NeverarGreat

Jetrell Fo said:

ROTJ is up.

Screen shots:

Wait.
…

Here’s a 2nd generation bootleg from '78, with and without a correction:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/197780
Original Colors:

After taking out as much green as I dare:

Notice that R2 is still blue in the escape pod.
For my project, the green levels of the offending shots are in line with the shot of C-3PO in the access hallway, so they are slightly reduced compared to the bootleg.

Jackpumpkinhead said:

Wow, how this edit has grown! I am loving all of the changes so far for version 2. I think it will probably be the version that I will be working from for my own personal edit that removes all references to Kylo being a skywalker until the end. Keep up the great work everyone!

Glad you find my replacement shots acceptable! It’s been a learning curve for sure, getting them up to the previous standard.

I remember watching a few scenes from some show/movie on TV in the 90’s involving some uniformed children (scouts?) trying unsuccessfully to rescue an older man from quicksand. It then cut to some pirates (I think) climbing the inside of a tower, using a spiral staircase. Seeing that their path was blocked, one of them said ‘Throw me a hook’, and getting it, he leaped into the middle of the tower onto a massive rope connected to a bell at the top. When he landed on the rope, the bell rang out, and somewhere else (the top of the tower?) a group of gaudily dressed people heard the tolling of the bell during their rowdy reveries.

That is all I remember, and it bugs me that I don’t know what show or movie this bizarre sequence was from.

Tobar said:

That’s Angel. He used to post here back in the day but left after some disagreements…

Huh, I must not have been around then. It’s a shame, he has some neat ideas.

Some of his ideas are brilliant, but I can’t stand how he adds blue lights and blue panels and blue highlights to every. single. shot.

Hal 9000 said:

I’ve been thinking about the rathtara. Not sure at this point.

Rathtara. [rath-taar-uh] The homeworld of the Rathtars.

Bingowings said:

I had no idea this was a thing but there are many of them. https://youtu.be/TQGgnciEOGM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RAWYMxygeBk

It’s telling that for a 4 minute video, only 30 seconds of it feature ships from the OT landing, and even then only two from the original editions actually land on camera. What is it with the PT showing us every ship landing and lightsaber drop?

Just my two cents, since this is still my thread (I think 😉) - In discussing this shot with someone who happens to have a degree in technical theater and was a stage manager for some years, they say that green is never used to light a scene unless you want someone to look like a witch or a zombie, and the green gels are very expensive, so you’d get chewed out if you tried to use one outside of those applications.

I don’t know as much about the film side of things, but I bet the same principles apply. A green look could easily be achieved in the color timing step, and there was probably a concerted effort to avoid green in shots, especially with the Technicolor process that shifted things to green anyway. All this points to normal white/yellow/blue/red lights being used.

My philosophy is to grade an entire location so that objects in it appear the same color in every shot. I can’t imagine that the filmmakers wanted a wildly different look for different shots in the same location, so this corridor shot has a green tone like the rest of the shots in this scene. It’s not overpowering, but it’s there.

I should also mention that this part of the film has been completed and rendered for quite some time, so it’s not like I’m going to go back and work on it again. You’re welcome to continue debating the intricacies of color grading and production lighting in this shot, but I don’t really see the point now. 😃

Okay, I can see what can be done with the sunset battle idea in full.

While watching V1, my friends and I were discussing a possible edit that hasn’t been mentioned here, so I’ll just mention it: Poe’s survival and arrival at the battle could be more surprising/emotional if his introductory whoop was moved to just after Finn yells “That’s one hell of a pilot!” Then it could quickly cut to “Don’t let these dogs scare you”, so we keep all of his dialogue. Just an idea to chew on.

It would be pretty wizard if the whole battle looked like this:

Probably outside the scope of this edit though 😃

I am gruntled by this.

DominicCobb said:

The other clear influence, I believe, is high seas swashbuckling. As with other influences, it’s always been there in SW from the start, though I do believe in some ways it is more pronounced here.

I remember my first general impression of the score was that it sounds far more like classic pirate films than any of the other scores do, and I think that fits the tone of the film rather well.

The main character, Rey, is a scavenger, who salvages parts from beached shipwrecks. Finn definitely feels like a soldier who’s jumped ship and shacked up with pirates. Speaking of pirates - Han’s always been one, and that’s perhaps never been more true than in this film (where we see him board and capture his old ship, haul dangerous creatures from some far flung land for money, and end up with other pirates boarding his ship looking to collect on a number of debts). He later brings the crew to Takadonna, which yes is has castle, but 100% feels like a Tortuga type island refuge for pirates.

There political situation has parallels. There’s no one power that controls all of the galaxy (seas). I just watched The Sea Hawk recently and some of the similarities are striking. In it, the Spanish Empire has been taking over a great deal of land, with secret plans to eventually invade England (and take over the whole map). England and the Crown is “peaceful” with them, but the Sea Hawks (English privateers) have been attacking Spanish ships. The Queen is publicly dismissive of them, but covertly supports them. There’s even a section of the film that deals with finding a map!

Then there’s the end of the film. Rey finds Luke on an island, and indeed the whole planet feels very much like an island in uncharted waters. The trip to Ahch-to feels very much like a journey off to an unknown spot in the New World (even if the location is supposedly ancient).

Very good points! Perhaps they used the Sail Barge in ROTJ as a springboard into full on pirate references in TFA 😉

Use both at the end of every sentence, just to be sure?!

MagicStingRay said:

NeverarGreat said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

If ever I have misgivings of the EU’s de-canonization (which I don’t), all I need do is remind myself that this existed

and I’m happy again that the EUphiles’ favourite tin god was torn down and hammered into dust.

I see images like that and wonder how they are in the same universe as that quaint 70’s movie. You know, the one featuring a farmboy, a down-on-his-luck hot rod driver and his giant doglike sidekick, and a sassy Mexican Revolution styled princess.

It must have to do with the cartoonification and superheroication of Star Wars.

Basically put to words what I have always thought. I think that’s what the new movies have done well with doing so far, making designs that feel like they exist in the same universe as Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Yoda, and more, while not being too derivative too, save for a few things here and there.

Compare the utter ridiculousness of these Darth Maul on meth designs to something as simple, clean, and elegant as Kylo Ren. Honestly, I like Darth Maul but his design was still pretty straightforward and not too cluttered. He had the simple black robes, scary tatooed face and was good to go. So many EU designs, for villains especially, bordered on the ridiculous.

Darth Kryat (spelling?), Darth Bane (armor wise), the rest of the One Sith and more just all reeked of cluttered nonsense. Even the rest tended to be uninspired… I mean Darth Plagius’ master was a cantina Bith fused with helmetless Vader. Even Plagius himself was one of those Banking Clan aliens from the prequels with a respirator.

Some villains like Thrawn and Darth Revan had simple and memorable designs but also unique characterizations and stories to boot, so it’s no wonder there was and is so much clamor to bring them back.

I think a lot of what makes Kylo Ren stand out from the standard red-lightsabered rogue’s gallery of the EU is that he exists in a world of medieval Christian imagery and iconography, from the rough burlap of his cloak to his crucifix lightsaber. He worships a holy relic, travels in a starship with a cross on its bow, and his battlefields include something resembling a crusader encampment, an English castle and grounds, and a Germanic forest. If the locations weren’t clear enough, the final location of the film is literally a Christian monastery. His personality and visage under the mask is reminiscent of a Spanish Inquisitor, and he undergoes emotional (and perhaps physical) torture as a way of strengthening his twisted faith.

While this is rich iconography for TFA to explore, I think one of the reasons it doesn’t resonate as well as the originals is because of this singular European influence. Star Wars has always been projected through a lens of American values, even if it draws from a wide variety of other cultures. Since the primary iconography is now European, it feels removed from the American zietgiest. I would be curious if it resonates more with European audiences, but I would doubt it.

DuracellEnergizer said:

If ever I have misgivings of the EU’s de-canonization (which I don’t), all I need do is remind myself that this existed

and I’m happy again that the EUphiles’ favourite tin god was torn down and hammered into dust.

I see images like that and wonder how they are in the same universe as that quaint 70’s movie. You know, the one featuring a farmboy, a down-on-his-luck hot rod driver and his giant doglike sidekick, and a sassy Mexican Revolution styled princess.

It must have to do with the cartoonification and superheroication of Star Wars.

bromeo said:

Now that many people have mentioned the “Apocalypse Now” shot, it got me wondering… what was the purpose of it in the first place? Simply homage? The TIEs have a sunset behind them and it is (or seemed like) the middle of the day on Takodana. Oh well…

JEDIT: Ok, never mind about the middle of the day…

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/a/ae/Takodana_surface_1.png/revision/latest?cb=20160416023739

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/d/d8/Takodana_surface_2.png/revision/latest?cb=20160416023807

The time of day seems to change on a whim on Takodana. It’s late afternoon when Rey steps out of the Falcon:

…then it’s mid-day when she runs away from the castle:

…then the apocalypse TIEs happen at sunset, then it’s mid-day again through the attack, then it’s nearly sunset when Leia arrives:

What if the entire battle was graded to take place near sunset? I did a quick adjustment to see what that might look like:
https://vimeo.com/199888518
Password: colars

I have noticed that WMP significantly darkens and yellows the videos I try to play, whereas VLC plays them perfectly (and has the screencap function). I don’t know if anyone else has this issue with WMP.

Another way in which primitive displays is good for story is that it forces the creators to distill graphical ideas down to their most basic version. A problem with movies today (MCU) is that their super advanced displays can often confuse as much as explain.

DuracellEnergizer said:

I am too aggressive a soul to post in this thread.

It has been made aware to me that a violation may have been made by this post concerning this thread and the rules that have been established for it.

It is being felt by Neverargreat that writing by him should never again be appearing in this thread.

Bingowings said:

During the Imperial conference when Tarquin declares the dissolution of the senate Trump should call it False News.

Wrong.

…

It’s FAKE news.

Yeah, no single book could capture everything that the movies captured, you have to pick and choose elements to focus on. For example, Children of the Jedi, despite being heavily derided, provided a wonderful look at how Jedi may have lived before the prequels made them into an oppressive baby-kidnapping cult.

It looks like the saturation is too high for this shot. Lowering it would probably be a good starting point.

DominicCobb said:

DominicCobb said:

I am reading Heir to the Empire right now but am only about a quarter of the way through and and will certainly not be done before TFA. But it’s great so far and I’ll definitely have it done at some point!

You know that feeling when you lose track of a TV show that you’ve been obsessed with, and then months later just don’t feel much of a desire to go back to it? I think this kind of happened to me with HTTE. I definitely liked it, and I won’t deny that the fact that TFA came out sort of derailed my EU novel marathon, which was done mainly as prep for TFA. I definitely needed to take a break from SW this summer, too, so that didn’t help.

But still, when I tried to read some more a few weeks ago, I just couldn’t really get into it. Anyone else not in love with the Thrawn books? It seems like everyone says their the best the old EU has to offer. And yet, nothing about them has particularly grabbed me yet (and I’s day I’ve made it about half way through HTTE). I’m a little worried it might just not be what I’m looking for in a SW story. Too much military stuff, too much sci-fi (ysalmiri - ugh). I don’t know. I’ll definitely finish at least the first book, but I don’t know if I’ll move on to the others. There are other SW books I want to read and I don’t want to waste too much time on a book that I rarely feel like reading.

I hear you. Everyone kept saying that the Thrawn trilogy was so amazing, so I bought the books and read through them. It was only after I’d finished the first one that I realized that I had already read them years earlier. They are that forgettable. Zahn is good at military sci-fi fiction, I’ll give him that, but he doesn’t understand what makes Star Wars tick. Granted, it’s a difficult genre, and even George Lucas clearly doesn’t understand it based on what we got in the prequels. I don’t know if any EU writer has managed to capture the wide-eyed wonder and fun of the originals, complete with archetypal yet layered main characters, retro lived-in universe, dystopic anthropological and technological undercurrents, magical spiritualism, and fairytale endings.

It’s a difficult quest at the best of times.