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Hal 9000

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Join date
14-Oct-2003
Last activity
19-Aug-2025
Posts
11,343

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Post
#1422112
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

I’m sorry, but I’ll probably only be minimally involved in this for perhaps a couple weeks.

The castle shot is looking good so far! I guess if it crosses the threshold of being more favorable to most than the current castle shot it should be easy to swap.

I think the camera would need to have some motion, but I know you’re still working on it. The forest shot we currently have has predominately pine trees, and the main scene had only a few. This new shot has mostly non-pine trees. I wonder… could perhaps one or two pine tree elements be tossed in without looking goofy? Just a thought about how it could all come together. Also, one thing I like about the current sequence is going from lava river > lava river and an overlook > burning forest at lower ground. If it’s possible to add some sort of lava element or hint to the shot that’d help sell the sequence.

About the Sith statue, I’d be okay with swapping out a face for a KOTOR reference if anyone does want to do it. I thought the one presented a while back looked fine.

And lol, how many frames of the DSII does the SE have before one could discern whether the praxis ring is present or not?

Post
#1421821
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

My only concern with something fairly vague is that unfortunately we are stuck with a plot point of needing 3PO to translate AND another of using the dagger itself to still get the location to go to. I feel like in order to justify 3PO’s role the translation needs to give them something fairly concrete. If not “go to these GPS coordinates,” then a strong tip that Rey needs to do something or posture herself a certain way with the dagger.

Post
#1421749
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

I see what you’re saying, sherlock, now that I could look at the scene properly. For Rey to be zoned out, it would ideally be the first part of the scene. However, there’s too much time between where that would place “how busted is the landing gear?” and the crash landing for it to register as comedic, not that that needs to be a dealbreaker on its own. As it is in V1, there’s a second or two of breathing room introduced in the transition to arrival on Endor by reversing the final shot of Finn and the establishing shot of space that would be a shame to dump. I imagine it feeling awfully breakneck to smash cut out of that super tight cockpit scene.

It seems to me, and I’m known to be conservative, that our best shot at truly getting away with an alteration is to make it subtle and play nice with how the scene was presented in our source material. Perhaps after the cockpit scene, we cut to the quick shot of the panel that Rey and Finn are working on spark, then the new closeup of Rey as Finn asks, “Endor? You sure?”. In order to work, it cannot linger and should just be a short reprise of the whisper with perhaps a quick flash or something relevant.

I may not be able to do any editing for a bit, but I’ll keeping track and will have some work mapped out when I am able to.

Post
#1421655
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

Hmmmmmmmmm, interesting. Nice mockup, sherlock! I think that could work if perhaps the whisper is not repeated and only said once, and not having a dramatic musical sting that loud. Just a little thing to show she’s lost in thought a moment as she recalls what the dagger revealed.

I don’t think it’s really necessary to move this to before the quick cockpit scene. Feels to me like something better left alone so as to help the rest of what we’re doing to the scene stand up to scrutiny. (Fewer change-liabilities.)

Post
#1421508
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

Nice, everyone. Burbin’s take is something I could imagine reading online after TROS(:A) was released in theaters and find interesting.

And it all seems doable, at least until I have to put the pedal to the metal.

I apologize that I won’t be able to for a little while as I have a lot to try to push through in the next few weeks. But I’ll try to keep tabs and orchestrate best I can until I can do what I need to in the NLE. (In many ways I have the easy job.)

So, it seems the idea is to do the following, and for it to all be coherent:

  • Remove Rey’s two lines when picking up the dagger in two scenes that tie into her parents as well as their screams, replaced with Sith whispers

  • 3PO says he can’t translate the inscription, but doesn’t explicitly mention he knows “exactly where the Wayfinder is.”

  • Redub 3PO reciting the inscription, saying something like “only this blade tells the weirder where to find the Macguffin if they press into the eêëēęvil.”

  • Finn doesn’t mention Endor since 3PO didn’t actually reveal the location.

  • When Rey picks up the dagger again and seems transfixed in Kylo’s emo room, she gets two quick flashes of Endor and/or the DSII

  • As the company heads to Endor, add Finn’s line implying Rey knows and told them their destination. She arrives and follows the dagger. (The line “only this blade tells” she says to herself here might be a tiny bit awakened now, though. Can’t remember the shot but it may be easily removed if it needs to be.”

  • Unrelated logically to the other ideas here, maybe have a touch of Sith eyes on evil Rey.

Am I up to speed?

Post
#1421467
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

^ Sherlock, you talking about having Finn mention Endor while they’re on the way? Yeah, I think that’d be just fine if we go that route.

And it’s all okay if the 3PO dagger idea ends up not working well enough to… work. It’s intriguing at least, but I’m skeptical it could make the dagger thing feel like it was folded into the Wayfinder and feel even more redundant.

Post
#1421448
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

I had to skim the last two pages super fast in order to chime in before the avalanche continues!

Here’s what I’d like to try:

Dub 3PO with a compelling enough voice and sound design to captivate audiences the world over as we see our neurotic metal friend light up with red eyes and speak the Devil’s words. I’d like to avoid having it be any sort of “chosen one” angle. I suppose that because 3PO says, “The location of the Wayfinder has been inscribed upon this dagger,” it means we can’t do something quite so vague as suggesting that the dagger would direct the bearer to the Wayfinder no matter where it happened to be. Which, unless I’m mistaken, is too bad because that would allow us to ditch the idea that Ochi or somebody MADE the dagger to point to the DSII.

Would it be fully coherent across the film to nix the dagger as having the specific geographical location (Endor, the shore) on it at all? Could it be something like “listen to the dagger in your evil heart and it will take you to wherever the Wayfinder happens to be at the moment”? (If that were so, it would probably seem even more silly that there is a macguffin to get to the macguffin!)

Yeah, I guess we’d still have to have the blade plant Rey at the site of the DSII, but dubbing 3PO could allow us to make the implication more clear than in V1 that she is using the dagger mystically. All in order to remove the kind of dumb compass moment. lol