Hal 9000

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.

I’m okay with the crawl not specifying the FO’s specific goals with Skywalker.

I think V2 is shaping up nicely. Pretty much the only thing left implement is the First Order’s arrival at Maz’s castle. Once you all (Sir Ridley, NeverarGreat) have it how we like it, I’ll drop it in and we should be in good shape. 😃

Movie opens with a traditional crawl against a starfield.

Pan down to reveal the island at night, with the starfield being the night sky. It’s the very early morning prior to Rey’s arrival, where we are introduced briefly to Luke and see the last scene from a different perspective.

Thanks, Jack.
Well, part of what I’m going for in this crawl is a close relationship with the theatrical crawl. While it seems you’re right that the first two paragraphs of all three OT crawls are in past tense, there is no uniformity to the final paragraph: ANH’s final paragraph is in present tense, ESB’s is in past tense, and ROTJ’s is in future tense.
If you factor the prequels in, there is no rhyme or reason to when to break from past tense.
Considering that it’s like this in the theatrical, which is what I’m trying to stick to (in a weird way), I’m happy with it.

Here’s another revision of the crawl that I rather like. This one will probably be what I go with.

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.

Failing to convince the New Republic to combat 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…

Welcome, Batmatt92, and thanks for the insightful suggestion. I can’t help but agree with you, with the real question being whether removing those shots of the planet surface will leave the sequence an abrupt mess. I’ll test it out and see, but I frankly doubt it’ll be as good as it needs to be, given that we’re editing a fully baked final product rather than doing it this way from the beginning.
And, as much as I love the little moment with Leia in the deleted scene, I doubt I’ll use it. The scene, as presented on the BluRay, begins and ends extremely abruptly, with not even a split second of buffer. Given the one place in the movie it would need to go, I don’t think it would be seamless. It’s a shame these deleted scenes weren’t presented to us the way the prequels’ were on DVD: as spruced up finished sequences, for the most part, presented in the same quality as the main features themselves.

Thanks for the feedback!
I can’t put my finger on why, but I feel better about “in secret” than "secretly risen from."
As far as “combat” goes, what I want to say is something to the effect of “The New Republic has refused to take action against the FO even though Leia presses them to.” “Combat” is the best word I could think to throw in there.

The first paragraph is shorter now, having removed talk about destroying Skywalker, so adding ‘fractured’ evens it out somewhat. It also implies that the Empire never fully dissolved, but regrouped in secret to emerge again, rather than the FO being a group of imitators. It’s extremely subtle, but I like it. During my first viewing, I was puzzling over the plot point about Finn being taken from birth if the FO is a new thing. This… might help ever so slightly to the hypothetical first time viewer on opening day that doesn’t exist but is nevertheless the intended viewer of fan edits?

And, yeah, I changed the ending of the crawl to match the theatrical, even the placement of the last line (just as the first line is matched) so it won’t read, “…a clue has been discovered to the whereabouts of the next movie…”

Drakul, thanks and welcome! No, I won’t be editing Rogue One. I sincerely hope not to edit any more Star Wars films after this one, but we’ll see. This limited edit of TFA is sort of a compromise between editing and not editing it, and ideally will be a stairstep from radical edits of the prior three films to enjoying new films as they are. (The original idea for the SKB was too elegant and sublime to pass up.)

Here’s the new crawl. I am working on getting rid of the slight red flicker at the beginning. Very strange, and I don’t know what’s causing it!
https://vimeo.com/200772174
password: crawl