Can I just say, I think your cut is fantastic. I’ve compared it to the HAL9000 Legendary edition V2, and overall your edition is more aligned with how I feel the movie should have been cut.
However, the one thing I liked more about the HAL cut is keeping the Mary Poppins scene. I didn’t think it was possible, and I know you don’t agree, but that scene is absolutely necessary to keeping Leia alive, and its my opinion that removing this scene from the film actually makes it worse off. Despite how poorly the original scene portrayed this, I get why they did, and outright cutting it is a huge mistake. Withough Mary Poppins, Leia living is even less believable than when Darth Maul somehow survived being cut in half, falling down an endless void, and getting robot chicken legs. With Maul, at least we have some context, having seen his experience with the force and his immense combat prowess.
Here’s a quote from you: “Rose says she saved Finn by colliding with him at full speed in a move that should have killed them both.” Using logic, it really removed you from the film, so you changed it.
So, consider this: The entire bridge blew up, “a move which should have killed” leia, many more times over than a collision. Yet you kept her alive. This creates a huge continuity issue: Without the force, how could she have survived the violent explosion AND burning from said explosion AND no oxygen in space AND freezing in space AND radiation exposure in space AND presumably prolonged exposure to all these factors due to BEING IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT when nobody can go save her? AND is later up and walking around no problem without a robotic Vader suit or robot legs? Either someone saved her despite these totally unbelievable conditions, or she pulled a mary poppins off-screen, in which case we might as well see Leia zipping around through space.
I really believe Mary Poppins works. Please let me attempt to persuade you. Here is a breakdown of cut options and how they play out:
Mary Poppins cut
- Original cut: Leia uses the force and lives. This cut has a context issue: there’s no setup of Leia using the force outside of sensing family members. Its just as bad as when Rey goes from amateur to Jedi Master in TFA. Debatably believable as is, but just so awkward. Not much work to restore to the movie.
- New cut (solution 1): Leia uses the force and lives. Recontextualize the original cut so Mary Poppins is not ridiculous. Absolutely believable, and not much work to add these effects to the movie. I expand on this below, easily the best solution.
No Mary Poppins cut
- Your cut: Leia doesnt use the force and lives. Your cut removes this awkward no-context mary poppins scene, which is fantastic. Until we see Leia again. Absolutely unbelievable, as unbelievable as causing a full speed car crash to save the other driver’s life.
- New cut (solution 2): Leia doesn’t use the force and dies. This is your cut, if you move forward logically and finish the work to keep continuity by removing Leia from the rest of the movie. Leia closes her eyes, resigning herself to her doom. No unbelievable Mary Poppins, no unbelievable off-screen rescue mission. Potentially believable, but alot of work and still so awkward.
Bad edits: My issue with Mary Poppins isn’t the flying, its how it was implemented; the choice of camera angles and lack of context really just make it look terrible. I think this entire scene could have been fixed in the original cut if even a single shot was taken with Leia’s back or side to the camera, moving toward the ship. Also adding a close-up of the door before leia starts flying, and maybe inserting a sound of bending metal, a few small editing details would have shown the audience that she has grasped hold of something and is pulling herself with the force rather than flying.
Using the Force: It looks pretty jarring for sure; obviously, being able to sense family members seems like a big jump from mary poppins since this is her first blatant use of the force in any of the films. That said, we are shown in FOUR movies that leia is force sensitive before this scene occurs, and there’s also like 30 years between ROTJ and TLJ, so its definitely believable that she got some force training by her force training brother who ran his own force training school and used said force training to dampen the explosion and pull herself to safety. As well, with what we know of force push/pull and of astrophysics, literally the slightest use of force pull in space would let her easily pull herself to safety. Even a padawan kid could probably do the same thing. Like I mentioned before, there’s just no previous context. Have her force pull a pen or something so we know she can do this kind of thing.
Fixing mary poppins: Obviously, I really really believe that your cut should keep the scene. But not just keep the scene. Attempt to fix it. The following small additions would completely change the context of her survival and space flight, and would make the entire scene (and thus her presence in the rest of the movie) believable.
Cut to the door with sound effects: The biggest problem is we never see the ship until she is already in it, so to be shown the spot she has grasped onto would be a huge help. As leia opens her eyes, cut away and show a closeup of the door. Add the slowly increasing sound of bending metal and cut between the door and her face/hand X times. There are plenty of scenes throughout the star wars films with this sound; I know first hand every prequel film has them.
“The Force is strong in my family:” If possible, insert these lines from ROTJ. Not only does it close the gap between the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy, but gives context that in time, leia learned to use the force like Luke has.
- As her eyes close on the bridge, have the line from Return of the Jedi faintly play “You have a power I don’t understand” explosion occurs,
- “and could never have.” Leia is floating in space.
- “You’re wrong leia.” Leia opens her eyes.
- “You have that power too.” Shot of leia’s hand.
- “In time, you’ll learn to use it as I have.” She begins moving toward the ship.
- “The force is strong in my family.” She reaches the door.
I only suggest this option because I saw how you handled Finn’s Sacrifice. I even watched the process of how you edited the scene (also enlargening BB-8 as rose and finn escape the hangar), so if anyone could recreate space poppins to make it believable, its your team. Out of every terrible scene in the theatrical edition, the Finn scene was easily the worst. How could you take away Finn’s martyrdom? Its the single most important thing to me in the new saga so far: a lone ex-storm trooper sacrificing himself against the might of the empire in attempt to save the rebellion, even though he was obviously doomed to fail. Thats some heavy shit. And to be stopped because of a crush? Best scene ruined. Now, because of your edits, the scene is perfect, and the mary poppins issue is the only thing that is keeping your cut from being completely flawless.
I seriously applaud the work of yours and Hal9000’s team, and even without mary poppins, your TLJ:R is my go-to for this movie now.
