poppasketti

DrDre said:

This is some really nice work, and in record time! Congrats! I think your shot by shot can also be used as a great basis for further tuning to cater to each and everyone’s personal preferences. Here’s my little effort, starting from the last shot of the film. I personally feel the color grading could use a little warmth to bring it more in line with the technicolor references.

sanjuro_61:

DrDre:

Hey DrDre, I was just wondering, are the technicolor references really that warm? Just looking at the video scopes, the red is very pushed. Not saying that’s wrong, I defer to your knowledge, just curious! The sanjuro_61 frame is a bit cool according to the scopes, so just as a quick test, I balanced the highlights, and the result is somewhere in the middle.

That’s a really cool video, and really impressive roto work!

ziggyonice said:

Perhaps competent isn’t the right word. What bugs me about her character is that she comes out of nowhere, we’re suddenly supposed to just go along with her plan (which the audience doesn’t know about), and then in the end, she saves the day?

I don’t think we’re supposed to go along with her, I think we’re supposed to be suspicious of her like Poe is. Then we’re surprised (like Poe) when she actually has a plan and saves the day.

I think the problem from a character perspective is that she does nothing to reassure anyone that she knows what she’s doing, creating growing animosity that leads to a mutiny.

One explanation that I thought while watching it was that she couldn’t trust anyone after being tracked through hyperspace. It reminded me of Battlestar Galactica, when they kept getting followed through light speed because someone planted a tracking device on their ship. If Holdo is suspicious of a traitor, she might keep her plans more secret. However, this is not really addressed in the film, so it comes off as a plot contrivance.

darth-gary,

Thanks so much for your feedback! I’m so glad you enjoyed it, and that’s it’s your favorite Star Wars! The Legendary cut is excellent, so I would recommend.

PM sent!

AbramsPT,

That’s an interesting idea! I’m not sure it’s something I’d try, though.

You could change the color of the armor and dub new lines (although getting it perfect might take a long time), but you still have Gwendoline Christie’s stature and movement. I feel like we’d always be able to tell it’s Phasma.

And although I was happy to trim her to remove the fight scene with Finn, I like Christie and I’d rather not remove more of her performance than I have to.

Still, I’d love to see it tried and would be curious to see how effectively it could be done!

Dr. Krogshöj, I appreciate your observation. It was strange to me as well that Phasma and her troops were marching in formation at the other end of the hanger. It looked cool, but otherwise didn’t seem logical.

Cutting it removed a lot of moments that bothered me in the theatrical version, including the BB-8 imperial walker material, which really kind of stunned of me when I first saw it. I like silly, but that was too much at an inappropriate time.

PM sent

AbramsPT, I would consider changes to be consistent with IX if they are necessary. I’m not sure they will be, but I do definitely want this version to work alongside the theatrical ST films (or edits like Hal’s).

Without the kiss and line about “saving what we love”, we could still see how their relationship has potential moving forward. Finn clearly cares for her by the end as he finds her on the battlefield and takes care of her aboard the Falcon. If they suddenly appear as a mushy couple in IX, then I suppose it would be odd and worth looking back at the edit. And if they specifically reference “saving what we love” (please no!), then I can see that being a problem. Simply speculating, I guess that could be better to deal with in an episode IX fanedit than adjusting TLJ.

As for phasma, to me, she’s a minor character who already had a little arc with Finn in TFA. The fact that her attempt at payback fails (thanks to Holdo) amidst the exploding ship is enough for me. It even feels a bit more realistic to me, as I don’t see why Finn or Phasma would be interested in another showdown before getting off the crumbling ship. It would be like Luke fighting storm-troopers in the DS2 hanger. Everyone there is in a panic, not really paying attention to who’s running where.

bromeo said:

If / when we see her again, I bet she will start with:

“FN-2187! I remember what you did to me in Episode VIII!” 😄

“Let this be our final battle!”

bromeo said:

Would you possibly consider switching the opening scene “General Hugs” joke back to how it was in Hal’s version? I just compared the two and the prolonged “Hugs with an H? Skinny, pasty guy?” stuff still managed to get a little too cringey for my taste. Totally not as badly as in the theatrical version. But personally I liked Hal’s take more because we get the glimpse of the loading bar which already implies to us that Poe is stalling.

I am aaaactually on the fence on this one. While I think my reason for doing something different makes sense, Hal’s edit is so smooth, and if that’s the way the film had been released initially I don’t think anyone would have thought it was anything other than more of Poe being a bad-ass. So, I’ll definitely consider it!

Hello, here’s a few quick updates:

1. New Encodes

I’ve made a fresh set of encodes, including a new 2gb mp4 with stereo audio, 1280x536 video encoded at veryslow setting (ffmpeg). ChainsawAsh, thanks for the help on getting the best encoding quality at such a small size!

For this latest encode set, I also re-rendered a couple of FX shots where I noticed some minor issues, so if you want the latest, I would recommend grabbing these. This is all still really a V1, since no editorial changes have been made since initial release, and I’m just putting the date stamps on the file names. This new batch is “012319”.

2. No more Dropbox

Dropbox has proven to be a difficult place to host the files from. Some have had trouble downloading, and the uploads often stall on my end, despite a fast internet connection. It also makes it more difficult to have to upload everything twice, so I will stick with Google drive, which has proven to be more reliable.

3. Future Possible Edits

If I were to make a V2, one of the changes I would attempt is to remove Maz’s reference to a union dispute. I haven’t figured out how it would work convincingly, but I like the ideas presented by you all in earlier posts.

If there are any other changes/ suggestions, I’m always happy to hear them. I may disagree, but please feel free to chime in as this has always been a collaborative process! The conversation going about Space Leia has been very interesting, so even though I don’t want to change it, I appreciate the arguments presented.

Thank you!

snooker said:

Solo looks like they just didn’t correct the raw footage at all.

Exactly. Fortunately, the gamma curve is so flat that the editors here have some latitude to grade with.

I’ve received a request for a smaller mp4 encode to get under the 4gb file size limits of fat32. I think it’s a good idea, so I may soon add a fourth option, but I wanted to ask here if there were any other preferences.

These are the specs I am thinking of:
-1gb or 2gb file size
-Mp4
(for those that have trouble with mkv)
-1280x720 or 854x480
(considering lowering resolution to keep the encoding quality higher)
-AAC Stereo audio
(thinking some might have trouble with AC-3 5.1)
-No captions or chapters
(not sure it can be muxed to mp4)

Would this be of interest to anyone else?

That’s an interesting article, Dr. Krogshöj, thanks for posting!

Perhaps in the future my brain won’t reject scenes like this given the possibility, however it definitely felt like the filmmakers were trying to convince us that she had died, thereby making her force moment more dramatic. To me it’s an over-the-top way to demonstrate her power, and I’d prefer something more grounded (pun intended).

I respect that they hoped I would be in awe and excited to see Leia rescue herself, but every time I watch the scene I feel like they just sucked the stakes out of Star Wars. Obviously, most movies in this genre, including Star Wars movies, play fast and loose with the limits of their established realities, but this one was just a step too far for me.

Sydonis,

I appreciate your passion, and I think you have a well articulated argument! However, I will try to explain why I don’t like the space Leia scene.

First, a quick sidenote: RogueLeader, I don’t believe that was me you discussed cropping the shots with. For me, it wasn’t so much about how it looked as much as it was about my suspension of disbelief.

Simply put, it’s more believable to me that she survives the bridge explosion than her using the force to fly through the vacuum of space. It’s similar to Poe’s survival of the hanger explosion. They both get knocked out of frame, and are left as the only survivors of a missile strike.

With space Leia, she does things my brain cannot accept anyone in this universe doing. The strongest force users still seem to have basic human vulnerabilities. Emperor Palpatine is thrown down an elevator shaft. Vader is electrocuted (force electrocuted, but it still seems like the same idea). Yoda is knocked unconscious (and electrocuted). The basic framework of the saga has told me that these people get wounded more or less the same way most humans would. They’re not super heroes.

With space Leia, she is frozen and floating away in the vacuum of space. She’s dead, she has to be. If it was Luke in her place, he would be dead too.

When she uses the force to push/pull herself back to the ship, it feels like a deus ex machine on the filmmakers part, using a new power to rescue a character that should be dead (and that we were made to think had died). It’s a filmmaking device that just doesn’t work for me.

That’s only my perspective, though, and I completely understand you counter-argument. I like your ideas, too, so I hope someone tries to cut the scene the way you, jarbear, and RogueLeader outlined!

Hey Yuri,

I’m glad you liked it!

Hal may be able to express it better, but to me, the broom boy scene hammers home the impact of Luke’s actions at the end of the film. In many ways, this film is about survival and rebirth. The resistance is on the ropes, and needs a spark of hope, which Luke provides. This spark is not just for the Resistance, but really for all of the downtrodden that the Resistance is fighting for.

Having children play with Luke Skywalker toys and recreating the showdown on Crait shows that the story of Luke is spreading around the galaxy, and that the rebel spirit may have been reignited.

It makes Luke’s actions have more scope. He didn’t just save Leia and a few Resistance fighters, but he lived up to his legend and “restored a spark of hope to the fight…”

Dr. Krogshöj, pm sent!

I actually did try to remove the “union dispute” in my first attempt to trim Maz. It even bothered me more than the codebreaker sexual reference. I never really got it to work, though, maybe because I needed to use lines from TFA as suggested.

When I cut the lines the whole scene became confusing and awkward, because Maz was in some kind of battle and no one was acknowledging it. I’d definitely be interested if it can be made to work!

PM sent!

PM sent!

As a note: I’m happy to see interest here, but feel free to PM me directly for a link.
This way the thread won’t be bumped so much with PM requests!

I think ChainsawAsh did a good job of explaining the differences you might find between the AVCHD and MKV in the other thread. I’m not sure why you’re starting all over.

And you never explained what you feel is lacking from the AVCHD. What problem do you see in the wide and semi-wide shots?

PM sent!

Ah, perfect. Thanks!

Williarob said:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -vcodec copy -an output.mp4

Hey Williarob, I use ffmpeg all the time, including this particular script, with the exception of the “-an” part. What does that do? Is it “audio none” or something like that? Just curious!

PM sent!

PM sent!

PM sent!