NeverarGreat

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.

I’m not terribly familiar with TROS, but would it be possible to have Rey leave for the obstacle course and right after that have Leia collapse, as if she wanted to spare Rey the knowledge of her illness? Then we would view the entire course as build up to an inevitable reveal.

On an unrelated note, I was looking back over the discarded ending for this edit which was once to be part of its own edit, and realized that it may be fairly straightforward to include some of that after all. In particular, I could have the Resistance base transition to night and use my custom nighttime shot of the base. Everything else could be the same as it is in the current version, just retaining the color grading of the droid and map scenes to take place at night. I’d likely drop the explicit concept of Rey fixing R2 while keeping a hint of it with her staff in the background of the shot while R2 wakes up.

So what do you think? Would this be an upgrade to the edit or just a change too many?

I don’t know about you guys, but this trailer has already given us the best Star Wars material in years.

RogueLeader said:

Oh man, Eddie having a voice cameo makes this edit even better!! Love it.

I wonder if you could go with a line like this:

“General, the Senate has responded. They’re mobilizing the fleet. Will they reach us in time?”

I kind of like this line because it gets the same idea across, but it might help paint this picture of the fleet gathering over Hosnian Prime, getting ready to send it to Starkiller Base, but it reminds the audience that both the Senate and a huge chunk of the navy is destroyed. We could see some ships jump to hyperspace before the planet is destroyed perhaps.

And Octorox, I think that idea can still get across because we see that the New Republic being slow to action causes their destruction. Yes, they finally came to the right decision, but only after too much debate.

Also Nev, I’m assuming you’ll play around with covering Leia’s mouth movement before her trimmed line, “They haven’t got a chance.” Is that correct?

Glad you like it, RL! I’m honestly shocked at how quickly this has come together with Eddie’s help.

I don’t want to make the line too long, as there’s a limited amount of space for it in the scene, which is why I was trying to shorten it to two sentences. But if Eddie wishes, he could do a variety of takes and we’ll see what works.

And yes, I will be fixing the weird mouth movements, probably along with the eventual timecode removal.

That’s a fair assessment, Octorox. Perhaps something like this:

“General, the Senate has voted to send reinforcements. Will they reach us in time?”
“They haven’t got a chance.”

This way it’s up to the viewer to determine how many ships will be sent (though I like the idea that the ships at the beginning of TLJ are the ones that made it).

In any case, here’s the updated scene with Eddie’s excellent line reading and Threepio’s new line, as well as some more audio work. I think it’s starting to look like a real scene!

Thanks Eddie! Your voice is great! Not an exact match to the actor (that would of course be impossible) which means all his lines would probably need replacing, but that strikes me as an opportunity…

…because the character only has one other line in the film that I can see, which is in the Resistance Briefing scene where he says ‘A laser cannon.’ In reading the general Sequel fanedit ideas thread, there was the idea that the Starkiller was only a single-use weapon, so it would probably be fairly simple to change his line to ‘A single use laser cannon’ or ‘a one-use laser cannon’, where he says the first part off-screen.

As for the invented scene, Here’s a few ideas for alternate dialogue which may be better:

“General, the Senate has responded and is scrambling ships. Will they reach us in time?”
“They haven’t got a chance.”

or

“General, the Senate has voted to scramble the fleet. Will it reach us in time?”
“They haven’t got a chance.”

Well, I believe I’ve found a solution to the Senate inaction. It uses deleted footage and would require a voice-over, but I’m sure some excellent volunteer could manage it since it is a standard male Resistance officer and his mouth is out of frame for most of the shot. All other hurdles such as timecode removal are old hat at this point, so it would just take a bit more work.

Here’s the mockup if anyone wants to take a gander. I’m quite proud of the scene flow and placement, personally.

JEDIT: The end of the scene felt a bit abrupt, so I lengthened it with the shot of Threepio after Leia’s pronouncement with his line ‘Oh my, this is a catastrophe!’ I suppose it could just as easily be changed to ‘Without the Republic fleet we’re doomed!’. That’s probably the best place for that line, with the catastrophe line going in the Resistance briefing scene.

In rewatching the Gungan city scenes, the real draw of the location is the location itself rather than the characters or dialogue. So how about this sequence:

-Beginning of film plays out normally, until the Jedi run into Jar Jar.
-Cut lines about Jar Jar being banished. He just leads them to the city. Cut before the captain confronts Jar Jar.
-Droid invasion of the capital and the capture of the queen.
-Bongo bursts from the underwater city with our three heroes. Splice this scene with the scene of emerging from the water at Naboo, cutting whatever fishy shenanigans you wish as well as dialogue concerning banishment.

This allows for the introduction of the pretty Gungan city with none of the stilted dialogue and bypasses the silliness of going through the planet core. Jar Jar’s life debt is still established so it is expected for him to hang around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yh_6_zItPU

Neat.

May the 4th Be With You

And also with you

G&G-Fan said:

I’ve never liked it when prequel edits try to make Palpatine being Sidious less obvious. I feel like that’s actually something that makes the prequel trilogy really work. It’s the whole Hitchcock “tension is better then surprise” kinda thing. It’s more thrilling to see the villain being there working behind the scenes the whole time and the characters not suspecting anything. It allows the audience to admire Palpatine for his planning, manipulation and two-faced nature. I’d rather have more character development for Palpatine then a surprise.

There’s not really any way Lucas could’ve done it without it being obvious anyway. It’s the same actor. He’s the old guy who becomes Chancellor. Of course it’s the Emperor. Lucas isn’t JJ Abrams, he doesn’t try to make everything into a cheap surprise. So he chose to ring out the tension and show Ian McDiarmid’s strength as an actor.

The prequels are really built around the idea that the audience is familiar with the fates of its characters already, so it does feel a bit silly to mask them for surprise value.