The Force Awakens: Starlight (V1.1 Released!) — Page 76

If I can extend the closeup so it turns back, then perhaps. I’m still working on that one.

Taking a look through the documentary was a good idea, though, since I managed to find a shot that works well to extend the Senate Response scene and give Eddie’s line a bit of room to breathe.

Here is the latest, with just the scene.

Indeed, and this is the sort of thing that makes the edit so fun 😃

I also found a pretty good BTS shot of the Resistance Starkiller Briefing scene, so there’s the possibility for Eddie to record a more substantial line for that place in the film. I’m thinking something like:

“They somehow managed to create a hyperlightspeed weapon built within the planet itself.”
“But it operates more like a supernova than a laser cannon.”
“We’re not sure how to describe a weapon of this scale.”

Oooh, very interesting!

Yep, and a bonus if we stick with something that ends with ‘a laser cannon’ is that anyone who wants just the original line replacement can shorten it themselves.

On to the main event, I think I’ve finally cracked the Search for Rey scene progression. It’s basically the theatrical progression with altered dialogue, which means that I can keep every frame of the original short scenes.

Here is the latest. Keep in mind audio is very rough and ready at the end, as I haven’t finalized the music or transitions.

And here’s the sequence in dialogue:
“Sir, Phasma has sent every available Stormtrooper to the cell block, but she may have moved to other levels.”
“She’s just beginning to touch her powers. The longer it takes to find her, the more dangerous she becomes.”
(Rey moves to other levels)
“My Lord, we’ve detected a vessel landing in sector 12, but all ships are accounted for.”
“Put every hangar on lockdown! She’s going to try and steal a ship to escape!”
…
“Han Solo.”

Hopefully this threads the needle between everything that needs to be established for future scenes to work. We establish Phasma and her sending her troops to the cell block, while admitting that this will probably be insufficient and Kylo must think bigger in order to capture her. Then we get Rey doing what she does well, followed by a very tricky bit of exposition. This must simultaneously establish the Falcon’s location so that Kylo will be expected in that location later, as well as being about the hangar situation so that Kylo’s statement about hangar lockdowns doesn’t come out of left field. I like that the officer doesn’t even register that it could be an enemy ship, but Kylo immediately knows the culprit. Finally, I think it’s neat that Kylo could either be sensing Han through the Force or merely coming to the conclusion of who must be on that vessel.

I think that works really well!

NeverarGreat said:

(Rey moves to other levels)
“My Lord, we’ve detected a vessel landing in sector 12, but all ships are accounted for.”
“Put every hangar on lockdown! She’s going to try and steal a ship to escape!”
…
“Han Solo.”

One little niggle there… doesn’t Han have some line about “If we fly any higher they’ll see us”? So if they were detected anyway, that would mean Han went crashing through the forest for nothing. Maybe something like “Sir, Phasma believes the prisoner may have slipped past us.” “Put every hangar on lockdown…” Or maybe “Sir, a proximity alarm has been set off in Sector 12.” “Put every hangar…” (That way we explain both Kylo’s thought about the hangar, but also his realization that it’s actually Han come to play.)

Or, spitballing here, what if the scenes were rearranged a little, so that Finn and Han have already broken into the base. It cuts from Han shooting that one stormtrooper to the officer telling Kylo, “Sir, blaster fire has been detected on the lower levels.” “Put every hangar on lockdown, she’s going to try and steal a ship to escape.” And then he senses that it’s not Rey firing shots, it’s his pop. That could also add a bit of tension to Han’s stealth mission, knowing that their cover was blown by that shot.

I really like that first bit with the stormtrooper though!

In my version, Han’s line and the crashing through the forest has been cut. But even if it wasn’t, they still emerged from Hyperspace some ways above the mountains so there was probably a blip on the radar screens.

I’ve thought about moving the scenes around so Kylo and Han are both in the base at the same time, but I’m constrained by the logistics of what’s happening to a certain extent. We need to have some space between Kylo in the base and Kylo at the Falcon to preserve the continuity of movement, and that’s also why I’m trying to put some dialogue in to indicate the location of the Falcon. Otherwise Kylo would just sense Han and go straight to him.

I think I’ve cracked it! All that was required was a bit of audio editing.

“Sir, Phasma reports that the girl must have escaped the cell block.”
“She’s just beginning to touch her powers. The longer it takes to find her, the more dangerous she becomes. Put every hangar on lockdown!”
(Rey runs through the halls)
“My Lord, all hangars are on lockdown, but we found a vessel outside the base.”
“She’s going to try to steal that ship to escape!”
“Sir, it’s the Falcon.”
“Han Solo.”

The first line had to be shortened due to Kylo saying more lines after it, but alternately I could cut ‘She’s just beginning to touch her powers’ and keep the flow of the original scene largely intact. For example:

“Sir, Phasma’s troops are searching the cell block, but she could have moved to other levels.”
“The longer it takes to find her, the more dangerous she becomes. Put every hangar on lockdown.”

I’ve updated the prior link with this version. Also available here

Instead of saying “the Falcon” maybe have him say “YT Corellian freighter” ?

The freighter idea sounds good. For the other dialogue, perhaps:

Sir, Phasma has all available troops searching the cell block, and base patrols are doubled."
“Put every hangar on lockdown! The longer it takes to find her, the more dangerous she becomes.”

And yes, I was planning on fixing the music issues and making it less repetitive. The original film has this musical theme during the update scenes, but now that they’re all together it needs more variation.

JEDIT: The other option to fix the repetitive nature of the scenes would be to restructure the events to be a bit more in line with the theatrical version.

-Kylo finds Rey missing
-Rey runs down the halls
-Kylo Updated Part 1
-Falcon Hyperspace and landing
-Senate Response (cuts to mountain establishing shot)
-Kylo Updated Part 2
-Han, Finn and Chewie
-Hux Starkiller update
-The Crew Enters the Base

The trouble is that Kylo’s tantrum is a natural end to those events, so cutting to Rey feels odd as well. However, it probably makes the most sense to put the Kylo update part 1 scene right before the Hyperspace shot so that when we come back to the base and have a similar scene it’s as if we are picking up where we left off.

Work continues on the Senate and Kylo update scenes. I’ve found some non-movie Kylo dialogue which works fairly well in the second Kylo update, so here’s how it looks now:

“Sir, a YT model freighter has just landed in sector 12. Shall we launch fighters?”
“There’s no need. I will deal with them…personally.”

…

In other news, if you’ve been following this project from the beginning you may recall that in 2017 (almost five years ago!) I had an idea for extending the Hyperspace journey to Luke at the end of the film using altered shots of the Falcon going in and out of Hyperspace to show that the trip had many twists and turns. I eventually abandoned it due to a lack of footage as well as the extended musical track being repeated in the credits.

Since V1 of Starlight cuts this extended rendition of Rey’s theme, I thought it would be appropriate to place it back in the film. Here’s the rough mockup, just showing how the music could work with a collection of Hyperspace shots from TFA and TLJ. This uses all of the shots I have found containing the Falcon with its TFA radar dish (and even then one shot has it missing the dish).

I imagine that this scene would use footage from other Star Wars sources showing planets and stars to give us a glimpse at the wider galaxy at this point in time. So what sort of shots would work? Ideally it would be locations which exist and make sense in the Star Wars galaxy, so perhaps shots from Mando or BOBF. I am thinking along the lines of the big ring construction from Mando season 2 which the Falcon could fly through, maybe an asteroid field with a space station, then a nebula, then the shattered remains of a planet. Essentially it would be going from more to less populated worlds until we are flying through empty space.

I don’t know exactly how this scene will play out, but if we put our heads together I bet we could figure something out.

The effects are just rough placeholder garbage mattes for now, but thank you for the offer.

I would take the shots into After Effects and try a chroma key combined with a more detailed masking.

Don’t have much to offer. But I love that idea alot!

That’s a stunning idea.

Thanks! It’s not the highest priority for the edit, but if we can find the footage to complete it I think it would be a great inclusion.

For the Senate and Kylo update scenes, the new plan is to have the 1st Kylo update directly after Rey escapes, then have Rey roaming the halls and cut to the Falcon landing and Senate update, followed by Kylo being told about the Falcon. I’ve ironed out the music so that it is fairly close to final in my estimation, and I have a potential voice for the 1st Kylo update that I hope to record in the next few days. At that point we will have a much better picture of how the scenes will work, especially if we have Eddie’s final recording of the Senate line 😉

I could imagine that the shot would work to replace the shot of Kylo looking at the Starkiller charging. The officer would appear and say ‘Sir, we’re ready for prisoner transport.’ Then cut to Rey trying to escape. That would probably give the scene more tension, though I would lose the shot from the film.

RogueLeader said:

I love that you’re bringing the long Falcon journey idea back!

I think it would be cool to have some different shots of the Falcon flying through space with just some cross fades, helping to imply the passage of time. I always pictured a shot of the Falcon passing by or above an exotic-colored gas giant, and passing through a nebula (sort of like one of your test shots). Maybe the nebula could be moving slightly in the background, with some nebula haze moving across camera in the foreground.

I do feel one problem is trying to have the Falcon maintain the right-to-left movement across the frame. I feel like it would be simpler if you could find a decent Falcon model that could be used to make a few new cool shots of it in space. Poppa and snooker both seem to have access to a decent Falcon model, and if we kept it small in the shot, you could potentially get away with the dish being incorrect, if it isn’t the proper one.

For environments, I imagine that using shots from other shows would probably be the best bet since I’d only have to replace the Razor Crest with the Falcon, for example. Of course I could use NASA photography like my test shot, but it may not fit with the moving camera shots and style of TFA.

I’d love to have some different shots of the Falcon flying through space. I actually reached out to someone on Youtube who had done some similar shots, but they haven’t responded. If Poppa or Snooker wanted to help, that would be fantastic.