Hal 9000

My niece and I had a good experience seeing the films for her first time in what I like to call the Obi-Wan order (or flashback order): 4,5,1,2,3,6 (7 hadn’t come out yet).
It let her see ANH first as is proper, then go on to experience the ongoing drama and surprises of ESB. Only at the reveal, which genuinely took her by surprise, did we jump back to the prequel trilogy. (I wouldn’t consider the machete order a viewing order since it skips a movie; if you’re gonna skip one, why not skip all three prequels?) After we see Anakin become the villain we learned he was, we jump back to Luke’s journey to rescue Han and go on to confront his father in the climactic conclusion.

And I also agree that at this point a person’s ideal order for induction should be 4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Watch the original trilogy, then wait a while. Then see the prequels, then originals, then go onwards from there. If you like, use OUT for the first one and (fanhandled versions of) the SEs for the post-prequel viewing.
Can that be a new term we use? Fanhandling?

Oh, I’m not changing the title of the film. Just looking for a tagline so people have something to call the edit.

“Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens: Lone Star Edition” or something like that.

V4 of Episode I was released last Fall, and II and III were this February-ish. I’ll PM you the links to what should be listed at FanEdit.info.

Thanks, TK251. And there can certainly be multiple covers and posters. A modification of the real theatrical poster with our moniker could be included, but a cool teaser style trailer with the Sun closeup would be great to have as the main avatar.
Anyone have any other good name suggestions? I’m not married to “Lone Star Edition.”

I doubt it, since the site is still there and the listing says “coming soon.”

Cool stuff. The sunspot one would be appropriate. Could you still modify the text on it to feature something like “The Force Awakens… Lone Star Edition,” and maybe a list of screen names in tiny bottom-of-the-poster type print. If possible, could you adapt it so the star closeup covers a wider, DVD or BR cover width? Just looking ahead.

I’m not declaring “final cut” yet or anything, but it looks like we can wrap this project up sooner rather than later. It sounds like Jackpumpkinhead will be supplying the four FX shots needed (Hux exiting the room, two TIE shots, and unmasking Ren).

We gotta come up with a name for this thing. The name of the film won’t be changed, so maybe just a tagline like “Lone Star Edition” or something.
If anyone wants to, once we have a name, put together some cover artwork, that would be extremely helpful. My graphical skills like that are totally crap. I’m open to suggestions, but I think the same three distribution methods I used for my prequel edits will do (DVD5, 720p mp4, 1080p mkv). So, DVD and even BR covers would be fantastic. I’m in the process of doing a write up for the fan edit listing that can be used.

I’ll also have to grab a calculator and do chapter stops and subtitles. I’ll prepare English subtitles, and anyone is welcome to take these and do their own translations. If they can be finished reasonably soon afterward, I can include them in the release. If not, I can link to them the way I had to for subtitles produced after the prequel edits were released.

Then, we can book appearances on various talk shows and plug the edit. But it seems like this can be a gloriously short-term project for once!

And just see Finn’s gums flapping afterward?

Love the assassin buildup to the gag. It gets funnier because you see it coming. The voiceover as we see the necklace had me laughing. Very good stuff; It looks like avoiding the bulk of the ROTR spoilers will serve me well.

I may as well show you all the rough attempt at showing the fighters react to SKB firing. It’s obviously slowed down, and sort of looks like hot garbage. I do not plan on using this.
https://vimeo.com/171935900

Eh, I think not mentioning it at all does best to avoid awkward questions without raising new ones. If they thought he probably did, why aren’t they doing more to try to wake him up or extract it from his memory? If they don’t suspect he does have it (like Threepio makes awkwardly clear), it makes sense he would wake up and surprise everyone.

Correct. One goal, which carries a necessary second:
Move Hosnian Prime’s destruction to after Han’s death.
Do the little things to make it work (clean up the mess).

I think I may cheat slightly by also removing Threepio’s line, “It is very unlikely that R2 would have the rest of the map in his backup data.”

I had the chance to watch the workprint myself tonight. If I may say so, I felt it worked remarkably well.
I did, however, feel like one thing was missing: Leia reporting that the weapon was about to be used, to explain the apparent urgency as the Resistance prepares to head to SKB. So, I went back and took another look at the briefing scene. I was able to pull something off that I feel solves this issue:
https://vimeo.com/171864217

You’ll notice that I am unable to have her identify the target. However, this may be a good thing, since it would help explain why she didn’t attempt to warn the Republic. We see Hux tell his side that they’re targeting the Senate, and we even saw he and Snoke decide on this. But, Leia appears to only know that they are preparing to fire at all.

I think the happy nature of the post-SKB destruction is justifiable in terms of movie sensibilities, but I did a super quick mockup of removing the fighters’ celebratory shots, shortening the following shot so the music matches up. You can still hear some of the vocals; this was just a quick mock up to get the idea across, and it will be easy to polish later:
https://vimeo.com/171864218

PM sent

Yes, exactly. I really like the clip you’ve shown but I presume it isn’t the final form. Whenever you have it how you think it should be, upload it at full quality and let me know. But it’s not like I see it as obviously unfinished or anything.

PMs have been sent for the workprint. I hope to give this thing a proper review period of gestation before sending it out into the world.

NeverarGreat said:

Is anyone else bothered by the idea that Han and Chewie would just stand idly by and take time out of their day to question Maz about a lightsaber while they know that the First Order is about to occupy the castle?

I feel like a quick cutaway to Kylo ordering his agent to sabotage escaping ships and later a single explosion wouldn’t be that much more difficult. I bet the guys at Auralnauts could provide the voice for this line (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFicXlvJBdo) and I could do the VFX for the shots if nobody else is interested.

Here’s the previous rough mockup in case anyone missed it: https://vimeo.com/170422931 Password: Kylo

I’m skeptical of this working out. It seems a little inelegant, but I see your concern about no one’s rush to evacuate. The implication, I guess, is there’d be no escape for them, and the Star Destroyer looming helps establish this. Ideally, the extras would start running while the heroes stay behind because of Rey.

rpvee said:

Really cool concepts here! My only concerns are:

Thanks! I share your concerns. Thanks for prompting me to talk about them.

-the destruction of Hosnian right after Han’s death leaves Kylo, Rey, Finn, Chewie, and a stormtrooper all just standing there in shock for a lot longer than they originally were. It feels weird for Chewie to take so long to do something.

It’s a little delayed as it is, with Kylo having a lingering moment to contemplate what he’s done (not to mention cutting away to Leia) before Chewie takes a shot at him. The transition to SKB firing feels emotionally right, but cutting back to Chewie’s reaction rips us back to the present moment. A good question would be, “How would this have struck audiences if it had been what was shown on opening day?”

-Chewie blowing up the room right after SKB destroys the system made me think “you couldn’t have pressed that button a couple minutes ago?”. He could’ve prevented the whole thing, even if he was distracted by the situation on the bridge.

Yes, this touches on a new irony induced by the restructure. Han and Chewie presumably would have been successful in taking out the oscillator had Han not taken the risk of confronting his son. This is a dark mirror of Vader taking a risk out of compassion for Luke, though in his case it ended up helping save the day.

-the dogfight happens relatively close to the laser cannon. Assuming it just fired really close to the ships, you’d think Poe and company would either get the hell out of there, or at least say something about the planet-destroying lasers they just saw right in front of them.

I attempted to wedge in a few shots (horrible pun, sadly, intended) of the X-wing fighters reacting to the red beam. All I had was a very quick shot of Poe turning his head (reversed), and the woman looking dismayed at a comrade being shot down. Both had to be given an obvious slow motion treatment to be plausible, and the whole thing struck me as kind of ugly. You are right, though; reaction shots of the fighters would help cement this change, but I don’t think there’s enough source material to do anything worthwhile.

-minor, but in the spliced together Snoke scene, he’s sitting one moment, and then standing the next.

Yes. This is a side effect of keeping the exposition about hitting the Republic by name, and tying it in with Luke. I guess one would have to assume he started to stand up during a cutaway, but yeah, it’s definitely an extant minor continuity problem.

Thanks, guys. Rendering now.

Anyone up for a workprint viewing? I’m pretty happy with how this has shaped up, and the only things that we know are still necessary are:
FX shot to remove Hux walking away during fist shot of (new) first Snoke scene
Finished FX shots of TIEs coming in towards Maz’s castle
FX shot to insert Kylo Ren’s face over his mask as he and Hux talk with Snoke

I hope there are a few small things that workprint viewers can find to make this even better, but I’m pretty excited about where it stands now. With those three bits of FX material incorporated, I think we’ve got something pretty solid.

It does put a button on it to cut back to Hux, and helps sell the change. This edit changes emphasis slightly so that SKB is more strongly implied to be more Hux’s passion than Ren or Snoke; they’re chiefly interested in Luke and aren’t overly proud of their technological terror.
And I think it’s more effective to see Ren plead with Snoke to avoid using the weapon by helping him get the map from Rey without it already having been used to essentially blow up Washington DC.
I’m finding several small things to appreciate about what is a very simple idea of moving Hosnian Prime blowing up to right after Han dies. Another is that while in Vader’s case a father’s risk of love helped save the galaxy, in Han’s the same helped doom it. It’s a dark mirror of ROTJ’s eucatastrophe. But the thing I like best about this restructure is that it keeps Luke as more of the primary macguffin throughout the whole movie.

Here’s a mockup for showing a closeup of Hux after SKB begins draining the Sun. I welcome critical feedback on this, because I am not 100% sure it’s an improvement over the way it was, just showing the star being drained and not cutting back to Hux. Note that the footage must be reversed in order for the beam to appear to be traveling down toward the planet, resulting in a slight pan back from Hux.
https://vimeo.com/171507687

Hmm… I don’t think a vocal-only track would solve anything that is holding the project up. If everything comes together before then, I see no reason to hold back for it.
Don’t get me wrong, it sounds like an interesting and valuable endeavor itself.

There’s really just one shot of the two of them standing there that needs his face pasted in there, but I agree that the others are all right.

Here’s an updated draft of the second Snoke scene.
https://vimeo.com/171303628

I feel like this version makes it seem like the superweapon was mostly just Hux’s passion, and the other two make use of it insofar as it serves their goals involving Luke.

EDIT: I know about the audio hiccup as Hux mentions the weapon.

ImperialFighter, your idea works very well and feels very natural. I’m cutting from Finn and Rey turning to start running from the exploding building to the dogfight in space. Cutting back from the shot of the distant oscillator explosion to Finn and Rey again works very well!
I think it’s still better to cut from the saber duel to the X-wings descending toward the trench; cutting back to them in space still talking about the oscillator doesn’t feel right to me.
Thanks for the input!

I’ve gone in and removed the shot of the red planet-destroying beam passing the Star Destroyer, and the music feels much less cut-up as a result. If you’re already familiar with the score, the current version shouldn’t feel like it has been tampered with, just that you don’t hear the whole thing.

The technical hurdles to finishing this are diminishing rapidly. We can discuss whether this project really works all that well, but I do want to finish it and put it out there. Just need a few FX shots (TIEs coming toward Maz’s castle, and demasking Ren), and I think we’re just about there.