Star Wars: The Ford Awakens (Han Lives Edit) (Released)

Announcing a very special Star Wars: Force Awakens fanedit. What if poor Harrison Ford was denied yet another chance at going out in a blaze of glory?

That’s right, I’ve worked out a way of having Han live throughout the entire movie, and he accompanies Rey on her search for Luke at the end.

Other changes so far include

-Leia sensing the Starkiller’s attack on the republic
-R2 awakens when BB8 first finds him
-No lightsaber duel with Kylo, Rey, or Finn.
-Planets Daquar and Tokondana are now the same world
-Han and Chewie’s explosives bring down the shields

Timeline:

-First 47 minutes are straight up regular Force Awakens. Changes occur when the falcon escapes the hijackers
-Falcon arrives at Daquar, Finn meets Poe, all references to Rey being captured removed
-R2 awakens, the map to Luke is completed
-Leia and Han argue, Rey finds Luke’s lightsaber and has her vision, this triggers her awakening, Snoke informs Kylo of this, Snoke then learns the location of the Resistance base.
-The Resistance put together their strategy regarding Starkiller base.
-The First Order attacks Daquar, Finn is given the lightsaber
-Footage of Tokunda battle now represents the Daquar invasion
-Starkiller destroys Republic planets, Rey grieves with Leia.
-Han, Finn, Rey and Chewie journey to Starkiller,
-Han and Chewie plant bombs, Han confronts Kylo, Kylo ignites his lightsaber off-camera, leaving Chewie no choice but to attack, he then sets off the explosives. The shields are brought down by the explosions.
-Resistance destroy Starkiller base
-Han says goodbye to Leia, tells Rey and Finn all about why Luke dissapeared
-Footage of the Falcon arriving at Tokodana used for the Falcon arriving at Luke’s island
-Ending the same as Force Awakens

I have plenty of samples to share. Advise and suggestions are welcome.

Sample:

R2 Awakens (UPDATED)

https://vimeo.com/309853370

How I worked around keeping Rey on the mission with Han and Finn without being captured. These combined scenes occur just as the First Order begin recharging Starkiller base.

https://vimeo.com/309610753

Chewie Saves Han (special credit to the efforts of GeoMFilms)

https://vimeo.com/309724248

Password to view all samples is ford

How does that mesh with TFA?

Why are there so many edits like this with TFA and TLJ, where a character is changed to live or die with absolutely no regard with how that might mesh with the next movie?

Because some of us aren’t interested in doing the whole sodding sequel trilogy and just want to make a done-in-one for the sheer fun of it? What’s your problem?

GeoMFilms said:

I like the idea. So far the edits are a little rough (didn’t see the BB8 wake up). Like han talking to Kylo…out of no where Chewie goes ape crazy and starts shooting haha! Or the first one where Rey and Finn go into the falcon. They talking to han and he’s in cockpit with big smile.

I know you can only use footage you have. The idea definitely good, but it’s gonna be hard to make it flow right.

Agree.

Perhaps it’s best I just drop the Kylo and Han confrontation, but at this rate, the movie barely runs beyond an hour with all the other more radical trims I’ve made to it.

Since I last posted, I came up with the notion of leaving Ray behind on the Resistance base, which meant losing her being captured, interrogated, escaping and then duelling with Kylo. I might have to put all that back in just to increase the running time.

Ok, I’ve worked out a draft that keeps Rey on Starkiller Base, and jettisoned Han confronting Kylo as well as the final lightsaber duel with Kylo. I’ll update the OP with the revised information.

Cameron Samurai said:

Because some of us aren’t interested in doing the whole sodding sequel trilogy and just want to make a done-in-one for the sheer fun of it? What’s your problem?

I was just thinking that the Force Awakens doesn’t really work except as the first movie in a series of movies, it literally ends on a cliffhanger.

Do whatever you want, though, it’s your fanedit. I just don’t think it works.

SparkySywer said:

Cameron Samurai said:

Because some of us aren’t interested in doing the whole sodding sequel trilogy and just want to make a done-in-one for the sheer fun of it? What’s your problem?

I was just thinking that the Force Awakens doesn’t really work except as the first movie in a series of movies, it literally ends on a cliffhanger.

Do whatever you want, though, it’s your fanedit. I just don’t think it works.

So? Last Jedi ends on a cliffhanger too, doesn’t stop people from making edits where Luke lives does it?

Currently on my kick of combining scenes together, I’ve sorted out how to get Rey to Starkiller Base without her getting captured…merge the “bypass the compressor” meme with the Falcon arriving at Starkiller. Rey and Finn can take turns talking to Han in the cockpit.

While I was at it, I merged two scenes of Snoke talking with Hux, he’s informed of where the Resistance base is hiding, and he tells Hux they will crush them once and for all, then asks Kylo about the awakening he just sensed…this now comes directly after Rey’s one-and-only encounter with Luke’s lightsaber and has the force vision.

I’ve trying to come up with a way of using Han’s confrontation with Kylo in a new draft, but the only way I can interrupt it and keep Han alive is for Chewie to either randomly attack Stormtroopers (as you’ve already seen in the rejected sample), or randomly shoot Kylo before he can do anything to Han, so it’d make Chewie look like a dick either way.

This will be an interesting fan-edit, considering I disliked Han’s death in the final film.

Updated OP with new sample

Well, I think I managed to find a way of keeping in the Han and Kylo confrontation, and resolving it in a way that doesn’t make Chewie look like an unprovoked trigger-happy dick. All it took was taking one shot from earlier in the scene with the stormtrooper about to open fire on Han, thus provoking Chewie into firing to save his friend.

So now that bumps the run time up to 1 hour, 30 minutes.

I like the work I did in the first version though, so when the times comes to release this, I will be giving people who wish to see it the choice of the two versions.

Hard cuts aside, that turned out quite well. The thought of Chewie shooting Kylo had occured to me, but as I said before, I didn’t want him to look like a trigger-happy jerk interrupting Han’s attempt at reconciling with his son, even if we, the audience, know he was up to no good, I was putting myself in the character’s shoes.

Also, thematically I wanted Han to be somewhat haunted by the attempt at reconcilation. When he leaves Leia behind, she doesn’t know he’s seen their son already in this edit, and she asks Han to bring him home if he does see him…Han’s look after she says this is now meant to be representative of how close he was to fulfilling that request.

Yeah, at one point in the edit I was going to retain the lightsaber duel, and I definitely did cut out the bits where Kylo’s trying to keep his wound under control, then I decided to omit it instead. It may just go back in just because the film is underunning a bit.

Your other ideas sound interesting, and definitely have more layers to them than what my simple mind is conjuring up, heh. I think I’d make a hatchet job of that to be honest.

Just so you know, I did try out your idea on my own programme and came up with something that seems to work, I’ll share it as a sample sometime in the coming week once I test how good it is on a draft of the film.

That’s sort of what I’ve tried with my current version, a simpler approach would be to have the lightsaber ignited off-screen, keep the focus trained on Han, then Chewie freaks out at seeing this and fires. After the explosives go off, Kylo looks up to find everyone climbing into the elevator as seen in GeoMFilms’ concept edit.

I’m also thinking of never outright stating Kylo and Han are father and son in Version 3 of the edit, this helps continuity with the end of the film where Han never mentions to Rey that Ben is his son when talking about him being the reason Luke left. It also works really well with Leia and Han’s farewell too, now when Leia asks Han “if you see our son…bring him home”, Han’s haunted look as he holds her tells the audience all they need…he did see his son, but he failed in his task.

OP updated with the new sample (Chewie Saves Han), with a credit to GeoMFilms for his contribution

I presently work with pretty basic tools, I’m not that experienced with digital alteration as of yet, it’s a great idea though, I did sort of try it out raw, had some timing issues.