Broom Kid

https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1368118/action/topic#1368118

Broom Kid said:

The UK blu-ray only Skywalker Saga box that was talked about frequently in this thread before the release might be different, but I don’t know that anyone who bought that one (the Wal-Mart link that kept getting posted was essentially a link to import the UK set) has written about it since they got it.

Thanks for the confirmation! It’s good to know.

Mace Windu’s lightsaber was blue until it was purple, too.

In Star Wars, Luke thinks he’s got a shot at Leia. Leia basically thinks both of them are bozos. Han doesn’t like her at all until he finds out Luke likes her. If there’s a “triangle” there it’s so simplistic as to be “hey there’s a girl here which of these two guys gets to get her.” That’s good enough to call it a “triangle” I guess, and historically it’s been seen as such but it’s pretty thin, dramatically.

But in Empire: The movie starts with Leia and Han liking each other. Luke is barely there, and when he IS there, she’s using him as a means to get at Han. And from that point forward it’s alllll Han & Leia. There’s no Luke. And there’s never Luke again. His leg of the (really weak) “Love Triangle” is dead the second Leia plants one on him and storms out of the room. At no point is he a romantic consideration for Leia afterwards. That’s borne out by the movie itself, and the behavior of the characters in it, and that’s before you even get to Jedi.

I never once in my life saw that kiss as even remotely romantic!

There’s not really a love triangle even in Empire. Lucas might have thought there was one, but again - the first thing Leia says when she wakes up Han in ROTJ is that she loves him. So even if anyone wanted to read that bedside peck as her taking the opportunity to express her romantic feelings for Luke, the question is effectively dead once Leia rescues Han.

Also there’s the fact Leia never once says anything even close to that to Luke in the Trilogy. She says “I love you” to Han twice, but the one time she admits she does love Luke, Han is the one who says it, to HER, and she laughs like “Yes, but as a brother, dumbass.” There is one scene of open attraction from Leia, towards Luke, in all of Star Wars, and it got cut out in Empire Strikes Back.

Kasdan I think knew the idea of the love triangle was dumb, and knew he’d solved that problem in the prior movie anyway, so he did what he could to present the facade of one to please George but never at any point wrote the characters to behave as if there actually WAS one in play.

It’s so easy to remove the subplot, too. Just cut from “Hey, what’s going on to” “Hold me.” and that’s one part of it completely gone. The other part, on Endor, simply necessitates a shot of Han looking confused and questioning after she says “He’s not. I can feel it.” If you can cut to Han looking goofy (pick a reaction face, he goes through like 3 of them in that scene) after she says that for a second or two, you can just cut back to Leia laughing and saying “He’s my brother.”

Scene plays out as intended. Both scenes are now dramatically consistent with each other and make Han less of an idiot while still making him humorous.

Even in ESB it’s not really a love triangle, as the only reason she’s kissing Luke like that is to piss off Han. It’s not because she WANTS to kiss Luke (although yes, there’s that deleted scene where she DOES, and then they’re interrupted - but since that’s gone, and Return of the Jedi exists…)

I think it’s possible to go straight from Han saying “Hey, what’s going on?” to Leia saying “Hold me” and the scene works just as well. No argument, Han still looks bewildered by Leia’s reactions without there being a dumb fight in between that highlights a silly plotline that shouldn’t exist, AND you lose some of Carrie Fisher’s absolute worst acting, ever.

You could probably take the “Hey, what’s going on” dialog out of its shot, dub it over the approach Han makes (it’s virtually the same) of him saying “I’m sorry” and just let the scene end like it always did (“Hold me”) The edit would be mostly audio, not video.

I personally would find the repeat of TLJ music from the climax to be more distracting.

More distracting than the repeat of ANH music that was already repeated in TFA? 😃

Thanks for indulging the train of thought, though, especially since you didn’t have to.

Hal 9000 said:

Also, I’m going to see about brining Burning Homestead in a little bit earlier since I can’t move it later, so those first two notes before the Force theme can pack more of a punch.

Did the prior two mockups I posted using variations on the Force Theme not get seen, or did you just not like them?

https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1369914/action/topic#1369914

No hard feelings if you didn’t, of course, but the point I was making is that I don’t think Burning Homestead is the only possible option for music there. It doesn’t even have to be the only possible version of the Force Theme, for what that’s worth. With some subtle slowdown and stretch, the Force Theme use from The Last Jedi fits pretty well there, with the build to the lightning strike.

If the voice was a severe, disturbing distortion/warping of a regular gonk droid sound effect, with static and clipping introduced into the mix, it’d probably get the desired effect of being somewhat off-putting as opposed to being a quick gag at Threepio’s expense, which was the intent in 1983.

https://streamable.com/j4uynh

It doesn’t have to be THAT piece, is what I’m saying. It might have to be the Force Theme (which is what’s in that clip above), but the only thing it HAS to be is roughly 23 and a half seconds long from her grabbing the saber to her blocking the lightning.

Here’s another one

https://streamable.com/zd1zfq

Rodney-2187 said:

I’ve read that the 1080p blu-ray discs included in the 4k boxed set as well as the individual 4K releases were the new scan, but the individual 1080p discs are now just the old blu-rays repackaged with the new covers. Is this true?

The 1080p blu-ray-only releases were always the 2011 discs repackaged. They came out before the 4K set and releases, and were the first release to have the new packaging. That release was seen to be a backstock-clearing exercise more than anything.

The 4K set and their accompanying 4K individual releases have the same packaging design as the preceding blu-ray-only releases, but they are the only way to get the new scans on a blu-ray disc. You HAVE to buy a 4K release in order to get the new scans on a blu-ray as a pack-in.

I’ve always felt that if you’re going to cut the skipping, you have to also cut the references to it. It’s counterproductive to get rid of the sequence with the hypothetical “first-time viewer” in mind and then set up a situation where the first-time viewer now has to infer and recontextualize a reference to a now-deleted sequence that, to them, never existed in the first place. The edits are supposed to streamline and improve things. Leaving in stray references to stuff and then hoping they’ll do the heavy lifting FOR you is precisely the kind of storytelling decision most fan-edits set out to fix.

If you’re cutting Lightspeed skipping, just cut all the references to it. It’s the simplest, cleanest, and best possible way to go about it.

StarkillerAG said:

I think you’re the only one with these complaints.

…Again, I JUST SAID THIS SAME THING in an earlier post!

I’m not even trying to get what I want, I’m just explaining (to people who are directly asking me) why I feel the way I do. I already know I’m not going to get what I want. It’s not the first time I’ve been a minority opinion on a forum before, haha. 😃 I don’t know how many other ways to say that even when I don’t get what I want, I’m still going to enjoy what I do get, and I’m thankful and appreciative of the work (98% of which I think is spot on) that makes it available.

( But just because I give voice to the minority opinion doesn’t mean I won’t be proven right later, either 😉 )

No music playing in the scene at all, like you suggest, would just be weird and jarring for such a climactic moment.

OK, I don’t think I’d agree, but I do know that “weird and jarring” is exactly how I felt upon hearing that insertion of “Burning Homestead” for the third time into that scene. But I get it! Diff’rent strokes to rule the world (Hmmmmmmm).

Octorox said:

The prequels used tracked music constantly. I don’t think it’s really that big an issue.

I just said it’s not that big an issue, LOL.

But: trying to use the prequels (often frequently terrible) tracking practices as a positive example for anything doesn’t play well, for me. And again, I’m not even arguing against the practice of tracking music. I’ve said multiple times now that the tracking of Burning Homestead in TFA worked. It’s the specific choice to use this single, already re-tracked cue again, and the way that re-tracked music is awkwardly inserted into the mix. On a technical level, it’s not good. On a thematic level, it’s threadbare and on-the-nose.

Usually, if Williams wrote music for a scene, it’s probably best to stick with what he wrote for that scene, or use nothing at all.

It’s definitely off. It doesn’t seem to be in the wrong key. It’s in the wrong key with the music surrounding it. The transition is off both going into and coming out of the tracked music.

Anyway, that’s my complaint with it. But my complaint is only worth so much, and it’s mostly only mine, so… hey! Honestly, the only reason I’m still hitting it is become someone directly asked. But after this, there’s really no reason to explain it again!

I still think the absence of music might work better than anything. But "Burning Homestead’ for a third time is just… it’s not good. In fact, I can’t think of a single piece of music that’s ever been directly tracked into as many key moments as that one will have been for this edit. It’s pushing it to do that TWICE.

What’s the issue with burning homestead again? It’s a nice callback to the first time Rey embraces the Force,

It’s an on-the-nose and now-overused callback, period. It was “nice callback” in TFA, and the repurposing of that specific rendition of the Force Theme (which probably shouldn’t have worked in that spot considering what it was intended to be scoring, and what Williams had actually scored for that moment) worked for THAT moment.

But for this moment, it’s so blatantly self-referential, and essentially a “Member-Berries” type insertion that it can’t help but pull focus from what’s happening, to what’s being EDITED, which is death for a fan-edit. It’s always a delicate tightrope to walk when your’e fan-editing, but “Burning Homestead” specifically - not the Force Theme, but that specific version of it - isn’t really doing anything but calling attention to itself as being a super-obvious echo of a better moment from a better movie, instead of actually scoring the feeling of the movie we’re all currently watching.

That’s my issue with it. I think it might be better to just let the moment stand starkly with no music at all than to keep trying to track in old music for that moment. I wonder if there’s a way to extend what Williams actually scored for that exact moment, too, but otherwise - Burning Homestead in that sequence just plays to me like fanservice, not dramatic payoff.

And again, the edit in the scene currently is in the wrong key, and isn’t merged well with the surrounding music cues on top of that.

StarkillerAG said:

Problem is, that music piece from TFA’s credits was already used in this edit, for the ending on Tatooine. I think that music is pretty much perfect in it’s current position, so I wouldn’t want to revert it back to the reused Force theme that was in the original movie.

Oh definitely, it was just an example of how much editing/changing would need to be done to make something fit there. That piece (a live performance by a completely different orchestra too) had to be pitched down a full step, stretched about 120%, and then the following piece that connects the edit to the Palpatine theme also needed to be timestretched and rearranged. All that to get less than 30 seconds of music to fit there, haha.

I’m thinking some remixed version of Rey’s theme would be the best fit for the ghost scene. I’m gonna look on YouTube to see if there’s any versions of the theme that fit the moment.

I think a version of the Jedi Steps might also work. But I also think NOTHING might work best too. Just thunder, lightning, echoes, breathing and the force ghosts flickering in and out of view.

That doesn’t answer the question in the hypothetical though, and that’s a question that absolutely would have been asked by basically anyone in the company thinking of agreeing to this vague “deal.” I simply don’t believe they were ever going to seriously consider using Verta’s single restoration of 1/3rd of a trilogy. It just doesn’t make any sense in terms of logistics.

Are we really to think 2020 was the last time we’ll see a new release of these movies?

On physical media? Sure. If only because I believe they’re trying to push people who want catalog product to Disney+ and Hulu.

They’re issuing DCPs of the 2011 blu-ray cuts to theaters and drive-ins now. They’re going to premiere Mulan on Disney+ for an added fee, and they’ll probably do the same for Black Widow later in the year if Mulan turns a profit (and it likely will). Disney is preparing for the death of theaters. They’re not really looking to save them - They’ve been doing THAT for the past 10 years already, and it ended up not really mattering in the face of this pandemic.

Stuff like an offical original theatrical Star Wars Trilogy restoration is absolutely going to be something they use to drive subscriptions to streaming, not to drive people to the movie theater. That’s the future we’re looking at.

It’s like a math problem as much as it is a tone and feeling problem. You only have about 23 seconds or so to find a piece that evokes the right emotion, flows with the scene, and is in the right key. Which means you’re probably gonna have to edit, cut, and stretch other pieces to make that all work.

Here’s a low-res, and lo-fi mockup I did.

https://streamable.com/j2hvqr

I think them licensing the OT to a boutique home video company like Criterion or ShoutFactory is unlikely as well, but it’s a couple degrees more likely than letting a fan-restoration become official product. IF an official release of the original theatrical versions ever happens again, they’ll do their own restoration work in-house (if it’s not already done) and they’ll put it on Disney+ as a bonus feature. They won’t re-release it in theaters or put it on disc. If you want the original theatrical versions in 4K, they’ll be there, and you gotta pay 6.99 a month to watch them legally.

It probably wouldn’t even take that much effort. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already done, they just haven’t said anything about it, mostly because they don’t have any actual plans to do anything with it.

I have always found it highly doubtful there was ever a time when Lucasfilm was honestly considering using Verta’s restoration. I couldn’t explain why they supposedly took a meeting with him to discuss that restoration other than I’m sure someone cashed in a friendly favor, but I just don’t think it was ever going to happen.

The premise was always sort of self-defeating, for one thing: They don’t want to spend money on a restoration, so they’ll just license (? if that’s even the right term) a fan’s. OK. But if they were willing to go any sort of licensing route, why would they be talking to Verta instead of any other film company (namely, Criterion) who would be more than willing to PAY THEM for the opportunity to do it instead of the other way around. And then lets say this restoration is financially successful: They either got for free, or paid a small fee to use, Verta’s restoration and then hypothetically made a bunch of money on it. There’s still two other films in the trilogy that are completely unrestored now. Do we just only have the restored Star Wars and that’s it? Where do the other two restorations come from? How long do people have to wait to get them? Who is paying who to do them?

If ever there was going to be a restoration that became salable product, it was only ever going to be done in-house, or a licensed deal with a third party company who could do all three at once to a consistent level, and who would likely be willing to pay a decent price for the opportunity to do it.

And honestly, if they were ever going to make whatever restoration efforts a salable product intended for the consumer market, THAT’S probably when you’d see a bunch copyright strikes, DMCA takedowns, and the sorts of actions that we’ve been afraid of for over 20 years now. I think we’ll have a good idea if and when a original theatrical versions is actually coming to market because the fan-restoration “market” will get noticeably disrupted ahead of time.

Hey, I prefaced it with “Last grasp at straws” and it’s been literally MONTHS since I last brought it up, LOL. The endgame is close and even though it’s likely not going to go our way here, I don’t think there’s any harm to making that last grasp, and I’d hope there’s no hard feelings. I can say there’s no ill will intended on my part, and I’m not going to be mad if the hail mary gets deflected out of bounds. I expect it, and I’m still looking forward to sitting down in front of the final product (or one of the versions of the final product, if the Rey Nobody edit is still on its way).

It’s one final bit of feedback before last call, is all. If anything, it says a lot about the amount of work, time, energy, and results that this thread has shown to everyone reading it that of all the changes, cuts, and additions to the movie being made by the fans here, that the only two things that still stand out ot me as “fixable” are those two things. That’s a hell of a better ratio than the ACTUAL RELEASED FILM had. 😃

I watched the whole opening section that way to try it out and it felt rushed to me.

I don’t understand how it could feel rushed when there’s no actual RUSHING happening, as opposed to the Mustafar Minute, which is nothing but 15 bad cuts and a bunch of audio/visual mess shoved inbetween them. The pacing from Kylo jumping into Exegol’s orbit up until the end of that scene with Palpatine is fairly slow and measured. Things are happening, but they’re happening in an orderly, interesting fashion, as opposed to the jumble of disconnected and inarguably confusing images that is the whole of Mustafar - a whole that is ultimately meaningless in the larger storytelling context.

Leaving Mustafar in doesn’t offset TROS’ “breakneck” pace, it contributes to it (it sets the film’s tone, honestly), because it’s a bunch of visual junk “storytelling” with all of the point and purpose cut out of it, happening right up front, for little-to-no narrative return. It’s part of why the movie FEELS breakneck and exhausting overall - because the first thing you’re exposed to is sloppy editing of disjointed imagery going for a couple minutes straight before it actually settles down and STARTS THE STORY on Exegol.

Oh, and one last (Columbo-esque) thing - if we’re still poking around for music changes, I think sticking with Burning Homestead for Rey and the Force Ghosts is a mistake. It doesn’t fit either tonally OR musically (it’s in the wrong key and transitions poorly, just on a technical level) and of all the music choices made, it’s the one that seems the most stereotypically “Fan-edit”-esque. It’s going to the easy fanservice well nakedly, and one time too many. Better NO music for that moment than the second tracked re-usage of Burning Homestead.

poppasketti mocked it up once, and it just feels 100% correct, not just for a fan-edit, but for the movie. It’s also a really strong opening shot across the bow so far as the first cut in a fan-edit goes.

https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1346491

2016 Ghostbusters was… okay. It should have been funnier.

Then again, that goes for Ghostbusters 2, and basically everything ever Ghosbustered since 1984.

…fwiw, last grasp at the straws of a request: I think the best possible opening to Rise of Skywalker is to just cut from the opening crawl to Kylo jumping in to frame in front of the nebula. Excise Mustafar entirely. It’s pointless, confusing, ugly, and mostly meaningless. The jump-in is cleaner, and honestly way more in keeping with Star Wars tradition (pan down to ship on the way to a planet - not to that enemy ship parked over it waiting for a bad and incongruous cut to that planets surface before immediately jumping back into space again)

I understand that people think leaving the Mustafar Minute in has some worth, but I figure since everyone else is asking for under-the-wire changes and additions to this edit, I should go on record one last time as saying this one edit will engender so much more goodwill than any post-production attempts to save the Mustafar Minute without any of the actual meat that segment needs to justify itself (the Oracle, Vader’s Castle). Just start already on the way to Exegol. It’s so much more clean and purposeful from a storytelling AND a filmmaking perspective than throwing more globs of clay at the broken, misshapen vase that is this movie’s ungainly opening on Mustafar.

I also understand this won’t happen, but I figure one last hail mary attempt at getting it out there wouldn’t hurt. 😃

Now that the trilogy is finished, I gotta say the D+ versions by Oohteedee are definitely the go-tos. Maybe the stuff Harmy and Dre are cooking up for Despecialized v3 will top that due to the combo of Dre’s grades and Harmys abilities with mattes, rotoscoping, etc… but for now, using the 4K UHDs as the base and the 4K77/80/83 raw scans as the sources for replacement shots/scenes:

Star Wars D+77 v2.3
Empire D+80 v2.2
Jedi OTD83 v1.0

That’s the OT for me for the foreseeable future. Despecialized might change that, but these versions are as good as the original Star Wars has ever looked and sounded on home video.