Thank you so much for these! I was holding off on “finalizing” until I had at least heard from you, you always have really thorough feedback. A lot of this is already helping tie up those technical odds and ends; I don’t think I have it in me to keep rewatching these for that small stuff (hell, that was the whole process already) so the extra eyes really helps. Relieving that they seemed fine for the most part to everyone already.
I do agree about waiting until season 2 to finalize, but for now “final” to me is about not having to think about this for a while. I didn’t exactly have the healthiest relationship to my previous ongoing edits tbh. For that, I think I’m just going to let go of some of the more radical / alternate stuff I might have been interested in, at least for now. A lot of what you pitched does sound enticing though! Esp. your second ending pitch. When I have the space in my head and life for it, I’d love to help realize some of these somewhere.
I’ll respond to some of the more specific points below:
RogueLeader said:
When I rewatched episode 1 on my phone at max volume, I noticed the sound of bats chirping a lot during in the scenes at Saw’s base. Sort of noticeable/distracting but not terrible.
I was actually wondering if “bats” to denote “cave” was a little too much lol. Can definitely reduce them.
I feel like the added shots during the rebel briefing do stick out a little.
I can live with that, that one shot I replaced of Jyn with a smile[?] on her face never worked for me, especially as the lingering closer to the exchange. Just never tracked to the prior conversation’s tone.
I am overall impressed by your music choices. I thought the music choice when Jyn and Cassian arrived to Jedha was pretty inspired, since the music has a slight “Arabia” vibe, which is appropriate considered Jedha was filmed in Wadi Rum. I also really loved the music choices for Galen’s death, and Cassian’s speech till the end of that episode. Really great.
This reminds me I should release a tracklist.
The Jedha arrival in particular is actually “Lebanon” by Cho Young-wuk from Park Chan-wook’s The Little Drummer Girl (2018) miniseries, which I highly recommend. I actually got on keyboard to play some notes from it as synth, just to better blend it to the the rest of the Andor OST lol
I think you’ve done an impressive job emulating the original score with Brittell’s work at times, and overall giving it the Andor vibe. I will say that I initially felt some of the music choices didn’t have the same “emotional weight” as the original tracks, like Your Father Would be Proud. I have rewatched bits and pieces of the episodes on my phone during and those moments that initially had less impact than the theatrical have grown on me more.
I was feeling similarly, but I figured, eh, it’s a novelty edit at the end of the day, the point isn’t to outdo the original, and ultimately Andor’s vibe is just less theatrical anyway. I actually insulated myself from the original score entirely by episode 2 so as to stop comparing the two. Glad to hear it’s grown on you.
I may be wrong but I think I noticed you re-inserted Chirrut’s line, “Is your foot alright?” between V1 and V2. I don’t have strong feelings either way about it but I’m curious why you decided to add it back in.
Also, I wonder if Chirrut’s staff hitting the troopers could be given a little more umph here and there. Sometimes it sounds like he is tapping them pretty lightly instead of hitting them so hard he is knocking them out.
I had to redo all the foley for that scene between the two versions because I felt V1’s sound work was really sloppy all around. I too didn’t really have strong feelings either way about it, which is why I didn’t bother cutting it the second time around. Good call on the staff hits.
You may interested, but I know there is an unused shot of the little girl Jyn saved looking up in the sky when the Star Destroyer is leaving that you could re-add to this version of the film if you wanted. There are a few other unused shots that could be useful here and there as well.
I would be interested in just seeing what you have at all, even if I don’t end up using them.
An opportunity for this edit: In the Partisan prison cell, Cassian says, “This is the first for me” in regards to being “worst cages than this”. This feels a little contradictory knowing that he has been in some pretty bad cages. You could argue he is being deceptive about his past, or being sarcastic, but I feel like with the added context of Andor, it would be better to alter this line to, “This isn’t the first for me” if possible.
Honestly, this never bothered me and I think Andor actually makes the scene work better for me personally. I like that it’s overtly not the truth now, particularly for the moment when Chirrut calls out that he is carrying a prison with him. It plays more like Cassian taken aback by some mysticism (he is probably carrying Narkina with him), as opposed to him being surprised Chrirrut said something poignant. Just feels a bit more in character.
I always felt like it was less about having been in cages before anyway, and more about Chirrut’s premise to relax. From Cass’ perspective, is he supposed to say “You’re right, I have been in worse cages too, I shouldn’t care about being held against my will”? It feels fitting for him to say something wry that minimizes the conversation through Chirrut’s own terms.
I think if this was a movie edit, I would suggest removing all Bodhi scenes before Cassian finds him (and you removed all but one already), but with this episode format I wonder how it would feel if the following Bodhi scene when he meets Saw was back-to-back with his first scene. You could still cut the Bor Gullet scene, but maybe you could subtitle Saw when he says Bor Gullet, and it could mean, “Torture him.” Or something like that, to explain why Bodhi is in a daze when Cassian finds him.
I was wondering if maybe the Saw scenes would actually play better in Andor’s new context. This is mostly for the potential / inevitable post-season 2 revisit, but season 1 already lays groundwork for Saw’s further descent into madness and paranoia. Maybe season 2 could make the Rogue One scenes land better as the final beats of a fleshed out arc.
As it is though, I still don’t see too much value in including all of them. Bodhi being in a daze contrasted to his first lucid scene tells enough of the story IMO, as does Saw’s brief distrust of Jyn’s reappearance.
I can totally understand if you want keep this edit pretty similar to the original film beyond a few trims, but I’d love get a version of this with the music separate if you wouldn’t mind sharing.
I’ll get around to this eventually, I don’t mind. I imagine it’ll be like when they released that Tom Cruise Mummy trailer without music haha.
Though if I end up too busy, I think some of it should be easily replicated by using something like Spleeter or UVR to isolate vocals on the center channel. Only percussion and vocals can make a clean center channel, given the targeted scene’s OST doesn’t have any drums (which luckily RO doesn’t use all the time). Percussion track in particular can preserve a good bit of things like clicks, taps, impacts, explosions, and footsteps for the foley.
