Neerb

The “Obi-Wan” line is a pretty cool idea. Sowing any more seeds of division between Anakin and Padme before the big turn would help a lot.

Also, as long as discussion is back on for prequel edits, I’d like to bring back this comment from last year to possibly add to the Episode I changelist:

Neerb said:

I have a suggestion for that opening fight if you ever go back to edit it again. When the doors to the conference room open and the Battle Droids look at each other in anticipation of the Jedi, I think it might be good to add a more audible mechanical whirring sound (like when droids move their limbs) when the captain droid and his subordinate nod to each other. The reason is that without the droid dialog in its current state, it seems a bit too quiet and either makes the CGI characters feel like they aren’t really there or draws attention to the fact that audio has been cut.

Additionally, I think as soon as the lightsabers light up in the smoke, there should be much quicker cut to the droids firing, because at the moment there’s about a full second (in the 6:03-6:05 timestamp range) where the droids just stand there doing nothing awkwardly (because originally they were waiting for the captain to give orders), which kills a bit of the tension and excitement of the action and again makes the cut audio too noticeable.

Anyway, these “maximalist” ideas for the edits sound like they’ll be fun. I could personally live without Yoda’s fights (and I still don’t think the Obi-Wan show necessitates the youngling stuff), but I know I’d have a much better chance of convincing a buddy of mine to watch these if that stuff was back. Sometimes it’s nice just to throw people a bone on flashing lights and action for action’s sake. Also, a shorter version of the underwater stuff in TPM being restored might actually improve that film; in the current state of the edit it is kinda weird how quickly the Jedi move from the forest to the not-forest-adjacent capital, and it’s also kinda weird why Jar Jar sticks around (though he does conveniently leave out Otoh Gunga in his recap to Padme anyway).

I do prefer Padme living regardless of whether Yoda fights, but I understand if that goes against the point of having a more conservative edit.

This isn’t a super important thing, and maybe even deliberate to save space, but I just noticed since I like listening to them: the current v6 TinyEncode is missing the fan editor commentary audio track (can confirm the Large 1080 is fine).

After watching Hal’s newest Ascendant update and then rewatching Legendary, I had AI voice on the brain and I happened to get a thought about the Holdo subplot in The Last Jedi.

After Poe wakes up and Leia explains to him on the escape craft what the plan was all along, Leia ends by saying “She was more interested in protecting the light than she was seeming like a hero.” We then get a shot of Poe as he looks back at the capital ship leaving Holdo behind.

What if, in the brief space after that line, Leia then said something like, “She figured you’d want to take her place.”

The implication, then, would be that if Poe had learned the plan, he might have wanted to be the hero and be the sacrifice himself, given his impulsiveness for jumping into danger and taking what he wants. Holdo would have picked up on this, knowing that he’s a “trigger-happy flyboy,” and she also would have known that Leia was fond of him (being Leia’s close friend, as their parting words imply). Holdo even tells Leia that she likes Poe herself. But for this part of the plan, as Holdo puts it, Poe is “exactly what we don’t need right now”… because she knows his skills may be needed later, and this is something that she needs to do. Holdo is keeping Poe locked out for his own sake, and for the sake of Leia, and for the sake of those who will come to rely on him in the future.

I think this would make Holdo’s secrecy a bit more palatable and allow the audience to give her more credit for her role in the story, which is ultimately to be a supporting character servicing Poe’s growth and arc of becoming a leader and swallowing one’s pride. And I think this would be more faithful to the original film in that it would feel more like clarifying something that was already present (two well-meaning characters having a breakdown in communication) rather than inserting something contriving something new (like the often-suggested “spy within the resistance” concept).

Crazy to think that we’re two months away from the 5th anniversary…

Just got around to watching v5. Gotta say, I was kinda against the AI voices in the previous versions (and still kinda feel uneasy in principle, even though no one is losing work over it here), but v5 really pulled it off. Luke’s scene on Ach-To in particular is terrific; I can’t honestly say I would have caught the difference if I had seen it before the theatrical version.

Also still amazed at the visual effects work done for this project. Mustafar and Coruscant, the crackling saber, the puppet show, the sacred text healing illustration, and of course the most crucial part of the film, Mark Hamill’s horrendous wig! This whole thing really is something amazing.

Still hope against all logic and reason that anyone at Disney is a big enough Star Wars fan to release the deleted scenes some day…

Since the Speed Force scene is on the table, I have a suggestion for that opening fight if you ever go back to edit it again. When the doors to the conference room open and the Battle Droids look at each other in anticipation of the Jedi, I think it might be good to add a more audible mechanical whirring sound (like when droids move their limbs) when the captain droid and his subordinate nod to each other. The reason is that without the droid dialog in its current state, it seems a bit too quiet and either makes the CGI characters feel like they aren’t really there or draws attention to the fact that audio has been cut.

Additionally, I think as soon as the lightsabers light up in the smoke, there should be much quicker cut to the droids firing, because at the moment there’s about a full second (in the 6:03-6:05 timestamp range) where the droids just stand there doing nothing awkwardly (because originally they were waiting for the captain to give orders), which kills a bit of the tension and excitement of the action and again makes the cut audio too noticeable.

This whole thing is a fantastically creative idea that fixes so many issues at once. I’d love to see it integrated into Ascendant if it can be sold believably in editing (I can’t view the Mega clips at the moment, so that’s not a judgement on any current efforts).

“The Princess of Alderaan has disrupted my plan, but there is another.”

It’s like poetry, it rhymes.

And as for ambiguous setups, we’ll know he has another plan, but only when Rey arrives will we learn that he meant “another heir.”

You could keep the “Leia in vain” stuff too but it’ll take moving some shots around.

That Janna scene is beautiful! So glad something could be done for Finn.

That image looks great, Nev!

I agree that the “you are family” doesn’t gel with Rey’s loneliness throughout the rest of the movie, especially the festival scene.

As for Poe’s briefing, have we considered the possibility of a cutaway during that scene? After he says “His followers have been building something for years,” insert a brief shot of the Fleet itself, taken from some other part of the movie (maybe a wide shot sans-Xwing when Rey arrives at Exogol later in the movie, so that the audience has plenty of time to forget the reused visual). It could buy a little more time for the speech and make the scene more visual for the audience instead of just exposition.

You could also (or alternatively) insert a cutaway shot to showcase the dreadnought cannon when he talks about how the ships have been modified. In fact, we’ve already got an unused shot for that: the planet destruction sequence that was cut from Ascendant begins with a ~6 second uninterrupted slow zoom that shows a full shot of a ship, steadily zooms in on the cannon, and has the cannon begin to glow a menacing red as it prepares to fire.

The AI voices are pretty noticeable to me, though I haven’t been able to test it on anyone else (I’ve seen various cuts of this movie too many times). Poe does sound a bit off, and Rey’s lips didn’t seem to match when she said “ram” instead of “skip,” but maybe not a deal breaker?

I think Kylo’s early AI line might stand out most to me, though. For one, I personally dislike Kylo calling Palpatine a “rotting clone.” I guess I was in the minority on that during the earlier chats on it, but it still feels awkwardly expository and weirdly knowing of Kylo, like he read the script before coming down here. “You’re a ghost” gets the same idea across when combined with the earlier red vats of Palpatines while sounding more theatrical, like “ghost” is also referring to Palpatine being an old has-been and not just “you are a literal specter possessing a body.”

But besides that, while the AI voice does sound like Adam Driver, it doesn’t sound like Kylo in that scene; his follow-up “what could you give me” sounds much deeper and echo-y, almost like he’s wearing the helmet, and having those two lines in basically the same sentence really makes it stand out. If the new line couldn’t be made to match the old one, I wonder if it would have sold better redoing the old line in AI as well.

Sorry how negative this all sounds; a lot of great work has been put into this edit already, but AI voices were always going to be one of the harder sells as far as “would this have worked in the theater,” at least for me personally. Even the professionally done ones with Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian/Boba Fett really dragged those episodes down for me. But this edit is still a fantastic achievement.

Hal 9000 said:

You’re compelling me, that’s really something there.

“You’re a Phantom, a failed Clone. Out for Revenge.”

Kylo: “You’re a Phantom, in a failed Clone. What could you give me?”

Palpatine: “Revenge.” starships rise from the ice

“Palpatine, it’s you!! You’re The Phantom Menace?!!”

Jar Jar Bricks said:

What about: “You possess dying clones… what could you give me?”

Maybe something more poetic, less bluntly scientific?

“You’re a phantom,” or “You’re a shadow” or “You’re a ghost.” Just something to imply he’s spiritually a remnant of Palpatine while not being physically the original. It also still works with Kylo’s dismissive tone.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

I’m definitely doing a trilogy watch once v3 is out.

Same! I wish I could convince my friends to join me though. Unfortunately they each fall into polar opposite camps of either “I only want to watch the real versions, warts and all” or “I disliked them enough that I don’t want to watch them again, even edited,” and those feelings extend to the Prequels too.

No appreciation for the impact a cut can make. Heck, TFA was a generally well-received movie, and yet the central change to Restructured was so effective it’s completely replaced the theatrical for me.

Is there a set “to do” list/list of changes for v3 yet?

Hal 9000 said:

And if the crawl is good, I won’t rewrite it!

Oh for sure, I’m hoping nothing will be needed, but Lucasfilm’s track record with crawls has been kinda weird.

I’m a bit curious what they even mean by “crawl,” actually. Like, is it the crawl exactly? Solo had a kind of fake one. Are all of these new movies gonna have “A long time ago…,” trumpets blaring, slanted scrolling, the whole shebang? If anything is off, it’s possible that even if the writing is all good, the whole thing would need to be reformatted to pass as an Episode X.

If it is the real crawl, it’ll probably be the first to not have an episode title since before Star Wars was called “A New Hope.” That’d be kinda nostalgic in a way, at least on first viewing.

Most title crawls post-OT have been fairly unhelpful in setting the stage of their movie, or in some cases are actively confusing and misleading, and usually get rewritten in most fan edits. The Last Jedi’s was probably the best and even that got tweaked in these edits. I hope this movie won’t be need it (besides adding “Episode X”) but I guess we’ll see.

I am curious if this movie will have anything that necessitates going back to undo changes in TROS Ascendant. I doubt it, as nothing in TROS that was cut for Ascendant felt important enough to be referenced 15 years in the future, but still…

Also, just to throw in my 2 cents on the movie: I’m not sure I like the wording in the announcement that made it feel like Rey is just starting her order. Fifteen years feels like a long time to wait to start your new order, especially when you’re the only one. If Rey had a heart attack or slipped getting out of the shower, that’d be the end of the Jedi, haha. They did something similar with Luke in the new canon, having only seemingly teenaged apprentices nearly 25 years after RotJ, and that felt weird too.

That said, I’m all for more stuff with Rey and the New Republic, and a Jedi Order movie that isn’t the Prequels. I hope Finn is a proper Knight by Rey’s side, because again, 15 years would be a bizarrely long time for these characters to make no progress. It’d feel like the original gap between RotS and ANH, where everything at the end of RotS landed exactly where it is at the start of ANH and we’re just to assume the characters were in stasis for two decades.

Hal 9000 said:

maybe my commentary track sheds light on it around that part of the movie.

Yes, it does.

Your reason was that it seems weird to show a scene where Yoda sense Anakin’s pain only for Yoda to then do nothing about it.

I’d say that’s true, and you implied this, both from a character perspective and from a storytelling perspective. Obviously it’s strange to see that Yoda knew Anakin was suffering (and doing terrible things) and never acted on that information in the future, but it’s even stranger that there is no payoff to the scene of any kind, as if the scene was just thrown in at random.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Kenobi necessitates an update of LoE. The kid-killing scene in RotS is so unintentionally comical that it might be better to, in the limited context of your edits, leave the idea that Vader killed child Jedi as a dark revelation that happens in Kenobi. After all, Kenobi does treat that scene as a dramatic revelation already, just for a character other than Vader.

Hal 9000 said:

I got a translation already, but I appreciate the offer!

‘Rey Nobody’ is 100% live and available in the usual places. 😄

OP updated with changelist for this alternate version.

Congrats Hal! With this and the TLJ fix uploaded, would you say that all of your current Prequel and Sequel uploads are in their “final” state for the foreseeable future?

Really it’s just an unnecessary EU-esque silliness. Luke’s aunt and uncle were old and overprotective and a bit distant (they don’t have a parent-son relationship), and their death is a tragedy but also frees Luke to go on his adventure. Including a detail that implies they were inexplicably capable in combat in their final off-screen moments adds nothing to the story of the film or how the audience is intended to react in the moment.

Octorox said:

For ROTS, it’s worth pointing out that continuity with The Clone Wars pretty much requires the original “Plot to destroy the Jedi” scene at the war table.

I wouldn’t say it’d required. We can just have two different scenes in two different media, instead of the same scene appearing in two media. I don’t think anything’s invalidated by saying both scenes happened in this “canon.”

Notes after skimming through to look at the changed scenes:

• I noticed Rey’s first vision during her training scene still has her shooting blue lightning out of her hands. Is that left deliberately (artistically or due to technical limitations) or is that something that will be changed in the final release?
• When Rey sees Ochi’s ship in the desert, where the “I’ve seen that ship before” line has been cut, I wonder if her reaction shot could be tightened up just a bit more? It works without the line, but it still lingers on her staring inquisitively long enough that a new viewer might wonder what she’s thinking. Again, it still works as is, but since the ship is purely a macguffin in this cut of the movie and not a payoff to TFA, it might be best to minimize any hint of a larger picture.
• I don’t know if this was in previous versions of the movie and I just somehow didn’t notice before, or if it was discussed before and I don’t remember, but at timestamp 1:25:42, when Luke is sitting down next to Rey, I can clearly see Rey’s lips moving despite not having any dialog. I wonder if the scene could be restructured at all to avoid that. Luke saying “Rey, confronting fear is the destiny of the Jedi” is about 6 seconds long (a tad shorter if you reduce the pause after “Rey…”), so if he starts talking around 1:25:36, during the close-up of Rey’s face before he sits down, it would go fast enough for you to cut to the next shot right as Luke is in position before Rey’s mouth begins to move. But maybe we’ve already gone over this and decided the scene would be too rushed that way or something.

Will Rey still be taking the Skywalker name at the end of the movie, or will she remain a Nobody throughout?