Neerb

EddieDean said:

I’ve never been a great fan of abilities being categorised either as darkside or lightside, I prefer to think that both dark and light are moral interpretations of the same thing.

when Rey did, it felt like an attempt to make force healing less inherently dark, which I didn’t like.

These seem like two contradicting statements. You say you don’t like powers to be inherently light or dark, but you do want healing to be inherently dark?

I think healing as seen in TROS is not a dark side action due to it requiring self-sacrifice (giving your life force to someone else). Ben could have been seen as fearing the loss of Rey when he healed her, but he knowingly sacrificed himself to do so, proving that it was really about saving her and not about getting what he wanted. Thus, this version of healing requires an inherent selflessness, and it doesn’t disturb the natural order of the living force due to being a net-even trade rather than rejecting death entirely.

Contrast this to, hypothetically, if Vader had been given the opportunity to try to save Padme in RotS. He would not have been willing to give up his own life to save hers. Padme was a possession he feared to lose, but he nearly killed her in the first place because he feared losing his own power more. If he had somehow found a way to preserve her, it would be through a different darker means.

Burbin said:

It would be an interesting change to see, that moment is meant to dissolve the tension between Zorii and the gang, it’s telling the audience she’s a good guy now. If kept as a reluctant “okay” things would be left more ambiguous up until she [literally] opens herself to Poe. There would still be some tension as she leads them to Babu and lines like “You still don’t trust me, huh?” might work better.

When you put it like that it does sound interesting. I’d have to see/hear the scene that way to decide if I like the delivery, though. I’m not sure how choppy it might seem cutting everything but the “okay.” Then again, I did like how cutting the “brains in the snow” line worked out.

Oh, and since I don’t think I’ve posted since v1 went up, good job Hal! Really liked the commentary, as always. The bit about Windu & Anakin “rhyming” with the new purple saber was a nice extra layer I didn’t recall seeing in this thread.

Movies Remastered said:

Hal, Trying to view the new workprint but it won’t let me preview or download. Could that be you or something I’ve done?

You’ll need to make a copy to your own drive, then make a copy of that copy. The copy’s copy will be downloadable. That’s what I’ve always had to do for Hal’s stuff since they hit their view/download limit so fast.

As for the updated workprint: even with the two "traitor"s now being different voices, I still think it’s weird that it happens twice in the same scene mere seconds apart. “Traitor” being a meme from TFA doesn’t help, either.

I don’t recall if it was brought up recently (I know I didn’t), but I’m not sure I like Rey telling Palpatine “My parents were strong. They saved me from you.” I know this movie reveals that to be true (which I dislike for obvious reasons), but Rey immediately having this optimism weakens the threat of the scene a bit imo. I also think that her still leaning on her parents this late, literally in the final battle, is pretty lame after all she’s done to try to grow past them. Plus, with the ghosts in this edit and Ben in the theatrical, she ends up being saved by everyone except her parents. It doesn’t matter that she’s her parents’ daughter, it matters that she’s heir to the Jedi. Her parents giving her hope here is thematically destracting not only in the context of the previous movies, but also in the context of this one, where she rejects her blood and becomes a Skywalker.

She can say “all you want me to do is hate, but I won’t,” a desperate willful defiance, but that line at least has some shakiness to it like she’s not sure she even believes it, which shows there’s still a threat as Palpatine goes into his speech about how she has no one (until Ben arrives). I think Rey’s parent line could be cut without too much issue too; it lingers a bit on her after she says it and Palpatine begins his speech, giving a clean cut from Palpatine’s “weak like your parents” to “your master was saved by his father” and making it an uninterrupted speech.

Also, I think I have mentioned it before, but I really dislike Finn’s “people are rising up all over the galaxy.” Just “Poe, we did it” is so much nicer.

In terms of the new workprint specifically, I don’t have much new to say that hasn’t already been said (like the double use of “traitor”). Still hoping jonh can fix Luke’s awful hair, but if not it’s otherwise looking good over all!

Hal 9000 said:

I certainly hope for this year, yes. Just waiting on a few pieces, mostly the crackly saber.

Are we still waiting on the other missing things from the OP?

JakeRyan17 said:

Considering Palpatine didn’t need to return in the first place

“The basic premise of the entire movie should have been different” is a different conversation entirely, and a pretty pointless one considering the deed has been done (unless you’re somehow planning a completely Palpatine-less edit, which Hal is not).

You guys are looking way too into the lore reasoning of this when the Doylist reason is readily apparent: to minimize the ickiness.

The reason the novel clarifies he’s a clone is because if he were Palps’ biological son, Palpatine would have had to have banged Rey’s grandma sometime during the late Empire, which is a gross thought we don’t need some EU writer detailing for us down the line.

Meanwhile if he were more clearly spelled out as Palps’ clone in the movie, we would have a flashback where a digitally-de-aged McDiarmid is coddling the young Rey, which would be just as horrifying and also create the unnerving idea that biologically Rey is actually Palp’s daughter.

The sloppy mixture of movie and book explanations we got was ultimately a mercy. He’s a test-tube baby and not the result of wrinkly Sith love-making, but he’s an imperfect clone who’s genetically-speaking more like a son than a literal second Palps.

Here’s a line from Poe about “cannons” from Lego Star Wars, but idk how much might be usable.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q9S7FeQKIfPU209uFw-ZoTGoNFQf-g8m/view?usp=drivesdk

Hm, “Hit those underbelly cannons” sounds a little weird with nothing following it, but not enough to ruin the scene. All in all pretty nice!

I think they’re referencing the bit of Duel of the Fates during the Rey-Kylo duel on the Death Star wreckage. If you’re using the version from Maul’s appearance in Solo, this upcoming soundtrack release might provide a higher quality version.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Dub every stormtrooper and clone trooper with John Boyega’s American voice and superimpose his face on all the unmasked clone troopers.

Does this include Jango and Boba?

Could I get a link as well?

I wonder if, to help drive home the premonition as a threat, Kylo could mention how Rey and Palpatine have shared the vision after he announces it to her.

When Kylo catches Rey in the forest in TFA (timestamp 1:18:08), he says to her while wearing his helmet, “The map. You’ve seen it.” I wonder if that line could be reused in the hangar right after the reveal, with a bit of tweaking to hide the recycling? Maybe even with some word replacement and emphasis adjustment, we could have “He’s seen it. You’ve seen it,” or maybe “He knows you’ve seen it.”

The explanation of the dyad that RogueLeader added, “I the light, you the darkness,” could be moved to after he says the dyad “two who are one” line, as Rey is backing up to the edge of the hanger (literally as he moves closer to the light of the door and she moves closer to the darkness of space, lol), which I think might improve the flow of his elaboration leading into “together, nothing will stand in our way.”

The “vergence/force nexus” thing has been tossed around many times over the last months, but even if the dubbing were believable the amount of exposition is embarrassing, and it’s pandering hard to the “Rey’s a Mary Sue but Anakin’s the most special boy in the world” crowd. I feel it’s far more important to make this movie a satisfying end to Rey’s story. The vergence stuff is just not something Rey’s character would know or care about, no dramatic revelation, just “fanboys behind the fourth wall will know these nouns that mean ‘you are strong.’”

The “take the throne” stuff is definitely the best take on the hangar edits I’ve seen so far. Play up Rey’s fears of her future by implying the Emperor has foreseen the same. Still maybe not as dramatic of a revelation as it should be (though the timing of the words in the edit are great with the music), but a big step in the right direction if not a pretty decent final product. It also follows from TLJ well, where Rey flirted with the dark and Kylo wanted her to rule by his side, without the “you have evil Palpatine genetics” nonsense of the theatrical TROS. Plus, I really like “I know the rest of your story” now implying that Kylo know’s the end of the story, Rey’s future, rather than just additional details about her past. We shouldn’t still be obsessing over Rey’s past so much in the finale imo.

JakeRyan17 said:
Another recommendation I’d throw in, that I’m sure people will reject, is having Chewbacca die. Make Rey face consequences for giving into the darkness and hatred.

Kijimi makes this functionally impossible imo. Even if super skilled editors with the free time rotoscoped him out of all of the other scenes and we cut his reaction shots from Leia’s death, the whole reason they board the ship on Kijimi is for Chewie, and everything that happens there is a big deal.

Maaaaaybe, in theory, one could somehow get 3P0 to read the dagger inscription on/after Pasaana and completely cut Kijimi out of the movie, but boy would that be difficult to make believable, and it’d absolutely kill the already rushed pacing (and the run time for that matter).

I like the idea of the montage coming after Ajan Kloss (through a cut rather than a fade) to show it happens later, allowing Finn’s line to be cut with less confusion. Then fade end of montage into black, then into chess.

The sun change is jarring, but I don’t think the chess scene works there. It would be a random cutaway that interrupts the flow of the scene in an incredibly awkward way, far worse than the suns changing position.

Personally, my interpretation of the suns in the BB-8 scene is that it’s just a mirage.

“Made” is a very vague word. “Made” in the canon sense means that Palpatine created Snoke in a test tube, but it can also mean “trained and placed him in his seat of power,” as in “I made Snoke [what he is].” Luke could just as easily have said “I created Kylo Ren” in The Last Jedi during the peak of his guilt.

Keeping “made” is the best option, especially since Hal’s edits are typically conservative enough not to break hard canon “from a certain point of view.” I think making Leia’s lightsaber purple will be the most drastic “factually incorrect” thing in all of his edits, and even that will only matter if they make new stories about Leia’s training, since it gets buried in the desert presumably forever at the end of IX.

The Snyder Cut is currently costing millions of dollars to film new scenes for the HBO release, so no, there was no a complete Snyder cut in 2018, not matter what fans and clickbait bloggers say. The theatrical release wasn’t what Snyder wanted, but that was never a secret (just ask Superman’s mustache).

And btw, you guys know what Rise of Skywalker, Justice League, and Batman v Superman for that matter, all had in common? The writer. TROS and the DCEU both reek of classic terrible decision making from Abrams and Snyder respectively, but they both also have the same writer in Chris Terrio. At the end of the day, these movies are bad not because of studio secrets, but because they’re written by someone who has proven to have no skill in writing fantasy franchise blockbusters.

There are surely some deleted scenes for TROS somewhere, though, and fan editors would probably do better with them than an official extended cut would.

“You’re a Palpatine” isn’t great either. Maybe cut both? So he says “You have his power,” Rey reacts, and hes goes on with “My mother was…”

Might cut the scene too short though, and it’s supposed to be the huge dramatic reveal.

Liking it a lot! Like others said, it is a bit overly red in places, but could be worse for a WIP. Most jarring thing might be the Naboo shot, and not just because of the aspect ratio. Not sure how exactly to describe it, but it seems… off. Maybe how bright it is, or quickly it’s moving? Not very precise or helpful, sorry; heck, maybe it’s just because it’s new and I’ve watched this movie too many times now.

Keep up the good work [at a manageable pace] Hal & co!

Yes it will. If you want to keep the old print, download it. If it doesn’t let you do that, copy it to your own Google Drive, then make a copy of that copy, then download the copy’s copy (this bypasses download limits).

Anakin Starkiller said:

Have all the children voiced by various series directors. Young Anakin played by George Lucas. “There are too many of them” kid played by JJ Abrams. Broom Boy voiced by Rian Johnson, except he’s clearly improvising the alien language. Kitster played by Irvin Kirshner. Richard Marquand as Wicket.

I’d prefer Kitster be played by Rick McCallum. I want to hear “This is so wizard, Annie” with the exact same delivery as “It’s so dense.”

Rey is already on the light side, the saber first calls out to her in TFA, and she actually knows how to heal as demonstrated twice on screen before the finale. Why wouldn’t Rey have been able to heal it herself?

The lightsaber suddenly being fixed when Kylo grabs it doesn’t make sense in-universe and would just come across as an error to a new viewer of the edit, and it doesn’t add anything thematically that Kylo wielding the blade in the first place doesn’t already do.

Always broken or never broken is my hard stance.

Good point, I forgot that font is capitalized in all the sequel titles. I’ll edit that now.

Edit: Capitalization, shorter foreword, new typeface more accurate to the movies, and shifted some things a little.