emanswfan

Lol, why so much bickering over the official title. I interchangeably call it “TFA”, “The Force Awakens”, “Episode VII”, or “the new Star Wars” all the time.

That said I’m sure Episode VII is part of the official title, but because Disney is at least trying to appear somewhat loyal to the theatrical OT, they decided to market it like such. This isn’t as bjg of a deal as calling “Star Wars” “A New Hope”.

TFA could definitely slow down, a little character development never hurt nobody. 7/10

But honestly, I don’t give a Sh** about the originality issue anymore, as long as 8 and 9 don’t follow suit. I’m kinda getting tired of hearing the same complaint everywhere. It’s very much warranted criticism, but I believe it’s getting overblown at this point.

I’m pretty sure they are actually heavily considering an Obi-wan spinoff film. If the rumors haven’t been true in the past, than at least more recently it seems like Disney is open to the possibility.

It would take a while to come up with all the examples I could think of, but here’s a few I can remember off the top of my head.

A friend insisting the Thrawn trilogy was truly the basis for the ST movies, couldn’t get him to shut up till the SECOND trailer for TFA.

Numerous people insisting the OT stormtroopers were still clones of Jango Fett. Ugh, that one just got me so infuriated, especially given they were all people who put the PT above the OT, so I was already arguing with wackos.

Not kidding, people insisting that the 2004 SE’s are the original theatrical versions. I show them something from the original, and they’re like “why did they get rid of Jabba, why did they cut out the wampa, where’s that funny song with screaming cockroach guy”.

In that case, I’m taking Oscar Isaac over both.

MalàStrana said:

Felicity Jones is way too beautiful compared to Daisy Ridley.

Reading this in the voice of Rick is just too good.

Mavimao said:

I pondered about how the movie would end the other night and thought it would be cool if, after stealing the plans and transferring them to Leia, Felicity Jones’ character is captured and put in the detention area in the Death Star. There are shots of her being interrogated and what not. Then she hears the muffled sounds of blaster fire, and then a voice from the other side of the walls “my name is Luke Skywalker, I’m here to rescue you…” A few more shots of time passing (the brass maybe asking her who these two men and their Wookie were) and then alarms go off. People are running around, the station starts to rumble, the lights flicker and she understands what is happening and says, “They did it…” And then… Explosion.

It’s weird that not until now, did I even think about that. There must have been so many innocent/rebel prisoners aboard the Death Star that died in the aftermath. But I guess the needs of the many, outway the few. Saving the rebel base and entire planets is a bigger deal. But, huh that’d be quite a way to end the movie.

Just having a quick test in color grading the teaser, you can make parts look like a grainy late 80’s action flick.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

What does this mean for aspect ratio? I kind of liked the idea of the non episodic films having a completely unique visual style, even down to the AR

I’m pretty sure, much like in this trailer, they are simply cropping the sides off so as to not make the image smaller when projected onto a 2.39:1 screen.

A while back there were also rumors, Disney is considering a limited 70mm film theater release. If those refurbished old-school 70mm projectors are still sitting around from The Hateful Eight release, a full 2.76:1 film print could be viable. I’d be so stoked if they did that. Seeing TH8 that way was an unforgettable experience for me.

SilverWook said:

Are they actually shooting in 70mm?

No, they are using the new Arri Alexa 65, the 6.5K digital equivalent of a 65mm film camera. This is the third film to use this camera, but first to be fully featured. IMAX is also using the Alexa 65 as a basis for their new digital IMAX camera.

http://arrirentalgroup.com/alexa65/

Ultra Panavision 70’s are confirmed to be the lenses used here, via Panavision’s website.

http://www.panavision.com/products/ultra-panavision-70-lenses
“Feature Films: Ben Hur, The Hateful Eight, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”

http://www.panavision.com/new-rogue-one-star-wars-story-trailer
“Photographed by Greig Fraser, ACS, ASC with Panavision’s new anamorphic ULTRA PANAVISION 70 optics.”

Not surprised, given I noticed the unique artifacts of the lenses in the trailer. So I guess that means that this film really is using OLDER lenses than the ones used for the original Star Wars.

Official 4K stills from the trailer. Awesome to see some shots in greater detail.

http://www.stitchkingdom.com/disney-rogue-one-a-star-wars-story-12-official-stills-in-ultra-high-resolution-85663/

Darth Lucas said:

Guys the answer is simple. Ady just needs to add Mon Mothma into ANH and ESB.

Lol. But on a serious note, maybe Ady can for ANH:R HD put in a few subtle nods to Rogue One. Just like his recent screen cap showing the ESB:R falcon matching the TFA falcon with the bunk and green lights. What would be changed/added, no one could know till the film comes out.

doubleofive said:

I wonder if the rumors about them filming with the Ultra Panavision lenses were true. This teaser is in 2.39:1, not the 2.76:1 Hateful Eight was. Will there be two different theatrical releases, one wide, one super-wide?

Screenrant has your HD screengrabs needs.

I’m betting that the Ultra Panavision shots were simply cropped down to a traditional AR. I also think I remember hearing that not all of the movie was to be shot with those lenses. I can definitely see some similar lens distortions to shots from the Hateful Eight. The easiest to spot in similarity between the two films is a certain off-color fringe in close-ups (for lack of a better term).

It’s a bit jarring to get used to the completely different style of cinematography, but it definitely evokes a “less movie, more realism” type of look.

And damn, does that Death Star look good! It almost looks like the original practical model.

This is going to be a VERY DIFFERENT movie, and I’m excited to check it out.

Guess the rumors on Monday that the trailer was coming this week were true!

Extremely long time, no clip. Here’s Padme adressing the senate in upscaled form. This is pretty close to a final version, with a few more tweaks needed. Youtube of course killed the film grain out, but I did upload and render in 4K for purposes of a higher bitrate streaming. I most likely will try to widen the dynamic range of the scene in places more still, and smoothen out some of the tones.
https://youtu.be/iZniPM1zHt0

Note: I’ve been making versions such as these that focus more on modern film and removing the dated early digital look. Separating the “old” color grade as a layer on top of the base “filmized” grade, seems to be the best way of managing the workflow. Here you see the base layer version. Also, I may further tweak the upscale to be sharper, but it can be hard to keep artifacts away.

This project will at some point develop into something, but not for quite a while. To be quite honest, I’d love to see if a new 4K bluray will be released. The examples here are highly conceptual, and not intended to be taken as any idea of what the final product would look like. I’m sure I could vouch for it to look better.

Huh, that dialogue is still better than the PT. At least they don’t seem completely blind to their lack of logic. Gosh, I always feel like punching everyone in ROTS.

Seriously though, you had Rey say “sir” so many times, I just started reading her lines in the voice of Marcie from The Peanuts.

Just saw this thread, having not seen a Hobbit 3-in-1 edit yet, I decided to watch this to finally get a taste of what such a single movie edit would be like. It’s nice especially to see you stick with a more “extended edition” type of length, as I still like Middle Earth movies long.

EDIT: Just watching 3 clips on your Vimeo while downloading, amazing job. Nice to see such attention to detail, and excited to see how the movie is without Legolas and the forced Tauriel romance.

Bingowings said:

emanswfan said:

Listening to the soundtrack last night, thanks Amazon.

Definitely better than John William’s PT scores and right up there with the originals. The score has such a freshness and familiarity at the same time

I couldn’t agree less. This for me was the weakest Star Wars score. Even the crappiest prequel moments had memorable themes. The only motifs that I recognised were from the OT.

In my defense, I had only listened to it once at that point, and did seem to assume that the lack of new identifiable themes was more because I wasn’t familiar with it yet, as it had been so long since hearing a new SW soundtrack. That said the I liked the overall style and atmosphere to it more than the PT scores still, to me it sounds fresh yet nostalgic, with hints of older music stylings.

Yes there does seem to be fewer memorable themes making it feel a bit more like a non-Williams score. But I mean come on there’s still at least 4 new memorable themes that come to my mind: Kylo Ren/First Order, Rey, Resistance March, and Jedi Steps, all of which I really enjoy.

I’m just getting around into looking for PT edits to watch, and since I lost my copies of L8wrtr’s edits and can’t seem to find them online anywhere, I thought I’d check out these in their entirety.

Just a question, what are the V4 specific changes for these edits (I realize V4 of Episodes II and III aren’t out yet), and how does the scene ordering in this one compare with L8wrtr’s Dawn of The Empire edit, since I remember him making Anakin’s fall more believable, and I see in your first post cut list you moved things around as well.

Can definitely agree on the poor sound mix, though I think some of it had to do with my theatre, at least for the first showing that had the movie quieter than my home movie theatre. Even then music, fx, voices didn’t seem as spread out as they should be and lacked any low end sub.

The second showing I saw in 3D (gosh that was too dark, seeing it in 2D again next time) with a Dolby Atmos system which was definately louder this time but surprisingly had like zero effect on my experience of the movie. The sound mix still felt crunched with little punch or depth. I had seen Mockingjay part 2 a few weeks back, and even if that movie wasn’t the greatest, it certainly had an awesome atmospheric mix, and quite effectively used the extra height and higher precision of the atmos system.

Otherwise the soundtrack itself sounded wonderful on my Bose headphones with a nice spacious detailed mix that I could pick out the individual parts to. Wish the movie sounded like this too.

DominicCobb said:

^What makes you think that? Did you read that somewhere?

I’m actually really glad that they didn’t explain how Maz has the lightsaber. No explanation would have been sufficient or necessary. Some rando EU book can do that.

There have been some people on reddit reorganizing various rumors and leaks which seem to be possible deleted material, Starwarsnewsnet had reported that there was some Cloud City flashback in the movie, which most likely was legit since they hadn’t been wrong before and even leaked Luke’s appearence.

MSW also described a different scene with Finn, Han, and Rey together seeing a longer version:
http://makingstarwars.net/2015/02/flashback-what-luke-rey-and-ren-appeared-to-be-up-to-before-star-wars-the-force-awakens/

I’ve been going pretty far, and it was surprising to find just how accurate most scene descriptions were back in January/February.

hydrospanner said:

Anyone else catch the Bespin corridor shot during Rey’s vision?

Yep, they may have repurposed part of the cut Bespin dual force induced flashback that was going to explain how Maz got a hold of the lightsaber. Hence Maz’s line “but that is a story for another time.” where it originally was going to be.