NeverarGreat

R2
chasing down Stormtroopers
on speeder bikes
with his jetpacks.

ziggyonice said:

Man, that sequence looks beautiful. I mean really, it is nearly perfect. It has come a long way since you first worked on this scene, and I really think it’s possible for the viewer to connect it with Rey’s “Forceback.”

The only thing that might further enhance it is that, after BB-8 gets Rey’s attention (after the medical lady says, “Your friend is going to be just fine”), I think we need a tighter shot on BB-8 and Artoo. This was difficult to explain, so — I hope you don’t mind — but I took your video and then cut it myself to show you what I mean:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pTw6TzuCPAPO0i2ki53XZEhJGzeznURn/view?usp=sharing

I just reused the previous shot and then reversed it. The only tough thing about this is that it would require putting an “eye” on BB-8 or rotating his head. However, I think this change helps the audience focus a little more on what BB-8 is wanting Rey to look at: Artoo.

Great idea! It would take some doing to swivel BB-8’s dome, but the shot it replaced wasn’t entirely effective either so I wouldn’t mind it being replaced.

RogueLeader said:

I’m still not 100% sold on the Rey/BB-8 stuff, but it could be my own bias. Unrelated to the vfx work so far, I guess it doesn’t feel totally like it actually fits in with the movie yet. Like it isn’t completely seamless logically.

I could go either way on this. I think the shocked look on Rey’s face and the close up on Artoo helps to connect the dots.

If we wanted to make it more obvious, there’s only one thing I can think of: have Rey say Luke’s name. You could maybe use a voiceover from when she says Luke’s name during her conversation with Maz. But I kind of feel like a voiceover would make the edit seem rather amateur. If she says Luke’s name, we need to see her say it. Maybe some rotoscoping magic by cutting her out of the scene with Maz.

This is why I haven’t even attempted it here, since it didn’t work in a similar situation earlier in the edit (Rey’s dream sequence).

RL, it’s true that this whole concept is a bit more nebulous than the movie it’s in, but that may have to do more with the obviousness of the movie than this execution, if you know what I’m saying. Like the audience has been primed to expect everything to be explained and right at the end we’re hit with something different. My argument for keeping the change anyway is that R2’s waking up is already unexplained (or merely coincidental in Restructured). Either way this change is the first one to actually explain why R2 wakes up just in time for the end of the movie. That, as well as the previously mentioned benefits to Rey’s agency, means I’m still pretty happy with it.

ziggyonice said:

NeverarGreat said:

Going back to the R2 scene, BB-8 now explicitly includes Rey and I think it works much better this way:

I agree that I do think this is better. I think that the wipe from Artoo to the nighttime shot comes a little too quick though. I feel like the timing of the music and the shot of Artoo needs to be fixed somewhat. Can the Force theme that’s playing maybe start a second or two later than where it is currently? That way the camera can be fixed on Artoo for another second while the theme comes to a close and before the wipe comes?

Agreed.

Here it is shifted and tweaked a bit, and I’ve also pretty much finished the nighttime shot (done with live action within a matte OT style):

https://vimeo.com/333644596

Password: fanedit

Hal 9000 said:

Bringing back Palpatine in order to allow Ben Solo to recapitulate Vader’s sacrifice from ROTJ in order to once again kill the very same being would make the ST feel pointless. It would seem that ROTJ’s ending was broken down to be kicked a couple movies down the road and then redone.

If they have to bring Palpatine back, I hope it’s a vision or something rather than a true post-mortem consciousness. If Lucas had any say in it, I doubt that’s what would happen.

I really don’t think they’d go that route though, since it is so pointless.

Maybe Rey gets possessed by the spirit of Palpatine and Kylo has to save her.
Maybe the McGuffin is that they have to find the first Sith temple, where Palpatine is reborn.
Or heck, maybe this is the movie to introduce literal time travel to Star Wars so that JJ doesn’t have to write a true ending.

The bashing has also taken on political overtones which adds another dimension of malignancy.

RogueLeader said:

I think it works pretty well! I kind of liked how you made the shot of Kylo on the ground start glowing red like in the last version you did. The cut back and forth between Kylo, Rey, then back to Kylo feels a little too quick to me. But I think the music works well there, it flows with the scene.

You mean the cuts right before the base fires? I agree that it’s too short, but there’s not much to work with and I artificially lengthened them as much as I dared.

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

Just curious, has anyone attempted to speed up the slo mo shots and make them “real time”?

Do you mean the ones I slowed down, or some others in the scene?

Going back to the R2 scene, BB-8 now explicitly includes Rey and I think it works much better this way:

https://vimeo.com/333180383

Password: fanedit

DominicCobb said:

Anyone who says TFA was nothing but “pure fan service,” go watch Avengers, come back, look at this picture and tell me if you still think that

My ideal Sequel Trilogy would have centered on a group of young new leads and their adventures together, with the old generation forming either mentors operating on the fringes of the story or outright antagonists.

Specifically, I would really have dug a trilogy where Leia/Mothma/Rebellion leadership has formed a new regime which is hailed as a return to the Old Republic but lays bare the inadequacies of such a system. Despite this Leia clings to the dream of the Rebellion and vengeance against the Empire and goes further and further to justify her increasing oppression. Han is estranged, crippled by emotional and physical wounds suffered by fighting beside Leia for thirty years, and secretly hates everything he has become. Similarly, Luke has tried to replicate the Jedi order but finds that their strictures fail to capture the essence of the Force. It is up to our new heroes to break free from these systems which have so trapped our old heroes turned adversaries and forge a new path.

It’s deeply frustrating to see the actual ST come so close to this and time and again miss the mark.

Rey being a nobody is the one ‘twist’ that actually worked in TLJ, so that would be a nah from me.

yotsuya said:

We don’t know what experience either of them have, but they both obviously have quite a bit. We only see either of them using speeders and are told that Luke has used a Skyhopper before. So Rey does a much worse job than Luke at the start and they both fair about the same not too long later (Luke successfully dogfights with highly trained Imperial pilots who in the end take out 27 of the 30 rebel craft).

The difference, though I don’t know why I must reiterate Luke’s characterization in ANH, is that Luke is established in multiple instances to be a good pilot before we see him pilot a fighter. Ben compliments his ability, He boasts of it to Han, and his best friend says that he’s basically an ace pilot. Before he becomes a Jedi it’s his most defining skill. With Rey we are only given a brief mention that she is a pilot moments before boarding the Falcon, then a brief garbled justification after she has flown the Falcon, at which point it’s too late to justify for many in the audience. In short, ANH does the work of cultivating audience expectation and TFA simply does not.

Now if she did everything perfect the first time and didn’t have to try a few times, their might be a point, but she does struggle as much as Luke did learning any particular skill.

Um, what? She clearly learned a more long-distance levitation than Luke on the first try, and learns in a few minutes the mind trick that Luke doesn’t even attempt until the third movie.

TK42-WAN said:

Threepio does say “afraid” often though, that’s how they had Alec Guiness say Rey in TFA.

Very true, which means it’s technically possible. Twist my arm why don’t you 😉

As for the ‘darker’ music when Rey defeats Kylo, here’s how it might sound:

https://vimeo.com/332376936

Password: fanedit

pleasehello said:

NeverarGreat said:

Luke is the best stunt pilot in the outer rim territories, and has clearly been flying for years. And it’s notable that even he never does anything terribly flashy in the OT. Rey’s handling of the Falcon is about how you’d expect in the first few moments, but after that she successfully executes maneuvers far in excess of anything we’ve seen before. If anything, the contrast between almost crashing and ace-level piloting makes her abilities all the more noticeable.

I can’t defend her force abilities, but her piloting abilities being superior to Luke’s can easily be explained. TFA was made in 2015 when anything is possible with CGI. The film-makers didn’t care about making her abilities realistic relative to her circumstances or what has previously been seen in Star Wars. I think they just wanted to make a modern action scene for their modern action movie that modern audiences have come to expect.

They needed an exciting scene with spaceships flying loop-de-loops in the desert that makes me nauseous. So eeny meeny miny moe, let’s have Rey fly the ship.

That’s why I don’t have an issue with this scene apart from the inconsistency when compared to the OT - it feels like an almost necessary change for modern audiences. The immediate Force abilities on the other hand…

ziggyonice said:

Is there any chance you could have Rey say some sort of dialogue? Maybe she could say something, off camera, to Artoo? I’m picturing her saying something about “I saw you in a dream” or something.

Didn’t she say something like that in The Last Jedi? Does any of her dialogue reference dreams or flashbacks or anything that might be edited to fit the context of the scene? Just trying to find ways to piece it together.

Off-camera dialogue is hit and miss at the best of times, so I’m reluctant to go this route. It’s also nearing the end of the movie, and it feels more ‘Star Wars’ to begin minimizing dialogue in favor of imagery.

RogueLeader said:

I do think that the issue is just coming back to the fact that the audience might not put two-and-two together and remember that Rey saw R2 in the dream, and because of R2’s relation to Luke, it made her realize he might have the rest of the map. Maybe if 3PO could say to Leia, “Rey’s found some much needed good news.”

That would be nice, but I don’t know if 3PO ever uses her name in a sentence. I didn’t find anything of use in the TFA Lego game, though there might be later game recordings?

Veering off in another direction a little. We discussed before the idea of putting the Hosnian destruction right after Rey defeats Kylo, and how I was concerned if the high of the duel’s climax could clash with a somber moment immediately after, and Nev, you speculated on the idea of possibly changing the music to be a little darker and less heroic, if that makes sense.

I’ve thought about this some more, and I wonder if you could possibly replace the latter half of that track, starting with the Force theme as they are fighting for each other’s blades then Rey slices his face, with the alternate track for Han’s death scene? It is basically a darker version of the Force theme, and I think the way that track ends would flow really well into the ‘Starkiller’ track. Not sure if the timing would be right but might be worth experimenting with.

Interesting, I’ll give that a try.

yotsuya said:

I just found this and read the first post. I had to laugh at the idea that Rey flew the Falcon so well. She practically crashed the thing trying to take off. Once they were in the air she did pretty good, but when you compare that to Luke, he flew his X-wing like a pro from the beginning.

Luke is the best stunt pilot in the outer rim territories, and has clearly been flying for years. And it’s notable that even he never does anything terribly flashy in the OT. Rey’s handling of the Falcon is about how you’d expect in the first few moments, but after that she successfully executes maneuvers far in excess of anything we’ve seen before. If anything, the contrast between almost crashing and ace-level piloting makes her abilities all the more noticeable.

Rey has to try things before she succeeds, pretty much the way Luke did. And she does have a teacher. She learns just about everything she does from Kylo Ren.

She has never seen Klyo use a Jedi mind trick or even successfully gain his desired information from interrogation, though she manages a successful and proper mind trick after a minute or two of trying.
She has never seen successful telekinesis or levitation, yet apparently learns this on the first attempt after only a moment of intention from Kylo. Interestingly, Kylo never indicates that he is aware of teaching Rey ‘You need a teacher! I can show you the ways of the Force!’ and Rey never acknowledges that she has gained knowledge from Kylo ‘The Force…’.

I’d still like to know who taught Luke to lift his lightsaber in TESB.

If only there was some sort of Jedi mentor which has been established to help Luke from beyond the grave, or a time jump of several years to help the audience suspend their disbelief. Or both.

dahmage said:

devils advocate: but when sunlight filters through snow, isn’t it gonna be blue?

Somewhat, but less than you might think:

CarboniteSolo said:

I used Darth Lucas’ template using his spines, slightly modified. Here’s all nine episodes, I haven’t completed the rest, but I have finished Episodes I-IX. I hope you like them. I love the artwork and I didn’t want to cover them up with words, so this is kind of inspired by those old Star Wars VHS tapes of the 90’s and the classic Star Wars toys of the late 70’s and early 80’s. I left the back covers blank. You can add what you like to them, enjoy. Thoughts and comments appreciated, good or bad.

The last one is for fun.

If only the lightsaber from TFA was edited out of this, it would be perfect.

RogueLeader said:

NeverarGreat said:

Just need to figure out a way to desaturate the planet while keeping the color of the explosions.

Maybe someone could tweak those explosion shots enough to find a good in-between to maintain the explosions color but still be desaturated enough to not make a huge difference from the rest of the shots?

If not, you might have to rotoscope around the explosions to maintain their color. I think it would be worth trying, but I don’t think you’d have to go with the blue star angle, Jakku could just have a different atmosphere or something, like Mars.

I think this, and the potentially more challenging idea of adding MORE wreckage to Jakku are the best methods of differentiating Jakku that are somewhat feasible.

NeverarGreat said:

This would effectively establish Starkiller Base and its range and accuracy using a Rogue One style ‘single reactor’ attack. It would be dramatic enough to substantially raise the stakes, but still modest enough when used on this remote pirate base to justify the Republic’s continued inaction.

This is a cool new idea! Coming full circle. It could fit into the idea of Maz’s Castle being like a safe zone, neutral ground, except instead of just the castle it is the planet. Maybe you could use the subtitled aliens with Finn to provide some additional context for the defense platform as well!

But yeah, it would definitely require some new vfx for sure. I’m not sure how you would do that. And the platform would have to appear significant enough that it would require something as drastic as using a giant laser and exposing Starkiller rather than just attacking it with a Star Destroyer. Like, one Star Destroyer wouldn’t be strong enough to take it out. But they would have to use it in order to get the map.

I do think the important thing would be to make this idea as simple as possible, because if it is too complicated it might be confusing for the audience. So however it works, I would go with whatever is the easiest to understand visually.

EDIT: Establishing Takodana even more as a Switzerland-like neutral planet with some sort of defense would also help explain why Han felt comfortable with waltzing into the castle, since he would think they were safe there.

To explain why the base fires on such a small target first, it might work just to slightly alter Hux’s pitch to Snoke: ‘The weapon. It is ready. I believe the time has come to use it. Then we will destroy the government that supports the Resistance…the Republic.’

That would make it seem like this is really just a test to be followed quickly by the destruction of the Republic before they lose the element of surprise.

Interesting to note that the final film of each trilogy forms an alliterative progression:

Revenge
Return
Rise

I’ve come to accept the Starkiller weapon, since without it the movie would definitely lose tension in the third act. However, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better introduced.

This is a variation on Restructured:

There is a defensive installation on a moon of Takodana or an autonomous defensive station, which is taken out by Starkiller so that Kylo can attack the castle. If it’s a station it could be generating a planetary shield. This allows for the inclusion of shots like Kylo watching from the bridge of the Star Destroyer and some of the original effects of the distant Hosnian wreckage. You could also keep lines such as ‘It’s the First Order, they’ve done it!’ and ‘Finn’s familiar with the weapon that destroyed the (defensive) system, he worked on the base.’

This concept would require some effects work to establish the satellite/moon. I think it would be effective to use the wide shot of the Hosnian system except with just a single beam of energy hitting one of the more remote planets turned satellite with Takodana in the foreground. I think an autonomous defense station would make the most sense here, so that it could be established in the shot where the Falcon arrives at the planet, heavily armed with its weapons trained on the Falcon. It could also be in stable orbit over the castle.

This would effectively establish Starkiller Base and its range and accuracy using a Rogue One style ‘single reactor’ attack. It would be dramatic enough to substantially raise the stakes, but still modest enough when used on this remote pirate base to justify the Republic’s continued inaction.

RogueLeader said:

Both the Art of TFA and TLJ mention the Wizard of Oz quite a few times, and it makes me want Nev, or someone else, to continue that idea of making Jakku look more desaturated and like a purgatory. They wanted Jakku to feel like this miserable place Rey had to live in and I think that would help, plus it give Rey this ‘Dorothy in Kansas’ parallel. But I guess these are more radical ideas, but it seems like most people would have been okay with a little more visual distinctiveness in the new films. It seems to be thing that George Lucas liked about TFA the least.

Just need to figure out a way to desaturate the planet while keeping the color of the explosions.

ziggyonice said:

RogueLeader said:

I wonder if you could have it where Rey says, “Luke” during one of the shots of R2. You could take it from her conversation with Maz, since you might cut that line.

This seems like a great idea. We need a better indication of Rey connecting Artoo with Luke. Having her say his name might be a good step in the right direction.

I am still wondering though if it would be simpler to just cut straight from Rey looking at R2, to them going to Leia about good news, and if adding this extra stuff is making it more confusing or less confusing. I think this new stuff is cool, just trying to look at it objectively.

I’m also wondering this. This seems like a good idea, but without actually seeing Rey fix Artoo, it becomes a little confusing about what just happened.

I think the short version does well convey the connection between Rey and R2, but without anything else it only strengthens the theory, common after the movie’s release, that Rey’s mere proximity to R2 allows him to wake up, and might make it seem like Luke planned all of this out in advance using space magic. Needless to say that’s not the message I want to send.

So I guess it’s back to figuring out how to get Rey beside of R2 before cutting to night.

It’s a problem with the final encode which wasn’t caught for version 1, but will be fixed for v2.

Anakin is written as a creep in AOTC, but that wasn’t driven home so completely until I watched this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ww3NDNC4eA

It’s an interpretation of the character which might actually work in isolation and could be fascinating. However, it is this aspect of the prequels, above anything else, that makes them fundamentally incompatible with the spirit of the OT. Luke’s journey is predicated on the belief that his father was basically a good man, but if Anakin is really just a predatory creep then his redemption rings hollow. But take away Anakin’s predatory and creepy behavior and you have removed his most distinctive and interesting trait.

I don’t know how you would go about fixing this problem.

Very nice. What is the source of this artwork?

EddieDean said:

Christ, Nev, how are you able to turn ideas into reality so quickly?

It doesn’t take that long to roto still images if you’re not too concerned with quality 😉

littlev87 said:

Would it be possible to roto rey from the scenes where she fixes bb8’s antenna and put r2 in the shot? I think You’d only need a half second shot to convey the idea.

Unfortunately it’s too windy in that shot and the angle isn’t great, but that got me looking through the rest of the movie for something, and the closest I can find is when she bends down to talk to BB-8 after leaving Jakku. Even then the angle isn’t ideal and she puts her hands up in a strange way. The scene may be reaching the limit of the available footage.

JEDIT: Here’s the progress so far. I added a cable to connect the machine to R2, and zoomed/shifted the final shot of the scene so as to avoid having to place the machine into shot again (I don’t have a good alternate angle of it). Finally, moving Chewie to the night scene gives it more time to breathe, and I’m fairly happy with how this is shaping up given what there is to work with.

https://vimeo.com/331149498

Password: fanedit

Here’s a concept for the tools. I couldn’t find a small datapad, and thought it might be missed anyway, so I went for something hefty:

https://vimeo.com/331079693

Password: fanedit