RogueLeader

Would you keep the scene where Leia speaks to her envoy about getting help from the Republic?

I feel like the dialogue would still work. Now the Republic thinks she is insane for wanting them to take action with this metaphorical gun to their head.

If they did know about Starkiller and the threat of the First Order, it might raise the question as to why they still had both their Senate and their fleet in one location, or why they did not build up their military defenses in response. At least the Republic thinking they were safe explains why they lacked many defenses. To be fair those questions can probably explain away similarly to how questions for the theatrical film are explained away.

Also, I wonder if Starkiller should get so much focus in the crawl even though it doesn’t become important until the second half of the movie. (I could see how a hypothetical first-time audience could immediately be turned off by the movie drawing parallels with ANH from the very start.) Though once that plot gets rolling it will fit nicely with what we do see. The first thing Leia asks Finn about is the weapon, clearly being a major priority for her. Hux’s speech would also fit with this idea, with Hux using the Republic’s tie to the Resistance as justification for their attack, as if it were a break in their armistice.

If Starkiller’s existence is common knowledge, it might could help explain how the Resistance comes up with a plan to destroy it so quickly. This is something they’ve already been researching, and they just needed Finn’s insight to hammer down the details. In the theatrical, although the Resistance might have already speculated on the weapon’s existence, it is not made very clear in the film itself that they knew about it until after it blew up Hosnian Prime. Although, what would be the explanation for why the First Order chooses to hold the Republic hostage rather than destroy them as soon as it was complete?

I do think this is a good angle though that could be explored further! I don’t think having the Republic being held hostage by Starkiller is an approach we have really considered before. You’ve been having a lot of good ideas lately so I would say explore this path. If we gotta have Starkiller, maybe the best approach is to lean into it more!

Cool! Maybe a comparison with Clone Wars since it is coming back, and Resistance and Rebels are the only other Star Wars shows I can think of. There’s been pretty much no marketing for it so I doubt it will be more than a blip, but I think the cool think about these charts will be to see how they fluctuate overtime.

I know it is a different medium, but I think it would be interesting to see something similar for The Mandalorian, since it is coming out in October.

Jar Jar joins the Resistance confirmed!

I’ve seen some pretty good discussion regarding this news online, and how that 135 minutes of score translates to runtime. Definitely ranging from 2hr15 to 3hr, but it is really hard to say when taking final edit into account. But I recall there being rumors about the script being rather long as well.

What Don said about the themes is really exciting though. I’m not sure how pronounced they’ll be translated exactly in the film. I could imagine we only get hints of different themes, and then full blown versions during the credits. I remember the Revenge of the Sith credits being really amazing since Williams figures it would be his last hurrah. With this REALLY being his last hurrah, I definitely will sit through the credits and try to enjoy it (though my mind will probably be reeling at that point!)

Edits that add fan film footage aren’t really my cup of tea, but for some reason your thread sparked my imagination so I thought I would share some ideas with you. I definitely think it will be impossible to blend fan film footage seamlessly with the original, but I think if you, and anyone who watches this, can accept that, then we can have a lot of fun with it at the very least.

I think there might be a few more ways that can help make the difference feel a little less jarring.
You’re already looking into ways to regrade the fan film footage to feel more “filmy”. I’d definitely say keep doing research on that.

I’ve never tried this before myself, but another way you might be able to make the CG space battles blend more with the original footage is to cut frames out of the CG footage. I think sometimes the new footage looks too smooth in comparison, so maybe experimenting with that could find something that works well. The ships in some of the new footage move a lot faster than in the theatrical film, so slightly slowing some of those shots down might help make it feel more consistent.

There is a bit of deleted material you could use to help extend the runtime of the film, if you’re basically wanting to make a Return of the Jedi: Extended Edition with as many deleted scenes and new scenes as possible, with overall pacing being less of an issue.
You can probably notice that a lot of the deleted scenes are extremely grainy. Having old grainy footage AND new footage next to each other will likely be very jarring, so maybe you could add a ‘grindhouse’ grain to the entire film, which would be easier than trying to clean all of that footage up.

And I know you said you are going to remove many of the silly moments to your edit, but I would definitely would suggest being a little picky regarding what you remove, since you’re going for a long runtime. So if any of the Ewok antics are somewhat passable for you, I would consider keeping it in. I would definitely keep Wicket and Leia’s first scene together considering that is worth a few minutes of runtime. I know you plan on using Ady’s ROTJ and Tydirium fan film footage, but it could be years before either of those will be complete, so if you want to release this anytime soon, I would suggest making a version of this edit without those in mind. Because of that, I think there is a lot from the Ewoks that I think you could still use during the battle.

Some notes regarding the test clip you showed:

That shot of the inside of the Falcon flying around the Star Destroyer is not high quality enough to use in this edit at all, I would suggest cutting it.

I’d also suggest not using that music you’ve inserted the latter half of the clip. I honestly would only use music from the original trilogy, and MAYBE the Shadows of the Empire soundtrack or Gordy Haab’s Battlefront soundtracks if you were just desperate.

I would also use less, or none, of the X-Wing interior shots with the fan film actors. I feel like it doesn’t match the way the pilots in the OT were filmed. I did like seeing the Rodian pilot that is in the original cut of that fan film.

If you should be picky about anything, it should be less with ROTJ itself and more of the fan films, in my opinion. Because, if I understand you right, your thesis statement for this edit is “To create a greater sense of scale to Return of the Jedi to make it a more epic finale to the original trilogy.” While we want to add more to this last film, I know you still want it to feel like Return of the Jedi. Obviously deleted scenes fit rather well already, but more would need to be done to the fan films in order to accomplish that. Obviously regrading them is a good first step, but I also would add film grain, use ONLY OT music (and maybe Shadows of the Empire/Battlefront), cut shots that don’t fit the ROTJ cinematography when you can, and TOTALLY rebuild the audio from the ground up using OT sound effects.

So with that in mind, here are some ideas I have for you.

This is definitely a radical idea, but I think this could help add to the runtime and add to the sense of scale.

Originally, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, was going to start with a opening montage of battles happening across the galaxy. We see a fragment of this with the Order 66 montage. From what I understand, we would’ve originally seen most of these planets in that opening montage, then later return to them for the Order 66 sequence.

Maybe you could implement this idea into ROTJ for your added runtime, as well as to add a sense of scale to the Galactic Civil War. I was thinking you could build this idea off of the Special Edition ending of the film. In that ending, we see a montage of Bespin, Naboo, Tatooine, and Coruscant all celebrating the death of the Emperor. So maybe we could see these planets being attacked/liberated by the Rebellion at the beginning of the film in a 3-5 minute montage.

You could use footage from Destroyer to show Bespin being liberated, and some footage from Battlefront 2 for Naboo. It might be hard to seamlessly blend game footage with other footage, but you can try.

For Coruscant, I had a bit of a different idea. First, you could have an establishing shot of Coruscant city or specifically the Jedi Temple (which is now the Emperor’s Palace by the time of OT) from one of the prequels, then use footage from Rebellion to imply that they’re sneaking in to attack it. You could reuse the shot of the bomb at 1:05, then cut to something like this, one of the temple towers blowing up,then some of kind of Imperial reaction shot, then cut back to an exterior of the smoking Jedi Temple from Revenge of the Sith (perhaps the establishing shot used when Yoda and Obi-Wan sneak back into the temple). If that temple explosion test is too low quality, you could just have the shot of the bomb, then hard cut to a close-up explosion, then to Imperials running around or reacting to the explosion with klaxons blaring.

I wouldn’t worry about Tatooine since we visit the planet earlier in the film and they free Tatooine from the biggest crime lord on the planet!

You also could use some footage from Battlefront 2 to show Sullust being liberated, since the Vader mentions the Rebel fleet amassing near Sullust in the film. Maybe you could insert a shot of a volcanic-looking planet in the Rebel fleet establishing shot, or you could see a glimpse of it outside the hangar as they’re getting ready to leave. The Battlefront 2 campaign also has cool shots of the attack on Fondor shipyards that could be use for the montage, either implied as Coruscant or just a random shipyard. Not sure if they would fit though.

After this 3-5 minute montage (I would find one good music track to use for this montage to help you edit it together), I would cut to the first scene of the film with Vader going to the Death Star. And since we saw a montage of the Empire losing battles and being attacked, it might add to why the Empire wants to build another Death Star. The growing rebellion and the necessity of the Death Star could be touched on in a new opening crawl as well.

An additional idea could be to recontextuallze portions of Odyssey as them intercepting the information that they’ll use for the Battle of Endor. In the fan film, when he goes to the Imperial console, you could replace the visual information on the screen with something more relevant to film, like an image of Endor and the half-complete Death Star. Maybe this could be a short action sequence as a midpoint of the movie, right before the Rebel briefing. If you do this, you might want to remove any mention of Bothans from the briefing since we never see any.

For the Battle of Endor itself, I think what you’re trying to do now, by adding more to the space Battle, is good. You also could use footage from fan films like Scout and Bucketheads to add more to the ground battle as well. Again, this will take a lot of cutting and tweaking to make this not feel extremely jarring with the original footage.

There is also some deleted footage that could used for the battle, like the Mon Calamari or Sullustan Pilots, the shots of General Madine, or the Rebels on the Millennium Falcon. Maybe Madine can be killed by the Death Star destroying his ship.

Keep in mind that there are quite a bit of deleted scenes you can use throughout the film, too. If you want to beef up runtime I would use as much as possible. You could transition from the first scene of the film to Vader calling Luke as he builds his lightsaber. Reinsert the entire Moff Jerrjerrod subplot (also, audio of the Emperor giving him the command to destroy Endor does exist), and maybe use snippets from the sandstorm without the dialogue.

If you’re using the young Hayden Force ghost, perhaps you could do a flashback in the style of TLJ (with the sound effect that pulls you into the flashback) when Obi-Wan tells Luke the truth about his father. That way a hypothetical first-time viewer would get the context of what his father looked like before he turned, so they know that young man at the end of the film is the ghost of Anakin Skywalker. You could space out Obi-Wan’s dialogue a little to add extra time for the flashback and a few extra seconds to the overall runtime (you could also give the Prequel footage a filmic look during this sequence and try to use shots with little CGI). This could be done even if you don’t keep the young Force ghost, but just an idea.

This is all I can think of so far. Again, I think the big things to remember is to be forgiving when it comes to cutting footage from ROTJ, but be merciless when it comes to what you keep from the fan films. I would HIGHLY recommend rebuilding the audio for these fan films from scratch, and completely reinsert brand new sound effects and music that feel more appropriate to Return of the Jedi. This might also be necessary for snippets of the actual film in order to blend new and original footage together better.

Here is a longer video about trying to match the filmic look using digital footage. The latter half of the video focuses on the post-production side of things, and he uses Davinci Resolve, which is a free editing and color grading program that you could use too. This might be useful when it comes to trying to match the ROTJ-look. And since you’re using deleted scenes, I would look into using a grindhouse overlay for the sake of having a little more consistency.

If you’re serious about this, don’t wait for Adywan’s ROTJ:R or Tydirium, because it’ll probably be years before either are released. I would just to jump right into it!

Yeah I think they’re fair points of discussion, but I think a lot of people who dislike the new movies try to use numerical data as evidence to prove that they’re objectively bad and justify their own opinion. So it hard to determine what discussion is sincere or what is in bad faith.

That’s a fair point!

Yeah, sorry! I think with that scenario you would have to change their motivation for going. Like how we discussed in another thread maybe they could get the second half of the map instead, and either succeed, or even fail, like you suggested before.

The outer circle represents the shield, so Scenario B shows that he wasn’t trying to fly directly at the planet surface, but exit hyperspace in between the planet surface and the shield by approaching it at the planet’s edge/curve or whatever.

While still crazy lucky, you can see how that approach is a little less crazy than Scenario A. But, I guess that doesn’t fix your issue with the “fractional refresh rate” being a loophole that the story introduced when it was convenient. Your new idea alleviates that, but you’ll need a few new VFX, and it raises the question of why the X-Wings don’t pass through the shields the same way the Falcon does.

I do think there are a few ways to approach the situation.

There is that option, which plays into the Starkiller’s weakness angle.

One alternative would be to just remove the shield plot altogether. With this option you cut out the stuff about the “shields have a fractional refresh rate” but keep “if we get any higher they’ll see us” to make avoiding their radar their clear motivation for coming in so close.

You could also try to find ways to make the current angle work more. I can’t find a good picture of it, but I was thinking you could use an insert shot from Solo of that monitor in the Falcon cockpit that they use to make sure the ship is at the right angle to make the hyperspace jump out of the maw.
And then you could make an animation that shows a diagram like Scenario B.

You might could remove the “If we get any higher they’ll see us!” in that scenario to make the motivation clear that maybe cutting it that close to the planet surface wasn’t exactly the plan.

I definitely don’t feel that your criticisms are coming from a bad place, Dre. My replies yesterday were definitely not towards you directly. Even though we disagree about some stuff I do enjoy talking to you about it!

I know there are a lot of critics who are good-intentioned and trolls can make conversation rather difficult. I do think the topics can be rather complicated at times and hard to navigate, especially when the conversation turns to our inherent perceptions of gender.

I’ve been reading briefly about Children of Blood and Bone, and it is a YA fantasy novel inspired by African mythology and Yoruba. Apparently the author was motivated to write the story after feeling a sense of hopelessness because of the police shootings of Black Americans. So those emotions and themes are carried through in this novel.

I’m not sure how much it was Kathleen Kennedy’s decision to pick up this story to adapt, but I do feel like she does care about getting progressive ideas across in this new era of Lucasfilm. Clearly we’ve been hearing people cry SJW regarding the Sequel Trilogy, so imagine we might be hearing more complaints from that group of people as this film moves forward.

I do think that Kennedy’s selection, if it was her decision, is an indication that moving forward Lucasfilm does have an interest in telling stories that carries a progressive message for contemporary audiences.

I also think they could make a crime/mystery show or movie in the vein of Dick Tracy, to really round out the 30s matineé inspired stories.

I don’t! But I feel like someone might complain about it. But you don’t see little people with starring roles in many films or tv shows nowadays, with Peter Dinklage being the major exception. I think it would be a cool way to get more representation. I definitely think Warwick could serve as a producer on the show. With him starting in the industry so young, him having a big role like this to bring in a new generation of dwarf actors would be pretty amazing I think! But I’m sure he has thought about it a lot.

If it was a Disney+ show, I think they could still just call it Willow!

Jedi School has a 99% death rate.

I feel like ‘Receiving an order for all troops to block 24’ might be too specific, and people might wonder how she was able to relay that order in front of Finn and Han. I do think something like ‘A panic alarm was activated in block 24!”
or “panic button triggered in block 24” makes it clearer what Phasma did, and we don’t have to see her do it.

That Falcon approach idea is really interesting! It does seem a little challenging to implement though.
Obviously you would need various effects for existing shots that I think you‘re capable of doing. The biggest thing though would be to create brand new CG shots that blend well with the rest. Plus, making it clear what they’re doing without any exposition.

You would definitely need to clearly visualize the perimeter of the shield around the beam. Also, if there is an opening that the Falcon can fit through, it does beg the question why the X-Wings couldn’t also fit through it instead of bothering to disable the shield.

Also, the “if we get any higher they’ll see us!” might be confusing because of their downward orientation. Though it might just be the way I’m imagining it.

I know Warwick Davis has definitely expressed interest, although I wonder how they could make a sequel without the first one being necessary viewing material? Maybe it could could just be a new adventure for his character, or him and his children? I also don’t know how the PC crowd nowadays would react to having a village of little people in the movie. It ain’t the 80s anymore.

I can’t speak for Children, but I mentioned in another thread about how I would like to see Lucasfilm do a new Willow movie or Disney+ series, or maybe a live-action version of the Monkey Island games. Or maybe an animated film! I think that could set it apart from Pirates of the Caribbean, and also fit the humor pretty well I think.

I noticed it, but I don’t think the klaxon delay is a bad thing. I think having the menacing music start in that scene works, but like I mentioned before, maybe have it cut out temporarily during the head-turn shot, and see how that feels.

This might be a stretch, but I wonder if something could possibly be put together using Unreal Engine. Using the Phasma model from battlefront, and some kind of console model, you could make a quick insert shot of her pressing a button. Having her activate a silent alarm would make her seem even more intelligent than just sounding a regular alarm, and it might be clearer that it was intentional rather than just a side effect of the shields going down.

Obviously that might be difficult but it might be worth trying. Something like a button underneath the main console, or even a button on the top that blinks after she presses it or something. Hmm, I might do more research on this.

I think not having the klaxons blare during that scene though for the sake of the dialogue being clear is a good reason. And if you don’t think “Lower the shields” would work I don’t think it is a deal breaker. The shields being lowered seems to be implied by the screen behind her anyway.

JEDIT: I think redubbing is a great idea! I think offscreen dialogue is my go-to plan for a lot of my ideas too!! And it’d be a lot easier than animating something.

What is this thread about again?

I agree that adding “Lower the shields” back might be a good idea for the sake of context. It’s harder for us to notice sometimes because we’ve seen it so much. You can’t see him say it in the theatrical cut anyway (I think it it was added in post for that very reason). I had noticed that when I originally had the idea of cutting the shield plot entirely. But that’s a good point, Zig.

Regarding the klaxons, I had the same thought, but I assumed that either 1) it felt disruptive during the extra dialogue Nev reinserted, or 2) Nev wanted Kylo to be able react to the klaxons starting in the next scene, so he decided to hold off on it in the previous scene. If it is 2, I think audience could just assume those two moments happened simultaneously, or the klaxons take time to activate throughout the base. If it is reason 1, I think that is pretty fair, but might be worth trying out just to see how distracting it is (I’m sure he has already!)

And you know what? This whole thread is about if Rey is or isn’t a Mary Sue, but honestly, so what if she is a Mary Sue? What’s wrong with a character that provides some damn wish fulfillment every now and again?

I feel like this whole idea is brought up because if Rey is a Mary Sue, then that means the Sequel Trilogy is inherently bad, and it validates the people who don’t like these movies.

Well by that logic I guess that invalidates any story with a Mary Sue.

Guess we should stop watching movies like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the Wizard of Oz, literally any Disney Princess movie…
Clearly these kind of characters still connect with millions of young girls and women around the world. And that isn’t even including all the male wish fulfillment characters we seem to not have a problem with.

It seems like a lot of female fans of Star Wars do like Rey. Just go on Tumblr, there is a WHOLE other side of the fandom there that draws, writes and talks about Rey. Rey and the new movies have brought in an entirely new load of fans with a different perspective that a lot of us here might not be used to, and that alone is worth it for me.

I’m not saying Rey is the best character ever written in film or literature, but she definitely doesn’t ruin the new films in my clearly personal and subjective opinion just because of that.

EDIT: Sorry if that came off as rude, and really I’m sorry if you guys aren’t enjoying the new movies or Rey as a character. I’m not trying to invalidate your feelings/opinions, either. Just playing devil’s advocate for a different perspective I guess.

Haha, I know Dre! Just couldn’t help myself!

EDIT: But I do feel like Rey did fail quite a bit in TLJ. She failed to physically bring back Luke to the fight, and she failed to turn Kylo, which were her two main goals in this movie. They ended the movie with the whole Resistance fitting on the Falcon, and hope.

As far as her powers go, I’m under the impression that the Force has literally awakened in the ST. I don’t think it is a static, non-changing energy field. Every Force-user in the ST, including Rey, are capable of powers we have never seen before until now, and I think the Force itself is playing a part in it, hence The Force Awakens. Could they have made it more nuanced or something? Sure, maybe, but it doesn’t ruin the movies for me. I’m satisfied with that and have moved on.

DOUBLE EDIT: Also, I don’t feel like the end of the second act of every story has to pan out the same way. Maybe it isn’t compelling to you but it still compelling to me.

DrDre said:
she manages to escape the Supremacy without so much as a scratch

Good! I think the structure is great as-is too.

I think overall for the music, the transitions might need small touch ups, just making sure you’re not hearing two conflicting tracks at once if at all possible.

I feel like some very subtle track could be heard while Kylo looks at the energy being absorbed, and maybe could carry through then cut off at the comm interference in the following scene with Rey. Not exactly sure but just a thought.

For the First Order motif you use when they respond to the shields going down, I feel it is a little odd hearing that “dundundundun” build up during the trash compactor bit. I was wonder if you could try keeping it as-is, but stopping it when it cuts to the shot of Phasma’s head turning and Finn saying, “Yeah, there is”, then have it pick back up in the next shot. Sort of like in trailers, the music drops when there is a funny moment.

Alternatively, if you wanted it to be less funny, maybe you could cut out the bucket sound Phasma’s helmet makes. I guess I feel something feels a little off, like there’s too much, and something needs to be cut to make it work better. And in general I think there are some places where underlying music throughout that sequence could be removed more, if possible.

Ash’s suggestion for the dialogue from the 04 ANH might work, otherwise maybe one of us could record a brief replacement line.

That’s exactly what I was thinking! Having little flashes of light behind the clouds would be perfect I think.

Thanks Starkiller AG! Totally missed that.

I feel like it is really coming together, Nev! I know this is more of a test for the order of scenes, but did you want any technical notes? Or just focus on how the current structure feels?

I like the inclusion of the whispers in Rey’s second mind trick attempt! Where did you get the whispers from? And I like the children’s laughter in Falcon search scene. I think any extra dose of sympathy of Kylo we can get before his confrontation with Han helps make that moment hurt even more. Though I do think the Stormtrooper saying “Ship’s clear” could be replaced. Feels like temp dialogue, plus most of the troops have American accents.

I also think where you placed that scene feels very natural to me. Doesn’t stick out to me at all. Are you planning on adding anything to the sky when Kylo looks outside the Falcon?