EddieDean

Excellent job, everyone.

Atom-88 said:

Hal 9000 said:

Let’s rent out a theater and have a marathon of Starlight, Rekindled, and Ascendant.

+1 this, all the way👍

I mean, we could do this online via Discord at some point…

A couple more loose thoughts, and responses to other feedback in this thread:

• Starlight / Rekindled / Ascendent is absolutely the canon trilogy for me too. I’m ready for that cinema date with you all.
• The additions when Rey touches the Skywalker lightsaber, and Ben and Han touch Ben’s lightsaber, work nicely with your idea to show Ben owning the Skywalker lightsaber in the TLJ flashbacks. Lightsabers are powerful force artefacts, and I like the idea that that gives them a degree of memory/vision. It also could be understood by the viewer as part of what contributed to Ben’s vision of Han on the Death Star wreckage in TROS, since Ben’s wielding the lightsaber that killed Han.
• In TLJ, can we also please get a flash of sith eyes when Rey on Ach-To “goes straight to the dark”, to tie back to this?
• Regarding the tracking device, could we maybe have a cutaway shot of the light turning on (maybe with a ‘turning on’ sound effect), and then when Han’s disabling it, can we do that as a cutaway too (with a ‘turning off’ effect), just to make that point last a little longer?
• On BMadden’s idea to retain the shot of the gang member being punched into the rathtar’s mouth: While I do enjoy that shot, I’d argue that the way the scene is cut now, with far less visible rathtars, still works better, to emphasise the ‘unknown fear’ aspect. They’re scarier in your imagination, and them being scary makes this scene more tense (and valuable) than if it’s more of an ‘adventure’ scene evading a clear creature.
• On the Jakku colouring, as I said previously I absolutely think that this current version of the film should be considered ‘complete’ and cinema-worthy. It’s certainly not broken anywhere, and the existing grade is fantastic. But if we are thinking about potential tweaks to the Jakku regrade, I’d perhaps retain more blueness in the sky so it’s less blown out, tone the white sand down just a little (so there’s just a hint of yellow-brown), and bring some of the remaining yellow-brown sand shots closer to the new white.
• Counter to hinvention’s opinion, I thought that the changes to the dialogue about the Senate/Hosnian system being targeted really worked.

And another review!

The vital:

• This could have been released in the cinema. It’s of absolute release quality, without glitches.
• This edit is absolutely additive, and in my opinion, easily the best version of TFA I’ve seen. Definitely my archival version of the movie herein.
• This was, to my memory, particularly clear. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been specifically focusing on the audio and narrative in my TCW edit, or been thinking about audio balance more recently because Dune didn’t quite nail it, but even compared to my memory of the original film, this was particularly clear and coherent. The edit really spoke very clearly to the audience, and it was always precisely understandable what was happening.

The excellent:

• This edit is GORGEOUS. The colours are beautiful across the board, and I noticed it a lot while watching. They never feel artificial, they’re always just the right side of natural, but the film looks great.
• In particular, the whitening of Jakku works really well, making it feel purgatorial, and then the lush greens of Takodana really feel like a breath of fresh air, which syncs very well with Rey’s emotional experience.
• All of the added voiceover effects are really additive. Kylo interrogating Poe, Rey’s lightsaber visions, Rey tapping into the force to survive on Takodana, Finn’s combat with the trooper on Takodana (seriously, well done here - is this you?), Kylo reading Han and Leia’s doubts.
• The trims and darkening of the rathtar sequence worked really, really well. Far more scary and less goofy.
• Revealing Kylo’s inner conflict and weakness earlier, and his family ties a little later, also worked really well for his character.
• Having Starkiller base spend far longer charging - including the changes from Hal’s Restructured, your extra visuals added in a good few shots to achieve this, and the dialogue changes - all worked to really ratchet up the tension before the double gut-punch when it fires. The trims to the air battle served to keep the focus on our emotional investment characters and keep this part of the plot clear and tight.
• It’s really clear - clearer than the original - that while Rey’s a natural force user, she also gets a lot out of her counter-interrogation of Kylo Ren. The moment with her sith eyes hits EXCELLENTLY well. It’s meaningful and powerfully applied here, but it really serves TLJ’s “you went straight to the dark”, and TROS’ main reveal. Probably the single most additive change in this edit, based on the rest of its trilogy.
• Snoke’s “There has been an awakening” is also way more emphatic of this new interpretation than “It is time to complete his training.”
• The entirety of changes brought this film about as far away as I think it can be from the criticism that it’s a rehash of A New Hope.

The great:

• Nothing in this edit breaks canon - it is purely additive and sits perfectly as a replacement to the original. One of its strengths is the few subtle nods forward which pay off in later movies and will serve to make the entire trilogy feel more coherent and planned in advance.
• The new crawl is simply an improvement over the original.
• The trims to humour, while subjective I’m sure, were spot on for my tastes. It retains a lot of the humour whilst just cutting back on going too far in a couple of places as the original did. A few of the jokes some have traditionally objected to in this movie felt less objectionable in light of the broader tightening. That said, I could maybe have dropped the garbage chute callback.
• Your goddamn etched vision of Ach-To, man. Ridiculously good, and I assume even the first-time viewer would spot that, and then match it with Kylo acknowleding her visions of an ocean, to realise when she reaches Ach-To that she’s naturally strong with the force. (Is this a real object you etched, or just CG?)
• All of your other restored and edited scenes were seamless and additive.
• The trims to have BB-8 not reveal the resistance base worked perfectly.
• The subtle hints at Finn’s force sensitivity are welcome.
• Having Rey run explicitly toward Finn on Takodana served both characters well.
• The tension between Ren and Hux felt sharper.
• The ‘R2 is processing’ scenes work really well.
• Loved the VFX of the shield going down.
• All of the changes to the final lightsaber fight and Starkiller’s destruction are really tight.
• All other edits in the changelog work for the better.

Possible revisions:

• With some of the reordering, it felt like maybe you could have got away with fewer wipes? To me it felt like there were just a couple too many. To my memory, the vertical barndoor open wipe from interrogation to doors on the star destroyer shutting could have gone, and perhaps the sideways wipe from star destroyer to star destroyer as Kylo prays also, since the re-establishing shot would have served the same purpose.
• Some of the wipes felt a little slow, and more feathered from Star Wars’ default. I don’t know if this is just because I’ve obsessed about it from my TCW edit - and I appreciate that the franchise isn’t consistent here - but I found that the maximum length of a wipe would be 14/23.95ths of a second, when horizontal, and less otherwise. Though that was with the TV aspect ratio. The two wipes I felt could be served better by being faster and with less feathering (perhaps nearer 0.2 than 0.5) were the iris out from the Star Destroyer back to Jakku, and the transition (I forget which) from Starkiller base surface to the control room.
• In terms of audio balance, as I’ve said, it’s really, really good and clear. Though I felt like the voices on D’Qar were a little too quiet, so I’d maybe bring those up by 15-25%, and conversely the music and some SFX on Starkiller base, especially out in the open and in the control room, could have done with a bit more punch, so I’d perhaps bring those up by 15-30% where that doesn’t drown out the voices.
• While I loved the whitening of Jakku, and you balanced that well with keeping some sandy yellow-brown versus the white, there were a couple of sandy yellow-brown shots earlier on that I would have pulled closer to your purgatorial white. This includes the initial shots, the shot of Rey’s home in the fallen AT-AT, and Finn’s dawn shots.
• It wasn’t completely clear to me about Han’s tracking device on the falcon. You could perhaps draw this out a little more to make it clearer for the audience.
• When you split Rey trying to escape, the tension is higher, but the stormtrooper does say “I’ll tighten your restraints” while not moving. You could have him ignore her the first time (perhaps just saying “dirty scavenger”), then have him say “I’ll tighten your restraints” when he approaches her, for more tension before she goes all peaceful with her successful mind trick.
• There was one final shot of the D’Qar celebration where Rey and Leia are celebrating, where you can see Chewie (or at least some wookiee) at the edge of frame. You could maybe trim this just to completely take him out of this scene, so the first time we see him after Han’s death is his proper mourning shot.
• I didn’t spot the binary beacon at all, though I was looking for it. Could it be brought more to the foreground?

Goddamn. Genuinely, this edit made me fall back in love with Star Wars again, and I can’t credit you for it enough. When Star Wars hits good, it hits real good, and this edit really gets that. Thank you so much for this incredible suite of passionate and respectful changes.

That’s the one! That little hint of orange in the forest shot really does it, I think.

I’d really appreciate that, thanks! I’ll let you (all) know when I’ve finished this current episode, and that’ll give an ideal block.

Ah, brilliant! So essentially with the oscillator changes you’re forecasting that we’ll eventually care more about the New Republic. Nice. I’ve long hoped that we’ll get similar pre-payoff for Snoke and returning Palpatine via the wider universe, too.

Thanks guys, good notes. Is the transition otherwise OK? Does it feel natural? Does it breathe for long enough?

I’ve just smoothed out the very opening of this episode, so all I’ve got left to do here is a full check-through, particularly on keeping the audio fluid throughout. I’m very close to having the first half-season mini-arc completed, which is a mental milestone for me at least!

I’d love it if anyone was up for reviewing the first five (six if you count the Tartakovsky episode zero) episodes as a whole, since it’s very important to me that the introduction to TCW:R for the theoretical first time viewer (who probably has heard that TCW sucks to begin with) is as good as it can possibly be for convincing an audience that this show is worth watching.

I haven’t yet watched this, but I’ve been looking over the changelog.

I can’t quite visualise this one from Visions:

• Change the Starkiller Firing sequence and Oscillator destruction so that Poe’s final bombing run doesn’t destroy the Oscillator. Instead, the weapon fires at the end of Rey’s and Kylo’s battle and the force of the weapon completes the Oscillator destruction.

What’s the motivation behind this change, and why it’s only in Visions as opposed to Starlight core?

And presumably the other two changes in Visions, where Rey only dreams of Luke rather than visits him, are so that a theoretical TLJ edit can imply more time has passed on Ach-To for Rey’s training?

Double Christmas!

Hal 9000 said:

Mustafar sequence, proposed as final:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UJwqxMyGw1DnzUXtjjo0Lc0wuyDdMvZD/view?usp=sharing

It’s got skenera’s LUT applied as well, so it’d be about how the final, cc’d fan edit will be.

I’ve deliberately stayed away from this discussion so that I could come into the final shot with fresh eyes. I think this is serviceable for sure, and certainly a marked improvement over the original, but coming into it fresh, I felt a little disconnect between the Vader’s castle shot and the following forest flyover. Vader’s castle shot does end by showing some forest behind, but it’s very blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. And then the forest flyover does look appropriate, but doesn’t feel very ‘lava-y’.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, with these establishing shots, we’re trying to take the viewer on this journey:
Red Planet > Vader’s Castle (oh it’s Mustafar!) > Volcanic terrain > Ruined forest > Kylo in the forest (oh Kylo’s doing something to do with Vader!)

But the transition from volcanic to forest could do with just a little more to keep that mental transition smooth.

I’d suggest, if possible, one (or both) of the following:

• A little more time from the biomes shot lingering on the forest.
• In the forest shot, a hint of lava - not necessarily in the middle of frame, but a nice shock of orange somewhere onscreen.

GMatias said:

NeverarGreat said:

Further thoughts on changing The Force Awakens to serve TLJ, I could place some of the footage of the Raddus going to hyperspace into the destruction of the Hosnian system.

It might be going too far to show Holdo staring out of the window at the approaching lasers, but even placing the TLJ ships in the distance going to hyperspace in this shot would help.

If we see Holdo in this sequence, then the only dialogue necessary for the previous scene would be ‘General, the Republic is scrambling the fleet to assist us’.

Not sure if you ever got around to doing this, but I banged out a mockup of this idea tonight using the HAL9000 Hosnian destruction sequence as a base.

https://vimeo.com/503989106

Wasn’t until rereading the post just now that I realized I explicitly have Holdo looking out the window at an approaching laser (!) but I think it still works 😃

Now that Nev’s TFA:Starlight is complete, I’ve just come here, and I can’t believe I missed this post even though it’s nearly a year old. I think this is a brilliant nod forwards that helps achieve more of that cohesive continuity that the sequels lacked.

Anyway, I mainly came here to ask, Nev - while TFA:Starlight was largely built on HAL’s TFA:Restructured, what would you use as your base for TLJ? HAL’s TLJ:Legendary is great, but there’re other edits to TLJ which have built on that base, like Poppasketti’s TLJ:Rekindled.

IT’S CHRISTMAS!

I’ve been excited about this for the longest time. A version of TFA that builds on Hal’s restructured (already the best fundamental TFA) to make TFA stronger both as its own story and in light of what we know now that the sequel trilogy is complete. I can’t wait to watch this.

It’s the “Two weeks later” text. On one it fades out, whereas on the other it disappears when the shot changes.

Barely anything needs done to this episode, save light polish. I’ve made progress on the key fixes:

1. Here’s the new version of the scene where Fives and Echo meet Ninety-Nine again. In this edit they don’t imply they’ve been away for ages (it’s only been a couple of weeks), and Ninety-Nine doesn’t show off the medal he got from Hevy (since Domino Squad failed their training). From my original edit, I’ve cleaned up the shot where Echo moved his mouth without talking, and also had the music match the emotion onscreen better.

2. Here’s the new version of the transition from Clone Cadets to Rookies. Version one has a fade out on the “two weeks later” text, version two doesn’t. Which one do you think works best? The audio transition here (from the emotional rise into the drumbeat) I think is about as good as I can get it without going very radical to replace it, because after that point it gets problematic. Pulling the drumbeat forwards informed the rest of the edits to the scene.

I’ve also replaced the audio, which fixes all of the popping noises.

Nearly there with this one.

Yeah, I like all of these ideas folks, thanks!

Initially I wanted to highlight the 501st and Rex with ‘celebrated’ and ‘heroic’ to give a little context (since they’re not in the movies), but I agree they’re a little soft. Perhaps instead I’ll take the opportunity to make it clearer that they’re Anakin’s legion.

“As Anakin and his decorated 501st Legion widen the net, his trusted CAPTAIN REX inspects the Republic’s long-range listening stations.”

Cleanup and a little light polish to v2.0 standard for s01e05 THE 501st LEGION now.

Here’s the crawl as I currently have it:

• Conflicts erupt in the early days of the Clone Wars.
• With Nute Gunray freed from Republic custody by the assassin Asajj Ventress, Anakin is no closer to capturing General Grievous.
• As Anakin and the celebrated 501st Legion widen the net, heroic CAPTAIN REX inspects the Republic’s long-range listening stations.

– new page –

• Meanwhile, facilities on the ocean planet Kamino rush to grow and train new CLONE BATCHES to meet the growing demands of war.
• The cadets of DOMINO SQUAD are struggling in their combat training, and risk a lesser assignment far from the front lines.
• But Count Dooku still plans to stop the Republic army in its tracks.

THE CLONE WARS
THE 501st LEGION

Now, there’re a couple of things I’m not quite sure of.
(1) Should I be saying BUT the cadets of Domino Squad…? I’m tending towards not, because it’s not exactly a counter to the sentence before, since they’re just one squad rather than the current Kamino output.
(2) The last line I’m not too sure what to do with. I’d like to set up the big reveal without spoiling it. Count Dooku is technically pulling the strings, but it’s more the fact that Grievous isn’t so much on the run (as the Republic thinks he is) as totally ready to invade Kamino that’s the reveal. Perhaps ‘But Grievous still intends to wipe out every last clone…’, hearkening back to his strategy to attack the clone medical stations in Malevolence?

Anyway, onwards to minor polish!

(RE)RELEASED - S01E04 - Assassin (V2.1)

• RELEASE VERSION, now brought up to my more polished 2.0 standard.
• Our fourth episode of the first season (I’ve shifted the first season around, so check again if you’ve seen this one before).
• Comprising content from the episode originally called Cloak of Darkness.
• Running 22 minutes.
• DOWNLOAD LINK is in the tracker spreadsheet, PM me for access.
• Note: It’s recommended that you download this before watching, rather than streaming it directly from Google Drive.

This is a largely untouched version of Cloak of Darkness. It was a middling episode, but with a good focus on Ahsoka and some decent development for her, which deserves early inclusion, plus a good highlight on Ventress which I’ll have pay off in the next episode. It suffered from its core plot being a bit disinteresting, but I’ve remedied that a little by making it more relevant to the current plotlines for my first season.

Noteworthy changes:

• The episode is titled ‘Assassin’, to highlight Ventress as a villain here, and to emphasise the threat to Ahsoka.
• It’s now recontextualised (via the opening text and some subtle new audio) to fit here in the story. In this context, Nute Gunray is wanted specifically because the Republic are undertaking a major hunt for Grievous and he may well know his location.
• In the opening text I also lightly reference Ryloth, which will pay off later.
• I rearranged a couple of intro scenes to best frame the whole story as Ahsoka’s reactions to Venress/Separatist actions, and to frame Ventress as a major focus. Sidious doesn’t refer to Ventress’ failiures, though he still implies some uncertainty, which’ll pay off later.
• I tightened up a few scenes to make them flow together better and give us less jumping around.
• I amended some dialogue so that there’s less name-calling and a little more maturity and competence from Ahsoka, while preserving the slightly careless boldness which she has at this time in the story.
• I also used the opening text and some subtle audio changes to emphasise the angle that the Republic may be infiltrated quite heavily by Separatist spies already this early in the war (as originally hinted at, but never expanded on, in the Malevolence arc).
• I also tweaked audio a little to remove some of Ventress and Ahsoka’s familiarity, which was never justified in the original episode as they were never seen meeting before this. Now, it’s implied that Ventress is known to the Jedi, but not that she’s clashed with Ahsoka.

This one’s all done now, so I can move on to what should be just some minor changes to The 501st Legion before working on the somewhat more complex edits to Resistance on Ryloth.

I’ve just watched through, and in VLC the audio did feel off by about 100ms. Though I do often find that playing in VLC, you sometimes need to tweak the sync in playback. Did you watch in VLC?

I’m not sure about that final note, but I’ll check it.

Either way, I have some more time today to work on those last couple of bits of audio I’d like to add, but I feel like this is close to release.

That’s really useful insight Paja, thanks!

Anyway folks, apologies for the confusion last week, I was on holiday and didn’t get things quite right.

Either way, now for real:

Workprint released - s01e04 - Assassin (v2.0)

The episode formerly known as Cloak of Darkness.

It’s a trimmed and polished version of the trimmed and polished original edit, with a few suggested tweaks such as reordering of the opening scenes, tighter dialogue, and slightly tighter characterisation. In context we’re interrogating Nute Gunray to get Grievous’ location, which makes it far more compelling than the original as it ties into what we’ve established as the key thrust of the first half of season one, and will be paid off next episode.

I’m interested in your feedback as ever!

All actual edits are final, but I’m still just calling this a workprint for now, as I need to source a few more bits of audio:

• Ahsoka shouting “Assassin” at Ventress when she ignites her blades against her (I can probably source this from the actual episode originally called Assassin)
• Anakin saying “Ahsoka” softly, to replace “I’m sorry Master”/“It’s OK, Snips”, becuase I don’t feel like ‘Snips’ is quite right in that context.
• A slightly better fitting (more final/punctual) “You” for Ventress’ “Skywalker’s not here to save you.”

Shouldn’t take long to finish off, though if any of you know of good sources of that audio I’d be appreciative.

As an aside, with the news that Hayden might appear in the Ahsoka show, I guess the fire’s really lit under me to keep the pace up for this show now!

Excellent, thanks Paja! I haven’t changed much of the original order at all, but have some questions!

• Did you feel, in this batch, like the Maul content worked as standalone episodes, or would you rather have merged it?
• Same question for the whole show.
• Did the Mortis arc feel like it belonged here, as a dark hint at things to come? Or did it feel like it belonged earlier?
• Did Scipio feel like an appropriate first episode after Ahsoka’s fall, or would another have served better? (There is no episode where Anakin outright addresses it emotionally)
• Did the first Yoda episode feel like it should have been merged with the later three?
• Did you watch the Son of Dathomir audio comic? Did you think it was necessary? Good?

Yeah, really nice idea!

I think you’re pretty safe! Their opening narration may mention events you’ve not seen, but I definitely don’t think anything is broken by them. I’d be really interested to hear how you think they all flow as the run-up to the end of the show, so please feed back!

Ah, right you are. I must have not launched this one properly. I’ll fix it when I can, watch this space.