NeverarGreat

I’d definitely be interested in that.

Something like that could be incredibly powerful if it were set to work on video, where it could identify a detail from one frame and carry it through the frames where it is blurry.

pleasehello said:

TiMartyn said:

ziggyonice said:

I’m late to the party here… but again, regarding Canto Bight…

Does anyone else have a problem with the whole “Rose hates rich people” element? Frankly, I would like to take some of the “real world” politics out of that sequence. I get it, war profiteering is bad, but do we really need a conversation about it in Star Wars?

I’d rather cut out that sequence, and never have Rose mention it.

I second this. It’s oddly detracting from a subplot that already detracts from the movie itself. “Political commentary,” if you want to call it that, feels cheap when it doesn’t say anything genuinely controversial or bold.

Yes. I’m generally not averse to political commentary in film if it’s done subtly or cleverly woven into the story. TLJ has the most ham-fisted political commentary I’ve seen in recent memory.

Unfortunately removing it also removes almost any further character development for Rose, which is why I left some of it my edit. I did remove the “Now it’s worth it” line, though. That was the worst.

Really? I thought that the line was about the only one that was earned.

Another Machine Learning algorithm:

https://www.fastcodesign.com/90149773/this-ai-turns-unrecognizable-pixelated-photos-into-crystal-clear-images

Jay said:

Ryan-SWI said:

Jay said:

TLJ has none of that mystery because it picks up literally where the previous installment leaves off, and that’s J.J.'s fault because he just had to have his dramatic ending and couldn’t tell a complete story

Rian wasn’t forced into anything by JJ, especially not making TLJ to pick up right where TFA left off, mere seconds later.

…

Rian was definitely forced to do certain things based on the way things had played out in TFA, but a lack of a time jump isn’t one of them.

moviefreakedmind said:

I haven’t actually seen TLJ, but I can’t even imagine how jarring a time jump would be given the way TFA ends.

Pretty much this right here. The style of the scene set the expectation that the audience would be shown what happens next. As I mentioned in my earlier review, I actually enjoyed Luke’s saber toss because it was like Rian thumbing his nose at the overdone cliffhanger.

And don’t get me started on what TLJ ignored from TFA. All we heard from cough apologists cough after TFA was that all the mysteries were a big setup for some great reveals in the next installment. The truth is likely that J.J. had no idea what any of those reveals should be (again, he likes throwing a lot of balls in the air and letting other people catch them) and Rian had no desire to be saddled with filling in all those holes.

Killing the past seemed to be not just Kylo’s driving force, but Rian’s. Setting aside some of the junk storytelling in TFA provided a few of the best moments in TLJ.

I think that while Rian pretty much had to finish this scene, there was no reason he couldn’t have focused on Rey’s story and her lessons for a substantial amount of time before getting back to the spaceship chase plot. It would have solved the problem of the time jump for me, as well as building suspense for the plight of our other heroes as we and Rey get a fragmentary understanding of their danger through her communication with Kylo.

MalàStrana said:

NeverarGreat said:

Trump is very smart at branding and controlling the media narrative.

Media is politics, then do the math 😃

Not really. Working with Congress is politics. Making coherent policy is politics. Being an effective leader is politics.

Media is just one part of the equation, something that Trump still doesn’t understand.

Trump is very smart at branding and controlling the media narrative.

That’s it.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Superweapon VII

It’s like poetry.

But Rey’s introduction was also an all-timer. The first third of that movie, really, is just great.

Jay said:

Thread cleaned. Two entire irrelevant pages wiped. Please stay on topic, thanks.

Let the past die. Kill it.

The most satisfying aspect to the trilogy for me is the energy of this new cast. Finn and Poe escaping the Star Destroyer was more triumphant than anything in the prequels.

The most disappointing aspect for me is the rushed carelessness of the plot, and I see no indication that the storytelling will get tighter in the last act.

It’s more a critique of capitalism than the companies themselves.

Jeebus said:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html

Y’know, that’s a really good point. It’s almost as if… oh damn, I lost my train of thought. Oh well.

https://i.imgur.com/XUIaXAB.gifv

Looks like Frink needs extra strength Dooku memes.

Since the idea of the base charging their weapon is the ‘ticking clock’ for the final act of TFA, I don’t think the weapon can be eliminated without negatively impacting the film. So with this in mind, and considering the idea of having the Star Destroyers attack the Hosnian system, the only way I can see it working is that the Starkiller is targeting the Resistance base like in the original cut.

I imagine the sequence of events to be as follows:
Snoke’s first scene is moved to after Maz’s castle, and Hux advocates a strike on the Republic. Snoke sends him to oversee preparations for the Star Destroyer incursion.
After the Han/Leia talk, Rey is interrogated by Ren and she sees his vision of the weapon in operation.
Directly after this, Hux makes his speech, leaving out the part about the ‘fierce machine’ bringing an end to the Republic and the fleet. Intercut with this are snippets of the Mega Destroyer incursion and the destruction of the capitol city, with a desperate defense by the republic bombers and the sacrifice of Rose’s sister.

Yep, I think some version of that has the most promise.

Now you’re thinking like a public servant.

Good ideas here, and thanks for the big write-up RL. Since I’m considering removing the incursion on the Resistance base entirely, that opens up the footage for such an attack on Hosnian Prime. It would also be a good opportunity to establish Rose’s sister and her sacrifice, foreshadowing Rose’s inclusion in the plot of TLJ. However, it might be beyond my abilities to essentially generate an entirely new scene, however cool it would be to see. I’ll keep it in mind, since it would solve a lot of issues going forward.

As for the look of the base being too much like a weapon, yeah that’s a problem. Since there’s a huge trench along the equator covered in metal panels, I could remove some of the panels and add flashes of light from them, as if they were docking bays where these Star Destroyers were being constructed. The giant gun-looking thing could be constantly venting smoke and lit from within with an orange light, as if it were just a vent or smokestack for these massive metalworks. Ironically that would allow me to revert back to the original shot of the smoking gun barrel in the X-wing approach.

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/A-Collaborative-Star-Wars-Saga-Edit/id/60169/page/4#1195189

This thread got me thinking about another angle for the Starlight project.

I was playing with the idea of having Rey see bits of the Starkiller firing which happen later in the movie as a way of linking the Starkiller to Ren’s ambition to be more like Vader, but it could also serve the purpose of revealing the true capabilities of Starkiller Base. Basically, for the first half of the movie Starkiller is established to be merely a way for the First Order to create its starships. This could be visually communicated by having a bunch of Star Destroyers issuing forth from the big circular opening. Only after Rey’s interrogation and Ren’s vision is it known that the base can also be used as a weapon.

I guess I’m still trying to wrap my head around how you could possibly remove the Starkiller base weapon from the plot. The entire idea of the Resistance attacking the base is to destabilize the weapon and potentially destroy the planet, which makes sense if the weapon is the planet. But if the First Order merely has a base on the surface of an ice world, how would the planet be destroyed?

I was toying with the idea in my Starlight edit that the base could also be a Star Forge, using the energy of the sun to create fleets of Imperial vessels. Something like that would differentiate it from the Death Star and allow this idea of a base that builds starships:

The last of the Jedi has
vanished. In his absence,
a secret Imperial Order
has completed construction
of a fortress that can
devour entire stars.

Harnessing this power to
rebuild their once-mighty
starfleet, this emboldened
FIRST ORDER launches
a devastating attack on
the capitol planets of the
New Republic.

Escaping the destruction,
only one general salvages
a desperate RESISTANCE,
and sends a pilot in search
of the long-lost Jedi,
guardian of peace and
justice in the galaxy…

There would need to be a lot of changes to the Resistance briefing scene, where they talk about the hyperlighspeed weapon, and of course cutting the Hosnian destruction and every instance of the ‘weapon’ being recharged. Perhaps we see the sun getting drained again early in the movie, and this continues throughout with the implication that the First Order is constructing new ships inside the planet.

4,492 posts since 2012. A bit low compared to some, but they were quality posts.

joefavs said:

CarboniteSolo said:

There’s a rumor going around that there’s two more sequels to this. I don’t know what they have planned.

My understanding is that Ehrenreich and (maybe) Glover are signed on for two more movies, not necessarily direct sequels. I took that to mean maybe a Lando movie with Han in it or a Boba Fett movie with the two of them in it, as opposed to a straight up trilogy of Han movies.

That actually sounds like fun.
The Lando one, I mean.
As for the Boba Fett one, I’d rather see a movie about Obi-wan using the ghost of Qui-gon as a way of communicating his soup recipe to Yoda. The big payoff comes in Empire when Luke tastes it and realizes that Dagobats are no substitute for Womp Rats.

CarboniteSolo said:

There’s even a Jabba’s Palace playset I saw online. He does visit him, I guess this will be what Vader at the end of Rogue One is for Solo. I can see it happening, but probably a quick chat like, “Do not double cross me or lose my shipments, or I will put a bounty on your head Solo.”. And maybe have Greedo standing next to him.

It’s great moviemaking because it references something we already know.

OutboundFlight said:

I agree SKB should just be a base. Perhaps we could edit the exterior shots to make it a plain planet (the scale is really off, fuel oslicator is seeable from space about the size of Texas but on ground it’s the size of a football stadium).

So in this version, how would the destruction of the Hosnian system be handled? Would it be removed entirely (with perhaps the Star Destroyer shots from Restructured and a few of those changs), and only established in the crawl for TLJ?

Strategically placed slow zooms and subtle pans can work wonders for some shots like this one.