NeverarGreat

Looks very good!

All that I’ve been able to do with Starlight is give some more agency to the New Republic, not actually explain their relationship to the galaxy or distinguishing between the Hosnian system as the seat of government and the New Republic systems. Well, Leia has dialogue saying that the Senate is being targeted instead of the New Republic, but I don’t consider that enough. There would need to be dialogue from somewhere else to describe it fully.

That is true, the Republic was demilitarized along with (supposedly) the defeated Empire. That would have also been a great line to throw in there, about how the Republic can’t be seen mobilizing a fleet if they don’t have direct evidence of the First Order doing the same.

I think the biggest issue with taking out The Republic is that in TFA the Hosnian System is treated as The Entire Republic And Their Fleet. When it’s destroyed the audience is just left saying ‘Okay, I guess the First Order rules the galaxy now because the entire New Republic was just that one system’, even though in any galaxy that doesn’t really make sense.

Take Earth for example. We don’t have a one world government, but imagine if the United Nations was a bit more powerful, with a rotating seat of government which is currently in Switzerland. If a country like North Korea took out the UN headquarters and even all of Switzerland, this would be a devastating attack and throw the world into chaos, but I also wouldn’t expect the nations of the world to suddenly give in to North Korea.

This is essentially what has happened in TFA in the lore. The Hosnian system was just one of many potential seats of New Republic power, and the one currently guarded by their largest standing fleet. With this destroyed the New Republic is in chaos, but is not yet conquered. TLJ is actually as much to blame as TFA in regards to unexplained worldbuilding since it establishes that the First Order now de-facto reigns over the galaxy and they will take over all systems within weeks.

It would be like North Korea suddenly unleashing a hidden fleet of aircraft carriers across the Pacific to try and subdue the nations of the world.

Then TROS comes in with the Sith fleet idea and strains this analogy further.

Russia could have been building a fleet of 10,000 Soviet submarines in secret, each with a nuclear payload, and if North Korea allies with them after the loss of their aircraft carriers they can still rule the world.

But none of this really matters because each nation still has their own military, and once the world got its act together they would combine forces to take out this Russian/North Korean alliance which is only really a threat due to these outdated nuclear submarines that need external radar to help them navigate out of Russia’s only warm water port.

Of course, if you give the ST this sort of context it seems rather like the New Republic was always going to come back and win, which is why the biggest problem for me is not what happens but how it is portrayed. If in TFA they described the Hosnian attack as decapitating the New Republic government instead of destroying the New Republic itself, it would go a long way. In TLJ if they’d had just changed the exposition at the end from ‘allies in the outer rim’ to ‘central worlds of the New Repubic’, it would have shown how these otherwise powerful worlds were frightened into inaction by the First Order. Finally, if TROS would have dropped the planet-destroying capabilities of the ships while keeping the civilian fleet arriving it would have actually made sense.

I didn’t know that scene could get more creepy, but here we are.

It definitely looks more expansive, in both location and scope of the class divisions.

This definitely looks like the most interesting of the recent shows.

Then it might be an issue with adblock or another service blocking images on the site.

Ripplin said:

Always nice to see an Adywan mega post. 😃

I’m more excited to see a Ripplin post 😉

Use an exclamation point followed by open brackets, then closed brackets, then parentheses where you will place the URL of the image you want to post. Like this:

! [] ()

…except without the spaces.

It’s ironic; I came up with ‘Sith eyes Rey’ before TROS was even in production as a way to indicate that one particular moment should be read as darker than usual, and when TROS released people insisted I add the two small Palpatine sound references from Hal’s project into mine out of obligation more than anything else. I was trying to allow the project to play nice with any possible future, but personally I oppose Rey Palpatine with every fiber of my being.

But now the edit has apparently become the very thing I swore to destroy.

The freighter idea sounds good. For the other dialogue, perhaps:

Sir, Phasma has all available troops searching the cell block, and base patrols are doubled."
“Put every hangar on lockdown! The longer it takes to find her, the more dangerous she becomes.”

And yes, I was planning on fixing the music issues and making it less repetitive. The original film has this musical theme during the update scenes, but now that they’re all together it needs more variation.

JEDIT: The other option to fix the repetitive nature of the scenes would be to restructure the events to be a bit more in line with the theatrical version.

-Kylo finds Rey missing
-Rey runs down the halls
-Kylo Updated Part 1
-Falcon Hyperspace and landing
-Senate Response (cuts to mountain establishing shot)
-Kylo Updated Part 2
-Han, Finn and Chewie
-Hux Starkiller update
-The Crew Enters the Base

The trouble is that Kylo’s tantrum is a natural end to those events, so cutting to Rey feels odd as well. However, it probably makes the most sense to put the Kylo update part 1 scene right before the Hyperspace shot so that when we come back to the base and have a similar scene it’s as if we are picking up where we left off.

The Clone Wars being above the OT is a war crime, but the lack of TROS forgives all.

I think I’ve cracked it! All that was required was a bit of audio editing.

“Sir, Phasma reports that the girl must have escaped the cell block.”
“She’s just beginning to touch her powers. The longer it takes to find her, the more dangerous she becomes. Put every hangar on lockdown!”
(Rey runs through the halls)
“My Lord, all hangars are on lockdown, but we found a vessel outside the base.”
“She’s going to try to steal that ship to escape!”
“Sir, it’s the Falcon.”
“Han Solo.”

The first line had to be shortened due to Kylo saying more lines after it, but alternately I could cut ‘She’s just beginning to touch her powers’ and keep the flow of the original scene largely intact. For example:

“Sir, Phasma’s troops are searching the cell block, but she could have moved to other levels.”
“The longer it takes to find her, the more dangerous she becomes. Put every hangar on lockdown.”

I’ve updated the prior link with this version. Also available here

In my version, Han’s line and the crashing through the forest has been cut. But even if it wasn’t, they still emerged from Hyperspace some ways above the mountains so there was probably a blip on the radar screens.

I’ve thought about moving the scenes around so Kylo and Han are both in the base at the same time, but I’m constrained by the logistics of what’s happening to a certain extent. We need to have some space between Kylo in the base and Kylo at the Falcon to preserve the continuity of movement, and that’s also why I’m trying to put some dialogue in to indicate the location of the Falcon. Otherwise Kylo would just sense Han and go straight to him.

Children’s drama is Filoni’s strong suit, which is one reason why ATLA was so good.

But as noted, Filoni isn’t great at translating that broad simplistic emotionality into adult drama, which is one reason why his other shows suffer.

Yep, and a bonus if we stick with something that ends with ‘a laser cannon’ is that anyone who wants just the original line replacement can shorten it themselves.

On to the main event, I think I’ve finally cracked the Search for Rey scene progression. It’s basically the theatrical progression with altered dialogue, which means that I can keep every frame of the original short scenes.

Here is the latest. Keep in mind audio is very rough and ready at the end, as I haven’t finalized the music or transitions.

And here’s the sequence in dialogue:
“Sir, Phasma has sent every available Stormtrooper to the cell block, but she may have moved to other levels.”
“She’s just beginning to touch her powers. The longer it takes to find her, the more dangerous she becomes.”
(Rey moves to other levels)
“My Lord, we’ve detected a vessel landing in sector 12, but all ships are accounted for.”
“Put every hangar on lockdown! She’s going to try and steal a ship to escape!”
…
“Han Solo.”

Hopefully this threads the needle between everything that needs to be established for future scenes to work. We establish Phasma and her sending her troops to the cell block, while admitting that this will probably be insufficient and Kylo must think bigger in order to capture her. Then we get Rey doing what she does well, followed by a very tricky bit of exposition. This must simultaneously establish the Falcon’s location so that Kylo will be expected in that location later, as well as being about the hangar situation so that Kylo’s statement about hangar lockdowns doesn’t come out of left field. I like that the officer doesn’t even register that it could be an enemy ship, but Kylo immediately knows the culprit. Finally, I think it’s neat that Kylo could either be sensing Han through the Force or merely coming to the conclusion of who must be on that vessel.

Keep in mind that fascists like the Nazis often gain support by tapping into the desire to return to the glory of an idealized past.

Blue lightsabers are a reasonable idea. Also, in keeping with the idea that the Jedi were protectors from a more idealized time, I imagine they would have been more like Samurai than soldiers. For example, many would be in service to the reigning monarchs of the frontier worlds like the King of Alderaan, and these were the only ones known as Knights as opposed to people like Yoda who were always unaffiliated teachers and mentors. These Jedi Knights would wear black like Luke in ROTJ.

The Damn Fool Idealistic Crusade of the Jedi may be where people like Obi-wan, Jedi Knights under the command of the King of Alderaan, wish to band together to fight the clones and it may have been their idea to turn the Chancellor of the Old Republic into an Emperor in order to bring the Jedi together. Then, when the Jedi Knights begin to realize the error of their ways, Anakin is secretly tasked by his Emperor with hunting down defectors from the new Order and terminating them.

Indeed, and this is the sort of thing that makes the edit so fun 😃

I also found a pretty good BTS shot of the Resistance Starkiller Briefing scene, so there’s the possibility for Eddie to record a more substantial line for that place in the film. I’m thinking something like:

“They somehow managed to create a hyperlightspeed weapon built within the planet itself.”
“But it operates more like a supernova than a laser cannon.”
“We’re not sure how to describe a weapon of this scale.”

I’m searching for a pretty specific documentary - I remember that it discussed The Force Awakens, specifically the building of the hallways from Starkiller Base. It’s not on my Blu-ray special features at all.

JEDIT: All I’ve been able to find is this Wired article about the hallways:
https://www.wired.com/2015/11/star-wars-first-order-base/
https://milnersblog.com/2015/11/22/the-force-awakens-blueprints/

Perhaps this was a case of misremembered medium.

If I can extend the closeup so it turns back, then perhaps. I’m still working on that one.

Taking a look through the documentary was a good idea, though, since I managed to find a shot that works well to extend the Senate Response scene and give Eddie’s line a bit of room to breathe.

Here is the latest, with just the scene.

I think anyone seriously attempting a rewrite of the prequels would find this guide very helpful…I came up with a lot of the same conclusions at the time and this is a good summary.

BrotherOfSasquatch said:

So, seeing as this is the premiere TFA edit thread pretty much, I thought I might as well ask this question here.

With each movie in the ST, I know that there’s been a pretty extensive Behind The Scenes documentary for each one on the Blu-Ray that has some alternate takes or cut scenes being filmed or what not. I know with TROS, some footage from that was used to great effect in Hal’s Ascendant edit (mostly just because of the lack of actual deleted scenes). I wonder if there are any scenes from TFA’s documentary that could be used as well alongside with the deleted scenes?

Just wanted to respond to this again, since I’ve just been going through the BTS footage.

In the feature length documentary, there’s about four minutes of behind the scenes footage that could potentially be used for edits. Of course, most of it is highly situational and almost all would require added cleanup and/or VFX. I have a standard quality version in my resources folder if anyone wants to take a look.