Acbagel

Knight of Kalee said:

I’d also like to check it out!

Sent, have fun!

KnightsofRevan said:

Can I have a link please.

Sent!

orion13 said:

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.

orion13 said:

Hi I coudn’t find the link? Could you possibly resend it?

Sorry, might’ve been my fault. Just sent!

hansolox73 said:

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.

hinventon said:

Awesome, can I get a link?

Sent! Thanks for watching.

TestingOutTheTest said:

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.

Jimmy Chips said:

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!

Jake Skywalker said:

As a longtime EU fan I’m really interested in this edit! Can I have a link? Thanks!

Then this is the edit for you! Sent, but mind the bug list stated in OP. After a few more reviews I’ll release the final cut.

Skybatman said:
I liked, but you can still see the reflection of Holdo in the ship.

Pesky reflections. I just put a tracked blur mask on it so in the workprint release it should now be pretty much gone.

KnightsofRevan said:

Sounds great! It’ll be nice to see Luke portrayed how he should be. I don’t know how it could work, but any chance any of Luke’s footage from The Mandalorian could be brought in? It would be cool to see that version of Luke in the films, maybe like a flashback or something.

Hmm, I can’t think of anywhere it would go in TLJ, but I’ll keep it in mind for when I tackle TRoS. The purpose of my edit is to make Luke more like the Mandalorian scenes, so you can watch both with a consistent version.

orion13 said:
Cracking! I really liked the interior shot showing what looks like the empty ship alongside Luke’s struggle.

Great, that’s what I was going for. Especially after Hux mentions that it’s empty I thought it was important to show that the ship actually is empty… In Star Wars you’ve always been able to detect lifeforms on a ship pretty much instantaneously, so I don’t understand in theatrical how they didn’t scan that Holdo was still on board piloting. My cut removes that inconsistency and also doesn’t break all of space combat lore by allowing ships to hyperspace travel through other ships. Now it’s just the force.

Jimmy Chips said:

I’d delete the shot inside the cruiser from 1:26 to 1:27. You can see a little of Holdo’s arm moving. Other than that, exciting stuff!

Ah, I see it. Fixed that. Also changed around a few shots and soundtracks. Is this any better? https://vimeo.com/user51558385/review/500592539/eff7d03548

idir_hh said:

I think it’s better not to show Luke until right before the ship goes to hyperspace, that way you create a mysterious build up 😉

Hmm, it’s an interesting idea. I might play around with it.

My reason for showing him throughout is without the Holdo scenes there’s still some missing context and I don’t know how easily a viewer would connect the dots if I only show Luke at the end. Also, earlier in the movie when Luke saves Leia from space we see a similar scene of him meditating events across space like that so I don’t feel there is a mystery to preserve now. I want the viewer to physically see Luke displaying his immense power.

ExpandedUniverses said:

I just read through your changelist; this edit sounds brilliant! Your ideas will be a wonderful way to fix the issues with Luke’s character in this film.

Thanks, I hope when you watch it you can experience a different version of Luke that will hopefully resonate with the people who didn’t like what they saw in TLJ.

Speaking of Luke, I’ve rendered a test preview of my scene where Luke destroys the Supremacy. Let me know if there’s any way to improve upon this as I’m still going through my cut doing bug fixes.

https://vimeo.com/500536039

orion13 said:
Sweet looking forward to the surprise, in relation to your TFA cut the only possible change I would suggest is the transition between Rey on Jakku at the start to Kylo’s stardestroyer. It feels like it should be a wipe screen like OT & PT (the one where it seems to zoom into the next shot?) , I think it shows the complete change in location quite well for the audience. But that just my two cents! Keep up the good work man

Thanks for the tip! I’ll definitely check it out and see what I can do. There’s a couple transitions that I want to touch up in the TFA edit.

Regarding this TLJ edit, I have completed a first rough draft. Check out the rest of the Act III changelogs for an update. I am looking at fixing a few things before actually uploading, so I’d say I’m aiming for a Friday Workprint release.

orion13 said:

I had a thought about whether the “Luke trains Leia” scene could be used as a night training scene between Luke and Rey? We already know Luke’s going to have his Green Lightsaber at the end of TLJ and by possibly reframing the fight as being Rey’s “turning point” in her intense but advancing training with Luke could make much more sense why we the audience feel she’s becoming a worthy successor.

Oh, man. You actually just gave me a really good idea. Not necessarily with using that footage with Rey’s training, but I think I have a great place for it. I don’t want to spoil the surprise yet though.

From your comments it’s clear that your edit will make it seem like Rey has been training with Luke for a while. How long is it in your headcanon for this edit?

I’ll have to double check the timing of events in the edit, but upon first glance I think it’s reasonable to assume that the whole movie takes place across a couple of weeks. This is done by assuming time advances in the day/night montages.

I’ve always felt that if the ST had let Rey train with Luke for a few months at least it would’ve been much more believable.

The challenge is also in balancing that with Rey and Luke’s relationship. That has to be paced at the same level as her training. And with the turmoil they experience it’s tough to get that in sync.

I’m currently toying around with one of the scenes where Rey is silhouetted against Ach-Toh training in the sunset and trying to colour and edit it to create the same scene but appearing in a variety of conditions (Sunset, Sunrise, Night, Day, Rain, Snow) and making them snapcut together giving a quick 10 or 20 second impression of days or weeks passing between lessons and scenes on Ach-Toh.

That’s sounds pretty cool. Feel free to post it in here when you complete it.

Jimmy Chips said:

I saw that you’d have draft tomorrow. Could I have a link to it when it’s done?

Of course. It might be tomorrow night but I’ll send it to you as soon as it’s done.

orion13 said:

Watched your edit! Blimey thats much better. I agree that TFA for all its mimicry of ANH is easily the best of the ST. By trimming down the “ridiculous” humour and leaving the more dry, sarcastic moments it’s much easier to take the characters seriously. Kylo and Finn are especially helped in this way in the edit.

Great to hear. If you didn’t see any other bugs outside of the list posted in OP I think it might be ready for a full release then? Really glad it helped your viewing experience.

Best part is your version of the “Rey meets Luke” vision. This looks Gorgeous really properly ethereal, and Luke being all unfocused against the slightly mystical backdrop is fantastic. By having Rey reach out to Luke in this manner it also makes alot more sense why your Luke will not be as reticent or stubborn in TLJ nor needs any big introduction between the two. We see the vision scene and then its much easier to assume that Luke thinks things through a bit more by the time she gets there and they already have a solid rapport.

I wish I could take credit for that, but as the changelist says it was made by the talented NeverarGreat. I included it because I agree that it does lend credence to the fact the Luke is still present in the force and begins a connection between him and Rey. I’m looking forward to showing you my TLJ version of Luke! I am nearing completion on the draft and will hopefully upload it tomorrow.

LightsaberFreak2006 said:

Do you plan on keeping Luke’s lightsaber blue in this edit? I saw one on Youtube where it was changed to green and you said that you were planning on changing the guards’ staffs to sabers so maybe it would be of interest to you: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QwWrmSP65lM&feature=youtu.be

Indeed! It is green. I cannot fathom a trilogy without Luke wielding his own lightsaber a single time.

orion13 said:

All sounds great I’m really interested to see what happens with TROS and whether Ben turns up in your version or Kylo remains as threatening a villain as Jaecen/Caedus.

Could you possibly send me a PM for the TFA cut you did? Cheers

Sent! Check my TFA thread for a changelist and current bugs. Please post a review there after you watch and let me know of any other mistakes I can fix before final release.

Jimmy Chips said:

This is probably a change you already have, but Palpatine definitely needs to be set up in this one. He comes out of nowhere in ROS.

Yeah, Palpatine is definitely a problem. I’m still weighing options on what to do about that. I need to think it through more. There’s no natural place for him in TLJ (because Disney had no clue they were going to use him at that point) so I need to think hard about 8 and 9 together first.

orion13 said:

Sounds great! I look forward to seeing it. I was wondering whether any of the fight between Kylo/Rey and Snoke’s Knights will make it into this cut? I’ve seen another version where the knights are turned into Sith Guards with lightsabers and it made the scene much, much better (plus a Wilhiem scream in there somewhere haha).

Yes! I was planning on using the lightsaber version of the guards. To me it is unacceptable for a saga movie to not have lightsabers ever touch.

I’m very interested in how Kylo will turn out in your version of TROS. So far he appears much more intimidating and dangerous as a foe, will this play into making his turn to the light (if that happens) more impactful and intense a moment?

Ahh, I certainly have a plan in place for him that is driven by the previous movies, but I am tempted to leave it a mystery for now 😉 You’ll see what’s in store when I begin work on my TRoS thread. Rest assured it will be true to some arcs we saw in post-RotJ Legends.

In the ST Kylo is definitely the most interesting character for me but they lent SO hard into his “conflicted feelings” that he feels less like a truly fallen Jedi who’s consumed by the Dark Side and more like an angry teenager having a bad week.

It sounds like your cut might be fixing alot of that.

Exactly, you nailed it there. I wanted to get rid of some of the angst and turn it more into wicked anger. I remember in TLJ I was not surprised a single time by any of his decisions. They broadcasted his turmoil for too clearly that it became obvious what he would do in TRoS, so he never seemed like a proper villain.

Jimmy Chips said:

I’m loving the change list!

Awesome. I actually really like the title “The Last Jedi” and it works perfectly for the story I’m telling, but I want to differentiate it from what we’ve all already experienced with that title. Thinking I’ll go with “Fate of the Jedi” from Legends https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Fate_of_the_Jedi . I have to re-make the crawl eventually anyways, so I’m pretty happy with this new title.

orion13 said:

Wow this Edit sounds like the one I wanted to see in the cinema. I love legends Luke and your aim of trying to create him onscreen out of the ST material is something thats both ambitions and interesting.

Thanks, I’m excited to show it to you soon. Make sure you check out my TFA Legends cut before this one releases in a week or so.

I’m about 40 minutes through TLJ and still have a couple things to touch up in the first Act before moving into this middle portion of the film.

Skybatman said:
I had an idea that kylo’s turn was like this: Kylo wakes up at night and hears a voice calling him, until he finds the mask of the vader who was calling with him. the mask shows all of Vader’s evil deeds, and he finds himself fascinated and then he kills everyone in the temple except luke and r2, I don’t know if that idea would work for an edit or would be better for a rewrite.

I really like these ideas and think they could work well as one-off fan edit clips, but creating something like this and plugging it into the narrative of the available scenes for the rest of the film is the real struggle. Yes, not learning more of Kylo’s origins hurts his character a little, but not to the level where it is a top priority to fix. For now at least, I want to focus on first casting his character in a darker, more main villainous role.

I spent a few hours working on the intro to my edit last night and think it shaped up really well. Check the start of the changelist and let me know what you think of the shots!

RogueLeader said:

I always imagined that some hypothetical edit could extend the scene where Kylo “prays” to Vader’s helmet. Kylo asks his grandfather to show him the power of the dark side again, to help solidify his resolve. So, maybe we could see it actually respond to Kylo’a request. I feel like this vision could sum up Kylo’s motivation with a few lines.

Palpatine: If the Jedi are not all destroyed, it will be civil war without end.

Vader: End this destructive conflict, and bring order to the galaxy. It is your destiny.

Maybe we could get glimpses of the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War over these lines. The implication would be that Kylo believes that the eternal conflict between the Jedi and the Sith, the dark side and the light, can only end by bringing order to the galaxy. Of course, it is a totalitarian kind of order he believes in.

So ironically, both Kylo and Luke would be aware of this question of balance, but they have two different answers to this problem. Perhaps it is this philosophical difference that leads to their falling out, which leads to Kylo destroying Luke’s Order, because he sees it as a necessary evil. Plus, it ties in well with some of the things he says to Rey in TLJ.

Rey: Why did you hate your father?

Kylo: I didn’t hate him.

So, Kylo feels like he has to kill his past and destroy his former identity in order to remove all of his weaknesses and be strong enough to bring order to the galaxy.

Kylo: It’s time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the rebels, let it all die. Rey, I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy.

Although Kylo is, in the end, motivated by his own quest for power, and falls into the same mistakes as the Sith before him, at least we could better understand what Kylo believes in, regardless of how misguided it is.

I would’ve really liked to see them go that direction with his character. It reminds me a lot of what Revan did, a sort of “embrace the dark to gain the power to destroy the dark” type of storyline. I don’t think there’s enough content to tell any alternative reason behind Kylo’s fall, and to me any sort of fan infused explanation would appear out of place or unclear. Maybe someone will prove me wrong one day on that (I hope they do!) but I don’t have any tangible ideas to make that happen at the moment.

In the Kylo Ren comics we see that he fell to the dark as a result of being tired of having to live up to his expectations. Being named after Obi-wan, having the Solo name with Skywalker blood, being expected to be Luke’s best student… Snoke promised him a future with no expectations, a future where he could be whoever he wanted to be. That enticed him and led him down a dark path. I think that story is fine for his background, but it’s a shame you really only find those motivations in comics… That is barely mentioned in the movies aside from a few of his lines.