
  • The ‘R2 is processing’ scenes work really well.
  • Loved the VFX of the shield going down.
  • All of the changes to the final lightsaber fight and Starkiller’s destruction are really tight.
  • All other edits in the changelog work for the better.

Possible revisions:

  • With some of the reordering, it felt like maybe you could have got away with fewer wipes? To me it felt like there were just a couple too many. To my memory, the vertical barndoor open wipe from interrogation to doors on the star destroyer shutting could have gone, and perhaps the sideways wipe from star destroyer to star destroyer as Kylo prays also, since the re-establishing shot would have served the same purpose.
  • Some of the wipes felt a little slow, and more feathered from Star Wars’ default. I don’t know if this is just because I’ve obsessed about it from my TCW edit - and I appreciate that the franchise isn’t consistent here - but I found that the maximum length of a wipe would be 14/23.95ths of a second, when horizontal, and less otherwise. Though that was with the TV aspect ratio. The two wipes I felt could be served better by being faster and with less feathering (perhaps nearer 0.2 than 0.5) were the iris out from the Star Destroyer back to Jakku, and the transition (I forget which) from Starkiller base surface to the control room.
  • In terms of audio balance, as I’ve said, it’s really, really good and clear. Though I felt like the voices on D’Qar were a little too quiet, so I’d maybe bring those up by 15-25%, and conversely the music and some SFX on Starkiller base, especially out in the open and in the control room, could have done with a bit more punch, so I’d perhaps bring those up by 15-30% where that doesn’t drown out the voices.
  • While I loved the whitening of Jakku, and you balanced that well with keeping some sandy yellow-brown versus the white, there were a couple of sandy yellow-brown shots earlier on that I would have pulled closer to your purgatorial white. This includes the initial shots, the shot of Rey’s home in the fallen AT-AT, and Finn’s dawn shots.
  • It wasn’t completely clear to me about Han’s tracking device on the falcon. You could perhaps draw this out a little more to make it clearer for the audience.
  • When you split Rey trying to escape, the tension is higher, but the stormtrooper does say “I’ll tighten your restraints” while not moving. You could have him ignore her the first time (perhaps just saying “dirty scavenger”), then have him say “I’ll tighten your restraints” when he approaches her, for more tension before she goes all peaceful with her successful mind trick.
  • There was one final shot of the D’Qar celebration where Rey and Leia are celebrating, where you can see Chewie (or at least some wookiee) at the edge of frame. You could maybe trim this just to completely take him out of this scene, so the first time we see him after Han’s death is his proper mourning shot.
  • I didn’t spot the binary beacon at all, though I was looking for it. Could it be brought more to the foreground?

Goddamn. Genuinely, this edit made me fall back in love with Star Wars again, and I can’t credit you for it enough. When Star Wars hits good, it hits real good, and this edit really gets that. Thank you so much for this incredible suite of passionate and respectful changes.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I hope people don’t find it strange when they find out I have a framed printout of a review on my wall…

But seriously, thank you for the review! It means just so much.

On to your comments!

TR-8R was dubbed by the wonderful Axlanian, who also did the replacement for ‘Ship’s clear’ in the Kylo Falcon scene. My voice is much less commanding, alas.

I hadn’t deeply inspected the original transitions, so you’re probably correct that they take too long. I’ve also been struggling to find a good way to do the wipes since Premiere often throws weird glitches my way. It could stand another look.

The score for this film is noticeably buried in the mix. I haven’t tried specifically to bring it out, though that is a good suggestion.

Color will always be a moving target, so it’s inevitable that I will be tinkering with that later.

The Falcon tracking device idea is one that I’m not sure how to implement effectively, other than putting an obvious audio announcement or sign on the device that says “TRACKING DEVICE” which rather defeats the purpose. Any more thoughts would help here.

The mind trick scene originally had an escalation as you describe. My intention was to have his idle threats give way to a tension-filled silence when he approaches as if his intentions are unclear. I’m pretty happy with how it works, though opinions differ I’m sure.

I’ll have to check the celebration shot again for Chewie removal.

The binary beacon was originally supposed to be on the bed beside Finn’s head - very prominently placed - but upon inspecting the scene we see that the bed is just below shot. I put the beacon off on a table beside the bed which quickly pans out of shot, so it’s something that you have to really look for. I’m fine with this, honestly, since it’s technically there but doesn’t draw attention to itself or distract from the scene.

The etching was done in Photoshop with a brush I created to replicate the effect of scraping on metal.

Again, thank you for the kind words and good criticism, it made my day!

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

Currently been doing exactly that at home today lol

“You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view” — Obi-Wan Kenobi

Author
Time

Just got done watching this and it’s hands down my favorite edit of TFA yet. Only minor changes I would personally make are:

  • When Han says “move, ball” to BB8 it doesn’t actually sound like his voice so maybe that could be addressed

  • I always liked the part where Han threw the guy into the Rathtar’s mouth after he punched him so would love to see that one bit restored

  • Agree with EddieDean that the “I’ll tighten your restraints” line should be put back in

  • The color correction throughout the entire film looked great except for Jakku which looked a little too blown out in terms of the white. I like the fact that you tried to differentiate the color of that planet so it didn’t look exactly like Tatooine, but it almost looked as white as the salt planet it TLJ so maybe there’s a happy medium somewhere.

For me this ranks right up at the very top of SW fanedits with Adywan’s and Hal9000’s releases. Brilliant job and I can’t wait to see the next version if any of the suggested changes are implemented.

Author
Time

I still haven’t seen this edit (waiting for tomorrow when I finally have a decent amount of free time), but I agree with Hal that Starlight, Rekindled, and Ascendant sound like they’d make a perfect trilogy. All 3 are mainly focused on additive, VFX-heavy changes that create a more cohesive story with clearer character arcs. I’m planning to wait until Ascendant version 2 to marathon all 3, though.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

Author
Time

Watched it earlier today, it was absolutely fantastic! I love the new shots and VFX. The Hosnian Prime destruction works so well and I love the island sketch. The new voice lines were also amazing, the TR8R lines and the Kylo mind reading lines worked perfectly. One of my favorite parts was the mind trick, I thought everything was excellent! I love how Rey is strong because she taps into the dark side, it makes the movie way more interesting and plays into TLJ and TROS much better. The restored deleted scenes are incredible and I didn’t really miss anything that was cut.

If I had to nitpick, I think the only edits that really stood out to me were:
-Some changed voice lines, Leia’s line about them targeting the senate and kylo’s “finish what he started” line. I know these are tough to get sounding perfectly but those are the two that stood out to me a little. Love the overall changes behind each of them though.
-The Han dice scene is absolutely amazing, but I can still make out some distortion on his face, although idk if i would have spotted it first time watching.
-Not sure if this was even your edit but at around 1:33:00 there’s a weird cut off on Kylos line as he senses Han.
-I do agree that Jakku looks a little bit blown out at times, especially when the sky is completely white too. I think maybe making the sky more visible and then upping the whiteness on scenes noted above like Rey’s ATAT house and Finn’s crash would help balance it all out.

Overall this is by far my favorite TFA edit right now, I can’t wait to see what you do next, maybe in a TLJ edit? 😃 Great work!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

A couple more loose thoughts, and responses to other feedback in this thread:

  • Starlight / Rekindled / Ascendent is absolutely the canon trilogy for me too. I’m ready for that cinema date with you all.
  • The additions when Rey touches the Skywalker lightsaber, and Ben and Han touch Ben’s lightsaber, work nicely with your idea to show Ben owning the Skywalker lightsaber in the TLJ flashbacks. Lightsabers are powerful force artefacts, and I like the idea that that gives them a degree of memory/vision. It also could be understood by the viewer as part of what contributed to Ben’s vision of Han on the Death Star wreckage in TROS, since Ben’s wielding the lightsaber that killed Han.
  • In TLJ, can we also please get a flash of sith eyes when Rey on Ach-To “goes straight to the dark”, to tie back to this?
  • Regarding the tracking device, could we maybe have a cutaway shot of the light turning on (maybe with a ‘turning on’ sound effect), and then when Han’s disabling it, can we do that as a cutaway too (with a ‘turning off’ effect), just to make that point last a little longer?
  • On BMadden’s idea to retain the shot of the gang member being punched into the rathtar’s mouth: While I do enjoy that shot, I’d argue that the way the scene is cut now, with far less visible rathtars, still works better, to emphasise the ‘unknown fear’ aspect. They’re scarier in your imagination, and them being scary makes this scene more tense (and valuable) than if it’s more of an ‘adventure’ scene evading a clear creature.
  • On the Jakku colouring, as I said previously I absolutely think that this current version of the film should be considered ‘complete’ and cinema-worthy. It’s certainly not broken anywhere, and the existing grade is fantastic. But if we are thinking about potential tweaks to the Jakku regrade, I’d perhaps retain more blueness in the sky so it’s less blown out, tone the white sand down just a little (so there’s just a hint of yellow-brown), and bring some of the remaining yellow-brown sand shots closer to the new white.
  • Counter to hinvention’s opinion, I thought that the changes to the dialogue about the Senate/Hosnian system being targeted really worked.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

Author
Time

This is one of the best edits I’ve ever seen. It’s so clean and some cuts are almost impossible too detect unless you’ve seen the original. But there’s one really small nitpick I have, during the Battle of Takodona, I’m pretty sure we hear a Stormtrooper call himself a TK instead of an FN. Like I said it was a very small nitpick because other than that this cut was actually perfect.

Author
Time

This project sounds awesome. Would appreciate a link also when you get the time friend.

Author
Time

I would also appreciate a link when you have the time. Thx !

Author
Time

Sounds amazing!
Could I get a link too? Thanks!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

PM’s sent!

Thank you hinvention for your thoughts! The Kylo voice cutoff was - I’m pretty sure - part of the original, though with how much cutting and moving things around I’ve done, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it was a mistake. I’d have to compare them to see.

EddieDean said:

A couple more loose thoughts, and responses to other feedback in this thread:

  • In TLJ, can we also please get a flash of sith eyes when Rey on Ach-To “goes straight to the dark”, to tie back to this?

That’s a nice idea!

  • Regarding the tracking device, could we maybe have a cutaway shot of the light turning on (maybe with a ‘turning on’ sound effect), and then when Han’s disabling it, can we do that as a cutaway too (with a ‘turning off’ effect), just to make that point last a little longer?

I’d have to find a view/shot of that area of the ship, and off the top of my head I’m not sure where that could be found. If that were to be found, we’d be in business.

  • On BMadden’s idea to retain the shot of the gang member being punched into the rathtar’s mouth: While I do enjoy that shot, I’d argue that the way the scene is cut now, with far less visible rathtars, still works better, to emphasise the ‘unknown fear’ aspect. They’re scarier in your imagination, and them being scary makes this scene more tense (and valuable) than if it’s more of an ‘adventure’ scene evading a clear creature.

That’s where I am on the shot - the longer we linger on/interact with the creatures, the less scary they are.

  • On the Jakku colouring, as I said previously I absolutely think that this current version of the film should be considered ‘complete’ and cinema-worthy. It’s certainly not broken anywhere, and the existing grade is fantastic. But if we are thinking about potential tweaks to the Jakku regrade, I’d perhaps retain more blueness in the sky so it’s less blown out, tone the white sand down just a little (so there’s just a hint of yellow-brown), and bring some of the remaining yellow-brown sand shots closer to the new white.

Definitely something to consider for the future, and I agree.

  • Counter to hinvention’s opinion, I thought that the changes to the dialogue about the Senate/Hosnian system being targeted really worked.

I agree that it’s not perfect, and if anyone else wants to try to improve the flow of those lines they are welcome to it, but I’ve reached the end of my abilities in that area.

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