bbghost

Just want to pause and give some enormous kudos to Hal and everyone who’s working to make this shared vision come together. From small things like the re-editing of scenes for better pacing, to the lightsaber changes, the change in color palette, the pairing back of some of the most egregious dialogue. This is shaping up to look like one of my favourite fan edit projects ever? Thank you, everyone.

idir_hh said:

I say axe Lando’s scene on passana completely, it’s contrived and brakes the pace. If we save his introduction to the scene where Poe is talking to Leia’s body it would be more impactful.
Here’s what cutting the scene would look like.
https://vimeo.com/416400559

A nice idea but you lose all of the exposition about Ochii, Luke, the ship, why they’re going out into the Forbidden Valley in the first place.

FWIW ziggyonce, the re-sequence is interesting and does do a lot for the pacing but looks like it would need a fair bit of finessing to get feeling smooth.

Also it does seem kinda awkward dramatically when they follow him without explanation. Could move his later line so he says “Leia sent me a transmission, follow me!” (this line is already kind of awkwardly placed where it is in the movie, anyway.)

Though good, I wasn’t completely sold on the existing ‘Siege of Mandalore’ movie cuts I could find out there. Most had long transitions between episodes, a lot of cuts to black with stretches of music that broke the flow of the edit. So I decided to make one for my own enjoyment!

This cut breaks the action into two parts: Part I: The Siege of Mandalore (eps 9 & 10) and Part II: Shattered (eps 11 & 12). There are title cards at the beginning and at the half way point to allow for the nice musical cue at the start of episode 11, the rest has been trimmed and faded to make it relatively seamless.

Thought I’d put it up should others want to have a look. Enjoy!

PM me for download link

Preview of title cards and transitions: https://vimeo.com/456068147

Icecream2448 said:

Speaking of the ending, the music transition into “Directed by JJ Abrams” still feels weird. I know it’s been discussed a lot, so sorry if it’s already been decided upon and everything. It’s, like, abrupt and there is no flow or the usual “jolt” feeling you get when the credits roll. It just feels jarring and jump cut in the audio. I’m sure it’s incredibly difficult to get a proper timing with what appears to be two seperate audio tracks, but it’s just not feeling right.

Could it just be because of how we’re hearing the music as the Falcon is slowly entering hyperspace? Is the timing just all out of whack for my liking?

Unfortunately there was only really so much I could do with that cue and how it goes into the credits music. I agree it would be good to get a couple more beats of that last night to really string it out before the credits hit but yeah, there’s only so much to work with. I’ll see if I can tweak it a bit more but what we’ve got at the moment is probably the best it’ll get. Do you mean the audio transition specifically, or just the timing of it?

I’m sorry to keep banging on this drum Hal, but the Duel of the Fates cue during the Death Star II fight still feels very tacked on and out of place to me. It doesn’t really seem to add anything to the scene, in fact the sedate nature of the cue kind of detracts from the tension overall, and from the following music that’s in the theatrical version.

Just like in ESB during Vader and Luke’s fight, much of which had score that went unused, it makes the appearance of the music when Kylo emerges from the waves all the more impactful and ratchets up the tension in the fight. A possible compromise could be to fade out the music after the crescendo where Rey does her backflip, so that the Final Saber Duel cue can have its entrance, but even then that crescendo in the DotF cue doesn’t match that moment particularly well.

I’m not sure what other people’s thoughts on this are but I’d be keen to hear them, apologies if I have missed a bunch of discussion on the topic already.

Hal 9000 said:

Cinefy said:

New work print has an extra DOTF after Rey jumps, it seems very out of place in-terms of timing.
Also camera movement feels very missing from Naboo shot,

Anyone else think so about the DOTF moment? I thought it was a good way to just gently bridge to the existing score. It could be knocked off, though, if I’m the odd one out.

And I suppose the Naboo shot could be a little more dynamic. Skenera, do you think you could add a little more camera movement? if not, I could just with keyframes.

I think the addition of DOTF while done OK, doesn’t really add anything to the scene. There’s been some great placements of prequel music throughout this edit so far, but to me this scene is great with just the crashing waves and humming of lightsabers until ‘The Final Duel’ kicks in, making that cue much more impactful.

natm said:

JakeRyan17 said:

I don’t know if you need to recontextualise the line, Finn and Rey don’t immediately talk about Lightspped Skipping until Chewie interrupts. Here is how I handled the scene:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18LVMvwl9EO8oOqnI3dAP_Q8qlvD8g8S3/view?usp=sharing

I like this mockup, this works really well, the only change I’d make would be that when you cut from Finn and rey being interrupted by chewie to them and poe talking, it would be a little less jarring if in that next scene you show rey saying what happened instead of just audio of it and then the rest of that scene

This is great! That J cut does a huge amount for the scene, avoids lightspeed skipping dialogue and still keeps more of the trio’s banter intact.

Hal 9000 said:

Seems like they’re skimming for a landing spot.

I’d prefer not to add the palace. It probably would have made me gently roll my eyes in the theater.

+1,000

Not to speak for Hal but this feels like a continuation and conclusion of his own ST edits in and of themselves, not necessarily the theatrical versions. Which I think everyone is doing a fairly good job of respecting thus far.

I don’t think there needs to be explicit lines of dialogue spliced in to every scene to try and brute force a throughline from TLJ to TRoS. The work that’s been done with separating out and expanding Rey and Kylo’s respective force visions early in the film does a lot to establish and clarify where they’re at already.

dgraham414 said:

bbghost said:

dgraham414 said:

Sorry for the quick small posts but should the shot change from Coruscant to Naboo right on the swell of the music? I don’t know if that type of editing works for a film, my only experience is Music Videos

JEDIT: Or a beat after where it comes in would work too

The purpose of the shot’s inclusion in the first place was to not have to mangle the music edit due to moving the Endor shot earlier in the film, I’m not sure there’s a way to make that work smoothly.

You wouldn’t adjust the audio at all, just shortening or lengthening different shots, leaving the audio alone.

Right I see what you mean. It’s not uncommon to edit “off-beat” for sequences like this, but could probably be easily done if Hal stretches that shot out a bit like he’s suggesting. It’s not a biggy to me though ¯_(ツ)_/¯

dgraham414 said:

Sorry for the quick small posts but should the shot change from Coruscant to Naboo right on the swell of the music? I don’t know if that type of editing works for a film, my only experience is Music Videos

JEDIT: Or a beat after where it comes in would work too

The purpose of the shot’s inclusion in the first place was to not have to mangle the music edit due to moving the Endor shot earlier in the film, I’m not sure there’s a way to make that work smoothly.

bbghost said:

Have made an extended version of the musical cue for the “Rey Skywalker” moment at the end.

I took some strings and flutes from a cue in The Last Jedi and transposed them to A# which play underneath the horns until the rest of the orchestra comes in, as well as copying that starting note and transposing it down a fifth so you get the nice complete statement of the Force Theme (even though it’s in a different key than usual to make it fit with Rey’s theme, which thematically I actually quite like here.)

I’ve also subtly doubled the orchestra for the very last statement of Rey’s theme before it hits credits. The cue as written in the TFA suite is fairly subdued in terms of arrangement for what’s supposed to be a big, cathartic “end of a 9 film saga” shot. It should just sound like the rest of the orchestra naturally swells in, but let me know if it needs massaging, or you want a version without that.

Hopefully it’s useful, I welcome any feedback!

WAV file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18SkGnBrXJjWsw7GZSl2iHePbhmhRY6o0/view?usp=sharing

Video for the timing ref I used: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BMGJAc7HaYFkTObWcv-9W_qeQpTe-CYD/view?usp=sharing

I’ve updated the WAV file with a third version, massaging that first note a bit more by adding some artificial reverb which slowly comes out as the rest of the orchestra comes in. Shouldn’t be noticeable other than smoothing over that introduction.

Cinefy said:

I’ve isolated Ian Mcdirmids Palpatine dialogue

V2 Test:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPdX9HVX-go&feature=youtu.be

I’ve made it so as Kylo enters, Hux and Pryde abruptly look in his direction, dialogue is isolated can send the message without music and hologram sounds through if needed.

This is cool! If you could send the audio w/o music I’d like to have a go at making a version of the Resistance briefing with this as Hal’s suggested.

This is the best quality I can find of the actual Palpatine broadcast file. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaqWN3Orb9Q

If I can find the audio of the actual cue that’s playing underneath it I can probably isolate it out fairly well without messing with Palpy’s voice too much.

bbghost said:

Have made an extended version of the musical cue for the “Rey Skywalker” moment at the end.

I took some strings and flutes from a cue in The Last Jedi and transposed them to A# which play underneath the horns until the rest of the orchestra comes in, as well as copying that starting note and transposing it down a fifth so you get the nice complete statement of the Force Theme (even though it’s in a different key than usual to make it fit with Rey’s theme, which thematically I actually quite like here.)

I’ve also subtly doubled the orchestra for the very last statement of Rey’s theme before it hits credits. The cue as written in the TFA suite is fairly subdued in terms of arrangement for what’s supposed to be a big, cathartic “end of a 9 film saga” shot. It should just sound like the rest of the orchestra naturally swells in, but let me know if it needs massaging, or you want a version without that.

Hopefully it’s useful, I welcome any feedback!

WAV file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dCRogxEmTTCJ4NgKIQPWJloxStMNKedY/view?usp=sharing

Video for the timing ref I used: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BMGJAc7HaYFkTObWcv-9W_qeQpTe-CYD/view?usp=sharing

I’ve updated this with a version that’s cleaned up the first note a bit and doubles the orchestra for the final statement. Sorry for the barrage of posts! Just excited, I really love the idea of using the Rey/Force cue at the end here, kudos to whoever’s it was!

Have made an extended version of the musical cue for the “Rey Skywalker” moment at the end.

I took some strings and flutes from a cue in The Last Jedi and transposed them to A# which play underneath the horns until the rest of the orchestra comes in, as well as copying that starting note and transposing it down a fifth so you get the nice complete statement of the Force Theme (even though it’s in a different key than usual to make it fit with Rey’s theme, which thematically I actually quite like here.)

I’ve also subtly doubled the orchestra for the very last statement of Rey’s theme before it hits credits. The cue as written in the TFA suite is fairly subdued in terms of arrangement for what’s supposed to be a big, cathartic “end of a 9 film saga” shot. It should just sound like the rest of the orchestra naturally swells in, but let me know if it needs massaging, or you want a version without that.

Hopefully it’s useful, I welcome any feedback!

WAV file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18SkGnBrXJjWsw7GZSl2iHePbhmhRY6o0/view?usp=sharing

Video for the timing ref I used: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BMGJAc7HaYFkTObWcv-9W_qeQpTe-CYD/view?usp=sharing

Hal 9000 said:

I’ve been thinking about the way the music comes in at the very end of the movie, leading into the credits. I can’t fade it in very elegantly because it comes right on the heel of a loud final note of the Resistance theme.

Anyone have or can contrive a light note that can be brought in first and give way to the existing music? The Force theme sometimes has one more note than what is currently there to lead into it.

Just on this, I agree about sounding a bit unnatural fading in, but it could be possible to play around with looping that initial horn a bay and have a bit longer fade in. I’ll have a go at it some time this week!

Some amazing work being done here, everyone! Just thought I’d weigh in on a couple things:

• I’m super in favour of Option B for the lightspeed-skipping scene. Popasketti’s new shot looks great, removes the problem of TIEs tracking instantly through hyperspace, while still having the later dialogue reference it in an oblique way works. The point of the scene is that Poe and Rey are at odds, it doesn’t matter what “lightspeed-skipping” is or how it works and we don’t need to know.

• It would be really cool to be able to work Palpatine’s message into the film somewhere, somehow. Such a missed opportunity.

As for Palpatine’s message, this is a pretty decent version that has the vocals isolated from the background music. With a bit more audio treatment and it could fit into the briefing scene with Poe pretty well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmu08wCZJr0

This look like an amazing edit Poppasketti, I’d be super keen to watch it before TROS if I have time! PM me?

Amazing work on this! Never did understand the swamp green grade they gave the extended edition, not sure the filmmakers addressed why, either. Any chance I could get a Blutopia invite please?