Better that way, I don’t like soggy cereal (and certainly not chewy).

Intriguing. Hmm…

Hal 9000 said:

Lol, nice. Nobody has found my Easter egg in Ep3, either.

Congrats on finishing (maybe?) a wonderful edit. And for lending a great deal to me in the process.

Thanks, Hal, as always, for everything! Is Chase right about your Easter egg?! Or is he just quoting Jedi. Hehe, I’m tired!

RogueLeader said:

desperately goes frame by frame looking for the tweak.

Haha! It literally is just an adjustment to the position of a motion tracked radio line during a blurry swish pan!

And thank you!

V3 UPDATE

Hello, thanks to the sharp eyes of NeverarGreat, the flash-frame is fixed and the full complement of V3 versions (blu-ray, 10gb, 4gb, and 2gb) are now posted. They are all dated in the filename, “032220”. I even managed to sneak in an extremely minor FX tweak (don’t bother looking for it, it’s not something anyone else would notice, even with sharp eyes, and the payoff is extremely small; it’s just peace of mind for me).

Thanks again for everyone’s help and contributions to this edit!

smpearce1981 said:

Man, I LOVE this idea of really turning the knife in this moment!

Stu, thanks for your comments, and for fixing my metaphor! You twist (or turn) the knife. You tighten the knot.

Hal 9000 said:

Maybe a Snoke or Palpatine laugh right after Snoke is cut in half could’ve worked. My only concern about that is it feels out of place in that film, and in the scenes that follow.

Yeah I think that would be too distracting from the moment.

4gb version is up!

Looking back through the thread to December (which seems like forever ago), I apparently always wanted to add a substantial tease of Palpatine after the battle of Crait or during the end credits.

For the end credits, I think I felt the idea of using the Palpatine laugh at the very end would have been cool similar to the way Vader’s breathing appears at the end of TPM.

Originally there was talk of using the fortnite broadcast in its fuller form, but it didn’t quite work in the “contact scene” as constructed (although a tiny bit is used in the muffled static).

I was also really drawn to another idea: so much is made in the film of the resistance sending out a radio signal for help, hoping for a response which tragically never comes. What would really twist the knot would be if they did get a response, and it was Palpatine’s broadcast. It would be an extreme low point for our heroes, but there was no practical way to pull it off.

I think when I heard Hal and others were considering using the broadcast for the star destroyers rising out of the ground in TROS, I realized we didn’t need it in TLJ after all as that was such a better placement for it.

I wouldn’t say there were any ideas that were totally abandoned. Many things that were in the final evolved quite a bit as we moved through the edit.

The Palpatine contact originally was wedged in between Rey and Kylo’s final staredown. It was kind of a moment to connect all three of them, but it was also really confusing. DZ-330 who took what I did and mocked-up the more logical flow that was the path to where we ultimately landed. We also at one point had “It is your destiny” in there, but decided less is more.

At one point, there were a lot more static-y noises added to the earlier force-Skype calls to tease the final contact. It was too much, though, and became distracting, so we dialed it way down.

The first attempt at the Palpatine silhouette appearing in the cave had the two shadows of Rey’s parent merging into the silhouette of Palpatine as they walk towards the camera (using a shot from ROTJ where he walks towards Luke).

The 34gb blu-ray version is up!

That’s really great! It’s also one of those things that makes me wonder how they didn’t do that in the first place. Purple saber, rare in Star Wars, looks awesome, and the idea of Carrie Fisher herself? It’s a slam dunk.

The 10gb version is up! The new filename is dated “032220”.

(I’m going to post these little incremental updates as they go up. 34gb version encoding now, will be ready in the morning)

Thanks, everyone! 10gb version will be posted tonight, 34gb blu-ray in the morning.

ChainsawAsh said:

Yeah, same here! Sorry if my post came off as complaining, that wasn’t the intention at all.

Not at all! Download caps are one the reasons I cringe at these mistakes, but I’m glad at least you held off in time, Ash!

NFBisms said:

Ok, here’s a quick mockup: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dWl61mMYFgDO3DAVQO-K_1UNZejk5CPC/view?usp=sharing

That’s pretty cool. I think for it to work you’d need to pitch-shift it up just a little, and then extend the shots before and after to give it a little breathing room. That should give it enough to blend and feel like something he’s saying just a little under his breath.

NeverarGreat said:

This issue would crop up all the time on my edit due to time-stretching, so I’ve become almost hypersensitive to it 😉

Yes, that’s basically the issue, and it’s one I’ve encountered before, which is why I’m kicking myself hard this morning. Read below for the full explanation if you want to get into the weeds.

The full explanation:

For some reason, the subtitle workshop software I use to adjust the captions only matches my premiere timeline when the premiere timeline is set to flat 24 instead of 23.976, even though subtitle workshop is set to 23.976. Therefore, I have to change my premiere timeline temporarily to flat 24 in order to check captions. After I’m done, I switch my premiere timeline back to 23.976.

When I did this a long time ago for V1, I noticed that it messed with the in/out points of any shots that were time-stretched. I’ve since replaced all of the time-stretched shots in the timeline with Prores 444 renders from After Effects (it also does better frame-blending and frame-interpolation), save one. I missed the one shot of the crew looking around inside the base.

The other safeguard I put in place was to duplicate the project file and use the duplicate project make caption changes, instead of switching my main premiere sequence settings back and forth. This is what I did for V2. The safeguard only works, however, if you remember to do it! I simply forgot this time around, and did the same thing I did back for V1, and unfortunately, the one shot I had not pre-rendered got shifted by 1 frame.

Finally, my last mistake was checking each edit point before making the caption changes, instead of after. It should have been the very last thing I did before render. I do find it easier to catch errors this way, as I don’t always see flash-frames just by watching the film (others here have faster eyes than me). I hope that makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions!

Nev, thanks again so much for pointing this out before it went out to many more people! I really really appreciate the sharp eyes. I’m so sorry to anyone who used their bandwidth and time to download a file with a bad frame in it. I try to catch these things before they go out, but sometimes I miss things.

Bottom line:
I have fixed the error, rechecked every single edit point, and am now rendering again. I’ve taken down all of files with the error. I may decide to upload as encodes finish instead of all at once, but the full set should be finished uploading late Sunday night.

Ugh. So much for my QC pass. I apologize for this, folks. I know what happened and why. It has to do with an adjustment I made to check the captions, oddly enough.

I will recheck everything and re-render. Unfortunately, this means new video exports and encodes, so we’re likely looking at Sunday overnight posting.

I am again sorry, I tried to be as vigilant as I could with this and will try again.

Edit: thanks so much for catching this, Nev. I appreciate any and all QC help.

V3 RELEASE!

Hello and happy Friday! (Friday? Man I’ve really lost track of time while on lockdown. Stay safe everyone!) I’m pleased to say that V3 is now posted! The new files are dated “032020”.

This new version is a direct response to The Rise of Skywalker, and intends to ease the transition between the two films by teasing the surprise return of Emperor Palpatine. As often happens, the change list kept growing and we started making fixes to other parts of the film as well.

Therefore, for those not interested in any Palpatine teases in The Last Jedi, I will be updating V2 to include those other improvements.

Thank you so much to everyone at OT.com. The feedback, big and small, has helped make this version the best it can be, and I’m very proud to work with all of you! The original post had been updated. I tried to streamline it a bit more to make it less confusing (let me know if I failed!).

Once again, here are the V3 changes:

V3 PALPATINE TEASES

(PW for all vimeo links: fanedit)

• Dark Side Cave 1st Appearance Sith Whispers

  • Description: added Sith whispers as the cave first calls to Rey.

• Dark Side Cave Sith Whispers and Hood

  • Description: added Sith whispers and Palpatine’s hood appears in the reflection just before Rey’s face appears.

• Flashback Palpatine Laugh (by HAL 9000 and TiMartyn)

  • Description: added Palpatine laugh to the last Luke/Kylo flashback. Thanks to Hal 9000 for providing the audio.

• Palpatine Contact

  • Description: when Kylo is in the radio room of the rebel base on Crait, he has an unexpected contact with Palpatine.

• Snoke Sith Death - Subtle

  • Description: Snoke’s eyes flash red/yellow as he’s stabbed by the lightsaber, and then a puff of blue “Palpatine essence“ releases after his body splits in half.

• Force Skype Sounds

  • Description: added some of the Palpatine Contact sounds to other Force Skype moments.

V3 NON-PALPATINE CHANGES

• Finn Wakes

  • Description: Rey whispers “Finn” right before he wakes up, hinting at his force sensitivity.

• Praetorian Knife Continuity Fix

  • Description: removed continuity error of knife disappearing mid-shot, also had praetorian’s knife knocked away by Rey’s lightsaer strike way in the background of earlier shot.

• Deleted Shuttle Scene Improvements

  • Description: improved reflections and particles on the wide shots, fixed 3D environment on viewscreen.

• Crait Battle Tweaks

  • Description: enhanced Finn’s “Rose” reaction to her getting shot down, rotoscoped walker to turn and flex to target Finn, reversed angle of Finn’s speeder being targeted by walker (graphic provided by smpearce1981) and modified targeting graphics, cropped Finn cockpit POV shot so walker position difference isn’t noticeable (was always off, even in theatrical), adjusted angle and position of walker so it fires down and towards Finn speeder (mockup by NeverarGreat), enhanced Finn cockpit explosion effects, added explosion effect to shot of speeder coming apart, reduced music during canon explosion, cannon beams and hum removed when Finn exits crashed speeder.

• Added Wilhelm Scream

  • Description: Wilhelm!

• Broom Boy Rebel Ring Removal

  • Description: extended shots in end sequence to cover the rebel ring shot, maintaining timing.

Hey Stu,

Nothing with the new tweaks is up right now. The 34gb version is encoding now with ffmpeg, which takes about 10 hours. Encoding time being what it is, I should have everything done and posted by Friday mid-day. So unfortunately the tweaks may have set us back two days instead of one.

If piecemeal is preferred, though, I could post the versions as they complete instead of all at once, though!

I thought that was a fun Mark Hamill moment. I understand why some might not like it, but it always worked for me. I also agree it has that added element of provoking Kylo-Ren to buy more time.

I think I’m totally locked now on V3 (hope!), making a couple subtle tweaks to the levels and an fx shot. I’m encoding now and it should take some time to make all four versions, but I hope to everything up sometime Thursday!

Chase Adams said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

I literally can’t tell the difference.

You could be a little more polite. 😕
It happens right after Rey grabs Leia’s lightsaber.
You see some spirit elements pass into her, then she glows and turns blue for a couple frames.

I admit I didn’t notice the change at first either. I think it’s because it was a minute-long clip and I didn’t know where the change was (and it’s a movie I’ve only seen a couple of times at this point). That’s actually a good sign, though, because it means it didn’t look edited.

Now that I see it, it’s cool and subtle! Maybe you could try going a little further so we get more of a sense of what’s happening? 1-2 more spirits flying in? Maybe her eyes could very subtly cycle through a few familiar pairs of eyes? That might be too much, just throwing out ideas!

Edit: not sure about my eyes idea, that’s too silly. but I think the glow could be a little brighter (maybe using an “add” blending mode). Right now it’s more of a blur than a glow to me.

Thanks guys for the early looks! I’m glad it’s subtle, but I did make two (minor) tweaks to the wide FX shot of the radio room. It just looked a little off to me.

I will likely adjust the audio slightly for peace of mind (1-2 DBs likely), and encode a new version for the full release hopefully tomorrow (with an updated date in the filenames).

Thanks again!

I’m so sorry, Hal. Render issues are the worst, and btw, still happen all the time in newer software!

I had to re-export TLJ from premiere several times for V2 because the software kept hanging at the same spot. I had to guess which shot out of a 2+ hour movie was causing it based on the % through the render where it crashed. Eventually figured out it didn’t like that I had a blending mode turned on one particular layer. Not sure why, I hadn’t changed the shot or updated the software since V1, but it would crash every single time.

In an ideal world we could render everything to image sequences so we don’t lose hours of rendering during a crash, but that take a ton of extra hard drive space and are harder to encode.

I hope your computer starts to cooperate!

So, there are V3 video files posted at the link. However, I am still going through and spot-checking, and to be honest, there may be one or two things I’d like to tweak before announcing a release.

My main concern centers around the audio levels of the Palpatine contact scene. I think the music when the dice disappears from Kylo’s hands is a bit too loud (it’s how the original soundtrack file was mixed for the CD, but I don’t think that works for the film mix).

If any of you would be gracious enough to download the 4gb mkv to help confirm or deny my instinct, I would be very grateful! (this scene occurs at about the 2:11 mark)

I also might want to slightly tweak the fx shot adding the radio monitors over Kylo’s shoulder in the wide shot. Unfortunately that would mean a re-render and encode, which would delay everything by a day or so.

I wish I could just say it’s done, but I’d like to check these things first. Thanks again to everyone for your ideas and help.

-poppasketti

RogueLeader said:

Something like this or even more subtle?

LOVE this!