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The Force Awakens : Fan Edit Ideas — Page 21

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DominicCobb said:

I really have very small interest in TFA fan edits because I know they’ll mostly just cut out stuff I love, but there are some small quibblies that I’ll probably have to sort out for myself at some point.

For instance, and it’s strange no one’s mentioned this, but the Kylo speaks to Vader scene doesn’t really work. I mean, as a scene, by itself, it totally works. But it’s placement within the film just seems… random? It’s right in the middle of the sequence of the heroes at Maz’s castle, but it’s only about a minute long and doesn’t really have anything to do with that. So just a very short and unrelated detour, which sort of ruins the power of the scene a bit.

So I see two options to fix.
A) Make the scene more relevant to Kylo’s storyline. Solution: move the scene right after Snoke’s “We shall see.”
or B) Make the scene more relevant to the heroes storyline. Solution: move the scene right after Han and Leia talk about Kylo.

This sounds like a very good point indeed, considering that I found that substantially re-arranging the position of certain scenes in the prequels for my own cut-lists made them much more impactful for me. I’m definately gonna have a look at this suggestion of yours when I get around to pinning down my own TFA alterations. It’s a great scene, but I agree it’s placement might be more effective if used elsewhere.

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Luke is like 54 in TFA so the lack of grey hairs would be strange…

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Of course, I’m just joking around but I couldn’t help myself.

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Okay, Solo actually looks really good. I’d like to see if you can make him look like he did in ANH, just to see if it’s possible.

Luke’s eye area look a bit strange though, might be the eyebrows or lack thereof.

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Jeebus said:

Okay, Solo actually looks really good. I’d like to see if you can make him look like he did in ANH, just to see if it’s possible.

But why?

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I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about the new Han Solo movie, and suggesting that they should get Ford back to play him and digitally make him younger. I just want to see if that can be done convincingly, at least on a still image.

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The CGI Arnold wasn’t that bad looking. I’d say in 5-10 years we wouldn’t be able to tell if they went with the whole digitized de-aging thing.

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I remember reading up on the process used in that opening scene and it’s quite complex. Of course the results are extremely impressive, with the work being worth it. But to carry an entire film with a CG-hybrid de-aged actor would be very difficult, at least if you don’t want limitations.

For example, the shot I show above was obviously done in photoshop, but you could very easily carry that over into after effects with the new advanced face tracker. Problem is some expressions of Harrison are so drastically different from his younger years, that they seem near impossible to process. The shot above he has pretty contained expressions, but when he emotes to a high degree the work becomes very difficult to avoid the uncanny valley effect.

Of course, you can help this by sacrificing some age by blending the original and an over-processed “young version”. You can also use an additional layer to between the two to further deemphasize certain facial features that are more important to remove/smooth, which I also used.

The Luke shot on the other hand was simply the airbrushing over the original.

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ImperialFighter sent me the TFA edit by “Noodle_Finger,” and I gave it a look to see how it handled moving the destruction of the Republic capital to late in the film. For those interested, I’ve typed up the relevant descriptions.

During the first scene with Snoke, following the scene where we meet up with Han and Chewie, he removed Hux altogether. The scene begins with, “There has been an awakening,” and goes on from there. (I’d recommend having the line, “There has been an awakening” read over the establishing shot of SKB, then cut to the interior from there.) The editor removed mention of Han Solo being Kylo Ren’s father, but that’s outside the scope of the SKB third act.

He moved the Hux speech scene to later, so the viewer follows Rey running from Maz’s castle through to when she finds BB8 and sees the First Order coming overhead.

Once we get to the next Snoke scene following Rey’s failed interrogation, he used the bits with Hux that he removed from the earlier scene. The scene now reads like this, with bits from the earlier scene in brackets:
Paraphrased
Snoke: The scavenger resisted you?
Ren: She is strong with the Force. Untrained, but stronger than she knows.
Snoke: And the droid?
Hux: Ren believed it was no longer valuable to us, that the girl was all we need. As a result, the droid has most likely been returned to the hand of the enemy.
[Snoke: The strategy must now change.]
[Hux: The weapon is ready. I believe now is the time to use it… to destroy the Republic. They’ll never reach Skywalker.]
Ren: I can get the Map, I just need your guidance.
Snoke: Prepare the weapon… If what you say about this girl is true, bring her to me.

This would require one brief FX shot to cut Red out of a Snoke-POV shot of Hux and Ren-without-mask shot to replace his masked figure from a shot used from the earlier scene. The editor did it and it looks fine. I wouldn’t think it’d be terribly difficult for someone to recreate.

After Ren’s tantrum upon finding Rey’s chair empty, he pasted in the Hux speech. It goes directly into the Sun being sucked in, which was here at this point in the movie anyway.

Duing Resistance briefing scene, he removed Leia saying that they are the next target.

Once Han gets stabbed, he goes directly from closeup of Ren looking contemplative, to the weapon being fired. Once the planets are destroyed, cut to Leia having her “just a headache” moment, then cut to Chewie reacting.

He also had to remove the cutaway about the weapon firing in two minutes, right before Rey and Finn encounter Ren in the woods.

I’m not gung-ho about fan editing TFA, but I would really like to see the SKB restructuring be pulled off as well as possible, because I believe it would have made the story better if it had been done this way from the start.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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That sounds really well done. For the third act this is my idea.

While the bombs are being set we cut to the trench run. The very end of it where Poe gets in is cut out for later. (normally is in middle of lightsaber duel). After Hans death, right before it cuts to Chewie blowing the explosives we cut from Rey and Finn desperately firing at troopers to Starkiller firing with order 66 music coming in (or “The Starkiller”). We cut back to Chewie blowing the explosives (music still playing), then Poe comes through the hole and blows up the base. Then during the lightsaber duel we cut to people evacuating. Because if you allow th trench run later on there is upbeat music. If you cut a lot of the happy reactions from Poe after its blown and rescore it then it could improve the third act a lot more.

Return of the Jedi: Remastered

Lord of the Rings: The Darth Rush Definitives

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I am going to watch noodle fingers edit while In the car today to see how it all plays out

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 (Edited)

I put in some time today with TFA, and have put together a few mockup clips to see what it would take to move the destruction of Hosnian Prime to right after Han’s death.

https://vimeo.com/164864645
For the first scene with Snoke, we would remove Hux, and begin the scene once he’s exited the room. I think it’d be okay to leave the SKB establishing shot, though. A small amount of FX work would need to be done to paint Hux out of a few frames as he finishes walking out of frame.

https://vimeo.com/164864663
Next, we will need to remove Hux’s speech and move it to later. This means we will follow Rey as she runs from Maz’s basement, and continue following her until she notices the TIEs coming in for attack. One problem with moving the destruction of Hosnian Prime to later means that Finn left with the space pirates, and yet later appears back with Han and Maz. The best solution I can think of is to do some audio and visual FX work to make it look like he is reacting to the incoming TIEs, and merely imply that he returned in order to help fight.

https://vimeo.com/164864669
After the interrogation of Rey, we see Snoke again. Here, we will need to bake in parts of Hux’s conversation with Snoke that we removed from earlier. I’ve noted in the clip a few shots that will require FX work to show Kylo Ren unmasked.

https://vimeo.com/164864713
After Ren throws a fit upon finding Rey’s empty cell, we can insert the Hux speech. Once it cuts to people working at control stations, we seamlessly segue into the sun being sucked up, which was originally at this point in the film anyway.

During the Resistance briefing, remove Leia announcing that they are the next target.
Also, remove Threepio’s line in a subsequent base scene, “It would take a miracle to save us now.”

https://vimeo.com/164864963
And here is the destruction of Hosnian Prime, Starkiller Base’s sole target. I flipped one shot of the beam vertically so that it tracked better.

One would also need to remove the short scene right after Rey and Finn run from the building where we are told the weapon will fire in two minutes.

I’m still not entirely sure this goal can be achieved seamlessly, but I hope so. Good luck to anyone trying to make this work.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

I put in some time today with TFA, and have put together a few mockup clips to see what it would take to move the destruction of Hosnian Prime to right after Han’s death.

https://vimeo.com/164864645
For the first scene with Snoke, we would remove Hux, and begin the scene once he’s exited the room. I think it’d be okay to leave the SKB establishing shot, though. A small amount of FX work would need to be done to paint Hux out of a few frames as he finishes walking out of frame.

https://vimeo.com/164864663
Next, we will need to remove Hux’s speech and move it to later. This means we will follow Rey as she runs from Maz’s basement, and continue following her until she notices the TIEs coming in for attack. One problem with moving the destruction of Hosnian Prime to later means that Finn left with the space pirates, and yet later appears back with Han and Maz. The best solution I can think of is to do some audio and visual FX work to make it look like he is reacting to the incoming TIEs, and merely imply that he returned in order to help fight.

https://vimeo.com/164864669
After the interrogation of Rey, we see Snoke again. Here, we will need to bake in parts of Hux’s conversation with Snoke that we removed from earlier. I’ve noted in the clip a few shots that will require FX work to show Kylo Ren unmasked.

https://vimeo.com/164864713
After Ren throws a fit upon finding Rey’s empty cell, we can insert the Hux speech. Once it cuts to people working at control stations, we seamlessly segue into the sun being sucked up, which was originally at this point in the film anyway.

During the Resistance briefing, remove Leia announcing that they are the next target.

https://vimeo.com/164864963
And here is the destruction of Hosnian Prime, Starkiller Base’s sole target. I flipped one shot of the beam vertically so that it tracked better.

One would also need to remove the short scene right after Rey and Finn run from the building where we are told the weapon will fire in two minutes.

I’m still not entirely sure this goal can be achieved seamlessly, but I hope so. Good luck to anyone trying to make this work.

Those are awesome! I hope someone makes these changes and leaves the rest uncut. I’d like to see a rearranged version of the film leaving everything else intact.

Prequel Fan-Edit thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Yet-another-series-of-prequel-edits/id/17329

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Smithers said:

I hope someone makes these changes and leaves the rest uncut. I’d like to see a rearranged version of the film leaving everything else intact.

Me too. If the FX shots that I’m unable to do were out there, I’d merely do the things outlined in my post (and mute the rathtar burp), and slap a silent version of my logo after the credits, and call it a day.
It would keep Luke as the main macguffin, rather than switching to SKB and then switching back. It would also be a less precise mirror of ANH, with Alderaan and Yavin IV. And you’d avoid the question about how the weapon was able to fire twice if it absorbs its sun each time. Come to think of it, this would dovetail nicely with destroying multiple planets at once; SKB only gets one shot after is absorbs its sun, so it is designed to hit multiple targets to take out the Republic capital.

EDIT: It would also dovetail well with Hux’s line, "The collapse of the planet has begun."

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Agreed, rearranging of scenes to keep Luke as the focus and have the Hosnian system destroyed later as you show above has always been the only major change I’d want to see to TFA. That and some very minor cuts to the Rathtar sequence (just reducing the goofiness of the Rathtars, but keeping the entire Han talking to the gangs scene.

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Hal 9000 said:

It was a change from the trailer, not the finished film.

Yep. Fortunately many redditors have pointed this out and the OP has said “oops, shouldn’t have posted this” after ranting about it in a number of posts first. Now we’ll get to see it pop back up every few months in an “OMG you Lucas h8ers are hippocrites!!!”.

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I can’t wait for them to show up here…more.

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“What about that ship?”

“That one’s garbage (KABOOM)… the garbage will do!”

The first appearance of the Falcon is one of the highlights in The Force Awakens, but when Rey and Finn first run onboard was anyone else struck by the fact that all the corridor lights are on and the ship appears primed for take off?

Seeing as the ship is under tarp, like an old banger slowly rusting in a farmers front garden, wouldn’t it be more fitting if the ship was powered down when they first enter and the lights didn’t come on till Rey reached the cockpit?

I know Adywan recently showed off a little fix for ESB Revisited where he made a light that was off appear on - could the reverse be done here or is this too hard a alteration?