I am looking forward to this edit much like your Return of the Jedi edit. As I look through the list of 80 edits, I find myself looking forward to nearly all of them. I do legitimately like what you are intending to do with nearly all of it.
I do have some questions/concerns:
When looking at the planet titles, I do have a personal bias in that I did like them as I am not good with names, and it helps me identify where we are. I know those titles are inconsistent with other Star Wars movies, but it does help me prevent getting the locations twisted in my head. This is obviously not the biggest deal in the world.
As for the deepfake, will you also deepfake Leia at the end? In other Rogue One edits, Tarkin and Leia look very realistic. Are you making your own version?
I am curious as to your logic from removing Vanee from the movie. I liked his presence and getting to see Vader in the bacta tank. I thought it humanized him for a bit right before he intimidated Krennic.
This is not much of a concern, but as far as I know you are the only editor who will give Vader a younger James Earl Jones voice. It obviously was not his fault that his voice sounded a lot older considering in real time there was about 40 years between the release of A New Hope and Rogue One.
Towards the end of the movie, does it fit adding in Vader’s command to “increase firepower?” In the movie, Tarkin states he will command the Death Star and Vader will focus on going directly after the rebels and the plans beamed on the ship. It also seems a bit odd to increase power on a weapon that blows up planets.
I will say, I actually do like the line inserted into the movie. Nothing wrong with giving Vader more dialogue. I do have mixed feelings about this though.
In terms of other possible edit ideas, there are some from the Hal9000 edit of Rogue One that I thought worked well when I watched his. These are his words:
“Removed showing the audience Cassian’s instructions to kill Galen Erso. By removing this conversation as well as its reiteration in a later scene, it adds weight to Jyn’s comment about trust going both ways and keeps the audience in Jyn’s perspective.”
“ Trimmed Bohdi’s hesitation in assigning the new makeshift crew a callsign when pulling away from the Rebel base.”
“ Modified R2-D2’s red/blue light to match its style of appearance in ANH (FX by Burbin)
Removed Jyn’s line to Krennic, “You know who I am,” as he appeared sincerely not to.”Regarding R2D2, I see you mentioned making him more noticeable, which likely makes this edit idea redundant anyway.
Best of luck with this. Your edit of this movie certainly appears like it would be my favorite one when it is all done. I felt some of the other edits of the movie were very aggressive cutting out various entire scene. Based on your words, I enjoyed the movie as much as you did.
-
The title cards are more personal preference. I could keep them, I could remove them.
-
About Leia’s cameo, I never disliked the original CGI version, but I could probably edit it a little bit.
-
The reason I removed Vanee is because “Rogue One” isn’t about the Jedi or Sith, and I feel Vader should be like his “A New Hope” version: an Imperial with the force. Plus, I never liked how Vanee looked.
-
As for Vader’s voice, I’m going to try to at least edit James Earl Jones’ original dialogue.
5. Vader is referring to the firepower of the Devastator, not the Death Star.
-
About removing the scene between Draven and Cassian, I think the suspense of knowing that Cassian needs to kill Galen works better than learning with Jyn about the task given to Cassian.
-
I feel like Bodhi had an awkward personality, and he was not used to how the Rebel Alliance works. Personally, I enjoyed the realistic hesitation.
-
I might remove Jyn’s line to Krennic, as I honestly never really liked it.