nd4spd

Overall this edit proposition has me very excited as I see much of our ideas about the movie align. Outright TLJ haters be damned. Many great ideas in this thread already.

Here are some points of contention:

Hal 9000 said:
• Only because I’d already be editing the film at this point and not because this is in any way called for, try to have the first scene with Luke appear overcast as TFA was. Whatever filter used to achieve this could be gradually faded out over the course of the sequence.

Anybody else as confused as I am about this? Could somebody elaborate?

• Cut Luke’s joke about Jakku.

I like to think it’s a point of relation between them as Luke wasn’t fond of his own desert planet upbringing, but I’d be curious to see how it affects the tone without it.

• Trim Snoke’s dialogue pre-death which makes an obvious outcome painfully so.

Very weary about this! You wouldn’t believe how many people were confused by this scene. Although, now that I think about it, perhaps what confused them was the dialogue itself. Usually they’ll say “But snoke is reading his mind so how did he not see this coming!? He can clearly see it coming!”. So they’re misinterpreting the scene in that way. Perhaps without the dialogue it will be more concise after all. Then again, I like to think it’s a key part of his hubris of being able to see so much with the force but still be simply tricked.

• Remove BB8 commandeering an AT-ST, and ensuing jog toward an escape shuttle.

This is of vital importance! Might I add that BB8 with a million arms in the first juggernaut action sequence is also preposterous and should be shortened to only a couple arms, then cut straight to sticking his head into the broken panel. If possible. BB8 is silly and overpowered in TLJ in-general; needs to be scaled back.

Miscellaneous points:

Space Leia should under no circumstances be removed.

Changing Holdo’s hair colour? Really? Let’s not appease the insufferable anti-feminists.

I lean towards keeping Phasma but open to seeing how alternatives play out. Phasma as a kind of recurring ‘Boba Fett’-like arbitrary death is honestly amusing to me.

TiMartyn said:
-No awkward, prolonged milking of the sea cow.

I feel like each Star Wars film deserves a couple memes, I’d rather the odd fishing sequence be gone/trimmed. But I suppose part of that was showing Luke’s x-wing in the water, but I’m not entirely sure what the point of that is, other than to suggest he can get off the planet if he wanted, to fool the audience into thinking he had during the showdown with Kylo I guess. I digress…

-Less of making a point out of the wealthy who make money off war.

Nah, one of the best parts of the film. It’s about time a Star Wars film addressed what actually creates war; the economy.

-Less making a point out of animal cruelty.

I feel like HAL’s proposed edits serve this already. As a 100% biased vegan I implore that at-least some remain. 😉

oojason said:

link - https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a2/9e/f3/a29ef318c8bc67ff413227063e4890cf.jpg

And here’s a slightly different version of the image that isn’t literally less than 100kb:
http://i.imgur.com/Yv6tH5K.png

I recommend TinEye and Google reverse image search addons for Firefox.

Lord Haseo said:

All I want to know is where this comes from and who cropped the photo so horribly.

Source:
https://sebastiendelgrosso.myportfolio.com/

Lots of great SW stuff on there.

I recommend TinEye and Google reverse image search addons for Firefox.

I expected someone to have mentioned making Kylo Ren’s lineage into a surprise, and perhaps his face reveal as-well but that would be a lot more work. That said I’m not bothered by how it is now.

Han & Leia’s awkward conversation could do with some trimming. In-particular the “dealt with it in our own way” stuff came off very unnatural to me.

Something should be done about Maz Kanata’s scenes. A few things rubbed me the wrong way. Specifically when she’s talking to Rey after she has the flashback/forward. She goes on about the force and I felt that we have no reason to believe her authority on the subject… then Rey abruptly declares she wants nothing to do with it and flees after taking her hand, listening and crying etc. I laughed out loud in the theater.

I almost wanted the movie to end on the shot of Rey holding out the saber but you kinda need the music to swell fully so I’m not sure if that’s possible.

The RLM guys spoke about including more explanation of the backstory of the new republic and first order in the crawl. A complaint I keep hearing is the confusion of ‘how did we get here?’ The existing crawl could possibly be condensed into a single paragraph. Something like:

“Luke Skywalker has vanished. His sister, General Leia Organa of the RESISTANCE, has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Luke’s whereabouts…”

With 2 paragraphs dedicated solely to describing how the first order and the new republic came to be in a little more detail.

“In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire” almost makes it seem like it’s Luke’s fault The First Order exists at all…

Regarding the alien smuggling, I don’t mind it, as the creature design feels Star Wars-y to me. One thing that might help though is cutting out Rey running around wondering where Finn has gone. It’s a stretch to believe that they haven’t just eaten him outright like all the pirates so she should find and use the door panel a little bit sooner. Although it might have a side effect of making her seem even more capable.

What I didn’t get about the trash compactor joke is that we don’t get to see what they actually did with Phasma, and she’s appearing in the next installment so it’ll appear to be an oversight when she starts ruining their day in the next one that they didn’t follow through on killing her when they had the chance.

Rey and Kylo hold the sabers against each other for way too long at the end of their battle. I don’t know how it could be mended considering that she kinda needs to have that force insight moment? But I guess if you make it seem as if she is losing and then the fissure break up the battle?

Remove the rope tied to the TIE Fighter idea. I thought this was ridiculous. It would make more sense if there is no security measure at all because
A) It’s a rope tied to the damn thing, this is future-space-past after all
B) He disengages it from on-board the fighter anyway!
Cutting it back to them just shooting the place up a bit before speeding off would be better imo.

I felt better about the music the second time I saw it. No lightsabers should be changed imo. I don’t think removing many character moments with the new cast would improve things. I like your ideas nightstalkerpoet. If you remove the planet destruction completely then it makes even less sense that there is no order at all in the galaxy after RotJ, it wouldn’t be a threat etc.

Relevant: http://starwarswars.com/

For those looking for a version similar to OP, see the Grid View page. Unfortunately in that grid form they are ordered sequentially top-to-bottom as opposed to PT and OT side-by-side.

Not so many people consider the prequels sacred, I’d say follow your instinct and see where it leads, keeping in mind goals you made for the project overall. If you’re unsure about a decision then you could post here for people to take a look and/or give opinions?

Best wishes.