RogueLeader

That’s a fair point, krlozdac. I’ve considered it as well and think it’s worth discussing.

One argument I can see being made for it is that the Resistance and Leia is already established as her newfound family from the get go. So the movie starts out like, “Okay, this my found family, but am I worthy of them?” And that question is what the movies explores.

Also, having Leia explicitly address Rey as family more strongly justifies her taking the name Skywalker, which didn’t really seem to land with everyone in theaters.

You might be right but it might be worth thinking about.

Also, can someone with headphones and a good ear compare these two voice files and see if the audio quality sounds any different?

First:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qNb_f7AwetG9cXlU6aFv3A3gIrOu6TbK/view?usp=drivesdk

Second:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iprhwpzpLeXs0St1Duk91IN9v4cWOm3a/view?usp=drivesdk

You’re exactly right about that cruft. The voices sound a lot closer to the real deal now, but those artifacts keep it from being 100% seamless. Some lines don’t have that, which may come down to the sample, the settings, and just luck. I have another idea of how to potentially address that, but getting better readings may come down to those three factors and a little persistence.

And thanks for taking some time to mess around with all of this!

Hal, is that clip with the Ascendant color grading or the theatrical? It would be nice to have the theatrical version so others could slot it into their own edits if they want. I should’ve asked that before.

And thanks for the notes on the other lines. I’ll try to look at the Poe lines some more unless JarJar wants to take a go at them.

The whipping/slipping video clips I posted do use entirely new lines. I could share just those files if you wanted to see if they would work, if you haven’t tried those specific versions yet.

kypo said:

Also- Have you ever considered adding other fanedit material- like this salvaged Jango Fett scene from Attack of the Clones? Could be a good way to “add” to some of these flashback scenes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gbh08F061A&ab_channel=vanilla

This is a pretty cool edit. I’ve also thought that this would’ve been a good way to demonstrate the abilities of beskar. Instead of cutting Jango up, you could’ve had Windu’s lightsaber bounce off his beskar armor twice, maybe Jango begins to ignite his flamethrower, forcing Windu to finally kill him. Because it is ironic that Windu wanted to capture this guy, then ends up killing him. Anyway, that’s a story for another edit.

Kypo, love your professional perspective on a screenplay’s thesis and theme lines!
Speaking of which, if this is something Acbagel is interested in, we have been experimenting with voice AI for another edit project, so I wonder if we could do something similar with this.

If you could come up some potential theme lines, and Acbagel was interested in using it, I could try to make the lines. Something that can be said off camera by an actor, or said by character with a helmet, would be preferable.

Speaking of which, Acbagel, if there are any other spots where you have caught yourself saying, “Man, it would be great if we had a line here to explain this”, feel free to reach out because I’d be more than happy to generate some lines for you. I had already been wanting to remake Luke’s dialogue in Mando and BOBF to make it sound more natural and like Mark Hamill. It would be a good opportunity to alter his lines to fit your interpretation of the character, if you felt this version of Luke shouldn’t follow the “attachments” rule, for example. Just let me know!

^Literally my first thought when I figured it out.

Another shorter reading could use the phrase “Luke’s texts”. One less syllable. Haha.

And okay! I’d appreciate that!

Personally I feel like a good way to explain it would be that it is a unique power that only certain people can do, and it just so happens that Baby Yoda and Rey can (and maybe Rey can because of the dyad stuff). But, I think it is cleaner to explain it coming from the texts. Maybe it was lost knowledge. Or, maybe the Force is more “awake” than it was during the period of the PT-OT. And, it could still be that only certain people can really learn it. But yeah, I don’t think the movie has to get too deep into it. The text explanation feels good enough.

If Nev can get the drawing, and someone could send me a high quality MOV file, I can try to do the VFX.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

RogueLeader said:

That is true. Makes it feel a little stuffed.
If you moved BB-8’s beeps to previous shot, when he is rolling up, that would give you the entire BB-8 insert shot to include an extra Rey line. Maybe you could keep the line as-is, and just add, “From the texts” or “The Jedi texts”.

This is currently what I’m working on. Will upload soon. There isn’t enough space for her to say anything else besides these three brief words. It works well, don’t get me wrong, but unless we shift BB-8’s beeps this is all we can do.

Cool. But honestly, this plus the Jedi text image, if we can make that work, would be enough imo.

That is true. Makes it feel a little stuffed.
If you moved BB-8’s beeps to previous shot, when he is rolling up, that would give you the entire BB-8 insert shot to include an extra Rey line. Maybe you could keep the line as-is, and just add, “From the texts” or “The Jedi texts”.

I’m sending Nev a still of the page from the Jedi texts. I’m having trouble exporting a high quality clip of the shot though.
As far as the picture, I just imagined a hand-drawn illustration of basically someone “laying hands” on someone else. It could be in black ink, but maybe the “energy” could be in blue ink or something. And if you wanted to have our cake and eat it too, we could even keep the image of the wayfinder, but put it on the page Rey flips away from, so we only get a quick glimpse of it.

You could trim it a little so it plays out like.

Offscreen: From the texts. Leia showed me how. Life-
Onscreen: -force energy from me to him. You would’ve done the same.

You could have a little both and have it be something like,

Offscreen: From the texts. Leia showed me how.
On screen: Force energy from me to him.

I don’t think you have to spell it out more than that. But I do agree if you had to pick one, it is better to go with Leia, but I think you could do both.

I agree with Burbin regarding Ben. Force dyad stuff.

You could reuse the insert shot of BB-8, but maybe in reverse, at the end of the convo, and put “Leia taught me that” over that shot. Or even just the shot of Chewie putting the dagger in the bag, he’s in the same room as them.
Or, at the beginning, replace “I just transferred a bit of life”, with “Leia taught me. To transfer life.” Then onscreen, she continues, “Force energy from me to him.” I do like the thematic idea of Rey learning it from Leia specifically.

Although I also think it could be nice to set up earlier than that. Like, replace the illustration of the wayfinder that Rey sees while flipping through the book with an illustration of Force healing. Arguably that is a set up for the Rey knowing the wayfinder is mentioned in the texts too, but would the audience really question it being mentioned in the texts if we hadn’t seen that page before? Also, it is a little convenient she flipped on that page 10 minutes before it became relevant. Idk though.

I actually think it is better to leave it as “I made Snoke”, because it leaves it ambiguous as to whether he literally made Snoke, or figuratively trained him to become the Supreme Leader.

I haven’t tried Palpatine yet but I’m skeptical due to the nature of his voice. The way his voice is mixed is different than the other characters, and the throaty voice will be hard for an AI to replicate. But maybe it’d surprise me. Haven’t tried it.

I haven’t messed anymore with the Poe line. Did we wanna try to another delivery of dreadnought cannons? If an exact line reading is decided on I’d be down to mess it with some more.

If you mess with Jannah at all, JarJar, these were the changes I was considering for her if you’re looking for ideas:

Finn: I never knew there were more.
[Old Line] Jannah: Deserters? All of us here were stormtroopers.
[New Line V1] Jannah: All of us stormtroopers heard your story.
[New Line V2] Jannah: All of the stormtroopers here heard your story.

Jannah: We laid our weapons down.
Finn: All of you?
[Old Line] Jannah: The whole company.
[New Line] Jannah: Just like you.

Hal 9000 said:

“It was the last night of her training. Leia just freaked out for no reason and bailed on it, even though I was a good teacher. She just gave up. But she said that her saber would be picked up again someday by someone who was up to it.”

Lol, yeah the vague option is basically that.

I’m also going to say again I feel it is convenient she happened to have a vision that someone who use her saber in the future. Having Luke say something like, “but she said that one day, she would finish her journey”. Maybe at the time Leia felt she would return to the Jedi path once she finished her political career, not realizing it would be to train her own Jedi student in these circumstances.

Tobar said:

The diplomacy lines hit wrong for me. The Jedi can defend themselves and others sure but they’re not violent by nature. Before the rise of Palpatine the Jedi were negotiators/mediators that were sent out to settle disputes between different parties through non-violent diplomacy.

This new Luke line paints the Jedi as warriors first and that just doesn’t ring true.

True! The Jedi were also agents of diplomacy. So I wonder if it would be better to play up the angle of conflict of interest in being a member of the Jedi Order and the Galactic Senate? Just spitballing here.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

RogueLeader said:

Another option would be to leave it vague and allow people to come to their own conclusions.

“Leia had sensed the end of her Jedi path. She surrendered her saber to me and said that one day, she would finish her journey.”

But maybe that wouldn’t be a satisfying answer. You could also have the original on the “no AI lines” audio track, and the new explanation on the alternate one.

This is pretty much how it is in v3. But I’ve literally had a first time viewer tell me that this is really unsatisfying to hear, and I didn’t plant that in his head at all!

I agree, perhaps leave it as v3 in the alternate track, and use the new lines I made for the main track.

That’s what I was afraid of but it is good to hear that is actually the case from a viewer who is outside these conversations. I agree that the two tracks would be a good compromise.

This is definitely a good debate to have, and you can see why Terrio felt he had to make that decision.

On one hand, it gives a clear reason why she didn’t become a Jedi. It also plays into the whole “Palpatine pulling the strings” idea, and like he did with Luke, he may have planted this vision in Leia to prevent her from becoming a Jedi. That can also be a bad thing, though, if it feels like every plot line boils down to “It was Palpatine all along!” It also potentially takes away agency from Leia as a character if her hands were tied because of a vision she had. Though it may be a simpler explanation than one that hinted at Leia just not feeling it was the right path for her. It honeslty could be an interesting premise for a Leia novel: We could get the payoff from ROTJ by seeing Luke train Leia as his first student, but Leia wrestling with the moral dilemma of trying to be both a Jedi Knight and a Senator/politician in the nascent Republic. The Jedi Order and the Galactic Senate were separate entities in the Old Republic. Is it a conflict of interest for her to be both? What would the implications be if she eventually became both a Jedi Master and the Chancellor? Would that be too much power for one person? What would separate her from Palpatine, another Force-user who became leader of the Republic?

These are all interesting questions, and I personally feel like Leia making the choice to become a Jedi solely based on a vision she had takes away from all of those interesting ideas. BUT, how it parallels Anakin’s vision from ROTS is a fair point as well. If this were a novel, I could see it integrating both ideas, with the vision being the final straw for Leia. Maybe it wasn’t an explicit vision of her son’s death, but nebulous dreams of doom. Whether it be personal or on a galactic scale.

Another option would be to leave it vague and allow people to come to their own conclusions.

“Leia had sensed the end of her Jedi path. She surrendered her saber to me and said that one day, she would finish her journey.”

But maybe that wouldn’t be a satisfying answer. You could also have the original on the “no AI lines” audio track, and the new explanation on the alternate one.

If you wanted to make the new line match Leia’s facial expression in the flashback, you could have Luke say something like, “Leia realized it would be a conflict of interest to be a Jedi like our father, and a Senator like our mother.” I like the wording of DZ’s suggestion, but just a thought.

I think that was the original point of “it was the last night of her training” line. It implies Leia was basically at the same level Luke was in ROTJ. She had completed her training, and was a full Jedi in all but name.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Hal 9000 said:

To me, interjecting something about Leia for Rey to react to with “wow, she still trained me though” feels weird. Makes it seem very elementary of a problem, like Rey is shocked that Leia was aware that she was having a hard time with self-confidence.

It’s not really “self-confidence” though. It’s that she has a natural inclination toward the dark side of the Force. Which is displayed in TLJ when the dark side cave calls out to her. It is definitely shocking to hear that your mentor knew you had a propensity to fail terribly but they still decided to take you on because they recognized you were strong enough to push through it all.

Chris Terrio describes it like the following: “We were very moved by the idea that Leia would have known that from the very beginning, but since she still saw such hope, heart and spirit in Rey, she decided that she was going to take a chance…”

Could you cut out “Because you’re a Palpatine”, and have Luke say, “Leia saw it, too” referring to the vision? So, Leia also had a vision of Rey turning to the dark side, but Leia saw her spirit/heart and trained her anyway? Or, keep the Palpatine line, and have Luke say, “Leia saw the vision, too.”

I have to admit I feel a little guilty igniting a whole new voice AI fervor right after Hal announced retiring after these projects are done, but this all started because I have my own plans to eventually work on my own edits, or help with other projects, so I hope there is no pressure on Hal to consider any of these changes beyond what he wants, but we can still have these discussions here even if they are used for other projects or to create a resource of assets.

Speaking of the Luke stuff, I think there is a way to get these ideas across without straying very far from what he already says and making feel new dialogue feel out of place.

Luke: Because you’re a Palpatine [cut for Rey Nobody, but honestly you could cut it for both versions and focus on the dark vision if you wanted]

Luke: Leia knew it, too. [or] Leia saw it, too. (for the Rey Nobody version but could work for both)

Luke: Because she saw your spirit, your heart. She knew, because some things are stronger than blood.

(This is just my opinion but I feel like Luke’s following guidance would work better to me more about Rey’s personal journey rather than focusing on her physical one. It can work both ways, but this feels more like personal guidance from a father figure and less like orders from a general)

Luke: Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. Your destiny. If you don’t face it, it will mean the end of the Jedi. And you will be lost.
(I also feel like you could replace “your destiny” with “always” or “a constant struggle” to tie better into the theme of “bringing back the balance” and balance not being permanent, but something that must be maintained)

Regarding the Leia exposition, I have always felt it is kinda silly that Leia ended her training on the literal last night of her training. The exposition also feels weird in general that Leia sensed so much specific things, and then have Luke explain all of that to Rey. Basically we’re told she sensed/had a vision that 1) if she became a Jedi, her son would die, and 2) that someone would one day use her saber and “finish her journey”.

“You’ll take both sabers to Exegol” also feels like a very forced statement from a script standpoint. Even though we are often adding dialogue to clarify plot details for other scenes, I feel like in this case Luke’s dialogue would feel more natural if most of what he was saying was more general, which in effect feels more personal. But I have to admit I do like DZ’s version that mentions their mother! A nice callback that would help make this final film feel full circle. The wording of that version is very nice as well.

Dom, I may need to be PM you, but my ideas regarding tying up Finn’s arc are very similar to yours. I also have some ideas to expand on that theme of cycles repeating, which I may share on the Sequel Trilogy thread.

DominicCobb said:

That “family’s saber” line is excellent. I believe that’s the sentence I’ve wanted her to say since what like, Dec 2019? Hopefully it fits well.

Yes! Your idea has been in my mind all this time. I put it alongside the rest of her lines and it seems to fit well, at least to my ear.

Do you have a Finn by any chance? I’m dying for a Finn.

I have not made one yet but I’ve already planned to. Lmk if you have something particular in mind, because the type of sample you make depends on what you want him to say.

Regarding the Kylo clone stuff, you also have to keep in mind how we all felt back in 2019. A lot of people felt how Palpatine survived wasn’t really explained well. Just visually, I think some people even assumed he was in his old body, since he is still old and has missing fingers. Early leaks even suggested this may have been the case at one point, strangely enough. So seeing the Palpatine clones helps a lot. And I do think this one line conveys a lot of info. It double-confirms that he is a clone, but also that his spirit is inside the clone, and the clone is rotting away. Back when the movie released, I feel like audiences would’ve been less confused by his return with this clarification, plus it feels like a pretty natural line. I felt similarly about earlier versions of Kylo saying “clone”, but I feel like JarJar nailed with his most recent test.

And speaking of tests, I messed around with Poe’s lines a little bit more and came up with a different variation. The AI model was struggling with getting Poe to say “dreadnought cannons”, and the deliveries I managed to get still sound awkward to me. So, I did a version where he says, “and each ship has been upgraded with fleet-killing weapons”. Poe calls the dreadnought a “fleet-killer” due to its cannons in TLJ, and uses the phrase planet-killing in this film. That makes it feel more like something Poe would actually say, and that term gives the audience a clear indication of their power-level. These aren’t planet-killing weapons, but they can destroy any planetary fleet that opposes them.

I personally like the first version the best. But you also could trim here and there or mix and match depending on which phrasing you prefer.
Version 1: They have an enormous stockpile of Star Destroyers from the Old Empire, and each ship has been upgraded with fleet-killing weapons.
Version 2 and 3: An enormous stockpile of Star Destroyers from the Old Empire. Each ship upgraded with fleet-killing weapons.
I also put them alongside Poe’s dialogue from that scene just to get a sense of how it blends with rest as of now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wnW_tIWTN2Xq3mU4Bo-29oWtdL6iXYKp/view?usp=drivesdk

AspiringCreator said:

The Kylo line here is definitely far more in line with his tone and audio from the movie. That final delivery in fact almost sounds like it was directly pulled from one of the movies.

Wish I could take credit for it but the last delivery is from the movie! I just isolated the audio and threw it in at the end for comparison.

The two lines about family are beautiful and also very well done, especially Rey’s where I legit can’t tell it’s an AI. Also the “You are family.” line and the idea of it going where the “A Jedi needs her weapon.” line sits is perfect. I liked what the original was trying to go for but I love how this plays with the elements of the scene and movie more. It’s a perfect response to Rey treating herself as an outsider, it makes Leia’s later line of not being afraid of who she is feel just the slightest bit more impactful and in a way, it adds a new layer to her declaring she’s a Skywalker.

You said my exact feelings! I also was surprised by how good the Rey line sounds.

Lightspeed clipping is an interesting bit of phrasing and I like the idea of it being like clipping in a video game. That being said, I do think the ramming line also worked with the lip=sync issues being fairly minor and plus, I kind of like that it in some way highlights that there’s a reason why you can’t do this stuff all the time without just dumping on TLJ’s Holdo maneuver. However honestly both lines still work well.

I added two more versions to the link. The first is “light speed slipped”. I think this one sounds ambiguous enough that it could refer to the same thing the Holdo maneuver is, or it could be some different technique. It is the most seamless change from “skipped”, plus, light speed slipping sounds like an actual term that would have its own Wookiepedia article and everything.

The second one is “light speed whipped”. Kind of conjures that hot rod vibe that could imply using hyperspace to pull crazy maneuvers. The mouth synch isn’t 100%, but personally I think it is funny to hear Rey yell, “You can’t lightspeed whip the Falcon!” I feel like it fits the humor of the entire scene the best, but “slip” might for totally unnoticed to most people, which I think is the goal.

I use moises.ai
It is subscription based but there are a lot of similar programs out there.

Speaking of which, I actually had a go at the Kylo lines and added them to that same google drive link (as well as a video clip for the light speed clip test).

The Kylo lines are a good example of what I was talking about regarding the tone. The way Kylo’s lines are delivered on Exegol are different than the rest of the film, so I ended up using some of his lines from the Force bonds in TLJ rather than sourcing anything else from TROS. I felt it sounded closer to what we were looking for.

But give the Kylo lines a go because you might could get it to sound better than my samples. I also think some more effects could be added to them to give it that little extra deepness and punch the original lines have.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

I’m not sure what method you are using for the Poe lines but they sound pretty incredible.

Here is my method for anyone else who is cranking these out:

1. I go straight to the movies for actor lines. I pull dialogue from the center channel.
2. I specifically pull dialogue that matches the tone I want for the new dialogue. For the Poe line, for example, I used his dialogue from that scene, plus later on in the film when he gives his speech to the Resistance.
3. I try to get at least 30 seconds of sample dialogue. It might not seem like a lot, but I think quality or tone of the sample is more important than the quantity. In the case of Rey, I actually made two different clones for two different types of line delivery.
4. I run the sample through a vocal isolation software to get it as clean as possible for Eleven Labs.
5. I don’t really have sweet spot for Eleven’s settings. Just play with it until you get something that sounds right.

Also, where would Leia’s “you are family” go exactly? It’s clever to replace “brother’s saber” with “family’s saber” but as I recall there isn’t a place to put Leia’s response to that in the scene. I think it would be best to place it where “A Jedi needs her weapon” currently sits.

Yes, that is where I was thinking as well.

EddieDean said:

‘Blast’ has a similar mouth shape to ‘slipped’.

Whipped and ripped were two other options I considered, but didn’t test.

I’ve been wanting to experiment with some techniques for voice cloning, so I played around with some new versions of the lines under discussion. I haven’t watched V3 so I can’t recall how they compare to the current ones, but I tried to get it to match as close as possible to the surrounding dialogue.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15GjpiX28aV-o9IX9cEWnyjWi008w7dFQ

This link includes Leia’s lines and some alternatives, Poe’s monologue, and some experimenting with alternatives for light speed ramming. Since “ramming” doesn’t totally line up with Rey’s mouth movements, I played around with words that rhymed more with slipped. I tried out clipped and slipped. I was thinking, instead of describing what Poe did as just smashing into the ice wall, maybe he clipped through the wall, sort of like how you can clip through video game walls with glitches. So basically, a ship can use hyperspace to clip through objects in real space. I think slipping gives off a similar idea, like slipping through objects in real space. But if your timing isn’t perfect it can damage both your ship and whatever object your passing through. I didn’t replace the full “You can’t light speed skip the Falcon”, just the word, so that is why I have a few different versions. So my tests of that line definitely are not final.

Also, I don’t know if Poe says, “He’s been hiding something for years” in this version, but I honestly think it would be fine to stay as “building something”. The stockpile line makes it clear these are old ships, but his followers are still “building” onto them with the new cannons.