Hal 9000

Here’s another attempt:

Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the ashes of the fallen Empire, plotting a return to Imperial rule.

Failing to convince the New Republic to combat this emerging threat, General Leia Organa gathers allies from the farthest reaches of the galaxy to form a covert RESISTANCE.

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to Luke’s whereabouts…

I could perhaps resolve the problem of correct grammar implying that the FO once held power with this:
“Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the remnants of the fallen Empire, plotting their return to power.”

It is too much of a stretch to describe “ashes” as plotting “their” return to power, but perhaps “remnants” would work.

I swapped adjectives around to avoid using ‘secret’ twice.
The theatrical described Poe as daring, implying it’s why he was selected for the mission.

I could call the Resistance “brave,” as in the theatrical, and Poe’s mission “covert.” But, I like “covert RESISTANCE.”

If I go with the most recent revision of the crawl I posted, I will need to change the second sentence from, “plotting their return to power,” to, “plotting its return to power.”
‘The First Order’ is a singular subject, and another verb in the sentence already treats it as such (“has risen”).

So, the first paragraph would read: Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the ashes of the fallen Empire, plotting its return to power."

NeverarGreat said:

The SKB sequence is complete, as far as I’m concerned, so it’s ready for final render 😃

On another note, the final shot of the film has bothered me since my first viewing, since it weaves and bobs drunkenly.
What do you think? I know it’s not strictly related to the edit. 😃

That’s definitely going in TFA:Restructured. WITHOUT setting up a slippery slope, I’m gonna make an exception.

We decided on using the star destroyer, not the shuttle. But I believe Ridley is working on it.
Neverargreat is working on the sequence going from the end of the duel to arriving back at the Resistance base.
And I’m working on the crawl. And I think that’s pretty much all that remains. 😄

MalàStrana said:

Hal 9000 said:

I’ll be releasing a balls to the wall version encoded at maximum settings with uncompressed audio output.

Since you mention it and that they are now 1000% finished, would you also do the same with your PT ? (by the way the new crawls really look nice; new texts are also an improvement, it’s subtle yet better; good call about the colors that aren’t the same, I don’t remember if it was the case for the theatrical versions).

Due to the shortened runtime, little compression was used in the first place on them. Ep1 has noise (grain) added, and Ep2 is based on a noisy HDTV capture. Episodes 2 and 3’s audio mix is based primarily on DVD audio, and all use deleted scenes.
All in all, it wouldn’t make sense to output a version higher than what will fit onto a BD25.

The sounds seem perfectly baked into the mix, and do not stand out as being added. However, at times it sounds like the sound effect is looped back to its beginning partway through, rapidfire. I wonder if the first ‘instance’ of the sound that gets interrupted could fade out for half a second or something, letting it trail off rather than immediately being cut off. Like a toy that makes a sound, but if you hit it again it abruptly starts over.
Other than that at a few points (heard most at 1:26).

It’s quite possible, though, that I’m imagining this and the original effects you are using are already like that. I offer it just in case it’s at all helpful.

DigMod said:

Hal 9000 said:
And the Snoke hologram thing, cool as it is, doesn’t really belong in this particular edit either.

^fair enough 😃

I wasn’t a big fan of having an unprecendentedly convincing hologram just for the sake of a very mild surprise at the end of it’s very first scene, either. But, in this project, it wouldn’t really be on target.
I’m trying very hard to buckle down and let TFA:R be a stairstep DOWN from having to edit new Star Wars movies as soon as they come out, and never really have the sort of enjoyment of them that I want because of it. A tradition since 2002.

NeverarGreat said:

Thanks, I’m glad it works! I played around with the 5.1 audio for the implosion in Audacity for a while, and if there’s a way to extract any of the explosions from the music without making sound like it’s underwater, it’s beyond my abilities. Some of the sound effects earlier in the scene benefit from being between musical notes, hence why I was able to keep them, but here the music saturates the effects.

Gotcha.
And, hey, it’s pretty great. In the interest of making it even better…
Could there be a ramp clattering and steam release sounds dropped in as Rey and Chewie head into the Falcon, perhaps? Also, and this might just be how it has to be to work, the music does a sing-song refrain of itself after the wipe back to the Resistance base, the second half of which is gone now. The second half of the sing-song thing occurs right after the first shot. Hope that makes sense.

DAMN, you guys are awesome, coming out of the woodwork to spruce this thing up. I feel like I should be able to draw on a metaphor from fiction about this, something about people showing up out of nowhere to repair a broken house or something. I only embarked on this project because I wanted the end result to exist. Despite what you might infer about me from my behavior, editing is painful for me to do at times! I’m like Captain Kirk from that episode where his inner aggressive, decisive side was separated in a transporter accident. You all are my Spock and Bones.

Haha, well, I plan to stick to the plan by limiting this edit to the Starkiller Base subplot restructuring. That’s not to say I can’t dub off my own side copy with a few other tweaks, though.
If you wouldn’t mind posting clips of the two Snoke hologram scenes with helmeted Ren, I can look them over and see whether the way in which you repeat shots would work for my second Snoke scene. (I.e., if your second Snoke scene only works by reusing shots from the first scene that I’m already moving to that scene… that wouldn’t work.) Unless it’s seamless and awesome, even in the order I have things, I would really prefer to have him unmasked there.
And the Snoke hologram thing, cool as it is, doesn’t really belong in this particular edit either.

JEDIT: Like the rest of the world, I wouldn’t mind seeing what you cooked up for the rathtar scene, even if I wouldn’t be incorporating it myself.

NeverarGreat said:

I’ve tweaked the levels of the sound effects and edited the Starkiller implosion. I think it’s rather an improvement, hopefully it is to everyone’s liking:
https://vimeo.com/201216702
Password: sound

NOT BAD. It’s nothing if not seamless. Even if only tiny snippets of the original explosion foley can be salvaged from the fully baked soundtrack, even that would be great. I’m thinking about how the Phantom Editor subtly weaved together original vocals and his own voice for Zam Wessel as she was giving her last words.
Don’t get me wrong; as it is now, it’s perfectly usable. I was leaning toward not going with that idea (and sticking with stitched together music and leaving the existing effects in place), but you sold me.

JEDIT: It’s only after doing a direct comparison to the original that I notice what you mean by removing cheers. I thought you clipped a shot, but no, you replaced the audio seamlessly and I didn’t have a clue. 😃

That’s really not bad. I have the theatrical burned into me ears, but otherwise I’m sure it’d be fine. The thing I would miss if I use it would be the specific sound design of the base as it’s getting ready to explode.

I like this current one. We are given some indication of the FO’s goals, and the weapon slots into that when presented to us.

Well, to clarify, my hypothetical intended audience is a theater full of people on opening day, whom haven’t seen it.

How’s this? Might be a good middle ground between “The FIRST ORDER is planning a muwhahaha doomsday device” and not mentioning their specific goals at all:

Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the ashes of the Empire, plotting their return to power.

Failing to convince the New Republic to combat this emerging threat, General Leia Organa gathers allies from the farthest reaches of the galaxy to form a covert RESISTANCE.

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to Luke’s whereabouts…

lol, maybe the crawl should be mostly, “They’ve somehow built a hyperlightspeed weapon built within a planet itself. Not a laser canon, but something on a scale difficult to describe. Not another Death Star, but STARKILLER BASE. It’s big.”

But seriously, here’s what I’m thinking, though I hope to find something somewhere explaining why the filmmakers chose to exclude SKB entirely from Act 1:

Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire, along with a secret weapon to secure their return to power.

Failing to convince the New Republic of this emerging threat, General Leia Organa mobilizes a covert RESISTANCE to gather allies from the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to Luke’s whereabouts…

Right. It’s implied that Finn spilled the beans not just on further details about SKB, as in the theatrical, but it’s very existence. If I mention SKB in the crawl, it will be important to me to imply it’s unknown by anyone else.
In either version of the movie, no one cares or talks much about the destruction of the Republic capital.

I don’t like it, but I suspect you’re right. I’ll give this some patient thought.
Anyone else, please throw your thoughts into the mix.

I hear you, DominicCobb, but I actually prefer it that way.
The filmmakers chose not to spring SKB on us until the start of Act 2, and we aren’t finally given “the rules” until Act 3 kicks off. One of this project’s implied tenets is that Act 2 is better off without SKB, and so its role is relegated to Act 3. (Actually, this project gives us our first glimpse of SKB at the same point as in the theatrical. Only this time, we see it as an establishing shot, but aren’t told what exactly we are looking at until later. In a way, it is how we experienced SKB in real life. We saw it on the poster, and wondered about it until we saw it in the movie.)

Mentioning SKB in the crawl seems weird to me for any edit; in this version the weapon doesn’t truly come into play until Act 3 (where it functions, as all involved will admit, as backdrop for the real story being told), and even in the theatrical it isn’t mentioned at all until Act 2. Even ROTJ drops us into the second Death Star right off the bat.

Aside from all that, as a purely subjective piece… when I watched TFA the first few times, prior to any thought about fan editing, I really enjoyed the ride up until the first Snoke scene. SKB really throws a wrench into my enjoyment of Act 2, so this edit will alleviate that. (And, as I said above, letting us experience SKB in an analogous way to people in real life leading up to TFA’s release.) When we are given the absurdly short briefing scene, it’s hilarious how abrupt and silly it is. To me, this edit doesn’t really do much to exacerbate this. Details about SKB are presented to us as they become important, given that the weapon only is prepped once.

That’s why I like the idea of SKB not entering the stage until Act 3, aside from an exposition-free visual sighting at the start of Act 2. But, then again, I’m a very strange person.

Oh, 100%, Jack, I welcome any feedback. I looked over the other films’ crawls per your suggestion, as part of the vetting process. Ultimately, I’m content to have this particular edit defer closely to TFA’s own original crawl.

I will certainly revise the documentation provided alongside the finished product, including what’s new in V2.

And, YES, anyone is more than welcome to take this edit as a base to work from. I’ll be releasing a balls to the wall version encoded at maximum settings with uncompressed audio output. The audio will be in 5.1 surround, rather than 7.1 due to my NLE’s limitations. However, I am using the DTS 5.1 track direct from BluRay. I… really can’t imagine this affecting any sane person in the world, so that’s where we are.

mutters under breath about Disney and/or LFL stepping on fan editors’ heels
puts on tinfoil hat

Maybe we will zoom in on Luke, already mid-sentence, with the missing first words becoming an important mystery.

As soon as I heard it existed, I’ve loved the idea of putting the scene where Leia sends her envoy to the Republic capital into the movie.
What we have here isn’t finished, and is presented to us in what I can’t help but view as an intentionally neglected state.
A proof of concept version, like a workprint, would be another story. But I don’t feel it’s got a place in this edit, given the objective of a slight tweak that would not have made anyone blink if it had been what was literally projected in theaters on opening day.

Since Rogue One featured the plans exactly as they were in ANH, and it seems most prequel edits omit the plans’ appearance in AOTC, perhaps the Death Star prototype in ROTS could feature an equatorial laser dish.
It’d suggest that the plans the rebels intercept are the “original plans,” from before a revision to move the dish.