NeverarGreat

Great!

Story time, I was working through the comments on Starlight V1 and a few people were noticing that audio that should have been surround or stereo were sounding very mono. Taking a closer look at my timeline, I realized that a few of my audio tracks were indeed forcing stereo tracks into mono. This has been fixed, which means that quite a few effects and scenes throughout the film now sound a lot more dynamic, noticeably deleted scenes and the Starkiller firing sequence.

This is why feedback is so vital, so thank you everyone who pointed this out!

I actually noticed that as well, RL, so we’re going to try splitting the sentence like that.

And as you say, I’m thinking the extra shots are just not worth the trouble, especially since most of them are too short anyway.

^ I have gone through the documentary in search of extra shots and have a bit of a library, but the primary use of the documentary to my knowledge has been in finishing the Han dice hanging scene. Other than that, there’s not too much in the way of useful footage that I recall.

The Last Jedi documentary actually has more of this sort of thing going on.

…

So it’s quickly become clear to me that the audio for the end of the scene is unlikely to sync up well with the mouth movements, so I’m making the decision to cut that part of the scene and end it with a wipe that partially obscures Threepio and his weird exit. This actually works fairly well now that it wipes to a neutral mountain shot.

This is only the first real attempt at making the line work, but I’m happy with how it’s turning out. I hope to further adjust the takes to really nail the line, but even as-is I think this could work in the edit.

I’ve just got some great line readings from him now, so I’ll be busy going through and editing them. But in the meantime, an important test.

I hope so too.

RogueLeader said:

I think we’re both referring to, “And General, unless that shield is destroyed…nobody can save us.”

Maybe another off screen rebel could be calling for 3PO, needing his help. Or some droid beeps. It could just be a subtle background voice/sound, but something like that could provide some logic to his action.

Ask and ye shall receive.

It’s funny, but also kinda brings the scene together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u62ao6_xYHc

That’s the second time we’ve seen him gliding in an unpowered spaceship towards Coruscant.

Which one is the second line? I realize now that numbering would help.

And yeah, Threepio’s arm movement is just so bizarre in that scene. I originally tried to cut away from it but there’s so little footage that I can use, it will probably stay in. There must have been more to his behavior at one point. It looks like he’s remembering something or has been alerted to some activity. Maybe a couple of people have just dumped R2 in the corner and he is going to check up on it. Guess we’ll never know.

As for ‘within an hour’, yeah that makes sense. That’s why I originally put the line at ‘launching in 0200 hours’, but we can do several versions of that to see what works best.

JEDIT: And I might not even end up needing a final line after 3PO waltzes out of frame if I transition right to the snowy establishing shot, but it would be nice to have a line just in case.

Sure!

That’s fair. I just included it because it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it 😉

Good one! However, I’m constrained by the mouth movements to put the word ‘destroyed’ at the end of the phrase, so perhaps:

“And General, without that shield destroyed…nobody can save us.”

It could work even if someone watches the theatrical film, since this could be Rey doubting her intentions from the beginning and believing that she has always been evil.

Funny enough, I just gave the Sith Eyes scene another pass to make them more prominent.

Thanks, and I agree. This is probably the single most important part of this edit for the greater story and trilogy.

BTW, I just updated the link above. I realized that there was an establishing shot of the Starkiller prisons that I had cut from the first version which would help the flow of this scene.

I’m not sure what to put for that final line.

“And General, if the advance team is destroyed…nobody at all could save us.”

Or

“And General, unless that shield is destroyed…nobody can save us.”

“And General, until that shield is destroyed…not even the Force can help us.”

I’ve been tinkering with the Senate Response scene a bit more since I’m not entirely happy with its integration in the film. The falcon landing leading into ‘The Falcon has landed’ works a treat, but it feels like it breaks off at the end without leading into anything else. Some version of Rey in the hallway and Kylo looking for her must come after this scene since Kylo’s scene must precede Han and Finn’s scene. Therefore, I must come up with a way to segue into Rey.

Here’s what I’m thinking.

“Black Leader, the Falcon has landed!”
“All fighters clear for takeoff, all fighters clear.”
“All teams, altitude confirmed, hold for jump to Light Speed.”

“General, the Senate has voted to mobilize the fleet! They expect to launch within the hour.”
“They haven’t got a chance.”
“Oh my, without the Republic Fleet we’re doomed!”
“And General, if our advance team is…destroyed…nobody can save us.”

-Cut to Rey.

Just a little dramatic foreshadowing with a double meaning for Rey Nobody fans out there 😉

Up to this point last year I had really only done the crawl in After Effects, so the effects for the entire alternate ending, for example, were hand-tracked frame by frame in Premiere.

Thanks! And now that I have a better handle on motion tracking in After Effects (can you believe I used to do everything by hand in Premiere?!), the process of finishing these R2 scenes should be far quicker.

headtaker18 said:

RogueLeader said:

Even if Holdo wasn’t name dropped, perhaps we could see a few ships manage to escape the Hosnian destruction by jumping to hyperspace at the last moment. I’m pretty sure someone did this in their edit. They added a Holdo close up but that wouldn’t be necessary.

And yeah, I think the idea tracks in your mock up, but I’ve seen it so much I may be biased. Though Rey wouldn’t necessarily have any idea the map might be in R2, so she would just be fixing R2 without realizing what is in him. So I can see that being an advantage of adding 3PO to that scene. Still think it would be worth a mock up even if you waited to mess with any effects.

Absolutely love this idea! Seeing a couple hyperspace jumps right before Starkiller destroys the Senate would really help tie into TLJ as to where the bombing fleet came from

Then I shall put this on the list of things to accomplish for v2 😃

Fair enough 😃

Here’s what I’m thinking for R2 neglect:

I don’t want to go too extreme since that increases the workload exponentially, but I think this is enough to be noticeable.

Great feedback! But again, although establishing Holdo in this film may make TLJ slightly more understandable, it may create the expectation of meeting this character in TFA which is why I’d be wary of doing it.

…

I’ve begun work on the R2 scenes, which first requires paring down the alternate ending to include just the fixing of R2.

So, here’s the mockup of the scene without 3PO’s exposition.

I’m sharing this because I’d like to get some feedback on whether it tracks without 3PO at the beginning. I imagine that the exposition would help the scene, but would it be worth the effort of building a new scene earlier in the film to replace 3PO’s absence?

Perhaps if I create the VFX of damage on R2 for these scenes it would more clearly indicate that Rey will be fixing him without 3PO to info dump for her at the end of the film. After all, Rey already knows what R2 looks like from her vision and that he is Luke’s droid.

Thoughts?

I like “expect to launch within the hour” because it keeps that uncertainty that Leia is responding to.

Admiral Raddus died during the battle of Scarif. The ship in TLJ is merely named after him.

I couldn’t find the name of the admiral in charge during the New Republic, so I assume they haven’t come up with one. If anyone knows of an admiral who was name-dropped, say, in the Resistance show, I would consider using it, though it may be best to avoid further name drops as it could imply that we will see such a character later.

I feel like the fleet massing around Hosnian Prime in response to the Starkiller threat would lampshade a tactical blunder too egregious even for the New Republic, so it’s probably best to leave that unsaid.

What about this:

“General, the Senate has voted to mobilize the fleet! They hope to launch within the hour.”
“They haven’t got a chance.”

This is pretty similar to what we already have, which I think works. With the First Order update stating that the weapon will be charged in fifty minutes, this allows the stakes to be about whether they manage to launch any ships from Hosnian Prime before it is destroyed. Leia responds to this hope of an early launch with the weary cynicism that probably led her to form the Resistance in the first place.

Both of those issues are reasonable, Sherlock.

To take the first one, that Republic reinforcements may be en-route during the Starkiller battle, that is actually what I imagine happening at this point. In fact, my concept is that the Raddus and its attending ships in TLJ are actually these reinforcements, they merely got to the Resistance too late to help in the Starkiller battle. This is also why the Resistance has a specialized fleet of what appear to be gravity-based, planetary bombers. This makes a lot of sense if they were being sent to take out something like an Oscillator on a giant planet Death Star, and not much sense for anything else.

I do agree that it should be unclear whether or not the ships actually launched before the system’s destruction, with the implication that they couldn’t even launch. This would make their appearance in TLJ a bit of a welcome surprise.

To the other point, here’s the idea for the new ending:

-After returning to the Resistance base and Chewie’s mourning, play the scene of BB-8 going to R2 again, this time with C-3PO discussing the backup memory.
-At the end of this scene, BB-8 looks down the hallway at Rey, who has watched this encounter. This uses a deleted scene where Rey is watching the doctors work on Finn but merely changing the context of the scene.
-Cut to night at the base, with R2 now hooked up to machines and beeping slowly as he is recharged/his memory is searched.
-R2 wakes up and the other droids join him, and the rest of the film plays out normally.

This scene serves to solve the R2 map subplot in a way that involves the main character acting in a way that is entirely natural for her, as well as giving her added reason for going practically alone in search of Luke.

Now I can see the issue with merely establishing R2 as more fanservice, and I actually do think that something more is required in the first scene other than just R2’s presence.

In thinking about this last night, I had the idea that perhaps R2 is in clear disrepair. For example, there could be panels hanging half-off of his body and he is smeared with dirt and oil. I imagine that this wouldn’t be too difficult to implement since R2 would be stationary for this change. In this state, BB-8 unveiling him is less like reuniting with an old friend and more with realizing how neglected he has become. BB-8’s sadness at seeing R2 in this state is immediately understandable and enhances the theme which is apparent in the scenes of Han and Leia happening around this point - our heroes are in a bad place and relationships that should be vibrant are stained with neglect.

Also, if R2 was so damaged, Rey’s involvement in the final scene would be much more expected since she tends to fix droids out of hand. You know, that whole “Your antenna’s bent” thing. When the scene transitions to night, R2’s broken and dirty panels are fixed and now he merely needs to wake up for the rest of the plot to happen.

JEDIT: R2 being damaged is also in line with TFA’s theme of repurposing plot beats and imagery from ANH while repurposing it for a new context.

Yeah, I’m really excited to have potentially found a way to salvage all that effects work 😉

Upon considering this idea further, I wonder if I could pull more of the alternate Visions ending into this version.

In my original alternate ending, Rey observes BB-8 knocking his dome against R2 and takes it upon herself to help search his backup memory for the map. However, all of this information was implied because I split the first R2 scene in half, with 3PO’s exposition in the first half.

But I could instead split the R2 scene differently, with BB-8 uncovering R2 and knocking him with his dome before becoming discouraged and rolling away. then at the end of the film he returns to R2 where he is joined by Threepio and his exposition about the backup memory. Rey could view this exchange, using the footage of her deleted scene, and the resulting shot of R2 hooked up to a computer would be far more coherent. It also helps the credibility of the scenario if only BB-8 had considered the possibility of R2 holding the map, and only briefly earlier in the film. He might have considered the possibility too remote to bother with, and 3PO’s later exposition confirms it.

It may feel a bit weird to have a short scene halfway through the film with BB-8 and R2 without any dialogue, but it may be nice to have a scene that isn’t holding the audience’s hand for once. It’s probably enough to establish that R2 is at the base unresponsive, and that BB-8 wishes that he weren’t.

Then I shall explore the idea. Perhaps I could adjust the color of the scene on the tarmac to take place in the evening with some nice purples and golds, which would transition nicely to night.

Ah well.