RogueLeader

Geez, Nev, Rey seeing R2 and remembering him from her vision is actually a solid idea. It does make you wonder why they didn’t think to check him earlier, but if feels more natural and a little less convenient than R2 waking up or finishing his data search as soon as everyone is back at the base. And you’re basically addressing this by still keeping the first scene where 3PO basically dismisses the thought (thanks 3PO).

Sure, the scene is a little awkward, but the thing with R2 at least gives it a nice function within the story.

This is another cool alternative it would be cool to get more feedback on. And like you said, what I like about it is that this idea says more about Rey’s actual personality and less on her “special powers”. Too bad we can’t see Rey help R2 wake back up.

Ziggy, that extra bit of dialogue is a good idea! Could fit in when the officer is looking at everything falling apart before he runs off.

It also doesn’t look awful on my phone, but this might work if you try to either drop the quality of the rest of the scene a little, or somehow increase it like with what has been done to other deleted scenes. Also if Snooker, or another editor, was trying to make the film’s quality feel more retro across the board, it might help hide the quality difference.

I wonder if you used a new slurping sound effect instead of the one used in the scene, it could help more. Also maybe regarding the scene to match the rest more as well. I think it is a nice moment and it could be worth the trouble to try and make it work.

I would also consider placing the establishing shot of the transport flying through space at the end of this scene rather than the beginning in order to help buffer the transition to the next scene.

I’ve seen a few people say they don’t like The Rise of Skywalker as the title. My friends don’t, and I’ll admit I didn’t like it at first either (I was holding out hope for Balance of the Force), but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I actually think it’s really appropriate. Here’s my interpretation:

If you think about it, Luke has really been the focus of the new trilogy, or more specifically, what he and the Jedi represent, which is HOPE.

Leia wanted to find Luke in TFA because she felt he was the key to stopping the First Order, partially because of his power, but also because his influence as the legendary Jedi could sway the New Republic into taking the First Order threat seriously.

In TLJ, Leia and the Resistance were desperate for Luke’s help not only for his power, but also because the Jedi represent hope, and that hope returning could help inspire the galaxy and the remnants of the Republic to unite against the invading First Order.

Even though Luke didn’t rejoin the fight for long, the tale of Luke’s mythic stand against the First Order and Kylo Ren has spread throughout the galaxy, and so the rise of Skywalker’s legend has reignited hope in the allies of the Resistance to also fight back against this common enemy.

It’s likely additional interpretations will be made more apparent once we see the film, as the titles often have, but I’m sold on the title now. For those who aren’t happy with it yet I hope you’ll come around to embrace it as I have. I’m pumped for IX, y’all.

I’ve been away for a little bit, but I’ve been keeping up with your posts and everything keeps looking good. I think a discussion can still be had regarding the Finn dream inclusion, but I think it fits it wonderfully and I like the idea of Rey not answering with ‘Luke’, and letting it be open to interpretation (Luke? Finn? Ben?). I’m wondering how you’ll make a POV shot of Finn’s ship though.

Honestly, I would say you should stick with this idea for the sole purpose of differentiating it from Restructured. Technically it still is the Restructured model, but with a twist. I will say that the one thing this addresses is the complaint of the extended Hosnian destruction kind of detracting from Han’s death scene. I’ve always seen it as a one-two gut punch sorta thing, but pushing the Hosnian destruction back allows for Han’s death to not have to share the spotlight, if that makes sense. I’m sure someone could describe this better than I could at the moment.

With that said, since the ‘Starkiller’ motif starts playing when Han touches Ben’s cheek and as he falls, will you replace the music with something else, or let it play out in relative silence before Chewbacca’s roar breaks it? What about when you cut to Leia’s reaction a little later? Will there be different music? New ambience?

I also like how Poe doesn’t necessarily blow up Starkiller now, but the damage he did triggers it once it fires. It doesn’t make destroying it feel so easy. Also having the Starkiller motif play over the Oscillator blowing up and the planet crumbling makes Starkiller feel that much more powerful, that its cannon is literally ripping the planet apart. And I think this works better than the drawn out Resistance reactions from Restructured in some other ways as well.

I do have a few nitpicks though. One thing I wonder about is how having Hosnian blow up right after Rey’s victory over Kylo, which is sort of the climax of the film (like Luke blowing up the Death Star in ANH), will affect the ‘emotional flow’ of the film. So now the audience is like, “Yaaaaay- oh, wait.” Does that make sense? Maybe we’ll still get that when they escape and Starkiller blows up?

I think there was a similar point of concern with Restructured, which was why having Starkiller target the Resistance Base afterward and then Poe stopping it was retained, right?

Now, if a goal was to escape with the final piece of the map though wink wink nudge nudge, it might maintain some semblance of victory. (Not trying to push that idea on you. The third act map idea might just be what I eventually add to the tapestry of TFA fan edits)

Some smaller nitpicks, I know you had to trim Kylo and Rey’s duel a little because shit starts crumbling around them, but the cut stood out to me and I wonder if there is a way to retain any more of it. Secondly, the wide shot of Rey laying on Finn feels like it lasts too long. I wonder if you could keep the shot of Rey turning off the saber and running into the woods, as well as having the music end sooner, could help not make that shot feel as dragged out. That’s just my own personal feeling though.

There a few issues here and there but I think this could work with just a little more polishing. Great work on this idea, man.

Those Phasma lines work even better than I expected. I also like how you reused the female stormtrooper line for dialogue with Phasma. Now, it feels like she is actually doing something rather than aimlessly roaming the halls too.

If he is being called to study a (the?) super massive black hole (which normally would be the very big one at the center of any galaxy), then I’d imagine he is somewhat of an expert in astronomical anomalies, maybe black holes, wormholes and hyperspace in particular. Here are a few ideas:

Maybe he is with a research team trying to study the effects of living in hyperspace for prolonged periods of time (setting the groundwork for an eventual extragalactic expedition, possibly).

He could be partnered with some xenobiologists who are following a herd of purgils and trying to understand how they can detect safe hyperspace routes.

Maybe he is sitting on a research station near the Unknown Regions trying to either A) detect the gravitational signs of black holes to help chart those regions, or B) he is trying to find predictive patterns in wormholes that randomly appear and disappear in the Unknown Regions, which make that area of space so hard to travel in.

I know you said no tech, but maybe he could be part of a team trying to develop a ship or station that can produce a concentrated anti-gravity field. The purpose being that it could help temporarily negate mass shadows of large interstellar objects and allow for ships to make shortcuts along various hyperspace routes. It’s basically like a reverse Interdictor in its function. It could be extremely useful for the military, who might want to sneak ships around enemy lines. The ship he is working on could actually be a modified Interdictor cruiser that the Republic acquired from the old Empire. Maybe they are still trying to figure out the kinks, so it wouldn’t be a game changer because it still really isn’t stable or reliable yet.

Wow, those are perfect. Thanks for the effort, Snooker!

Could you possibly add the X-Wing and TIE Fighter targeting computers to the OT Album sometime when you have the chance? As well as the X-Wing screen when it is showing R2’s dialogue typed out on the screen in ESB when Luke leaves Hoth to go to Dagobah? There is a similar moment in TPM when R2 is talking to Anakin through the N1 Fighter screen, that’s why I ask.

And since you added Rogue One to the OT album, you probably could add bits of Solo at some point to it as well, since the Falcon navicomputer has some pretty old school graphics, as well as the screen showing the Falcon’s trajectory as they’re getting in position for their jump.

Anyway, no rush on those! Just some extra ideas. These albums will be super useful for reference and discussion!

Did you put that together or find that album? Either way, thank you for sharing it!

Some idea for the retro graphics overhaul. While obviously we could just replace existing ship graphics with simplify/dumb down versions of them, or change some fighter cockpit graphics to match X-Wing and TIE Fighter graphics (I would say Jedi Starfighter graphics should be more like TIEs, and it looks like Anakin’s sort of is in ROTS, just more polished), I had some other ideas too.

In TPM, when Obi-Wan pulls up Tatooine on the Nubian ship display screen, it should look more like how planets look on the big Death Star viewscreen. Either the big planet graphic or the graphic of Yavin and Yavin IV coming around it. In TPM, it looks like we can see Tatooine’s actual surface, and it looks 3D.

I think this one would be harder to do, it would require some masking, but there are a few instances in AOTC and ROTS where the war room is centered around the table with a holographic view of the battle they’re watching (Geonosis war room, Jedi war room on Coruscant, Mustafar war room). I think it would be cool if that could be replaced with a flat display screen that it more reminiscent to the war room display screen on Yavin IV, where you have the flat, 2D Death Star making its approach around Yavin. Maybe we could just have multiple arrows or triangles facing each other on the display screens to represent units on the battlefield (maybe in formations). Like I said, it would require a bit of masking since gunship holograms occasionally fly in front of characters, or people walk in front of the table. But I think that would end up looking pretty cool if it could be done.

I know Snooker (I think it was Snooker?) replaced the AOTC Death Star cameo with the ANH version where the dish is at the equator awhile back. That’s is the exact thing I’m talking about!

And maybe we could replace some screens with just images of rows buttons or blinking lights if we felt there were too many screens in certain shots. A lot of options. And that way we wouldn’t have to animate as many graphics either.

I also remember a past user Aalenfae had replace the hologram of the Invisible Hand from ROTS with a screen that showed the ship’s map similar to the Death Star map R2 pulled up during Leia’s rescue in ANH.

Which reminds me, one scene where this idea would be a pain is the control room on the Invisible Hand, with probably like dozen different green touch screens. Not sure what the approach (if there is one) for that would be.

This has probably already been addressed (or fixed), but what was the consensus on the Falcon scene where Han says, “Anyway, we should be at Alderaan in 0200 hours” at the beginning, but by the end of the scene they have reached Alderaan?

Have people interpreted that as they’ll reach Alderaan by 2 o’clock Galactic Standard Time rather than in 2 hours, and when he said that it was already like 1:57 GST or something? If that’s the case, he could’ve just said 3 minutes. Nitpicky of course, you could just write it off as techy nonsense dialogue, like making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

Yeah, you apparently can see it on screens around the Rebel base, too. Out of universe, it was probably just some cool graphics they decided to throw on there. In-universe, it could be scans of the Death Star’s magnetic field. I think Red or Gold leader mentions passing through it at the beginning of the battle, so maybe it is monitored in order to keep track of possible tech interference. It would also explain why the Rebel Base is monitoring it as well.

According to a reddit thread the jobs seem to be more directed at the licensing side of things rather than in-house game development. So, they’re probably hiring more people to have better communication between Lucasfilm and EA studios, maybe.

SilverWook said:

Overproduced is probably the right word. I’ve been listening to the Blu-Ray commentaries lately, and one of the FX guys the process of creating the prequel hologram effects digitally. They could have more easily done it old school, shooting an actor on videotape and reshooting it off a CRT screen to get all those analog video idiosyncrasies that give the OT holograms their unique look. CRT monitors and analog video cameras were still plentiful when the prequels were being made.

I’ve read that the Alien: Isolation game went this route to give all the video displays the look and feel of the Nostromo’s monitors in the original film.

Interesting, I don’t think I knew that about the Alien: Isolation game. Maybe during the prequels development they really consider the “sanctity” of some of those effects, and how much they kind of made the Star Wars aesthetic. Maybe it is one of those things where they were a little too eager regarding the capabilities of their digital effects. Maybe they could have found a better balance between using old school techniques and “new school”, which I kind of think the new films have been doing pretty well.

It will definitely will take some time, but I think a project that overhauled some of the prequels displays and replace with old school motion graphics would go a long way to help make the prequels feel more inline with the OT. Sure, when you look at some of the old tech, it is sort of indiscernible as to what their function is, but I think that contributes to some of its otherworldly magic the Star Wars universe has. Like the glass screens in the rebel base with the green lines running across them, or the weird white starburst looking shape on the X-Wings displays inside the cockpit. I never understood what that was supposed to be, exactly.

Agreed. While obviously Adywan has shown off his incredible skill, if anything his projects are a testament to the growing democratization of filmmaking. If a man in his garage can do all of that, then others can do it as well.

That’s cool snooker! It definitely kind of alleviates an issue with a lot of scenes feeling a bit flat. I know this is like a first pass trough, but it might hard to do a lot of since you have to rotoscope around the actors for a new skyline, and it could be hard to do seamlessly. But I think that works if that is the pace of the scene for your edit! Were you planning do this for other scenes in the movies as well?

Funny that this is being discussed here! Over on the prequel edit ideas thread, I’ve been talking a little about the design differences between the PT and the OT. The OT definitely is grounded in that 70s aesthetic. Not only are console controls more analog, but the graphics on the screens have that early digital interface feel, not that different from what would you see from early games like Pong, or a film like Wargames. I think the new Disney films definitely get this. In Rogue One, we see that classic Death Star schematic with the dish at the equator, in the ST, while it is still 30 years in the future from the OT, a lot of the displays still have that very simplistic digital look. And in Solo, some of the screens in the cockpit match that 70s look.

While in some moments in the PT, the display screen graphics are reminiscent to the OT style, they seem a little too complicated. Like they’ve been overproduced when the artists should’ve been focused on making them more basic. I think that would’ve helped relieve that disconnect between the OT and PT aesthetics a lot.

Sir Ridley said:

“A man uses a lightsaber to suddenly stab another man through the torso and holds the weapon’s blade in place for a couple of seconds as it scorches the man’s clothing and innards”…

Jesus, that description is more graphic than what we actually see in the movie.

I know Finn says “Damn it!” during the Jakku escape.

Kylo kills Lor San Tekka at the beginning of the film, the stormtroopers kill the villagers, and Finn gets blood smeared across his helmet. I don’t think you can do much about the blood, but maybe you could trim the other two in a way that cuts away from those things sooner? I mean, you see them shooting at the villagers, but never see them get shot. Plus, it is kind of an important moment for Finn’s character.

The only thing I could think of would be to cut to BB-8 seeing the x-wing explode from a distance before we see everything resolved at the village, but you would lose a lot depending on when you cut away. This scene already does a pretty good job at cutting away from the violence, though.

For Han’s death, maybe you could cut to Rey, Finn and Chewie’s reaction a little sooner so we don’t see the initial stabbing. I don’t really see a way of cutting around Han’s death.

Exactly! You would just be creating new motion graphics and then throwing them on top of what’s already there. I think that would go a long way to making even Padmé’s sleek Naboo ships feeling more at home in the Star Wars universe.

It’s kinda like how a lot of US federal offices to this day use outdated operating systems like Windows 95. The Star Wars galaxy is like that, plus 1000 years.

What I would like to have would be like an imgur album of pictures or gifs for every shot in the prequels of any screens or displays. Basically anywhere where the tech/software could potentially be “retrofied”, and then make a separate OT album to use as reference. Then we could make a vfx shotlist that we could work through over time. I don’t think every display has to be changed, but a lot of them could be.

That’s why I personally think something as simple as making the display screens more rudimentary, really retro like all the targeting computers in ANH, it would really make the two trilogies feel more like they’re in the same universe. Like, sure, the Naboo starfighter is really different, but retro displays could help make it look more familiar.

If you look at the displays of like the Naboo starfighter, or the pod-racer or whatever, it is in the vein of the old displays, the style is similar, but they’re too detailed. Too clean. They could be made to look a lot more basic, like all the targeting computer displays in ANH were really really simple.

The prequel ship body’s can still look nice, but the software should match the original trilogy. And you could make the argument about how they’re in the golden age or whatever, but if you look at the OT, even Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced had really retro software, and if anyone would have the best UI it would be him. So in my opinion, that is as good as it gets in this time period.

I know people probably want me to shut up about this, but I think this would be a realistic change that would make a difference toward the feel of the prequels, to make them still different, but also familiar.

I think Ady actually mentions that in his change list. I can only imagine how much time and patience that is gonna take.

Maybe someone could do a test of one shot just to see the effort needed and how it actually looks?

DominicCobb said:

How hard would it actually be to make 3PO’s arm red in TLJ?

I know we’ve talked about this before but I agree that I kinda wish they would have stuck with the red arm. It helps make the Resistance feel even more scrappy. Leia’s so desperate for funds that she can’t afford to get 3PO’s arm replaced (You also wonder if they even manufacture parts for his model anymore. I guess they could’ve just painted it gold?).

My first thought would be to rotoscope the arm, which would definitely be tedious, like Anakin said. Although it may be the simplest solution, wouldn’t the arm still be shiny? So it still wouldn’t match the dull red arm from TFA.

There might be to other options.
One, you could find/make a CG model of the arm, and then insert it into scenes, and then just rotoscope objects that move in front of it.

The second option would be to actually make a red arm, and have someone wear it in front of a green screen, then try to replicate 3PO’s movements in the film.

At least with these two options, you at least don’t have to rotoscope around 3PO’s arm frame-by-frame, you’d just throw the new asset on top of the existing arm and then just rotoscope around the occasional obstruction.

Even if you were to do all of this work, you’d still have to decide what to do about Episode IX, since he won’t have his red arm there either. I guess you could say he got his arm replaced in the 8-9 interim rather than between two brief scenes in TFA, since there would actually be more time (presumably a year) to have gotten his arm fixed.

Unless someone wanted to put the work in themselves, it just seems like a lot of effort that could be put towards something more significant than that. Maybe at the very least, someone could make 3PO’s arm red in his last shot of TFA and assume it was fixed between 7-8, but again, I don’t know if that makes a significant difference.

I felt sick when I heard about this. I know people will begin blaming each other, but I really feel the only appropriate response to this is love and understanding, not more hate.

I think it is important to really define why we feel certain changes will benefit being made, and try not to overload ourselves with changes for the sake of change.

Like some of those changes might seem cool on paper, but a lot of them seem like things you’d start working on but then eventually realize it is either not worth the effort or it isn’t as cool or effective as you originally thought it would be.

So maybe start small, and pick a few things that are in the realm of possibility, before moving on to bigger, more challenging ideas.

Like many of you, I’m sure, Luke was my hero growing up. Luke was an idealist, maybe a little naive, but always cared about doing the right thing. I really identified with that and felt I was the same way in lot of aspects.

In TLJ, Luke has clearly gotten older, and with that time Luke has made mistakes and has even fallen into a depression. He’s lost that bit of idealism he used to have, becoming a little jaded by the world.

I’ve also gotten older, and when I watched this movie, I was surprised how much I still related to Luke. While I’m not as old as Luke is, I’ve also come to regret my naivety a little. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, things that have really made me hate myself at times, like hurting people I care about. Things that totally felt out of character for me, things I know better than to do, that despite how much I care about the people I love, than I can still fail them. But, seeing Luke deal with the same thing, but be able to look through that fog of depression and find hope that he can try to make things right and be who he always was meant to be, it gave me that little bit of hope that despite my own failures, it isn’t too late for me to be better too.

Maybe this won’t resonate for everyone, but I like to think that for the people who are most like Luke when he was young, who will come to realize how the world can come crashing down on idealists and leave them in a place like older Luke was in, will get it. So to me, TLJ Luke is exactly who he needs to be for certain people going through similar things as he’s going through, just like how OT Luke was a surrogate for many kids who related to him. So maybe that won’t work for everyone and I understand that, but it totally works for me. Because to me, that’s what Luke’s character is suppose to be about. Hope. Not just hope for the world, but hope for oneself. And I think what Luke goes through has to be big, because it needs to be something where someone can go, “Well if Luke can get back up after THAT, then maybe I can too.”