ImperialFighter

Tomo said:

Concerning your issue with the jarring nature of the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot, I had similar feelings and tried removing it from that sequence and replacing it in Jakku after the Stormtroopers call in an air strike on Finn and Rey. I was unwilling to lose the shot entirely but didn’t like it’s usage in the original edit, and so I felt both sequences benefited from the change.

Tomo, after we see and hear the ships overhead, I guess you’re just cutting from Rey turning and starting to run back through the woods with BB-8, directly to the shot of Maz leading Han, Finn, & Chewie to the lightsabre, and then directly to Rey & BB-8 finishing off running through the woods towards the ‘palace’ then? - so although you would miss hearing the sound of the approaching TIEs due to losing the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot at the point it currently is, you’d hear them soon enough anyway near the end of the ‘Maz/lightsabre’ scene, before returning to Rey arriving back at the ‘palace’.

That could work fine for anyone that finds the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot of the TIEs against the sun TOO jarring, I guess. Although it kinda looks as if it’s more suited to the sun-drenched Jakku setting, the shot shows about 5 TIEs approaching, whereas only 2 TIEs arrive for the ‘air strike’ during that sequence. But if that’s a particular inconsistent ‘compromise’ that you’re happy to ignore, then it sounds fair enough as an idea.

I’m curious to know where you’ve decided to place it though, as the dialogue of the trooper calling in the ‘air strike’ unfortunately overlaps slightly into the current next close-up shot of Rey & Finn continuing to run, so doesn’t seem to fit there without some ‘audio manipulation/tweaking’ to work perfectly. Another place I looked at putting it, was at the point a little after that, where Rey & Finn are inside a tent, and begin to hear the TIEs for the first time. Perhaps you slotted it in just after the point they are listening in close-up…and then after the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot, you then continued as Finn grabs her hand and she tells him to let go of her? Either way, I’m interested to know.

However, I’ve decided I’m going to keep the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot at some point during the my re-edited lead-up to the attack on Maz’s ‘palace’, no matter what. Where exactly will depend on whether I keep the existing ‘Starkiller firing’ scene half-way through the movie as normal, or whether I end up showing it firing AFTER Han’s death scene. I know this ‘stylised’/somewhat jarring shot doesn’t entirely reflect the number and kind of ships that are seen earlier overhead Rey either…but it’s something I’m willing to ‘compromise’ on and accept for my own ideal version.

@ Hal 9000 - over on the ‘THE FORCE AWAKENS FAN EDIT IDEAS’ thead, I’ve now added a slight variation to the idea I described in my 2nd post on page 26 there, which I quite like. 😃

See ‘ADDITIONAL EDIT’ at end of my 2nd post here - originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Force-Awakens-Fan-Edit-Ideas-SPOILERS/id/46843/page/26

Hal 9000 said:

Very good ideas in there. I’ll have to play around and see how it strikes me in finished form.

I don’t currently have the time to edit and upload a clip of the version without the ‘sky fireworks’ shots I described previously. Perhaps you (or someone) may be able to give it a go instead, if you have some time.

However, I forgot to mention in my previous post that the reason I suggested putting the ‘Han & Maz’s denizens looking upwards’ shot BEFORE the ‘Finn looking upwards’ shot (rather than the OTHER way round as they appear in the movie)…is because I reckon the louder background ‘shrieking’ during the ‘Finn’ reaction shot kinda gives the impression that we’re hearing the ‘increasing shrieking’ of some of Maz’s denizens that initially started to look up in the ‘Han & Maz’s denizens’ reaction shot, if they’re placed this way round…and then that ‘shrieking’ background audio is then superceded by the sound of the TIEs when we cut directly to the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot - this is still a very ‘stylised’ way to include these particular shots inbetween Rey starting to run back, and then finishing off running back towards the ‘palace’…and it still involves a ‘jump-ahead-in-time’ to Maz, Han, Finn, and Chewie having regrouped in the lower level of the ‘palace’ of course, but I’m hoping it may work well enough for me.

(by the way, I’m sure it’s possible to actually REMOVE the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot of the ‘TIEs approaching against the sunset’ if anyone wishes, considering it seems a jarringly ‘stylised’ shot compared to the way the rest of the ‘daylight’ shots look during that whole sequence… But personally, I love it, whether it seems jarring or not, and think the brief ‘cutaway’ to it is ENOUGH to allow for the feeling of a ‘jump-ahead-in-time’ to where Maz, Han, Finn, and Chewie have regrouped)

To be honest, I had high hopes for that short ‘Apocalypse Now’ scene when I saw an early preview of it before the movie…and am still miffed that it only lasted a couple of seconds. I’d originally hoped to see a LOT more footage of the TIEs set against the distant sun like that!

ADDITIONAL EDIT: I’ve had another look at this since I posted the above yesterday, and have now thought of another possibility which involves REMOVING one of the shots I was going to use altogether -

Without actually getting the chance to cut this myself at the moment to see how it looks and sounds, I’m not 100% certain yet if it would work better to have the ‘Han, Chewie, & Maz’s denizens looking upwards’ shot immediately before the ‘Finn looking upwards’ shot (as I suggested in my previous post)…OR the other way round after all…before then seeing the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot of the TIEs against the sun, as Maz then leads Han, Finn, & Chewie towards the lightsabre (and ends with her saying “Those beasts!”), before seeing Rey & BB-8 finish off running back through the woods to see the TIEs attacking the ‘palace’.

Because, as it’s mainly the reaction shot of ‘Finn looking upwards from the ‘pirate’ ship’ (not including the ‘sky fireworks’ shot, of course) that I’m keen to include, I’m thinking I might not need to include the ‘Han, Chewie, & Maz’s denizens looking upwards’ shot in this scenario at all. I’m not sure yet as I say, but the whole sequence might end up flowing quite effectively overall if I EXCLUDE that particular shot altogether, so that it now looks like this -

1. …we see Rey begin to stop running through the woods as she turns to see BB-8 has followed her, and she then notices the ships flying overhead, before she starts to run back through the woods again as normal…

2. …we then see Finn starting to board the dirty, yellow ‘pirate’ ship, as he turns to look upwards (and we hear some ‘shrieking’ - which can be imagined to be some denizens from Maz’s ‘palace’ on seeing the ships arrive too)…

3. …we then see the stylised ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot of the TIEs against the distant sun…

4. …we then ‘jump-ahead-in’ time a bit to see Maz now leading Han, Finn, & Chewie towards the lightsaber (as the shot ends on Maz only saying “Those beasts!”)…

5. …we then see Rey & BB-8 finish off running back through the woods to witness the ‘palace’ being destroyed by TIEs…

In this version we’re still seeing a ‘jump-ahead-in-time’ to a point where Finn immediately rejoined them inside the ‘palace’, but I kinda like this new juxtaposition of first seeing Rey run back set against the shot of Finn turning and looking upwards, when it’s done like this…as I’m not particular bothered about including that ‘Han & Denizens’ shot to begin with.

Just a thought.

Hal 9000 said:

Absolutely, the TIEs need to be very distant to explain people gawking, as well as giving Han and Finn time to get to the basement before Maz exclaims, “They’re here!”

I described at length some of the changes I’m planning for myself in a couple of posts on page 24 recently - but as it looks like I may also end up doing a 2nd version where the Starkiller planet fires AFTER Han’s death to see if I prefer it, I thought I’d go into how I’d re-structure the various ‘Finn/Han & Chewie looking upwards at the sky fireworks’ shots for myself.

The only TFA fan edit that I’ve watched so far is the early one by ‘Noodle_Finger’ which shows the Starkiller planet firing AFTER Han’s death - but the way he handled things looked like this - we saw Finn leave and exit out Maz’s ‘palace’ doorway with the 2 ‘space pirates’, as Rey then had her ‘bad visions’ in the lower levels, and then ran away from the ‘palace’ into the woods as normal…but the ‘Hux’s speech’ scene was moved to a point LATER ON in his edit (where the initial ‘sun-sucking’ shots were then added directly onto it AFTER the stormtroopers raised their arms), and instead, the scenes of ‘Rey running through the woods’ were JOINED TOGETHER at this point, where she was followed by BB-8, before eventually looking up at the ships overhead, and then began to run back…at which point ‘Noodle_Finger’ then cut back to the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot of the TIES approaching in close-up against the sun, before continuing with Maz being followed by Finn, Han, and Chewie in the lower level of her ‘palace’…

While this worked well enough, we just had to ‘assume’ that Finn had not left yet after all when we last saw him exiting the ‘palace’, and things had just ‘jumped-ahead-in-time’ to a point where he had regrouped with Maz, Han, and Chewie as the ships got nearer to them.

However, I have a slightly different re-arrangement of this scene for myself -

It’s been neat to see the recent test shots of Finn and Han looking up at additional FX of ships in the distance, but I’ve always tried to re-edit/re-arrange scenes and shots for myself using only existing, unaltered shots and audio. COMPROMISE is something I’ve had to accept quite a few times when working out certain alterations in this way - for instance, it’s annoying to find that the background score of a certain shot is too jarring when matched to another shot I wanted to join it directly onto…OR for another example, finding that a character’s spoken dialogue annoyingly overlaps briefly onto another shot, again rendering that option of a direct join onto another shot useless to me (J.J. did a LOT of ‘dialogue overlapping’ shots in TFA, by the way), and so there’s been a few times I’ve had to come up with an alternative edit along the way instead due to this.

In this case, I really happen to like the reaction shot of ‘Finn looking around as he’s about to board the ship at Maz’s palace’ (which Noodle_Finger didn’t include), especially as it helps to explain why he didn’t end up leaving after all - so here’s the way I’m planning to include it in the hope that it make’s the shot’s accompanying music blend in okay overall -

We see Rey eventually looking up at the ships overhead, as she then begins to run back as normal…and then cut to Han and Maz’s denizen’s starting to look upwards (missing out the ‘sky fireworks’ shot afterwards)…and then cut directly to the slightly earlier reaction shot of Finn turning around as he loads the ‘pirate’ ship (again, missing out the ‘sky fireworks’ shot afterwards)…and then cut to the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot of the TIEs approaching in close-up against the sun, as we then see Maz followed by Finn, Han, and Chewie in the lower level of her ‘palace’…EXCEPT after they feel the explosions she will not say the whole sentance “Those beasts!..they’re here!” at the end of the shot…but instead, the shot will end on her only saying the words “Those beasts!”…and then we continue with Rey finishing off running back through the woods to witness the TIEs attacking it.

In this new sequence, there’s no need for Maz to say the words “…they’re here!” whatsoever, as everyone already knew about the ships arriving due to their ‘looking upwards’ reaction shots beforehand. And while the ‘Apocalypse Now’ shot of the TIEs is very ‘stylized’ compared to the lighting in the shots before and after it, I’m willing to ‘compromise’ on that fact to keep it in…especially as it serves to indicate the ‘jump-ahead-in-time’ between the shots of Finn looking upwards, and the shot of him having rejoined the others.

So for anyone else wishing to edit the Starkiller planet firing AFTER Han’s death, this is a straightforward way to replace the existing ‘fireworks in the sky’ sequence which Finn, Han, Chewie, and the rest are implausibly looking up at…WITHOUT the need for additional SFX of any sort.

shanep2 said:

So where can we follow ady’s revisited work now?

Click on the ‘Wordpress’ and ‘Facebook’ links at the bottom of doubleofive’s post.

You forgot about all the “When will the ROTJ:Revisited edit be finished?” demands that will follow too… 😉

Ive finished off the post above which I started yesterday, but I thought I’d also go into one of the other alterations I’m planning for myself, while I’m here.

As I was working out the scenes mentioned previously, I remembered how the 'supertrooper’s battle with Finn at Maz’s palace bothered me. It’s not something I’ve seen anyone else mention, but I’m not keen on this scene at all - mainly because I really dislike the fact that the trooper’s ‘electro-baton’ seems to be so completely impervious to Finn’s various lightsabre strikes against it!

I had another look at the ‘electro-staffs’ that General Grevious’s mechanical guards use against Obi-wan and Anakin in ROTS, and the lightsabres are not as blatantly useless against them in that movie. At least we get to see the guards satisfyingly despatched by the lightsabres eventually. In this scene with Finn however, he’d have been toast if it wasn’t for Han shooting the ‘supertrooper’, as the lightsabre came across as being so ineffective.

I’m sure there are plenty who love this scene with the lone ‘supertrooper’ and all his moves…but I’ve decided to ditch this particular fight in it’s current form, by rearranging certain shots. There’s 3 ways for me to choose from - I can either shorten the fight by removing certain shots of the lightsabre striking the ‘electro-baton’ overall…or I can just have the final section play out (where the trooper gets shot by Han as he goes to strike Finn on the ground)…or I can totally remove the fight altogether. I’m leaning towards either of the latter 2 options, at the moment.

Thing is, I would have liked to have seen a small team of this ‘riot-trooper’ design sticking it to some of Maz’s denizens with their ‘riot control batons’ and ‘riot shields’…but I think just showing us a SINGLE one was a missed opportunity sadly, making it seem like this random ‘supertrooper’ was overcoming Finn’s lightsabre far too easily. Hell, the Sith could just as easily carry one of these ‘electro-batons’ around with them against the Jedi, judging by this scene!

So I’ll likely just be sticking with Finn impaling the ‘standard’ trooper in a satisfying way, and won’t show him using the lightsabre again until he gets a chance against Kylo.

(by the way, I was very excited by an early preview of the ‘flamethrower-trooper’ design initially, but ended up disappointed by the little screentime J.J. gave us of that particular variation eventually)

ImperialFighter said:

DominicCobb said:

I really have very small interest in TFA fan edits because I know they’ll mostly just cut out stuff I love, but there are some small quibblies that I’ll probably have to sort out for myself at some point.

For instance, and it’s strange no one’s mentioned this, but the Kylo speaks to Vader scene doesn’t really work. I mean, as a scene, by itself, it totally works. But it’s placement within the film just seems… random? It’s right in the middle of the sequence of the heroes at Maz’s castle, but it’s only about a minute long and doesn’t really have anything to do with that. So just a very short and unrelated detour, which sort of ruins the power of the scene a bit.

So I see two options to fix.
A) Make the scene more relevant to Kylo’s storyline. Solution: move the scene right after Snoke’s “We shall see.”
or B) Make the scene more relevant to the heroes storyline. Solution: move the scene right after Han and Leia talk about Kylo.

This sounds like a very good point indeed, considering that I found that substantially re-arranging the position of certain scenes in the prequels for my own cut-lists made them much more impactful for me. I’m definately gonna have a look at this suggestion of yours when I get around to pinning down my own TFA alterations. It’s a great scene, but I agree it’s placement might be more effective if used elsewhere.

I’ve spent a bit more time working out my own ideal version of TFA recently, and thought that some of you might be interested in my conclusion to do with DC’s suggestion above - while I reckon the ‘Stardestroyer/Kylo talking to Vader’s mask’ scene works well enough as a ‘cutaway-setting’ during the initial ‘Maz’s palace’ sequence at that point, I’ve decided I’d prefer to SHIFT it for my own version after all - although to a different spot to either of DC’s suggestions. And I’ve also decided I’d like to move the position of a couple of other major scenes too.

However, I’m currently very torn between whether I’d prefer to keep the FULL ‘Hux speech/Starkiller weapon firing/Finn & Han looking upwards as the Hosnian Republic planets are destroyed’ sequence as it currently stands (due to loving the score heard throughout it, and some of the shots included)…OR whether I’d prefer to CHOP IT UP and show the Starkiller weapon firing and destroying the planets after Han’s death instead (in a somewhat similar manner as the way shown in some edits/clips already - which unfortunately means losing a few ‘Kylo/Hux/First Order troops’ shots I really like, as well as the full melancholy score at this point). At the moment, I’m slightly leaning towards KEEPING the current overall structure just as it is, while changing other things in the movie…but I may end up doing BOTH versions eventually to see which flows best for me overall.

In the meantime, here are some scene rearrangements I’m planning for my version where the FULL existing ‘Hux speech/Starkiller weapon firing/Finn & Han looking upwards as the Hosnian Republic planets are destroyed’ sequence is KEPT just as it is -

To recap, the CURRENT sequence of scenes are arranged like this -

…once the Falcon blasts off at the end of the ‘rathtars’ sequence, we see the 'pirate informer’s close-up as he notifies the First Order that BB-8 is with Han in the Falcon…and then go to seeing 2 TIEs fly towards the Starkiller base as we see the 1st ‘Snoke/Hux/Kylo’ scene (which ends with Snoke saying “We shall see…we shall see”)…and then go to the Falcon in hyperspace/Han and Rey struggling for control/Finn bandaging Chewie/BB-8 showing Han his ‘piece of the map’/Han telling them “this is our stop”…and then go to the Falcon in hyperspace, as it approaches Maz’s planet/our heroes land on Maz’s planet, and enter Maz’s premises/where a droid informs the ‘resistance’ of their whereabouts, followed by a female informing the ‘First Order’ too…and then go to the Stardestroyer where Kylo speaks to Vader’s mask/and continue with Maz discussing things with Han, Rey, and Finn/as Finn tells Rey he’s leaving, and Rey ends up being drawn to Luke’s saber and has bad visions/before she tells Maz she wants nothing to do with it, and runs away into the woods…and then go to the ‘Starkiller planet/Hux’s speech/weapon firing/Kylo watching from stardestroyer bridge/Finn and Han’s reactions/Hosnian people and planets blowing up’ sequence…before eventually returning to Rey running through the woods, who has been followed by BB-8, as she then sees the approaching TIE ships flying overhead, and is eventually captured by Kylo soon after…

However, my own re-arrangement of the above scenes will look like this INSTEAD (with the shifted scenes in CAPITALS) -

…once the Falcon blasts off at the end of the ‘rathtars’ sequence, we see the 'pirate informer’s close-up as he notifies the First Order that BB-8 is with Han in the Falcon…AND THEN GO TO THE FALCON IN HYPERSPACE/HAN AND REY STRUGGLING FOR CONTROL/FINN BANDAGING CHEWIE/BB-8 SHOWING HAN HIS ‘PIECE OF THE MAP’/HAN TELLING THEM “THIS IS OUR STOP”…and then go to seeing 2 TIEs fly towards the starkiller base as we see the 1st ‘Snoke/Hux/Kylo’ scene (which ends with Snoke saying “We shall see…we shall see”)…AND THEN GO TO THE FALCON IN HYPERSPACE AGAIN AT THIS POINT, AS IT APPROACHES MAZ’S PLANET/our heroes land on Maz’s planet, and enter Maz’s premises/where a droid informs the ‘resistance’ of their whereabouts, followed by a female informing the ‘First Order’ too…AND CONTINUE WITH MAZ DISCUSSING THINGS WITH HAN, REY, AND FINN AT THIS POINT/as Finn tells Rey he’s leaving, and Rey ends up being drawn to Luke’s sabre and has bad visions/before she tells Maz she wants nothing to do with it, and runs away into the woods…AND THEN GO TO THE ‘STARDESTROYER WHERE KYLO SPEAKS TO VADER’S MASK’ SCENE…and then go to the FULL ‘Starkiller planet/Hux’s speech/weapon firing/Kylo watching from stardestroyer bridge/Finn and Han’s reactions/Hosnian people and planets blowing’ sequence as it currently stands in the movie…before eventually returning to Rey running through the woods, who had been followed by BB-8, as she then sees the approaching TIE ships flying overhead, and is eventually captured by Kylo soon after…

(Note: I reckon the current placement of the 1st ‘Snoke/Hux/Kylo’ scene certainly works just fine as it is after the ‘rathtar’ sequence ‘pirate informer’ notifies the First Order of BB-8’s whereabouts…and the only reason I’m moving it at all, is that I want to continue on with the Falcon’s interior scenes after it blasts off, and also like the notion of then SPLITTING the Falcon’s journey to Maz’s planet with the ‘Snoke cutaway-setting’ at that point instead…and while DC’s idea to stick the ‘Kylo/Vader’s Mask’ scene to immediately after the 1st ‘Snoke/Hux/Kylo’ scene can work quite effectively as a way to stay with a ‘Kylo cutaway setting’ a little longer, I just slightly prefer staying a little longer with him using a direct join with the ‘Hux speech/weapon firing’ scene instead…ESPECIALLY as the stardestroyer shots tie-in very nicely nearer together)

…and then jumping forward in the movie a little, I’ve also decided to shift the 2nd ‘Snoke/Hux/Kylo’ scene also - however, I’ve decided on a certain change for myself that I know some others aren’t keen on - totally removing the ‘Kylo unmasking/Rey interrogation’ scene, so that I can keep Kylo’s ‘face reveal’ until Han tells him to take his helmet off on the gantry. Thing is, due to the fact that the movie ends up revealing that Kylo is Han’s son early on in the proceedings…along with having the big set-piece of the Starkiller weapon destroying the planets early on too (about half-way through)…then I feel that I’d like to at least keep the ‘reveal/mystery’ of what ‘Ben’ actually looks like, to much later in the movie.

I wasn’t sure if it was possible to do this adequately for myself initially. But on balance I think so, as I can see a way where I can rearrange the footage/dialogue from BOTH of the ‘Snoke/Hux/Kylo’ scenes to still make 2 scenes that are satisfying enough for me…where Kylo keeps his helmet on throughout. And while I like the dialogue between Kylo and Rey in the interrogation scene, I reckon I can live without it for the ‘effect’ of Kylo’s reveal at the point Han catches up with him.

So here’s how I’d now insert the 2nd ‘Snoke/Hux/Kylo’ scene instead -

To recap, the CURRENT sequence of scenes are arranged like this -

…the movie has progressed from where Kylo took Rey away, to the point in the ‘resistance base’ where Leia is telling Han that she wants him to get their son back, and she walks away when told “General, the reconnaissance report on the enemy base has come in”…and then go to 2 TIEs flying over the snowy First Order base/where Rey wakens to her interrogation by Kylo/and the 2nd Snoke scene starts with him yelling “The scavenger resisted you?” at a HELMETLESS Kylo (and ends with Snoke saying “Bring…her…to…me”)/Rey struggles and attempts to make a trooper free her, as Kylo approaches with helmet on/Rey tries again, and succeeds in getting the trooper to free her and drop his weapon/as Kylo returns and smashes up the empty room with his sabre/as 2 troopers turn around and go back the way they came/and Hux on base bridge says "Begin charging the weapon, as we then see the sun sucked towards the planet, and we then return to the ‘resistance’ base as Poe discusses the Starkiller hologram with everyone…

And here’s how my own re-arrangement of the scenes will look INSTEAD (with the shifted scene in CAPITALS) -

…the movie has progressed from where Kylo took Rey away, to the point in the ‘resistance base’ where Leia is telling Han that she wants him to get their son back, as she walks away when told “General, the reconnaissance report on the enemy base has come in”…and then go to 2 TIEs flying over the snowy First Order base…AND THEN GO TO A ‘REARRANGED’ VERSION OF THE 2ND ‘SNOKE/HUX/KYLO’ SCENE WHERE KYLO ‘KEEPS HIS HELMET ON’ (AND ENDS ON SNOKE SAYING “BRING…HER…TO…ME”)…and then go to Rey struggling and attempting to make a trooper free her, as Kylo approaches with helmet on/Rey tries again, and succeeds in getting the trooper to free her and drop his weapon/as Kylo returns and smashes up the empty room with his sabre/as 2 troopers turn around and go back the way they came/and Hux on base bridge says “Begin charging the weapon”, as we then see the sun sucked towards the planet, and we then return to the ‘resistance’ base as Poe discusses the Starkiller hologram with everyone…

So that’s what I’ve got in mind for all that if I KEEP the Starkiller weapon firing where it currently is in the movie. (but of course, certain scenes would be re-arranged a bit differently for my version where it fires AFTER Han’s death)

Bingowings said:

😄

Your ‘smiley’ is only showing as an ‘oblong’ for me, which is a pity as we need more smileys around here.

(I intended to post this yesterday adywan, but got called away by the missus) -

Having checked in on ‘Star Wars Day’ to see if there was anything of interest going on with the site, I was sorry to read of all the recent shenanigans around here. But without quoting any of your recent specific comments, I really hope that you’ll just totally forget about feeling you have to stick to any proposed release date for finishing ‘ESB:Revisited’ you are currently aiming for, if it is just adding to any other day-to-day pressures at the moment.

While I’m one of those who are keenly awaiting it one day, I really hope you don’t continue to feel that you’ve ‘kept everyone waiting too long as it is’, or put more pressure on yourself by thinking that - just try to ignore any worries you may be giving yourself on that issue…as the fact is that it’s taken as long as it’s taken due to the considerable amount of complicated enhancements you’ve achieved…and having been one of the lucky few to have seen a very early, unfinished version (along with certain other shot previews from you), I can only repeat that I believe everyone anticipating this project will be completely blown away when it is properly good and ready - and that an arbitary ‘completion date’ is not an additional pressure you should be giving yourself for the sake of the more impatient out there. Personally, I’ve been amazed that despite the considerable ups-and-downs you’ve had along the way, the enthusiastic, sheer hard work you’ve still managed to maintain on it throughout.

This particular thread has been a constant source of inspiration to a lot of us due to your many generous and thoughtful previews and responses over the years, and has generated some worthy ideas from some, along with plenty of humour (and unintended humour!) from others…and these forums will be far the poorer for losing your regular input around here, if that remains the case - I mean, can you imagine the ‘fun/and disagreements’ we’d all miss out on where some of the ‘ideas/contributions’ offered by some for any future ‘ROTJ:R’ and ‘Prequels:R’ threads are concerned…?

So I hope you’ll feel able to return here at some point in the future when things improve, and just take however long it continues to take to get your project 100% perfect for yourself…no matter the time it might still take to do so.

Anyway, I’d just like to add that I loved the addition of the Blockade Runner to the ‘rebel fleet’ pic you released over on your Facebook page yesterday. Very neat to see it in that shot - https://www.facebook.com/swrevisited

‘May The 4th’ continue to be with us all in the future.

(by the way, it was nice to see the Obamas dancing with R2 and the stormtroopers - if we don’t see and eventual President Clinton/or President Trump(!) doing something similar next year, then impeach them I say)

darthrush said:

I would also maybe try to do the following in line with your plot restructuring:

-Cut together a star being sucked up with Hux’s speech. I overlayed it with the last section of “Anakins Dark Deeds”. If you want a preview clip, I can upload that. Basically Hux now prepares a speech for the star being sucked up. This is cut together pretty well.

This was the same way that ‘Noodle_Finger’ recut his version, and it indeed works well for anyone that wishes to place the ‘superweapn destroying the planets’ scene after Han’s death - he basically ended the ‘Hux speech’ with the shot of all the First Order troopers raising their arms.

TK251, I’ll be interested to see what bits and pieces you’ve chosen to alter for this. I’ve only checked out one completed edit of this movie so far, and that was by a guy called ‘Noodle_Finger’ on reddit which came out recently - (I’ll be sending you the link for it sometime soon, and can give it to anyone else that wishes to see it too, if they want to)

It was the first time I’d seen how things looked where placing the ‘superweapon blowing up the planets’ scene after ‘Han’s death’ scene was concerned. I liked seeing it played out that way…but have decided I’ll be keeping the whole complete scene as it is/where it is in the scheme of things for my own ideal cut-list…as I really like the Williams music that plays during that whole sequence, as well as certain shots of Hux watching the proceedings (which I’d have to discard/chop up otherwise). It remains one of my favourite sequences from the movie, and I’m loathe to dilute it’s impact for me. Still, I’ve managed to work out a few other little tweaks and re-arrangements of my own which will make the movie even more to my liking in other ways.

For instance, I’d already decided to shorten the ‘Rathtar’ scene for myself in a very similar way as your Vimeo clip showed - where Rey holds her mouth at what she’s seeing, before she then begins to run off with Finn…and we then cut to the Falcon seen through the doorway as Han and Chewie are firing, as Rey and Finn then appear again. It was nice to see it play out that way in your clip too, and I think that works really well to shorten the overall sequence for the better.

By the way, I’ve decided to make it look like the two gangs are just one gang for the start of the ‘Rathtar’ scene…and I’ll be shortening the whole exchange between them and Han (with no talk of money) to make it seem that they are purely on a mission to find the BB-8 unit on behalf of the First Order. The whole thing zips along quite nicely at this point now, and I’ve ended up rather liking the ‘Rathtar’ sequence in this form now.

I’ll look forward to see how your own version turns out, however.

doubleofive said:

Windows7Guy100 said:

doubleofive said:

Windows7Guy100 said:

When you do ROTJ, will you be doing anything about Boba Fett’s horrible death scene?

He sure is.

<insert laughter here>

What’s so funny?

He has something special planned.

…or he could indeed just be inserting a ‘canned laughter’ track over the scene when Boba’s sent flying by Han, and into the Sarlacc.

marioxb said:

It would be interesting if there was one scene with alien subtitles. I think Empire is the only SW without them.

You’ve now got me wondering what ‘Bossk’ said to ‘Admiral Piett’ in the bounty hunter scene… Was it something rude?

(Heh, Bingo posted that as I was typing)

SilverWook said:

The same prop or the same character?

That red and white droid sure seems to get around - Not only does it feature in the ‘Rogue One’ teaser, but I’ve just noticed that’s it’s also in the background of ‘The Force Awakens’ a couple of times too…when Finn arrives at the rebel base, and meets up with Poe again.

(however, the jury’s still out on whether it’s our old friend ‘R5-X2’ from ‘The Phantom Menace’ Jabba scene, or not)

Both looking fabulous, and that’s without the lighting etc. yet!

Very nice job with that teaser emanswfan. 😃

I’d have preferred to see the ‘rainbow’ LUCASFILM logo used, along with the ‘STAR WARS’ logo at the end instead, but I liked this so much I added it to the ‘Fanmade trailers’ section over at Fanedit(.)org for them to see.

SilverWook said:

The same prop or the same character?

It might indeed just be a random, leftover prop from TPM. But either way, if it just remains an un-named background droid in ‘Rogue One’, I guess we can choose to believe it’s the same one if we wish.

Anyway, here’s the actual link I came across which brought it to my attention - jalopnik.com/this-is-the-first-positive-identification-of-a-known-dr-1771219814

I was interested to find out that the red and white droid (‘R5-X2’) seen in the ‘Rogue One’ trailer is supposed to be the one seen beside Jabba when he introduced the podrace in ‘TPM’.

Just sayin’.

I wonder if there will be viewers who have only seen the home versions of the ‘Special Editions’ from 2004 onwards who will decide to check these movies out on the big screen for the first time? - if so, not only are they gonna wonder who the ‘old dude forceghost’ is at the end of 1997’s ROTJ:SE…but they’re gonna get a bit of a shock when they see how Jabba originally looked!

DominicCobb said:

I really have very small interest in TFA fan edits because I know they’ll mostly just cut out stuff I love, but there are some small quibblies that I’ll probably have to sort out for myself at some point.

For instance, and it’s strange no one’s mentioned this, but the Kylo speaks to Vader scene doesn’t really work. I mean, as a scene, by itself, it totally works. But it’s placement within the film just seems… random? It’s right in the middle of the sequence of the heroes at Maz’s castle, but it’s only about a minute long and doesn’t really have anything to do with that. So just a very short and unrelated detour, which sort of ruins the power of the scene a bit.

So I see two options to fix.
A) Make the scene more relevant to Kylo’s storyline. Solution: move the scene right after Snoke’s “We shall see.”
or B) Make the scene more relevant to the heroes storyline. Solution: move the scene right after Han and Leia talk about Kylo.

This sounds like a very good point indeed, considering that I found that substantially re-arranging the position of certain scenes in the prequels for my own cut-lists made them much more impactful for me. I’m definately gonna have a look at this suggestion of yours when I get around to pinning down my own TFA alterations. It’s a great scene, but I agree it’s placement might be more effective if used elsewhere.

ZkinandBonez said:

There’s been some discussion as to where General Dodonna is in RO, and apparently he might be in the trailer standing in the dark behind Mon Mothma.
(I’d be surprised if the guy in the picture below is not supposed to be Dodonna, he’s a dead ringer for Alex McCrindle.)

Thankyou! I didn’t actually spot that guy in the backround during that Mon Mothma shot. I hope you’re right, as I really wanted his character to be involved in this thing in some way.

TV’s Frink said:

So report the mods then.

Heh, thanks for that latest LOL!

You seem to be getting a bit of negativity from a few here TV’s Frink, and I can only guess that the majority of them have been on the wrong end of your funny bone in the past. As far as I’m concerned, long may your funny bone continue when it’s required…as we need all the humour we can get around here at times.

As far as the topic’s original question goes, I’ve been tweaking my own intended cut-list for AOTC recently, and one of the worst aspects of that movie for me was definately the unconvincing moments/dialogue between Anakin and Padme during the build-up in their ‘romance’ over the course of the movie. Just dreadful, and it took a bit of effort to get it to the point where it became reasonably convincing for myself - which involved totally removing quite a lot of their footage together, of course.

For me, the prequels as a whole (especially AOTC) were also disappointing due to the awkward relationship between Anakin and Obi-wan is concerned too, as that ended up giving me a whole other set of scenes/and dialogue that I had to alter for myself, into something I liked better.

Like others, there’s a whole heap of other stuff throughout the prequels that I ended up altering or totally removing for myself, but these 2 important relationships of Anakin were especially badly conceived by George in these movies, as far as I’m concerned.

The first of these standalone ‘spin-off’ movies had kinda fallen off my radar until yesterday, but the new trailer proved quite interesting in many ways.

The effects and action certainly look good so far, and hopefully I’ll warm to all these new cast members eventually. By the way, I was keen to see who was re-cast as Alex McCrindle’s ‘General Dodonna’ in this, but I don’t see anyone listed for the role over on IMDB.com…which is a pity, as you can’t have too many beards in ‘Star Wars’!

But this ‘heist’ scenario is looking promising as a ‘prequel’ of sorts to the OT, and looks like it could end up having a somewhat ‘gritty’ vibe judging by this footage. I just wonder how Alexandre Desplat’s score is going to end up sounding throughout, as it’s going to feel somewhat strange not to have John Williams scoring the whole thing this time around - however, it seems he’s listed as the composer of the ‘theme’ music, so things will probably kick off in the usual way with an info. scroll I presume. It would be nice if the new composer does a good job with this.

mfastx said:

Hi Ady I had a quick question for you.

At any point did you consider adding a “glass effect” to cockpit scenes in the Falcon, Luke’s X-Wing and the speeders on Hoth? I noticed this effect was quite noticeable in TFA and added a lot of realism, IMO. Is that something that could be done in ESB:R?

Thanks!

mfastx, just in case adywan’s too tied up to get back to you on this one anytime soon, I seem to remember that he ruled out adding ‘glass-like reflections/or scratches’ like this a long time ago - due to the fact that it would have ended up far too time-consuming to be worth it, considering the sheer amount of ship shots it would need to be done in. And the same goes for all the ‘ANH’/‘ROTJ’ ship shots too.

(Loving the enhancements to the Falcon’s interior by the way adywan)