NeverarGreat

So here’s an idea that has been bouncing around for a while, and it uses the old false starfield.

Original concept: https://vimeo.com/311822845

Password: fanedit

Previously the best idea for using this opening was to cut from Rey eating dinner to the Finalizer flying overhead, cutting to night in between the two shots or something to that effect.

However with the new images I’ve created of BB-8 sitting outside of Rey’s house at night, a new option becomes available. Rey finds BB-8 and brings the droid home, then BB-8 facilitates the transition to the Finalizer as a flashback. Perhaps BB-8 looks up at the stars and the camera pans up to the moons and the Finalizer, carrying the plot on from there. Cut from Finn being accosted by Phasma to Poe being tortured, then return to the theatrical progression of scenes (Rey arriving in town, Escape of Poe and Finn, Crash landing, etc…). The reversion to the theatrical ordering is a slight downside for me, but a potential upside is that the crawl might not need to be quite as plot heavy. It would need to reference the disappearance of Luke, the rise of the First Order, and the existence of the Resistance, but this could be communicated in two paragraphs with the final paragraph focusing on the plight of planets such as Jakku and the repercussions of the devastating Civil War.

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

I think what’s slightly jarring is that the camera movement as it is now is not “flowing” with the shot before…if that makes sense. BB8 is moving from left to right, but the next shot has more movement (mostly from 3PO) on the far left (not too mention a large wookie) so your eyes don’t quite know where to look.

Something that might help with that shot is to zoom in slightly (can you center the 3 dudes or add more of Liea?)…and possibly position the frame closer to the bottom, and then have it slowly rise up…maybe even pulling back out a bit…as if it could’ve been an alternate angle filmed with Poe kneeling with and BB8. Am I making sense? 😄

I’ll play with it some more and report back 😃

idir_hh said:

NeverarGreat said:

Concerning the final scenes, it becomes more and more clear that I need to show BB-8’s contribution to the map or else the Resistance looks that much worse for failing to search R2. So I’ve extended the TLJ musical cue to give the map scene more time to breathe. There are also a few small changes to the Luke dream I’m sure you’ll spot:

https://vimeo.com/367118285

Password: fanedit

The music transitions are really top notch and the bright dream affect is superb, I personally wouldn’t blur luke at the beginning instead leaving it till the end of the dream so that it remains more subtle.

Would it be better if I were to replace the rocks behind Luke and have him fade in totally independent of the surroundings?

Well if Yoda had recovered and kept his lightsaber in Episode 3, that would be a good reason to stay and loot the room. To communicate this cromulent concept, I would recommend altering the deleted scene of him building his lightsaber so that he instead just puts the Yoda saber into a bigger handle.

Since I’m planning on removing Rey from this scene, that shot is a no-go. There really isn’t any other reaction shot to use, and I’ve already lengthened the existing reaction shot as much as I dare. Originally the Resistance + Rey reactions were together and sort of acted as one which allowed them to be so brief, but since that’s no longer possible I’m out of options.

Touche.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

NeverarGreat said:

Lucas should have given Obi-wan a robot leg in the ANH Special Edition in 1997 so that people would have speculated endlessly over the next 8 years about when during the prequels he lost it, then never have him sustain this injury, making it clear that it just happened sometime later and had no bearing on the plot.

And he could have made it C-3PO’s missing gold right leg.

Well see now that’s almost interesting, so it would have never happened.

Lucas should have given Obi-wan a robot leg in the ANH Special Edition in 1997 so that people would have speculated endlessly over the next 8 years about when during the prequels he lost it, then never have him sustain this injury, making it clear that it just happened sometime later and had no bearing on the plot.

Yeah, doubtful.

^Seriously? Did they actually release something like that?

Also

Concerning the final scenes, it becomes more and more clear that I need to show BB-8’s contribution to the map or else the Resistance looks that much worse for failing to search R2. So I’ve extended the TLJ musical cue to give the map scene more time to breathe. There are also a few small changes to the Luke dream I’m sure you’ll spot:

https://vimeo.com/367118285

Password: fanedit

RogueLeader said:

EDIT: I also think it is funny how Snoke starts going on this aside and Hux is thinking, “That’s great and all but I can’t stand here and listen to you monologue because the collapse of the planet has begun.”

I imagine that the monologue would be mostly to himself as Hux scampered off, but it is indeed silly. That’s also one of the reasons I moved the breakup of the planet to after the lightsaber fight; that sort of thing works in The Search for Spock because one of the combatants is a battle-obsessed Klingon, but nobody on Starkiller seems crazy enough to do anything other than try to get off it as soon as possible.

FreezingTNT2 said:

Do you plan on removing Snoke mentioning that Kylo needs to complete his training? I mean, Kylo’s training isn’t really important in The Last Jedi.

Yes, it’s already removed:

NeverarGreat said:

NeverarGreat said:

I’ve been thinking about moving Snoke’s ‘Awakening’ dialogue (thanks RL!) and I have an idea for it that may greatly improve more than just the logic of that theme. Not to be cryptic about the idea, but I think it will be better just to show you. Unfortunately implementation will take a bit of work so I’m just going to let this idea sit here for now like a JJ mystery box. 😃

As promised, the idea:

https://vimeo.com/363482768

Password: fanedit

I may have to go back into the Restructured workfile to rework the music, since the timing could be better.

As for the ‘training’ line, I don’t miss it, especially since TLJ all but discarded that plot point.

RL, that’s a fair interpretation of the line with the hindsight of TLJ, but after TFA I think most people expected some actual physical/mental training like a dark version of Yoda’s training from ESB. The line also feels to me like Snoke is recognizing the dark action of Kylo as passing the test set up earlier, regardless of how conflicted Kylo still remains. I like where TLJ took this plot thread, but it does feel like two different attitudes.

Very nice. Kinda liturgical, but also on theme for Mace.

Matt.F said:

I’ve seen it online in a few places, here on IMDB (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094012/trivia)…

The escape pod launch sequence is an unused clip from Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), provided to Mel Brooks by Lucasfilm.

There’s no way that’s true.

Comparison:
https://imgur.com/0cm6HoC

The design of the tunnel and pod are only passably similar and share no identical features, though the silly door on the pod and the excessive greebling of the tunnel should be dead giveaways that this was made specifically for Spaceballs.

FreezingTNT2 said:

I’m having my upcoming edit for TLJ take place after your edit of TFA (because my viewing order will be Rogue One, ANH:R HD, ESB:R, TFoR, RotJ:R, TFA:TSP, my TLJ edit, and an edit for TRoS). What do you think?

Very ambitious. I don’t know how you’ll pull of Luke’s hair color change among other things, but best of luck 😃

I’ll definitely have a workprint ready and available even if some things are still unfinished such as timecode removal.

Here’s the updated version with the swapped Chewie/Finn yells, let me know if it works better:

https://vimeo.com/366381508

Password: fanedit

SSWR, it’s funny that you mention all those things since I was busy fixing most of them before checking back to see your post! So there’s now a lightsaber sound at the transition (thanks RL 😃), ‘The Force’ is now louder, and you’re right that the ‘show you the ways…’ is still weird because of the music removal. I actually have clean voice audio for that (and most lines in the movie) from the LEGO TFA game, which has been an invaluable resource. It’s just a matter of using that source and re-foleying all the rest of the effects back in around it which I’m too lazy to do just yet.

As for the logic behind these choices, they’re really just based on nothing more than my gut in all honesty. If I had to explain the choices, Han’s dialogue serves first as a segue from Kylo’s ‘Force’ line into another ‘Force’ line, then Kylo’s lines about disappointment as a direct reaction to this and turning Rey’s thoughts to anger. This unleashes a wave of recent and not-so-recent trauma which makes her go Dark Luke on Kylo.

Funny thought process, I had just finished working on this scene last night when I had the idea that this could be more of an actual conversation rather than a semi-random string of memories. Kylo would say out loud ‘You need a teacher!’ then either edit his mouth closed or use a different shot while having a telepathic version of ‘I can teach you the ways of the Force’, an ability that Rey has yet to use. She replies out loud ‘The Force!’ and recalls Han’s lines, but then Kylo butts into her mind with ‘He would have disappointed you’, which leads to her losing her cool. For this to really work I would have to delete the disappointment line from the interrogation, and that would also be a good time to introduce the ability for Kylo to actually broadcast his thoughts into Rey’s head with ‘You feel like he’s the father you never had.’
‘Get out of my head!’

The people have spoken! The lines and their timing have been reverted to the 66 version, with the updated sound!

Backtracking just a bit to a previous scene, there was some constructive criticism that removing the cliffhanger shots caused too sharp a transition. I’ve gone in and shifted the entire musical cue in this area to help mask the transition, which has the added benefit of giving Rey’s Force powerup a more sinister edge:

https://vimeo.com/366181347

Password: fanedit

I expect the process would be similar to the process for colorizing black and white movies, just a bit less of a pain in most cases. Love the look!

screams in the void said:

this has to be the best Star Wars fan film that I have ever seen …simple , low budget, making the most of what they had, and story driven , no flashy lightsaber battles or over the top effects ,mostly just a compelling conversation between two characters …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9bPc2tmu_M

Quality stuff. Ranks up there with Birth of a Monster for me.

regularjoe said:

JJA mirrors Ep VI and they go back to Endor and there’s Ewoks.
Hey, if 7 was 4 then 9 is 6.

Mike and Jay’s Ewok death cultists or bust.

Totally fair, I’ll take another look at it and probably revert the lines (and some music) back to the previous version.

In my defense, I was up until 4 AM re-cutting all the sound effects from the 2017 workfiles for Restructured, so I probably wasn’t in a lucid state of mind at that point. 😉

act on instinct said:

Hal 9000 said:

Render the opening crawls in Aurebesh.

This is one of those so stupid it might work kind of ideas…

Subtitles! Text on text! Make 'em work for it!

Thanks everyone for the support! Glad everyone likes it.

For the next version, I’ve reconstructed the entire sequence and tweaked the timing of certain shots to better match the music. Also, another line from Snoke which I think makes the whole thing flow better:

https://vimeo.com/363748153

Password: fanedit

I recall having quite a few ideas for AOTC after watching Hal’s final (at the time) version over a year ago. Unfortunately I can no longer remember all of them.

The biggest problem with AOTC IMO was putting Anakin on the fast track to evil town. He basically becomes evil after slaughtering the Sandpeople, so a big part of any edit for me would be to cut that or make it a dream. Other ideas included having Anakin jump out the window onto Zam’s speeder and have Obi-wan follow in the yellow speeder, and generally cut Anakin’s creepy behavior and make him more of a tortured yet still decent Jedi.

For Episode 3, the most radical edit idea would be the one I described in this thread, but that is aimed at a somewhat different audience.