NeverarGreat

I will follow Kylo’s career with great interest. But it’s notable in how he has changed (or rather, not changed) so far. We haven’t seen him as anything other than a tormented soul in either of these movies. Compared to Vader, who went from a ‘Leave it to Beaver’ kid to a Republic hero to a genocidal monster to a repentant soul, and Kylo hasn’t really moved from his angst at all. Granted much of Vader’s other aspects arrived with ROTJ, but Kylo’s biggest change has been going from wanting to destroy the Republic to wanting to destroy the First Order too.

dahmage said:

I am embarrassed to admit I was thinking of Sunshine (2007) instead of Solaris.

Everyone should think of Sunshine instead of Solaris.

This is the sort of quality content I appreciate.

As the title suggests, this is a thread for the last Skywalker.

There is a general consensus that Kylo Ren is the best thing about the Sequel Trilogy, and it’s certainly true that he is a character who is entirely new to the Star Wars movies. Tortured, unstable, violent, psychopathic, vulnerable. All of these things describe him, yet I find myself more and more fundamentally confused about his character and how I should feel about his villainy. Is he a ‘good’ villain?

In previous Star Wars movies, the quality of a good villain went from ‘cool horns’ to ‘unstoppable cyborg badass’ to ‘Evil Space Wizard’. They were all painted with a broad brush in terms of their straight villainy, at least until ROTJ. It was a black and white universe in terms of morality, and then Vader was redeemed. Vader, the most powerful and evil force in these movies was now also a Good Man. As the culmination of an entire story it works, because now the ‘battle between good and evil rages on’ no longer. Any villain to exist after this movie would be seen through the lens of redemption, complicating the simplicity of the Star Wars fairytale forever.

Enter Kylo Ren. In contrast to Vader’s mysterious identity, we quickly discover Kylo’s lineage. In contrast to Vader’s mechanical methods, we have barely contained chaos. In contrast to Vader’s inhumanity, we have an intimate portrayal of a tortured youth. In contrast to Vader’s strength, we have Kylo’s innumerable weaknesses. This is a character ripe for redemption, practically begging for it. Yet he murders his father, for no other reason than proving his villainy. And yet it does nothing except weaken him further. By the end of The Last Jedi, he has managed to burn down almost everything in his way and yet at the end of the movie he is weaker than we have ever seen him, a truly despicable and pitiable waste.

What kind of villain is this for Star Wars? I sure don’t know.

DuracellEnergizer said:

bkev said:

Handman said:

What do you look for in a friend?

I’ve kept my eye on this question for awhile now and I’m really surprised that so few people have answered it seriously.

In my defense, I’ve never had a close friend, and no casual friends since high school, so it’s not a question I could seriously answer.

Well I consider you an internet friend. Does that count for anything?

Some more thought on the Poe recapture -

If this idea where to be really incorporated into the movie, there would have to be some more dramatic changes such as adding/changing dialogue for the stormtroopers in the Maz Castle battle, which is where most of the issues lie.

Finn fights TR-8R, who in this version would have been part of the squad sent to the TIE wreckage. He could be dubbed to have an entire one-sided conversation with Finn, communicating that he let Finn live because he was always a decent person, but now he’s just a traitor who has joined with the enemy. My goal with Finn’s character up until this point in the movie is that he won’t kill a fellow trooper except in the most dire self-defense, but this could mark a turning point where he commits fully to the Resistance.

Also, in the restructured scene where Kylo learns of the map from Rey in the woods (but before the Resistance arrives), he sees the explosion from the Star Destroyer then the re-dubbed pair of troopers inform him that the ship has been attacked and the prisoner has escaped. I think this would be all that is necessary to establish that Poe has returned to his X-wing and is about to join the fight.

JEDIT: It’s probably too much for too little payoff. Probably the better approach is to more clearly imply that Poe woke up after BB-8 had left Jakku. As it is, it feels like our heroes get to Maz’s castle long before night falls on Jakku for Poe to leave, but it could be interesting to have the Falcon chase set in the late afternoon or evening and restore the TIE fighter sunset shot from the Maz castle battle. This in addition to some changes to make it seem like more time was spent between Jakku and Takonada would sell the idea. Though there is still the issue of the missing Stormtrooper squad, so I think a dub of TR-8R would still be really promising.

Here’s a quick and dirty attempt at what this might look like:
https://diff.pics/qTb-ghzfDg6p/1

Obviously some shots are too dark, and will need individual adjustment.

Correct, Adywan’s version is intended to update the look of a 70’s movie to a more balanced aesthetic, whereas my version intends to recreate the quirks of a (consistently graded) Technicolor print.

Your grade looks quite good to me, especially the vibrancy in the desert sand. I’d be interested to see what your settings do to the lightsaber fight, since it looks like we went in opposite directions with the blue saturation.

Thinking big picture here, what is this edit all about? What is the core message of the movie? If such a message could be condensed into a single sentence, what would it be? I’ve done this for the Original Trilogy before:

ANH: One can overcome the mightiest empire through the power of the human spirit.

ESB: The true enemy is not an empire, but the darkness within oneself.

ROTJ: Darkness can never prevail when one decides to forgive themselves and others.

But what of the Sequel Trilogy? Here are some tentative theses:

TFA: One can become heroic by striving to be the hero they see in others.

TLJ: The most heroic act can be disguised as abject failure.

Do you think these are the primary messages of the movies? I feel like for TFA at least, the message has to include something about a person’s heroes, whether imagined or real. Finn becomes a hero when he sees Rey and wants to be who she thinks he is. Rey wants to be like Luke, and sees the best in Han. Kylo sees the worst in his family and in Vader.

I think this big picture is really important when it comes to the end of the movie, and informs the editing decisions throughout.

The conversation between Poe and Finn on the TIE about BB-8 stays the same in this restructure, I meant that the First Order doesn’t know about the droid until Poe is recaptured after the crash. The audience gets the same information in this regard either way.

As for the Destroyer rescue, that’s difficult. It would be relatively easy to remove his cockpit shots from the Maz castle battle completely (and I’ve considered doing this independent of this idea), but the problem is that he’s clearly flying a unique X-wing so anyone paying attention would place him at the battle anyway. I could use the two shots from the trailers of the X-wing approach instead of the footage of Poe’s black X-wing in the initial assault. This way he appears partway through the battle in his personal X-wing after he has had time to be rescued from the Destroyer.

It might also give his return more power (and help elevate him to primary character status), since we’ve been able to know and follow his progress thus far.

I just had a crazy idea for a restructure. Bear with me here.

After Rey finds BB-8, go to the Star Destroyer and immediately to Finn and Poe escaping. Hux orders a squad to the wreckage (without mention of a droid), then Finn wakes up in the early morning and rushes over to find Poe gone. The TIE fighter disappears beneath the sand and cut to Poe back on the Star Destroyer, now without his jacket and interrogated by Kylo Ren. He finds that they’re looking for a droid, and cut to Rey at Nima outpost. After she decides to keep BB-8, cut to Finn traversing the desert and events play as before until…

…Maz’s castle is destroyed, Han and Finn taken into custody. Rey is being interrogated by Kylo Ren, who has just learned that she has seen the map. Suddenly his attention is drawn away by distant explosion happening off screen. He moves away and looks up. In the sky, the Star Destroyer sports a trail of smoke and debris. On the ground, the Stormtroopers look up and then quickly rush forward to face the threat of incoming Resistance fighters. They blow through the First Order and only during Poe’s aerial antics is it revealed that he was freed from the Destroyer and has again joined the battle.

When Finn and Poe are reunited, Poe recounts that he was thrown from the TIE crash, woke up at night without sign of Finn or any ship, and then cuts himself off to talk about BB-8.

So this restructure would take some tricky but not impossible effects work. However, it has some benefits:
-Poe doesn’t simply abandon his mission because the writers couldn’t figure it out. He’s a prisoner until he’s set free over Maz’s castle.
-The sabotage of the Destroyer makes tactical sense, and explains why it was out of commission during the attack on the Oscillator.
-The First Order acts in a more reasonable manner in actually recovering someone from the TIE crash.
-Since we can now follow Poe’s location and actions at each point in the movie, he becomes much more of a main character in the vein of TLJ even though he’s offscreen much of the time.

Collipso said:

NeverarGreat said:

SparkySywer said:

NeverarGreat said:

Collipso said:

i’m a bit confused as to which version is which but even though the newest ones look incredible, i prefer the more radical ones from a few days ago.

Yes, I think the more aggressive curves adjustment on the first attempt was better in the dark scenes (which comprised most of my comparisons), but I had to dial it down because it was overexposing the exterior shots. As the latest comparison shows however, the two grades are pretty similar colorwise and only need slight brightness adjustments based on the scene to work as well.

I’m not a color gradingologist, so forgive me when what I’m about to say inevitably is stupid, but how believable/good looking would it be if you had separate color grading for light and dark shots/scenes?

I don’t have a degree in gradology

i find that hard to believe. have you seen your star wars technicolor recreation? that’s some phd-level work right there.

I think a grad student would have had it easier 😉

SparkySywer said:

NeverarGreat said:

Collipso said:

i’m a bit confused as to which version is which but even though the newest ones look incredible, i prefer the more radical ones from a few days ago.

Yes, I think the more aggressive curves adjustment on the first attempt was better in the dark scenes (which comprised most of my comparisons), but I had to dial it down because it was overexposing the exterior shots. As the latest comparison shows however, the two grades are pretty similar colorwise and only need slight brightness adjustments based on the scene to work as well.

I’m not a color gradingologist, so forgive me when what I’m about to say inevitably is stupid, but how believable/good looking would it be if you had separate color grading for light and dark shots/scenes?

I don’t have a degree in gradology either, but I expect it would be quite a simple matter to use the LUT as a base and have two standard curves adjustments to be applied on a scene by scene basis. That would be quite decent.

I look forward to seeing it!

Very small update to the LUT, bringing it to version 6:
https://mega.nz/#!Pc9zFDbB!sEw-dHHktjkgTF6un8N24pQxdDx65wql-JoRQUxTnf4

The only change is to very slightly decrease the luminosity of the blue hues.

Unfortunately I can’t super fine tune this LUT at the moment, since whenever I open the project in Resolve it quickly eats up all my memory and then proceeds to freeze. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted…

I don’t think the final look will deviate too much from the v5 LUT, and the most significant alterations would be to the darker scenes to brighten them and maybe compensate for the loss of luminance due to removing the blue cast.

Sir Ridley said:

Nice work! Personally I prefer the look without your extra curves adjustments, a little more subtle. I’m working on a new grade for my edit as well, inspired by your efforts here. I’ll try out your LUT too, thanks for sharing!

I agree that the original brightness is quite adequate in most places, and no global LUT is going to fix it. The extra contrast in the last screenshots was just to see how bad the brightest shots fared.

Hal 9000 said:

I’m inclined not to add grain but I could see how it looks overlaid with your LUT.

The comparisons above with the LUT + Curves + Grain have ruined me on the ungrained version - now the skin tones look way too plastic-y without it, at least to me.

One more upload before I go to bed, this time giving the entire movie the curves adjustment from the first test, and adding some film grain for that authentic look:

Part 1
https://diff.pics/WS1D8LcxX_K3/1

Part 2
https://diff.pics/VukQUk0usBH-/1

Surprisingly, most of the exterior shots work well, though they could all use some fine tuning. Similarly, the very dark shots lose some detail. Any curves adjustment beyond the LUT would have to be on a scene-by-scene basis.

Hal, have you considered adding film grain to v3? 😉

Collipso said:

i’m a bit confused as to which version is which but even though the newest ones look incredible, i prefer the more radical ones from a few days ago.

Yes, I think the more aggressive curves adjustment on the first attempt was better in the dark scenes (which comprised most of my comparisons), but I had to dial it down because it was overexposing the exterior shots. As the latest comparison shows however, the two grades are pretty similar colorwise and only need slight brightness adjustments based on the scene to work as well.

Hal 9000 said:

I just did a little test and I am not encountering the bizarre issue I had when trying to apply DrDre’s LUT to TLJ. I’m thinking this LUT of yours will be a nice addition to V3 of my own TFA project. 😄

Excellent! It probably won’t be the last version of course, but I’m fairly happy with it right now.

The red lightsaber angle is quite interesting. Does the saber stay forever tainted? I assume not, since you say that it will happen several times in Episode 3. But what if it was a permanent change? This would be a really interesting dynamic from a storytelling perspective, as Anakin would have to get rid of the saber before any more Jedi see him using a tainted blade (and he does). It’s potentially even more interesting in Episode 3 since that saber in ANH is blue. I imagine an effect where the blade starts flickering between its original color and red when a person is on the edge of the Dark Side, and it could do this several times in Episode 3. But it is never permanently tainted, implying that Padme is telling the truth and Anakin hasn’t turned fully evil at any point.

Finally, how interesting would it be to have Luke’s green saber turn red in his final fight with Vader, and have this be part of his realization that he must turn away from it now and throw away this symbol of violence?

Someone has free-climbed El Capitan with the method Kirk was trying to emulate in The Final Frontier, so in the Star Trek universe Kirk probably read all about this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urRVZ4SW7WU

In the past few days I’ve tried out Davinci Resolve for LUTs, and though I’m not comfortable enough with making a full Technicolor print emulation LUT, here is a more modest one that removes some of the more modern gradients from TFA and adds in some print characteristics:

https://mega.nz/#!6Q0EGAqB!u1Gdl4KD4k-qKKOUhcGMRoc5-6XCtXFQmxAyYZuVRZY

https://diff.pics/Pm7_wcYYABAA/5

JEDIT: Modified and improved v5:
https://mega.nz/#!TNsBlLYL!oWeLEJCIlCyVanDqavLVqplsiP2Lk07dMuOMTRqYhlk

https://diff.pics/TzSAOV8WnXmq/1

The differences between this grade and the original Photoshop version can be more clearly seen with this curves adjustment applied to the latest Resolve version:
https://diff.pics/i54MpC7VYKsz/1

I rather like the Resolve version, but let me know what you think.

So she goes from dying of a broken heart to dying because her heart…broke?

Mocata said:

I actually dislike how blasters used by troops are sometimes not red after the OT. Rebel fighters using red makes them feel like a weaker military force, which is more appropriate than just any colour. The Empire using green turbo lasers made them feel like the top of the line.

Color is very complicated. Green = evil and powerful when used with blasters, but it is not evil when used in lightsabers. Red = weak when used in blasters, but not when used in lightsabers, where it is strong and evil. Perhaps it comes down to the Sci-fi versus the fantasy elements of the universe, and the differing color meanings in these different paradigms.

LssjCorey said:

I’m actually a bit of a fan of the addition of the Aurabesh language in Star Wars (1977). As originally you would see plain English. Also it seems that the original Aurabesh was just random letters splashed around. In the Special edition they were fixed and the original Aurabesh was fixed to actually stay things. Also all English was replaced with their Aurabesh equivalents.

You just have to understand that the ‘English’ is just an alien language that happens to coincide exactly with what English looks like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9tgLnI0fFc