Schmendrick

dgraham414 said:

Here’s a bone headed idea. Obviously the crawl would have to be different and not reveal Palpatines survival, but… and hear me out.

We open up on the Falcon in flight to get information from Boolio, that whole scene plays out. Then we move to Rey training and that whole scene plays out and the change comes when Kylo is reaching out to her in the force.

Kylo reaches out and we get all of the flashes with some added TLJ Luke in there, then it smooths out and we see an editing version of Kylo’s excursion to Exegol. This way the reveal is for later in the film, but we still get to see it right before Poe informs the Resistence.

It makes sense also for Kylo to flash images of the Emporer to Rey since he is trying his best to manipulate her to the best of his ability, doing this would set her on edge at an earlier point.

I just like the idea of opening up on the Falcon too

Not a bone headed idea at all! This same idea is something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past several days. Structurally, I think the film is poorly served by the reveal of Palpatine right at the top of the film. I agree with you that that reveal, along with his fleet of ships, should come later. My ideal would be that it comes after they find the dagger on desert party planet (forgive me, I’m totally blanking on the proper name at the moment), making the initial chase for the wayfinders and the true stakes not really hitting until after, making it all the more important to actually translate the dagger and find the wayfinder. I’m still thinking about how this would work exactly, it would likely involve new dialog for masked Kylo…but then, I’m becoming more and more convinced that the mask on/off decisions in this film are designed to do exactly what I’m suggesting, plug in the necessary dialog depending on where that scene ends up in the cut.

On the subject of Lightspeed Skipping, it’s my opinion that the spy rendevous and chase opening can be cut entirely. There is nothing that happens or is said in that scene that isn’t covered again later. The spy is mentioned multiple times after, making it unnecessary to actually see him. And the lightspeed skipping is referenced later only to instigate the conflict between Rey and Poe, and if one desired to keep it for a fanedit, the simple reference to it serves just as well without having to see it in action. One possible wrinkle is in not getting the visual cue ahead of time when the spy head is tossed on the table by Kylo. But for my money, and since that alien spy character is not even a character I have any investment in, the intention in that scene can play just as well selling the simple idea that “we kill spies here”. We didn’t have to see any Bothans to get that “many Bothans died”.

EddyMerkxs said:

Octorox said:

Hal 9000 said:

“What she has to do now will take all the rest of her strength” or whatever she says hardly clarifies much. It just says “Carrie Fischer’s character is about to go die.”

At least it clarifies that she’s making an active decision to do “something” vis a vis Ben, and that whatever it is requires the last of her power, similar to Luke’s final actions in The Last Jedi. Honestly, I’m not sure the visual storytelling here is strong enough to convey even that, as clunky as the line is.

Yeah I thought that line was also a soft explanation of the end of tlj in response to that criticism

Good point. And that’s precisely why I’d lump it in with the Holdo maneuver joke and it’s like. Those things were clearly injected as digs or responses to criticisms which have their place in OUR time. If it’s not “long ago, and far away” it takes me out of the experience and I’d sooner see it cut.

The line, to my ear, is at least as clunky as the Medic Droid’s “she’s lost the will to live” at the end of Episode 3, which HAL9k wisely replaced.

Octorox said:

Hal 9000 said:

“What she has to do now will take all the rest of her strength” or whatever she says hardly clarifies much. It just says “Carrie Fischer’s character is about to go die.”

At least it clarifies that she’s making an active decision to do “something” vis a vis Ben, and that whatever it is requires the last of her power, similar to Luke’s final actions in The Last Jedi. Honestly, I’m not sure the visual storytelling here is strong enough to convey even that, as clunky as the line is.

Good point. I think the only way to be sure would be to play with the cut and see if it’s missed. Personally, I think the sense of what’s happening is pretty clear with the visuals given in the TC. As soon as the fight between Kylo (her son) and Rey (her student), both of whom she has a connection to, is truly engaged, we get the shot of Leia dropping her headset and walking away from the command center. To my way of thinking this is the echo of what we’ve seen from Yoda and Obi Wan several times throughout the saga, a pained sense of connection to a disturbance in the force. After Leia is walked off by Connix, the next time we see her is in silhouette and calling to Ben. The fact that, as Maz says, “to reach her son now, it will take all the strength she has left” seems obvious to me in that, after she’s done just that, her hand drops and she’s clearly gone. Nobody had to explain that the effort of Luke’s projection in TLJ was precisely the thing that ended his life.

Again, your point is well taken. I am admittedly biased in that, while I resent hand-holding exposition most of the time, I am particularly irked by the fact Maz has been made into a character with all the force sensitivity and intuitive power of Yoda, not because she’s particularly important in the workings of the force, but because the movie needs her to be to speak the internal monologues of other characters. It makes her a cloying annoyance when I watch the film. I thought she and her ancient wisdom and intuitions were handled gracefully in TFA, but not so in this most recent film.

Some additional thoughts, riffing on the recut Leia death scene.

• Cut back to shot of Leia laying down while holding Han’s medal (Han’s memory is a part of her plan)

 In this shot, perhaps try to add a VO of Leia saying "remember"...perhaps even re-purposing her use of the 
 word from somewhere else in the saga?

• Then, after their final exchange of “Dad?” … “I know”, instead of Ben turning to throw his saber into the sea, cut to Ben (still in the fight) close up shot of dropping his saber and we’re back into the action of Rey grabbing the saber and stabbing him and Leia’s hand dropping as the last of her energy is spent.

 I don't know if it might help with storytelling in this beat, but one might still use the "memory" Ben 
 throwing the saber figuratively to match cut with his dropping the saber actually.

Just thinking out loud.

Aaaaannd another thing…

Question - When it comes to Force Ghosts interacting with the world around them, would it possibly make things better if there were some other sound effect to replace the dramatic boom when Luke catches the saber at the bonfire? The Force Vacuum effect so prevalent throughout the new trilogy? It wouldn’t stop him affecting a physical object, but it might diminish the sense of his own…um…solidness. It shouldn’t sound like metal smacking a hand right in front of a microphone.

Also, if one desired to further diminish or remove the idea that Force Ghosts can now change things in the real world, how about cutting Luke’s wordless raising of his X-Wing. I would sooner try and see if there’s a way to re-purpose the shot of the X-Wing underwater from TLJ and suggest that Rey gets the idea herself. It’s already WELL established, for good or for ill, that raising the X-Wing wouldn’t begin to tap her power reserves. As much as I love having Luke on screen as often as possible, just running with the given nature of Rey’s powers is still preferable to the torturing of Force Ghost powers in the service of a member-berries scene.

On the question of removing/keeping the kiss between Ben and Rey, I would rather it were cut. It would be quite simple to do I think. I’ve read here how some audiences groaned and some cheered. Here’s my thinking.

The overriding thought I have on this is my feeling that Ben and Rey ultimately come through their adventures more as brother and sister than as lovers. Throughout TROS the parallels to Luke and Leia reinforce the sibling idea. There’s an interesting resonance imagining what might have been if Palpatine had been able to get his claws into either Luke or Leia if they hadn’t been hidden from him. The goal of each throughout the new trilogy has been to turn the other, just as Luke set out to turn his father. Again, the familial rather than romantic parallel. The tension is good, the realization falls flat for me, though. And for the Reylo fans that respond positively to the kiss, I suspect they might get just as much emotional mileage from a Romeo and Juliet unrequited love version of the scene in which it seems the kiss might be possible, but then Ben dies.

re: Wilhelm scream. It may be that, as a child of the age of ILM dominance, I am just imagining things but, I think I hear a disguised Wilhelm at the beginning of the battle of Exegol, right after Poe says “Welcome to Exegol” on his roll to the right, the engines growl in an odd way that sounds Wilhem-ish to me. Similarly, I would swear there is a Wilhelm disguised in TLJ when Kylo makes his first rage filled swipe at Luke. Is it just me?

EddyMerkxs said:

Schmendrick said:

On the question of Finn not following Rey in a skimmer, I couldn’t agree more with the desire to cut it entirely. The only question that immediately jumps to mind is some way to work in the story that’s told at the conclusion of the fight scene. Rey runs to steal Kylo’s Tie, and she flies away in a single panning shot that includes Finn and then the entrance of the Falcon to pick him up. The shot could be trimmed before Finn enters frame, but it’s sole value lies in Finn watching Rey leave, so they know they don’t need to pursue her/take them with her. At the very least, I think there’s value in simply using the shot of Finn in the death star interior and hearing the sounds of the saber fight, but cutting any subsequent interference with or even observing the fight itself until he pops into frame to watch Rey fly away. Of course, one might then desire some way of him knowing it was Rey who flew away in the Tie, unless that’s chalked up to his still budding force sensitivity. Ugh…what a mess.

All the other ideas you’re throwing around sound great, but I think Finn being there has a major purpose in the movie. Finn has been almost senselessly trusting and chasing Rey for 3 movies, and being thrown back by Rey is a turning point, where he realizes it isn’t his job to help her.

Even more so, Rey throwing Finn back is a sign of how desperate she is, how much she has (unwisely) taken all the responsibility on herself, and how close she is getting to the dark side, culminating in killing Ben.

Rey’s struggle is perhaps the clearest narrative thread, it’s worth enjoying!

I like your thinking here a lot. It’s probably the case that I find myself so much annoyed by the idea that Finn and Jannah simply follow Rey in what we were told was a wreckless and near impossible feat, that I’ve been blinded to the broader character implications. I still don’t love that, whatever force sensitivity he might demonstrate, Finn is able to so easily follow Rey. But the points you make are excellent and arguably worth saving.

@HAL9000

I recently had the great pleasure of watching all your SW work in a 72-hour chronological marathon, culminating in my second screening of TROS.

1-3, HAL9k v6
3a – Coaxium Heist (great work here @DigiMod)
3b – Rogue One, HAL9k half-assed
4-6 – HARMY De-specialized
7-8 – Restructured v3 and Legendary v2, HAL9k

What a treat! I am forgiving to a fault where Star Wars is concerned (where my Ewok Adventure fans at?!), as long as the storytelling feels like “a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away”. Your work does just that. Following the themes and characters through the entire journey was so satisfying. Even enjoying Solo, for goodness sake, and appreciating an introduction to his character that resonated all the way through TLJ. The how’s and why’s we can endlessly debate, that’s precisely what the fandom should do. But the value of cutting away distracting story elements and contemporary cultural/sexual politics, simply to follow the “long ago, far away” principle, well, that re-kindles the spark of hope that even TROS might not be beyond saving. Even if I, personally, find the Palpatine storyline terribly disappointing, I’m hopeful that even the frenetic panicky mess of TROS might be tamed somewhat. Thank You, all of you here.
That said…Hoo boy…TROS

Already so many great thoughts offered here. @Stein offered some great specific thoughts about the places tone was adversely affected. His point about Maz Katana serving purely to interject explanatory dialog was a major distraction for me. And her prescient tone made me feel that I should expect the opening notes of “kiss the girl” “circle of life” or “can you feel the love tonight”.

• When Leia walks away to give the last of herself to save Ben, CUT Maz out entirely. Also the shot immediately following where Leia is being led out by Lt. Connix. When we next see Leia, she is standing alone. Connix is not necessary.

• Agree the Leia/Rose/Wexley exchange should be cut entirely. This was the one spot in the film where re-purposing Leia footage felt like a Bad Lip Reading joke. Terrible and pointless.

This brings me to an idea that’s been nagging at me. I don’t have anything like a comprehensive idea for a fanedit, but Leia’s death scene in particular serves as an anchor point. There’s already been discussion about the film lacking any kind of tension or stakes (Chewie death? Fixed . 3P0 wiped? Fixed. Zori Bliss blown up? Fixed, and Hey, Babu Frik!) JJ never dares let characters deal with consequences, or even sit with them for more than a few beats. Good thing nobody got an ouchy from Palpatine’s massive force lighting attack.
That same surface level rush diminishes Leia’s sacrifice and death. So here’s what I’ve been playing with.

—Leia uses the last of her strength to summon Ben’s memory of his father, Han. I’ve toyed with this, and I think in the hands of someone truly skilled it could work. I haven’t put too much thought into the follow-on effects of this structurally, but I really like the value it brings to Leia’s story. Interestingly, in seeing the film again, the fact that Ben’s exchange with Han is a replaying of the same in TFA, is reinforced by the fact that from the very beginning of the scene, there is no visible scarring on Ben’s face from his defeat by Rey (even though he’s got a hole in his doublet from Rey impaling him?). Ben is back at that same moment to make the opposite choice. It’s much more effective, in my mind, that Ben is pushed into that memory by Leia. So…

• Leia’s first interruption in silhouette with “Ben” remains the same.
• Cut his head turn, and instead jump to chest up medium zoom (the seas and wind are calm, he’s in another place). More of this shot might be used if some digital wizard might remove the damage to his doublet in the wider part of the zoom.
• Cut back to shot of Leia laying down while holding Han’s medal (Han’s memory is a part of her plan)
• Cut back to finish the zoom into Ben and we hear “Hey kid”. The scene plays out the same, only cutting the reference to Leia being dead. For that just cut from Ben saying “it’s too late” to Han shaking his head to say “Ben?”
• Then, after their final exchange of “Dad?” … “I know”, instead of Ben turning to throw his saber into the sea, cut to Ben (still in the fight) close up shot of dropping his saber and we’re back into the action of Rey grabbing the saber and stabbing him and Leia’s hand dropping as the last of her energy is spent.
  This end of scene for Ben, it seems to me, is no different narratively (as in, How does he ultimately get back to Exegol?) than what already exists in the TC.

On the question of Finn not following Rey in a skimmer, I couldn’t agree more with the desire to cut it entirely. The only question that immediately jumps to mind is some way to work in the story that’s told at the conclusion of the fight scene. Rey runs to steal Kylo’s Tie, and she flies away in a single panning shot that includes Finn and then the entrance of the Falcon to pick him up. The shot could be trimmed before Finn enters frame, but it’s sole value lies in Finn watching Rey leave, so they know they don’t need to pursue her/take them with her. At the very least, I think there’s value in simply using the shot of Finn in the death star interior and hearing the sounds of the saber fight, but cutting any subsequent interference with or even observing the fight itself until he pops into frame to watch Rey fly away. Of course, one might then desire some way of him knowing it was Rey who flew away in the Tie, unless that’s chalked up to his still budding force sensitivity. Ugh…what a mess.

One thing I would suggest in the leadup to the skimmer section though, would be a cut from Poe’s “What do you mean you haven’t seen her” right to the shot of the skimmer cresting the wave. The scene of them running to the ridge with binoculars and Jannah saying “She took a skimmer” is pointless. A cut to Rey is far more interesting.

Similar to cutting the Leia/Rose/Wexley scene, I think the Poe/Rose/Beaumont scene following the Death Cannon demonstration should go. If one is attempting to cut the Death Cannons, which I strongly favor, then the only exposition one might possibly miss is the news that Leia declared Poe Acting General. But I think that’s of minimal importance or might be worked in some other way. Far more effective would be a cut from Chewie keening after the loss of Leia to the scene of Leia under the sheet while Poe talks to her about not being sure if he’s ready for command. Which Lando inexplicably enters into. Chewie to dead Leia to Poe feels better to me. Maintains the tone, inserts silence to deal with Leia death instead of interjecting big boom planet destruction. Poe’s later “you made it” to Bliss can easily apply to her having made it off Kajimi period, without the planet having to be destroyed.

Another thing I’d love to see tweaked, Hux declaring himself the spy. I much prefer Pryde intuiting this and blasting him. I haven’t put a lot of thought into how this would work. If it turns out that Hux’s line has to stay, I think, at the very least, it would be better tonally if there’s a cut after Poe screams “What?”. Cut all the “I knew it” banter which makes the scene comical. But I think one could cut after the pan up to Hux’s face, right into Poe screaming “What?” and then right back to Hux “We don’t have much time”. Pretty sure that could work.

I’m still mulling over many thoughts, especially after seeing so many other great suggestions here.

I’m excited to see what this fanedit can be.

Do you mean v2 commentaries for Episodes 1 and 2?  Yep, listened to them both.  Enjoyed them.  Curious thing about the 2-channel commentary track in the m4v file.  I have m4v for Ep1 and mkv for Ep2.  With Ep1 m4v there was periodic stuttering of the video stream only when playing the commentary track (AC3 soundtrack was fine).  With Ep2 mkv, there was no video  stuttering at all with the commentary track.  Seems strange, as the 1080p mkv would certainly be more demanding overall in terms of bandwidth.  I wonder if it's just something about the m4v container format.  Or it could be something about the way OpenELEC interacts with m4v.  Anyway, the Ep1 m4v commentary track itself didn't stutter at all, so I got the whole of your commentary.  It was just the video that would occasionally look like it was trying to keep up.

re: LOE v2, You've mentioned having communicated with L8wrtr.  Is it worth reaching out to see how he overcame the issue of battle droid voice removal?  As I said, I didn't notice the issue in his AC3 track and your bridge sequence pretty closely followed his from what I could tell.

Too bad about ROTS master.  I haven't seen you talk much here about planned changes for LOE v2.  Are there bits you planned to restore which would require the master again?  I don't know about Emanswfan's source, have you mentioned it before?

Oh and one question I have in terms of LOE storytelling.  Is there any way at all to allow more time for Padme to travel from Coruscant to Mustafar?  The more I've been thinking about it, I recall having the same thought after watching the theatrical release of ROTS...that despite Mustafar being somewhere in the Outer Rim Territories, and despite the plot device in Ep2 in which Padme says the Jedi will never make it to Geonosis in time because that Outer Rim planet is so far from Coruscant, Padme's travel to Mustafar in Ep3 appears to take no time at all.  ??  I haven't watched ALL the fanedits as it seems you have, so I'm assuming this is just one of those ROTS flaws for which there is not a fanedit fix.  I'd hate to see any radical reshuffling of the scene order, as you've done such a great job putting all that together already.  Just asking the question.

Thank You so much for your work HAL.  I can't tell you how much I enjoyed these edits.

More praise later, but for now, since I imagine you're working on v2 LOE, I noticed a sound problem with my setup when playing the 720p version.  I don't have the other versions and so I can't confirm whether the issue is present in the others.

The odd sound, or lack thereof, occurs during the bridge fight on the Invisible Hand.  There are a few spots during this sequence where it sounds like the lightsaber sounds didn't make it into the correct channels, they are barely audible as Obi Wan dices the last two droids.  When viewing on my PC, the downmix to stereo made this less an issue.  But when viewing on my HTPC surround setup, the missing sounds are apparent.  I haven't seen this mentioned here, so I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this issue.  I'm using OpenELEC to play the m4v into my 5.1 setup.  The AAC track (1) plays as MULTI-IN and there is barely any surround activity at all...I can't even view the film with that track.  The AC3 track (2) sounds normal to my ear, though during the bridge fight there are those several moments when it's almost as if the sound has been turned down on several channels.  I compared the same sequence from the L8wrtr edit and the problem was not present in his AC3 mix.

I offer this not as criticism, but in an effort to help with the project.

As I said, love the edit.  Love the breathing room that you've given to the films.  I've watched back to back with L8wrtr edits and while I appreciate the storytelling there, the pacing leaves me breathless.  Your edits are my preferred.  Just watched LOE last night and I grinned at the ~28 min mark when I realized you had touched on all the essential plots and players to carry us through the film, and even cried a little at the end in appreciation of the care you've given to the characters and their future importance to the OT.

Bravo! 

@ircphoenix, I used to stream to my PS3 all the time before I built an XBMC setup.

PS3 Media Server to stream content is definitely easiest way to go.  But an MKV will always have to be transcoded on-the-fly because it's not a format recognized by the PS3.  Transcoding forces your server machine to do a lot of extra work and if that machine is underpowered it can result in dropouts, etc.

The tool that became indispensable for me was MKV2VOB:

http://www.mkv2vob.com/showthread.php?tid=1

This little program will REMUX the MKV into and VOB or MPG container without re-encoding the video and sacrificing quality.  As a result, PS3 Media Server can stream the new VOB file to the PS3 without the need for transcoding and the processing overhead it requires.

Also note that MKV2VOB will force you to pick one audio track for your remuxed file, AND if you choose to add subtitles the software will have to re-encode the entire file with hard subs (again PS3 limitation) resulting in a generational loss.

Ideally, remuxing an MKV without re-encoding takes virtually no time at all.

I hope this helps.  Enjoy Harmy's excellent work!