NeverarGreat

I’m going to let this film sit a while before making a definite plans, but as it stands now this movie feels perfect. Even the trash opening is important to set the expectation for what is to come - a madcap rocket of maximum shlock. It’s kind of wonderful in that way, and I’ve been laughing at its beautiful absurdities for hours now.

This high will surely end sooner or later, but for now, I’m going to enjoy this film no edit required.

Perhaps, I never read those though.

Hal 9000 said:

JEDIT: (Regarding NeverArGreat)

Spot on. Thanks for writing it.

You’re welcome. Despite the snark I really did enjoy it. It felt like a fairly good old EU novel, and that was far more than I expected.

I saw this early this morning on two hours of sleep and I haven’t had any more, so I’m definitely in a fit state to talk about this film.

I liked it.

The crawl lands like a passenger airline on an L.A. expressway and crashes into the first scene, killing everyone. I don’t know if Kylo was fighting the Knights of Ren or helping them kill some other people and I don’t think it matters. What matters is that while rooting around in the garbage behind Rian’s apartment JJ also managed to rescue the pieces of Kylo’s mask and welded them back together with his own blood. An alien tells R2 via SATA cable that Sheeve is back and has to outrun some TIE fighters, but makes them so mad that they forget they can’t go into Hyperspace for a minute, but they can’t catch the Falcon because it has gone so fast that it is on fire.

Meanwhile Rey is in the jungle with too much Force power and little by little is going insane.

Everyone decides to get out of the jungle and go to the desert to find a magical D4 or a dagger or something that leads to Sheeve. Rey gets a nice necklace from an alien and then has it immediately stolen by Kylo despite him not being there, and who is apparently jealous that someone else is giving her jewelry. They find the Horcrux after conquering Devil’s Snare and befriending the Basilisk, but it is stolen by some bad Quiddich players who also make off with its bearer, Chewbacca. Rey shoots spells at them and blows them up and is sad about killing Chewie, whom she doesn’t sense in the transport during any of this despite that being something she can do effortlessly.

Kylo flies straight at Rey with an entire spaceship and loses. This is the most normal part of the scene.

Anyway, C-3PO needs to nuke his hard drive to read some Black Speech and to do that they need a hacker, so they go to a planet where the First Order is harvesting babies to meet Poe’s old buddy Mask Lady and her puppet friend. Mask Lady has a medallion that makes the First Order act extra stupid for one scene and gives it to Poe, who immediately spends it, and this makes Hux stupid for the rest of his dumb life. It also allows our heroes to rescue Chewie, who was only dead inside, and also steal the dagger from the prop department before they could finish it.

The Falcon crashes onto Endor because it has no landing gear and is too tired at this point to hover.

Rey goes to the complex of Extremely Expensive and Devastating Distractions (E2-D2) and is distracted by an evil version of herself into rolling a 1 on her magic D4, causing it to be picked up by Kylo who then fights her. She rolls another 1, and is defeated. Leia must spend her last action on an E2-D2, and when Kylo rolls to save he is defeated as well. Rey has a free action which she uses to heal Kylo, then takes the D4 and Kylo’s second spaceship to Luke’s island, where it bursts into flames. It is unclear whether this is simply how Kylo’s spaceships are designed to land.

Luke demands that Rey leave and throws his gross, waterlogged spaceship at her.

Rey finally faces Sheeve, champing at the bit to finally kill this monster. Sheeve gleefully cackles that he wants Rey to kill him so that his consciousness may flow into her and he will be immortal, and then checks himself with a ‘shit, did I really say that out loud’ expression. This ruins his whole plan.

Meanwhile, Rose, Finn and Jannah.

Meanwhile there are many Star Destroyers and, in keeping with their namesake, each one is capable of destroying an entire planet.

Meanwhile, the Falcon visits approximately 1,138 planets on its newly installed Recruitment Drive.

Kylo reminds everyone that he is still in the movie but he has foolishly thrown away his lightsaber after hallucinating an image of his dead father. Luckily, Rey has an extra one from where Luke was throwing things at her, and distracts the editor long enough to phase between locations and give it to him. They both face Sheeve, who drains them of their will to live and then gets to work on their life force. He throws Kylo down a big pit, knowing that this will surely kill him.

There is a cavalry charge on top of a spaceship. This is the most normal part of the scene.

Meanwhile, Klaud.

I forget how Sheeve dies. I blame Klaud. Maybe Klaud did it. Maybe he did all of this. I don’t know anymore.

Rey dies. Kylo emerges from the pit and brings Rey back to life at the cost of his own. Rey, upon awakening and seeking Kylo dead, brings Kylo back to life at the cost of her own. This continues for some time. They kiss. One of them dies, I don’t care which.

At the end there is a funeral for Snap Wexley and he posthumously gets the medal intended for Chewie. There are cheers and warm embraces, all live in the light of a new day for this, the galaxy reborn. The yoke of the First Order, which has lain heavy across much of the galaxy for a few weeks, has been lifted. The Rule of Palpatine, which lasted for thirty years and eight hours, is ended forever. Bask in this light, galaxy of peace.

Rey gets a yellow lightsaber. The camera falls to the ground, where it continues recording for several seconds.

Thank you for making this topic. I also take issue with much of JJ’s style, to the point that many scenes in TFA (and I’m sure in TROS which I see tomorrow) don’t feel like they share any of the previously established cinematographic language of Star Wars.

Take for example the opening scene of TFA. We begin with the classic pan down on a moon or two which are quickly eclipsed by a Star Destroyer belching landing craft. This is a strong visual in keeping with the established style of Star Wars, but almost immediately we get a flashing, shaky series of shots depicting the new Stormtroopers. Compare this introduction with the introduction of the Stormtroopers in ANH; There are similar flashes but happen due to explosions and laser blasts, and there are several cuts but they are all focused on the back and forth between the Troopers and Rebels. So we see that this shot intends to mimic the action of the original without the underlying substance.

Moving on to the shot of BB-8, and here we begin to see how dynamic JJ’s camera is in comparison to those of the other Star Wars canon. The camera spins around the droid and zooms in on its head so that it takes up most of the frame, and then pans up as the droid scoots away. This could have been several static shots in ANH.

Inside the hut of Lor San Tekka, the camera begins in closeup on the map and continues in medium/closeup shots throughout. The color of this is saturated, with bright blue lights of unknown purpose shining through holes in the structure.

Over the rest of the scene, this language is repeated. Dynamic moving cameras of characters running or fighting, shaky cam, vivid splotches of moving color, closeups.

So what is the effect of these techniques? Again, compare this to ANH. Even in the Tantive the camera was often locked down to static shots, and the momentum often came from the quickness of the cuts and the movement of the actors themselves. There were occasional tracking or dolly shots focused on characters walking down hallways, but the action largely took place in single locations with tripod camerawork. One effect of this was that the viewer’s eye was not drawn to a subject by the camera itself but by the subject’s own action. Thus a viewer could choose to look instead at the set or the details of costuming without hindrance. This was a more documentary style, more agnostic about the purpose of a scene.

In contrast, JJ’s cinematography leaves no doubt as to the intention of a scene. Visual stimulus is maximized in an attempt to generate excitement through the style of the director instead of the details of the world or the performance of the actors or the story of the film. And this is why I feel that this style is fundamentally at odds with Star Wars - this universe is about immersion in a detailed world to the point that one hopefully forgets about the existence of the camera and absorbs the story and world on its own terms. In ANH the camera becomes a window into the world, whereas JJ’s camera is merely a camera.

I have honestly never seen TFA on the bottom of a ranking like that, or for that matter below the first two prequels.

JKMaxx said:

I got a chance to sit down and watch the whole edit last night, and I thought it was a treat! I can’t offer technical feedback in the way ziggyonice did, but I will offer some of the thoughts I had while watching.

From the jump I loved the Jakku regrade, it does a lot to showcase the idea of Jakku as a kind of purgatory. Just the simple brighter colors make it look much more hot and miserable, so when Rey keeps insisting she has to go back there’s even more of a feeling of “Why would you ever want to?” to it. In addition with the scenes of her scavenging and fighting and tinkering, it really hammers home that this is really all she’s been doing all day long for most of her life.

So glad you like the grade. I was worried that it might be too bright (and in some cases I’m still planning on toning down the highlights due to clipping issues) but overall I’m pleased.

I particularly enjoyed the darker undertones to Rey as well, and the whispers/voices that accompany her Force feats definitely shine. She’s obviously a person with issues and, as Snoke and Kylo said, a lot of latent ability, and especially having just watched the rest of the saga and Clone Wars, Rebels and so on, it’s clear cut that she is on a dangerous path. She has no formal training yet already taps so deeply into these emotions and into her buried feelings of being left behind in order to get ahead. I think this leads quite well into Luke’s horror in TLJ when he accuses her of going straight to the dark. I’ll be seeing TROS this evening, but I’m hoping that it will continue the themes of Rey being far closer than she knows to falling. I personally never really clicked with the complaints of Rey being a Mary Sue, but I do think were someone who does to watch this edit they might feel that there’s better reason for her to do the things she does.

Yeah, my intention to give her more reason for her power was actually secondary. The primary reason I wanted much of her power to flow from a dark place was because it gives her a much stronger internal struggle, as if she’s well-composed on the outside and outwardly quite competent but at the cost of burying her lifelong traumas beneath the surface. All this existed in the original of course, but the Dark Side angle helps to throw it into sharper relief.

I absolutely loved the Leia and Han voiceovers when Han touches Kylo’s saber, especially after coming off of the psychometry in Jedi: Fallen Order and seeing Kylo dig around in Poe and Rey’s minds, and with the SFX used. It plays out so naturally and matches up so well with the expressions on Kylo’s face that it feels like a part of the original scene. Bravo on that! I do agree that Leia seems to react pretty late.

That’s quite a relief to hear, it was one of the changes I was most worried about. The Leia reaction unfortunately must stay where it is unless I restructured that section back to the way it was which would leave a hole between the Oscillator X-wing damage and the end of the lightsaber fight.

I remember reading somewhere in this thread that you intended to place in some kind of voice that names Hosnian Prime when Starkiller Base is preparing to fire, and I definitely think that would help since we as viewers have no reason to know that isn’t Coruscant unless we’ve read some EU material. Likewise, the transition from Takodana to D’Qar is not immediately apparant, in my opinion. I don’t believe it’s ever stated that they’ve gone to a different planet, and I remember when I first watched TFA I thought that it was a different place on the same planet as Maz’s castle. Some kind of throwaway line to contextualize that, maybe just a simple “Welcome to planet D’Qar” or something, might go a long way on that matter, more so than a wipe transition and suddenly we’re somewhere completely different that also is green and pretty.

I wonder if regrading Takodana to sunset will help with that transition. In Restructured I had to cut a lot of the establishing shot of D’Qar for music purposes, so that certainly doesn’t help.

As for naming the Hosnian system, the only time it is mentioned is by Poe in the original, which was of course cut. I’ve included a faint version of that line in the final scenes of the film (has anyone picked up on that yet?) but I agree that it needs to happen before it is destroyed. There’s just no way I can see of doing it short of recording new dialogue.

In all, I feel absolutely that your hard work has paid off in spades, and that you’ve already made the definitive fan edit of The Force Awakens for hardcore fans and to show to newbies alike. I believe that your future plans such as new alien subtitles, voiceover for TR-8R, Phasma triggering the silent alarm and so on will only serve to make it even better. Once more, bravo!

Thank you very much!

dgraham414 said:

Only have been able to watch half of it but I must say the change in color when Kylo first takes off his mask is amazing and helps that scene so much!

Excellent. I’m sure someone will still say it’s too dark and I’ve gone and crushed the black levels (it’s all true) but I think the benefit to a more shadowed and frightening Kylo is worth it.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m going to watch both. On the one hand, a film so horrifying in conception and execution that I will question my very existence, and on the other, Cats.

RogueLeader said:

I have only gotten to the Falcon escape, but I do have some thoughts.

I think Jakku regrade was a massive success. I genuinely love this look for Jakku. Some might find it too bland, but that feeling will make seeing the green of Takodana much more cathartic, imo.

I do think the BB-8 night shots are rather quick as well, but I get why it cuts to him at that point. I did have another thought though. Since we moved Ren’s line “I’ll leave that to you” Maybe in its place you could put something like, “Kill the pilot.” Poe gave them the information they need, he is no longer useful. Maybe when Finn walks in, he could say, “The Captain wants the prisoner.” So the audience might think he is about to be executed, maybe by Captain Phasma on Hux’s orders, then it turns out to be Finn trying to escape. Maybe that could help the transition between those two scenes?

I’ll have to comment on your other questions as I get farther into the edit.

That’s a great idea.

PM sent^ 😃

I’m interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts when they get a chance to see it, particularly the general feeling of the edit in its entirety. Does the darker version of Rey come through? Is Kylo sufficiently conflicted to be compelling in his evil? Does the dramatic increase in visions/voices hinder or help the narrative? Does the pacing flow well from scene to scene? After spending so long with a giant lens to the film it can be difficult to step back and see the full effect.

Where they keep the ladders on the various small fighters in this universe is something that bothers me late at night.

That’s eerily good.

DuracellEnergizer said:

NeverarGreat said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

Anyone wanna try deepfaking a young Hayden Christensen onto Jake Lloyd to make for a smoother transition between films?

That sounds like a healthy 1% chance of success, 99% chance of horrible nightmare fuel.

DEWIT

It’s not the Jedi way.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Anyone wanna try deepfaking a young Hayden Christensen onto Jake Lloyd to make for a smoother transition between films?

That sounds like a healthy 1% chance of success, 99% chance of horrible nightmare fuel.

I think it was 54 or something just a little while ago, so it’ll probably go higher. Still, not surprising for JJ and his apparent inability to tie a bow on his own mystery box.

I have uploaded a new version of the workprint to fix the center channel audio glitch and all 20(!) people who have asked for the link should have the new link as well.

Thank you for the detailed notes, I hadn’t noticed even half of these issues!

ziggyonice said:

• In the crawl, is “Episode VII” centered? It looks too far off to the right above “THE FORCE AWAKENS.”

It’s probably off center. I’ll have to fix that for the final crawl.

• What’s with the speed increase at the end of the crawl? It should move as the same speed throughout.

This crawl was modeled closely off of the original crawl for Star Wars before the '81 crawl changed the timing. In the original the crawl actually does increase in speed toward the end. For the '81 crawl and all subsequent films the crawls have been standardized in speed and format for the most part, but this has thrown off the original musical transitions which occurred in the original at the paragraph breaks. The goal was to return to this musical synchronicity, but I could try to make the speedup at the end less noticeable.

• When the village gets shot up by stormtroopers, Phasma says, “On my command.” Listen close, you can hear her repeat the last syllable happen a couple times (maybe due to a duplicated audio segment). I would recommend headphones for this, but it’s definitely there.

Duly noted.

• Why did you cut Unkar Plutt’s introductory line? “What you brought me today is, hmm, worth one quarter portion.”

This was the last change I made before finishing the workprint, when I realized that Rey’s introduction is almost entirely wordless. I thought it would be cool to make it entirely wordless (sans alien gibberish), and I think it is still fully legible despite the dialogue.

• The Poe/Kylo Ren interrogation scene looks great.

Thanks! I have thought about going in and standardizing the look of all the visions/dreams to match the island dream from the end of the film, but that’s probably the only change I’d make to this scene.

• There is just some clipping on some of the audio (again, can be heard through headphones).
• Maybe add some fades at the beginning/ends of those clips to prevent the clipping sounds.

Will do.

• Not seeing the point of the nighttime BB-8 scene after Poe’s interrogation. It looks pretty but doesn’t serve a purpose if its that short.

Fair, that’s another late change from when the scene was going to include a dream sequence from Rey. I still think the scene has merit if it is lengthened slightly with more finesse from BB-8 (maybe he looks up at the stars and then goes around the foot and inside as the camera pans back up). I feel like there needs to be some sort of buffer between Poe’s interrogation and Finn’s rescue, and having a nighttime scene would help this, especially if I change the lighting somewhat in the rescue to imply that the crew is in night cycle.

• Just as Snoke’s first scene occurs, is there a way to have Hux say Supreme Leader Snoke’s name or something? For people new to the series, they don’t know who this giant holligam is. If Hux said it, it would help — even if just as a voiceover in the clip leading up to this one.

Hm, I don’t know. That’s a good point, in the original he does say ‘Supreme Leader’. I suppose he could say that line again and have him be cut off by Snoke’s ‘SO…’ when standing, to indicate that Hux is being thoroughly ignored.

• Clipped audio at Snoke scene / line: “Our strategy must change…"

• I’ve seen edits before where they put an effect on Snoke to make him look more like a hologram.

• Is that possible here? Since when did holagrams go HD?

I was never bothered too much by the advancements in hologram technology here. I know it’s been done fairly well in other edits, but I don’t think it’s super necessary.

• The transition from Kylo Ren praying feels a little weird

• Is there any shot of Kylo Ren walking down the hall of his star destoryer that could be used after he stands up from praying but before the shot of Finn preparing to leave? Like as a transition?

I don’t think so. Maybe TROS will have something, though that would have the new mask…

• Turn down the music volume just a tad when Han says “where’d you get that” when Maz hands him the lightsaber

• When Rey returns to Maz’s castle during the battle, you can hear Han’s voice say, “Oh no” (probably from a duplicated audio clip).

The ghosts of fallen ideas still haunt my timeline…

• I feel like the music is just a tad too loud when Leia and Han are having their talk about Ben while they are inside the Resistance base.

Fair. I feel like most of the music for this film is buried in the ambience, but here I went too far in the other direction.

• Another clipped audio just before Leia says, “The First Order, they’re charging the weapon now”

• When Rey hides from the stormtroopers while on Starkiller Base, the scene cuts to Phasma saying, “Take no chances, I won’t tolerate sloppiness,” then back to Rey, then back to Phasma. Why not just have Rey hide, then have one cut to Phasma? It feels a little choppy having to switch between the two.

I experimented with that, and it feels weirder to go from Phasma being captured to Phasma lowering the shields. At one point the Kylo on the Falcon scene went between these scenes but that was moved, leaving this little segue. I don’t know what else to put here other than Rey starting to climb down the wall, which eats into the later scene where she hides from the TIE launch.

• Moving the Leia reaction scene to Han’s death… I’m debating on this one. I feel like it actually flowed better having her reaction take place after Han dies but before Chewie goes crazy. You did the opposite here (that I do see the reason to why!); however, I’m just a little unsure.

Fair, the scene packs more immediate punch there, but even in the theater I remember thinking it was weird to interrupt the continuity of the scene for a single shot cutaway across the galaxy. The big reason the scene is there now is because I want there to be a bit of ambiguity as to Chewie’s fate, and Leia’s sorrowful reaction seems to have two parts.

Everything looks awesome. I’ll have more comments after I can watch it again, but these are my initial notes. Thanks again for putting this all together — it’s really great!

You’re welcome! Thanks again for the feedback, it’s really helpful.

PM Sent!

We can already start though. I’m sure plenty of people will want to trim ‘They fly now!’

For those who have asked for it, is the link working well?

The Workprint is available now, PM me for the link all ye who so wish!

Please note that in addition to the occasionally unfinished effects there is also one instance of me accidentally deleting the central audio channel when the Stormtroopers demolish Poe’s X-wing in the first scene. This is a mistake, but luckily only lasts until the end of the scene. (This is fixed in the new upload!)

Also, although color grading has been applied to some areas of the film (Jakku, Rey’s interrogation), I haven’t yet applied a full grade to the entire film due to not being 100% pleased with the results thus far.

Finally, thank you to everyone who has made this possible and offered their criticisms and praise! Without you and the greater community of OT.com, this project would never have even gotten this far!

Enjoy!

Thank you for the kind words, I can only hope it lives up to your expectations!

RogueLeader said:

I think both sides of the divide really overthink it. Fans tend to overanalyze the film to the point where, on the extreme ends, they think it is either the worst movie ever made or the best movie of the decade. I think the people who get it the best are, ironically, your average moviegoer who doesn’t participate in Star Wars forums, subreddits, or YouTube communities. They don’t overthink it. Rey is strong in the Force because she believes in herself. They don’t argue over Force lore or logic because they get what it is in a general sense and that is enough for them.

True. Sometimes you watch and think about a movie so much that it begins to disintegrate into a collection of datapoints, of nebulous themes and a stream of scenes bereft of purpose, much like looking at a house as no more than a a pile of nails, 2x4’s and drywall. You risk losing the point of it all. Not that this has happened to me of course, I’m above such things 😉