Telecine, you’re a madman. All of your samples look fantastic, excellent work.
The cell block shootout must’ve been a nightmare to do…
Here is a radical addition for The Force Awakens if anyone has the urge to go a little crazy with it.
I think both sides of the divide really overthink it. Fans tend to overanalyze the film to the point where, on the extreme ends, they think it is either the worst movie ever made or the best movie of the decade. I think the people who get it the best are, ironically, your average moviegoer who doesn’t participate in Star Wars forums, subreddits, or YouTube communities. They don’t overthink it. Rey is strong in the Force because she believes in herself. They don’t argue over Force lore or logic because they get what it is in a general sense and that is enough for them.
If anything, I wonder if it might be a better place to add the Emperor’s laugh To Luke looking inside Kylo Ren‘s mind in TLJ.
I agree with this. It is still subtle and could be open to interpretation, but for those people who are iffy on Luke’s actions, it might be enough for them to rationalize it as Sidious clouding his mind and manipulating him.
Understandable, but to be fair I think most of us hate the sound of our own voices!
Hahaha, that is definitely accurate…
I also think it would be fun if a few of us discussed our reactions to the movie together in a podcast format and share it on here for others to listen to.
I like your newest version of the dream, by the way! I liked the first version too, but I see why you changed it.
I think seeing it early is nice though, since afterward you guys could go discuss the movie over lunch.
One downside is that you lose a little more runtime, but honestly you could throw back in Padmé confronting Dooku (if one hasn’t already) and you would probably make up for that lost time.
Could AOTC work without the kiss on Naboo scene? I do think heavily cutting it allows for an interesting implication that Anakin and Padmé sleep together that night (like Hal mentions in his commentary), but I feel most versions of the scene cut off abruptly in order to lose Padmé pulling away, and you also have the weird continuity where Padmé is wearing one dress in the previous dinner scene and then wearing an entirely different dress in next. Yes, she does change outfits from scene to scene a lot, but it feels like these two scenes could take place just an hour or less between each other.
I do wonder if the film would work just as well if their kiss in the Petranaki arena was their first kiss. Or potentially better, if we build their relationship over the course of the story and they don’t actually confess their love and kiss until the climax of the film, right before they think they’re about to die.
Who knew all you need to understand the Force is simple addition and subtraction?
And I think a lot of younger people who grew up on the Special Editions, the prequels and the Clone Wars basically worship George Lucas, so I’ve seen a lot more people defend ha choices nowadays. Plus, the Special Editions are their Star Wars. I think this is what George was hoping for.
Appreciate your thoughts, Act on Instinct! I totally think that is fair view.
Off topic, but I read a good comment the other day regarding Finn’s plot in TLJ. A reddit user u/FatherOop, made this suggestion:
My only real issue with it is that, while Finn’s arc is going from just caring about Rey to caring about the larger cause of the Resistance, from the moment he embarks on the quest to Canto Bight, helping the Resistance = helping Rey. His actions are effectively indistinguishable from someone who’s already committed to the Resistance, so the message is not as clear as it could be.
What I think would have worked better (and man do I hate making suggestions like this, but here goes) is if instead of Finn handing the cloaked binary beacon (the thing that lets Rey know their location) to Poe before leaving the Resistance Fleet, Finn actually takes the beacon to Canto Bight. They try and fail to find the Codebreaker (just like in the movie), step out into the balcony (just like in the movie), and Finn reflects something along the lines of
”hey… we’ve failed to find the Codebreaker, and it looks like the Resistance is going to be extinguished. Rose, why don’t we just stay here? Rey will find us here and we’ll all be safe. We could leave everything behind and start a new life.”
And only then does Rose break into her monologue on what she’s fighting for and why they have to defeat the First Order. After that, they get arrested, meet DJ, and the rest of the movie goes on as usual. I feel like just having this moment helps the audience understand that Finn still very much hasn’t joined the Resistance yet, but starts to the more he and Rose connect.
I really like this thought, because it minimally changes the film we got, but it addresses what I think is the heart of the issue with Finn’s story. Where Finn is at the beginning of the versus the end of the film is not as clear as it could have been. I think adding one or two of Finn’s deleted scenes at the beginning of the film, plus making small changes like this, would probably have helped make Finn’s arc clearer.
I know nobody seemingly talks about this, but there are some scenes that are slowed down (pacing-wise) by lines that tell the viewer how they should react when they already know how they’re supposed to react in said scenes, notably the opening scene where Billie Lourd says “oh no” when a First Order fleet arrives above the atmosphere of the Resistance’s planet.
You really don’t like that line, do you?
I have had a few random prequel thoughts recently…
Regarding AOTC, I have mentioned this idea before but I think one of the weirdest continuity issues between the PT and the OT is how Owen, Beru and Anakin are practically strangers when in the OT they seem to have had some kind of relationship. Yes, you could say, *“well Shmi told Owen and Beru all about Anakin and they felt like they knew him”. It just feels weird. Would it really be so weird if when Anakin and Padme go to Tatooine, they go straight to the Lars homestead? It has been 10 years since the Phantom Menace, and nothing in the movies really says that Anakin couldn’t have gone back to see his mother.
If you change the way 3PO greets them, make it like he actually recognizes them, and cut the introduction with the Lars family, there could be the implication that Anakin has been there before. Also, if you could find some Anthony Daniels dialogue where 3PO calls Padme their liberator or savior, you could get the idea across that Padme went back and freed Shmi right after TPM. Apparently in the new canon novel, Queen’s Shadow, she actually does go back to try and free her, but when she goes back she can’t find Shmi. (Why didn’t she just talk to Watto like Anakin did?). Again, I know this might be confusing for the audience, but it has been 10 years, and I think there would be enough for the audience to infer that things have just changed during that time and pick up on the context clues.
Another thought regarding ROTS, I’ve noticed that a lot of edits that cut out Yoda ever using his lightsaber seem to leave in the moment Yoda cuts the clones heads off. I can see how that might be okay since it is a very quick moment, but I feel like it kind of defeats the purpose if you’re wanting Yoda to never use a lightsaber at all. There may be an edit that does this, but if you wanted to remove that moment too, you could do something like this.
I think the idea would get across that Yoda just sense what was happening and got away before the clones got a chance to strike. Maybe this kind of edit would just not flow well, which is why it has never been done.
“Need them, they will not.”
Would there be a continuity issue with Yoda not wearing his robe crawling through the access tubes and then wearing his robes later?
EDIT: Though he somehow has a new robe on Polis Massa anyway…
These were a big part of my childhood so I really appreciate the effort into trying to preserve these in a higher quality!
To be fair, I imagine the Venn diagram of people who’ve seen The Other Boleyn Girl and Labyrinth of Evil is smaller than the one of people who will see both TFA: Restructured and TROS.
Does Restructured use the shot where Snap asks Leia if they should contact the Republic?
I’m glad you like that suggestion, I was worried that it would seek irrelevant to your project. I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt like three stories would fit well into this! And like I said, in an alternate universe the ‘78 Holiday Special really could’ve included those scenes (especially since the Life Day story actually reuses deleted footage of Vader). But again, this is really cool and I’ll probably end up watching this with my friends this month!
Just watched it! It was a really clever idea to use footage from the making of Doc as a framing device. Besides some audio hiccups I think it works really really well. I think I would cut out 3PO’s line about his arm since it isn’t really relevant to the Boba Fett story.
I think using that as a framing device could make for another interesting edit where you could have three small stories that R2 and 3PO tell. Obviously you have the Boba Fett story and the story about Chewie’s family. But three would be a good number to round the whole thing off I think. I was trying to think of what other story you could fit into there, and I think it would be really interesting if you took all the Star Wars deleted scenes of Luke before his introduction and turned it into that third story. I don’t really know if there would be enough footage or any relevant dialogue from the Making of Doc for it to fit in there, but in retrospect it would have made a lot of sense for them to have included that material into the Holiday Special in some way. I think a lot of fans would have loved to have seen a bit of Luke’s life before he got caught up in the whole adventure.
Anyway, I think giving this a nice Christmas vibe was great, and good timing for some fans to watch before seeing Rise of Skywalker next week!
Looks great Petro! It would be cool to see you at least “Remaster” certain scenes that you’re really passionate about, without the pressure of having to do an edit of the full movie. The space scenes seem to interest you in particular, like the opening chase, the Falcon Escape from Tatooine, and the Rebels approaching the Death Star.
This is all so incredible! Great interviews and the BTS is so so cool. Man, John Williams looks like this wise, old wizard, infusing magic into this story he has help tell over the last 40 years. Pretty amazing.
I saw this! Apparently it has been stirring up some shit, this and one or two other things he has said. Elijah Wood said something on twitter about it being unprofessional of him.
Maybe a list could be made of potential ideas that would take that extra bit of effort to implement and can be executed separately, rather than trying to plan a large-scale project that could become quickly overwhelming. Or, at least the ideas in that project could be divided in a way that they could be tackled separately.
For example, one thing could be the Clone Trooper project, where we could get some different cosplayers in front of a green screen to replace some of the CGI clones. Another idea could be related to ship model work, or Anakin slaughtering Jedi on mustafar instead of Separatists. These are things that could be tackled by different people at different times, but laying out the ideas and what it would take to execute them might make this whole thing more tangible.