The thing about the thumbs up is that removing it helps a later change about Han needing a “clean ship.” The lighter joke is still there!
I thought the idea was that Han could take them there but he just doesn’t want to get too involved, which is why Maz refuses to help him. That’s why the pointless “clean ship” line could be removed with no other changes.
I appreciate all the work that Nev did on his Starlight project, and it’s really cool as an alternative version of episode VII. But as someone who likes the original TFA I still prefer Hal’s conservative approach as more of an improved cut of the same film rather than a radical reinterpretation.
I’d also add to the others that I’d prefer BB-8’s thumbs up remain the same, I love that little moment and I’d hate to see it tampered. The other changes seem sensible enough, another small change I’d like to see from Starlight is the darker lighting on the Rathtar sequence.
Oh well, I agree it’s not a huge deal, like I said. I didn’t expect the V2 reissue would come so soon so I thought I’d mention it in case there was time. Still, It’d be nice to have a tweaked version handy in the case any updates come down the line.
Anyways, thanks for considering my feedback, poppa, all the stuff you pulled off for Ascendant is quite amazing! You have a power I don’t understand and could never have, so I feel kinda bad critiquing it.
I think I get what you say, that the parts with more mist would make things more blue and vice versa. Though I think the coloration of the whole scene is more or less consistently blue (even if less so with the LUT), not just the heavly misty parts. Even something that should seem to have a warmer tone, such as Ben’s face on the close up moments prior, still shows as very blue under the same test.
I checked on both my laptop and my TV. It could be that it’s only noticeable once the Exegol LUT is applied? It’s not the biggest of deals but it’s deffinitely there. I guess I’m more sensitive to this sort of thing, it’s the “green tint” on Rogue One all over again lol.
Now that I’ve seen it on a better screen I noticed that the TIE advanced on Exegol looks a bit warm (i.e. it has a brownish hue) compared to Luke’s X-wing and the rest of the scene.
I thought it could be replaced with a shot of the fleet as well, as that would be Kylo’s new motivation, though I just thought a quick shot of Palpatine would be more straightforward.
I think it’s meant to be more of an overall vision triggered by tapping into the dark side, similar to what Rey experiences first, the words we hear from Palpatine are what he already said before. And at least in this version Rey’s vision can’t be coming from Palpatine, since he wants Rey dead for real to “end the Jedi”, it doesn’t make sense that he would be stoking the flames of her inner darkness.
Moreover, I think the main purpose of the visions, specially in splitting them up, is to set up each character’s motivations and their journey throughout the film. And as I said before, changes have been made so that the Sith throne is only relevant to Rey’s journey. I guess you could rationalize the vision as Kylo rejecting the throne as he refuses to kill Rey, but I think it’s better to just outright remove any indication that Kylo would need or even want to overtake Palpatine’s position, when he just spent the entire last movie struggling to overtake the position of Supreme Leader.
I just caught a little somethig that might use a small change before the re-render. I love how a few tiny changes go a long way in changing Kylo’s character for the better - removing him from the conversation with Finn about Rey’s vision, and removing his line about wanting to take the Sith throne on the hangar scene. They really paint the picture of a Supreme Leader Kylo that just wants to take Palpatine out of the picture and take his resources, instead of regressing into needing to plot again to overtake a position of power.
However there’s still one remnant of that plot I caught, that is, on the now separated vision of Kylo Ren at the beggining of the film, we see the Sith throne for a brief moment. I wonder if it might be better to change this, as to me it signals Kylo’s interest in the throne, which we are trying to distance away from, making the throne only relevant to Rey’s struggle. I’m thinking it could just be changed to a shot of Palpatine, who we hear commanding him to kill Rey.
It was the big 1080p file, I checked on both VLC and the Windows Movies app. But it could very well be something on my end - I watched on an old laptop since I don’t have access to my usual setup at the moment. Apologies if that’s the case.
There’s a small issue right before the puppet show, Poe’s line “Let’s split up, see what the locals know.” was spaced apart to add some of the alien narrator in the middle, but the split was not done properly so Poe ends up saying “Let’s split up… up, see what the locals know.” It could be mistaken for a random background sound but he definitely says “up” twice.
Also I think something’s wrong with the audio on the Jedi voices scene, some of the voice lines sound very quiet, they’re almost impossible to hear, like there’s a missing audio channel or something (I watched with headphones and it was very noticeable). I think it’s an issue with the work done to add the Sors line, since I remember the test CaptainFaraday shared a while back also had that issue, but I didn’t comment on it since I figured it was just a test on the line’s placement and not final audio.
Those were the two issues I noticed on my first watch, as well as some artifacting on darker scenes but I see that’s being handled.
I was probably fatigued while typing this all up, and it was late at night. Hopefully it’s not too confusing, and I can update it for the listings, if not for the torrent-able released versions’ text files.
Yeah it’s not a big deal, with such a huge list of changes there was bound to be a slip up or two, I just thought you might like to fix it up.
And I’ll join everyone in saying huge congrats on this release, and huge thanks to all that helped along the way. Can’t wait to sit back and enjoy V2 in all it’s splendor.
At last, the work of generations is complete. The great error is corrected.
On a similar note there were a couple of other small mistakes I found in the OP:
Honestly, I like the way how it is. I prefer the line, "You’ll take both sabers to Exegol to be the line that’s removed. It plays out much better this way: “A thousand generations live in you now. We’ll always be with you… but this is your fight.”
I thought this was how the line was supposed to be changed, wasn’t it? I found it weird reading the OP as I remember it was the “take both sabers” line that was being cut, not “a thousand generations”.
If anybody is even remotely skilled at deepfaking I’d imagine that dark Rey’s eyes could be taken care of rather easily. Yes, you’d be deepfaking Daisy Ridley’s face onto Daisy Ridley’s face but based on what I understand the eyes would be normal again once finished. Might be something I’ll look into myself eventually if it’s all we are waiting on.
I don’t know how deepfakes work, but I think it needs the info on the eyes to overlay the ‘new’ eyes, it might have a hard time with the white eyes (if it gives her pupils at all). I mean a lot of deepfakes I’ve seen struggle with having wobbly eyes as it is, even when the original footage has regular eyes, seems like it’s the hardest part to get right.
Oh well, it was a neat improvement to clarify the state of the galaxy, but if it can’t be done it’s certainly not worth pushing things down for, being such a small change.
Are you still considering the change of “attacking” to “silencing” for the opening crawl? I thought that was a great idea.
I’m glad you’re open to updating things with MR’s work once he’s able to edit again, and I’m really glad we’ve got a serviceable version of the crackly saber in the meantime. Seems like a win-win. I never thought we could get V2 by the 2 year anniversary, this is really great news!
I think that works really well, very clever merge! The only thing that feels off to me is the transition to Anakin, mainly because we hear his voice clearly while he’s a hologram, it should have some distortion at the beggining of the line before cutting to him on his ship, I think.
Other than that it’s great, hopefully it will help make this feel like one congruent story, can’t wait to see how it all comes together. I just checked out your previous version with Supply Lines before you take it down, and the scenes with Master Di there did feel a bit removed from the rest of the action. Seems like Liberty on Ryloth will make for a much better pairing.
That’s how Ascendant handles it already.
Actually I believe amobex merged “you are a Palpatine” and “you’re his grandaughter” into “you are his grandaughter”. It’s a small difference but I think it sounds pretty good and actually adds back a bit more punch since “you are a Palpatine” was originally the big reveal.
A major overhaul across the board. I specially love the changes to Rey’s vision & Kylo’s offer.
The only characters that get two lines are Anakin, Yoda, Qui gon & Kanan, seems a tad excessive to give Sors two lines as well. I like the first line “we are all one through the Force” but the second one “as it carries us” is a bit awkward. So I’d say keep the cameo subtle with only the first line as to not mess with it too much.
Not to mention Palpatine tricking Rey and Kylo into having them both come before him would just be a total rethread of TLJ. That might’ve also been a reason it was changed, though it’s not like this movie is afraid of rethreading old ground.
To be fair at least that made Palpatine’s retconned connection to both Rey and Kylo more sensible, if he had been secretly cultivating this dyad for years as his ultimate goal. Tough I prefer the idea that the dyad is something new that has formed between them sometime during or after TLJ, as implied by the change to Kylo’s line, and with that change it makes more sense that Palpatine wouldn’t know of it.
An elegant addition for a more civilized edit.
I think the Biomes shot might work as-is, since the prior shot is of a very pink/red planet from space, and the forest and lava fields at the end of the shot trend a bit more yellow which transitions into the flyover.
I think even the planet has a bit more orange than the castle shot though, and even then I think it’s more important that the footage of the surface blends together, in that closeup of Kylo’s face you get a good look at the clouds above and they’re a mix of pink and yellow/orange, while on the castle shot they’re a more pale white and pink.
You may be right - the Biomes shot has now been adjusted accordingly to be slightly less pink.
Thanks for humoring my comments, the stuff you and Poppa have done with the new shots is nothing short of amazing. Same with Faraday & Sherlock’s work on the edited lines, fantastic work!