krlozdac

It’s crazy how short a life span this movie had. It’s sort of an ugly step-child of the franchise.

I for one think that it could actually become a really good movie if one was to strip down some of narrative clunk and get rid of that grating pace.

I’m speculating cause of course I haven’t seen the deleted scenes but I feel like the Han Imperial academy scene would help enormously in having the audience get fully onboard with the character before his proper adventure begins. Here’s hoping…

After rewatching the film, the phrase that kept coming to mind is the one that Lawrence Kasdan always told JJ during the making of TFA “It needs to be delightful. Not too much talk…” With that in mind, here are my ideas for cutting:

• Trim dialogue all over the place. There were instances when the dialogue reminded me of the prequels as in overexplaining both plot and character. This also goes for jokes that go on for too long. Less is more.

• Trim Corellia’s chase. I’m particularly thinking of the middle section in which Kira asks if they’re faster and Han accelerates.

• Remove Han telling Qi’ra and the guard that he plans to come back to Corellia. Let that be a reveal later on.

• Remove first Han and Chewie bonding scene when they’re looking out the balcony of the ship. This scene is way too aware of the future. Let the bond develop more naturally across the movie.

• Reshuffle scenes so you have the fireplace scene next. This way you establish the crew, their personalities and their stakes. This is when Han reveals that he’s planning to go back to Corellia for Qi’ra. We learn something new about the character!

• Cut Val and Beckett’s kiss so it’s less jarring when he doesn’t mourn her later.

• Next scene is Val with binoculars explaining the heist just before it takes place.

• Cut the whole impounded ship thing with Lando. Have them go out on the adventure already.

• Cut Qi’ra and L3’s conversation about the boys. Just have them arrive at Kessel sooner.

• Let the Darth Maul cameo happen after the resolution with Beckett, instead of before.

• Cut the overtness of Enfys talking about Rebellion and about Han maybe joining someday. Again, it’s too aware of the future.

All this with trims all over the place and I think the movie could be vastly improved.

This is the most uninteresting SW film by FAR. There was a good amount of unfunny/badly delivered lines that I felt if stripped could streamline the narrative and strenghten the characters.

The first act was very clunky. Things started happening to Han before the movie gave us a chance to care. Same with many other characters.

Han was too goofy at times. Lando felt completely off. I felt they made him somewhat unlikable and had way too much fun at his expense. Beckett was just Woody Harrelson and the twist with him at the end is the most predictable twist in the history of twists. The worst part about that is how the music played dramatically when he entered the room to reveal HE was the traitor. No shit!

As opposed to other Star Wars edits I don’t really see people cutting whole scenes out because the pace is so fast already. I think people will just end up cutting out lines and bad performance and we’ll just basically have polished versions of this movie. But beyond that, unless they release a lot of deleted scenes (which Ik they won’t) I’m not sure how this film can be aided by fan’s scissors.

As a person who really loved the movie and a lot of the themes that it tries to convey, I do think the film could be tighter and more cohesive to make it a smoother Star Wars experience.

• Trim (not cut) the Hux and Poe phone call. If it’s shorter I think it could be effective humor.

• Add deleted scene that happens right after “Where’s Rey?”. According to RJ that scene is basically Poe bringing Finn (and the audience) up to speed on what happened in 7 and the fact that Rey went to Luke’s island to fetch the last Jedi. Then BB8 shows Finn a hologram of Rey’s “we’ll see each other again” moment, which basically ignites Finn motivations. Why this crucial establishing moment was cut? I do not know.

• Cut from Rey’s “I’m not leaving without you” to her following Luke up the mountain and sensing the Jedi temple. As much as I like the Luke’s daily routine sequence, it can be a real pace killer and it just demystifies Luke a little too much. His character is a question mark at this point and that sequence just answers questions we never asked.
• Maybe trim some of Leia’s space walking. I know it’s kinda corny but I personally don’t mind it too much. She’s in Zero G so the amount of force she requires to pull her weightless body can’t be too much anyways.

• Add more SW wipes during the intercutting between planets.
  Restructuring of Canto Bight:

• As Finn and Rose jump into hyperspace follow their storyline all the way until to when they arrive at the Casino.
• MOVE UP BB8 getting slotted with coins to after “This place is awesome” Then cut to Rose describing the codebreaker they have to find and we wipe to Rey talking with Chewie in the falcon which precedes the second skype call with Kylo.
• Wipe from Kylo’s hand to champagne popping in the Casino and the whole scene plays like it does.

• Add third lesson. This scene should explain why Rey was so willing to fraternize with Kylo. She gets disappointed by Luke and looks for answers elsewhere. ie the cave and Ben.
• Add wipe at the end of Yoda’s scene.
• Maybe add deleted scene of fight between BB8 and BB9E, if anything just to make his action hero moment when he saves them with that AtSt have better context.

• Remove chrome dome line. That was just a lame one liner.
• Remove Rey’s “I like this!” when she’s shooting in the falcon. I think the cheer that preceded that line told us as much.
• Remove the shot of the family portrait in the falcon as to not mislead the audience into thinking that the film is over. That way when the broom scene comes up it feels less like padding.

I think when we see the deleted scenes we’ll be able to tell what’s feasible and what’s not. I pray to God that they don’t have timecodes like the TFA ones.

Anyway, that’s just me.

DigMod said:

krlozdac said:

• Cut “You can’t talk your way around this” " I don’t have to" in order to end the conversation in a stronger place “Some of us just decided to do something about it” Next scene we see of Jyn is her ‘doing something about it’

Well, to me she isn’t. She’s just getting her father. She still isn’t sold on the rebellion until after he is killed…by rebel bombs…yeah I’ve never understood that part.

This scene you’re referring takes place after her father’s death, not before.

jarbear said:

Wow, I will admit that Vader dialogue was a lot smoother than I thought it would be coming from another source. Impressive. Pretty dang impressive man!

I will say from the edit, granted I have not watched it yet … I would prefer the removal of Bor Gullet. Personally that whole thing was goofy and distracting.

I understand why people think it’s goofy and to a certain extent I agree. However they way I have reshuffled it in this cut it’s so hopefully the stakes are raised for the heroes who need to fetch this cargo pilot and also to see Saw Gerrera live up to his reputation as an unhinged extremist. So I think the context now helps alleviate the sillines of the content. If you’re interested in watching the whole thing, shoot me a PM and I’ll send you the link.

Cheers!

DigMod said:

The new Vader line doesn’t make sense to me. How would it be a good thing to account for your failure to the Emperor?

Well, the idea is that Krennic in his hubris knows that “I will not fail”. He has always been wanting to go up the Imperial ladder and now he’ll get an audience with the Emperor himself. By the time he’s going to meet him he thinks he will have solved all of the issues regarding Galen and such. Little did he know that Galen had a daughter who was growing out of apathy.

darth_ender said:

That line really does work well! Where did you find it? I don’t recognize it from anywhere.

It’s from the Siege of Lothal. SW Rebels S2E1, specifically “…expects you tomorrow to account for your failure”.
“The Emperor” is from earlier in this scene.

This a fanedit I ended a while ago and have been watching over to see if it was good enough, so here goes nothing.

I liked a lot of the worldbuilding in R1, however the characters where lacking, the first 20 minutes were too jumpy and the fanservice was too much. So with that in mind the movie now plays out like this:

• Prologue
• Jyn in cell
• Cassian introduction (Defector, planet killer)
• Bodi and Extremist
• Death Star & Tarkin’s intro
• Jyn’s rescue
• Cut Draven’s “We’ll just put you back were we found you” to make Jyn’s actions more of an option rather than the only way out. After Mon Mothma’s propostion we cut to…
• MOVED UP: Saw’s first scene to…
• Take off in Yavin (Now that the audience has seen the danger that both Saw and the empire represents, them leaving for the mission feels hopefully more heroic or at least more impactful)
• Repurposed establishing shot of Jedha from earlier that leads into Bor Gullet.
• Cut out “One tends to loose one’s mind” because, well, he never did.
• Dream sequence and Jedha’s arrival
• Cut K2’s “That doesn’t sound so bad to me”
• Cut Ponda and the doctor.
• Cut Jyn’s plea to Saw “Come with us” to slightly strenghten the reasoning for unnecesarry self sacrifice.
• Trimmed Saw’s cheesy removal of the tube right before his death. (Sorry Saw but the movie didn’t give us enough reason to care about you or your pointless death)
• Cut Jyn telling Cassian that he must tell the Alliance about the plans on Scarif and his response of not being able to because they’re in Imperial territory. Now the reason for Cassian not telling the Alliance is because he doesn’t believe in Jyn’s story and so now they must get Galen to corroborate her story. This way, the detour to Eadu feels a lot less pointless and the growth between Jyn and Cassian subtetly more pronounced. Furthermore this makes it so we don’t already know everything we need to for the third act to take place.
• Cut K2’s spelling out Bodi’s character moment. “You’re a rebel now!”
• Cut “You can’t talk your way around this” " I don’t have to" in order to end the conversation in a stronger place “Some of us just decided to do something about it” Next scene we see of Jyn is her ‘doing something about it’
• Replaced Vader’s pun with dialogue borrowed from SW Rebels. “The Emperor expects you tomorrow to account for your failure”. This way we feel like Krennic’s, who’s ambition has always been to be in the Emeperor’s good graces, is moving up the ladder and accomplishing something as a character and also makes the Vader scene less pointless. Of course Krennic never gets to meet the Emeperor cuz he dies in Scarif.
• Trimmed Baze’s “Good luck, little sister” to just “Good luck”
• Cut R2 and 3PO’s cameo.

I believe that is all. THE EDIT IS ALL DONE AND READY IN A GOOGLE DRIVE. If anyone’s interested shoot me a PM and I’ll send you the link.

Enjoy!

EDIT:

Here are some sample clips in order for people to get the idea of how I’m restructuring the first act and how it flows:

https://vimeo.com/252106638

https://vimeo.com/252106781

https://vimeo.com/252106937

Here’s the replaced Vader line which makes Krennic a more active antagonist.

https://vimeo.com/252107104

Password for all: fanedit.org

I honestly feel like the first recording gels much better, but that’s just me.

That voice seemed perfect to me. I feel that the little bit of lip synch problem is not big enough that someone who doesn’t know it was redub would notice.

But that’s it, barring any potential work on Kylo Ren’s hood. 😃

Hello there.

I have taken a stab at cloakless Kylo. If you look very closely you might see the shakiness of the matte but I think it works well enough.

Let me know if you need it in any other format.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PcXpochR_Q6mz8Xtu7WtnuJacc9iYIdq/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hyki8-ka8cZ-G3Ws5Qedh7vHKU_0zKHE/view?usp=sharing

I have watched this edit and gotta say it was pretty awesome.

First things first, you have empowered Anakin as a respected active protagonist that does stuff out of his own accord rather than just be manipulated like a simpleton. This feels more like TCW Anakin, and more in line with canon. A couple of throwaway lines put in to make the thing feel more natural didn’t work for me. For example, “Never an elevator when you need one”, “I was about to say that”, “No loose wire jokes”, etc. It’s not that they are bad lines but in a lot of cases they’re not as loud as the rest of the dialogue so it feels tacked on.

I liked the sequence of events, all the scenes felt purposeful and moved the story forward. I particularly liked how you placed back the scene in which Anakin tells Padme about his dreams but much later in the film.

I thought the scene when he is anointed as Darth is probably the best edited version of that scene that I’ve seen cause he seems remorseful towards the end. Makes him more sympathetic.

The ending was nicely edited and it was very impactful the way it ended, especially since the credits music felt very emotional and tragic. However I personally still prefer the original ending just because is one of my favorite endings in the saga, including Yoda vs. Sidius.

The color correction threw me off at the beginning and felt like there were many crushed blacks, but after a while I got used to it.

Very well done edit, it’s just a couple of tweaks away from perfection.