RogueLeader

I thought he was referring to Catbus’ signature, being language related.

Haha, I know at this point I should assume most Star Wars fans don’t like the prequels, but since we usually just talk about the sequels, Nev, I’m kind of surprised how much you hate the prequels! I love your brief descriptions of them though, especially for ROTS.

And speaking of this scene, as well as Return of the Jedi in general, I think Luke being vulnerable for the briefest moment and allowing Vader to read his mind and learn the truth about Leia actually serves a really great purpose.
To me, this really is the biggest reason why Obi-Wan and Yoda had to lie to Luke about the truth about his father, and why he wasn’t “ready” for it. Yes, I think there is a simple answer, Luke wasn’t emotional mature enough, but also imagine if Luke had told Vader from the beginning and then Luke had an encounter with Vader. That would be all Luke would be thinking about, and a young, novice Luke would practically be holding a sign above his head reading “I’m your son!”

Luke needed to be prepared to “bury his feelings deep down”, and I think they would have eventually told him if things had gone differently. I just don’t think they ever expected Luke to become a hero so quickly as to have Vader try to find out who he was. In a different scenario, I think they would have tried to train Luke in hiding until he was ready to face him, but the Force obviously had other plans.

The way I have always tried to explain it is that the dark side is like a drug. It’s hard for us to understand, but once Luke really taps into that raw power, an ability where he can bend the universe to his own will at his very fingertips, he’ll be hooked. Once he gets a taste of it, he’ll just want more and the Emperor would be like his drug dealer. The Emperor so firmly believes in the temptation of that power that Luke turning is without question. So when he doesn’t, it is a complete surprise. And who knows, Luke might have turned if he had not noticed the parallels between Vader’s robotic hand and his own, seeing in an instant that he was becoming his father.

The scene of Han as a TIE pilot in-training is very interesting to me, and I’m sort of on the fence if it should be included in any future edits.

On one hand, we never really see Han being a great “ship” pilot until his first job, so it is kind of weird how much of a great pilot he thinks he is when we’ve only seen him drive landspeeders.

By including that scene, we get a glimpse of how Han began learning to become an actual pilot.

On the other hand, the jump cut of the officer saying “You’ll be flying in no time!” to him panicking in the trenches is fantastic. And I’m sure they considered cutting in the first place for pacing reasons.

Absolutely. I would be happy to.

That’s what I thought. I first saw his most recent video and 1) knew you hadn’t posted anything from ANH:R HD with vfx, and 2) it wasn’t at your typical level of professionalism. It just felt off.

And the way he writes wasn’t like you at all either. At first I thought maybe he was just a fan of yours, but him going by your name and has saying things like, “I did that 10 years ago” clearly shows he’s trying to impersonate you.

I don’t know if I can but I will try and see if I can report him.

EDIT: His bio literally says "I am the creator of Star Wars Revisited, and Empire Strikes Back Revisited. "
Ironically, he links to all of your actual social media accounts. I reported him for impersonation, but we’ll see if anything gets done.

Not sure if this has already been mentioned someplace else, but a new reddit user named u/Adywan has been posting Revisited videos on reddit and has recently started a subreddit called r/swrevisited, which he is the moderator of.

I think this person is impersonating Adywan. Could be wrong, but thought I would mention it just in case.

Shopping Maul said:

If Vader and Palpatine knew they intended to replace one another, then why all the song and dance about recruiting Luke? Why didn’t Vader just let Luke kill Palpatine in that first instance?

This is something I have also been thinking about lately. I think Vader and Palpatine always knew that they would both want to use Luke to take out the other, but they both didn’t necessarily want to reveal their hand either. For them, it’s like playing a game of chess.

And while I don’t think either of them ever had the intention of ruling the Empire as a triumvirate, even with the existence of the Rule of Two, it hasn’t stopped the Sith from having dark side acolytes before, such as Ventress or the Inquisitors.

But I think after Luke chose death over joining Vader in ESB, Vader no longer believed he could turn Luke on his own. He needed the Emperor, and the Emperor says as much in his first scene with Vader in ROTJ.

And I think Vader’s extreme loyalty to the Emperor in ROTJ is partly because he may not want to reveal his intentions while the Emperor might be close enough to easily sense them. On the other hand, it may just simply be that Luke’s decision to fall to his death over joining his father may have affected Vader’s own confidence in his power. Maybe at this point Vader truly feels what he says about the Emperor, especially after being his servant for so many years, and the events at the end of ESB set him back into that mindset.

But my question, like you brought up, is why didn’t Vader just let Luke kill the Emperor when Luke took that first swing at him? I mean, the Emperor even says that if he killed him, his journey toward the darkside would be complete. My only guess is that Vader knew that it would require more than that to turn Luke, and the Emperor was just toying with him in order for him to initiate aggressive combat. Luke really needed to see that the darkside was power, and he wasn’t there yet.

Huh, I see what you’re saying Dom. In that case that information is definitely necessary, but I still wonder if it would be worth revisiting to see if it could be improved at all.

Also think you make a good point Ash about just letting this be its own thing if there are more edits Hal would want to personally implement. It’s up to you, Hal!

Man, that’s really good.
Also, props for going ahead and making the alternatives. I agree with your feelings and feel like your main version has the best pacing so far.

The new vfx have really improved by the way! The laser shots feel a lot more natural to me, I hope you saw what I was getting at.

Also, I don’t know when you added the subtle laser flash on Finn’s face when he gets shot down, but I just noticed it and it really helps sell it.

A very tiny detail I was thinking about was, that we see most of Finn’s approach from the left side of the Finn, and when he gets shot, the AT-AT that shoots him is also on that left side (you can tell based off Kylo’s shuttle in the sky). But since he also crashes to the left, I wonder if it would make more since for him to be shot from an AT-AT on his right side, since he looks to his right, and the impact appears to push him to the left. All you would need to do is flip the shot of the AT-AT, but it also would sort of break this 180 axis that has been set up in this sequence, and there is a natural flow of the AT-AT firing to the right, and then Finn looking that direction in the next shot.
So I don’t if that would look more natural, or it looks more natural now as is.

Anyway, that is a nitpicks thing but I think this is coming together pretty well poppa. I’m interested to get other people’s thoughts on it. Because I think at this point we just want to know if there is anything else that needs to be done or could be done to really make this feel as seamless as possible.

I like both BLR and Auralnauts. It was kind of cool to see how much each Auralnauts adaptation just kept involving into a bigger thing. Like, the first one of Phatom Menace was funny. Never expected they would try to continue the story, which worked surprisingly well I think.

What exactly is Darths & Droids? Is it something on YouTube?

You’re saying you are willing to edit the OT to fit the PT? You’re definitely not the only one, man.

I see where you’re coming from. I always felt she was genuinely tempted, and didn’t really make her decision until she stretched out for the saber, debating on what she should do as her hand raised. I mean, she definitely considered it as she was standing there.

Eh, I really don’t think flashing back to that would really work. The only other thing I could think of would be that the lightsaber somehow got damaged during the kamikaze. People cold infer that maybe but it might seem weird since it was in Kylo’s hand.

I don’t know exactly where the Luke/Yoda scene would fit in your version, it’s hard for me to picture it somewhere inbetween the kamikaze and when Kylo wakes back up, but at the very least I think it would still have that same effect you’re going for if you put it where both Darthrush and Hal decided to put in, in between Kylo waking up and Leia staring out the door on Crait.
Speaking of which, even if you cut Finn and Rose landing in the base, you gotta keep those great shots of Leia looking out on Crait.

Yeah, a few Resistance members definitely have a few close calls with their ship, but you do lose “Finn! Rose! You’re not dead!” and Poe scratching BB-8’s belly. Also the little moment Finn and Rose realize just how many people they have lost, too. I guess besides that, the important the you will lose is Finn and Rose reuniting with Poe and the Resistance. It might be a little weird that we don’t see anyone acknowledge that reunion, but it could work without it too. Just gotta try it I guess.

Agreed, an easy enough explanation for the difference.

Huh, that is pretty good. The light moves very slightly in the tilt-up shot of Anakin, but besides that it blends in well with the shot. I had compared this location in the two films and never thought about that light before.

Another difference is that the hexagonal lights fade in/out in AOTC, but in ANH they don’t. I’d just argue that the lights stopped working properly after 20+ years.

Hahaha, that’s great. Man, the hype for TFA really wasn’t that long ago but it already feels like it… I’m also glad IX will be releasing in the winter time too. Star Wars just feels right in the winter for some reason.

I believe it is feasible. The primary issue would be that I don’t know if that wide shot of Snoke lasts long enough for the entire back and forth. You may either have to slow it down slightly, or cut to a close up of Kylo in the middle for when he says “the dark side” and then cut back when Snoke says “and the light”, using the entire length of that wide shot. You also might have to remove any background noise from “the dark side” line, and add some kind of echo to both that line and “and the light” to make it match with the rest of the dialogue, if the rest also has an echo.

That’s another thing Rinzler’s Star Wars book goes into to detail with. The editing process was crazy, and it really was the final step that made the movie into the phenomenon it became. Because of the editing, the story, the sets, the effects, wouldn’t have mattered if the edit hadn’t worked. The editors definitely deserved the Oscars they got for working on that film.

As far as what ideas of yours you could tackle first, I would definitely suggest the whole Falcon tracking light thing we talked about awhile back, because I definitely think it works very well. And now that Hal has decided to go back and add a few things to Restructured, it might be a good time to piggy back off some of the changes that are made/suggested for it.

Do you think that would take away from Rey’s agency in that moment? Speaking of the saber, a lot of people have been speculating that Rey will likely build a new lightsaber using the pieces.

Placing the Luke/Yoda scene there is an interesting idea, though I wonder if it would affect the pacing any?

So you would cut them crash landing into the base and next time we see them, they are already inside, so we just assume they made it back to the Resistance in between scenes?

OutboundFlight said:

This kinda makes me want to bring back this thread: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/A-Collaborative-Star-Wars-Saga-Edit/id/60169

I appreciate that this came to mind for you!

Although a lot of these ideas would be hard to practically do, I don’t these type of mock-ups should be discouraged. I remembered going through all of the two hundred plus pages of this thread just looking at Bingowings’ mock-ups and others. They really spark your imagination, and I think snooker and paja are continuing that tradition.

To me, the best thing would be for them to just keep experimenting with ideas like they have been, and also they’re getting practice from making these mock-ups. Eventually, either paja or snooker or another person will come up with ideas that are really doable that could be implemented.

Personally, I really like the idea of replacing a lot of the ship displays in the prequels with old school motion graphics. I remember Aalenfae forever go posting videos that implemented this concept, and I think it could be a great way to bridge the trilogies.

Kind of agree with krlozdac. It might be worth trying it that way too. I think it’s making progress though. A few more suggestions.

I would trim up the stuff with Rose a little bit more. Basically, have Rose look back, we see an AT-AT shooting, remove the shot of her turning back around, remove the second shot of the AT-AT shooting, and trim the shot of Rose getting shot to start where she is already looking back. That way, we don’t have her looking back, looking forward, and looking back again. It might help the pacing a little bit.

And whichever shot of the AT-AT you decide to keep, I would take it out of wherever it’s original replacement was, if you can. That way, you’re not repeating the same shot twice.

Also, the added laser bolts firing past Rose, I think the angle is a little too downward, and should be a bit more parallel with the ground, if that makes sense.

And with Finn’s “No!”, to me, at least, it doesn’t sound like it is coming through the comm’s enough. I don’t know what editing software you use, but for me with Premiere, I would add a highpass filter effect to Finn’s line to make it sound more like radio chatter.

Finally, I think the added cropped shot of the laser firing and the flash on Kylo’s face works well. I would suggest another a little addition, have the subsequent shot of the door begin really bright also, and have it fade back to normal, so the brightness flows from one shot to the next.

Another book you could check out alongside the Rinzler one’s would be the Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski. It’s an unofficial book about the saga’s development, so while the book might not be written as professionally as Rinzler’s, you can be worried less about revisionism, as his main focus is how story ideas changed over the development of the saga. So you get Rinzler’s books and Kaminski’s and compare the two. It’ll probably give you a solid idea of the complete development of these films.

I think going back and making some additions is a good idea Hal, and I like how you’re still being restrained about your changes. I think all of your ideas sound pretty good.

I was actually with you regarding the “myth” line, but I think the arguments for keeping it are solid, so I would now agree with keeping that as is. It would be like hearing stories of Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan or John Henry and finding out they aren’t just tall tales. And as they mention, the latter scenes with Han helps her realize all of those stories are in fact true.

I like the change you’ve made with Finn about being less willing to kill stormtroopers, I like it. I think it makes sense and will help not feel as weird if Episode IX decides to have Finn play a part in some kind of First Order/stormtrooper revolt.

With that in mind, what about later in the film when Finn impales a surprised stormtrooper with the lightsaber? It is a little brutal, so should that be cut as well? I would honestly even cut the whole “I need a weapon/You have one!” interaction because it sort of brings attention to the fact that Finn suddenly no longer has the blaster that he’s been carrying around this whole time. Just some thoughts though.

I also agree about the shot of Han shooting blind. It is a little too much. The only thing I could think of would be to have Han go “huh”, like he didn’t expect for that to work, and you could take it from earlier in the film when Rey fixes the Falcon, but it might just draw even more attention to the whole thing.

Regarding the edit that has the First Order target the Resistance after destroying Hosnian Prime, I’m kind of on Nev’s side about the whole thing. I know it was included for story reasons, and to explain that the base still had energy inside it, which caused it to go nova, but I’m wondering if these things are really necessary for what Nev refers to as “a threat which we know won’t materialize”.
If I recall, everyone was kind of going back and forth on the idea for awhile, trying and suggesting different things, until we finally just decided on something since we were getting close to the deadline of TLJ’s release. I’m not saying remove it, but I definitely think that part could be worth giving some more thought to before deciding on something.

And this might not be the right edit for this, but during the shot early in the film when Kylo says, “You’re so right”, right before killing Lor San Tekka, you can see the flicker of Kylo’s lightsaber at the bottom of the screen before you hear his lightsaber activating. It would just require a little cropping to fix it, but it’s not a big deal either I guess.

Hey, I’m noticing the video flashing sporadically during the targeting computer shot, the subsequent shot of the AT-M6 firing, and the shot of Finn getting out of the speeder. Is that just me?