I think I realize why so many people don’t like The Last Jedi.
It smirks.
For all of it’s faults, The Force Awakens doesn’t try to be clever. It doesn’t smirk; it’s earnest.
Of course, The Rise of Skywalker is the worst of both worlds as neither clever nor earnest.
When they say ‘Activate the droids’, a green Death Star laser shoots out of the center of the trade ship and hits Naboo, because green means activate.
I gotta say, I don’t see a change at all. There is a slight difference in color between the two versions due to the different overall color grade, but as for the consistency throughout the scene, it looks fine.
The only oddities I noticed in the scene were how the purple saber tended to bleed into and overwhelm the green saber when the two blades intersected, whereas in the original the green color was more present. It’s not a huge problem, but it is a bit noticeable in some shots.
I’d say that the Star Wars brand itself has had a lot to do with it, with TROS making a lot of people question the fandom in general. Other than Andor, the outlook has been pretty bleak.
Very interesting! I read some of your script and it sounds promising so far.
I’d be interested to hear about your workflow in running these ideas through GPT-4. How detailed do you have to be for the program to output something usable?
Give it a bit of reverb and drop the volume a tad and it may be seamless.
That sounds good to me as well. I also like imagining how Adam Driver says the word ‘ghost’.
Yes, and that’s the contradiction at the heart of this film’s confused worldbuilding. The theatrical crawl states that Leia has the support of the Republic, and Hux says that the Republic has secretly aided the Resistance as well. On the other hand, the novels of this period portray Leia as a pariah and the Republic as almost entirely dismissive of her efforts to fight the First Order, since the Senate is itself divided between those opposed to the First Order and those supporting it. Leia had to essentially break away from the Republic entirely to create the Resistance, at least in the lore.
There’s no way to condense this complex situation into a satisfying line of exposition. If the Republic refuses to help Leia, it is seen as contemptible, if it is unable to help due to being fractured by infighting it is seen as weak, and if it openly supports Leia there is little point of calling it anything other than an arm of the Republic military. The only option that really makes sense here is what Hux describes, a situation where it secretly supports the Resistance while attempting to remain neutral to avoid being drawn into another galactic conflict. I think that could come across with the ‘secret’ addendum, but I don’t want to put too much more focus on it because it would imply that the Republic is a major player in the film, which it most definitely is not.
Fair enough on the first paragraph being too succinct. I could definitely include something about the Republic there. Though, I am attempting with this short first paragraph to make the crawl work with Williams’ original 3 part crawl music, so the episode number, title, and spacing should be seen as part of the first paragraph, so a four line first paragraph is essentially seven lines for musical timing purposes.
And yeah, the Republic should be explained more, but straight out saying that they won’t help doesn’t endear them to the audience who needs to care that they are destroyed by the end.
Here’s a version that mixes a few of my prior efforts in a new way. Since I’ve abandoned the idea for a 9 line second paragraph, I think it makes everything a lot more readable.
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
The Republic is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, last of
the legendary Jedi Knights,
has vanished.
Emboldened by Luke’s
absence, Imperial legions
bearing the mark of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of a hidden fortress to
destroy anyone seeking
the Jedi’s return.
In staunch RESISTANCE,
a band of rebels armed
in secret by the Republic
has sent its daring pilots
across the galaxy, vowing
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
That’s Martin the Warrior
That’s him in a food
fight
Losing to a dibbun
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
It is a time of darkness.
Luke Skywalker, last of
the legendary Jedi Knights,
has vanished.
Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, agents of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to sow chaos and fear
throughout the vulnerable
New Republic.
Racing against time, a
brave RESISTANCE sworn
to secrecy by the Republic
has sent its daring pilots
across the galaxy, vowing
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
This may be the best option there is for explaining the relationship between the Senate and the Resistance. Here, the Senate is demanding that the actions of the Resistance be undertaken in secret, but it doesn’t specifically say whether or not the Senate officially condones these actions. Presumably it does but wishes to give the impression of being an impartial party, which tracks with Hux’s statement about it ‘secretly supporting’ the Resistance. At the same time, there’s no mention of actual assistance by the New Republic.
I am also trying to imply here that the Resistance search for Luke is more widespread than just Poe’s mission, though that is the one which leads to results. It makes the galaxy seem bigger.
I think it’s quite intentional that Palpatine creates the illusion, or phantom, of menace to Anakin and the Senate, then positions himself as the only one who can protect them with some vague promise of power or security. Both parties take the bait and end up hopelessly corrupted. It’s a brilliant bit of parallel storytelling.
Or it would be if it was handled with any sort of competence. Execution is everything, and instead of working like a Shakespearean Tragedy it lands like a wet farce.
I felt this one was about on par with 2 and 4, which are entries which I don’t have any particular desire to see again. For me, nothing comes close to 1 and 3 in terms of enjoyment.
If the studio really wanted to continue this franchise after DoD, may I suggest making low-budget movies featuring a long-lost niece or granddaughter in the Jones family.
Call it…the indy Anna Jones series.
In my opinion, there has never been a truly satisfactory name for users of the Dark Side.
Darth was originally Vader’s first name, and giving every darksider a “Darth (Evil Adjective)” name is dumb.
Sith is slightly better, but even though it was conceived for the Original Trilogy, it has generally been associated with the prequels and their baggage concerning the “rule of two” which makes it practically worthless for general practitioners of the Dark Side. Sith has ironically become a very limiting term for a group of practitioners who reject limitations almost as a rule.
Finally, even calling someone a ‘darksider’ or a ‘Dark Side user’ uses the Jedi’s doctrinal dichotomy between light and dark sides of the Force, whereas many so-called ‘darksiders’ would probably view themselves as agnostic in their use of the Force, only recognizing it for the power it provides. This is why it bugs me that the Emperor describes his power as coming from the Dark Side, since it feels like bowing to the Jedi terminology.
If it were up to me, I’d just call non-Jedi practitioners of the Force ‘Force Users’ or ‘Force Wizards’. It should be a neutral term which doesn’t stoop to the Jedi dichotomy. There would probably also be truly committed darksiders in the galaxy, just as there are Satanists in opposition to popular religious sects, whose choice of name is often performative and intended to provoke. But these darksiders would probably be a minority, as are Satanists among the vast array of religiously unaffiliated people who nevertheless have some religious or spiritual beliefs. Some of these Force users may use the Dark Side exclusively and yet not be affiliated with the Sith doctrine, some may use the Light Side exclusively yet not be called Jedi, and others may not differentiate between the two sides at all.
Only the Falcon desert chase scene was filmed and shown in Open Matte, and then only in certain screenings and later a few broadcasts.
Rewrite ANH’s crawl to be like TFA’s:
Obi-wan Kenobi has vanished. In his absence, the evil GALACTIC EMPIRE has risen from the ashes of the Old Republic and will not rest until Alderaan, the last planet of the Republic, has been destroyed.
Without the support of the Senate, Senator Bail Organa leads a brave REBELLION. He is desperate to find the Jedi Obi-wan Kenobi and gain his help in restoring peace and justice to the galaxy.
Bail has sent his most daring Senator on a secret mission to Tatooine, where her long-lost brother knows the secret to Kenobi’s whereabouts…
The scene in which Palpatine and Anakin meet in TPM, and the scene with Anakin and Palpatine in his office in AOTC, were both reshoots.
We almost got a version of the trilogy where Darth Vader and the Emperor do not have a scene together until the third movie.
What a mess.
Not introducing the Chancellor/Emperor until the third film or even the OT makes a lot of conceptual sense.
ANH takes pains to set our point of view on the lowly droids before gradually working up to more powerful and politically important characters, and this is how stories often work, especially with sequels. In order to keep the audience invested it’s a good idea to leave room in the universe for powerful entities which can be slowly introduced and incorporated into the story to instill a sense of escalating stakes.
The prequels don’t do this, and this is one of the reasons they feel so flat. We are introduced to the most powerful person in the galaxy partway through the first film, which leaves no room for important character escalation. If instead Anakin had to work with Obi-wan to become a Jedi Knight through the first and second films while fighting in the Clone Wars, the meeting and potential war hero decoration of Anakin by the future Emperor in film three would feel like the culmination of the entire story.
“His followers have been building something for years. A fleet of upgraded Star Destroyers from the old war. He calls it the Final Order. Each one has a dreadnought cannon capable of subjugating a planet.”
In Secret History of Star Wars, Michael Kaminski hypothesizes that Lucas came up with the idea to make Vader into Luke’s father after Brackett completed the first draft (and sadly died). Kaminski speculates that Lucas’ thought process leading up to this decision was as follows: Lucas read Brackett’s draft and something bothered him about the scenes where Luke’s father appears as a force ghost. Lucas realized that Luke’s father (who was a typical wise old Jedi character) was actually a completely redundant character, because he’s basically the exact same character as Ben Kenobi (who is also a Force Ghost at this point). But once the concept of force ghosts was introduced, it would follow logically that Luke’s father should begin appearing to Luke, since Kenobi always does. So now Lucas was stuck with duplicate “wise old Jedi” characters. If Luke’s father started appearing to Luke, there really would be no reason for Kenobi to have any further role in the story. So eventually, while struggling to find a solution to this problem, Lucas stumbled upon the greatest movie twist in history.
This is fascinating, and makes a lot of sense.
This hypothesis seems believable to me. It’s purely a guess, but it makes sense. But on the other hand, there is some evidence that Lucas actually decided that Vader was Luke’s father even before Leigh Brackett wrote the first draft. Kaminski points out how ridiculous this claim seems, because it means Lucas purposely withheld vital story information from Brackett, even while paying her to write the script (presumably out of paranoia of leaking the twist). And yeah, this does seem kind of ridiculous - but maybe it’s more like Lucas was just indecisive about the idea. Apparently it might actually be true, at least according to JW Rinzler, who claims to have many of Lucas’ handwritten preliminary notes for Empire Strikes Back, seemingly pre-dating Brackett’s draft. One of these note pages has the words “Father changes into Darth Vader”. But unfortunately Rinzler doesn’t provide a photograph of this (but provides many photographs of other notes), and Rinzler also admits that none of these notes are dated so it’s difficult to construct a precise timeline of Lucas’ thought process.
Could the words ‘Father changes into Darth Vader’ be a reference to a Force vision, much like Luke’s Dagobah Cave experience? In the finished film Luke defeats Vader and his face turns into Luke’s face, but perhaps there was a version where Luke’s father appears to him in a dream or vision but then changes into Vader to represent the revenge that Luke feels that he needs to take.
I suggest this alternate explanation merely because if I suddenly had the idea to combine the two characters, I would simply write ‘Father is Darth Vader’, or ‘Father changed to Darth Vader’. It’s very strange to use the present form of the word ‘changes’ since it suggests something which happens within the film, rather than being a revelation of an unchanging fact.
This thread contains much of the discussion into cleaning up the TFA and TLJ deleted scenes.
And for a simple listing of the deleted scenes, this thread would be good to include.
According to Deadline, production for season 4 of Mandalorian may be delayed due to the writers’ strike.
Why?
A joke based on the lack of quality writing in season 3?
Correct.
According to Deadline, production for season 4 of Mandalorian may be delayed due to the writers’ strike.
Why?
Yes, I would love that Nev!
Then I will continue gathering resources for the matte. I have everything in a Mega folder right now, consisting of screengrabs and BTS photos of the Emperor’s throne room which features the screen that I intend to use for the matte. My screengrabs are from 4K83 which means that they are probably not as high-quality as the official 4K release, and there are some BTS photos which are not in high quality.
So I’m again putting out a request for higher quality sources. Ideally there would exist somewhere a full-on high quality image of the screen, but failing that I could stitch something together with 4K film screengrabs if someone were to help replace the ones currently in the folder.
RJ, I’m still happy to try a ROTJ style Vader meditation chamber matte!