DominicCobb

RogueLeader said:

Ooo, I’m excited to hear that! After I finish the puppets, I want to try to finally tackle the Rey Nobody stuff too. I’m interested what new things you’ve come up with!

Not much haha mostly implementing some of the great ideas that have been tossed around here in the past few months! I’ve been very busy with work and keeping up with the threads here is all the brain power I’ve been able to put in. But hopefully I’ll have a chance to take another fresh look at it all with the new workprint.

Closing in on second workprint, probably by the end of the week. Some big new changes that I will add to the cutlist soon.

Yes, I think it works fine as is.

Green I think would just seem like a mistake or perhaps even an attempt at a retcon (and would muddy the symbolism of Rey using the blue).

Burbin said:

The close-up shot of the children looking over is a bit awkward since they look to the right, but the following action of the puppets is on the left (the walker winding up the fire), I looked at the original scene and noticed you reversed that shot, but I think now it makes more sense to leave it with the children looking left at the walker that’s about to shoot.

I don’t mind this, the alien says Skywalker and they look over at him. It’s more like they’re focused on him and what he’s doing.

RogueLeader said:

Here is the two-shot test for the puppet show. I made a few changes but I’ll wait and see what people notice. Let me know what y’all think.

https://vimeo.com/554491835

Oof. That’s perfect. Truly amazing to see this finally realized.

RogueLeader said:

CaptainFaraday said:

It’s so weird and wild seeing my puppet designs actually fabricated, put into motion, and put into the movie. I feel like I got to do the fun bit and RL did the hard work. I’m absolutely floored by the result, and I’m very proud to be part of it all.

I’m glad you’re happy with how it turned out! Honestly, your enthusiastic message offering to help with the puppets is what really gave me the push to do this. I would’ve been stuck on the puppet designs forever if wasn’t for you!

DominicCobb said:

A one shot alternative might be slowing down the plate as much as possible before it looks weird, they laying the puppet show in. If we could see it for even just a few more frames it could help registering what’s going on more.

Not a bad idea, and this could potentially be applied to both a one or two shot version. I wonder what the limit would be before the slow motion became noticeable? I’m not really familiar with the best methods of extending shots. That was something you did with a few moments in TROS, right?

sade1212 said:

Topaz Video Enhance AI would be your best bet for getting 4K footage out of a 1080p source. You’d only need to upscale the puppets and the cleaned background, right, because the rest is the same as the theatrical and could just be matted back in from the 4K source.

Sade, you clever bastard. And I actually filmed the puppets at 4K, so all that has to be upscaled is the cleaned background.

I’ll see about trying to upscale the plate later today/tomorrow, but if anyone else wanted to have a go at it, here is the Google drive link Poppa provided awhile back for the clean plate.

I just use optical flow in Premiere (although I’d assume After Effects has it too?). Results vary wildly, sometimes you can really stretch it without it looking slowed down at all. The more movement the trickier it becomes. In this shot I think the smoke could really fuck it up. But worth giving it a try, should be able to gain at least a few frames I’d hope.

JEDIT: Well unfortunately I tried it out and I was right about the smoke. So optical flow is out of the question. In that case you just gotta go with the default frame sampling. Some quick test suggest to me that you can probably only buy about 4 or 5 frames before it starts looking obvious. Which I suppose is better than nothing. If someone really wanted to waste their time I can see ways to use VFX to make things more seamless (selectively picking parts of the frame to use optical flow, trying to remove the smoke altogether, adding new smoke that doesn’t look slowed down, etc.) but those might all be overkill. An extra couple frames might be fine. Or hopefully we can see if we can do the punch-in shot.

RogueLeader said:

The plate I used to was from poppasketti, and it was just 1080p I think.

It would be great if the plate was 4K, but I feel like it probably would’ve been a pain to clean, and there wasn’t an expectation to crop the shot initially.

There is an effect on After Effects called Detail-Preserving Upscale, so I’m hoping I could potentially crop the shot for a second zoomed-in shot, without it looking super noticeable.

Also, for the the OTS shot of Rey looking at the children and the puppet show, I just zoomed in to not show the stage from an angle. Trying to do anything with the stage from that angle was a pain in the ass. It would be nice to get a 4K source for that shot, at least, but I might be able to use the previous mentioned effect to help maintain its quality as well.

And you might be right, Sparky. At the very least I might screw around with the two shots idea and see if it works or not.

And thanks for all the responses, everyone! I appreciate all of the feedback and the compliments.

A one shot alternative might be slowing down the plate as much as possible before it looks weird, they laying the puppet show in. If we could see it for even just a few more frames it could help registering what’s going on more.

Yeah the Falcon one seems to be the main one anyone would want. TLJ on the other hand…

NeverarGreat said:

RogueLeader said:

NeverarGreat said:

I showed the scene to my girlfriend who wasn’t clued-in beforehand, and it took three playthroughs before she figured out what was happening.

So I think we should definitely look at slowing it down a bit, though even if it was unchanged it would still be a dramatic improvement to the film.

NeverarGreat said:

Watching the scene again, I think it would work to simply duplicate the theater shots, and put one after the establishing shot of the children that shows Luke simply facing the AT-AT, then show the closeup of the children looking in rapt attention, then the existing shot of Luke deflecting the fire followed by the children laughing.

I appreciate you showing it to her! I always like to think of the hypothetical first-time viewer when making certain edits, so it’s great to get that perspective.

And that idea is sorta what I have been thinking. Maybe I could slightly scale the shot up so it looks slightly different (or scale up the fireball shot), but as far as the action goes, just have Luke and the AT-AT literally just standing there. At the very least, Luke could step forward a little or something. But the important thing is that the minimal-to-no action might help the audience register what the puppets are. Because in the fireball shot, your eyes just sort of follow the action of the puppets, rather than focusing on the puppets themselves. If that makes sense.

And I’ll also make it clearer that Rey is reacting to hearing “Skywalker”.

Yeah, keeping the wide shot on the introduction to the puppets and then zooming in on the fireball shot would be the logical way of doing it.

Makes sense. For the record, I think where “Skywalker” is placed now is fine. Seems like she recognizes it on sight before she hears the name. But could work placed earlier too.

Hopefully you have the 4K footage of the scene to work with RL, would definitely make your life easier.

Someone had to say it!

Flawless! Well done sir

TestingOutTheTest said:

I’ve mentioned this before, but I don’t really like the idea. I feel it’d take away the original point of the scene: to establish the stakes for the movie, hence Rey looking at the children - the future of the galaxy. Terrio even confirmed this in The Skywalker Legacy documentary. Now, it’d just be another reinforcement of Luke’s return on Crait and how it inspired hope.

Honestly man why are you even here. RL just spends all the time making this thing and you chime in with your usual bullshit. Just get the fuck out, don’t troll edit threads if all you’re gonna do every time is say that something is a bad idea.

RogueLeader said:

Here is the puppet show! It’s very short, but hopefully people will think it’s worth all of the effort. I’m sure I’ll need to tweak it some more, so I’m just gonna share a streamable link until it’s finalized.

https://streamable.com/h1f3ot

Also wanted to note who all contributed to this very small edit.
I may be wrong, but I believe DZ-330, Cinefy and DominicCobb all had this idea at one point or another.
Proof of Concept by Cinefy
Clean Stage Plates by poppasketti and MoviesRemastered
Puppet Designs by Captain Faraday
Alien Dub by ThisIsCreation
Produced by RogueLeader

God fuckin damn, everyone pack it up… nothing’s gonna top this. Amazing work.

Knight of Kalee said:

Cinefy said:

I think I missed this change, but does Kylo now refer to General Hux as a Captain? would definately add small bit of development for him in his reason for betraying First Order, other than trying to sabotage Kylo; assuming it would be at “sense unease in my appearance Captain Hux”

That suggestion was originally brought up in the general Redux thread.

I like the idea of demoting Hux to captain, I even ended up making a rough mockup of how it would sound like with help of a fortunate LEGO line.

Of course Hal you can choose to not include this in V2 (after all it’s only a first attempt) but it struck me as an interesting way to make Hux’s heel-face turn slightly more understandable.

Sounds like “Gaptain Hux”… just need to refine the editing but that is actually the right tonality, seems to fit well. Which line is that from?

RogueLeader said:

Haha, a lot of hype for two seconds. 🤣

Filming is complete! I’ll start playing with the footage tomorrow.

Nev, it’s funny doesn’t sound very much like Kylo. Since he’s usually barking order at the captain, I think it’s hard to get that inflection to match with his other dialogue.

According to my very rough log of the Lego lines that I made like a year ago, Kylo says “captain” 17 different times. You gotta think one of them would work, right? Let’s hope. I’ll check this weekend if I get the chance.

Also very excited for puppets.

RogueLeader said:

BrotherOfSasquatch said:

RogueLeader said:

But like I said, I think it could work both ways, but it might work better if that vision’s connection to Kylo isn’t revealed until later. When she shares what she saw with Finn, she is still is trying to figure out what it means. She doesn’t understand the context. So, when Kylo later provides that context (in this case, that they will kill Palpatine and take the throne from him), Rey’s shocked reaction feels warranted. She putting the pieces together, and the fact Kylo saw it too makes it feel scary and inevitable.

Honestly, just got chills from reading this. I love this line of thinking in regards to that scene.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, Sasquatch! Hopefully it will work.

Also, not to derail the conversation, but has anyone tried/considered having Hux being demoted to “Captain Hux” in TROS? Basically, Kylo demoted him for his past failures, and because he doesn’t trust him. Kylo says “Captain” constantly throughout the Lego TFA dialogue, so it would probably be easy to implement.

In Hux’s first scene, Kylo could say, “I sense unease about my appearance, Captain Hux.” The audience would realize Hux has been demoted, and it would explain why he just follows General Pryde around the entire movie, just like how Captain Peavey followed General Hux around in TLJ. Also, this humiliation would provide Hux more motivation to want to get back at Kylo. Kylo humiliated him, and he just wants to humiliate him back.

Huh that’s an interesting idea.

TestingOutTheTest said:

DominicCobb said:

I’ll be honest, I actually do think you can make some logical sense of the original film’s take, even if it’s pretty silly.

Palpatine from the start wants Rey to come to Exegol and take over his spirit. He basically lies to Kylo knowing that he’ll reveal to Rey her backstory which will just make her want to come to Exegol more. Meanwhile he figures that Kylo won’t actually kill her, and even if he does he can just take her place. “You have his power” seems to be more neutrally “you have a lot of power” or something. Even in Kylo’s mind, he doesn’t know about the essence transfer, so if Rey is destined to kill Palpatine then he doesn’t see why Palpatine wouldn’t want to stop it.

Things definitely get more complicated when we start changing things, since most of this logic you kind of have to figure out on your own, it’s not explicitly stated to begin with. I’m gonna have to think this through for sure in terms of where Kylo fits. Is he trying to stop her from killing Palpatine, or is he trying to get her to fulfill the vision. I will say in my version he still doesn’t know about the essence transfer. I kind of like the idea though that he might be trying to stop her regardless. Wonder if we could sneak in a line like “Palpatine is a distraction,” something that gets that point across. So his offer is really more about the dyad thing specifically. I wish we had that oracle scene, apparently it told him about the dyad. Tricky stuff here.

I’m not in love with my bad parents but still revenge solution, but personally I’ve yet to be convinced of a better solution. I don’t believe that Rey having bad parents would be enough to stop her from wanting revenge for their deaths. These are still people she’s been emotionally attached to for almost all of her life, and this is the dark side messing with her mind after all too.

Except the point of her arc in TLJ is that she doesn’t care for them anymore by the end because of everything they did to her, they threw her away like garbage and considered her to be absolutely, inherently worthless. Why would she avenge them after what they did?

Don’t you think TROS is a masterpiece or whatever? Take it up with that movie, not me. I’m just working with what I got.

sade1212 said:

The issue is, of course, the footage and the music. Only “I am all the Sith!” and the back half of “…scavenger girl is no match for the power in me.” have shots of Palpatine’s face, unfortunately; so one of those has to be his last line - unless you choose to put “you are nothing” over the tension-building silence before Rey speaks.

My previous mockup was just done messily in stereo and with music from the OST, so it wasn’t usable in a 5.1 edit. It also noticeably omitted Palpatine’s final thrust of lightning just prior to the big pause and Rey’s lines. Thus, I have produced a second mockup.

This one is clearly much worse paced, with a big awkward silence, but that’s because I’ve kept it 100% in sync with the original version of the sequence for now in order to keep the music entirely intact. The big thing I did with this mockup (besides 5.1) is to combine the ending of the original “I am all the Sith!” Palpatine shot with the “…scavenger girl…” shot, so I could have Palpatine still do his big blast of electricity.

I’ve been messing with “I’m a Jedi” for ages and also am never satisfied with it. No matter how much I shift and fade the clipped up bits of the line, it still sounds hurried - or, at worst, like she’s saying “I’m the Jedi” or bizarrely even “I’m with Jedi”. There’s certainly no way to get her to sound defiant or triumphant saying it, unless you totally replace it, because the original line is said with a sort of subdued surprise.

I think pacing-wise the only issue is a slightly too long gap before “I am all the Sith” and then a much too short gap before “A scavenger girl…” Don’t know how easy it is to play around with, haven’t looked at the scene, but those two things would do it I think.

As for “I’m a Jedi,” honestly I think it sounds totally fine, and I can be picky. I don’t hear “the Jedi” or “with Jedi” at all, even when I specifically try to hear for it. I really don’t think it’d be possible to frankenbite her saying with other sources without it sounding really obvious. Here, the emotion isn’t 100% right but it’s still assertive enough to fit the moment.

sade1212 said:

DZ-330 said:
I think putting “you are nothing” over the silence would be a good idea as Rey would respond more quickly to saying she’s is a Jedi, which I think helps even more to remove the Endgame-ness of it. Are you able to mock that up?

Sure. Here’s a mockup with “You are nothing!” shifted a little later to alleviate the awkward silence, and here’s one with it shifted all the way to the end as DZ suggests. (Edit: maybe it’s a little quiet there, but you get the idea)

I honestly had the thought to put “You are nothing” last earlier, but kind of dismissed it. And maybe there’s a way to make it work but I don’t know. The way it’s said is a little throwaway, and putting it on that shot of Rey just makes it seem even more throwaway.

CaptainFaraday said:

Knight of Kalee said:

I’m fully on board with Ren’s “We can stop him”, Rey’s “I’m a Jedi” and shifting Palpatine’s “I’m all the Sith” to earlier.

I agree too. I still think we can get better sources of Rey saying “I… am a Jedi” though.

Maybe I’m pessimistic, but I’m gonna go ahead and guess it’s highly unlikely there’s any source better than what’s in the scene itself. On the other hand, maybe I’m not pessimistic because I think what we have sounds fine.

I’ll be honest, I actually do think you can make some logical sense of the original film’s take, even if it’s pretty silly.

Palpatine from the start wants Rey to come to Exegol and take over his spirit. He basically lies to Kylo knowing that he’ll reveal to Rey her backstory which will just make her want to come to Exegol more. Meanwhile he figures that Kylo won’t actually kill her, and even if he does he can just take her place. “You have his power” seems to be more neutrally “you have a lot of power” or something. Even in Kylo’s mind, he doesn’t know about the essence transfer, so if Rey is destined to kill Palpatine then he doesn’t see why Palpatine wouldn’t want to stop it.

Things definitely get more complicated when we start changing things, since most of this logic you kind of have to figure out on your own, it’s not explicitly stated to begin with. I’m gonna have to think this through for sure in terms of where Kylo fits. Is he trying to stop her from killing Palpatine, or is he trying to get her to fulfill the vision. I will say in my version he still doesn’t know about the essence transfer. I kind of like the idea though that he might be trying to stop her regardless. Wonder if we could sneak in a line like “Palpatine is a distraction,” something that gets that point across. So his offer is really more about the dyad thing specifically. I wish we had that oracle scene, apparently it told him about the dyad. Tricky stuff here.

I’m not in love with my bad parents but still revenge solution, but personally I’ve yet to be convinced of a better solution. I don’t believe that Rey having bad parents would be enough to stop her from wanting revenge for their deaths. These are still people she’s been emotionally attached to for almost all of her life, and this is the dark side messing with her mind after all too.

The way I see it, the biggest issue with the way you and I have it RL is that Kylo (regardless of whether he knows of the energy transfer) tells her she’ll kill Palpatine and take the throne. She then immediately says she’s going to kill Palpatine. So what’s going on there? Obviously there’s the revenge on the mind potentially, but she should be worried about killing him? It makes sense for later on Ahch-to but…

sade1212 said:

The problem with leaving in “I am all the Sith!” is that Rey’s new “I’m a Jedi!” response has to specifically be to Sheevie’s “a SCAVENGER GIRL is no match for the power in me!” statement, right? (edit: just as the poster above said!) Perhaps swapping Palpatine’s lines would work. Here’s a crude mockup of that idea (forgive the unpolished audio and lack of ghosts).

Edit: Does Rey ever refer to herself as a Jedi before this? I know Luke does, but I think that’s alright. It’s just that for this to land well, I think it has to be a ‘breakthrough’ in her confidence in herself, overcoming that self-doubt (which would be undermined if she’d previously considered herself a Jedi).

I’ve been sort of silently watching these thinking “man, I wish it worked, but it just doesn’t.” But I think this arrangement here actually does it.

This is an interesting idea. I’ll need to sit with it and think about how it factors in to the characters throughout the film.

I suppose since I’ve already cut the bit where Kylo tells Rey they’ll kill him and take the throne, this works. I guess if you think about it with the hangar line changes it’s kind of like Kylo is basically saying Palpatine doesn’t matter? I’ve suspected before that his line on the DS “the only way you’re getting to Exegol is with me” was a dub to remove an earlier version where Kylo doesn’t want Rey to go to Exegol at all. Hmm, how might that idea be accomplished?

Actually perhaps most important this change probably makes more sense in terms of my new version of Rey’s backstory.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

DominicCobb said:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

It’s a sunsRISE, Hal. Ya know, The Rise of Skywalker? Lol.

Semantics aside, I wonder if it was always intended to be one though. Maybe the novelization retconed it to be a sunrise instead of a sunset.

In the film itself is very clearly a sunrise.

Tell that to Dat SW Guy, I agree with you. He’s the one doing the visual effects.

What? I don’t see how that’s relevant to DSWG at all. You said you weren’t sure if it was intended to be a sunrise. I was responding to you. It definitely was.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

It’s a sunsRISE, Hal. Ya know, The Rise of Skywalker? Lol.

Semantics aside, I wonder if it was always intended to be one though. Maybe the novelization retconed it to be a sunrise instead of a sunset.

In the film itself is very clearly a sunrise.