Could you send me a link to this? Jus about to finish my Clone Wars rewatch and would love to wrap it up with this!
I think DigModification’s Heir to the Force edit simply has it happen as a result of the Base being destroyed.
And can you go into a little more detail regarding the main reasons this scene is bad enough to be cut? I don’t love it myself, but am currently at a position of not thinking it leaves a viewer with a negative experience by going through it. I’d really take into consideration your thoughts though. Thanks!
So I watched this with my wife, who also watched HotF with me. We really enjoyed it, and definitely appreciated the attempts to make Luke feel more consistent with the OT and Legends. The pacing was MUCH better and the inclusion of a number of deleted scenes helped with that.
Nice, glad to hear as a whole it was an improvement or at least a new enjoyable experience for you. Thanks so much for writing out this lengthy review. It will really help me refine for the final version. I’ll go through your points and see what I can fix.
Here’s the notes we had on things that we thought were weird or needing improvement.
Like I said in my other post, I think the shots of Luke & Rey staring at each other from a distance don’t work if we’ve already seen them as a vision. It is especially weird to have the shot of her holding the lightsaber out to him from a distance and then without the shots of her walking to him have her handing it to him. So just trim out the repeated shots of the staring and have her hand it to him asap.
After Luke hands Rey back the lightsaber, cut her putting it in the pack, just go right to him storming past her. I get the impulse, but it’s not really necessary.
I’ll definitely take another look at this whole interaction and try to tighten it up so the exchange feels more natural.
The cut to Luke saying “you think what, I came to the most unfindable place in the galaxy for no reason at all?” is rough, it feels like something is missing.
You feel like it is missing something at what point in that phrase? Before, in the middle, or at the end?
During lesson 1, right before Luke smacks Rey’s hand, she says something really garbled. I get what you were trying to do with trimming the joke down, but unless you can just have her reach out and get hit without the weird cut of her talking, I think it would be better to leave the full joke.
Hmm, I’d rather cut it all if the whole joke has to be in it. They’re talking over each other in theatrical so I tried to splice it so it happens really quickly but maybe it’s too confusing without the context. I’ll see if anyone else feels the same and if so I might just remove it all. I wanted to show Luke with a little bit of ESB Yoda-like behavior, but it’s not terribly important if the cut detracts from the scene.
I really like the training montage, however by having it in the middle of the lesson, and ending on the lesson, it doesn’t quite give the impression of time passing. It needs something else, maybe a recolor at the end to give the impression it’s not the same day.
I was banking on the inclusion of some of the training segments occurring at night being the indicator that days had gone by. Did the night time shots not give the impression that time was passing during the montage?
Also intercutting Kylo’s mask when the ground breaks kinda took away from the impact of being with Rey & Luke. Cutting right to Kylo after Luke says his thing about sensing that raw power before is enough to establish what he means.
The intention was more to explain the Kylo/Rey mind link. Her venture to the dark was tied into the future connection between her and Kylo. But again, sometimes a good intention is more distracting than leaving things unchanged so I’ll re-evaluate that.
During the fleet escape I don’t think cutting to Kylo’s broken mask on the floor adds anything, it kinda felt like an artifact.
It kind of was. More of a callback to a Vader scene of telling someone to prepare his ship, and we also get to see that state of his mask which is great imagery. But it is sort of forced into that area of my cut, so I’ll try and find somewhere else I can move it rather than cut it outright.
Kylo taking the shot on Leia is well done.
Thanks. Do you think it is better for his character to ‘kill’ her rather than his hesitancy in theatrical?
And Luke saving Leia/them doing it together makes it feel like a much stronger moment and cuts down on how much focus is on Leia’s still body shooting through space. My wife and I really liked this moment, it was really poignant.
Awesome! I’m always nervous to include any of the Space Leia scene, but I also felt like this edit really worked. The power of the Skywalker bond!
During Rey’s training the cut from “the legacy of the Jedi is failure” to the fleet is both musically and “lyrically” upsetting. By lyrically I mean, it feels like there is more to what luke was saying and it got cut off, and the musical cut is too abrubt. I was really enjoying this training sequence and it was over too soon imo. Maybe even having Luke repeat the line “It’s time for the Jedi to end” again here could help.
Agreed. It is too abrupt and I really struggled with getting it even to that flawed state. It’s very difficult to find a smooth transition to the next part of the story here, but I do need to find an alternate solution. I’ll try to play with your suggestion, maybe even recut the timing of the “It’s time for the Jedi to end” line so it seems different than the other time he says it.
Finn messing with Rose’s hair during their break in is an odd moment that doesn’t add to characterisation and isn’t really good humor. I would cut it.
True, I didn’t even pay attention to that at first, but now that I see it I don’t like it. Cut!
I think there should a moment or two longer with Snoke after he “welcomes” Rey aboard.
Believe it or not, I didn’t actually cut anything there. Theatrical cuts at that same spot so there really isn’t any footage I can add in. I do agree with you though that it should linger at least another second, but there simply isn’t any footage of that.
In the Yoda scene, as much as I enjoy the scene, I don’t know that it adds anything to this version of the film. In the theatrical it’s part of Yoda teaching Luke, but in your edit Luke already learned the lesson of failure. It’s what he’s been teaching Rey, so for Yoda to tell it to Luke doesn’t work, especially with Luke’s facial reactions. Maybe some trims will help. Idk.
I was trying to show that Yoda also has reached the same conclusion that Luke has, that the Jedi must end. Yesterday, I re-watched the Clone Wars arc of Yoda’s journey, and I feel this scene is very consistent with what he learned. I’ll go through this scene and see if I can alter some of the face shots or something that will make it feel more thematically focused. I want Luke to feel comforted that his old master is supporting his decisions.
If you can, adding a shot of Holdo on one of the transports before it blows will help, because my wife was wondering what happened to her and I shouldn’t have to explain what was going on based off your notes.
Of course, the story should make sense without having to read an explanation. I don’t see any way to visually add a believable death scene for Holdo. There is an audio line that states that Holdo is onboard a transport, perhaps you missed that? I think the best I can do with her is keep that audio line and have the audience deduce that she died before making it to Crait. It’s not perfect, but I don’t have any other way to write her out of the story.
I think you should include Kylo’s version of the events at the temple, it’s part of him getting Rey to doubt Luke as a teacher, part of him tempting her and is necessary I think.
I considered it, but the problem is that then there is no resolution to his lie. That would be the last time this flashback is ever referenced and so people might start to believe that’s what actually happened, and that is something I wanted to run away from. In theatrical, Rey confronts Luke about Kylo’s “lie” and Luke confirms the truth. I have cut that whole discussion so now there is no way to resolve that Kylo’s lie is actually a lie. It would be weird of Rey to hear this side of things and then never bring it up to Luke after that, so I don’t think there’s any way for me to include this.
I don’t know if this is a you issue or a FGR issue, but in the shots of Luke after he retracts his blade, you can see it’s Anakin’s hilt, not Luke’s.
It wasn’t originally from FGR, but a professional VFX company. Unfortunately that’s all the VFX work that was included. I don’t have any way to add the hilt into the other scenes in a way that fits with their work, so sadly I think that has to remain as an annoying inconsistency.
And in the film Luke’s “I won’t be the Last Jedi” as it showed Leia was a really nice moment.
Great! I’m trying to set up some Episode 9 changes with that inclusion. I’ll start writing on that soon.
Also, having watched the whole film, my suggestion for needing some visual context for the WbtW, such as showing the island fading away from Luke still stands. My wife was completely thrown, and while I appreciate the attempt to have ambiguity, there’s a difference between ambiguity and having no in-film context for what’s going on. But it was still cool to see Leia and Rey sensing him there. Well done!
Has she seen Rebels? I don’t doubt that without proper understanding of the WbtW it would be very confusing. As a standalone movie, it should never include anything that completely confuses new viewers. However, I would also say my cut is not intended to be the best experience for people who don’t have a very deep understanding of Star Wars. The reason behind my Legends edits in the first place isn’t something that someone could clearly gleam only from only the movies, so my edits are meant to be watched with the context of KOTOR, TCW, and Rebels etc.
Overall really well done. Looking forward to what you put together next.
I’m getting ready to engage with the No Palps edit again, cus after watching these two edits, I can’t imagine a version of tRoS with him in it that works at all.
Thanks! I still need to watch the No Palps edit, and part of the reason for my delay on working on my TRoS edit is that it is a daunting task to fix, even moreso than TLJ.
Edit: After some more thoughts, I have to wonder about the effectiveness of some of this ecits goals. I think it succeeded it a lot of ways, but there are some aspects about Luke that I want to address.
In this edit you are attempting to do away with the part of TLJ where Luke is there to die and has cut himself off from the Force. That he’s ready and able to help those he cares about.
This raises the issue however of why he wasn’t helping in TFA. Why didn’t he prevent Starkiller base from firing, why didn’t he save Han, (and why doesn’t he know Han is dead) why did he only start helping after Rey showed up?
If he wasn’t helping before what is the impetus for doing so now?
It’s a valid question. I would say that all of Luke’s activity in TLJ is due to the threats against Leia. He has a special force bond with her. Luke wouldn’t necessarily be able to sense Han nearly in the same way that he can with Leia, so there’s no reason for him to know when or how Han died. He doesn’t have a force bond with him. The only acts of greatness in TLJ are Luke intervening for Leia. Not fighting a war, not getting involved in NR politics, but simply saving Leia. Also the fact that Rey physically shows up in front of him is something that motivates him to teach and become more active instead of simply studying and maintaining his balance.
And if reading the Jedi texts is what brought him his better understanding of the force, why attempt to burn the books? Again, this scene only confuses your narrative more. Are the texts good? Or bad? If they’re bad and him burning them is good, then in the next film Rey having them should lead her down a bad path, but if the texts are helpful, like they are in RoS and are what helped Luke, then burning them needs to go.
After seeing that Rey had failed his training, he felt like the lesson itself is too dangerous. He realized some of the flaws of the Jedi in the texts, but Rey’s fascination with the Jedi took her down a dark path so Luke felt that it was better if those texts were destroyed entirely, because Rey didn’t understand his teachings. The texts aren’t inherently good or bad, it’s what lessons you take from them that matters.
And during the third lesson, when he’s explaining that according to the texts “a true Jedi only acts to maintain balance, but that’s bs cus thr galaxy needs people who are always ready to help.” you need to clarify what lesson us and Rey are supposed to take from this. Is she only supposed to act when she can maintain balance even if people die, or should she save her friends? It was unclear. I would suggest trying to have him say that the OLD jedi are the ones who only act when trying to maintain balance, but a TRUE Jedi would be what the galaxy needs and save people. Or something.
I think this leads to a deeper discussion on what a True Jedi or an Old Jedi is, and what they would/should do. Luke is trying to teach Rey a simple lesson about intervention. He isn’t pointing to a definitive right or wrong, or attempting to resolve millennia of philosophical debate here. He’s merely showing Rey the different sides, her options, and the consequences of her actions.
And if possible these are things that need to be addressed in the film, and if you can’t make a change work cohesively in a way that is at least somewhat coherent to the viewer, my thought is that you might have to walk back a change or try a different approach.
TLJ is a film that was meant to spark debate. I think I would want my cut to do the same thing, but for different reasons. No, Luke’s new philosophy isn’t explained in depth, but I don’t think it has to be. Luke doesn’t even have all the answers in my cut. He is a powerful, and flawed force-user looking to do his best to make the galaxy a better place. That is to say that I don’t think there needs to be clear, definitive answers to these questions. Again, I will reference Yoda’s journey in TCW. You leave those episodes with a million questions. Does Yoda want the Jedi to end? To change? What’s his new philosophy of the force? Why doesn’t he tell others everything? None of these things are answered, but we can speculate his reasons, and that’s the fun part of it! I do wish there were ways to flesh out Luke’s stances because I find them so interesting, but I don’t think a lack of specific answers detracts so much from the film that the original goal has failed. I will show to a few more people, my own wife included, and if there is far too much confusion then I definitely would look into recutting a lot, but at least from my perspective now I don’t think there is anything that is so blatantly contradictory or confusing that it takes anything away from my goal.
Good luck!
Thanks so much for the well thought out review! I really enjoyed going through everything and I know my next release will be even better because of the time you took to help me. I appreciate it!
Hi! can you send me the link, please?
Hey, can I get a link to both your TLJ and TFA edits? Would love to check them out!
Sent to both!
Watched the movie, here’s my thoughts:
Love the restructured opening, it feels so much less formulaic that way. Showing us Jakku before its peace is disturbed by the FO was a great choice.
Thanks. I was inspired by fan creations of the alternate openings of TFA with Luke’s floating hand or the Star Destroyer being pulled down and I thought a more serene sequence worked better than the rush of theatrical.
In general your edits were seamless and only added to the enjoyment of the film. TFA was already the best of the ST, but you elevated it by helping it not feel like a ANH rehash. I appreciate what you did to imply that the reason Han left was tied to Ben’s fall, and not him just being a jerk.
The visions throughout were great and helps the ST establish their own storytelling format distinct from the ones the PT and OT use.
I was torn between wanting to make the ST feel super different and also making it want to fit into the saga as a whole. I tried to blend a little bit of both so I’m glad that worked for you.
I have really only 2 thoughts for things to improve on:
From Hux “if the droid is on Jakku we’ll find it” to Rey eating, I think the wipe needs a softer gradient edge, possibly to be at an angle so it feels more Star Wars. It just looked weird.
You’re right, I do need to feather that wipe!
Delpheas said:
I would suggest not having the weapon fire on the New Republic at all. The destruction of the NR has no bearing on the next two films at all. In the next movie the Resistance says they’re not getting help from their allies, which could be seen simply as a continuation of the NR refusing to help. And then in the third film when the fleet shows up, it can be said by somebody that the Republic finally came through.Aside from the fact the movies never explore the implications of the destruction of the galactic government, the plot point is one of those that serves to undo the OT, and just doesn’t need to happen.
I haven’t seen the edit yet, but i agree with Delpheas about the destruction of the New Republic, and how it leads to nothing. It’s better cut.
I do think the scene of the system being destroyed isn’t very powerful or necessary, though it’s more in there for the sequences around it. The way the whole final battle is cut is like a Death Star run gone wrong. Han dies, the NR is destroyed, and Finn is gravely wounded. If I do change this, how would you recommend recutting Starkiller so that Rey and Kylo are still separated? Right now it is the weapon firing that causes the planet to explode.
Jake Skywalker said:
I finally seen your edit. Great job! You managed to make to movie less an ANH remake and I especially like to work you have done with Rey, making her not the unrealistically overpowered character of the original cut.
I still have problem with the film per se; I can’t stand the idea of the First Order being an Empire ripoff and the laking of a brand new worldbuilding. But this is one of the core problems of the sequel trilogy and you have done a good job, given the poor source material. Bravo!
I appreciate the review, and I’m glad you enjoyed! I wish there was more I could do for the world building and such, as that was George Lucas’s biggest complaint about TFA as well, but alas there is only so much I’m able to touch up. The goal was to make something that could fit as a legends storyline somewhere after the old books, and I hope it lived up to the task.
May I please have a link to your TFA and TLJ edits? I really appreciate the outside the box approach you’re taking with these cuts.
Sent, thanks for your interest!
Just finished your TFA edit… and your TLJ one seems really incredibile, due to the work you are doing with Luke. Can I have a link? Thanks!
Sent. Thanks for watching! Let me know what you think after viewing.
I suggest watching at least Resurgence and the No Palps edit for TRoS, just for two very different approaches to making changes.
Thanks for the suggestions. I watched Resurgence last week and will draw a few ideas from it. I’ve also seen the anti-cringe cut, but still need to check out the No Palps cut, HAL’s, and the Movies Remastered edit when that releases
(Might do a V2 of my TRoS edit eventually as the MR cut is still a ways away)
There are a few things in TRoS that draw on Legends plot points, like the hidden fleet, force clones, a revived Palps, even Rey’s parentage, but just pulling random pieces of lore and smooshing them together doesn’t make for good callbacks and doesn’t make up for the lack of showing Rey’s victory as a balancing of the light and dark.
True, and on the surface I’m cool with a lot of the ideas. I just don’t think they were implemented with care. My worst part of the entire film is the “I am all the sith”, “well I’m all the Jedi” lines. My goodness that shows a lack of understanding of anything about balance across the entire saga. If they were both equal representatives of their sides of the force then they should have evened out at a standstill. Or even if Rey won, the force would soon correct this by producing someone to wipe out the new jedi to even the score. Either way it’s a mess and displays a clear lack of understanding of the main theme of the force.
I haven’t watched HotF or FotJ yet, but I havee skipped around to look at some of the big changes.
- Luke constantly saving Leia is excellent, it establishes him as a character who cares deeply but has succeeded in basically every way that his father failed. He was able to hold his attachments lightly enough to do what needed to be done to maintain balance, but not so lightly he forgot to care. And the way you implement these changes is really strong.
Nice to see you agree, thanks. Theatrical was legitimately depressing when it came to Luke and Leia’s relationship. I wanted to show that even though they were apart, Luke was always watching over his beloved sister, and she knew it. That’s the Skywalker bond.
- When Rey arrives I would trim the lingering shots on her face and hand as she’s holding the saber to Luke. We already saw those in the vision in the last film, so I think this sequence would be helped by having her walk up and hand it to him sooner.
I actually did trim a lot of just what you’re saying. I’ll go through again to see if it can be smoothed out any more, but I had the same idea as you and did some work in that area.
- I appreciate what you’ve done to remove the movie’s ridiculous attempt to have the entire plot fallout in like 3 days. A huge part of TLJ’s (and TRoS) problem was the pacing and it’s helped quite a bit here.
Ah yes, the constant insistence on how many hours of fuel remainins makes even Rey’s segments with Luke feel so unnecessarily rushed. The way I restructured Act 1 helps to push off that countdown timer until later, giving Rey actual time to learn… and sleep.
- I wonder if it is necessary to keep Luke’s line “I will not be the last Jedi.” Him saying it at all goes against both his and Kylo’s insistence that what came before has to be surpassed, and in TLJ was certainly used to show that he had decided he was wrong about the Jedi. Though I am intrigued by his saying while showing Kylo a shot of Jedi Leia.
So I did toy with this line a lot, almost removed it. Decided it still worked and instead of the line being about Rey, in my cut it was about Leia, and here’s why… in Episode 9, Rey still clearly needs a teacher. Rey even calls her “master” and it was really off putting to me since it didn’t appear like Leia knew anything about the Jedi in 7 & 8. Showing that she is also a Jedi, as Luke is, should be a surprise for my viewers, and leave them anticipating more in the future. Also, since my film isn’t titled The Last Jedi, there isn’t so much emphasis on that one line. Luke is simply telling Kylo that he has underestimated his mother by fixating on killing Luke, and that may come back to haunt him in the future… Luke and Leia both trained as Jedi, but after Kylo, Luke realizes there shouldn’t be any new ones, although Leia already is a Jedi.
- Finn and Rose’s plot is much helped by trimming Canto Bight and using some of their deleted material.
That’s the goal! I still want to maintain the basis of their friendship for a love triangle aspect (that never really goes anywhere…) while not dominating the movie with a “b plot”.
- Keeping Kylo as the big bad is a good idea and well executed. It helps with this feeling less like an irreverent rehash of ESB and RotJ and more like it’s own solid Star Wars film.
Awesome, happy that worked for you. I read the novels and cannot find any reason for Kylo to be light or wavering after killing Han. It is so forced in there that it feels unnatural and weakens Kylo’s presence. They hinted at it non stop for 3 movies, making the payoff feel tired. If he turns in my cuts, it won’t be so obvious or clear cut. His weakness is caring for Rey.
- When Luke is fighting Kylo and we get the shot of him in the WbtWs, I think their needs to be a shot where we see him meditating on the island and then it melts away to reveal the WbtW and he gets the blue tint of the Force Ghost. This way there’s some intro for people unfamiliar with Rebels and the WbtWs, it could be assumed he’s ascending, that he’s become one with the force without dying simply because he’s so powerful. And the blue tint provides visual continuity with his appearances in the next film. And we’ve already seen him helping out, so as you said above there is no big reveal that he can. So this final one needs some more oomph on his end.
Hmm, I kind of like that idea. Struggling to think of a way to implement it, ill ponder it for a V2. To counter that point, in my cut I wanted this reveal to be more ambiguous and open to interpretation… maybe I missed the mark. Luke is a force ghost in the WbtWs, meaning that he has already passed away as one in the living force. Did this happen ala Ben Kenobi when Kylo cut through him and he faded away? Or perhaps… was Luke a force ghost in the WbtWs the entire film, having ascended long ago? Was he an illusion from the start, being projected as a real person from the WbtWs? What say you on that theory?
Anyway, those are a bunch of my thoughts. I’ll be more thorough once I’ve been able to watch both films back to back.
Thanks for your hard work!
Thank you so much for the well thought out message. I really appreciate that and love reading everyone’s thoughts. Let me know after you get a chance to sit down and watch through everything, would be interested to see if any of your thoughts change!
May I also get a link to both your versions of TFA and TLJ?
Thanks in advance!
You’re welcome, have fun!
Very excited to watch this and HttF, and really intrigued to see how you fix TRoS’ mess of new material and badly done Legends references.
Excited to see how my cuts change the experience for you, for better or for worse!
One of the reasons I’m taking a bit of a break before starting TRoS is one, to rest after putting nearly 100 hours of work into TFA and TLJ, and two, to take time to watch other Ep. 9 edits and gather my own ideas. I think TRoS has less potential for Legends fixes than TLJ did, so while I have some big picture ideas for my next edit, I still have a lot of research and planning ahead before I even open my editing software.
In TLJ I was able to flip character motivations and arcs, but in TRoS it’s going to be more about managing the saga/lore destroying themes… I have plans for Leia, Kylo and Rey, but there’s still a lot I need to process. Ep. 9 is my least watched Star Wars film at only 3 completions, so I need to get a better grip on JJ’s story before trying to transform it into my own.
Oh, I am so excited for this. I would love a link!
Cool! Sent it to you.
Hello! could i get a link? 😃
pm me a link. sounds very promising!
Can I also get a link?
Sent to all three!
Please send me the link. Thanks!
PM’d!
Can I get a link to both your TFA and TLJ cuts? I really want to watch them! Thanks.
Sent. Let me know what you think after you watch!
I really enjoyed it! Can’t wait for 9! Do you have a title for it yet?
Good to hear! I do, but I’ll wait for my next thread. I probably won’t start editing for a month or so. I might get the thread up soon though and start working through things. TRoS is going to be the toughest for me to fix.
I’d also like to check it out!
Sent, have fun!
Can I have a link please.
Sent!
Ok just finished the first 30 minutes.
YES!!! You really managed to craft a very different but more engaging experience for Luke and Rey’s first lesson. Kudos on the use of TFA trailer music it worked so well.
It genuinely feels like Rey and Luke are bonding and that times passing between scenes. The cuts between “balance, force, life” and “island days/staff training” was brilliant!
Looking forward to moving on with it.
Awesome! So glad it connected with you. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the rest.
Hi I coudn’t find the link? Could you possibly resend it?
Sorry, might’ve been my fault. Just sent!
This sound incredible - could I get a link to both your TFA and TLJ cuts? Looking forward to watching them!
Thanks!
Thanks! Sent, let me know what you think after you watch.
Awesome, can I get a link?
Sent! Thanks for watching.
In theatrical he keeps wanting to run away and desert the Resistance.
Not quite, he wants to find Rey to convince her not to return to the Resistance fleet since they’ll inevitably be killed off in the chase.
I mean, true, he is leaving because he wants to rescue Rey, but he has absolutely no desire to fight for the Resistance. Remember that in theatrical TLJ takes place immediately after TFA and Finn’s whole arc was about running away from the fight. He doesn’t fully commit to the Resistance until he kills Phasma and self-identifies as “Rebel scum” for the first time. In the deleted scene right after that, Rose asks if he is going to keep running away, and he says that the Resistance is his home now. So yes, he wanted to save Rey, but he identified that he had been trying to run away from the entire fight since Maz’s castle.
Either way it’s a moot point for this thread since my cuts have removed this part of his character, as well as added a time gap between TFA and TLJ where he officially joins the Reistance.
I’ve been able to fix enough of the initial bugs that I think were significant enough to warrant releasing a v2 of the Workprint. It is uploading now. You can PM me and I can send it to you later today.
Sent and sent!
Uploading right now, will send out links in the morning. PM me if interested in watching the workprint and helping me make fixes.
How’s the progress on the edit? I’m super excited!
I got to go through and touch up a few soundtracks earlier today. All that’s left is to create and render the new crawl, do a quick once over through the edit, and then export and upload! Since it’s the weekend I’ll be able to stay up late and knock it out within the next 6 hours or so.
Glad to see some anticipation for it. I am excited to share. This was a much bigger task than TFA!