At around the midpoint of Luke’s lightsaber confrontation with Vader in ESB, the scene freezes, and this text appears on the screen:
To find out if Luke Skywalker defeats Darth Vader, visit (insert website here).
Roll credits.
My understanding for the second line when he says “look what you have made”, my initial thought was he was talking to the sith cultists whom are watching this from the stadium. Since they nursed him and are the laborers that brought about his ressurection, he was referring to that. That was my thought since the next shot is the sith cultists bowing to him while palpatine is standing gloriously to them like hes a super star lol.
Is it wrong that your explanation justifies my decision to remove it even more? 😆
At last, at long last, we arrive at the screencaps for my fan edit of Episode VII.
So, for starters, let me state what’s been changed in the color grading. The first thing I’ve done is remove the bluish tint in the black levels, as it wasn’t as accurate to a film look as I originally thought. The next thing I’ve done is pick one of the three looks that I’ve described in my last post. I wanted to apply the blue look, but due to Jakku and Artan42’s advice, I’m going with the orange look instead (Oh well, I suppose there’s always VIII and IX to play around with for that look). As you might’ve figured out, a lot of the blues have been desaturated this time around, but I think the results for Jakku, Takodana, and the Starkiller Base are sparkling. You be the judge.
As before, I have placed the comparisons under the spoiler tag below. The top image is the grade I had originally:
The bottom is the newer grade I’m considering:
Which one do you like more? Feel free to post your thoughts.
Found the time! Now, before I show the actual comparisons, I feel it’s wise if I talk about what I’ve been researching in regards to 35mm color. If you want to skip the boring stuff, the screencap comparisons will be in my next post, which will be posted very shortly.
I found out a few weeks back that there are a bunch of 35mm scans for movie trailers on YouTube. Since that finding, I’ve been watching a bunch of these trailers and analyzing color schemes and tints. I then managed to find a way to analyze these trailers with the scopes I use for color grading in DaVinci Resolve thanks to a little Linux program called VLC Media Player (Don’t worry. I’m not gonna steal anybody’s work. This was done for research purposes and research purposes only. I will not export the files online, I promise). I only got to study them in 1080p, but it’s the closest I’m gonna get to analyzing a 35mm film. Unless by some coincidence I’m able to create my very own Gugusse Roller, like this very talented individual did:
http://www.deniscarl.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start
Still, that’s one expensive toy, and I can’t afford to make one. So this is the best I can do for now.
Okay, that’s enough talk about what I’ve been doing. Here are my findings.
Over the course of what I’ve researched, I’ve found three different film looks. The orange look, the blue look, and the pale violet look. I was surprised to find that I could get the looks of all three simply by adjusting the RGB values of the gain feature in the SDR color wheels on DaVinci Resolve. Let’s break down all three individually.
Before I begin, let me state that the trailer links you will find below are from the original creators and YouTubers themselves. I will never post or share what I’ve been playing around with online (or on my own YouTube channel, for that matter) as a means of respect to the original creators.
Also, in case some confusion occurs, yes, most of these trailers have a combination of some or all of the three looks. However, the trailers themselves often have a bias towards a particular look. So, keep that in mind.
The first look I’m going to tackle is the orange look. I was able to create this one by raising the red levels and lowering the blue levels in the RGB section of the gain feature in Resolve. Here are some 35mm film trailers that are geared more towards the orange look:
Star Wars Episode I (Czech trailer):
https://youtu.be/MZ5535zw73A
Strange Days
https://youtu.be/vK3KZiJSFHs
Inspector Gadget
https://youtu.be/ld4cYRaxVFg
Power (This trailer is mostly black and white, but the titles and credits are tinted towards orange. I checked)
https://youtu.be/qX4dhN0Oh3Q
Next is my favorite. The blue look! This one was achieved (sort of) by doing the opposite of the orange look. I lowered the red levels and raised the blue levels in the RGB section of the gain feature in Resolve. Here are some trailers that are (mostly) the blue look:
The Golden Child
https://youtu.be/buGu93tmBqY
Judgment Night (This one’s got a lot of the orange look too, but the blue scenes are a good approximation of what I’m aiming for)
https://youtu.be/TPqsPcT-gVQ
Star Wars Episode I (US Trailer. You can watch the Czech trailer for a good comparison between the two looks, although I will agree that the orange look wins in this comparison)
https://youtu.be/RnhqwRQf04A
George of the Jungle
https://youtu.be/UXoAn6a8zt0
Darkman
https://youtu.be/W8oGHvO2RgU
Finally, we stumble on the lesser known look. I call it the pale violet look, because that’s kind of the effect it brings when I see it. This one is rarer than the other two, but a few popular movies in the past did use it. Mostly in the sci-fi genre. This look was achieved by raising the red levels and lowering the green levels in the RGB section of the gain feature in Resolve. Here are two trailers that mostly took this unusual route:
The Matrix (Before it got the green color grading applied to it)
https://youtu.be/8GdG4Ryt9ro
Galaxy Quest
https://youtu.be/WwzeYUhGpB0
So there you have it! Now you have an idea of what I’m hoping to achieve with the color grading of Episode VII. Come back in a bit and the screencap comparisons will be posted.
I heard The bad things About The 4k Transfer.
Whats The Best Transfer out there?
Good question. Most transfers of T2 on blu-ray are, sadly, not up to snuff. I already did my own fanedit from my 2009 Skynet Edition, and I’ve heard that it’s the best transfer here in the States (I’m not sure about anywhere else, though). Even with that, I still did my own color grading to fix some of the issues with the transfer.
I’m not sure there is a “perfect” transfer out there for T2 in HD, and it’s sad because it’s a film that deserves a great release at worst.
Cut out two more Palpatine lines. “You will be empress. We will be one.” The word “empress” got repetitive in my edit, so I cut it out.
The other line is “Look what you have made!” after he’s restored to full strength. Looking back, that line doesn’t make any sense. Neither Rey nor Kylo consented to getting their life force sucked out of them, so if anything, Palpatine telling them they made this is dumb (either that, or he’s just being an abusive psychopath. Either way, it doesn’t make much sense to keep it in, especially since it sounds like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon).
Just removed a few minor things from the first 20 minutes. The last two lines during Kylo Ren’s first meeting with Palpatine, “She is not who you think she is.” and “Who is she?” have been taken out in continuity with my Episode VIII edit. The way I edited the Kylo/Rey dynamic in the previous film implies that Kylo already knew who Rey’s family was, so he doesn’t need ol’ Palpy to confirm this. This means that the final line in the opening Palpatine scene is now “End the jedi, and become what your grandfather, Vader, could not.”, placing a lot more emphasis on Kylo’s motivation by the end of the scene.
I’ve taken out Rey’s parroting of Leia’s line, “Nothing’s impossible…” So now, the conversation begins with Leia saying, “Nothing’s impossible.”, followed by Rey adding on, “But around the training course.” Same point, but with less repetition.
I also decided to remove Rey’s “Never underestimate a droid.” line during the Pasaana chase, along with Rey’s “Not now, BB-8!” So now, the whole “never underestimate a droid” bit is out of my edit. I still have BB-8 being useful during the chase, though.
I think there’s two directions you could go with it:
One, you leave as much of Finn in as possible in the Crait Battle. That’s basically what I did - I cut it all down as much as possible, but I didn’t really change any of Finn’s parts. If you have a look at my workprint you’ll see how I handled it (and I can always send it to you at native resolution if you wanted, but I’m working in DVD quality, which I think is lower resolution than you are).
Two, you go the other direction, and trim as much of Finn out as possible. This would gel with him being absent from the rest of your edit; treat him like Rose in TROS, a main character in the previous film, now a minor Resistance character.
Or, if you want to split the difference down the middle, keep him in the Crait Battle as much as possible, but leave his suicide run out entirely. Poe tells everyone to pull back, then the next time we see him is back inside the mine talking about the vulptexes. Since he’s absent from your version, his suicide run isn’t the thematic resolution to a journey he’s been on, so leaving it might feel weird.
Just did an exhaustive re-edit of the Crait battle, and so far, I’ve gotten it down to mostly Finn, with Poe occasionally mentioning something important. Still, I’d love to take a look at your workprint just in case I’ve missed something (Which I might have). Oh, and it’s okay if it’s in DVD quality. My computer is running out of storage space at the moment.
With the “two endings” thing, I found that extremely truncating the speeder battle on Crait helps a lot. You’re not asking the audience to emotionally engage in a third big battle with fresh stakes all over again, and, it keeps the energy up briefly while saving the emotional investment for Luke vs Kylo.
I like this idea, and in some other edit, I think it would work very well. However, because of what I’ve done with Finn (he’s resurrected just before the little transports fly off for Crait in my version), the speeder battle is now the only scene where he gets to do anything. I don’t feel comfy cozy removing a lot of stuff from that battle and giving Finn nothing to do on Crait.
Maybe I can salvage it a little by placing as much of the focus on Finn (and bringing back some of the footage of him that I’ve deleted so far), while leaving everyone else during the speeder battle on the cutting room floor as much as possible. I would still have to come up with an explanation for Rose crashing into him, though. Maybe I can turn it into an accident with some careful editing.
I’m not sure if it’ll work, but I’ll give some time to entertain this train of thought.
Just made a few more tiny changes to the opening space battle. I’ve cut out the last remnants of Poe waiting for the X-Wing to charge up so he can take on the dreadnought. It wasn’t needed that much, and I don’t think anyone will miss it that badly.
I’ve also taken out the lines, “He’ll never penetrate our armor.” and “He’s not trying to penetrate our armor. He’s clearing out our surface cannons.” These two lines are a little too exposition-heavy, and our focus needs to be more on Poe at the moment.
I’ve also trimmed the shot of all the bombs dropping out of Paige’s ship by a few seconds so that it doesn’t drag too long.
I’d love links to your edits as well (and/or workprints) when they’re available, please. The changelist has a lot of cuts I’d enjoy seeing how you’ve executed.
The workprints are available. They’re incomplete, unpolished, and I’m still making changes even now, but they do give you a general idea on where I’m going with the sequels. I’ll send you a PM shortly. If you catch anything in the plot that needs improvement, feel free to let me know. 😃
Replace all the flyby sounds with variations on the “Mario’s going to fly for you” airplane sound.
Biggs: Ow! I hit my nose!
Just did some more research on 35mm film color, and I came up with a bit of an idea for the color grading again. I’m not sure if I’ll go along with it, but I’ll post some screencap comparisons when I find the time.
I decided to do something a little… Unusual. I exported my edit to an MP4 file, then I started a new editing project on DaVinci Resolve, added the MP4 file, and started reworking the edit by moving the Yoda scene. This gave me a quick and easy way to access both the original and HAL9000/Poppasketti ideas for Yoda’s scene. I sat down and watched the HAL/Poppasketti version, which moves the Yoda scene to just before the Crait battle. Here are my thoughts at the moment.
The second half of the film has been the most challenging part of the edit so far. A lot of this has to do with the film’s unusual structuring job. In most movies, there’s only a need for one final showdown, not two. Unfortunately, there’s no way to really fix that gaping issue, because the first ending takes you into the second ending. So, my hope was high that moving the Yoda scene might fix that issue. And to my disappointment, it didn’t.
I don’t think it’s a bad change, per se. Moving Yoda’s moment does an interesting job at making a lot of things take place over the course of one night, which strangely enough, gave the film a faster pacing. I was surprised that Luke’s scene when he wakes Leia up from her coma actually worked well, especially since it’s placed after the “caretaker village sequence” deleted scene I’ve added in. The end of that scene, where Rey gets mad at Luke for abandoning “some old failed husk of a religion” gives the next scene, where he communicates with Leia, some much-needed character development for Luke.
And yet, the whole thing just felt so… Off. Like I said, the edit still suffers from the hair-pulling double ending, and I’m not sure there is a way to fix it even with the placement of Yoda. I suppose the advantage is that the two endings now take up roughly the second half of the movie, while previously, it took up the last 45% of the film, but the structure still feels a little messy. I think I’ll go with the HAL/Poppasketti arrangement, but I’m not gonna call it a life saver for the movie. I’ll see if I can come up with more ways to fix the structure of the film before I commit to the HAL/Poppasketti arrangement.
A more radical edit of Rise of Skywalker? Yes, please!
I just rewatched Hal’s Ascedant cut (V1) and while I feel that it’s a huge improvement and possibly close to the best a conservative edit could do, there were still way to many moments of me not caring at all or just rolling my eyes heavily. At the very least a third of the movie felt like dead weight to me, if not more. Getting rid of a lot of the jokes and sidequests and keeping the focus on the Kylo/Rey dynamic seems like a great idea, as the latter was the only part I found interesting. So I’m very curious about your version.
I hope it lives up to your expectations! 😃 I’ll be happy to send you a PM when it’s released.
Anakin: You’re a Jedi Knight, aren’t you?
Qui-Gon: What makes you think that?
Anakin: I saw your laser sword. Only Jedis carry that kind of weapon.
Qui-Gon: I killed a Jedi and took it from him.
Music stops. Cut to reaction shot of Anakin.
While I’m still thinking about what to do with Yoda, I’ve moved General Hux’s exposition-heavy scene regarding why the First Order can’t blow up three tiny cruisers to another spot. The original placement occurred rather awkwardly, because it occurs after Leia gets blowed up real good. I’ve moved Hux’s scene to the beginning of the battle, just after Poe gets permission to “jump into an X-Wing and blow something up.” This placement feels more natural, and with my removal of the flying Princess Leia moment, Leia and pals getting the explosion treatment becomes the end of the scene, throwing quite an emotional impact on the audience.
Well, that was faster than I thought. Turns out all I had to do was remove Snoke’s long speech about how Kylo won’t change and how he can sense Kylo turning the lightsaber and blah blah blah blah blah. It’s nowhere near as polished as HAL9000’s edit, especially without the musical cue, but I’m not HAL, and I don’t consider myself an expert at those kinds of musical tricks. As long as it works, and it gets the same point across, it’s good.
Another thing I’m reflecting over after watching HAL’s edit of VIII is where to place Luke’s meeting with Yoda. If you watch the workprint, it’s the theatrical placement, right after Rey leaves the planet. HAL9000 took a different approach by moving that scene to just before the Crait showdown. It works for HAL, because his approach was geared more towards Luke Skywalker. However, it may not work so well for my edit due to the more ambiguous tone I plan to set for the ending. My ending isn’t quite as centered on Luke, and gives things more of a “cliffhanger” feel due to leaving the plot of Rey and Kylo up in the air by the time the credits roll.
I also wanted to move the scene where Luke uses the force on a hospitalized Leia to just after Luke’s meeting with Yoda, showing the beginning of his change (Something that another fan editor did, but I can’t remember who, unfortunately). Moving the Yoda scene near the Crait battle scraps that idea, because Leia is no longer unconscious by that point in the film.
I’m torn on this one. On the one hand, I can see how moving that scene would be nice for structural reasons, but I’m not sure it works for the direction I have in mind for my edit. I’m curious about what others think. Should I rip off HAL again, or stick with the theatrical direction?
I’d say that addresses my issues, especially Starkiller Base. It looks better on the skintones as well.
Good to hear! Thanks for the advice. It was very helpful.
Just watched HAL9000’s fan edit of TLJ, and I liked the approach to
Snoke’s death
enough that I wanted to try a similar thing with my edit of VIII. I’m not sure how I’m gonna do it, but I’ll think of something.
Back from work. As promised, here are the screencaps I’ve assembled for Jakku, Starkiller Base, and jolly old England. The top example is the previous grade, while the bottom example is the correction. Click on the spoiler tag below to see what’s changed.
Change Rey’s final line in TROS to “Rey Lannister.”
Can I have a link as well?
I think the colour grade is an overall improvement, I’ve never been a fan of the technical side of Abrams’ films (colourgrade, too fast cameras, weird zooms, etc.).
There’s some that look off, Jakku looks too much like Tatooine when it’s more yellow than orange (orange, red, and yellow are the only ways of distinguishing between Tatooine, Geonosis, and Jakku), Starkiller base looks far too green (the exterior) for me personally and the naturalistic lighting on the last picture makes it look too much like England.
Overall it works on every other scene.
You make some good points. Although Jakku has always been Tattooine 2.0 for me (For better or for worse. Mostly worse). I never saw the difference between yellow and orange on Jakku and Tattooine. They both looked similar to me, with the difference being that one is less sandy than the other. The reds of Geonosis, however, those I see clearly.
Anyway, I think most of your criticisms can easily be resolved by increasing the reds and blues in the white levels of the image. I’ll make that adjustment now, and when I get a day off or two from my job, I’ll be happy to throw in some more screencaps.
Changes updated!
I suppose now is a good time to talk about the color grading. Because I’ve been working on that too while checking for any other little details I might have missed.
I decided to try a similar approach as I did with my Terminator 2 fanedit. I was pleased with the way the color grading turned out for that edit, and I was planning on doing a similar thing for the sequel trilogy. That is, doing a LUT with a powergrade. I’ll let these YouTube videos explain the basics:
https://youtu.be/mt4FMClxhbc
https://youtu.be/PchQ0fWGUR0
These sequel trilogy fanedits will also be the first time I’ve used DaVinci Resolve’s all-new “HDR DaVinci Wide Gamut Intermediate” color processing mode. I’ll let this YouTube video explain the boring stuff:
As explained in the above video, this is a good alternative to LUTs. Back when I announced the workprint, I mentioned that I used a Kodak D55 LUT for Episode VII. This is no longer the case, as I had a lot of trouble working on the color grading. So, I’ve ditched the LUT for DaVinci Wide Gamut instead. My apologies for those with the workprint, but it wasn’t working for me. Grading has been much easier for me with the DaVinci Wide Gamut.
One last thing I should mention is that I’ve added a fifth node to the four node process mentioned by Mononodes in YouTube video #1. The fifth node is midtone detail. I loved cranking that sucker up for Terminator 2, and it made the edit look extremely detailed.
For comparison, here’s what my powergrade looks like without the MD:
…And here’s the powergrade with the MD set to 100:
I will be comparing my color grading with the 2016 blu-ray, as that’s the version I own. Overall, I don’t think the changes will be gigantic, as I thought the blu-ray looked good enough. The only difference is that I wanted to make it look more film-like. So, I got Puggo Grande’s 16mm preservations of the OT, and looked at them for reference. Episodes V and VI looked way too red, so I stuck with Episode IV for reference. I went all the way for starters, but it looked too blue, so I’ve adjusted that and made the black levels only faintly blue. I also went and adjusted the white levels towards the slightly green side as best as I can. Then, I raised the gamma for the finishing touch. Most of the screencaps will demonstrate the bluer and greener sides of my color grade, so keep that in mind while looking at the comparisons.
Here’s the blu-ray:
Here’s my personal spin with all adjustments accounted for:
You will find the remaining comparisons in the spoiler tag below. The blu-ray example is the top example, and my adjustments are the bottom example. Let me know what you think, and if anything needs improvement (gulp).
