NeverarGreat

Looking forward to it!

Alternate take on Snoke and friends:
https://vimeo.com/221526067
Password: hux

‘My work here is done’ now has a new meaning 😉

An excellent start in any case. It will be interesting to see how it behaves with more material, especially since it will have to interpret skin tones seen under a variety of locations and lighting conditions. Heck, even I have trouble with that.

Most of the sounds in my renders are just the isolated center channel of the 5.1 mix, and shouldn’t be used for the final mix. I’m still trying to get a handle on 5.1 editing, but it doesn’t play well with my projects since they were initiated in stereo. Unfortunately, for right now these renders are ‘some assembly required’.

However, I’ve re-encoded ‘Leia and the Starkiller’ as well as ‘Starless Starkiller’ since I updated the effects somewhat. Leia and the Starkiller will have all 4 stereo tracks encoded separately so that the music and some of the sound can be used. For most of the sound however, it’s best to go back to the source.

Here they are:
Starless Starkiller 3:
https://mega.nz/#!mIsxlToJ!x-vHaj99-HgCSdBbdEWxVz_PCla1_wSfU4mJz64e5MM
Leia and the Starkiller 14:
https://mega.nz/#!zIsjVSAR!gbqadYAasxlud1sYA3UjUAw2mCtVKe2_YQjLNh5f2XU
Track 1:
https://mega.nz/#!CMlWTBCK!DeTL3B8UPOoZbs_Qptf9k_FLe7pRYG13AxXDzRm4F0w
Track 2:
https://mega.nz/#!CE0kxTKa!PTWbdzmVLnnrQxxIDd_NjA7rt5Ho3l_1b4pMJerrln4
Track 3:
https://mega.nz/#!rYcDABRK!VPRzvqpOtcXDS_2BiDH4NAe3UAT2-F_zLPgHTtUoCic
Track 4 (just the ‘fire’ dialogue):
https://mega.nz/#!7VsDRLbB!p43yx2rMx_VwsZ4gp0o4vUuSpHrVgzA3B7Xq_IYTMz4

canofhumdingers said:

Possessed said:

I don’t think that they are even very bad. They just aren’t… Good. Sure some of the dialogue is awful, but there’s worse. It’s bad enough to keep them from being good, but not so bad that it makes them terrible. They are terrible if compared to esb, but that’s not saying much not many movies can survive that comparison.

I’ll bite…

I’d argue there are MANY films as good or better than ESB. And I say that as someone who for a very long time held ESB as far and away my favorite film ever (some other films have caught up with it in my favoritism but it’s still easily in my top 5 or better). But there’s a reason it’s rarely included on lists like the AFI’s top 100.

Second, the prequels are BAD movies. On so many levels that I can’t begin to understand people who try to argue they’re not. It doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person or stupid or any awful thing like that for liking them. I love lots of bad movies. I have a real soft spot for 50’s B movies and I unabashedly love Godzilla and other giant monster movies. But I can acknoweledge that many, even most, of those movies are bad movies by any reasonable criteria. I can understand why people criticize them or don’t find them enjoyable. Doesn’t stop me from loving them inspite (or often because) or their badness. But I’d never try to argue Plan 9 From Outer Space is some brilliant piece of high art with numerous layers or depth and meaning. THAT would be preposterously silly. Just like that ring theory nonsense…

I am one of those people who will defend the ring theory as possibly not nonsense, for the simple reason that forcing a trilogy to conform to an antiquated storytelling form is precisely the sort of thing that George would do. The ring theory doesn’t make the prequels any better as movies per say, it merely provides a method of interpreting the creative decisions that went into those trainwrecks. Anyone who puts a Yin Yang into a cloudbank is clearly trying to say something deeper than 'there were these Clone Wars, see…'

All that said, the fascinating thing about the ring theory subtext is how this deeper understanding is entirely undercut by the lack of competence on display in the text of the film, so it’s almost impossible to genuinely appreciate this subtext. And it is fascinating, because I don’t know of another series of films that achieves this balance of textual incompetence and subtextual thoughtfulness. Most other films that try this just come across as pretentious.

Nope. It could well be Hux, though Hux doesn’t usually wear a hat.

It’s only slightly weird that in this version we don’t see him order the execution of his life’s work.

Alternatively, instead of an entire Snoke scene late in the film, the V1 dogfight could remain in place but with the Ackbar dialogue as if on the radio:
https://vimeo.com/221369138
Password: craft

Very rough, but you get the idea.

Then I’m happy to leave the firing as is. 😃

The contrast looks great on my calibrated monitor. I wouldn’t say the highlights are blinding. If you want to see that, just check out the Matrix 35mm scan. 😉

I agree. It’s a very human perspective on the whole thing.

Now to change it:
https://vimeo.com/221360199
Password: leia

This reverses the control room shot and adds the ‘fire’ line. I don’t know if the reversal helps the scene, but again, I do like the ‘fire’.

Also included is a mockup of what DominicCobb’s ‘second firing’ idea could look like in action, which feels somewhat necessary to establish the operational status of the Oscillator. I think Snoke should have a congratulatory line for Hux, but the most I could find was ‘It is time’. It’s not ideal, since it’s repeated soon after. The music needs some work as well. Perhaps something more percussive like the first few seconds of the scene but throughout.

This scene would allow the X-wing attack to happen as it does in the original, sans the two reaction shots used in the Starkiller Firing.

So what do you guys think? Does this have potential?

Exceptional.

That can’t be real.

Wonderful!

The problem with using the Hux shot during the firing sequence is that there’s clearly a star in the sky, so it would be really hard to fake it being underground like the the other shots.

Here’s the video:
https://mega.nz/#!jJtEVZzK!pNYvB7_9_XhAK9YxfGFlzKAr-NyxJj2vz155azm9Wn4

I had also grayed out Hux’s hair somewhat in the beginning of the shot to make it less obvious that it was him. However, it would probably be easier to remove that part of the shot anyway, starting it from when the camera starts to pan right.

ImperialFighter said:

NeverarGreat, Just throwing this out there - would REVERSING the 2 shots in this later sequence take the edge off the duplication? - so that your music would be the SAME in the background, except we’d see the female operater shot FIRST this time (‘reversed’ to turn towards her monitor in this instance), BEFORE we then see the male operator, just before the weapon fires.

I tried this reversal on the female operator shot, pulling audio of Hux saying ‘Fire’ to match the guy’s mouth movement. It works fairly well, but if you’re really paying attention the backwards footage is noticeable. I do like the ‘Fire’ dialogue change in any case.

Hal 9000 said:

Yeah… I don’t think those earlier FO control room shots from the ‘weapon charging’ scene can be removed, unless someone wants to rotoscope out Gleeson from this shot:

https://ibb.co/i2czHa
https://ibb.co/mTPPiF

As long as you crop out his face, the shot could work:
https://vimeo.com/221226748
Password: hux
It would probably work better if you just used the last five seconds.

Don’t forget the ugly sideways ship that Leia arrives in!

Very well. The delay would be retroactively justified with the Starkiller targeting the Resistance, implying that it’s fine to fire again. I guess the only problem remaining is the two control room shots.

Would the star draining sequence work with just a hard cut from the First Order salute to the sun being drained?

Indeed they did, but it doesn’t completely blow until Poe’s attack. Han and Chewie believe that the charges may cripple the weapon, otherwise they wouldn’t bother, so there’s an expectation that the charges could be the difference between the weapon firing and the weapon being unable to fire. The way it has been in the original movie and the edits is that Chewie fails to act immediately when Han dies. In the original this wasn’t a big deal since the weapon was 2 minutes from firing anyway, but here it matters. Unfortunately, placing Chewie’s attack before or simultaneous with the Starkiller firing ruins the feeling of despair at the plight of our heroes.

One way to mitigate this problem is to use the DominicCobb idea of having the weapon target the Resistance base directly after the Hosnian destruction. Then we understand that the only useful purpose of the charges was to allow the X-wings access to the Oscillator.

So…no luck so far on finding a replacement for the Starkiller control room shots.

This version of the firing (and basically all the versions so far) have the issue of pausing time to see the destruction of Hos, which isn’t very Star-Warsy. Another problem introduced in Restructured is the fact that Chewie apparently waits until after the Starkiller fires to detonate the charges, an out-of-character mistake and one that potentially led to the deaths of millions. In V1 in fact, we are never told that the Oscillator is still functional after the detonation, so it’s a reasonable assumption that Chewie is indirectly responsible for the destruction of the Hosnian system!

With that in mind, I tried to make a version where Chewie shoots Kylo and blows the charges before the weapon fires, but since it’s all set to the Starkiller cue, the beginning is too rushed. The end works well, since it cuts right from Leia’s reaction to Rey and Finn escaping the damaged Oscillator. The music is allowed to finish and blends the scenes nicely. Also good is cutting away from the wounded Kylo quite quickly in the Oscillator, so that it’s more unexpected when we see him menacing our heroes in the woods.

Essentially I have two versions of the firing sequence, one with a good beginning, the other with a good end, and both incompatible.

Blast.

There’s also the deleted scene which needs to be done, which is rather essential for the whole Republic subplot.

I’ll see what I can do about getting some different footage for the firing sequence. As it is right now, everything barely holds together to allow for the entire cue, and it really feels off to truncate the music in the beginning like that.

Oh right. I thought those had been excised as well, but looking at it again, there they are 😛

Thanks all!

Hal 9000 said:

Approved! Haha. I’m going to see if I can’t comfortably excise the ‘control room’ shots from earlier in the movie.

I believe that the Leia shot is the only Resistance base shot from eariler in the movie, and that is accompanied by the now excised ‘it would take a miracle to save us now’ line. The other two shots are from the later scene which has already been cut. 😃

DigMod said:

Well that was just about perfect. 😃 do you have a lossless version?

Here 'tis:
https://mega.nz/#!vVUnEDqI!Og-cqgUgtFCfE2FcofnzAmCJyUEwGRcsZcha3OgHa-E
Music only (except for when I used the Hosnian planet surface audio)
https://mega.nz/#!6QMkHSIY!ayFfIHfMYoJujB1xf1L1vta8JP4OWsHO9sHeVOmr3EY
Sound effects only: https://mega.nz/#!KJNwzLBL!iOBYunhvOZh9oStZho76gcSXJOg1qxIezNPsxt1s88U

I’ve made a few more tweaks, and I’m happy to call it done, leaving it to a more audial individual to add further sound effects and complete the 5.1 mix.

Alderaan said:

NeverarGreat said:

Her weakness is very explicitly her naivete.

This is not a weakness in the film. It could have been, but it wasn’t. When she goes to the front, she is told she cannot cross No Man’s Land. She doesn’t understand the kind of modern artillery firepower she is up against. She does it anyway and succeeds. She’s told there is a gas that can end civilization and kill millions of people. She has probably never encountered something like that before. She walks right into a cloud of it and lives anyway.

At no point did her naivety cost her anything. It was a nice storyline that I was digging, but it was never a weakness.

NeverarGreat said:

Like Superman, her weakness is mental, not physical.

Not sure what else to say here, other than to reiterate that she’s not supposed to be threatened like a normal person is threatened by violence, she’s above that. It’s her childlike sense of good and evil that gets her into trouble. For example, if she wasn’t hellbent on destroying Ares at the gala she and Steve might have been able to thwart the gas attack. That gas attack costs her a great deal. Then, her insistence on killing Ares instead of helping Steve and friends stop the plane put the entire armistice at risk.

I have a hard time imagining that they will bend opposite to a normal human elbow.

Her weakness is very explicitly her naivete. Like Superman, her weakness is mental, not physical. Superman in the classic movie is often incapable of understanding how a criminal mind works which leads him to underestimate villains, and Wonder Woman similarly must overcome a simplistic view of the world as heroes vs villains.

Here’s an updated version:
https://vimeo.com/221136104
Password: leia
I was able to recover some frames by rejoining the Resistance shot that I had previously split, and this allowed me to lessen the slow motion effect on most shots. I also placed the laser going through space between Resistance shots to break up the monotonous sequence of reactions somewhat, and to emphasize Leia’s reaction through its separation from the others. The timecode shot now has a patch and better colors.

Thanks for the input. The time-code would be removed from that shot of course, but it is rather rough anyway. It might be that it could be further cleaned up, but right now there’s just a basic color correction on it.

I’m certainly fine with the slightly slowed shots in the sequence so it’s nice to see someone share that feeling. However, it seems we’re in the minority on this. I can understand the reasoning - slow motion is usually not part of the Star Wars ‘style’, with I believe the only exception being the Dagobah tree. So while it might be a more ‘epic’ feeling to slow things down, it would be more in keeping with Star Wars to simply find another shot to put into the sequence.