NeverarGreat

Dr. Krogshöj said:

There’s only one thing that bothers me in the first act. Whatever sequence you end up with, Poe’s only waking up during the night following Rey’s and Finn’s escape with the Falcon. So he gets off Jakku, back to the Resistance and to Takodana while the Falcon flies from Han’s freighter near Jakku to Takodana. Which implies that it has a really, really, REALLY slow hypedrive at this point.

Poe’s hastily contrived survival has always bugged me, but there’s really not much I can think to do about that. On the other hand, I like to think that Finn’s escape from the First Order on Jakku had to do with fellow Stormtroopers looking the other way in their search.

In other news, I’ve played around with the idea of opening with Rey, and I’m quite satisfied with the fact that there’s simply no way to do that restructure with the available footage. Congratulations RL, you were right 😉. However, I just had to see the concept of the false starfield in action, so I put some time into the mockup:

https://vimeo.com/311822845

Password: fanedit

Here’s a fairly quick and dirty version of the restructure.

https://vimeo.com/311589354

Password: fanedit

The sequence is now:

-Poe arrives on the Finalizer, Finn is accosted by Phasma
-Poe is interrogated
-Rey’s day and finding of BB-8
-The Rescue
-Hux sends the squad to the wreckage
-Finn awakens/sees Niima outpost
-Hux and Kylo bicker
-Rey arrives at Niima with BB-8/Plutt bargains for the droid
-Finn arrives at Niima.

The Apocalypse TIEs seemed out of place, so I decided against using them. Without that buffer, I had to leave the Hux and Kylo scene where it was originally.

RogueLeader said:

That’s true too. I don’t think it would hurt to try and push the grass in one direction, and if it is too much, find a happy medium somewhere.

You also will have that wide shot where Rey swoops by the sunset on her way back home. The sun is very visible there so you’ll have a clear shot to illustrate the sun’s color.

Grass?
Regardless, I’ve since discovered that every attempt at turning the sun/sky a different color plays havoc with the explosions and blaster bolts later on. If it was just a few shots I could work around it, but there are dozens of shots which would need serious work and I don’t know if it’s worth it.

Dr. Krogshöj said:

There is an exterior shot of the Finalizer just before Kylo Ren’s monologue to Vader’s helmet. Since you already plan to move that scene (as far as I remember), it might act as a buffer between the Interrogation and the Escape. The problem is, there’s Starkiller Base in the background so that would have to be removed, which is surely a time consuming project if it’s even possible.

Good idea. There really needs to be less time between Finn being sent to Reconditioning and the rescue. As it is, I don’t know how to do that without Rey’s day getting in the way. Unless…

Opening crawl paragraph 3 describes how a clue to Luke has been found on a planet ravaged by war.
-Cut from false starfield to Rey opening the compartment, as was intended at some point in TFA’s writing.
-Show Rey’s day through shot of her riding past the setting sun at dusk, then interior of her home until the wall of scratches.
-Use this as a transition to Tekka describing the despair in the galaxy, through his remark about Leia being royalty.
-Closeup of BB-8 viewing danger, rushing into the hut to warn Poe.
-Action, Kylo, return to Finalizer, etc.
-Poe’s interrogation.
-Rey’s home interior, making dinner (repurposed as breakfast), sitting out watching the evening (morning), finding BB-8 (sans ‘tomorrow you leave’). This extended introduction to Rey might justify using the Reydream here.
-The rescue, Finn’s journey to Niima, Hux and Kylo bicker.
-Rey arrives at Niima, Plutt’s offer.
-Finn arrives at Niima.

This restructure has many advantages - the passage of time is very clear in day and night cycles, Rey gets enough of an introduction to perhaps use the Reydream, and Rey finding BB-8 is short enough that Finn could reasonably have postponed his trip to Reconditioning, vs the original where an entire day goes by in the meantime.

So that’s a no on my western war musical concept?

I’m glad people understand where I’m coming from here, even if the LUT isn’t there all the way.

The trouble is that if I go too far in an unnatural lighting direction, it starts to look like the image is simply ‘wrong’, in a way that doesn’t feel intentional. But I see where the sun and sunset could use some more blue.

I do have the Battlefront SFX, and I’ll be sure to make use of them in the final edit. 😃

In other news, the new computer is up and running, which means I can begin the authoritative version of this weird collection of ideas.

…but that doesn’t mean I can’t have new ones. Sparked by the discussions in the Sequel Radical Redux Ideas, here’s a concept for a more desolate and alien Jakku:

For Comparison:

The idea is that the sun is quite blue, turning the light more and more blue as the sun reaches its zenith.

With this single LUT I am able to bleach the highlights while leaving low light situations in fairly good color:

DominicCobb said:

OutboundFlight said:

DominicCobb said:

Shopping Maul said:

I think the difference here is the actual intentions of the filmmakers. For example if I have a problem with the Ewoks, a quick online search will show that Lucas was referencing the Vietnam war. Okay, that might not change my mind, but I can at least see where he was coming from and get a sense of the intention.

So with Rey I might be perplexed at her power levels and how that might clash with my sense of SW canon. If I hit Google what I’ll find is Kathleen Kennedy banging on about ‘strong female characters’. Ewoks as a Vietnam allegory makes sense to me. Palpatine as Nixon makes sense to me. Rey being superwoman because ‘strong female characters’ is nonsense. That’s not storytelling being inspired by politics. That’s politics subsuming storytelling.

I think you’re misunderstanding the phrase and what it means. I’d also be curious to see those Kennedy quotes as I’m not sure what you’re referring too.

OutboundFlight said:

When Rey and Kylo face off for a round two of TLJ, Rey wins off-screen. We have one character effortlessly beating the other twice,

I don’t have a problem with the rest of your post (some of it I agree, some agree to disagree), but this is just plain inaccurate. Rey does not win off screen. They come to a draw with the lightsaber and she runs away while Kylo’s knocked out. That’s not her “beating” him. As for the other win, it clearly was not “effortless,” as she was on the ropes before she used the force.

Although she may have not knocked Kylo out, she was the first one to wake up (or she never said awake the whole time). Regardless Rey was stronger and was awake where Kylo was knocked out. Had she wanted she could have killed him right then and there (and I wonder why the story didn’t lean in on this). That sounds to me like beating.

That’s, frankly, insane. We’re now equating “waking up first” and “not murdering someone in cold blood” with “effortlessly beating someone in battle”? Just like Rey, Luke ran away from Vader in ESB - and he wasn’t even knocked out! Does that mean Luke beat him?

This really gets down to the meat of what we were talking about earlier, in regards to incorrectly evaluating Rey by mere action film standards. Rey’s goal in the throne room was not to kill Kylo. Her goal was to turn him to her side. She didn’t win at all, she literally lost.

You admit that the assumed genre of the movie has a lot to do with whether Rey has won or lost in this scene, yet in the same breath you say that the action genre interpretation is ‘insane’ - a genre that is heavily infused into Star Wars DNA.

From the pure drama or romantic drama interpretation, Rey has definitely lost this fight.
From the pure action interpretation, Rey has at least matched Kylo if not bested him in her recovery.

At the very least, you must admit that the scene sends mixed messages depending on interpretation.

BTW, there is no comparison to Luke in ESB. Luke was battered, literally disarmed, beaten, and emotionally shattered. He survived by the thinnest of margins and the scars of the battle, both literal and emotional, dominated the rest of the movie and beyond. Rey is back to her peppy self literally the next time we see her, lending credence to the pure action interpretation of the confrontation.

Exactly!

It would be quite excellent to have these in HD, especially since there’s been some talk of integrating some battle footage into ROTJ.

I’m still planning on using this restructure, or something close to it.

RogueLeader, are you suggesting this sequence?

-Poe arrives on the Finalizer, Finn is accosted by Phasma
-Rey’s day and finding of BB-8
-Poe is interrogated
-The Rescue
-Hux sends the squad to the wreckage
-Apocalypse TIEs
-Hux and Kylo bicker (work in progress)
-Finn awakens/sees Niima outpost
-Rey arrives at Niima with BB-8/Plutt bargains for the droid
-Finn arrives at Niima.

As you say, there would need to be a buffer of some kind between the interrogation and the rescue, and I don’t know what could go there. Poe waking up seems tailored to the interrogation scene, so I’m not sure if that would work.

I think part of the idea for the restructure was to give some indication of why Rey was being introduced. In the original she is introduced with only a cut from Finn to Rey, whereas the restructure places her introduction after Hux’s comment ‘Well, if it’s on Jakku we’ll soon have it.’ The focus swings back to Jakku here, and we see the person standing between the villains and their prize. I also think it would be neat to extend the shot of Hux to make time for a horizontal wipe to Rey in motion with the opening compartment door.

I thought that the time between movies was more like 2-3 years from ANH to ESB and less than a year between ESB and ROTJ.

RogueLeader said:

Man, I really don’t like Thor Skywalker. All of his stuff is very clickbaity. He speaks with this same tone in all of his videos, as if each sentence is some deep point he is making. It’s really manipulative, and makes people feel like they agree with what he’s saying without even thinking about it. But I guess that describes most clickbaity Star Wars YouTubers.

EDIT: And personally it seems a lot of female fans like Rey, and it gets kind of tiring hearing the perspective of male fans (or the one or two female YouTubers who have a large male audience). That’s personally why I like the Reylo community a lot. At least they actually have fun watching these movies, and their conversations are generally positive.

I generally appreciate the points Thor makes, though not the affected gravitas. However, I think there are far worse offenders in that category (Nerdwriter, I’m looking at you).

However, your point about the Reylo community got me thinking…most of the male critics of Rey like to point out how egalitarian they are by offering up Strong Female Leads, and they’re invariably Ripley/Sarah Connor/Furiosa/etc, in other words action heroines. They then compare Rey to these examples to show how easy her victories seem in comparison to these legendary badasses.

But maybe they have made the mistake of assuming that the Star Wars ST falls under the action genre, when the reality is that the ST could simply be a different genre altogether.

In a drama, especially a romantic drama, the female lead is rarely beset by physical obstacles, but rather mental/emotional ones. The most defining flaw of Rey’s character is a desire for belonging against the growing feeling that her every relationship is doomed. Rey would not be out of place as the lead in a drama, but since Star Wars has such a strong aspect of action there is also the expectation for Rey to be an action heroine and conform to the rules and limitations implied in its previous installments.

That’s where the disconnect seems to be - the Reylo crowd reads the ST as a (romantic) drama, while the ‘""""“True”""""""’ Star Wars fans read the ST as an action movie and a strict continuation of everything in the first six Star Wars installments.

These looks great! And def agree that the first one is better.

(also glad that my OCD could be put to some use 😉)

Hal 9000 said:

Here’s a candidate for the entrance to Mos Eisley. I carefully blended Adywan’s color corrected BluRay master, NewGuy’s ANH, and the Despecialized. Sometimes I overlaid the first two in order to better blend between sources, since they align perfectly. A little film grain is applied in spots to help mask transitions between sources, also.

https://vimeo.com/310480965
password: fanedit

It’s a good balance of old and new!

The thing that sticks out to me though is the first wide shot of the city after they enter. It feels like this should be switched with the next shot, since the speeder at least feels like it’s going as fast as it did before. But there is also the issue of the checkpoint. The wide shot makes it look like there are spacious boulevards with ample room to evade detection, yet this is in contrast to the sudden crush of people and buildings in the next shot and the inevitable checkpoint. This is a problem in the SE as well, in the panning aerial shot.

I think that using this

and then this

directly after entering town, but before the checkpoint would illustrate the narrow streets in this part of town. Then you could use that aerial shot to help dissolve the tension after they escape.

screams in the void said:

this is my favorite Star Wars poster of all time …http://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2013/06/09/Japanese-Empire-Strikes-Back-Magazine used here for the cover of a Japanese magazine

That reminds me, I need to put this print back up on my wall…

I think it’s wonderfully freeing to consider only the films as canon, especially if you’re extrapolating into the past or the future of the series. The more that EU is considered canon, the more that the Star Wars universe sinks into a sea of mediocrity, in my opinion. Freed of that, the films become an interpretive fulcrum representing an ever-shifting and ever exciting universe of tantalizing possibility.

Fascinating. So is the “original” version of this episode different in only audio, or have there been video edits as well?

Man, I wish that they had gone this direction with TFA.

Why haven’t we seen this in Star Wars yet?

LexX said:

I just saw The Hidden Fortress for the first time last week. And I have to say, it had almost nothing to with SW. If people hadn’t been saying it from the beginning, I wouldn’t even have made the connection myself. Pretty much the only thing is bickering soldiers that resemble R2 and 3PO (which is an insult to the droids as these people are just immoral scum to the very end), and there is one scene that is almost exactly the same in SW than in THF. Other than that, I don’t see any other similarities other than some ideas like there being a general and a princess, but you can find similar architypes from many movies. The plot is completely different and so are the characters. Comparing it to SW took me out of the movie a bit since I kept waiting “is there going to be this and this scene next” and there never was.

I don’t think anyone is saying Lucas copied the plot, just the bickering peasants bit.

The thing that distinguishes Geonosis from the other Desert planets in Star Wars is the intricate designs of its bug inhabitants. I think it would be cool to see their architecture on a grander scale, to the point where it dominates parts of the landscape.

OutboundFlight said:

Return of the Jedi VS The Jedi Return
Here is a special case where I prefer the passive variation. The latter is a too much over the top. ROTJ is very elegant, matching the epic nature of Luke’s journey in this film.

Another reason the passive voice works better here is that it keeps the plurality of Jedi ambiguous.

A New Hope: Meh. Luke isn’t yet cast in the role of Jedi savior as he was in ESB and ROTJ, which makes this title rather unfitting. The previously suggested A Princess of Alderaan would be much better.

The Empire Strikes Back: Nice throwback to the old serials, doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Return of the Jedi: My favorite of the OT titles, not least of all for its triple meaning.

The Phantom Menace: Fairly good description of the film, but the issue is that the film it describes isn’t great. In mirroring A Princess of Alderaan, A Queen of Naboo would be decent.

Attack of the Clones: For being the title of the film, the clones have almost nothing to do with Anakin’s part in this movie. If the film focused on Obi-wan and his investigation, it would be far more fitting. In keeping with the throwback titles, Machines of War would be okay, since it could also have multiple meanings which include Anakin and his mechanization.

Revenge of the Sith: Perhaps the best of the prequel titles, since it mirrors ROTJ and describes the central threat of the movie.

The Force Awakens: Okay. I guess. Whatever. Funnily enough, A New Hope would have worked much better here, or Shadow of the Empire.

The Last Jedi: A great title, but maybe not when describing the penultimate movie of the saga. Spark of Rebellion would apply to all parties in the film equally.

I like the Solo one. Very minimalist.

That can’t be from the blu-ray. Is it compressed? What? No.

I don’t disbelieve you, it’s just astonishing how much better the Netflix version is.

A few dollars a month is a small price for some of us here to pay for the continuation of this community. Count me in.

I have a profile, which was made mostly to show the progression from a sketch to my finished Star Wars poster.
https://www.deviantart.com/neverargreat
It’s still technically unfinished, but I haven’t touched it in months.