Octorox

Slight tweaks that I would make:

Episode IX
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

Across the galaxy, the spark of hope lives on. To quell the rising tide of dissent, the tyrannical First Order has silenced communication between neighboring systems.

As Rey, sole heir to the Jedi, continues her training under the ailing General Leia Organa, their fledging Resistance gathers intel to forge a path to freedom.

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren has traveled to Mustafar in search of a fabled hidden Imperial Fleet that would allow him to destroy any threat to his power…

snooker said:

https://streamable.com/cekikp

This edit helps cement the idea that these people are a family now, instead of Rey being completely alone on a desert planet at the end. Her friends are there waiting for her : )

It also helps explain why BB-8 is there, he’s just a curious little friend : )

Huh, I would have never thought to do this but I actually really like it. I wish we could see Rey walking past in the background behind Chewie though, just to sell that they’re in the same location. It’s not strictly speaking neccesary though, and I think it works quite well as is.

Hal 9000 said:

Octorox said:

Hal 9000 said:

DominicCobb said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

DominicCobb said:

Here’s a rough idea for changing the music in the final scene:
https://vimeo.com/415655381

As nice as this is, I wouldn’t end the Saga on character centric theme. The Force Theme, as overused as it is, is perfect because it’s universal within the Saga.

I disagree, I see it as important for the forward-looking nature of the ending. We’re used to the force theme with the binary sunset, but now it’s Rey’s turn.

+1. It’s the perfect end theme to juxtapose with Rey Skywalker.

Just Rey is fine. 😉

(Seriously if this annoys you I’ll stop talking about it in your thread. I just think a Rey nobody edit isn’t really a Rey nobody edit if she’s still Rey Skywalker in the end.)

It doesn’t bother me. But I don’t see how that’s a punchy line to end on if her identity wasn’t an issue throughout the movie. I just don’t see myself going that route, but I’m know for conservative edits.

It’s not her identity that’s the issue, it’s her own acceptance of that identity. Earlier in the film, there’s a scene where an alien child asks her what her family name is and she says her name is “just Rey” in a sort of sheepish, slightly forlorn tone. At the end of the last film, she came to the realization that she’s a “nobody from nowhere” but we can see in this scene that she’s still not quite comfortable with that newfound knowledge. It’s still a point of embrassment rather than pride. By taking it as a badge of honor at the end of the movie, she’s fully actualized and completed her arc, whereas taking the Skywalker name feels to me like it’s a step backward. It’s her clinging to an idealized version of the Skywalker legend as she did in the first half of the Last Jedi. She needs to be comfortable being “Just Rey” before she can be “Rey Skywalker”.

These are all just my opinions of course, but I cared a lot about this character and was disappointed with the direction they took in tieing her identity to other people, whether it’s the Skywalkers or the Palpatines. As we see in the prequels, the Skywalkers and the Jedi as a whole have a complicated, messy legacy and while Rey learned from and was inspired by them, she could have also been the start of something new.

poppasketti said:

Here’s a new pass! I downloaded a new 3D model of the falcon and brought it into cinema4D and recreated the flight path. After chatting with snooker, it turns out it’s the same model he’s using. I think his engines look better, though! So we’ll see what options we come up with!

https://vimeo.com/414985184
pw: fanedit

Looks incredible! My only slight nitpick is that when it goes into hyperspace, the angle of the engine trail looks like a different path than the one it was traveling on. It makes it look less like it jumped forward into space and more like it shot upward as it jumped.

Hal 9000 said:

DominicCobb said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

DominicCobb said:

Here’s a rough idea for changing the music in the final scene:
https://vimeo.com/415655381

As nice as this is, I wouldn’t end the Saga on character centric theme. The Force Theme, as overused as it is, is perfect because it’s universal within the Saga.

I disagree, I see it as important for the forward-looking nature of the ending. We’re used to the force theme with the binary sunset, but now it’s Rey’s turn.

+1. It’s the perfect end theme to juxtapose with Rey Skywalker.

Just Rey is fine. 😉

(Seriously if this annoys you I’ll stop talking about it in your thread. I just think a Rey nobody edit isn’t really a Rey nobody edit if she’s still Rey Skywalker in the end.)

DominicCobb said:

Here’s a rough idea for changing the music in the final scene, using poppa’s WIP final shot:
https://vimeo.com/415655381

I like the music. Would be even better if she said “Just Rey” 😉

RogueLeader said:

I think Rey killing her parents is still better than Rey Palpatine, but if I could make a version without some new revelation about her past, I would prefer it.

This. Focus on her future.

Hal 9000 said:

This is NOT intended to represent a reservation I have about using the Falcon ending shot. This is such a nerdy thing to say that it would have rightfully been shouted down by people if this had been in the movie.

But…

The Falcon leaping right into hyperspace within a few seconds of taking off makes Han’s efforts to escape from Mos Eisley in ANH seem overly cautionary. (Doesn’t seem like entering hyperspace from within an atmosphere or planet’s gravity would normally be a good idea.)

BUT, it’s a perfect visual ending for the story. Just felt obliged to throw a neckbeard comment in for devil’s advocacy.

There’s only one example in canon of a ship entering hyperspace from within a planet’s atmosphere (in Clone Wars) but it was an accident. I think it’s generally not recommended, but I’m willing to bend the rules of the universe in this case since it’s such a perfect shot.

jonh said:

shit … I couldn’t contain myself, fucking hair
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ibJV4LFQlxx8fkjBmT71UDQh-PuPUT8r
only a test,
I have to improve it

Looks great, but that’s a LOT of shots you’d have to replace his hair in.

KumoNin said:

I am probably in the minority and this may not be doable with the source material, but to me, in the first two movies Rey is a character with a “default” star wars background character… background. Parents either poor as shit, or dead for trivial reasons (disease/gang violence/whatever), or abandoned/sold her (or… all of the above). Such is the star wars world (except on more sophisticated worlds like naboo or alderaan where you might have more “normal” parents). And her specialness comes not from her origin, but from… the force awakening inside her for some reason and her having a good heart or whatever.

As such, a “reveal” post-TLJ about her actual origin - any reveal - diminishes that in my view. If her background is in some way special, and Kylo Ren or whoever reveals that to her, that gives her character motivation basically for free.

If she is a Palpatine, she has an innate reason to fight against her legacy, to basically cleanse her name in some way, so as to show herself not to be what her ancestry would suggest her to be (although that is also undermined by her parents being good and loving already). If Palpatine killed her parents it becomes a simple revenge story, in the end she takes her revenge against him and all is good (even though apparently that’s what he wants anyway at the start, but at some point that just changes…? and he wants her dead?). If she herself killed her parents it’s again sort of a self-redemption story and she has newfound purpose with the reveal. If the reveal is that there is no reveal - no “free” character motivation - then she has to find her place in the story herself and has to wrestle her inner demons that she has anyway - dark origin or not.

I agree with all of this in theory. However I’m not sure if it works within the structure of the movie we have, which is built around there being “reveals” about Rey’s parentage, and Rey squaring off against some sort of darkness within herself. I think the best we can do is swap out the reveals delivered by Kylo with something that’s less of a severe retcon. The movie doesn’t really build on TLJ’s themes of a nobody finding her place, so there does need to be some sort of additional motivation for it to work.

nl0428 said:

I do have to say that your commentary track will be very entertaining to listen to, Hal.

Depending on how much material from other editors ends up being integrated, a group commentary track could be cool.

The second clip you should be able to get by just masking out the tentacles and using content-aware fill to approximate the sand behind them, no 4k83 required. I’m still not super comfortable with the After Effects interface though so it would take me a while to set up the masks.

idir_hh said:

I think there needs to be a buffer shot in-between Rey walking out of fram and the falcon shot, maybe the scene could restructured so that Rey first sees the ghost of Ben alone, then when she walks out of Frame we see the ghosts of Luke and Leia watching her and then we cut to the falcon.

Great minds think alike 😉

poppasketti said:

Slight update to the end shot. I made the falcon darker, less thin, toned down the blue, and a couple of other small adjustments. Still have to things I want to tweak, though!

https://vimeo.com/414985184
pw: fanedit

Nice! Definitely improved. Do you think you’ll eventually take a stab at Ben’s ghost or leave that up to someone else? I’d be interested to see someone try the sequence of shots I laid out. I’d do a rough mockup myself but unfortunately I don’t have the movie on-hand yet. It’s currently on backorder from Amazon 😕

Hal 9000 said:

Yes, even though hopefully Ridley will eventually present the sequence with tentacles but no beak, despecializing those two shots now will let me preset a good V1 that can stand in case that never happens.

The rest I am using whole shots from 4K83, but those two especially wouldn’t be great to do that for.

On second thought, there’s a bit of camera shake and some other factors that would make “despecializing” those shots not as easy as I thought. Someone with strong After Effects knowledge should be able to do it though.

DominicCobb said:

krausfadr said:

DominicCobb said:

I’m curious, what’d it look like if it was just Ben and Leia, and you pasted Ben’s face on top of Luke’s?

Then I think he would then be a tad short (for a stormtrooper).

Luke is shorter than he’s supposed to be anyway, it’s a deliberate choice.

Regardless, I think anyone adding Ben should try to put him next to Leia. Yeah that’d mean moving them all to the right, but I think it’s pretty necessary.

I feel like the easiest way to do this would be to put Ben’s face on Luke, maybe tweak his robes slightly so they don’t look identical, then add a new Luke ghost on the other side of Ben.

Hal 9000 said:

I don’t see any reason to mess with Luke and Leia. The Jedi ghost thing seems to be less of a ‘true essence’ and more like ‘hey wow I found a way to teleport into ghost world and stop aging from where I was.’ Hayden-ghost notwithstanding.

Yeah, I agree with Hal, plus I like that they put Leia in the white robes from ANH. I don’t think any reused footage could look better than what we already have.

I think the Luke and Leia ghosts look fine. What is your issue with them krausfadr?

jonh said:

quick test
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oZNeNtiPW1rhalmpQvXnqZ0-Tg7FH6gv

Looks pretty good, although I wonder if he should be wearing something closer to the white robes in the TLJ flashback sequence. Concept art: https://i.pinimg.com/474x/38/6d/12/386d1285dee73b23042ba19501c432e3.jpg
Then again, maybe those are just his pajamas. XD

It would require changing or extending the music, but I wonder if, for the “Just Rey” version of the ending, you could have Ben appear to Rey alone when she is mulling over how to reply to the old woman, but then have Luke and Leia join him in an additional shot while the Falcon takes off. I feel like that would keep it from feeling like she’s “rejecting” their name while still allowing all of them to have a presence.

While they all have Skywalker blood, Leia is first an Organa and Ben is a Solo. Luke was briefly a mentor to Rey, but never really a father figure, and their relationship was overall quite messy. I feel that the “Rey Skywalker” moment is largely unearned and emotionally manipulative. It makes sense from the perspective of the audience but falls apart when considering the internal logic of these characters. She only takes the name “Skywalker” because of what it means to us, not what it means to her, and the same can honestly be said about most of the nostalgia-baiting that happens in this movie…

But I’ll stop ranting. 😂 Obviously it’s Hal’s edit and he can do what he wants. I’m sure there will be multiple permutations delivered by different editors, and if not, I can always make my own!

idir_hh said:

Since we’re re-scoring the film, what do you guys think of using tracks from games like KOTOR, STOR and Shadows of the Empire (an absolute masterpiece of a soundtrack).

I’m pretty much against using any non-Williams music unless it fits like a glove. Something from Shadow of the Empire could maybe work depending on context because it’s fully orchestrated and fits Williams’s style. KOTOR doesn’t fit the style of a Star Wars movie score imo.

That’s why I think it would work well to have just Ben’s ghost, since Ben is the one who initially pushed her to confront the fact that she’s a nobody.

As for titles:
Duel of the Fates
Throne of Darkness
Secrets of the Sith
Secrets of the Empire
The Phantom Fleet
Rise of the Scavenger

I don’t know that I agree with the idea that the “just Rey” ending would only work in the context of a Rey Palpatine edit. Regardless of what we find her lineage to be, Rey’s arc has always been about self-acceptance and the realization that it doesn’t matter who her parents were: she can forge her own path forward. I think her becoming comfortable with the fact that she’s “just Rey” is equally poignant if her parents are nobodies. “Rey Skywalker” is just her latching on to new parental figures, which I don’t think shows any growth for the character. I do wish there was more in this movie to sell it though, since TLJ does all the heavy lifting.

Hal 9000 said:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZwFZ2dos1-qbGqxX1512Ri787Lc5WU4e

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TzgLt6l4LmMp4z9PTiA_PNvNiVjXs7cz

Updated Sarlacc links!

Are you just looking to remove the tentacles/beak? I’ve just started learning how to do stuff like this so I might be able to give it a shot later this week.

poppasketti said:

I have an idea audio-wise on how to sell that, so I can show a fuller context later, but just wanted to share something I’m playing with.

Don’t get me wrong, it looks awesome for a first pass!