EddieDean

It is kind of amazing. I don’t begrudge Ady at all, since it’s his meticulous dedication that’s making the absolute gold standard for fanedits, but the timescales here (enough to generate nostalgia) are nuts. I’m sure there’re a handful of us that check these threads not far off daily, and yet, for all we know, we’re looking at another decade or so until we see Eps 4 and 6. And yet we’re all along for the ride, because we know Ady is going to deliver something incredible for the amount of time spent.

NeverarGreat said:

EddieDean said:

Can she wake only after the weapon fires (which with yours as with Hal’s, comes after Han’s death)? A bit of artificial camera shake?

Not sure I understand this.

Nor me; I was pretty tired when I posted it and it doesn’t make sense in the light of day.

Can she wake only after the weapon fires (which with yours as with Hal’s, comes after Han’s death)? A bit of artificial camera shake?

I’m just echoing what’s already been suggested, +1ing that idea.

I’m about to have the time and setup to start pursuing a PC-based hobby, and I had thought about getting into fanediting, having been a big consumer for a decade or so. And I’ve been a fan of Smudger’s Clone Wars edits for that long too, advocating them for friends and making guides on what he’s done and where it fits. I can’t promise the community that I’d get to making any edits myself, but I would certainly love to help keep the momentum up on these at the very least, in Smudger’s stead.

Smudger, that’s tragic, this has been a wonderful project for a long time. Totally understandable that you’d want to drop it after these frustrations, but I’d like to echo the request that you share all you can about your plans. If you’re willing, I’m sure there’d be plenty in the community who’d consider picking up the flag (myself included, in the medium term) and perhaps this could become a community project.

Nev, thanks for your responses to my bullets. All clear and interesting. On the Reydream, you say:
“After trying a lot of different approaches to a dream sequence on Jakku, I came to the conclusion that using actual footage of the island was a mistake. At this point in the story Rey should have little to no indication that she is Force sensitive.”

However, we are told in her dialogue (I forget which movie, but it does happen) that she dreams of an island. Explicitly showing her dreaming of an island really doesn’t contradict that. It doesn’t necessarily imply that she’s Force sensitive either, since it’s not confirmed prophecy until she actually goes to Ach-To, which happens after she first actively uses the force.

I went back through your proposed changes, NeverarGreat. The vast, vast majority seem wonderful - this will definitely become my archival version. I have a couple of questions about a few of your items:

• Edit out Finn’s accidental activation of the Falcon’s game table. - I was going to advocate in favour of keeping this (nothing wrong with a cheeky easter egg so long as they’re not overdone), but then realised you are including it as part of Rey’s link with Kylo, which makes a lot of sense. So is the main reason you’re taking it out here just so you don’t repeat a shot? Or for the benefit of not putting a joke in that earlier scene for its tone? Or for using its lightness to contrast with the threat of Kylo overshadowing it in the interrogation? I don’t have an opinion either way, I’m just interested to know the thought process.

• Re-score the in-universe music in Maz’s castle to something more in keeping with the Byzantine decoration. - This is the only one I have a strong objection to! I really love this song. Which is subjective, and perhaps you don’t, but I don’t feel like the song not matching the decor (in a fictional universe only borrowing from our own) is strong enough to justify the change, especially weighed against the quality of the song.

• Kylo’s conversation with Snoke is bereft of Hux’s intrusion. Snoke does not learn the location of the Resistance Base in this film. - Sounds perfectly reasonable since this is using Hal’s edit as a foundation. Do you expect to need to do anything to TLJ (which AFAIK you don’t have plans to touch yet) in order to accommodate this? TESB didn’t need to explain ‘oh btw they’ve been found’, but again I’m just interested to know what if anything your plans are here.

• Remove the final journey to Luke’s island. This material is instead repurposed as the dream sequence preceding the interrogation. The final shot of the film is the Falcon jumping to Hyperspace. - Perfectly good suggestion (coupled with buying the start of TLJ more time for the acquisition of bombers, etc), but again, just interested to know what knock-on effect you think this might have. Do you foresee needing to amend the opening of TLJ to get Rey in front of Luke?

• Edit: You also mentioned withholding the Poe reveal on Takodana. Will you still be showing as much as possible of those lovely water-skimming shots, but just be cutting the cuts to Poe’s face?

To me, the worst worst worst CG in TPM has always been the plains on Naboo where the battle takes place. They’re literally just rolling grass with no features whatsoever, which is what makes them look so odd and unnatural. They’re begging for paths, desire lines, other foliage, buildings, rocks, rivers… just, detail.

That feels very complete in terms of the goal of Starkiller not being a weapon. But with that goal in mind, I still feel like we need to feel the threat of the First Order (ideally, IMO, juxtaposed with Kylo killing Han), and see some largescale destruction they cause such as the earlier idea to have a dreadnought assault, which would necessitate VFX.

I like that, but it leaves Poe with a very light story in TLJ.

For the Hosnian attack by the fleet instead of Starkiller, Dreadnoughts do make sense, and they have those underside weapons for planetary bombardment which do fire a red shot.

I have a simple third option to resolve the eyebrow debate: Under Vader’s helmet he just has another, smaller helmet.

Regarding the Holdo hyperspace ram and the new hyperspace tracking, maybe these could be tied together. I like the earlier suggestion that hyperspace tracking requires something hyperspatial on the tracking ship (rather than the tracked one), but maybe that could become the weakness that the Raddus uses to attack it directly. Perhaps as Holdo prepares the attack, we could cut to a Raddus screen with some imagery making it clear that it’s locked on to the FO ship’s hyperspace tracker. Perhaps even with a further shot of the tracker itself, just to hammer it home. That would neatly explain why this technique hasn’t been used elsewhere, when it seems like such a powerful but accessible weapon.

ChainsawAsh said:

You know, I’d never really thought about it much, but

RogueLeader said:

It would actually feel like the First Order is invading various parts of the galaxy, like the crawl mentioned, if Maz is off somewhere else also fighting them. The last time we see Maz, her home and livelihood was destroyed by the First Order, and she even says that “we” must fight them. Plus, if she is going to be with the Resistance in IX, wouldn’t it make sense to have Maz already be fighting the First Order.

^ that may just have sold me on this being a necessary change.

Yup, that’s me sold too.

I always read Maz’ “union dispute” line as a joke, since she’s clearly not disputing anything. I figured she was just being sarcastic during a gunfight.

I love the Jakku and Takodana ideas. Worth testing the addition of wrecks/statues into a couple of shots?

One change from another fanedit which I always loved, was the idea of placing the Emperor’s Throne Room on the Super Star Destroyer instead of the Death Star II. The editor’s reasoning was that having everyone try to destroy a location which three of your main characters are on takes away some of the jeopardy. He’d changed a shot of the Shuttle Tydirium flying onto the DSII into one of it flying toward the SSD, then added some shots of the DSII flying past the window of the throne room in the background. Really effective.

The comics are a mixed bag - worthless at the worst, though fantastic when they’re good. There’s a sliding scale in fandom’s mind about what content is the most important, for adhering to canon, which goes something roughly like:

• Just the OT
• ^+ the ST
• ^+ the PT
• ^+ the anthology films
• ^+ the more mature TV shows (Clone Wars and Rebels)
• ^+ the supplementary web show stuff
• ^+ books, comics, games, etc
  All editors are targeting a point somewhere on that scale, with the other important metric being quality of the film they’re outputting.

I’m a comic reader so I absolutely get a little mental niggle when I see some reference to canon which a fanedit I like no longer uses - like that Padme’s death one, or having Cornelius Evazan seen on Jedha when he’s not in my version of Rogue One. BUT, I’d always prefer to have a great movie which generates a niggle in a comic over having the movie slavishly adhere to every little element of canon.

I think the TV shows are important enough though to carry a lot more weight when considering whether or not to include something in your fanedit movie canon.

Sorry Hal, it’s not completely clear to me - are your EE versions avialable now?

Certainly interested in the finished version of this. The only thing I’ve seen no mention of which I liked elsewhere was colour correcting the CG replacement actors’ faces to give them slightly more natural hues.

And thanks to the supplementary media (comics, books etc) we now know that to be true. The intervening time period was lousy with ex-Clone-Wars droids being picked up and used by third parties.

^ Third vote in favour! It’s a lovely addition.

You could probably pull together a compelling enough narrative of the Ghost’s crew without Ezra in order to make a decent Rebels movie, then have his introduction later, perhaps reframed more as part of Kanan’s story.

^Or, perhaps, something akin to the Clone Wars TV-to-movie edits, but this time focusing on a different theme or two throughout. The beginning is largely Ezra’s story plus the introduction to the crew of the Ghost, but from then I could see you focusing on other characters or pairings more directly to make more solid movies, until the finale.

I’d also love a link!