DominicCobb

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Okay, sure, maybe that behavior is unnecessary. It would be nice to minimize that. Although it’s sometimes hard to notice when an argument has effectively looped itself.

But you have to admit that when editing the final movie in a trilogy you can’t just act like the previous two don’t exist in the thread. There has to be a discussion somewhere about how the previous two films can possibly be adjusted so that you can make or not make certain changes to this edit in an intelligent way.

I never said previous movies can’t be mentioned.

I was about to type something else but I’d just be repeating myself (very hypocritical!). I just think we should try to be better about keeping discussions relevant to the edit.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

While on the surface it might seem like these conversations aren’t necessary, they arguably are. We are trying to edit this film to properly reflect the previous films, and it’s possible we can come to better conclusions for this particular film when also discussing possible changes to the previous two films.

I’m sorry, there’s nothing necessary about people saying the same things over and over again 4 pages straight.

RogueLeader said:

Reading this thread is exhausting. Why are we doing this to ourselves?

This is where I’m at. Far too often this thread becomes muddled with discussion that belongs elsewhere on this forum.

They left the dyad extremely vague. Of that much there should be no debate. The implications for what it means for the other films, sure. But best discuss it elsewhere, unless you’re specifically brainstorming things like “we’ve become.”

This thread is probably 300 pages longer than it needs to be because of conversations like this that go in circles for days.

To me, that little bit of dialogue from Zorii and Rey is like looking into an alternate universe at a better version of this movie. The idea that Rey is taking up the mantle of the legendary hero - this is literally the only moment in the movie that continues that thread. Rey’s response that she cares - along with helping the serpent and D-O it’s one of the only times we get to see her being that hero. It would be a crime to cut.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Yes and I really enjoy that. We were discussing whether we should be excusing character banter on Kijimi. I was simply pointing out that they had already given adequate reverence (imo) to him and the banter makes sense because they’re trying to cheer each other up but others disagree.

I don’t see any reason to cut the banter. It’s one of the only things about this movie that works.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

DominicCobb said:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

jarbear said:

Nope. Let us feel. The reward of knowing Chewy is ok is that much sweeter for teh audience instead of laughing the way till we see him.

As I stated in my previous post, the movie still gives you the opportunity to feel. It all takes place on the Falcon in a relatively long scene.

Relatively long scene? It’s like 4 lines.

Relatively long in comparison to the rapid pace of the rest of the movie lol. And you are only considering the conversation between Rey and Finn. In this edit (not sure about the movie), it then leads into Poe joining their conversation where they also talk about losing Chewie.

I thought we were talking about the movie. In the movie, we get a scene that’s probably less than a minute long before we see Chewie alive again. In the edit, we of course get multiple scenes before we learn that Chewie survived.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

jarbear said:

Nope. Let us feel. The reward of knowing Chewy is ok is that much sweeter for teh audience instead of laughing the way till we see him.

As I stated in my previous post, the movie still gives you the opportunity to feel. It all takes place on the Falcon in a relatively long scene.

Relatively long scene? It’s like 4 lines.

RogueLeader said:

So then maybe what Faraday described might be the best bet? Where Luke makes fire or a red bolt fly back and hit the walker, making it fall below stage. That seems like a simple, easy to convey action. And you wouldn’t have to extend the shot at all I don’t think.

Personally I’m leaning towards

• Luke simply pops into frame
• Luke pops out of frame
• or Luke pops out of frame and back in, possibly with some laser fire missing him

As with Kylo appearing I think having the walker fall might open another can of worms. Luke’s stand was impactful in part because it was nonviolent. Now, yes, the end result here is people picking up arms against the First Order. But I wonder if it might raise some questions. Like, if this had been in TROS as is, would we see it as yet another TLJ retcon? I know, I know, I know. The legend grows and changes and whatnot. But this is my point, this is a lot to ponder and think about for a short shot or two that is not remarked upon.

RogueLeader said:

Should the Luke puppet be made of string and wires, like that Proof of Concept image, or made of the same material as the fire and walker? Right now I’m just planning to replicate that look, but I’m still deciding on Luke’s design.

I would say keep the same design as TLJ for that recognizability, but change the materials so it’s not just the same exact thing.

Hate to keep harping on the simplicity thing, but I think TLJ is a great example of what I mean, not just because that’s what this is referencing. Johnson scripted that moment out from the start, he didn’t retrofit it like we are doing, and look what he came up with - three walkers, one Jedi. That’s all, nothing crazy. Just exactly what you need to get the point across. Generally the rule of thumb in editing is the less detail you have, the shorter it can be. I think we’ll find that even if you extend the shot, having too much going on will still be a lot to take in.

RogueLeader said:

I mean, I could make a walker and a Kylo puppet, film a few different elements, and then let people decide whatever they want to use.

I think different options would be great. The Kylo idea is fun but it does seem to open a whole can of worms.

That actually could be a really cool addition. I kinda think the idea of “ultimate Sith lightning” is a little silly, but visually it’d be very striking and a subtle way (since it’s never remarked upon) to sort of show that things are a bit different now. Plus symbolically the red vs. blue. It’s over the top but feels Star Wars.

Hal 9000 said:

The sweet spot to hit is something that would be “haha” for the kids but also “Mmmm, there’s that” to Rey.

Right. You don’t want it to be too silly to undercut the moment for Rey or the audience.

BrotherOfSasquatch said:

DominicCobb said:

Alright, I watched the scene again. It goes

• Shot from the side of the puppet show (this will need VFX too)
• Wide shot of kids laughing (they could be laughing at anything at this point, could just be the narrator’s description)
• Shot of the puppet stage (we slot in whatever VFX we come up with)
• Close up of kid laughing (could very easily just cut this out)
• Wide shot of kids looking in wonder
• Rey watching (maybe slot in some cheers here)

So, looking at it, if you cut the close up of the kid laughing, you really don’t need to do anything crazy here. My final suggestion would be you see the walker on one side, and then Luke pops into frame on the other side. Alien says “Skywalker,” or like “Mastah Jedai Skywalker” some shit like that. Nothing too over the top, gets the point across quickly and efficiently.

I think we could even slot in a closer shot of the stage after the kid laughing to have some breathing room for the scene.

Truth be told I don’t think that’s necessary, I would just make the puppet shot a little bit longer than in the film as is. Don’t think you need to provide too much emphasis here, less you get into fan edity feeling territory. I like the idea that this is just a subtle little moment without much fanfare, as if, like “of course this is happening, we don’t need to make a big deal of it.”

sherlockpotter said:

DominicCobb said:

Alright, I watched the scene again. It goes

• Shot from the side of the puppet show (this will need VFX too)
• Wide shot of kids laughing (they could be laughing at anything at this point, could just be the narrator’s description)
• Shot of the puppet stage (we slot in whatever VFX we come up with)
• Close up of kid laughing (could very easily just cut this out)
• Wide shot of kids looking in wonder
• Rey watching (maybe slot in some cheers here)

So, looking at it, if you cut the close up of the kid laughing, you really don’t need to do anything crazy here. My final suggestion would be you see the walker on one side, and then Luke pops into frame on the other side. Alien says “Skywalker,” or like “Mastah Jedai Skywalker” some shit like that. Nothing too over the top, gets the point across quickly and efficiently.

To make it easier on our VFX gods, I don’t think we even need the side shot.

You could cut it pretty easily, but I do think the shot provides a nice bit of geography. There might be other ways to make this easier for the viz wizzes, like maybe just obscuring the area that shows the puppets with something.

jarbear said:

Not very techy, at all, as for inserting “Skywalker” in it … is it possible or helpful to remove or voice over him with a “new voice” and says whatever he says, but the “new voice” then uses the “Skywalker” line whenever. I would think that may help it sound more natural than how he sounds and then a random “Skywalker” that doesn’t quite match it?

I wasn’t aware the alternative was even being considered, I don’t think that would work at all. Granted, we will have to check to see the audio channel situation but a full dub would definitely be more seamless.

Alright, I watched the scene again. It goes

• Shot from the side of the puppet show (this will need VFX too)
• Wide shot of kids laughing (they could be laughing at anything at this point, could just be the narrator’s description)
• Shot of the puppet stage (we slot in whatever VFX we come up with)
• Close up of kid laughing (could very easily just cut this out)
• Wide shot of kids looking in wonder
• Rey watching (maybe slot in some cheers here)

So, looking at it, if you cut the close up of the kid laughing, you really don’t need to do anything crazy here. My final suggestion would be you see the walker on one side, and then Luke pops into frame on the other side. Alien says “Skywalker,” or like “Mastah Jedai Skywalker” some shit like that. Nothing too over the top, gets the point across quickly and efficiently.

For me, Luke disappearing is not just about accuracy. It’s about simplicity and clarity of the point we’re trying to get across. Since it’s accurate to the movie, it makes it easier to understand what is happening since we recognize what is depicted, and it would be easier to accomplish.

If people are really worried about the laughing, you could just have the Luke puppet dip below the frame and then pop back in again or something. Arguably you might not even need to have anything happen at all. Just have the puppet bounce around the frame a bit, almost tauntingly. That might actually be the best thing to do regardless.

Not to put too much of a damper on the “walker falling down” concept, but I think visually your first instinct when you see that is you would think they’re recreating TESB, which kinda defeats the purpose we’re going for.

Re: puppet Luke disappearing… I mean that’s literally what happens in TLJ. If you’ve seen TLJ, you know that’s the capper to the whole thing - Luke comes out, stands them down, then disappears. I don’t see why laughing at him disappearing would seem like a diss at Luke at all, that doesn’t even make sense.

Re: the puppet idea. If done right it’d be my favorite TROS change in any edit, I’ve wanted it for a long time. Here are my thoughts:

This is a very short moment, so you need something really simplistic to get the idea across during the brief amount of screen time it has. Since this is directly picking up the thread of the kids on Canto Bight replaying Luke’s stand at the end of TLJ, I would suggest making the puppets as similar as possible to what we see in TLJ to get that point across efficiently. To that end, while it is fun to imagine wild scenarios using the puppets, we must remember this is a fan edit. Things would be different if we were JJ designing the scene. All we have is a two second shot.

Honestly you could probably just cut the shot of the kids laughing, but I would say in terms of what’s the simplest thing to do if you want to keep it, just have Luke suddenly drop out of the puppet frame, to show him “disappearing.”

As for how this can be accomplished: I’m no wizard here. But given the shot is so quick, I think you probably could get away with 2D elements. What Cinefy did - with motion and proper comping/color correcting - would honestly look fine.

The medal is pretty egregious. I would say it’s more than a decent jump you have to make to get from Leia holding the medal to Han appearing a few scenes later. The dice in TLJ works because you clearly see it is something that belongs to the Falcon, and therefore is Han’s. Obviously if you’re a fan who knows the dice are in ANH, or if you watch after Solo, it works even better, but it still works without that. The medal, we are given no indication that it is specifically Han’s. In ANH we see at least Luke get one as well. If you don’t have a good working memory of ANH (enough to know what a prop from one scene looks like), you won’t recognize it. Even if you do, there’s at least three different steps you have to make in your own mind (with no help from the film itself) to reach the outcome of Han appearing to Ben.

I don’t begrudge anyone wanting to include the shot, especially if you’re still keeping Chewie getting the medal at the end (anything to make that scene better). But this is another case of ‘they cut out all the scenes that explained this.’

That’s a fun idea, but considering the effect is supposed to more or less match Kylo’s - which doesn’t do that - it might just come across as a mistake if Rey’s is inconsistent rather than a subtle character thing.

Kylo’s handling DOTF was pretty awful, but also, the fact that we’re now talking about a script of a film that never got made shows we’re way off topic.

Burbin said:

I don’t think there’s quality loss on my end. Here’s the original source I used from 21C Peasant:

21C Peasant said:

This is my latest update to those shots for anyone interested.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ljyIlZ1PLpPmhSpuPNktDqtBWP2vZ_8O/view?usp=sharing

I’ve done an export in .mov format, hope it works for people having trouble with the .avi
https://www.mediafire.com/file/gl5v2xgt5fwulor/Fortress_.mov/file

Thanks Burbin! I appreciate it. Will see if it works later.

Regardless, if poppasketti is right, the problem isn’t just that some of our computers can’t play the file. If the file is noisy, I’m curious where that’s coming from, whether it’s the export or the source that Burbin was using. The effects work is great all around so we want to make sure the quality of the file is high if Hal or whoever else is going to use it.

poppasketti said:

Burbin said:

Here’s my clip of Vader’s Castle with dimmed lights
http://www.mediafire.com/file/yqc05kidwmuzfkk/Fortress.avi

So I grabbed this file on my mac and used the Scoop! app (formerly iMediaHUD) to get the file info. It’s a windows BMP video file, and it’s 8bit uncompressed with Alpha channel. The bitrate is a whopping 1.5 Gbps. That’s why it won’t play smooth on VLC, MR.

None of my apps other than VLC can even read it, not Adobe or Compressor.

Best option is ffmpeg I think, as sherlockpotter suggested. Below is an H264 mp4 file converted on veryslow and crf11 from ffmpeg. Going frame by frame comparing the two it doesn’t appear that there is any generational loss (the original clip is pretty noisy btw), but there is a slight color shift towards orange in the mp4. The AVI had more pink in it, so you will want to color grade to compensate.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y8UFY6wObbMnOiCLyA01gyh9hGTPJrwa/view?usp=sharing

Interesting. Sounds like probably the simplest solution would be a new export of the clip with different settings if the editor is willing.

The question is whether there’s anything to disprove it in canon. I know what’s in the films.