Hey, glad you dug the post! And you have a Happy Halloween too!

Haha! Aside from the fact I don’t have any experience in either of those things, it would have been pretty weird to use either of those tools when the point of the edit was to excise a character who could only exist because of those tools.

The craziest thing about Rook as he stands in the movie – aside from the fact the initial concept was apparently a woman synthetic who was (maybe?) a physical version of MU/TH/UR (initially intended to be played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge!), and aside from the fact Alvarez spent most of the PR trail pre-release, talking at length about “real sets” and “practical effects” despite knowing the whole time that primary villain of the movie would be a CGI+AI resurrection of a deceased person – is that Rook is the cause of a weird, ugly sort of metatextual dissonance going on. Especially considering the end of the movie, which is just one big reference/callback to Alien: Resurrection.

The foundational horror of Alien: Resurrection - such as it is, the movie is pretty goofy mostly - is that Ripley has been resurrected and turned into a thing, completely outside her control. She was not asked if she wanted to be brought back, she had no say in it, and she probably would not have agreed to have been brought back as that no matter how good a basketball player she became as a result! But that choice was never hers, the giant corporation that bought the corporation that essentially ruled her life in the first place, decided they weren’t done exploiting the Alien financially, so here she is. Back from the dead.

Romulus does this to Ian Holm in real life. For basically the exact same reason! And what’s even crazier is that when all is said and done it’s not even necessary to the story to have done this at all. It’s a weird, and expensive (!) exposition-laden distraction from the story of Rain and Andy, and nothing Rook says or does isn’t done by Andy himself, in a much more succinct and interesting way. You can cut Rook out of the movie completely and not only does it not hurt the movie, it arguably (hopefully!) improves it. It certainly removes that weird dissonance (and bad VFX work) at the very least.

Well, a mostly Rook-Free Alien Experience… mostly. Aside from two scenes of his prone, immobile and unspeaking half-torso, face-down on the floor, it turns out the character of Rook can be removed from the plot of Alien: Romulus with zero effect! Andy can also save Rain without needing to steal Ellen Ripley’s best lines! This edit is an alternate cut of late Summer 2024’s breakout horror hit, with some of the more egregious “memberberries” trimmed from its tree, along with an answer to the biggest question about it’s release: “Did they really have to do that?”

It’s not too radical a cut beyond that, though. The oft-described “big swing” ending featuring The Offspring is still intact, for example, and there are no CGI or AI implementations used in the edit as fixes. Aside from the edit’s main calling card (the aforementioned de-Rooking) the bulk of the remaining changes are a few second act sequences getting trimmed/slightly rearranged, some dialog removal (largely as part of the un-Rookifying, but sometimes not!) and some score re-edits.

UPDATE 12/2/2024

The finished (I know that’s tempting fate with any fan-edit, but I’m feeling pretty safe in calling it finished) version of Alien: Romulus - Alternate Cut is now ready and available. If you grabbed the original version about a month ago, good news: the link you grabbed it from has already been updated with v2, so all you need to do is redownload, and the final version is yours. If you lost that link, or never reached out for it in the first place, well hey: The PMs are open and the edit is also listed at Fan Edit Central currently (FanEdit org soon, maybe?) so it should be pretty easy to find the contact info.

There’s been about 1-2 more minutes of changes across the film total between the last version and this one, including some edit fixes, some rearrangement of shots/scenes, and some audio enhancements and score additions. Thanks to everyone that gave their feedback, it was very, very much appreciated, and helped greatly with this revision.

Changelist

• Replaced 20th Century Fox Fanfare with remixed version of 20th Century Fox Fanfare (Based primarily on Eliot Goldenthal’s Alien 3 Version)
• Removed Scott Free logos
• Removed premature reveal that Tyler, Bjorn, and Andy are in a 3D printing lab for Facehuggers
• Intercut Navarro’s discovery of X-Ray Torch w/ Rain’s module recovery
• Cut Rook’s jumpscare during Rain’s removal of his module
• Added partial “It’s Here” cue from Alien: Isolation to everyone trying to figure out what’s stuck to Navarro’s face, and deleted Andy’s “for what purpose I do not know” line, to underline Rook’s module changing him for the worse (and to also blend the removal of upcoming Rook scenes more cleanly).
• Cut Rook out of Navarro’s Facehugger removal completely - Andy never points him out, nor do they ever plug him in. Instead, Rain comes up with the solution to getting it off Navarro’s head after the initial scuffle between Bjorn and Andy.
• After Navarro wakes up, Andy now moves to the front of the room instead of comforting Navarro, and refers to his new “One Directive” strangely, and then expands on it; which alarms Rain and confuses everyone else, before crossing the room to intercept Bjorn and prevent Navarro from leaving.
• After the Corbelan crashes into Romulus station, Andy is already with Tyler and Rain as they reach the Facehugger infested hallway, there is no detour to meet with Rook anymore.
• Kay’s hallway sneaking from the crash is intercut with Rain/Andy/Tyler’s hallway sneaking towards Kay
• Kay’s struggle to find the key is shortened, and a continuity error involving the Alien’s emergence from the cocoon is removed. Kay’s fall happens quicker, and her landing starts the Facehugger chase faster.
• Added partial “Alien Reveal” cue from Alien: Isolation to Kay’s abduction.
• Removed mention of Rook in the abduction aftermath, Andy clarifies his new “One Directive:” that “what is required of him” is now simply to “Do what’s best for the company.”
• Removed mention of Rook and his mission from Andy & Rain’s elevator conversation; now the scene is just Andy reminding Rain that everyone’s original plan involved abandoning him on the station.
• Removed Rook (and all mentions of him/orders from him) from Romulus Beta Lab scene.
• The pathogen is explained mostly through visuals and music - Alien, Prometheus, and Alien: Covenant themes have been pushed forward in the mix over shots of the pathogen being extracted from facehuggers and being injected into the rat. Andy explains the experiments are meant to combat the miners weaknesses, and that he will be taking the pathogen back to the colony for that purpose.
• Andy’s delivery of “This is a much needed, and overdue upgrade for humanity” from an alternate/deleted version of the lab scene has been restored to the Romulus Beta Lab Scene over a shot of the rat being resurrected.
• Removed Andy’s ADR’d “Busy little creatures” line as they discover the hive below the lab.
• Removed the shot of multiple aliens converging on Tyler due to their disappearance from the scene once he is killed - they never reach his body and they never drop down during Rain & Kay’s escape either. They’ve just completely disappeared in any reverse angles and follow-up shots despite full-on sprinting at him just seconds earlier.
• Removed explicit shot of Kay injecting herself with the pathogen by using match-cut transition from Kay’s arm holding pathogen canister to Rain’s arm unlatching gate to go back for Andy.
• Removed Rook taunting Rain and Andy on monitor at end of blocked hallway
• Removed Rook “seducing” Kay on the monitor in the Corbelan.
• Removed “Get away from her… you b-b-b-bitch.”
• Removed Rook on video screen as Rain and Andy get on Corbelan, Rain gives control to MUTHUR, and they escape the station
• Removed the flight to just above the planetary rings for Andy and Rain to betray Rook. The ship escape/station crash is now one continuous sequence.
• Manipulated shot angles/shot timings to increase focus on Kay’s neck post-cryotube malfunction, to make it clear she had injected herself, and mixed Alien: Covenant cues into the score to underline the pathogen’s use.
• Removed the “Cryosleep Log” since the ship is stolen in the first place so there’d be no reason or point for anyone to log anything or anyone to check for a log.
• Re-edited the “Get Away from Her” music cue originally tracked into the end of the film, both to account for the “Cryosleep Log” removal and to fix the noticeable time-stretch effect applied to it
• Removed the ending Title card
• Removed the Rook credits (kept animatronic credit, and thanks to Ian Holm estate)
• Replaced the End Title track with a new End Title symphonic suite from Wallfisch’s score, using the cues “Andy,” “Prometheus Fire,” “XX121,” and “Searching”
• Added credits under “Songs” for Thematic Elements used from Alien 3, Alien: Covenant, and Alien: Isolation.

Broom Kid said:

My big question is this: Considering the plotting, the way the plotting works, and the way the movie ends up working out - instead of trying to fix the bad mishmash of CGI/AI elements used to digitally resurrect Ian Holm (for basically zero reason), is there a way to simply eliminate the character entirely?

I figured I might as well see if I could answer this question myself, and it turns out the answer was, so far as I could tell… yes! You can!

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Alien-Romulus-Alternate-Cut-A-Rook-Free-Alien-Experience-/id/123857#1614107

Looks like the movie has just hit digital today, so the tinkering should begin in earnest.

My big question is this: Considering the plotting, the way the plotting works, and the way the movie ends up working out - instead of trying to fix the bad mishmash of CGI/AI elements used to digitally resurrect Ian Holm (for basically zero reason), is there a way to simply eliminate the character entirely?

Can you pull Rook out of the movie entirely, remove all the exposition he dumps, and simply have Rain take his chip, put it in Andy, have Andy start acting spooky/weird, and still have the movie make sense as an Alien movie? I think you can. I think you’ll lose one or two jumpscares (starting with Rook grabbing Rain) and some of the explanation as to what exactly is happening in the title sequence, but I think a lot of that explanation is pretty unnecessary anyway, and the lack of it being spelled out might actually help the tension.

I do think ultimately folks are gonna have to wait until the physical release to see what the deleted scenes/scene extensions are, but until then: I’m most curious to see if there’s a way to just pull Rook out of the movie entirely, because so far as I can tell, in terms of what the story is actually doing - he’s completely unnecessary.

Everything else I think you can kinda leave mostly alone (although I think if you simply remove “you bitch” and the smile from Andy’s rescue of Rain, THAT scene is salvaged) - maybe cut the log (why is she leaving a log, it’s a stolen ship) but otherwise I think the biggest offense is Rook, not just aesthetically but in terms of story.

If the r/fanedits mods are cool with faneditors posting links to their fanedits, that’s their thing (fanedits are also a super-niche audience that studios don’t regard as a threat at all and don’t care that much about pursuing) - and honestly, letting those links out in the open is probably for the best for the health of that community. But the problem with a couple folks repatriating myspleen’s hoards and dumping it all on the r/fanedits front lawn is that none of those scans are, by any stretch of the definition, fanedits.

Studios being cool with r/fanedits posting the 4 millionth cut of Justice League is one thing. But a 35mm scan of Titanic isn’t a fanedit. It makes zero sense any of that stuff was ever allowed to stay up in the first place, and then on top of that it turns out the guy being a real punk about what he’s doing, is doing it in a place that has nothing to do with any of this.

DigMod said:
I’d like to better understand the claim that some have made that copyright does not apply to film. Can anyone share that info?

No, because it’s a false claim.

Like any fairly insular community, perspective can get warped a little and people can start to believe “facts” that aren’t really facts; but if someone who illegally scanned and further illegally distributed a copyrighted print (setting aside whether or not they fundraised off it) tries to say they “own” that scan, they’re not really correct. Granted, they would in fact “own” the repercussions should any studio decide (against their better judgment) to go after enthusiasts that have spent an exorbitant amount of money on said studio’s official products.

But the legality of “owning” the scan they made is zero. Which is why putting it up for grabs is always a bit of a risk, because it’s out of your control as to what happens to it after that point, and you’re effectively trusting the small circle of pirates in your pirate community to honor the unspoken code everyone’s presumably operating by.

It sucks when someone decides to - effectively - steal from the dealers (you’ve seen this scenario on TV certainly: “what are the dealers gonna do - go to the cops? Say someone stole their stash?”) and get a brief rush or thrill for playing “robin hood” to some degree. But nothing beyond an unspoken community rule actually got broken.

DigMod said:

Lately we’ve started to notice an uptick in 35mm prints. I just got back from a very extended vacation and see that it has caused a major concern… All 35mm print posts have been removed from the subreddit while the mod team reviews and seeks to better understand the situation. I’ll be reading over this thread and most likely posting follow up questions.

I think honestly it’s probably for the best if they never come back. Not for any of the reasoning that’s been cited previously, some of which is better than others, but because your sub is supposed to be about fanedits and nothing being posted even remotely resembles a fanedit. It’s just straight up piracy, full-stop.

Granted, ALL of this is (and it’s a thing places like this have historically tried to soft-shoe around) full-blown piracy. It’s well-meaning, super-niche, extensive, complicated, caring, careful piracy, but there isn’t any real question of ownership and copyright that isn’t pretty clearly answered by “you’re not supposed to be doing this, because none of this stuff is yours.” The people who scan this stuff know it, the people who upload this stuff to long-calcified private trackers know it, the people who keep a healthy ratio sharing it know it, everyone knows. It’s largely harmless piracy (MOST piracy is, fun fact, but that’s a whole 'nother topic) but it’s still technically illegal activity.

Now: everyone seems to - after almost 30 years now of people talking about and distributing stuff through and around here - have FINALLY realized the tiny piracy niche this place (and the communities orbiting it) occupies isn’t hurting the major studios, and the studios have largely decided since we’re not trying to hurt them, or undercut them, that they’ll leave us all alone.

But so far as a subreddit about fanedits is concerned: I don’t see how someone kicking open the door to myspleen and storing every film scan it’s ever had uploaded to it has anything to do with fanediting. It was off-topic spamming in the first place.

100% would not be surprised if that was the case. People at the company have known about all this stuff (and this place) for quite awhile now, and I believe some of them have even mentioned on social media that they’ve used fan restorations (including yours, Harmy) as reference for various projects.

Obvious cuts, bad audio levels, messy music replacement. I would just hate for my version to feel like that.

I get you. All I’m gonna say is - don’t forget to give yourself some credit.

I’ve found a large preponderance of fan-editors are almost entirely ABOUT giving themselves credit. Like, as in, LITERALLY giving themselves credits. Putting themselves in the credits. It frequently seems like people make edits SOLELY so they can put their names in a credit block, because THAT’S the feeling they want more than anything. The edits are just the means to that thrill.

But what I mean to say is that - just because other people aren’t as good at what they do, doesn’t mean you need to second-guess yourself (or triple-guess yourself) in response. Give yourself some credit for having a good eye and a good ear. Don’t start calling your own senses into question because you see that someone else is getting recognized for subpar work.

I think those three changes were good ones. I think you employed them well. But I also think if you seriously trust your own instincts (aside from whether or not you compare your abilities to that other TikTok cut) and you believe it’s ultimately better to leave it alone… you know what you’re doing.

I appreciate that, but my concern is mainly that I won’t 100% sell it and it’ll feel too “fanedity”

I get that, and again - that’s a thing 99% of all fan-editors DON’T do, so that your concern is there is why your edits work as well as they do, and I wish more (WAY more) folks were willing to apply that level of discernment. But as someone who looks at these things with that eye (and ear) I think you HAVE cleared that bar in this instance.

I’m leaning toward maybe keeping the quiet bit while they stand off, then pivoting to the original music when Kenobi says “I will do what I must”.

I gotta say, I really like what you have as you’ve posted it. I don’t think the original music works that well there, how you’ve mixed that version of Battle of the Heroes maybe only needs the tiniest of nudges downward at most, and probably not even that. It’s not a subtle piece (it isn’t a subtle fight) and the fact you’ve managed to make it fit this sequence as well as it does is quite a feat.

For what its worth, as a person who REALLY keys into the music choices and music editing, I think you’ve done a good job here with your choices, and how you’re executing them.

SpenceEdit said:

Yeah, that one would take some tweaking to get absolutely right. I’m just trying to figure out if it’s worth the effort.

I think it’s absolutely worth the effort considering how well you’ve gotten it there already (the hallway cue is from The Last Jedi, right?)

I also think Jkimm’s little tweak posted directly above is a good one, too!

No PM necessary (although I answered it) - if I’m putting ideas out in the ether like this, then you don’t need an okay to use them! Take them, refine them, improve them, dustbin them - once they leave the keyboard, they’re basically anyone’s to do with as they will.

I’ve only really got the two shower ideas anyway, LOL - this duel-end reformat we both landed on (I think at least one other fan-editor also landed on a similar version of the concept), and the Episode II flashback/rescore being used to set up that redone duel (the flashback more or less becomes Anakin rewriting history as visualization to finally REALLY “beat” his Master)

I also just like the notion of Anakin’s Theme in a flashback finally resolving into the Imperial March full-stop as Vader gets suited up, LOL.

Dat_SW_Guy said:

• The fade-in to the womprat shot is very un-Star-Warsy. It needs to be a hard cut to that, then you have to extend it by around 5 - 10 beats before the Womprats get in the frame so the audience starts to get invested and ease in better into the film.

This is the only real note I had for that intro too (everything else about that intro is spot on, I think) - maybe you don’t have to do any extending or anything, just bring up the sound effects of the womprat moving into its held position and then hard cut to it there from black. Or instead, replace the sound effects with just wind and sand? But I think you can just go from full black without a fade in by letting the sound effects come in first before the images follow.

Another sound editing idea (this is apparently mostly what I have to offer, haha) would be regarding the Muppet Man Leia smuggle across the hangar, which as it stands is ridiculous, and there’s no way it’s not ridiculous. I think at that point you have to almost lampshade the ridiculousness like would often happen in the OT, and the best way I can think of to do it is to maybe insert some close-up shot/reverse shot between Obi-Wan and Leia as he picks up the big coat to highlight that this is… a bad idea. And then cut to the idea in action, and it IS, in fact, a bad idea. But score it with the droid motif from Empire Strikes Back (there are some interesting variations on it in that score that should allow for transition from the beginning of the hangar to the cover being blown)

It doesn’t fit, textually of course, but I feel like the tone of that piece is the only way that scene gets sold as being intentional instead of accidental. Williams would often use pieces that didn’t make textual sense but the emotion of the cue would carry the scene (He did this a couple times in Empire, in fact!) and I think basically swapping out the music from serious/tense to acknowledging this is not going to work, and then transitioning to action music, would get a lot of the way towards selling that.

Phase3 said:

I posted this in NFBism’s thread, but also wanted to get other people’s thought on this:

I was thinking about the following:
During the second duel between Obi-Wan and Vader, instead of Obi-Wan walking away, getting into his starship and going to Tatooine, what if it’s Vader leaving Obi-Wan for dead, and leaving the planet first?

I pitched something VERY similar in another Kenobi Fan-Edit thread, I think maybe I thought it was this one, haha. Getting old sucks.

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/KENOBI-A-STAR-WARS-STORY-RELEASED-2th-of-July/id/94684/page/16#1490252

I had another idea spring to mind while showering (I have heard this is an amazing spot for inspirations, such as it is)

The Episode II flashback:

When Obi-Wan is on the ship, and he whispers Anakin’s name, and it cuts to him in the bacta tank, and the camera holds and slowly pulls away from him, HARD CUT to that flashback. And let the flashback run uninterrupted there (would need extensive sound effects re-working, obviously, as well as the deepfaking) but the major change here would be a scoring one: Set it to Anakin’s Theme. Maybe the concert arrangement, maybe a different performance of the concert arrangement, I don’t think it got used much in Episode I but I think the sort of wistful/forlorn mood of it would fit here decently - back-time it so that the big swell at the end of the piece that resolves into the last few notes of Imperial March comes JUST as Anakin knocks the saber out of Obi-Wan’s hand, so that the descending notes of the march are playing as Anakin smiles, and when that shot is at its end (hopefully, so that the final note of Anakin’s Theme is ringing out, hard cut to Vader getting his suit put on as the actual Imperial March plays. (maybe the intro/ostinato part over the suit up bits and the melody hits on the first real shot of him in the suit).

For a little extra zazz, maybe have the last 20 or so frames morph his eyes to sith/yellow, just long enough so you’re like “What the hell was that” before the cut to the next shot.

By cutting out the ending of the fight where Obi-Wan demoralizes him with another “humiliating” lesson, the flashback becomes Anakin’s completely, and more like a misremembered daydream version of that flashback. He’s lying to himself about how good he really was, and it also helps as motivation to make him feel like he could do that to Obi-Wan again if they ever meet up.

Also I feel like we never got an actual moment of Anakin’s Theme legitimately transforming into Vader’s, and this would be a pretty unique opportunity to do that.

I was wondering - it’d probably necessitate some VFX work alongside some sound effects reconstruction and flipping some shots for continuity/180-degree rule - if there’s a way to reconstruct the duel so it ENDS with Ben getting buried, Vader walking off, and Ben escaping the hole and leaving the planet.

Basically, duel starts as normal, when we get to the part where Obi-Wan tries to topple a pillar and Vader catches it, throws it at him, cut to the 2nd half of the fight where Ben is out of the hole, they clash again, Obi-Wan throws him, then throws all the rocks at him and cuts his helmet half off. They talk, Obi-Wan says “Goodbye, Darth” and then after Vader screams “Obi-Wan” then have him slap the ground and send him into the hole?

It’d be tricky (aside from shaving some shots down carefully and re-using one or two from earlier in the duel - and might necessitate generating sparks from the helmet and/or some head replacement of cracked helmet Vader) but it honestly seems like that’s how the fight SHOULD go. Vader literally “leaves” Obi-Wan (When I left you…) and thinks he’s dead, and walks off. Obi-Wan escapes with nobody knowing he’s gone and heads back to Tatooine to watch over Luke (who is in that vision that inspires him to push all the rocks out of the way and jump out of the hole)

Once he’s out of the hole just cut to the ship leaving the planet.

DominicCobb said:
It’s not at all about adding a “cool trailer moment” or whatever the hell. Come on we don’t need to degrade legitimate ideas with snark like that.

Nothing about that comment is degrading or snarky. It’s just plain old criticism.

I certainly don’t think people disagreeing (or ignoring) my criticism is an act of degradation, either, FWIW.

Oh yeah, no, I totally get where you guys are coming from; I’m just trying to justify adding the lightning in my own edit, you know? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

If its your own edit you don’t have to justify it to anyone but yourself, nor do you need external justification for it!

But if the idea’s getting put out there in the open, criticism is probably going to come back! And the reason I disagree with your interpretation is because it really only works in the context of that scene alone. Taking the rest of the movie (and the prior movies) into account, it doesn’t really work. Which is why I said it’s more like a trailer beat than it is a storytelling one, because as a trailer shot, it does what it needs to - it’s very “cool” in an explicit way. But I don’t think it fits all that well there, not for what she’s done in the film up to that point, and not for what happens afterwards, either. It’s lily-gilding, I think.

There are a TON of edits all over fanedit.org (and here - the two spots are basically like two rooms on the same house at this point) that only exist because Hal’s edits are the base 😃

Any lightning coming out of, or appearing on, her hands, would at that point cause her to react extremely poorly, and there’s simply no footage of her after that point that would fit with that. “I almost electrocuted Finn with the same lightning that blew up a whole damn ship earlier” is too big a deal to go unremarked or un-reflected upon.

In that moment, and that moment only, removed from the context of the rest of the movie it might be “cool” to juice the scene by having lightning show up on her hands or even shoot out of her fingers. But that’s an impulse that again, is too similar to the “throw it in the movie whether it fits or not” ethos that caused the movie to be a pileup of “cool” moments crashing into each other that needed such heavy re-editing by the community in the first place.

It’s a trailer beat - not a storytelling one.

Dex analyzed a dart in 3 seconds when the plot needed it analyzed for Obi Wan 😃

Interesting factoid I learned recently from the Art of Rise of Skywalker Book - at the time of the book’s original publishing deadlines - the lightspeed skipping scene was cut. That book apparently went to press (before getting delayed and delayed and delayed) under the assumption the theatrical version of Rise of Skywalker would NOT have that scene in it.

It’s an interesting point because: The Lightspeed Skipping being cut from this cut didn’t have a whole lot of theory being applied to it in a vaccuum to explain why or why it wouldn’t work from a storytelling perspective. It just didn’t feel like it worked, and so it had to be removed, and then the rest of the movie had to conform to that change as best as it could, and either it worked for the pacing, timing, and FEELING of the film, or it didn’t.

It ended up being a VERY good cut to make, so good that in fact it turns out at one point it was THE OFFICIAL CUT - at least, it was before the mad scramble of post-production and Abrams’ inability to stick to a single throughline and follow it, instead of basically trying to do all the cool things because they were cool and fitting them in whether they work or not.

I think there are a lot of changes being made on this edit that ironically, are being done in the exact same Abramsian spirit. They’re attempting to fix his big mistakes by using the exact same ethos: Looking at the film more in the abstract, as a theoretical exercise, and making decisions from THAT POV, rather than thinking of the film AS IT IS, making effective changes, and watching to see if they actually fix the film’s problems AS a film.

Basically - there are a lot of fixes being done whose concern starts and stops at the scene in question, and if it makes that one scene “seem” better, it’s considered a good idea and worthy of all the work being done towards its inclusion, despite the fact it’s not really helping the overall film, and now the overall film is just as busy and distracted as it originally was, only now in newly post-produced ways.

krausfadr said:

The three main formatting options for a ZSJL edit would be to keep it as-is in IMAX format (1.33), crop to 2.39 to match Batman v Superman, or crop to 1.78 to fit a standard widescreen tv. I personally would opt for the 1.78 because this leaves as much of the original picture intact as possible on a standard tv, while not having black bars on the top or sides. It would also not be jarringly different from BVS should someone wish to watch BVS and ZSJL back to back.

For what it’s worth, both Snyder and the Director of Photography have repeatedly gone on the record in pre-production AND production that they storyboarded and framed the movie for 1.85:1, and if you literally do nothing more than hit the zoom button on your TV (thus cropping the frame down to 1.78:1) you’ll see that roughly 95% of the film’s composition works perfectly. There are a handful of shots that seem too tight however, and those shots would be the ones you’d need to manually move within the 1.78 frame (meaning instead of being center-framed, as most of the movie is, the 1.78 is top-edged or bottom-edged.)

Essentially: The film was pre-planned, blocked, and shot to work first and foremost in 1.85:1. The “IMAX” thing is an after-the-fact conceit Snyder applied to the film in the Snyder Cut’s post-production. The movie was meant to be seen in 1.85 when they created and shot it. Cropping it back down to that aspect ratio (or 1.78, in this case) is honestly getting it closer to its “original version” than the Snyder Cut is.

FWIW: I think Diana foiling the terrorist thing could go - I like the idea of her introduction into the movie following the Amazonians firing the beacon arrow. The idea that the death scream leads straight into the Amazonian fight is a very good idea too.

I don’t think the Superman vs the League fight should go - although it’d honestly be so much cleaner if he shot up into the sky, hovered there, and then just left. You could imply Lois saw him, figured it out, and met with him at the farm later, thus sort of inserting SOME agency to her character. But if the fight is staying, I think the Whedon version of it is honestly better, especially with regards to Batman having brought Lois there as opposed to Lois just kind of having her weird ritual with old Jimmy Olsen interrupted with her dead boyfriend’s resurrection.

sherlockpotter said:

For what it’s worth, I’m absolutely in love with RogueLeader’s reinterpretation of the film - rather than making the film all about Rey’s past, it would be reinterpreted to being about her future. It would emphasize the internal conflict she has about accepting or rejecting the vision of her falling to the Dark Side. To me, it’s the interpretation that feels most in line with TLJ’s themes of Rey letting go of her past; and it also feels like the cleanest direction to take the film out of the different versions discussed.

Also, RL’s hangar scene is just…*chef’s kiss*

I second all this. And third it too, for good measure.

leftshoe18 said:

So Star Wars Biomes came out on Disney+ today and has a nice landscape shot of Mustafar. Any chance something like that could be used for an establishing shot to help slow down the beginning of the movie a little?

The best way to “slow down” the beginning of the movie is to get rid of Mustafar entirely and just skip to the nebula jump-in. The movie feels slower and more evenly paced while simultaneously starting the actual plot faster. It’s also much more in keeping with tradition (such as it is) with Star Wars openings.

Thanks so much for the prompt and direct response! Very much appreciated.