NeverarGreat

Z6PO said:

“STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE” Animotion Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib_4A2CG2Ag

Just about to link that, very cool.

Telion said:

Fair enough, but I think however it plays out it will always be weird that they hug THE FIRST TIME THEY MEET. Like maybe if they had met previously I would get it, but force or no force that scene will always require some good old suspension of disbelief.
Suspending disbelief in a Star Wars movie, unheard of right?!?! Why would anyone ever need to do that in a Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Space Opera about “space wizards with laser swords”?

At first I thought we were still talking about Leia and Chewie and was confused.

But Rey and Leia would make sense even if the Force didn’t come into play. I imagine that even Rey knew what Leia looked like, since she knew so much about Han Solo and Leia was a much more public figure. Leia knows who Rey is, and they both know the other must be in a bad way.

A good thought. My first notion was that they could go into the shot where the Falcon goes to Hyperspace, to differentiate it from the reused shot where it is pulled out of Hyperspace, as well as in the sky in some shots. Maybe when Rey takes BB-8 home? When she has her Reydream as a callback to the Twin Suns?

DominicCobb said:

You certainly have the look down, pretty well executed. Do you have a “technicolor” preset or LUT or something that you’ve created?

Oddly enough it looks more like TLJ now.

I do have a LUT made for correcting the ANH Blu-ray, but this was a new attempt in Photoshop.

These settings actually have more in common with a ROTS regrade I was working on at one point, where the primary difference was a reduction in the purple tones.

There are some things that need further work. It’s overall a bit on the green side, and there’s a process I can best apply in Premiere which deepens the reddish shadows in the skin tones while leaving the bright areas pink and lends a wonderful Technicolor look to the video.

Here’s a Photoshop version of the effect, with some fine tuning for brightness:
https://diff.pics/EKMUxzl1Ag6a/1

Subtle, but noticeable I think.

Vs the originals:
https://diff.pics/mSs9Vzj5NFji/1

I was playing around with the sort of settings that I’ve used for ANH Technicolor, and managed to get a decent global grade for the movie:

https://diff.pics/wU0BdJwG8Naq/1

I also applied a slight greenish vignette to the left and right side of the image to mimic the same phenomenon from the Technicolor prints.

Any sort of description of Vader or his plan would work there, I was leaning into the meditation angle because of his meditation pod and the fact that the entire movie is basically his plan to capture Skywalker.

These are nice. Real nice.

OutboundFlight said:

I’d like to add onto that- the Death Star is not the focus of ANH. They don’t describe how it works. The moths don’t argue on the morality of their actions. The primary focus of the movie is Luke’s adventure.

In Lord of the Rings we have the Uruk-Hai, a new invention that makes orcs stronger. That’s not the sci-fi, it just raises the stakes. Likewise a station with the ability to destioy a planet through magical crystals is likely impossible.

Magical crystals = only likely impossible.

I agree with this.

RogueLeader said:

You could think of her as more of an indentured servant rather than a slave.

JEDIT: I mean as to the fact of what happened, and not the morality of such a contract. Obviously. 😉

I agree that Leia being the leader here helps the logic of the movie, it just makes for a trickier crawl.

It seems kind of strange to switch gears in the last paragraph by focusing from Leia to Luke. Maybe something like this:

It is a dark time for the
Rebellion. Imperial forces
have driven the Rebels from
their hidden base and pursued
them across the galaxy.

Evading the dreaded Imperial
Starfleet, Princess Leia and
her brave lieutenants have
established a new secret base
on the remote ice world of
Hoth.

The evil lord Darth Vader,
consumed in dark meditation,
has dispatched thousands of
remote probes in a quest to
find Leia’s most daring
commander, the young Luke
Skywalker…

You can see some of the TFA crawls working their way into that…

The evil Darth Vader, commander of the Imperial armada, has dispatched thousands of remote probes in an obsessive quest to find the young Skywalker…

RogueLeader said:

@Nev

I think it is implied that he did buy her. I definitely don’t think she had a slave implant since Unkar never used it on her. She’s not Unkar’s property, though, more like an employee.

RogueLeader said:

This is probably a Tomato/Tomahto situation, but you could think of her as more of an indentured servant rather than a slave.

It seems like most “slaves” in the galaxy have implants that slave-owners can detonate if they try to escape. Anakin and Shmi mention having them in TPM, and it could be another justification for why Finn and Rose couldn’t really do anything to help the slave children escape on Canto Bight for the very brief time they were around them.

Obviously Rey doesn’t have one of these implants because Unkar Plutt never retaliates. Now, I think most of the people who live at Nima Outpost are practically slaves of Unkar Plutt, since he is there only means of food on Jakku, but he doesn’t own them. So they’re more like slaves to the system rather than being property of Unkar Plutt himself. They don’t have to collect scrap for food if they don’t want to, but they’ll probably starve if they don’t.

So I’m guessing Unkar just bought Rey so she was stuck at Nima Outpost, and then had her become dependent on his junk for food system.

So did he or did he not buy her?

This line of inquiry raises so many questions I hadn’t considered before. Did Rian mean to imply that Rey was an actual slave, and if so did he mean to suggest that she had a bomb in her head? Maybe JJ avoided the actual slavery angle precisely to avoid this question, since it’s one of the most bizarre and uncomfortable facts in the prequels.

I think the main reason TLJ crawl works so well is because there’s much less to establish upfront, so you can focus on flair over function.

RogueLeader said:

I remember the whole idea of cost-effectiveness being another rationalization for the base, especially since the new canon seems to imply that Starkiller Base is Ilum, the planet the Jedi would go to to get their lightsabers crystals. After the Jedi Purge, the Empire basically mined Ilum for its kyber crystals to the point where you could see the planet’s molten core from space. This makes it seem like the Empire had already dug the hole for the First Order, and they just had to fill it in.

But yeah, when Poe is like, “this was the Death Star… THIS is Starkiller Base!", were they expecting the audience to be like, “Woah! It’s so big!” It’s like they thought Starkiller Base could work if we can make it even bigger and badder than the last two Death Stars!
I almost wish Poe had said, “This was the Death Star… and this was the SECOND Death Star… but THIS is Starkiller Base!”

I almost feel like pointing out the size just makes it worse, like they’re trying to make it seem like a bigger threat by literally making bigger, which feels like lazy writing. I wonder if the size had not been as drastic, or if there was just one massive hole in the base rather than a giant semicircular trench, it would be a little bit more acceptable. I think editors would be better off just cutting some of those lines and just go from “It’s another Death Star!” to “How is possible to power a weapon of that size?” More skilled editors could insert a gas giant or planet near Starkiller Base to establish the base as a moon to help deemphasize its scale, but it’s probably not that big of a deal.

Now I must investigate the potential of such an edit. Curse you.

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, a mysterious Imperial remnant, known as the FIRST ORDER, has emerged from uncharted space and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed.

Fearing that First Order spies have infiltrated the New Republic, General Leia Organa mobilizes a covert Resistance to prevent their corruption from spreading further into the galaxy.

Convinced that the Jedi are their key to victory, Leia has sent her best pilot to find her lost brother, Luke, before their dangerous new enemy reaches him first…

This is really good. It’s a bit on the wordy side compared to your TLJ crawl however. I also wish that there was a more elegant way of communicating the First Order’s goals. I think the answer might be in making them intentionally becoming the Empire 2.0, with all associated features. That way another superweapon becomes expected and important to their identity rather than out of nowhere and unexplained. It doesn’t even have to be established in the crawl. Here’s an attempt that incorporates Luke’s last Jedi status, Jakku being in FO space, and the goal of the FO itself:

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, an Imperial remnant known as the FIRST ORDER has emerged from desolate space with ambitions to restore their fallen Empire.

Fearing that First Order spies have infiltrated the New Republic, General Leia Organa mobilizes a covert Resistance to counter their sinister influence.

Desperate to restore hope to the galaxy, Leia has sent her best pilot beyond the edge of the Republic in search of Luke, last of the legendary Jedi Knights…

I think the Resistance makes a lot more sense as an intelligence operation and propoganda outfit rather than a military operation prior to this movie, and it is the events of this movie which turn it into a small and outmatched military force.

No idea where to find a higher quality version, but out of curiosity, where were you planning on incorporating this scene?

RogueLeader said:

That’s a good point. You’re basically saying that even if Starkiller Base was better set up, it still doesn’t address the fact that it barely has any relevance to the characters. So by repositioning the destruction, you could have it tie in more to the characters’ motivation.

I would definitely be interested in seeing that. That could work, but on the other hand maybe it is disconnected to “the story we care about”, as JJ calls it in the TFA commentary, because they didn’t want Death Star 3.0 to be very integral to the fresh part of the story, if that makes sense. Like, if you can’t get those two thing being connected to work, then they’re better off being separated.

I haven’t actually heard the commentary, probably should do that.

But it sounds like JJ couldn’t think of anything better than a Death Star 3.0 while also realizing how boring that would be and simultaneously de-emphasizing its importance. Like you said, we’d been better off without it. Would it have been so hard for him to include a ‘boring’ exposition scene where we learn what’s happening in the galaxy? That’s what this movie really needs. Just one, anywhere.

I think the biggest issue with Starkiller Base and its attack is that it doesn’t have a strong impact on any of our main characters, at least that we can see. Finn sees it and his only remark is informing everyone that the First Order was behind it. In the next sentence he’s already moving on. Han just sort of looks at it, and Leia hasn’t been introduced and never mentions it afterwards. Rey, our lead or co-lead character, doesn’t even know about it.

In Star Wars, the Alderaan system destruction had a big emotional impact on Leia and Ben, and all of our main characters were shocked at its destruction when they literally ran into its pulverized remains.

For the Starkiller Base to work, it will need to have an impact on at least one of our main characters in a substantial way. This will probably go into my fanedit ideas thread, but my current idea is to have the base fire right after Poe flies out of the Oscillator, and have the Starkiller firing be what causes the Oscillator to explode. The Hosnian destruction will happen right before Rey taps into the Force as she’s fighting with Kylo, so there could be the sound of ‘a million voices crying out in terror’ as she goes into her trance and is flooded by this terrible surge of darkness. This is what drives her to defeat Kylo in such a righteous rage, and is the best way I’ve found to make the Hosnian destruction mean something to our main character.

Can we move this discussion out of the ranking thread?

Taking this comment to this thread.

yotsuya said:

NeverarGreat said:

yotsuya said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

yotsuya said:

MalàStrana said:

For myself I would say I don’t hate any of them and I would, some day, rewatch every single one of them, but I can’t pretend that I like TPM, AOTC, R1, Solo, TFA… (I like some of them when propertly fan edited though) I can enjoy them, find qualities, rewatch a few sequences and be glad to see the “SW soul” supplement in them compared to the average blockbuster, but I honestly don’t like all of them. As a whole, it’s different, and maybe the “I-IX” experience may give the Saga something more as a complete movement than what just separate entries do.

ATOC and TFA are the only ones I did not fully enjoy on my first viewing. Both have segments that just took me right out of the film and derailed the story for me and I have never been able to recover from that. Both need a good fan edit (I would do it very lightly with as few changes as possible) to bring them up to the nearest stories. I cannot say I hate any of them, but those two I have the most profound issues with. Though in contemplating it, one of my issues with TFA has led to a personal retcon that solves a lot of issues for the entire Star Wars universe. Still, it would be a better movie if that was not needed. And the sections of ATOC are just bad and need to be axed.

Indeed AotC’s bad bits, while pretty bad, are relatively harmless. It doesn’t uproot the story or universe. It’s just bad scenes and/or dialogue that can easily be cut. It’s not the same as the problems some people have with TLJ or that I have with RotJ that come from taking the saga in an infuriatingly terrible direction. Granted, some of the problems are also the sort of harmless, easily removed, stuff with no implications down the line, like AotC, which just makes them even worse.

Out of curiosity, what is the headcanon you mentioned concerning TFA?

Both TFA and TESB have some issues with the use of the word system. Take it as it is typically meant, that of a star system, and both those movies are derailed by science. But if you take that to be a planetary system (a planet and its moons) you can have the Millennium Falcon fly from Hoth to Bespin in a reasonable amount of time and you can have the people on Takodana watch the destruction of the Hosnian system without it being completely impossible. But even in the same system, watching the destruction of the Hosnian system stretches believably too far for me.

That would mean a weapon designed to destroy an entire system is actually not destroying the entire system, and also begging the question of why a pirate hideout is right next door to the Republic capital.

Well, first off, what we see destroyed is a planetary system, not a star system. We see a planet and its moons destroyed. No star visible on screen or indicated at all. The phrase system destroying would thus be defined as a planetary system, not a solar system. As for a pirate hangout right next door, its not like that is unusual in real history or the Star Wars universe. Capitals seem to be a good place for crime.

The ‘official’ sources would disagree with you:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hosnian_system

I agree with the sentiment that the planets are too close together, but that’s yet another JJ not caring about astronomy thing.

RogueLeader said:

There are canon (or at least common headcanon) explanations for these two things.

The ESB one has been debated for years. But basically, the Falcon has a secondary, albeit extraordinarily slow, backup hyperdrive. It’s like a spare tire for space travel. This also explains how the Empire and Boba Fett got there before they did once they knew where they were going.

As for why everyone can see the destruction of Hosnian Prime… it’s definitely a hand-wavy explanation but this is what Wookiepedia says.

When the Starkiller Base superweapon released the quintessence [dark energy] it had collected within its core, it was transformed into phantom energy [another state of dark energy], which would follow the line of egress that had been provided by the weapon’s technicians according to planetary rotation, inclination, etc, through a hole in “sub-hyperspace”, until it was intercepted by an object of sufficient mass. When the beam of phantom energy interacted with a planet, it ignited its core, creating a pocket nova. Large amounts of phantom energy could create temporary rips in sub-hyperspace, which allowed the Hosnian Catacylsm in 34 ABY to become visible from across the galaxy as it happened.

So basically, since the weapon made light/energy travel faster than lightspeed itself, it created a disruption in space-time, which made it so the light from the destruction was visible at hyper-light speeds across the galaxy. So not only could the people on Takodana see it, but so could everyone else if they were facing the right direction. I know in the video game Battlefront 2, the characters can see the Hosnian destruction from another planet called Vardos.

Is this Star Wars or Star Trek?

But the better answer is that it’s just Star Wars, the same galaxy where starships fly like there is air friction, where you can hear sound in space, and giant worms live in asteroids. Did I forget to mention the space wizards with laser swords?

The problem is not with the existence of impossible technology and creative portrayals of physics, but in how well they are established in order to tell an effective story.

Friction and sound in space (and associated living conditions) connects the fantastical elements to something understandable and engaging to average movegoers. The sound aspect also could be interpreted as creative license on the part of the moviemakers as opposed to being actually there (the Radio Drama goes this route).

Lightsabers are like swords but made of light. Maybe impossible but only wielded by the magical wizards so they might be magical too.

Magical wizards are well established before the halfway point of the first movie and are a primary aspect of the story.

The Death Star is established as impossibly destructive in the opening crawl of the first movie. Its plausibility is not an issue because of this - it’s a brute fact around which the entire movie turns.

The Starkiller Base is not a brute fact from the outset of the story. It appears partway through, uses technology we’ve never seen before and is never mentioned again, all to only be of so little consequence that the destruction of the Hosnian system can be removed from the movie without any significant impact on the main characters. This is why I dislike the ‘space wizards’ defense of these movies - it is so often used as a blanket defense of lazy, convenient writing.

yotsuya said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

yotsuya said:

MalàStrana said:

For myself I would say I don’t hate any of them and I would, some day, rewatch every single one of them, but I can’t pretend that I like TPM, AOTC, R1, Solo, TFA… (I like some of them when propertly fan edited though) I can enjoy them, find qualities, rewatch a few sequences and be glad to see the “SW soul” supplement in them compared to the average blockbuster, but I honestly don’t like all of them. As a whole, it’s different, and maybe the “I-IX” experience may give the Saga something more as a complete movement than what just separate entries do.

ATOC and TFA are the only ones I did not fully enjoy on my first viewing. Both have segments that just took me right out of the film and derailed the story for me and I have never been able to recover from that. Both need a good fan edit (I would do it very lightly with as few changes as possible) to bring them up to the nearest stories. I cannot say I hate any of them, but those two I have the most profound issues with. Though in contemplating it, one of my issues with TFA has led to a personal retcon that solves a lot of issues for the entire Star Wars universe. Still, it would be a better movie if that was not needed. And the sections of ATOC are just bad and need to be axed.

Indeed AotC’s bad bits, while pretty bad, are relatively harmless. It doesn’t uproot the story or universe. It’s just bad scenes and/or dialogue that can easily be cut. It’s not the same as the problems some people have with TLJ or that I have with RotJ that come from taking the saga in an infuriatingly terrible direction. Granted, some of the problems are also the sort of harmless, easily removed, stuff with no implications down the line, like AotC, which just makes them even worse.

Out of curiosity, what is the headcanon you mentioned concerning TFA?

Both TFA and TESB have some issues with the use of the word system. Take it as it is typically meant, that of a star system, and both those movies are derailed by science. But if you take that to be a planetary system (a planet and its moons) you can have the Millennium Falcon fly from Hoth to Bespin in a reasonable amount of time and you can have the people on Takodana watch the destruction of the Hosnian system without it being completely impossible. But even in the same system, watching the destruction of the Hosnian system stretches believably too far for me.

That would mean a weapon designed to destroy an entire system is actually not destroying the entire system, and also begging the question of why a pirate hideout is right next door to the Republic capital.