Hal 9000

DZ-330 said:

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.

CourtlyHades296 said:

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?

DZ-330 said:

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

^ That take would have been so much better. Too bad we don’t have usable footage.

That, I could get behind.

I modified the wind sound to bring it down somewhat. It’s amazing sometimes what taking a break and returning to a challenge can yield.
And thanks for the kind feedback. I’m starting to feel better about this project. Good thing is there’s no reason to rush.