Broom Kid

Neerb said:

This whole Mustafar thing is starting to border on fan film for me, personally. We have repurposed footage from Rogue One, National Geographic, and Battlefront 2, but in the end the scene is still going to be as rushed, choppy, and poorly explained as it was in the theater. If anything, it might be getting more confusing to follow (we’re currently at three very different establishing shots). None of Hal’s edits have felt this “fan film” before, and that’s not even accounting for all the other crazy special effects stuff that’s going into this fan edit.

On that note, I’m also not totally sold on Rey’s outtake visuals for her final line. It’s a weird camera angle for such a dramatic moment (which makes sense, because it’s B-roll), and it also has an odd sort of slow-motion effect when she turns.

That’s the thing about the Mustafar minute, though: It’s so poorly edited in the released film that there’s really only two options for making it work in a fan-edit: Completely creating the elements you need to make it work as a piece of visual storytelling, or jettisoning it altogether.

The simplest, fastest, and cleanest method to “fix” the Mustafar Minute is to just delete it (in terms of visual or narrative info it’s almost completely useless and unnecessary), but I understand why people are loath to do that, there’s multiple reasons why people would prefer to try rescuing the footage that’s there. But the only way you can rescue that footage in the opening is to augment it with stuff that either was never shot, or was shot but is completely unavailable to anyone making the fan-edit.

The only other option is to lean into how disjointed and nonsensical it already is and use it solely as flashback fodder, mixed in with a vision that contains other flashbacks and flashforwards.

however: I think the alternate angle of Rey saying “Rey Skywalker” is actually BETTER than what’s in the film - I disagree that it’s a weird camera angle, I think it’s honestly a unique choice to feature the hero in profile declaring her hero status overtly (that’s what the scene really is), and I think it works better because of that - it’s very “comic book cover”

With Clone Wars, it’s not a case of the show being aired out of “correct order” - the fact the show jumped around in time was intentional in the early seasons (as Tobar pointed out), as it was closer to an anthology series than a narrative arc. That “anthology” idea got phased out later in the show, but the “correct” order is the one you saw on Netflix.

I’d honestly suggest sticking with that order myself, if only because you get to see the show grow into itself, as opposed to having a later, more polished version of the show inserted into the early, still stumbling version of itself. I think that makes the experience of watching the show more jarring, in fact. Same reasons I don’t think the “Machete Order” or any viewing order of the films other than chronological works, really. Same principle that makes the Special Editions an incongruous and not-very-well-liked viewing experience: retroactively trying to fit new things into older things just highlights the difference in tone and execution, and calls the wrong kind of attention to itself.

Frank Oz

Jackpumpkinhead said:

I’d be interested in seeing how this stacks up against “Solo: The Bold One” regrade

Well this is the first I’ve ever heard of THIS. I looked at the KK650 regrade of Solo before but didn’t think it was all that much of an improvement. Found a reddit thread about the project

https://www.reddit.com/r/fanedits/comments/a6utr9/solo_the_bold_one_a_new_colour_grade_of_solo/

but can’t find any links, torrents, or anything. It’s a year old reddit thread and I don’t have a reddit account because I believe in positive mental health, LOL.

Anyone have any idea how to get a hold of this Bold One regrade?

Fang Zei said:

Who said anything about Disney+? They’ll probably never do that. I was talking about physical media.

I brought up Disney+ because that’s the most likely/plausible means of the original versions being released now. Physical media is a dying entertainment niche, and for the purposes of the argument you were making re: financial incentive and rewards, at this point the prioritized financial rewards they’re seeking come through online VOD rentals and subscriptions to streaming platforms. Physical media releases are a secondary or tertiary concern. The now-normalized practice of making digital versions available three weeks before the physical copy drops was a big part of that.

Don’t get me wrong - I had the same hopes you’re describing in that post, and I allow those hopes to take up space in my head and heart every time there’s a new release announced, because that’s the best time to have those hopes and let them live a little. The Skywalker Saga set showed me openly hoping for the things you suggested, you can even check my post history and see me putting them out there, LOL!

But when that hope doesn’t bear fruit (and it hasn’t for about 20 years now), I let it go until a time where it MIGHT apply again. And right now I’m not seeing any reason to revive it, because once again it seems pretty clear that nobody’s preventing the original version’s official release, and there’s not really any financial incentive applying pressure against that unwillingness to release it. Lucasfilm doesn’t want to do it right now. Nothing’s stopping them. They just don’t care to do it.

Fang Zei said:

Maybe, but I’m not so sure just how much loyalty they’ll feel once they start feeling the pressure from the higher ups at Disney to make them as much money as possible by any means necessary.

The money Disney is losing isn’t about to be made up by releasing the Original Trilogy to Disney+, though. That’s not feasible or plausible. Lucasfilm is already driving a lot of traffic to that platform (and to Disney in general) as it is and it’s not really having much of an effect on those losses, because those losses aren’t really FROM the movies division. Disney’s losses are being most strongly felt in the parks being closed, and sports being gone. Theaters being closed is hurting them, yes, but that’s not a particularly large concern in the face of their owning their own streaming network. They just moved the Hamilton release up a year and a half, for example.

As for George, half of that $4 billion he got paid in the sale was in Disney stock, not actual cash. It’s in his interest to see the company do well,

The original versions aren’t big enough for that to be a concern. They just aren’t. It’s not a money thing. Lucasfilm just doesn’t want to do it right now. They probably will, eventually. But there’s no weird conspiracy behind it. No contractual stipulations, no distribution problems. And it’s not a spite thing, either. They just… don’t want to do it.

For now.

When they do, it probably won’t be due to money concerns, either.

Fang Zei said:
The consensus seems to be that the people currently in charge at Lucasfilm feel a sense of loyalty to George,

It’s this.

I happen to think it simply comes down to greed on Disney’s part and the desire to maximize profits.

Not this.

Either way - Fox never had anything to do with the original versions not being distributed. That was never at any point anything other than misguided fan speculation repeated so often on forums and comments sections that people just took it as read and repeated it themselves. There was never any inkling that theory had any basis in fact, it just sounded plausible-ish provided you didn’t look into it too closely, and nobody “winning” arguments on a messageboard was inclined to do that anyway.

It’s the same with the “Lucas built a clause into the contract” story that has since replaced the “Fox won’t let them” story that’s been mooted for almost 10 years. Lucas never built a clause into a contract, and Iger never agreed to such a clause. The entire notion of the clause even existing is a fan invention.

The holdup is Lucasfilm. Not Disney. And the people with the power to get it done at Lucasfilm don’t want to do it. If they did, it would be done already.

Is there a shot of that cask with the doors fully closed before they start opening?

I wonder if, after the tilt down where the stars disappear but before the planet & ships come into view, you could have the doors open on the mask. It would need some nimble music editing, but I think you might be able to go straight from the tilt down to that thing opening up with a pretty clever cut and some brightness/contrast adjusting on the surface of the cask itself.

I also wonder if, opening straight on Vader’s burnt mask, you could combine parts of the Mustafar minute with his visions (it would need more cutting back and forth, and decreasing the amount of time spent watching him touching the mask - split those shots up into smaller cutaways, basically) and his taking his hand away and whirling out of the room would then cut straight to him flying to Exegol.

Maybe that’s the only real way to make the Mustafar Minute make sense without having to create establishing shots in VFX - build it into visions/flashbacks, so its disjointed nature is absolutely presented as intentional, and not a result of bad editing making the sequence incomprehensible.

If the combined vision/mustafar killing spree ends on him grabbing the wayfinder and cuts back to him taking his hand off the mask and leaving the room, it should work.

The biggest plus to that idea is a conceptual one: It imagines a behind-the-scenes consideration of the film’s story that was, so far as anyone can tell, never even considered.

Adding that to this movie is a good idea, but it’s a good idea that I don’t think can be applied to the film as it is. It needed to be applied to the film before it was written.

omnimuffin said:

I had also had some thoughts, re: Mustafar; first, if somebody wanted to try their hand at rendering a Vader’s Castle approach shot, I imagine that a rip of the models/assets from Vader: Immortal would be extremely helpful here.

Second off: I wonder what the feasibility of adding of the statues from Vader: Immortal to the bog on Mustafar would be, because it IS supposed to be sacred to her/her followers. Here’s some concept art of the statues, though a model would almost certainly be able to be pulled from the Immortal filesystem.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-znJKMA6k-/

Third, and this is less directly related to Mustafar, but I wonder if there’s a way to restructure the scenes to imply that the ‘helmet reconstruction’ scene is taking place on Exegol.

The Mustafar suggestions are great, and if there is someone with the time, knowledge, and wherewithal to create actual establishing shots of Mustafar for the beginning of the movie, that’d be the only real way to save that opening “Mustafar Minute.” The open really only works one of two ways:

1. tilt down - cut Mustafar ENTIRELY - and start with Kylo jumping into frame in front of the nebula.

or

2. tilt down - follow Kylo’s shuttle and fighters into Mustafar’s atmosphere, cut to those ships landing, cut to an establishing shot showing where they’re landing and where they’re trying to go (Vader’s Castle) in the same frame. Then you can cut to Kylo fighting pretty easily.

The second one makes Mustafar Minute comprehensible and useful to the story, but it necessitates a lot of elements that don’t exist in the film (or don’t exist at all right now).

very curious to have a look at this!

The screenshots as posted seem stretched to 16x9, however. I’m guessing that’s inaccurate to what the rip itself looks like?

IIRC, this laserdisc was also mastered to a lower IRE level, leading to the blacks looking crushed unless brightness/contrast were adjusted on the display itself - something to do with the difference between the Japanese and North American markets? I’m not completely sure on this, and could be wrong (someone please correct me if I am), but I know from personal experience with the disc that it definitely looks a lot more contrasty and crushed than other late-era laserdiscs.

Thanks so much for doing this, and posting it. The amount of work is tremendous!

act on instinct said:

I think the purpose of not doing that was specifically to keep agency with the main protagonists, just like how Luke doesn’t actually swoop in to save the day as to not overshadow the new characters we’re meant to be following this trilogy.

There’s a way to combine the two, and it’s not an all or nothing, either. I think that, again, simply bringing Palpatine back like that begs the question of old heroes also returning to combat him in this “once and for all the end of everything” type battle. Rey can still have the agency in that situation (coming up with the plan, striking the decisive blow, etc…) but there needs to be the confidence in your own characters and in your storytelling to be able to incorporate these sorts of things into your ending, and if you don’t have that confidence, you probably shouldn’t be pursuing an avenue that actively demands you go there.

It’s just another example of Rise of Skywalker being packed full of scattered and scared decisionmaking. They didn’t have any faith in figuring out how to incorporate past heroes into a generational conclusion so they just sidestepped the whole thing, and it wound up completely unsatisfying. The first thing we see her do in the movie is hover in place pleading for those old heroes to commune with her. The story is itself asking for those heroes to return THROUGH the main character. She’s expressing her agency by asking them to come visit her. If they ACTUALLY VISIT HER in the end, and actively help her strike the decisive blow (or realize the pacifist plan she comes up with) against Palpatine once and for all, that’s not overshadowing her. They just didn’t have the will (or the ability, or the time, or all three) to figure out a way to get to that ending in a satisfying way. So they did a shortcutted half-ass version of it instead and called it a wrap.

Part of the reason Rey is such a strong character in TFA and TLJ is because in those instances, the writers didn’t succumb to the need to protect their character, to remove obstacles from her path or engineer situations so she can more easily realize her potential. If they needed their character to be strong enough to do what the story’s arcs dictated they do, dramatically - they cleverly and creatively wrote their character to BE that strong in organic, natural means within that story. Rise of Skywalker is a good example of writers not believing in their characters fully, and playing “prevent defense” to use a football metaphor.

I don’t think Disney’s going to be doing Special or Extended Editioning of Star Wars at all.

They’re more of a “remake it entirely” kind of company.

So keep an eye out for that in about 10-15 years, probably.

DrDre said:

I think the issue wasn’t just bringing back Palpatine, but by extension killing him again. How are you going to convince people he’s really gone this time?

Yeah, that’s why speculation/rumor turned to the Force Ghosts having something to do with it. Seeing his SPIRIT get snuffed out was probably the only way you could say “okay, he’s gone.” But that wasn’t the way they went with it, and there weren’t any ghosts on the scene.

It’s part of the bizarre disconnect, because everyone who follows these films seems to have a pretty general understanding of story and myth as it is, and even if they couldn’t overtly articulate WHY they expected certain things, the setup FOR those expectations is right there in the scenario. If you’re bringing back a bad guy from the dead at the very end of a story thoroughly populated with heroic ghosts, it’s more or less begging the question of how those ghosts are going to have their part to play in FINALLY, COMPLETELY defeating this old villain once and for all.

Honestly, having Kylo sacrifice to trap Palpatine as a spirit with no body, and then ghost Ben and Anakin teaming up to ensure Palpatine’s ultimate eradication isn’t even a huge creative leap. It doesn’t make any sense why it wasn’t even considered or pursued.

DrDre said:

Ben Solo goes after her, and convinces Palpatine to let Rey live, by allowing Palpatine’s spirit to possess him. As this happens what remains of Ben tells Rey, that it will only be a matter of time before he is consumed, and she should kill him. She does, and Palpatine’s spirit tries to get back to the clone body, but Rey destroys it before he can enter the clone. Being without a vessel for his spirit, the Force ghosts of the Jedi appear, and destroy Palpatine’s spirit.

IIRC this was a pretty popular rumor before the movie came out? Something like this. I know at the least a few people thought the redemption/sacrifice Ben was going to make in the movie was along these lines.

I remember so many people also just kind of automatically assuming there were going to be a ton of force ghosts in the climax once Palpatine got announced. It just seemed to follow that if you were bringing back a long dead bad guy you now had the door open to ALSO bring back all the long dead good guys as a counter.

Dek Rollins said:

I’d be glad to be proven wrong, but I’ll be perfectly happy when 4K77 v2.0 comes out regardless.

I’d go so far as to say if 4K77 v2.0 is even 70% what’s being aimed for, it’s going to be better than what Verta’s presumed-to-be finished product was.

This is a landmark project in the fan-preservation community, don’t get me wrong. It showed a lot of people what could be done, and inspired a lot of people on its own, even though it never came out. But it’s also probably long past time to recognize that even if it HAD come out, 4k77 (and projects built on, and incorporating that work) would have superseded it anyway.

DominicCobb said:

Now that I think of it it would be nice if we could figure out some solution(s) to Mustafar. I do have a couple ideas in mind.

starts to raise hand

looks around

puts hand back down

shuffles backward

exits stage left

I think it’s the last sentence that pinpoints our disagreement here (which, really, doesn’t matter much since it’s your edit and it only needs to satisfy your tastes, examples of which are proving to be pretty damn impeccable on your vimeo page) - I’m not arguing that you need to cast him as “purely” megalomaniacal, but really that trying to do ANY of his character’s heavy lifting IN the crawl isn’t a great idea. The crawl is basic plot setup - usually the most you get in the way of character description is an adjective, and that adjective is a descriptor that is already really, really obvious. (“Vile gangster, etc…”)

His motivations aren’t obfuscated, really. What’s obfuscated is his willingness to turn to the light, a willingness not really made clear until way later in the movie (for good dramatic reasons, too). That’s done on purpose, because a redemption that’s foreshadowed is a redemption made rote. He needs to, at the least, seem like THE BAD GUY at the beginning of the movie (same way Vader did at the beginning of ROTJ, or alternately, the way Anakin was set up as a very swashbuckling hero at the beginning of ROTS) so the dramatic heft of his reversal and redemption arc is as realized as possible.

Basically, phrasing his goal as something that seems so inherently GOOD as “ending the cycle of war” - a phrase that calls attention to itself as a universally recognized POSITIVE goal, and ascribing it to him specifically is an act that softens the character before he even appears. It’s not even a Kylo specific thing: Any redemption arc in a movie needs to start with that character in a position where redemption seems unlikely. If you’re setting him up before his first scene as someone pursuing a goal as good-sounding as “ending the cycle of war” you’re basically borrowing up-front before the story’s even really started, from the sympathy the audience will be giving him on their own later.

Anyway, that’s why my suggested rewrite took out the phrase. His redemption packs more punch and is better executed if there aren’t any hints at his better nature being referenced in the crawl.

Also, thank you for the time and patience you’re showing in pursuing this line of feedback with me. I know you absolutely don’t have to, you don’t owe it to anyone, especially since I’m not actively helping you with your edit. But I do appreciate the back and forth, and even if the suggestions get rejected, I’m glad you’re still open to hearing them. Thank you!

DominicCobb said:

Completely disagree. There’s a difference between the goal and its methods. What I’m establishing is 100% in line with his words and actions in TLJ. He wants to end it all (or “let it all die”), but they way he’s doing it is crushing the Resistance. If he wants to end the cycle of war, that’s noble, but obviously if the way he’s going to do it is with a planet killing fleet (which is what I set up in this crawl), that’s not exactly altruistic in any way.

But the way you’re phrasing it in the crawl seems to be intentionally tipping the scales. Again, even if we differ philosophically on where he is at the beginning of Rise of Skywalker (and I don’t think we differ that much) the main objection to it that I have is that it’s shortcutting his arc - you’re foreshadowing his turn to the light IN the crawl by making his goals appear nobler than they are through the wording. Yes, there’s a difference between the goal and the methods, I don’t disagree. What I’m saying is that you’re basically prepping audiences to be on the lookout for that change before it’s even really hinted at IN the narrative of the film proper.

Put another way: Yes, as a dictator, he’s looking to end the cycle of war (in his favor, of course), but by phrasing it that way IN the crawl, you’re removing the some of the ambiguity in his mission to end that cycle from the beginning of the film, and it makes his decision to end that cycle of war from a completely different approach at the Death Star ruins later a little flatter, dramatically. I just don’t think you want to tip your hand as to Kylo’s ultimate change-of-heart and redemption IN the crawl. As a dramatic gesture, it’s detracting from his arc, not clarifying it.

Finally the phrase that I want to include that no one else seems to want to is Kylo Ren wanting to “end the cycle of war once and for all.”

Yeah, I rewrote it the way I did there because it’s basically putting key characterization advancement in the crawl, and whether or not I disagree with that particular shading (and I kind of do - at that point in the movie and in your edit, he’s not trying to “end war,” he’s trying to rule unchallenged from his dictator position, and squash all potential enemies) I think it’s kind of a not-great shortcut to his eventual redemption at the end of the movie that gives away the game way too early.

To me, including that sentence isn’t shedding light on his arc, it’s shortcutting it. It’s kind of unfairly altruistic to describe his actions as “ending the cycle of war” at that point, especially if the only reason its being included is to dramatically shorten the jump from “Starts as bad guy, dies as good guy.” For the redemption to carry as much weight as possible, he needs to be bad for the first half of the movie, and read as such the most strongly in the beginning, so his arc actually has an arc to travel. The insinuation that he’s going to turn is made super-clear as it is in the movie already, dedicating crawl-space (ha!) to further hitting that idea feels a little overkill.

DominicCobb said:

Personally I don’t like the idea of name dropping Mustafar in the crawl, it has like a minute of screen time and is done with. The crawl should be setting up things for the movie as a whole. Plus it might be confusing considering it doesn’t look like Mustafar.

I know you’re not convinced you should just start with Kylo jumping into Exogol’s orbit but the above is a pretty decent argument for just excising the Mustafar Minute entirely.

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader KYLO REN searches for the unknown regions of space for the remains a rumored Imperial fleet, anxious to gain a foothold that could end the cycle of war once and for all. . . .

how about:

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader KYLO REN, eager to end the RESISTANCE once and for all, is searching the unknown regions of space for a rumored Imperial fleet that will give him the power he needs to end the war, forever. . . .

The in-progress edits look (and sound) frankly amazing, Dom.

To quote one of history’s most famous Hannibals:

I love it when a plan comes together.

Harmy said:
I will also definitely try to set up some collaboration with oohteedee, because it seems he’s already done a lot of the work and maybe I could just provide him with despecialized shots for his version to replace shots that in his version are just cleaned up scans but could be put together in higher quality by despecializing.

That’s awesome news. You two joining resources is like a theatrical reconstruction dream team.

seeing Harmy and oohteedee come together to create the ultimate de-specialized edition would be pretty cool, if they wanted to pool their resources together.

It seems like Kiner scored each “act” differently. There’s definitely a Vangelis vibe to the first part, and then Williams kicks back in for Order 66, and then it sort of becomes the Tron: Legacy soundtrack for the next act.

It’s also, looking at what happened in this episode, seeming like Filoni rewrote this final arc as kind of a riff on the Disney Era movies. Episode 1 had a LOT of The Last Jedi in it, and this one is very clearly pulling from Rogue One.