The firing scene has several problems, including the fact that the planet shouldn’t be in sunlight at the time. So there are at least 3 shots that need fixing at some point.
Yes. It’s thematically linked more than logically. The same point could be made about Luke in ROTJ; presumably, the team would have destroyed the Death Star regardless of Luke’s success or failure onboard.
Unrelated: I don’t think Threepio’s like has a place in the briefing scene. “Without the Republic fleet, we’re doomed.”
On the Threepio line, I interpreted his meaning to be a more of a general ‘without the Republic Fleet, our paltry dozen X-wings are doomed’.
There’s an important difference in the Starkiller attack, since the bombs allowed the oscillator to be destroyed. Arguably, if they’d done that sooner instead of confronting Kylo, they would have saved the Republic. Luke was ready to ‘fail’ in his quest since the Rebellion’s mission was entirely separate.
But I agree with everyone that V1 should stay. I made some changes to the mockup, but I don’t think they’re sufficient.
https://vimeo.com/212414785
Password: meh
I share your hesitancy about Vader appearing to show him a vision of the future, though it would be ambiguous at best; was Vader trying to warn or dissuade him from being involved in firing the weapon?
Here’s a mockup of how the ideas expressed above might look when all baked together. I went with the former list of events, rather than breaking up Rey’s “force nap,” which I felt was very jarring. Honestly, it’s the approach that sounded better of the two! These are great ideas on paper, but I am uncertain if it will be totally doable using the finished film footage we have available.
https://vimeo.com/212386279
Password: faneditThe cut from Fin and Rey turning to flee the oscillator to them climbing around in the snow is abrupt now.
The shot of the technician lady is abrupt, since her line cannot be salvaged; she speaks too fast to have it sound right to cut her off.
If the cutaway to Hux saying, “Prepare to fire” is a little jarring with the music, it could easily just be put right back where it originally was; it still fits perfectly there given this proposed order.All in all, it’s a solid idea, but might not be able to be implemented well. And there’s a debate to be had about whether it is favorable to closely associate Han’s death with the Hosnian system’s destruction, and thereby Kylo Ren’s resolution towards the dark side and implied regret or incongruence. (In ROTJ, Luke took a bold risk by putting faith in his father, who redeemed himself and thereby allowed the day to be saved by taking out the Emperor and letting Luke go on to revive the Jedi. In TFA:R v1, Han took a bold risk by putting faith in his son, who resolved himself to the dark side and thereby ensured the day would not be saved because they were too busy with Kylo to detonate the explosives.)
Thank you for making the mockup so quickly! It has issues for sure, the biggest of which to me is that the destruction still doesn’t have an effect.
The V1 sequence was always going to be odd in that Kylo wasn’t the one they needed to convince in order to save the Republic - Hux was in another location entirely, so saving Kylo wouldn’t make any difference to their mission. As it is now, it seems like our heroes just lost track of time.
V1 still works better at the moment, but I’ll keep thinking about it 😃
However, if you have Vader show him the vision, you are changing the character of Vader without knowing that is the direction they are taking him in future films. Anakin was redeemed in RotJ. Having him be evil from beyond the grave seems to undo that.
My thinking was that these powerful artifacts can induce Force visions, and it is only Kylo’s supposition that Vader himself provides them. In reality, it could be a machination of Snoke or his own wishes combined with the aura surrounding an artifact that had seen evil.
There is one other benefit to separating Han’s Death from the Hosnian Destruction, and it is that adventure movies just don’t do that. After a devastating setback or sacrifice, our heroes usually win the day, and a new viewer would expect this. With the separation, the viewer can be surprised by the one-two punch rather than lumping the two tragedies into one.
JEDIT: An alternate of the alternate: After the Starkiller fires but before the beam reaches the Hosnian system, the Oscillator immediately blows up, but everything is suffused in the red glow of the beam. Kylo and Rey’s fight is bathed in red light until she is forced to the edge of the cliff and contacts the Force, at which point the Hosnian system is destroyed. At that moment, there is a massive disturbance in the Force that Rey senses, and this drives her to aggressively defeat Kylo. In this scenario, no Leia reaction is needed since Rey can sense the disturbance herself.
So they’re taking part of her performance from TLJ and putting it into IX? That’s a relief, since at least it sounds like there’s a plan.
^Kylo says that ‘we have the rest - recovered from the archives of the Empire but we need the final piece.’ That would imply that they don’t have that piece.
Getting back to the larger edit, I was thinking about how to solve the issue of the Starkiller’s absence from the first half of the film and how exactly it functions. One solution could be to have Kylo receive a vision about the weapon when he’s asking Vader to show him the power of the Dark Side, to ‘finish what you started’. Right after he says that, it could cut to the shot of the Starkiller beam lancing past the Star Destroyer, then the next two shots in the sequence of Kylo on the Star Destroyer. Perhaps end it with the final section of the planet explosion. Then there is the shot of Vader’s helmet.
This somewhat explains the Starkiller’s function earlier than even the original film, and creates an expectation in the audience of a catastrophic event that plays out in a similar, but not identical, fashion in the end, since always in motion is the future 😉. It also mirrors Rey’s vision and further links the two characters thematically. Finally, it allows us to use every single Starkiller firing shot, which are quite lovely in my opinion.
I was also considering an alteration to the Hosnian Destruction (Sorry, it’s a compulsion). Anyway, there might be a more simple fix for the destruction than the one currently in the edit. Han’s death can stay as it is in the original, complete with Leia reaction, except that the brief cutaway scene directly after where they explain that the Oscillator has been damaged but not destroyed can be moved to after Poe wrecks the Oscillator from within (the 2 minute warning would be cut). Similarly, Hux’s brief cutaway where they say that it will be charged in 30 seconds would be moved to after Poe says ‘There’s a brand new hole in that Oscillator’, so that 30 seconds elapse during the trench run and interior attack.
So here’s a possible sequence:
Han’s Death and Leia’s Reaction
Forest Fight Part 1
Atmospheric Dogfight
Hux’s 30 Second Countdown - ‘Prepare to fire’
Trench Run and Bombing
Damaged but Not Destroyed - panicked look of two technicians, one of which says ‘Admiral, the weapon…’, and doomed look from final technician as the panel behind him flashes red)
Hosnian Destruction - perhaps with the added shot of the laser going past the Star Destroyer, sans Star Destroyer, to make the destruction sequence less abrupt
Leia - The shot (flipped and color adjusted darker) where she is leaning against the viewscreen at the end of the film, right before 3PO arrives with good news. She could be listening to the static of a Hosnian transmission cut short. Only the end of this shot needs be used in the later scene, to reduce the similarity.
Destruction of Oscillator - presumably from stress on the weapon system.
Forest Fight Part 2
In this sequence, the trench run still has a purpose outside of revenge, and we conclude the X-wing sequence before the Starkiller fires, allowing for our undivided attention afterwards to be on Kylo and Rey. The connection between the Republic and Leia is also emphasized, since she gets a reaction shot to both Han’s and the Republic’s destruction.
The only video of Snap talking in this scene is before the Starkiller is projected, so I wouldn’t know how to incorporate that. And I actually slowed Snap’s dialogue down a bit, but it still seems fast.
I’ll see what I can do to improve it. The issue, like you say, is that we have an idea of how the scene should play, and we’re conditioned to accept the lack of any mention of the Republic even though it should be addressed during this scene.
JEDIT:
Here is an updated scene with further slowed Snap speech and only the single reaction shot:https://mega.nz/#!yctFSDhS!dqhRxznCFMjVburVoXxlrZ8qu7XnEELPCU7uonr9zfU
Voice Only:
https://mega.nz/#!3AdDnaJK!wCRH1IBlsX3EUIyn0Plvyz4IiIi4aAy9ixAFTpOjwac
The only issue is the mix which is not seemless. And that we don’t get to see the guy talking (but I don’t really mind it I must say). The idea is good.
I don’t know what else I can do to the audio, so if anyone else wants to try, by all means 😃
One thing that bothers me is that a chunk of the map is all that is missing. It would be better, originally, if the map were complete but the part BB8 is before someone Erased the planet from the archives. Much like Kalas recently did on Rebels.
If I had a map of Maryland but a chunk in the middle were missing, it would be a lot easier to figure out where someone is.
I suppose the answer to that would be that even a small section of a galaxy is still hundreds if not thousands of stars. Also, even if the Resistance knew exactly where Luke was in the missing section, without the map and his route it would be far too dangerous to try and chart a course through what is essentially uncharted space. As Han said, ‘Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that would end your trip real quick’.
Now a bigger question is whether the First Order had the full charted map, or if this was a section mysteriously kept blank by the Empire. Perhaps they just never got around to charting it? The questions compound.
Was Dilbert ever funny? I only saw the cartoon version.
Occasionally, it was very funny, in a sort of Nihilist Memes way. But since Scott has apparently drunk his own cynical Kool-aid, I don’t think that he’s even trying to be funny - Dilbert’s philosophy does in fact mirror the cynicism of Scott. So it’s just not funny anymore, at least for me.
I don’t have an answer because I don’t follow international politics or foreign policy as close as I should. But I think doing nothing would be the wrong move, so I can’t kill Trump too much over this.
Also, apparently Scott Adams is a Syrian chemical weapons truther.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/159264981001/the-syrian-gas-attack-persuasion
I have followed his blog for years. It used to be cool, mostly stuff about city design and gadgets. Then he boarded the Trump train and the comments section went from nerdy engineer people to ‘Liberal Tear Drinkers’ from the 7th level of Hell. I still read that blog when I think my blood pressure isn’t quite high enough.
Scott Adams is the sort of person who is right about just enough stuff to make his philosophy sound monstrously wrong to my ears, in the way that a minor chord differs from a major one by only a single note.
While we’re at it…
This
and this
and this
…which are worse than the Wookiees to me because they’re not split second effects.
JEDIT: I just noticed that R2’s optical block is askew on that model. W the actual F.
The only video of Snap talking in this scene is before the Starkiller is projected, so I wouldn’t know how to incorporate that. And I actually slowed Snap’s dialogue down a bit, but it still seems fast.
I’ll see what I can do to improve it. The issue, like you say, is that we have an idea of how the scene should play, and we’re conditioned to accept the lack of any mention of the Republic even though it should be addressed during this scene.
JEDIT:
Here is an updated scene with further slowed Snap speech and only the single reaction shot:
https://mega.nz/#!yctFSDhS!dqhRxznCFMjVburVoXxlrZ8qu7XnEELPCU7uonr9zfU
Voice Only:
https://mega.nz/#!3AdDnaJK!wCRH1IBlsX3EUIyn0Plvyz4IiIi4aAy9ixAFTpOjwac
Earlier in the thread there was discussion about recording some dialogue concerning the Republic in the briefing scene, but I managed to pull together Snap’s dialogue from the deleted scenes:
https://mega.nz/#!eQMnQKQT!uOsHaLgMhedn5yoVDB-QUIcBDPU1qXQsu2L5fil89rA
Audio effects only:
https://mega.nz/#!6McC3TjQ!DguCEiOFuZnVC8XBk9NBqnWOG3t-ppwAl89X0A6w8oA
The nice thing about this edit is that the length of the scene is unchanged.
What does everyone think?
That would be extremely difficult, since there are two scenes where actors are immersed in holograms that would need to be changed. There’s also the bigger problem of just what the First Order is looking for, since it’s implied that they already have the large map from the records of the Empire (which is where R2 originally got the map according to the writers). So the First Order would be searching for a map that they already have, a movie-killing mistake. And in this edit, since the First Order is apparently unconcerned with destroying the Resistance to eliminate BB8, their quest to find Luke would be dropped entirely for a ‘Destroy the Republic’ plan instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv_hGITmNuo
Apparently Mark Hamill was the voice of Han. Insanity.
Thanks, I’ve had a lot of practice 😛
Here’s what I was able to come up with using the Blu-ray screencap you provided.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/205750
This was using only a curves and a channel mixer adjustment in Photoshop. I think most of the issue is in the luminosity. The Blu-ray is very flat and dark, so I almost always need to boost the midtones and especially the highlights while leaving the shadows roughly where they are.
Another thing I’ve noticed with these Tarkin shots, and many skin tones in this film, is that they are too dark even in comparison to the rest of the dark frame. A simple way to correct this with just a channel mixer is to boost the reds and then put some of the green and blue into the red channel, thus increasing its luminosity.
Someone should interview as many of the original model makers as they can and write a book. Maybe with a week-by-week breakdown of the history and construction of this model as I swear no two pictures before filming have the model in the same state.
There a project for this…
What a strange site.
If R2 had received a transmission at the end of the movie, I’d expect that would be from Luke detailing the location of the Last Jedi Temple and his route. In other words, R2 would have received the small piece of the map that BB8 has. That would mean that BB8 would have had the larger map, which would have showed the entire galaxy except for the piece that Luke would have still had to travel when he gave the map to Lor San Tekka.
Of course, that would mean that nobody would have been able to assemble a full map until the transmission, making the scramble by the Resistance and the First Order rather silly in retrospect.
That Heritage Auctions site is great.
I’ve color adjusted several of the posters I’ve found:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/205727
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/205728
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/205729
Also, somebody needs to make an episode 1 cover with this:
Only Bowie could make this hairstyle look good. Everyone else would look like something the cat spat up.
Exhibit A:
Thread resurrection!
Was taking a casual cyber-wander over at ‘That Other Place’, minding my own business, when I noticed a guy mentioning he had a recording of the ITV broadcast of Star Wars.
Was wondering if anybody here is a member of Force.net, and could perhaps ask him if this is indeed a recording of the original ITV premiere? If so I’m sure there’s folk here that would love to offer to capture it.
Before I post the image grab of his post though… how on earth do you post images here? Tried searching for an FAQ but unhelpfully there isn’t one. It’s the simple things that always task me 😉
This may be of use.
In short, go exclamation point, then brackets enclosing whatever text you want to tag your image, then parentheses with the url of the image, all without spaces between the characters.
! [] ()
Hyperlinking works the same way, just without the exclamation point.
Yep I agree, this is exactly what I meant 😃 And with the removal of 3PO awkward line from restructured v1 (“I don’t think R2 has the rest of the map”) it could work better now.
Heh, I didn’t realize it had been cut. Ah well, I’m glad it will work out 😃
I don’t think it really fixes this issue, but it looks less problematic that way.
Are you referring to the confusion over how R2 got the map in the first place? Because I agree that this doesn’t attempt to answer that question. This edit only attempts to fix the plot convenience of having R2 wake up at the end of the movie for no apparent reason. The fact that R2 probably has over 80 years of backup data helps explain why it would take him several hours to search it.
