NeverarGreat

Episode 7 is out, and that means we see how accurate these posters were at depicting events in the film. I’d say all 3 of these are pretty spot on as to what happens in the intervening time. My poster was really just a Sunshine ('07) and Star Wars mashup idea, but it turns out there’s an actual closeup of the surface of a sun! In recognition of this I give you an updated image:

I’d say that would be giving the creators too much credit, but it would certainly be a nice departure from the OT. The PT already did the whole ‘good Republic goes bad’ thing, so that probably won’t happen again.

I just realized that Rey has a very different relationship to the Resistance than Luke or Anakin in their respective times. Anakin is loyal to the Republic, Luke joins the Rebels out of idealism, but Rey doesn’t have an ideological dog in this fight. She’s a fighter, but doesn’t strike me as soldier material. I’m guessing that she’s going to act more like the driven, compassionate ROTJ Luke in Episode 8 than anyone else.

Lord Haseo said:

I actually think the opposite. Seems like it would be Disney World’s attempt at making an imposing theme for out baddies.

My point is that the Resistance isn’t supposed to be ‘baddies’

Does anyone else think that the March of the Resistance sounds somewhat sinister? I could easily see it accompanying some dictator’s propaganda.

DominicCobb said:

Honestly I’m not happy with either. I can enjoy Yub Nub through nostalgia goggles and can recognize Victory Celebration as a passable piece of music, but neither really seems to fit.

Totally agree. However it may be that neither seems to fit because the ending itself doesn’t fit. Images of random rebel pilots and Ewoks dancing in the trees feels as strange to me as the worst of the Ewok scenes. It’s rather…undignified. Yub Nub fits the visuals, but reminds the audience of how silly they are. Victory Celebration strives for something more, but disconnects with the campy scene.

http://imgur.com/gallery/DYTys

This is probably my favorite.

Perhaps there’s a happy medium between the two.

Yours looks pretty spot on to me. I’ll be going back over the first two reels before I’m done, so I don’t have a final image yet, but it may have a touch more blue in the uniforms.

Your insight serves you well. I’m about 5/6 finished with the first pass of the film on a shot by shot basis. However, since the recent release of superior color sources, and since my methods have improved, I will be re-examining some of my earlier work. I intend for this to be the definitive color correction of the Blu-ray.

Thank you all for your near infinite patience! The end is in sight 😃

cyclista said:

-the editing was wrong all over. I don’t mean the fades and transitions, as in they were awkward or jumpy, but the assembly of all the scenes as a whole. It felt like the team had created a whole lot of great individual components/parts, but then put them together in a way wherein the whole wasn’t balanced right. I can’t break it down scene by scene and say where each should rightly have gone to balance out better, I just have a really strong impression of this. The film felt kind of lumpy. Like, almost right, but then you look closer and the building has a door on the 5th floor exiting into open air with no balcony. Or you realize that person you’ve been talking to for ten minutes has no left ear.

Dialogue, costumes, characters, scenery, architecture, everything was accurate and great - in both form and spirit - just put together without a sense of cohesion. An alternative (and more generous) criticism might be to say that it was edited with a sense of composition that was abstract and unconventional, but even that wouldn’t serve, the scene ordering/structure just deviates from the wavelength of the OT. I think this is the real and only significant flaw in this entry in the series.

Does this assessment make sense for anyone else out there? I’m really struggling to articulate something that is elusive and subtle to me.

I believe that this is pertinent to the discussion: http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/12/28/star-wars-storytelling-and-fixing-it-in-post

It feels a bit sacreligious to even consider it, but after watching the Silver Screen version of Star Wars I think that the film would benefit from a few more cuts. Specifically, I’d cut some of the final dogfight and all of the Falcon gun turret battle (or work it in somewhere else).

To break it down shot by shot:

Extended Escape from Tatooine

-“Looks like an Imperial cruiser, our passengers must be hotter than I thought”
-“Why don’t you outrun 'em I thought you said this thing was fast!”
-The entire sequence from then on in until “Go strap yourselves in!” Hard cut to Falcon pursued while Luke and Obi-wan retire to the game room.
-Take shot from gun turret battle “We’re coming up on their sentry ships. Try an’ hold 'em off. Angle the deflector shields while I charge up the main guns”.
-“C’mon buddy (change to ‘kid’), we’re not out of this yet”
-Luke and Han go to the gun turrets.
-Droids walk out of the game room
-2 TIEs attack, and blast the hallway by the droids
-Reaction of only Chewbacca yelling from the Copilot chair
-“Don’t worry, she’ll hold together. Hear me baby? Hold together”
-“Got him! I got him!”
-“Great, Kid. Don’t get cocky”
-Han blasts a TIE
-“That’s it we did it!”
-Shot of R2 extinguishing the fire
-Shot of Han returning to the captain’s chair: “Stay sharp there’s two more coming in, they’re gonna try and cut us off.”
-Shot of Falcon flying, cut straight to Death Star. Implication is that they go to hyperspace after fighting off the final two TIE fighters.

This scene may be an improvement over the original in terms of continuity, as this time the Falcon has literally blasted its way off planet. Also, in the subsequent scene, Han returns to the game room as if after an extended stay in the cockpit, presumably outrunning their pursuit.

JEDIT: Upon further viewing, Luke still has his Stormtrooper belt on in the gun turret scene. However, the whole scene could simply be Han picking off TIEs, since at this point Luke and Obi-wan are merely passengers, and it need never be established that there are two gun turrets.

Escape from the Death Star

Since this sequence has no gun turret battle, the cuts are straightforward. Luke is consoled by Leia, the previously cut shot of the Falcon entering hyperspace is used here, and there is the expository shot by Tarkin and Vader before cutting back to Leia and Han in the cockpit. Now the mystery of why the Empire would waste 4 TIE fighters and pilots to just let them go is solved. Also, the audience is allowed to dwell on the loss of Obi-wan and Han’s miserly attitude without a convenient bonding activity.

Final Dogfight

I don’t have much idea of what to cut here, except perhaps whittling down the first and second trench runs and making the Death Star countdown match the movie time a bit more accurately.

So those are my ideas. Thoughts?

It’s the second-to-last frame of that shot. It seems like an intentional creative choice to make it a flash, I just don’t know if it was omitted from the Blu-ray because of degradation or forgetfulness.

SilverWook said:

There are real graves and tombstones on the island, so they may used something that was already there.

Han said Luke went in search of the first Jedi temple. I’m pretty sure he found it.

On that note, it was very strange seeing a stone crucifix in one of the shots leading up to the reveal of Luke. I get that they wanted to portray the island as accurately as possible, but that was one thing that screamed ‘Earth History’ to me.

Another change I’d found a while ago, this one’s easier to see in motion:

The Blu-ray has this shot brighten from start to end, whereas the the Silver Screen version and the GOUT has no evidence of this.

The second image is my corrected version of that frame, which is a combination of the Blu-ray and -1’s release. It is a confusing comparison, apologies.

And yeah, it’s bizarre. My guess would be that whoever was working on it cut out as much of the frame as they could, then forgot about it, since the parts from the original frame don’t even have similar coloration.

Here’s another single frame issue that I’m not sure has been found yet:

This flash from the beginning of the gun turret battle is not in the Blu-ray, though remnants of it can still be seen. It is however in Silver Screen and GOUT.

Just posting this here in case it hasn’t been mentioned yet.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/158780

When Luke climbs down into the Quad Laser Turret, the first frame is a duplication of the second frame except for a very odd cutout of Luke’s hair and some highlight detail from the correct frame. Very odd.

Color correction is a two step process, as far as I understand it. The first step is to bring the color as close as possible to what was filmed on the day. This is usually shot by shot, especially for something as unevenly graded as Star Wars. After that is achieved, the second step is to globally apply the ‘look’ that you’re after, whether that be reintroducing a Technicolor look or the look of Eastman film.

Of course, you could simply go to to step 2 if you aren’t particularly concerned with (or don’t know) how things looked on the day of filming.

I think that the color correction videos that Mike posted were part of step 1, and aren’t indicative of what the final look would be, which ideally would mimic the intention of the filmmakers in '77.

timdiggerm said:

13las said:

Also, I noticed that the opening crawl seemed to jitter independently of the star field. Does anyone know if they did this on purpose? There’s no reason for that to happen if it was done digitally which I assume that it was. Right?

Yeah, I thought I saw that too. We’ll have to check the home release.

I saw a bit of jitter on the end credits as well, where letters would slide in front of the stationary stars of the starfield. I think it was intentionally done in order to evoke the nature of optical effects.

Anchorhead said:

NeverarGreat said:
As to Ben being on the same planet, the reasons for him being there are given both in the Radio Drama, and as subtext within the actual movie. Obi-wan was the teacher to Luke’s father, and was tasked with giving Luke the lightsaber when he came of age. I don’t see how anyone could chalk Ben’s presence up to mere coincidence.

In the 1977 film, it’s an unexplained coincidence. Ben just happens to have known his dad, just happens to live near him, just happens to have his saber, the droids just happen to free-fall near him on the planet, and they just happen to be sold to Luke.

I am genuinely confused as to why you would think that Ben’s presence near Luke is coincidence. BECAUSE Ben knew Luke’s dad, he has his lightsaber. BECAUSE Luke’s father wanted Luke to have it at a certain time, Ben lives near Luke to watch over him. As for the droids/Finn, I’ve already said that this is a convenience for both films.

Anchorhead said:

NeverarGreat
Tekka on the other hand has only a tenuous association with Luke due to his possession of the map, and gives no indication that he is aware of Rey’s existence.

At what point does being the only person in the galaxy who knows the whereabouts of Luke become only tenuous? There appears to be a very important reason why Tekka knows where Luke lives and why he himself lives near Rey.

See above. Also, you seem very willing to accept that there is a reason that Tekka lives near Rey, despite there being far less to go on in this film than in Star Wars, yet you don’t accept that there was a reason Ben lived near Luke? My bafflement increases.

Frank your Majesty said:

NeverarGreat said:

Tekka on the other hand has only a tenuous association with Luke due to his possession of the map, and gives no indication that he is aware of Rey’s existence at all.

We see him for about five minutes and there is no reason for him to tell Poe (or Kylo) about Rey, so I really don’t see the problem. And saying that having a crucial part of the map to Luke is “only a tenuous association” is an understatement.

Yeah, it is an understatement. It’s pretty clear that Luke trusted Tekka enough to give him the map.

You don’t see a problem with Tekka’s relationship with Rey? Should we make the assumption that Tekka was sent by Luke to watch over Rey? I would guess that this is JJ’s intent, since it yet again mirrors ANH, but the situation is quite different here. Rey is struggling to survive, eking out a meager existence in near slavery in a literal dump. At least Obi-wan was respecting the wishes of Luke’s uncle when he kept his distance. Here it seems like Tekka is either completely unaware of Rey, in which case this is another coincidental part of the film, or he is being a horribly neglectful guardian.

Frank your Majesty said:

It’s not a coincidence that Han goes to Maz.

True enough. I’m not saying that it’s complete coincidence that Han went to Maz. I’m just saying that it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that Han would go there, since there would theoretically be other trustworthy captains in other ports. But yes, I’ll concede that point.

What is certainly true however is that Han didn’t know that Maz had the lightsaber. He’s as surprised as anyone that she has it, and that’s my point.

I should back up a bit and explain why this whole tenuous connection between Rey and the lightsaber is bothersome. With Obi-wan as the keeper of Luke’s lightsaber, Luke receiving it wasn’t coincidental at all. It presumably would have happened sooner or later, when Obi-wan deemed it necessary.
With Rey, she only comes in contact with the lightsaber because the Resistance droid happened to bump into her house in the desert, which led her taking the Falcon (as her second choice, mind) to escape the First Order, which led her to Han, who led her to Maz, who just so happened to have the lightsaber. That’s five leaps of coincidence, or four if you consider it a foregone conclusion that Han would send Rey to Maz. Although none of these alone are enough to take me out of the movie, when I realized that all of them had to happen in order for Rey to get the lightsaber, the compounded effect of them was enormous.

The takeaway here is that JJ clearly predicted that everyone would argue endlessly about this stuff, which is why he gave everyone 3 or 4 letter names.

Anchorhead said:

NeverarGreat said:
There were indeed coincidences in the OT, especially Star Wars, but they seem to be of another kind. There was a reason for Ben and Luke to be in the same area on a desert planet, since Ben was watching over Luke. There are potentially good reasons why the Droids land near Luke and Ben, since they could have Ben’s coordinates and were piloting the pod in that direction (as the Radio Drama suggests).

The explanations you point weren’t explained until many years Later. In the case of the pod landing near Luke, it was a fix by a writer other than Lucas. In the story presented in 1977, that pod is in an obvious free fall. The NPR drama came out four years later and Ben’s reason for being on the same planet wasn’t explained until decades later. If the first film gets a pass because things are assumed, or left unexplained for decades, or there are “potentially good reasons”, then the new film should be given the same pass.

Your point about the pod is well made. However it brings to mind another possible convenience from TFA that I hadn’t even considered, that of the damaged TIE landing within walking distance of Niima outpost. To me, it is just as unlikely that Poe would have any control over the TIE (since it was in ‘obvious free fall’) as R2 would have over the escape pod. So I’m willing to call it even on that count. Both conveniences stand or fall together.

As to Ben being on the same planet, the reasons for him being there are given both in the Radio Drama, and as subtext within the actual movie. Obi-wan was the teacher to Luke’s father, and was tasked with giving Luke the lightsaber when he came of age. I don’t see how anyone could chalk Ben’s presence up to mere coincidence. Tekka on the other hand has only a tenuous association with Luke due to his possession of the map, and gives no indication that he is aware of Rey’s existence at all. So until there is even an inkling of a reason why they should both be on the same planet together, I feel justified in chalking it up to coincidence.

Frank your Majesty said:

NeverarGreat said:

For example, Lor San Tekka could have it, presumably to give to Rey when she is ready

And where would he have gotten it from?

Also Han wasn’t taking Rey to some spaceport, he was taking her to Maz. She is Han’s connection to the Resistance. I don’t remember Han even thinking about any other place to go.

Well where did he get the map fragment? I assume that Luke had given it to him, so it wouldn’t faze me at all if Luke had also given him his old lightsaber. It’s a lot more reasonable than Maz having it.

To your other point: I don’t recall if Maz knew where the Resistance was located. If she knew, why were there agents from both sides among the regulars? It makes me think that Maz had a reputation for being a neutral party. Also, I don’t think Han wanted anything to do with the Resistance before the Hosnian catastrophe. Finn and Rey knew where the Resistance was. They were just there for a ship, they didn’t need Maz’s help.

TV’s Frink said:

NeverarGreat said:

We briefly see food in all 3 OT films. Obviously in the dinner scene of ANH, then Luke eats some food out of a tin on Dagobah and later at Yoda’s hut, and there is some food on the table at Cloud City. After that we get Jabba eating a frog thing and the crackers Leia gives to Wikket. That’s all that I can think of.

Is this the “food in the ot” thread?

Just food for thought.

I’ll let myself out.