NeverarGreat

Due to its practical utility and irresistible appeal, give every named character in the saga a lightsaber.

I turned off the window scratches layers and some lighting effects to focus on the face - kinda hard to see it properly otherwise.

That still only counts as one vote.

I’m going back to the drawing board for Han’s face…literally.

https://vimeo.com/638005003

Password: fanedit

It’s actually quite helpful as a guide, we’ll see how the finished product looks.

The Han scene hasn’t been finalized, but I’m hoping to take another look at it soon. Of course, since someone brought up Luke’s saber origin I’ve contemplated adding a shot or two to the vision, but that may just be skipped because I really want to wrap this up as I had promised.

Tzetzo, thanks for the link, I’d seen those videos and though there may be something usable there I just love to see the could-have-beens for this movie. Glad we didn’t get that particular opening though 😉

Shuttle crew represent!

The TIE is also good. Just…not as good 😉

RL, I would worry about the saber on the ground at that point in the vision since it could be interpreted as still being on Bespin. Not a terrible interpretation but it may just distract from the moment.

I could try a whip pan though.

Ed Slushie said:

I’d heard about this edit before, but only recently looked into it and realized how “radical” it is! Can I get a link?

PM sent!

One metric for comedy that makes sense to me is to ask whether it punches ‘up’ or ‘down’, in other words if it makes fun of powerful groups/people or historically marginalized ones. It’s not a perfect metric but in general I find comedy far better if it punches up instead of down.

https://i.imgur.com/Xa71rxY.mp4

Truly shocking.

True. Also, the EU doesn’t concern me unduly. At the very worst you’d have to revert to the canon lore that Ben built a saber with the added stipulation that it looks like Anakin’s or was modified later in his training to appear that way, and both explanations comport with Ben’s growing Vader worship.

This is related to the current discussion in my TFA edit, but if I ever get around to making this TLJ edit, one of the changes would be to make Ben’s first lightsaber the Anakin/Luke saber.

This would solve the mystery of how Maz got the saber even without the visual of her getting it from Leia, and it is a story that could be entirely inferred from in-movie cues:

• The saber could have been found by Lando or Luke and given to Ben, but since we know Ben is obsessed with Vader’s legacy and collecting artifacts of that era, he would probably have sought out the saber on his own during his training.

• TFA establishes that the saber can impart troubling visions of the past, so if it was in Ben’s possession during his training it could have been used as a conduit by Snoke to turn him to the Dark Side.

• TLJ implies that Ben was so short on time that he didn’t search the rubble of his hut to make sure Luke was dead, and this could explain why he leaves the saber behind if it was also lost. The vision and flashbacks show Luke with his hand on R2, which may imply that Luke found the saber in the rubble and placed it inside R2 like he did in ROTJ.

• R2 being with Leia confirms that Luke at least sent the droid back before going into exile, and if the saber was inside R2 it may have served as a sort of apology, one that Leia couldn’t face.

• Since the saber can ‘call out’ to individuals, there is reason beyond the emotional one for Leia to want the saber far from herself, although she probably wouldn’t want to discard it entirely, hence why she would give it to a trusted and stable friend with knowledge of the Force such as Maz.

And this is where the movies pick up the story, though there are some reasons beyond this that I like the change:

• Kylo Ren’s saber appears unfinished and unstable, implying that this is his first attempt at creating such a weapon. Giving him Anakin’s saber firmly establishes that he hadn’t yet constructed his own, as well as emphasizing his youth during his training and confirming that his Jedi skills were not yet complete.

• Kylo specifically says that the saber belongs to him on Starkiller Base, which would be literally true with this change. Its ‘resistance’ to his power in that scene could be a more marked metaphor for how its ownership has changed on a deep level.

• Luke’s heartbroken look upon seeing the saber, and his rejection of the blade, is made more powerful if it is the literal representation of his hope in and ultimate failure of his nephew. His using the image of that blade in his final confrontation with Kylo would more strongly illustrate his acceptance of the past and his greater legacy.

• The image of the broken saber at the end of TLJ again more strongly resonates as the symbol of Luke’s broken Jedi Order and the enormity of the work left to do.

That makes sense. It’s definitely a long shot technique, as the music is spread across 5 channels of film and the soundtrack presumably is merely stereo with two different waveforms. You’d have to hope that the stereo version is exactly the one used in the film and identify if the tracks have been separated between left and right speakers or merged into several more. This process would probably only work if you had two identical recordings of the same channel number and processed in the same way with the only difference being the addition of vocals in one of them.

If you wanted to leave the hallway scene, you could just move the bit where the crew is downloading the plans onto the floppy disk and place it after the hallway scene. In this way it is assumed that the plans needed to be transferred to disc before being hand-delivered to the transmission site on the ship (or perhaps the primary comms were damaged and they need to use a backup, whatever). Then you could have a shot establishing the Tantive IV on the opposite side of Scarif or in deep space like RJ suggested receiving the plans and jumping to Hyperspace.

Upside: you have a new crush.

That’s nice.

Well there’s only one way to find out! …by extracting the sound from TROS and overlaying it with the soundtrack in Audacity and trying to precisely match the waveforms.

If you get it to work, I’d love to hear it 😃

Hal 9000 said:

As the death star prepares to fire on Alderaan, edit in real world footage of violent atrocities being committed on the planet’s surface in order to make it more understandable that the empire would want to destroy them.

I have to imagine that this is something that would have actually been produced in-universe by the Empire.

That may be to do with the character type originating (and mostly remaining) within poorly-written fanfiction, where the character is an obnoxious power fantasy for the author. Since there is nothing inherently ‘wrong’ with the power fantasy trope in general (there being endless popular male and female examples across all genres of fiction), the only criticism one could levy against them is if they are obnoxious, which is an almost entirely subjective discussion.

I think the handoff from Leia to Maz gives some of the ‘good story’ aspect without spelling it out completely. It’s never going to be adequately explained how anyone found the saber originally, but now at least the saber is in the hands of someone who has a vested interest in it, or is connected with someone who does (Kylo). Her giving it to Maz could have any number of explanations and here it spurs some thought and interest instead of being a complete mystery.

Maz’s ownership of the saber was something I was trying to figure out at some point, and thought it could work to have it be part of Rey’s vision in the previous scene. I abandoned the idea since I thought it would disrupt the scene too much, but here’s one way it could work:

https://vimeo.com/622038704

Password: fanedit

Obviously just a mockup, but all the elements are there and I think it may actually add something. Leia’s ‘Bring him home’ could refer both to her later line regarding her son as well as instruction to Maz to find Han and bring him back to her, Maz being a trusted confidant of both parties. Or it could even refer to Luke, since Leia could have deputized Maz into the Luke quest at some point and thought giving her the saber would help somehow.

People often overlook that documentary-style filmmaking was a significant element in the original Star Wars, which helped give a sense of reality to the fantastical world.

With TFA nearly every shot has dramatic camera movement, the shots cut for the fleeting emotion of the scene and the scenes existing within a fragile web of movie logic that begins to dissolve upon any closer inspection.

Though TLJ is better in this regard, it still feels like the director is driving the focus of the scenes with singleminded intention.

IMO, a stationary camera on a tripod is sometimes the best answer.

21C Peasant said:

I did a little mock-up to see how the colors might be brought more in line.

Just an idea.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m2jHIR9q99MmBVpyLCqNupym-pf7Jv1B/view?usp=sharing

Looks good! I’ll try for that.

Chase Adams said:

Apologies if I missed anything in the thread about this, but was there ever any interest expressed in adding the ‘Finn and the villager’ back into the film?

Yeah, I was thinking about it for a while but I found it was very tricky to include. If it’s included as-is, the score would need to be lengthened and it also messes with the flow of the scene. And if it’s included as-is, then it isn’t really adding anything that his later refusal to fire doesn’t cover.

The only reason to add the scene in my eyes would be to serve as a replacement for the moment when Finn reacts to his dying comrade so that the implication isn’t made that he has a special concern for their welfare. However, that’s where he gets the streak of blood on his helmet so the moment would have to be altered and not removed, presumably to add a dying villager in place of the trooper. That would be my ideal solution, but it is probably outside of my abilities to accomplish and again serves to make the Finn and villager scene redundant.

Chase Adams said:

NeverarGreat said:

JEDIT: Also updated the dice background for continuity with the rest of the scene.

Looking really good Nev! 😮

Just curious, any particular reason for changing the cropping of the shot? Seems a little more zoomed…

Also I wonder if the Falcon’s hull should be shadowed/tinted the slightest bit more, I feel like with this new background being somewhat darker the ship blends with the environment a tiny bit less. I dunno, just the first thing that came to mind.

Perhaps so. I’ll take another look at it.

DMC said:

One thing, in the wide shot the big lights in the back of the cockpit are more white compared to the blueish color in the surrounding shots. Perhaps those could be brought more in line? Looks like that shot could use some blue in the highlights overall. 😃

That’s something I’ve noticed, and actually tried to pull the lights to blue but it just wasn’t working at the time. I’ll give it another go. 😃

Thank you! The project is nearing completion so there are just minor things to do now, but regardless, PM sent!

The Galaxy of Sounds: Connections episode has the Han in the Falcon cockpit scene with just sound effects, which would be perfect for the rescored Dice scene if anyone has access to it.

JEDIT: Also updated the dice background for continuity with the rest of the scene.

Huh, it’s actually pretty great as a resource 😃