A quick thought before I have to run off for the day. The Canto Bight casino scene now seems to be a big joke, but in a good way. There’s a long establishing shot, immersing us in the environment, and we see the glamorous master codebreaker… only to be tossed out on our asses and change scenes.
Given the subversion theme of the film, I think this change works well!
The separate wav is the unprocessed raw audio output for anyone who knows how to do whatever they like with it and mux in.
I encoded V5 of the prequels at full throttle so encoding to a SL-BR would require some compression. I didn’t want to skimp.
Okay, just finished watching your workprint, version 1.0.
I fully admit that some of this is just me thinking out loud. Some of these are things specific to your fanedit, and others are just points about the film that I wish were changed. You may agree or disagree with some of my comments, but these are just my gut feelings on what I just watched. I hope this helps.
Thanks for previewing this!
- The Poe & Hux "telephone call"
- MUCH better — your edit retains the humor without making it over the top
- Absolutely my favorite rendition of this scene that I’ve watched so far
- I wouldn’t touch this any more: it’s perfect in this form
Thanks very much. I’m rather pleased with it as well.
- BB-8 fixing Poe’s X-Wing
- Full disclosure: I’ve never been a fan of this sequence
- Having BB-8 stick his whole head into the panel seems silly
- I really have no idea if there’s a way to improve this, so I might just have to get over it
I agree. This deserves playing around with a bit more, but in this cut we will still get a fair bit of BB8’s antics later on (implied binding and gagging of multiple prison guards, and hijacking an AT-ST), so perhaps this opening waterpipe gag sets us up for that a little more gently? (At least with BB8, there’s no already defined physical limitations which seem to be violated, the way that R2 and 3PO were violated in AOTC.)
- Paige Tico (bomber pilot) sequence
- After she climbs the ladder to grab the remote, she falls
- She keeps kicking the ladder again and again to get the remote to fall, but I think this goes on for way too long
- I find myself screaming at my TV, “Just get up and go get it! You could have gotten it by now!”
- I understand that maybe she’s injured, but we never see that, so it just looks like she’s lazy
- I would recommend cutting it so that the remote falls on perhaps her third kick of the ladder
- Also, I would cut the shot of the remote flying past her (keep the slow motion and her catching it, but the shot where she just watches it fly past her head is annoying).
This never bothered me, and I’d prefer to more or less leave things alone unless I have reason not to, but I could experiment with these ideas. Given my restrained approach to TFA, I feel like I ought to continue that somewhat.
- Luke lightsaber toss
- Still not sold on Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder
- Other people’s edits have Luke simply dropping the lightsaber, which is a good alternative
- But this alternate take of the throw (from BTS footage) remains my favorite
Luke dropping the saber, on paper, is great. I sincerely hope to be able to use it in a fan edit, but only if it is absolutely seamless. The alternate take is beautiful, but I don’t think it works to cut to it with the footage we have available.
- The space attack on the Resistance cruisers
- Is it possible to trim or cut the shot of Poe being thrown back from the explosion in the hanger? It looks ridiculous, he’d be dead
Eh, seems peripheral at best to the issues I want to address with this movie.
- I cannot support the floating Leia / Mary Poppins sequence whatsoever
- My suggestion: have the explosion on the bridge, but the next time we see Leia is when they put the Oxygen mask on her
I’d rather leave the sequence alone, weird though it is. To me it’d be too awkard to dance around it, and it didn’t bother me anyway.
- Ahch-To Stuff
- Great job on cutting the “sad eyes” porg. The scene remains funny, but not over the top
- Also, great work to you (and the community) for the work done to remove the caretakers from the island
Thanks!
- Getting rid of the “Luke tickling Rey” scene was smart, but I do admit that it felt rather rushed
- After Rey says, “Okay,” you currently have it cut to Luke throwing away the leaf and telling her to breathe. I would suggest having her say, “Okay… but what is it?” (just as she does in the actual film), and THEN cut to Luke throwing away the leaf. I think this would make the scene feel more complete. Maybe I’m wrong.
Rey’s eyeline aligns with the shot that is placed afterward in the workprint immediately after she says, “Okay.” I agree with you in theory, though. I am not sure whether I will ultimately keep or discard the leaf gag. It does fit with Luke’s character, to be fair. Moreso than the Jakku joke I already relented about cutting.
- When Rey confronts Luke just before she leaves Ach-To, I really would like the idea of us seeing some of the TFA “force back” / flashback clips integrated into the moment when Luke looks into Ben Solo’s mind… that way when he ignites his lightsaber, it truly seems like it was out of instinct. Maybe not in your edit if you don’t want, but I would like to see it done by someone.
Eh, the movie leaves it to our imagination, and I don’t see reused footage adding anything helpful.
- Canto Bight
- AMAZING. The fact that I can make Canto Bight into only one bullet point should tell you that it was a success. It’s so much faster paced, and I’m all for removing the political BS. You nailed it.
Thanks. This is the biggest single thing in need of addressing in a fan edit.
- On the Star Destroyer
- I’m not crazy about BB-8 driving an AT-ST, but I don’t know if there’s a way to cut it
I’m with you on this one.
- When Hux is looking at Snoke’s dead body, his lower half falls out of the chair for no reason… cuttable?
Eh, it adds some very light humor and motion to Hux gazing out over the destruction. No reason comes up in my mind to remove it.
- Finn’s sacrifice scene
- I’m just sort of thinking out loud for this one
- I’m still of the opinion that Rose shouldn’t run her speeder into his ship… instead I wish we could make it look like his ship gets shot or maybe that it breaks down before he can sacrifice himself
- But if we really have to keep Rose, then I like the change you made to cut the stupid “love” line. While I wish they didn’t kiss, that’s going to be hard to cut out, so I guess I’ll deal with it.
The Finn and Rose subplot exists. Much like how I approached Jar Jar in my TPM edit, there has to be enough remaining to feel like it belongs and hasn’t been modified by a trigger-happy fanboy.
- Luke facing down the First Order / Kylo Ren fight
- Selfishly, I still like my edit to play The Jedi Steps during this sequence. But to each their own. 😉
I like your rescore, but the existing music accompanying Luke as he marches out there was my favorite moment of the film. “The moment you’ve all been waiting for since 2013… it’s Luke Skywalker, motherfuckers! And he’s gonna lay down some MLK style nonviolent Resistance on you!”
Only other thoughts…
- Was really hoping to see a few of the deleted scenes
- The Finn / Poe deleted scene where Poe is catching Finn up on what’s happening
- “Luke Mourns,” though I don’t know exactly where it would fit, to be honest
- And the stormtrooper / elevator deleted scene… the fan-edited one that removes their voices and just makes it more of a tension building sequence is pretty great
The Luke having a moment scene is the only one I plan to use, I just haven’t done it yet. The Poe and Finn scene would virtually require that I also include the BB8 recording scene and shuttle heading to Crait. The scene doesn’t really add anything important, other than also requiring I add more scenes to an already overlong movie. I would, though, reallllllly love to include the deleted scene with Finn and company on the Star Destroyer, but it is full of unfinished set extensions and is unsuitable for that technical reason. Shame, really.
- Finally, I’m curious about your reasoning for moving the Luke / Yoda sequence later in the movie? Not sure how I feel about it because it seems like a much slower scene compared to all the fast paced stuff going on before/after its new placement. Maybe I can appreciate it if I understand the reasoning why it was moved there.
At this point in the movie, we’ve seen our characters fail and reach their lowest points, and this scene with Luke and Yoda reflects back on Act 2 before launching into Act 3. In the theatrical, Luke seems to have this realization ahead of the action. Now, it serves a bridge between Acts 2 and 3. Also, the transition from the ending of the Yoda theme to Finn and Rose felt unpleasant to me.
Great work for this first version. I really enjoyed this immensely more than the actual film. While I still have little things to nitpick about, I would absolutely take this over what we initially received. Once again, awesome job.
Thanks very much. I hope to be able to do more with it before laying the tools down.
A few things I noticed from skimming the workprint…
Why did you decide not to include the “Luke has a Moment” deleted scene? It greatly improves his characterization early on in my opinion. A re-score could help it.
Why keep Finn & Rose’s kiss? There is ZERO romantic strings between the two beforehand and it still feels very out of place.
I intend on using Luke’s moment snippet, but I haven’t wrangled the source material together yet. But yes, that’s the one and only deleted scene I plan to use.
About Rose kissing Finn… I don’t know, but I feel like it’d be going too far to take that away. I don’t want to gut their plot to the point that it feels… like a fan edit. I’m going to stand by the existing movie by default, but I can hear out reasons why it would be a good move to make.
Thanks for previewing it, and I hope the ending didn’t make your eyes bleed!
Credits roll at 2hr13m, total time is 2hr22m.
OP updated with cutlist (only those already successfully implemented), and PMs sent with links to the workprint.
Thanks in advance for taking a look and offering feedback.
No, I’m planning to compose a fresh one in light of the workprint sometime today. Of course, there’s something to be said of watching it without already knowing every little thing that has been changed.
But yes, the OP will be updated soon.
Sounds like Pulp Empire and The Blackened Mantle had a baby.
I wouldn’t at all mind watching a screener and providing feedback.
It may be Monday before I can actually get the workprint encoded and uploaded, but I’ll PM you all back as soon as it becomes available.
I’m happy it won’t be more ugly CGI.
While we are waiting, I came across this video which I believe sums up my initial gut problem with this movie. I found it hard to articulate at the time, and I complained about how the Yoda scene was a microcosm of this problem of ‘jerking me around’ and ‘making me feel like an idiot.’
https://youtu.be/dLYUc5t6wag
Sir Ridley is right about the channel order.
Any updates on Empire and Jedi (9000 Series)?
I’d like to do ESB and ROTJ (and redo ANH) someday, but I would rather wait for some semi-definitive video sources. The bottom line for me is that, even if I did all that, I would still just want to watch the original versions anyway.
If I revisit this in the future, I would love to get together some fine people like we did for TFA:R and do some visual FX work to make things work out right. For example, being able to use the new sandcrawler establishing shot and CGI dewback in the background while maintaining sync with the OOT. As it is, I cannot do that, and it ends up feeling sloppy.
The Special Edition changes are just such a goddamn mess, and with only being able to pick between complete shots, the end result is still something I wouldn’t really want to watch.
So, maybe someday…
I should have a workprint ready to distribute by tomorrow. At this point, given the resources available and rubbing up against what is technically possible and my own sensibilities, this is how I would bring myself to bear on this movie. Some things others hate will be included, and some things other love will be removed. I’m open to feedback, obviously, and can be convinced of things.
I plan on applying DrDre’s LUT to the project, but not until the very end, otherwise I’d have to be constantly rendering video as I try to work.
So, PM me if you’re interested, as a few already have.
Yeah, at this point I’m leaning heavily toward keeping the epilogue in any event.
I haven’t sat down and watched any sort of draft of this edit yet myself, but hopefully it works well to transition directly from Finn and Rose leaving the cell to hyperspace.
Transitioning from that scene back to Luke on the island and then from Luke back to the Resistance fleet works very well IMHO. But, we will have to see.
The ‘extensive’ removal of Canto Bight is official on trial status, but I reserve the right to determine that it is not working and include more of it. I’m very reluctant to crop off the broom boy ending because to me it just feels so very ‘fan edit-y’ and inauthentic in a way I can’t put my finger on. Star Wars movies always end with a scene without any dialogue, and even if Canto Bight is hardly there, the meaning of the final scene would still read easily.
Thanks for posting that for us here. I won’t be able to do anything further today, but I’ll let that chew at the back of my mind.
Would you mind posting a link to it here?
Please tell me this means no kids at the end… 😉
Hmmm… well now I’m not sure. You’re right that if I go that route we now have no establishment of those kids whatsoever now.
Perhaps I should try to put together an ending Falcon scene with no dialogue. Don’t know if that could even be done or not.
I think it’ll come down to whether the current plan of heavily reducing Canto Bight works out seamlessly. Right now we have the problem of needing a shot or two of BB8 and making the transition to the hyperspace scene (whether directly or later in the film), without feeling weird that we’re suddenly on a different ship.
That wouldn’t be a bad idea, and having that shot or two of BB8 would help greatly with that.
I would like to follow after darthrush in removing the fathier stuff altogether, going from Finn and Rose leaving their cell straight to hyperspace.
To do this, it would be very helpful to have some sort of shot to establish that BB8 is inside the cell with them, and another to show that BB8 is following them. (This could be adding him to the shot of them starting to move toward the cell door, or a separate shot of BB8 beginning to roll, implying he’s following them.)
Does anyone have the ability and desire to put something like this together? Also, I should have a rough cut available soon, if anyone would like to preview the film as a whole with all these changes implemented.
Jedi Rocks.
Thanks for the injection of enthusiasm! I’ve commented elsewhere that I see the importance of Luke choosing to use the image of the saber he rejected at the beginning of the movie. When TFA came out I said I’d have rather the green saber been the macguffin than digging Anakin’s out from the void. I get why it’d be desirable, but why open that can of worms?
But, given that TFA gives us Anakin’s and that Luke rejects it at the start of TLJ, it’s right that he should wield its image at the climax.
Here’s at least one attempt at a transition from Finn and Rose in hyperspace to Luke back on the island. It’d be necessary in order to remove the fathier chase and truly decimate the Canto Bight portion of the film, in conjunction with the previous clip I posted.
https://vimeo.com/266235899
password: fanedit
The OST was used to provide a musical transition.
How does the hive mind think this little sequence plays out as a total package? It is based heavily on darthrush’s take in his thread. Here the idea is that Finn and Rose are heavily focused on the getting to the codebreaker quickly and don’t give a rip where they are at. It is obviously now a much shorter sequence, but I think this mini-throughline might sell it well enough.
Rear channels used to remove sounds of coins rattling around inside BB8, replaced with a sound of BB8’s normal rolling sound.
https://vimeo.com/266143726
password: fanedit