Hal 9000

This probably doesn’t need to be said, but I’d like to anyway, especially as I anticipate a sporadic process of production come April. I’ll truly have to work on stolen time whenever I can get it, and will not be nearly as able to just sit down with ideas, instead having to jot them down and get to them later.

The things that have made for good end results that I’ve been involved in have come from the community, you guys and FE.org primarily. Ideas, visual and audio effects work, refinement feedback, cover artwork, etc.

I hope we can come together to make the best possible fan edit of TROS possible within the sensibilities displayed in the other Hal9000 edits. Though it’ll ostensibly be listed under my screen name, and I’m happy to serve as MC in the interest of executing and completing this, YOU are all Hal9000.

Yeah. It’s not ideal, and I’d have to play with that line to see how it might play without it.

Schemedrick PM’d me an interesting idea about how to restructure Leia reaching out to Ben, in text format. It’s essentially this:

Rey and Kylo are fighting on the DSII.
Leia is shown in silhouette, calling out to Ben.
Ben appears distracted (using shot from right before Han appears).
Leia lays down, holding Han’d medal.
Kylo hears Han address him; “Hey, kid.”
Their conversation plays out, removing direct mention of Leia being gone, right up until Han says “I know.”
Back into reality, Kylo drops his saber. Rey impales him, heals him, and leaves.

It’s a very interesting approach, highlighting the imagery of death and rebirth. In this ordering, Kylo makes his resolution first and is then baptized by Rey in a way. And it’s directly tied in with Leia, making that feel clearer.
I’m not sure it makes good story sense, though, for Ben to be reborn and Rey to immediately flee into self-exile. But it’s something to think about.

I don’t care what they call it or the political implications, I would like to see an extended cut with bits and pieces plugged back in. Doesn’t even need to change anything.

“What she has to do now will take all the rest of her strength” or whatever she says hardly clarifies much. It just says “Carrie Fischer’s character is about to go die.”

Schmendrick said:

@HAL9000

I recently had the great pleasure of watching all your SW work in a 72-hour chronological marathon, culminating in my second screening of TROS.

Thanks for the kind words and I’m glad you enjoyed them!

And I’d be leery of restructuring Leia’s death since I think it was done well, but if an idea has merit once I can actually play around then sure. Moving the Han scene between Leia reaching out to distract him and the actual impaling would higher the idea of Kylo Ren being dead but Ben Solo being alive. It’s an interesting idea.

Maz really was weird in this movie. If it’s smooth to cut her at times like announcing what Leia is doing, I’ll at least try it.

Good call on Luke’s hand making a sound as if catches the saber. I’ll see about that when it’s possible to do so.

I’m not leaning in the direction of changing Rey’s parentage, and I think a simple continuation of Rey Nobody would be the only alternative for me to try. Even ROTS only made the vaguest of allusions to Anakin being a creation of Palpatine. I seem to recall the EU novel Darth Plagueis describing Anakin as being conceived by the Force in response to the shenanigans he and Palpatine were up to with trying to create life. So it’s possible to interpret Anakin not as being Palpatine’s sort-of-son. That’s what I consider the truth, personally.

Thanks, we’ll see if it’s needed.

I’m hoping the right people can be like “well god damn, at least we can put it on the BR” rather than the wrong people being like “ don’t you dare” for political reasons.

God damn, was what I just read about supposed behind-the-scenes studio meddling infuriating.

I hope, however unlikely, that an extended cut is presented. Or that those with the power to do so give us as much deleted material as possible. Sounds like a great deal of it was pretty much finished.

We Star Wars fans seem to be made to suffer. It’s our lot in life.

Can we get a much lower budget episodes 10 to 12 set 100 years in the future directed by Rian Johnson, with story ideas about the Force being front and center? The goal would be to explore the meat of the concepts we’ve been shown and about building the Jedi back up without there being a ‘holy crap bad guy uberthreat.’ Small scale, spiritual stakes on a personal level. Could be made soonish, with the ST characters all having died by that point, but could be referenced or perhaps shown in flashbacks. Luke and other Jedi could always pop in as ghosts, but this would have to be done soonish for much of that.

I might play with using the final bit of music from ROTS to lead into the credits. It’s the regular ol’ Binary Sunset cue and, while it would still be an exact repeat of another movie, it at least wouldn’t be an obvious redo of TFA’s unique final few bars.

When RJ subverted TFA, he did so after having given it a very close reading. There is a great deal of detail carried over throughout. I do not get the same sense about this one.

Well, TROS notwithstanding.

This looks great! Best of luck. 😃

Not that I can think of. Perhaps one of the video games might have something. If I don’t look soon, I’ll look later at some point.

Classic All-American Double Post

Almost anything in that direction would be preferable to what was there, but yeah… pie in the sky it would seem.

Since Kylo was considerate enough to be wearing his mask, I wonder if his line “I never lied to you” could be replaced with something like “You were right.” It would be more consistent with the idea that he had previously only looked into Rey’s mind, and got her to admit what she already knew deep down. (And Rey saw his intentions about her and Snoke.) Stating he never lied would seem to imply he knew before.

Not sure how we’d be able to pull something like that off, and I’m not sure it’s necessary.

PM sent

Thanks, but I’ll be moving forward (with my Custom SE, not this) with the newer Disney transfer.

Luke lifting the X-wing.

Yeah. Old school film composition par excellence as Williams does so well requires having the final edit in front of him to work with.

I guess they needed her parents to be sympathetic in order to fuel a revenge angle for Rey. But, you’d think the Emperor would be enough of a target that it might work without that.

And just to make sure, because this movie went by too fast… is the chronology supposed to be that her parents went to Jakku and sold her to Unkar Plutt, then left in that ship we saw in TFA, then encountered the hunter, got killed, and then the hunter used their ship to go die on Pasana?

What are you looking for, the CG celebration montage followed by Yub Nub?

Totally agree. Any moments of silence that can be contrived would be good for this movie.

I also don’t see a real reason to remove the destroyers rising from the ice.

Maybe one of us could record something to add to the FO boardroom meeting to suggest what Palpatine wants in return is manpower for his fleet. I really like the idea; it makes it feel like his plan did have a valid place for the First Order. Perhaps the fleet is a remnant of Imperial power. Because if it was built by Sith people why does it look like that?

Gimpy said:

Hal 9000 said:

The one that originally featured the line “never underestimate a droid”?

Yes, if you mix the tale end of that scene with “Leia and The Resistance,” you could essentially make a scene where in TFA they intercept a transmission or something, and then Leia sends Kor Sella off to speak to the Republic, to get help.

That’s pretty direct pretty early on in TFA to bring this up so explicitly. Unless you mean to add it to TROS, sort of plugging in the new version of that line into the original scene.