kewlfish

DZ-330 said:

Episode IX
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

The galaxy has united after the
heroic sacrifice of Luke Skywalker.
Countless systems have taken a stand
in the name of RESISTANCE.

To suffocate this growing uprising,
the tyrannical FIRST ORDER has
silenced all communication between
neighboring systems.

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren,
haunted by visions in the FORCE, seeks
to find the hidden power of his former
master on the planet Mustafar, determined
to destroy any threat to his rule…

---

I like explaining how Kylo is feeling first, then his actions and intentions. It just feels like it flows… better-ish.

Bravo my friend, this is awesome and is 71 words!

majoras_wrath said:

DZ-330 said:

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren,
haunted by visions in the FORCE, seeks
to find the hidden power of his former
master. Determine to destroy any
threat to his rule…

Sorry to be nitpicky, but the last sentence is a fragment. Here’s a quick fix:

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren,
determined to destroy any threat to
his rule and haunted by visions in
the FORCE, seeks the hidden power of
his former master…

To be even more nitpicky lol… since we’re keeping Mustafar perhaps adding that in at the end

Episode IX
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

The galaxy has united after the
heroic sacrifice of Luke Skywalker.
Countless systems have taken a stand
in the name of RESISTANCE.

To suffocate this growing uprising, the
tyrannical FIRST ORDER has silenced all
communication between neighboring systems.

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren,
determined to destroy any threat to
his rule and haunted by visions in
the FORCE, seeks a hidden power on the planet Mustafar…

DZ-330 said:

kewlfish said:

Man, you design some very well done crawls! Only thing I think I would add is Kylo’s title as Supreme Leader and to capitalize “FORCE”

Here ya go then lol

Episode IX
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

The galaxy has united after the
heroic sacrifice of Luke Skywalker.
Countless systems have taken a stand
in the name of RESISTANCE.

To suffocate this growing uprising, the
tyrannical FIRST ORDER has silenced all
communication between neighboring systems.

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren,
haunted by visions in the FORCE, seeks
to find the hidden power of his former
master. Determine to destroy any
threat to his rule…

Fantastic! I was always partial to putting Rey and Leia in the crawl but I kind of like your reasoning of not really knowing what the Resistance has been up to in the year since TLJ.

DZ-330 said:

Here’s another stab at the opening crawl:

---

Episode IX
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

The galaxy has united after the
heroic sacrifice of Luke Skywalker.
Countless systems have taken a stand
in the name of RESISTANCE.

To suffocate this growing uprising, the
tyrannical FIRST ORDER has silenced all
communication between neighboring systems.

Meanwhile, Kylo Ren, haunted by visions
in the force, seeks to find the hidden power
of his former master. Determine to destroy
any threat to his rule…

---

Let us figure out what Rey and Leia are up to in the movie itself. Use the crawl to explain what has happened since TLJ and the state of the galaxy.

Man, you design some very well done crawls! Only thing I think I would add is Kylo’s title as Supreme Leader and to capitalize “FORCE”

Chase Adams said:

JJ - Destroyer of Worlds

To get things back on track, here is a complete list of all the moments in the film when a reference is made to the Final Order having Death Star cannons:

(I think we can imply that the function of those cannons is just, big guns, not blowing up planets!)

1. Hux saying, “Shall we destroy the city?”

2. Palpatine telling Pryde to destroy a world they know. (So dumb!)

3. Scene of Kijimi’s destruction.

4. The aftermath scene with Poe, Rose and Merry.

5. Poe saying, “Every one we knock out is a world saved!”

As you can see, there is not many, so it should be pretty straightforward!

Honestly I think you could take 3 and 5 out and almost be okay. It kind of reminds me of KOTOR and how Taris was “destroyed” by a fleet of ships with really big guns.

There are so many great ideas on the thread that would contribute to many great edits that I would love to watch… do I personally like the Mustafar sequence… yeah. But I would be super interested in seeing edits where Kylo drops out of hyperspace and goes straight to Palpatine… that after-crawl pan that poppa did was pretty sweet and did feel like Star Wars.

Movies Remastered said:

DZ-330 said:

Movies Remastered said:

How do you make your crawls? Any chance you could switch “Tros” to “The Last Hope” for me?

I don’t, I just type them out and hope one of the better editors likes my writing more and uses it haha 😄

Haha haha! I’ve seen so many so there must be a setting to do them. Even iMovie has one but the letter spacing is awesome.

Has anyone thought about removing the dagger?

I’ve figured a way of doing it but it means removing a large amount of the movie, I.e. Lando intro etc.

Rey finding it in Kylos chamber when she picks it up can be the first time she sees it.

It’s just an idea as I hate that macguffin!!

I know * a lot* of people use DigModiFicaTion’s blender tutorial… I found it difficult to use but I think that’s mainly due to noob-ness with blender and there has been some changes with Blender 2.8 but look into that if you know blender.

poppasketti said:

Broom Kid said:

Is the point of an edit to make the story better, or to fill time? Why is hitting a pre-determined runtime a goal?

I don’t think the issue has anything to do with runtime. It’s more about not smashing straight to the Palpatine reveal. If nothing else, the Mustafar provides a little buildup and anticipation of the Palpatine reveal. In a weird way, Mustafar and Exegol are edited like they are one scene, building towards a climax.

kewlfish said:

A lot of people (including myself, so bias) have worked on keeping this portion of the movie in… so if we remove it all together… all that work we did goes into the trash.

“That is the burden of all editors.”

Sadly, I don’t think this should be a consideration in whether something gets used. The work is always appreciated, and fuels ideas and discussions that lead towards a final decision, but if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit. I learned a lot from my former boss. We spent an entire day getting one shot, and in the edit room he decided to cut it without hesitation. It turned out we didn’t need the shot and he was right.

Phew that must have been a punch to the gut and probably took a lot longer than anything I could ever do lol

Broom Kid said:

kewlfish said:
A lot of people (including myself, so bias) have worked on keeping this portion of the movie in… so if we remove it all together… all that work we did goes into the trash. Just so we can cut a minute out of the movie.

I get that - and I don’t want it to seem like people’s work is unimportant, but conversely, you just also essentially argued that you did a ton of work to enhance one minute of film that can be just as effectively summed up and easily removed with a line of text in the crawl. It’s why this one beat is such a 50/50 for so many people looking in here 😃

Is it in there because it looks cool? Because it looks cool and provides “breathing room?” Can it be made to look even cooler? Those are all good and valid reasons to put a lot of time and effort and remarkable, impressive work into saving that one minute, and there are a ton of great options and possibilities for that sequence, either making it a little longer, or chopping it up and putting it in other places, etc.

But I would argue that using the sunk cost fallacy to fuel editing decisions can lead to some pretty rough creative dilemmas as well.

I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree… this is Hal’s edit and his past comments have shown that he is more interested in keeping it in with the “Find me” sound and an establishing shot. If that’s what he wants, that’s what I’m going to try and help out with.

Broom Kid said:

Interesting question regarding Mustafar that I thought I’d throw out:

Is the primary utility in keeping it simply that it works as a placeholder? Everyone seems to agree it doesn’t work as a scene or a sequence on its own, and that it’s more or less fundamentally broken, and the information it imparts isn’t necessary (or even understandable without extra-film context).

What is it about the scene that is prompting people to work so hard (and that work is pretty amazing, too!) in saving it? It doesn’t serve a particularly good story purpose, and the primary reason people seem to want it saved is because if it’s gone, the movie “moves too fast.”

The question seems to be this: Do we remove confusion and unnecessary complication by streamlining the film at its open with a Mustafar-free beginning - or - do we try to add more to the sequence for the sake of its providing “breathing room” at the beginning of the movie.

The aesthetics of it, and its ability to “take up time” seem to be its only real selling points. And that’s not a disqualification, either! Star Wars often has moments that exist solely because they look cool (Lightspeed Skipping is a great example from this very movie, in fact) so if Mustafar really looks that cool, then it’s fulfilling its only real purpose, and should be left in.

we really can’t cut alot of this movie out because we don’t have deleted scenes to fill in the time.

Is the point of an edit to make the story better, or to fill time? Why is hitting a pre-determined runtime a goal? Isn’t precisely the same instinct that led to this film’s problems in the first place? it’s possible that the flow and pacing of the movie actually feels better even if the movie is a fair bit shorter than its theatrical runtime was. It’s hard to judge without trying a bunch of ideas in their filmic context and getting a real sense of how that moves from scene to scene through the movie.

Also: reminder that yesterday, Neerb pointed out that removing Mustafar actually cleans up REY’s motivations and actions later in the film

https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1346448

I mean the big thing against Mustafar being in the film is that it isn’t explained but Hal’s edit of the crawl specifically states why Kylo is at Mustafar… how is this scene still confusing, all of the questions are answered… why is Kylo here? Oh he is looking for a weapon to solidify his power, which leads him to the Wayfinder (sound bite of Palpatine now added saying “Find me”) this incident sets off the plot. A lot of people have been letting their knowledge of what the scene could have been prevent them wanting to work on salvaging the scene at all.

A lot of people (including myself, so bias) have worked on keeping this portion of the movie in… so if we remove it all together… all that work we did goes into the trash. Just so we can cut a minute out of the movie.

dgraham414 said:

If I could edit I would do the opening something like this.

The crawl will not mention Palps, something more in line with Kylo’s power yet his insecurity in himself. A feeling.

Opening shot would be tie fighters going towards kylo’s ship just out in space (probably a reverse shot from TFA) with Kylo on the bridge staring into nothingness. Next shot is Kylo consulting the mask of Vader and seeing the vision from the film with added TLJ shots of Luke on Crait as well as a shot of Vader’s castle (recolored maybe). Then use the shot from the making of where Kylo places the mask on its pedestal.

We then cut to the forest massacre and the scene plays out from there.

What I think can add breathing room is Kylo’s vision, with quick cuts to all sorts of images that Palps is trying to show Kylo. Kylo see’s these visions and goes on a hunt for Palps because he starts to suspect that there is something more out there. After much thought, I do not think the broadcast should be used at all. That aspect is only in the crawl and expanded material anyways. Change it to Kylo consulting his Grandfather for direction and following the voices to Palps on Exegol.

Nice thoughts! It would allow us to keep Mustafar and give us breathing room. The only thing that we would miss out on is the epic “first shot” of Kylo on Mustafar, but at this point I would rather have Mustafar and more breathing room I think.

smpearce1981 said:

Chase Adams said:

DZ-330 said:

If we make the message about a hidden fleet and have the fortnite broadcast it will be confirming what they just heard.

Not what I meant but, whatever… 😒

Chase Adams said:

I think some of these ideas being thrown around are better suited to Idir’s ideas thread. Much of this discussion about bringing in the message in completly newly created scenes doesn’t seem like something Hal is planning on pursuing.

The line seperating an ideas thread and someone’s actual edit has become blurred. 😐

I was thinking the same.

A wish list for ‘what might have been’ is distinctly different from creatively working with what we actually have?

As someone with ZERO technical prowess, who am I to measure what the talented folk here can actually pull off, but hearing some of the suggestions for such monumental changes does make me question what some think can be achieved with the resources available?

I love the creative flair/imagination being demonstrated…but is it realistically attainable within the community?

One thing about Hal’s edits that I have always respected is that he generally sticks with canon and the original content that the film had (the largest difference he has made was Padme living at the end of ROTS, but that’s really only technicality due to episode 6). I said it a little bit ago, we really can’t cut alot of this movie out because we don’t have deleted scenes to fill in the time. Through this process, I have much more respect for JJ… like how do you end a 9 movie saga and make everyone happy?

poppasketti said:

DominicCobb said:

Personally I’d like to see the first RO one (coming in through the clouds) with the TIEs. I like what poppa did with the Swedish forest footage but I dunno to me the shot still doesn’t quite match either the Mustafar we know or the one we see in TROS.

I agree this would be the best shot. Unfortunately, it’s also the most difficult to paint out the shuttle. I may be able to try that sometime, but I have a few things going on right now! Just in case, though, can someone send me the shot in prores (or something else sourced from the Blu-ray)?

Question: the shot through the clouds is very symmetrical and will definitely be recognizable no matter how you present it. Given that it’s not from a saga film I think it’s okay to be reused, but I wanted to check!

I have a version from Movies Remastered that is from the RO blu-ray but is in .mp4 format… yeah this is definitely a doosey to edit… I don’t have photoshop so I can’t make reference frames but that could be a way to make it look better, but very time consuming.

idir_hh said:

majoras_wrath said:

DZ-330 said:

The info is not about Palps, it’s can be about rumors of a hidden Imperial fleet. Or whatever else. Do we ever really see any messages in Star Wars except for Leia’s original one? 😉

To me that scene has always felt like it has been there to establish Hux’s role in the film.

Opening with the secret message scene is very reminding of a James Bond opening where we see him on the end of a different mission

Maybe it could be the Fortnite message? Could play it at the Resistance meeting instead of Poe saying his “Somehow” line. Everyone can be shocked at the same time.

Anyways, I really like your mockup. During the vision sequence, I would take out Kylo’s helmet fondling and instead have the TLJ shot of him from behind on the Star Destroyer, and we don’t see his face. That way the true reveal of him for this movie is still on Mustafar.

Here’s a rough test I did a while a go for that. This version of the broadcast establishes that Palpatine orchestrated the events of the past 2 films so that the Republic would be destroyed and Luke would be out of the picture, leaving the seat of power empty for Palps to take, unopposed.
https://vimeo.com/404134108

I’ve seen this before on Youtube! I’ve always thought that this was a great edit and really the only pluasible way to incorporate the Fortnite message

DZ-330 said:

Damn it you’re right. I swear this movie is impossible to work with. Unless we cut out that it WAS the message. We could assume that they heard Palpatine’s broadcast. As much as Hal said he isn’t going to put that in the movie I feel it is almost too essential to not include.

I feel you… this has been my issue too lol… Everytime you try to move a scene around, it requires another scene to function almost like it is intricately pieced together so editing out of order is difficult. It is a really nice introduction idea though, could still be used IMO

DZ-330 said:

The info is not about Palps, it’s can be about rumors of a hidden Imperial fleet. Or whatever else. Do we ever really see any messages in Star Wars except for Leia’s original one? 😉

To me that scene has always felt like it has been there to establish Hux’s role in the film.

Opening with the secret message scene is very reminding of a James Bond opening where we see him on the end of a different mission

The only thing about that though is that when Poe and crew get back that’s what sets off the mission to find the Wayfinder. Poe gathers everyone together and says “I don’t know how, but Palpatine has returned…” and we get the weird line about “dark science, cloning… secrets only the Sith knew” etc. Would you cut around these lines in this scene too?

DZ-330 said:

Here is a rough markup of my restructure idea, audio and video needs work but I don’t think this is anything that the amazing team of editors here cannot accomplish. I do think the first shot of the Falcon flying by can be cleaned up a lot (looking at you @poppasketti haha). But overall, I feel like this structure allows for a better crawl on the state of the galaxy, not as fast of pacing at the start, and allows for the Mustafar scene to stay in. I wouldn’t also mind switching up Rey’s vision to eliminate Kylo, but that allows him to communicate with the Vader mask before the Mustafar and Palpatine scenes. Let me know your thoughts on this!

Link
PW: fanedit

It’s definitely an interesting structure. I like how it does offer a possible solution to our Mustafar problems and I think eliminating Kylo from the vision sequence would work simply because Dom’s vision sequence makes use of that footage anyways. One thing that I did notice is how would Boolio give the Resistance information about Palpatine, if Kylo hasn’t meet with him yet?

Edit: Also, really love the crawl, nice work

DZ-330 said:

I think I may have found a good way to restructure the opening of the film. I am doing a mock now and will post a little later today!

I am excited to see it!

Hal 9000 said:

Wonderful, poppasketti, thanks for doing that! The shot is very shaky but it looks perfectly fine to me, so whenever you have it to your satisfaction I’ll be happy to bake it in.

Good point about Kylo having two TIEs and presumably should have lost the Wayfinder in the first. I guess if he survived he saved it along with himself. But yeah. lol

Mustafar, Mustafar, Mustafar… we’re all split on it, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see eventual edits featuring all three main approaches. Currently I’m leaning toward keeping the scene more or less as is, with an establishing shot to buffer, and adding “Find me” to allow for a hint of what is to come and not require name dropping Palpatine in the crawl.

I think I like this idea the best… I don’t know I just think it’s cool they put a Prequel planet in… even if it is massively different from it’s first appearance.

DominicCobb said:

kewlfish said:

DominicCobb said:

Hal 9000 said:

Oh my God.

I just had a terrible thought.

Palpatine in TROS is about Trump. Evil came back up from nowhere but don’t worry because “there are more of us.”

I 100% believe this, most people assumed TFA, RO, and TLJ were anti-Trump anyway, so they leaned into it here (see also “We go together” aka “Stronger together”).

That’s not surprising, I think I recall seeing something where Bob Iger really doesn’t like Trump.

I’d think it more a JJ thing. I believe Iger shut down speculation that RO was political.

Yeah I never really got any messages like that out of RO.

DominicCobb said:

Hal 9000 said:

Oh my God.

I just had a terrible thought.

Palpatine in TROS is about Trump. Evil came back up from nowhere but don’t worry because “there are more of us.”

I 100% believe this, most people assumed TFA, RO, and TLJ were anti-Trump anyway, so they leaned into it here (see also “We go together” aka “Stronger together”).

That’s not surprising, I think I recall seeing something where Bob Iger really doesn’t like Trump.

Chase Adams said:

kewlfish said:

Yeah man, I think that would look great! Looks like you’ve definitely got this under control!

Ummmm… About that, I can’t really do it myself, so I don’t really have anything under control… We had planned on having Snooker do this but she is no longer available. 😕

OOOOOOHHHH, gotcha… I could try to take a look at it… is there a resource for Star Destroyer?

Chase Adams said:

kewlfish said:

I like it, What about an establishing shot for the board scene though? Would the First Order allow citizens to go about their daily business?

The Star Destroyer will remain, it will just be hovering over the planet. 😉

Edit:

I was thinking about erasing all those unnecessary ships flying in every direction in the shot just posted above though!

Yeah man, I think that would look great! Looks like you’ve definitely got this under control!

Chase Adams said:

Neerb said:

Since the current problem with Mustafar is now looking like “too many” options rather than “not enough,” how far do we want to pursue the other currently unaddressed items on the list?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you didn’t see my post only a couple hours ago when I sent out the exact same thing.

kewlfish said:

A couple posts back I put a Coruscant planet shot with Dooku’s ship removed from Attack of the Clones up, but there weren’t any truly good shots of Coruscant that can be used, just brief planetary approaches because the ships usually engulf the entire camera frame.

Should probably show you this:

Chase Adams said:

I’ve been thinking that it might be easier to create a Coruscant shot to replace the Ewok shot in the ending montage by possibly using the removed Star Destroyer matte to add to an already existing Coruscant shot from the prequels.
Here’s a very rough mockup that I did in like two minutes:

By doing this, we can avoid having to go to the trouble of rendering new models that might not fit with the original film’s aesthetic.

I like it, What about an establishing shot for the board scene though? Would the First Order allow citizens to go about their daily business?

Neerb said:

Since the current problem with Mustafar is now looking like “too many” options rather than “not enough,” how far do we want to pursue the other currently unaddressed items on the list?

Unless I’ve missed something (very possible), these were the things that no one was really working on and that hadn’t been abandoned yet:

• Establishing shot of Coruscant from space during the conference room scene
• Extend the squeaky wheel scene (EDIT: is that what Chase just posted from LILIAN02230? That looks good to me)
• Possibly some line from 3PO when his mind is restored to hint at his prequel memories
• Replace Kylo’s TIE on Exogol when he arrives to help Rey
• More civilian fleet lines
• Star Destroyer destroyed over Coruscant for the ending montage

I saw someone somewhere suggest Kijimi as a end montage location as well, but looking through the movie footage I’m not sure there’s a single good shot of Kijimi’s skies that could easily be recognized as Kijimi.

A couple posts back I put a Coruscant planet shot with Dooku’s ship removed from Attack of the Clones up, but there weren’t any truly good shots of Coruscant that can be used, just brief planetary approaches because the ships usually engulf the entire camera frame.