NeverarGreat

pleasehello said:

yotsuya said:

Finn was defintely on a suicide mission and he might have damaged the weapon, but not likely. Remember in Independence Day he has weapons to fire. Finn has nothing. He is trying to run into a Locomotive with a Citroen. It isn’t going to do more than scratch it. The angles they show to make it clear how small the speeder is, the parts crumpling from the power, Poe’s earlier comment about how flimsy and decrepit the speeders are (when he puts his foot through the side). It is all story telling to indicate that Finn’s run is hopeless so we are relieved when Rose stops him.

“Never underestimate a Citroen”

I still disagree that the movie is clearly telling us that his suicide run would not disable the cannon. For me it’s not made abundantly clear either way and maybe that’s intentional. As you said about Poe’s decision at the beginning of the film, whether or not Finn damages the cannon is immaterial to the point that the movie is trying to make, so it seems entirely appropriate for it to be kind of ambiguous.

Exactly. If it was clear that he wasn’t going to be able to destroy it Poe should have said something like ‘It can’t be destroyed now!’ or ‘Don’t throw your life away for nothing!’ But instead he specifically says that it is a suicide run, just like Rose’s sister and the bomber at the beginning. The whole point seems to be that whether or not the weapon is destroyed it isn’t worth the lives spent in taking it down. The problem of course is that in both the opening battle and in this one, taking down the weapon will save the Resistance based on the facts at the time, and not doing so dooms them.

But this discussion has been had and nobody is changing their minds now.

Nah, there shouldn’t need to be a completely new threat to make a compelling ST. Just have the focus be on the reconstruction of the galaxy. Not that there couldn’t be new twists on old ideas, like a full-scale droid uprising or the legacy of cloning, but the Star Wars numbered Saga needs to eat everything on its thematic plate before going for dessert.

The beauty of it is that you have to start 😉

One of the biggest things TROS brings to the table is that it finally gives us an adventure with all three of our leads, so ending the story with TLJ doesn’t feel right from that perspective. Even if TLJ gives a more poignant ending, it definitely leaves things hanging in an unsatisfying way for the Saga.

So for me the skeleton plot of TROS would have to remain. This would of course mean that a TLJ/TROS mashup would be at least 3.5 or 4 hours, far too long imo.

How about this: Cut down TFA and append most of TLJ to it.

Do this by focusing the story almost entirely on Rey/Kylo Ren.

EPISODE VII

The Crawl establishes that a mysterious First Order has destroyed the New Republic and that General Organa, in her search for Luke, has identified Jakku as a nexus of Force activity, with the First Order also identifying this place as being of special significance (a Vergence in the Force perhaps). Open on Rey in the desert, going about her day. She finds BB-8, then we get Kylo and Poe’s interrogation. Rey takes the droid into town, meets Finn (the first time we are introduced to him), and they escape in the Falcon. They meet Han and they immediately go to meet Maz (no Rathtars at all). Meanwhile Snoke scene. Rey has visions from the lightsaber and runs into the woods, directly into Kylo who has been waiting for her. He knocks her out and she wakes up on Starkiller. The attack on the castle isn’t shown. Rey is interrogated (where we learn that the Empire had the other half of the map), and Kylo talks to Snoke. Rey escapes and ends up on the hangar wall as an alarm is triggered. In the control room, Hux sees fighters attacking the base, and they raise shields to prevent their escape. Kylo senses Han. Rey runs into the gang immediately after, and they go to see the fight. Han helps out, confronts Kylo, dies. Finn and Kylo fight, then Rey pulls the lightsaber to her. It is activated in midair, slicing Kylo’s face. As she prepares to fight him, Poe destroys the Oscillator, which lowers the shields and starts to wreck the area. The ground splits open between the combatants. They escape the planet, which is destroyed. After the tarmac and mourning, Leia is notified that R2 has additional information, allowing them to find Luke. Rey leaves, finds Luke.

Hopefully this sequence of events can be cut down to less than an hour.

In the second half of the film, Rey is disillusioned by Luke and the Resistance is on the Run. The story again follows Rey as she learns of the Jedi’s failure and her connection to Ben. It continues through her confrontation with Kylo and the statement of her being a nobody. Finn and Rose’s subplot is cut, as is much of Poe’s plot. The Supremacy breaks in half, and then we see Yoda and the burning of the tree. The iris out happens here. Roll credits.

EPISODE VIII

The second film starts on the wide shot of Crait. The Resistance makes their last stand, Luke appears, Rey and Kylo have a final connection. She closes the Falcon ramp. Popasketti’s edit of the scene where Palpatine’s voice calls to Kylo. Blackness.

STAR WARS. Opening crawl. It is one year later, and the Resistance is reinvigorated after the legend of Luke has spread. As Kylo searches for Palpatine, The Resistance is attempting to recruit powerful allies in their fight, and on a tip they are looking for a man identified only by a piece of jewelry on the casino planet of Canto Bight.

After the crawl, we have the mission of Rose and Finn. They fail to get the high roller but are rescued by DJ and wreck the town. DJ lays some wisdom on Finn about war profiteers and not to court the wealthy and powerful as allies.

Kylo rages and finds the map to Exegol, going there. The film plays out much as it does in the theatrical, plus any deleted scenes if they are available. The day is saved by regular people, not the powerful allies they were hoping for. The film ends with Broom Boy.

JEDIT: Actually, moving the Crait sequence from TLJ to the beginning of TROS would probably benefit any edits, not just a duology.

Hal 9000 said:

I’m almost afraid to type this, but…

I like the idea of just slipping into a contributor role for a TROS project with you at the helm. Partly because life is much more demanding than it was when I did TLJ:L, and partly because TROS is oil to faneditors’ water.

But we can’t both be merely contributors 😉

So here’s the plan. You be in charge of the first 1/3rd of the film, and then hand it over to me. I will then do an edit of the 2nd third using my own, perhaps differing goals. Then I will send it back to you for the final third, and then you can form a committee with several members of the forum of your choosing (though it must include Duracell in some capacity) and hash out a bold new direction for the final third of the edit under severe time constraints.

This will be the ultimate TROS edit, remaining poetically true to the spirit of the Sequel Trilogy and the Complete Saga.

ziggyonice said:

NeverarGreat said:

Sorry I haven’t responded yet, but I’ve had to take my mind off the hook for a while regarding Star Wars in general and this edit in particular. After TROS, everything’s felt a bit surreal. It’s the sort of movie that I feel like pushes the ST into such a campy, turn-your-brain-off direction that any work these fanedits could do is practically meaningless. I suppose that there is still value in them as standalone projects, but those are the feelings I’ve been grappling with. In addition, the total sum of work I’ve put into Starlight has, for me, not been equal to the result. Many things about it are a mixed bag, as your excellent feedback has pointed out. Not that I am opposed to criticism, quite the opposite! But I know that a lot of work must still be done to make this the edit that you have all been hoping for, and I’m not sure that I’m up to the task.

Hey Nev,

I’d really like to have a larger discussion about The Rise of Skywalker and what your thoughts are, but it might not be appropriate for this thread (at least not until it has been tagged with including TROS spoilers). But how The Starlight Project fits into the sequel trilogy as a whole is something that I think is worth discussing.

You are not alone in your opinions about TROS. The truth is, the overarching handling of the ST was all over the place, in part, I think, because of divisiveness of The Last Jedi and the attempt to pull everything together in a single movie at the end. The result was a manic conclusion that is difficult to work out in conjunction with the other two films in the series.

True. I should probably make a thread for a TROS edit, even if it’s very soon to think about.

The Force Awakens is such a good movie — my favorite of the ST — and I do believe that it should get the love it deserves. The work you’ve done on The Starlight Project has been nothing short of spectacular and makes the movie all the better.

So now what? Well, as someone that has truly adopted fanedits as being my go-to versions of various movies, I really think that the ST as a whole might have a saving chance depending on what people are able to do with fanediting these films. I don’t want to just “give up” because the theatrical version of TROS wasn’t what I wanted; rather, I actively thought to myself while watching it — “Oh, we could fix this in a fanedit,” etc.

What I think would help would be, after TROS is released on Blu-ray, taking some of the elements of that movie (esp. Rey’s lineage) and include it in bits and pieces into The Starlight Project. This could be in the form of flashbacks, or other little hits that are sprinkled in. I would like to see the same done in The Last Jedi.

Ultimately, I would like to spread out some of the craziness that is packed into TROS into the other two films of the ST to help give a more cohesive trilogy that anyone can enjoy and appreciate the story as a whole. The first place to start, I think, is with The Force Awakens, as it shares so much with The Rise of Skywalker.

It’s my hope that you’ll come back to this project, because I love the work you’ve done on it. But I can certainly understand if you need a break. But after TROS is released, I won’t lie: I’ll be itching to come up with new ideas to flesh out the trilogy as a whole, and I think a lot of that can be done with the work you’ve put into The Starlight Project. This has is my favorite fanedit of any I’ve watched, and I hope that we can continue to do more with it to improve the entire ST. I am confident that we can.

When you’re ready, let’s talk about how we can integrate some of the elements of TROS into The Starlight Project, because I think we can actually make it pretty cool and improve the sequel trilogy as a whole as result. I know you’ve mentioned some interest in fanediting The Last Jedi (which I would love to see someday), and being able to develop a ST that truly serves as a “definitive” version is one worth watching.

My dream is that, someday, I’ll no longer refer to the “ST” as “sequel trilogy,” but rather as the “Starlight Trilogy,” one cohesive overarching story that brings all of it together the way it should have been.

Thank you! Ideally I would also like to make a comprehensive edit of each film, putting as much time into each as I have into TFA. Of course the issue is time and creative energy - I’ve been neglecting a lot of more personal creative projects because of Starlight, and since TROS I’ve devoted more time to them. TFA will be finished, and probably TLJ to some lesser extent (even though there’s more potential for editing there), but I can’t imagine the timeline for TLJ and TROS edits being anything less than several years, realistically. Probably more like five years. But who knows what the future holds, maybe TROS will give us some great deleted scenes and be fairly straightforward. Hah.

RogueLeader said:

Nev, you’re one of my favorite people on these forums and I think you’re super talented. I hate how TROS deflated your enthusiasm a bit, but I totally understand. Take as much time away from Star Wars as you need to, either to move on to other things, or to come back with some fresh ideas. I don’t know how you come up with half the things you do, but I can only begin to imagine what ideas you could come up with for future endeavors.

I’ve felt pretty deflated after TROS as well and if it makes any fixing we do pointless, but honestly I’m regaining a bit of that optimism as time goes by. Once the DVD comes out and we can break down the movie and any deleted scenes we might get, it might give us a better idea on how far we can really push that film. You might not ever be interested in messing with it yourself but I hope you stick around to provide some insight!

Oh I’m already thinking of ways to fix TROS. This feels like a project that would benefit from as many crazy ideas as possible, from as many people as possible, so my hope is that the community could come together for not just ideas but finished pieces to place into the edit like a bigger version of what happened on Restructured.

Now regarding Starlight.

The BB-8 scene. If you can’t get that to work, I wonder if you could revisit the idea about giving a line to Kylo that could segue right into Finn “rescuing” Poe? Since Kylo’s “I leave that to you” line was removed, maybe Kylo could say something like, “Kill the pilot.” Then we cut directly to a Stormtrooper escorting Poe, presumably to his death, but then it turns out to be Finn.

I just don’t know where that audio would come from. ‘Kill’ would come from the village, but ‘the pilot’ would be from the interrogation, and I don’t know if the two inflections would mesh well.

If you can’t get Rey’s pre-interrogation dream to work, maybe you could use one shot of the island, maybe the one from the original island/desert mirage, then it just hard cuts to Rey waking up. Brief but simple.

Yep. Simplicity is probably a good thing. Though there would have to be something regarding her meeting with Kylo or some other frightening imagery.

EDIT: This might be weird, but what if you just dropped that original ReyDream idea into this moment as the dream sequence?
It cuts to black on Leia, then fades back in on the establishing shot of Rey’s AT-AT home. She’s having a dream that’s back on Jakku (where she wants to go). She’s sitting there wearing the pilot helmet when she starts seeing the island mirage, and then suddenly it hard cuts to Rey waking up in the interrogation. Maybe you could have some VO of Rey saying something like, “Waiting for my family. They’ll be back. One day.”

This would probably be too complicated to convey in a short space of time, though I do wish there was a way to use this idea.

I do get what people are saying regarding the climax and the Hosnian restructuring. I really like how you’ve done it and I do think you should keep it that way. Back in December I actually showed my dad both versions, and I also think he responded more to the one-two punch of Han’s death and the Hosnian destruction. But I think out of many of the changes you’ve made throughout your edit, this is one I feel really deserves playing around with more.

Me too. I feel like it can be better.

PM’s Sent!

dgraham414 said:

If you’re looking for books I highly recommend the first two Myst books! Amazing story and writing, and you don’t need to play the old PC adventure game that they are based on to enjoy them

I’m actually in the process of re-reading these, and I’m partway through the second book (The book of Ti’ana). I remember enjoying them the first time years ago, but this time they feel interminably padded out with detail and are severely lacking in dramatic stakes. Perhaps one could say that this mirrors the feel of the games, but the games had puzzles to solve within this detail, whereas the books just feel…empty.

As for book recommendations in the Sci-fi genre, Neuromancer was fairly good and The Sparrow is really interesting and quite dark. For fantasy, the Mistborn series is solid throughout. None of these are really similar to Star Wars though.

Sorry I haven’t responded yet, but I’ve had to take my mind off the hook for a while regarding Star Wars in general and this edit in particular. After TROS, everything’s felt a bit surreal. It’s the sort of movie that I feel like pushes the ST into such a campy, turn-your-brain-off direction that any work these fanedits could do is practically meaningless. I suppose that there is still value in them as standalone projects, but those are the feelings I’ve been grappling with. In addition, the total sum of work I’ve put into Starlight has, for me, not been equal to the result. Many things about it are a mixed bag, as your excellent feedback has pointed out. Not that I am opposed to criticism, quite the opposite! But I know that a lot of work must still be done to make this the edit that you have all been hoping for, and I’m not sure that I’m up to the task. But let’s get to the specifics!

I’ve read all of the points but there are so many from quite a few people on the forum and in PM form that I should probably just go through the big issues at once:

BB-8’s scene after the interrogation - I’m still hoping to turn this into a more developed little scene. Otherwise I’d have to revert to the sequence of events in the original which is rather nonesensical.

Rey’s pre-interrogation dream - I’m on the fence about this. Maybe I can make it good enough to work, but on the other hand perhaps less is more here. There are a lot of dreams and visions going on with this edit, and this is the one that is least integral despite setting up the final scenes of the movie.

Rey’s final dream - Several people have mentioned that the TLJ clips are too out of place, and I’m inclined to agree. If the previous dream stays in, my intention is to remove the TLJ moments and simply rely on the iconography of the island. This will probably be enough to avoid whiplash with this new ending.

Starlight vs Restructured on Hosnian destruction - The consensus here seems to be that Restructured did this best, putting it right after Han’s death. Since I edited that sequence for Restructured, I will consider that a compliment 😉 But seriously, I’m actually leaning toward keeping the Starlight version, reason being that this version satisfies one of the goals of the edit - that of tightening the logic of the film - where Restructured bends the time logic even more with an extended death and destruction sequence with a cutaway to Leia before Chewie fires on Kylo. The original theatrical version took me out of the events with just the Leia cutaway, so Restructured is actually worse in this regard. Also, despite being a slightly more effective one-two gut punch, this requires the weapon to charge again and has a plot-jolting scene with Hux and Snoke to reset the tension. Hopefully I can get some new dialogue for the Hux countdown scene and re-include it. As for Leia’s cutaway, I think it might be good to cut down the Oscillator explosion even more to get more quickly to her reaction, and smooth the music where the cutaway originally happened.

Speaking of sound, that seemed to be the source of a lot of issues. I’ve already done some work in this regard post release, but your comments on sound issues are very helpful since I have trouble identifying all of them.

On a more positive note, I’m glad that people have responded so well to many of the changes such as the regradings and small tweaks throughout. The voices before Kylo kills Han started off as a weird little idea that few people remarked on at first, but seems to be a hit. I also haven’t heard anything about quite a few things I’ve put into the film or removed, and I’m curious if that’s because they’re not worth commenting on or whether they’re so seamless as to avoid detection. Probably the first, but I can always hope that in a few cases I’ve performed a magic trick 😃

So I know that this started out a bit pessimistic, but I’m glad people have overall enjoyed the work and want me to continue. And it will, maybe not right away but at some point when TROS has settled and we can get to work on that as well.

Thank you all so much! You are really the reason I enjoy doing this, after all 😃

DominicCobb said:

NeverarGreat said:

But that vision of Rey wasn’t in the final film, right? He just got a bunch of images from previous events and such.

I believe in one of the flashes you can see Dark Rey on the throne.

Heh, I watched it twice and still didn’t catch that, even when looking for it the second time. Probably should have been more prominent than blink and you miss it.

But that vision of Rey wasn’t in the final film, right? He just got a bunch of images from previous events and such.

Is the oracle scene the one where we see the vision of Rey and Kylo on the throne? Because that was referenced several times in the final film and surely seems like something we should have seen, right?

RogueLeader said:

This might be a cheat answer, but I absolutely loved this new theme by John Williams that shows up in a few different tracks. I like to call it the “Family Theme” since it usually plays when Rey is on screen with her found family.

That whole track is the best.

Hal 9000 said:

I’m not going back to TLJ, and am not interested in substantial alterations to suit this movie.

I’m feeling cynical about this movie right now, and I’ll be trying to brew tea using cow urine. This movie might just be best enjoyed with a few drinks and laughter.

“They got Chewie! They got him!”

bahahahaha

Indeed. I had perhaps an optimal first viewing, going on 2 hours of sleep, and in that way it was hilarious. But even at its best it essentially ridicules the viewer for attempting to find greater meaning in the rest of the ST.

I haven’t touched any of my fanedit projects since it was released and that disinterest isn’t abating. Maybe something will change if they release a director’s cut of TROS, and I’ll probably finish Starlight and remain a part of this community, but even so this movie feels like the end of an era, and not in a good way. It makes me feel silly for caring about Star Wars. I could feel gutted and bitter, but it’s more fun to laugh.

Every frame is so dense.

Lightspeed skipping is like the Bayhem or action scenes from Roland Emmerich disaster movies, like driving a plane through a collapsing skyscraper as the world blows up around it. At a certain point the tension caused by the bending of known rules and physical laws is released and you simply have to sit back and watch the madness wash over you. And that’s not terrible. I enjoyed TROS mostly because of how willfully it destroyed tension in service of action schlock. There’s nothing wrong with that, and Star Wars has dabbled in that realm many times before.

But compare any of those Bayhem scenes to, say, the Langley heist from the first Mission Impossible movie. That is a scene which takes place in almost complete silence with a single guy on a wire. It takes a good ten or fifteen minutes and it’s one of the most creative, tense, rewarding ‘action’ sequences I’ve ever experienced. The reason it’s so good is that the movie establishes clear rules and is careful never to exceed them.

Again, Star Wars isn’t MI nor should it be. But the point is that rules breed creativity and tension within a movie and breaking them releases this creativity in favor of imagination and breaks tension in favor of spectacle.

I hate the lack of creativity and tension in TROS.
I love the imagination and spectacle of TROS.

That is all.

Anything to lessen or remove the lightspeed skipping would be a plus. It’s the most patently absurd part of the movie, and that’s saying something.

Might be weird with the festival part, but otherwise would work.

Although I think B works well, 4D is also really nice in terms of keeping everything. It still feels rather abrupt though. Maybe it would work if you seeded the idea of Palps trying to contact Kylo earlier in the film. Maybe it could be tied to the Force Skype idea in general; since Rey is connected to Palps through blood it makes some sense that Palps would be in on these calls to some extent as well. Maybe when Kylo is having his scar stitched there could be the sound of electrical interference and maybe a small spark from the medical droid, causing Kylo to brush it away. Or when he’s standing before the walkers in the hangar there could be the sound of a distorted intercom. It could be very subtle, but just something that keys the audience into the fact that strange things happen in their real world as the Force connection is made, and that these things are becoming more pronounced as they connect more and more.

It would also play into TROS with actual object teleportation.

Great work in any case!

https://i.imgur.com/dh0KoVC.mp4

DuracellEnergizer said:

This discussion is funny, but not “ha ha” funny.

Watch a 2-hour critique of a movie you love/hate/have mixed feelings on/indifferent towards or don’t. Whatever.

Truth.

With the Sith Wayfinder in TROS it would be really cool to see an illustration of it in the Jedi Texts in TLJ. It wouldn’t be too terribly convenient either since Luke was supposedly looking for Exegol before going after the First Jedi Temple, so he would have reason to turn to that page.

Hello there.

Dew it.