Siliconmaster482

poppasketti said:

Unlike other lightsaber battles (such as Luke vs. Vader), there’s no opportunity to reveal character here. I’m not invested in the guards, so there’s not a lot of tension; it’s just more of a release for Rey and Kylo-Ren.

Absolutely. It’s honestly one of the best set-up lightsaber battles in the entire saga, and you genuinely care for the people involved by the time it starts. I admit I wish the choreography were a little tighter (that one CGI’d out knife in particular) but in terms of flow and understated meaning, it’s great. What matters is that they’re fighting side by side, not so much the content of the fight itself.

4D V2 absolutely hits the right feel with the twitch, nice work! I’m fine with the change in 4D V3 as well- it’s good that we end on Kylo’s eyes. An emphasis on what the voice means to him, rather than the radio and transmission itself.

poppasketti said:

I’ll listen to it again and make refinements there! I definitely intended the twitch to coincide with a burst of static/voice, but maybe as I was tweaking it I made it too subtle!

Hm, you do definitely have something there already- I guess to me it needs to mean more to elicit that big a twitch. Adam Driver is reacting to the shock of his only lifeline to the Light Side/Redemption closing (at least for now). Obviously without giving away the full Palpatine reveal we can’t replace it with anything too dramatic, but perhaps there’s a way to draw out that twitch reaction in a way that feels natural. Again, maybe voice would be more effective, even if we might not fully understand it.

And I can hear those Sith whispers near the end now that you mention it, definitely make those a little bit louder.

poppasketti said:

That’s interesting. There’s a few shots that can be used in different ways. I always liked cutting from the door closing to the Kylo eyes closeup, and felt that the twitching shot (in this new context) felt like he was being disturbed/confused, unsure if he was hearing voices in the radio. He could be questioning his sanity. I also added some low level Sith whispers (good things come in threes!) to reinforce the idea that there’s more going on than the radio. I’m wondering if I should even make them a bit more prominent in the mix.

I could buy the shift from the door moment to calculating rather than hurt (it’s hard for me not to read that emotion in his eyes in that shot), but you would definitely need to provide a little extra oomph right as he twitches later. Either a word from Palpatine, or a burst of static, something to elicit a specific reaction like the boom of the door did originally. It’s a pity we don’t have clean audio of Palpatine saying “Kylo”, do we? That might do the trick.

My only sticking point is losing the emotional twitch from Kylo as the door closes. To me it feels like he’s reacting to something much more immediate (and tragic) than the radio broadcast, and now it feels out of place having it later. I know it’s a pain to find shots to use in the right order, but that definitely stood out to me.

Links haven’t changed, but I’ll send you a PM! Also, I’m not sure if I’ve sent links to killbotvii or silkycuts yet, so I’ll do that too!

Yeah, I guess I saw that moment as her being totally drained of her power and dying, but perhaps not fully dead yet. To me it was a heal, rather than a full resurrection.

Proud to be part of the effort. Heck, this is the Project for which we’ve all been preparing ourselves for years without realizing it. Years of armchair debates and fan editing projects, culminating in a Grand Attempt to fix this movie haha.

poppasketti said:

Here’s another update, same link:
https://vimeo.com/382154087
PW: fanedit

Damn that’s cool. Though There’s a frame or two of him starting to look down at about 1:00 right before the last shot of the radio.

I like that change as well, if it can work. Anything to delay the reveal.

yic17 said:

So I guess there are two ways to go about it, remove kiss to get a natural flow or add some breathing room, pauses on some frames so the death doesn’t feel like it came out of nowhere. It will be best if there’s already extended version of this scene on Blu-ray extras.

Right, I’d prefer the natural death and no kiss at all.

yic17 said:

The other scene is the kiss scene. I dig the kiss itself, but I hate how Ben died immediately after. The crowd at the theater cheered when they kissed. But a lot of people laughed when Ben died. It was just too soon and too fast. I don’t know if that’s JJ’s intention. But I wish his death would be more dramatic. And I later learned it’s not just my theater, someone else had the exact experience where the audience cheered at the kiss and then laughed when he died. I think slowing down both scenes giving them more breathing room will help a lot.

It was the opposite in ours: There were audible groans at the kiss. And other friends have told me their theaters actually boo’d haha. That pieced-together version of that scene on YouTube actually feels much better to me, with them almost looking like they might kiss, and then him dying instead. The tension is still there, you don’t need a big goofy romantic moment.

Reading your initial post was a breath of fresh air haha. I definitely agree with all those points, but I really really hate Rey being a Palpatine. Luke’s sacrifice would pay off with the fleet changes, if possible. But Rey being a Palpatine obliterates the entire theme in TLJ that anyone can be special, it doesn’t matter who you’re related to or where you come from. So much of the movie relies on this plot point though that I’m unsure how such a thing would be done.

It’s unfortunate that as you just said, the movie really needs more breathing room, in particularly when landing setup/payoff combos like the droid line. Same thing with Chewie, there’s barely any time to accept or process the setup and then POOF the payoff shows up almost immediately.

Looks amazing, thanks Adywan! I too was curious whether the battle droid would be in there haha. The sunset shots look absolutely gorgeous, and I love the double sun!

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!

mdcq said:

Hi, this looks really interesting! Love seeing different versions of ROTS. Could I please have a link to see it? Thanks!

PM sent!

Nikola said:

Hey Siliconmaster, could I get a link to your film please?
I’m really interested in seeing it before Jedi Fallen Order 😉

Sent a PM your way 😃

Agreed, nice work! And yeah, it was just flipped from AotC, I don’t think I did any color correction to it since it matched the time of day for my purpose.

Solar said:

Hey I’m interested in checking this out, could I get a link please?

Edit: New account, realized I could pm as well, sorry if cluttering comments. Not sure how to delete.

No worries, PM sent!

StarkillerAG said:

DarthOmeir said:

Where can I actually watch the film? I can’t find a link

PM the editor and he’ll give you the link.

DarthOmeir, sent you a PM!

Thanks Starkiller!

Hal 9000 said:

I like the cut from “Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?” to “Not yet.” It ties into Windu being made to appear to Anakin as truly about to execute him in the next scene, rather than arresting him.

It’s a nice line, and has plenty of meme magic behind it, but this edit is from an alternate universe, after all. Midichlorian jokes you see in things don’t compute with my edits either, y’know.

I love that edit, and borrowed it for my own. Sometimes I miss the original “I am the Senate!” line, but for the same reasons Hal mentioned, skipping the line works great in this context. Windu should be super arrogant and sure of himself, rather than hiding behind the law. Hal, you mentioned in your commentary that the non-existant ideal version of the movie would have Windu charge off to Palpatine by himself to cement this side of his character. Since we can’t do that, making him a quippy douchebag is close enough.

RogueLeader said:

I actually think it’d be interesting if after IX came out, a group of editors did a little podcast and discussed ideas for edits in the context of all nine films.

I would listen to that.

Sent a pm over to you too!

Sure, sent you a pm!

Hm, that’s the first I’ve heard about artifacts in the lower-bitrate files, but I also encoded those last, admittedly as an afterthought for those who wanted smaller versions. I did most of my H264 vs MPEG-2 tests on the 30 GB file, which would explain why that one looks the best. Apologies to anyone who downloaded the smaller files and thought my video quality was crap, whoops. I’ll be hosting VaderLovesU’s considerably higher-quality file alongside my own for those who are able to watch H.265 files on their AV systems - mine can’t, so I’d never seriously considered it before.

I’ve also updated the folder names on google drive, so they now reference the format and relative quality.

I’m glad you liked the edit! And it’s fun to hear that you watched it with your kids! My goal was to make a version of the movie that I would be happy to watch with friends or on my own, and it sounds like that has translated well to others’ enjoyment 😃