sherlockpotter

Hal 9000 said:

I like that idea, Sherlock, but I wonder if that’d be weird to actually have sequenced that way.

Scenes and scenes and planets have gone by, and Hux just now tells him “it was a coordinated incursion.”

I do like the idea of slowing down with an establishing shot after we settle in with Lando, and possibly at the end of that scene, with engines lighting up.

Oh yeah, it’s an idea more for my own edit, where I’m hoping to remove the Hux Spy stuff entirely. I was probably going to just remove Hux’s line there as well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Either that, or just move the Pryde/Palpy conversation up to right after the Gang™ escape? I dunno. It’s not something I’m actively going to fight for in this edit either way.

And - this may sound blasphemous - but I actually don’t really like the establishing shot before the necklace scene? The scene is so quick that it basically feels like the film is cross cutting between Kylo’s ship and Lando’s sex dungeon. An establishing shot is usually reserved for a whole scene - does a cutaway warrant that? We’d basically be spending more time in the establishing shot than in the meat and potatoes of the scene.

Maybe it would feel better if it was moved to after Lando crossbows the trooper? They start walking away with Billy Dee’s body double, cut to Kylo’s ship; and then cut back to a slightly different location on Pasaana? Implying that they’ve been walking for a while to get away from the troopers.

Eh, I don’t really care. I’m working on an alternate workaround for the necklace scene anyway, so it doesn’t really matter to me.

DZ-330 said:

I believe there was a shot of the engines as well. You can cut to the exterior after the shot of Pryde, and then to the shot of the engines to imply they are on their way before it cuts back to Rey and crew.

That would actually work really really well for an idea I had for my edit - if it was possible to overdub Pryde’s line “Tell him we’ve found our spy,” with something like “Prepare to depart” without it completely throwing off the lip sync, I wanted to put the Shooting Hux scene after Pryde’s conversation with Palpy. Then, Pryde basically goes off and shoots Hux in a coup, in order to combine the First Order with the Sith Fleet.

Your idea would really help to sell that!

Jar Jar, I may have actually found some rips. I can share them later. Theoretically, that would be better quality than a screen capture. (We’ll see once I download them.)

This is really great stuff. The Hoth and Tatooine shots could be easily recolored to use as Pasaana shots. Vader’s Castle, of course. Perhaps even the forest shots as establishing shots of the new Rebel base planet?

Ed Slushie said:

There’s also a shot of the torture chamber where Chewbacca is kept. It might work to have Rey see that when she senses Chewie is still alive.

I’m with Hal on this one. I think it would feel weird to imply that Chewie has been tortured - but not actually see Chewie either way - and they Rey be all smiley and happy. Huge tonal clash.

Although, it might be cool just to hear an echoey Chewie roar in the distance when Rey senses him, to involve the audience a little more in the realization.

Honestly, the solution I keep coming back to would be to comp a brand new shot of 3PO into the sequence. That may well be a pipe dream though - I personally have no idea what I’m doing with effects like this, so unless someone else is willing to lend a hand…?

https://streamable.com/mnk2nc

Also, happy Star Wars Day, all you crazy characters! I’m so thrilled to be on this journey together.

Icecream2448 said:

The shot needs to slow down either way for which ever line is chosen. It’s too much information to process no matter how much the lines are whittled down. If we were to keep the line placement over that shot as is, it would be one of the quickest and most jarring scenes in this movie. And that’s saying A LOT for The Rise Of Skywalker, lol.

I was afraid of that. (Though, to be fair, the theatrical cut has 3PO literally blabbering incomprehensibly until the stormtrooper starts talking over him, so I don’t think noise overload is exclusive to our changes here.)

The problem with slowing, even with frame interpolation, is that it works really well when the camera is moving, but it becomes noticeable when the subjects are moving as well. (I did that in my “crash land” test from the other day, for example.) It’s just really hard to pull off when other things are supposed to be moving in the frame. For example, the stormtrooper gesturing and 3PO fidgeting in this scene. So, just to test, I slowed the footage here; but I don’t really think it works. It all just feels too “floaty” to me. I think we’d be better off trying to insert an extra shot of either 3PO or the stormtroopers from somewhere.

https://streamable.com/mzhfnl

The only potential problem with using the Babu Frik line here is, again, timing. We only have about 4 seconds to play with total, unless we can come up with a way to artificially pad out the moment. The Babu line alone is - what…3 seconds long already?

I think we might just be able to squeeze everything in if we can cut 3PO’s line to only “It appears I am…a Resistance Spy!” This still needs a lot of clean up - it’s mainly just to figure out if the clip will even fit here timing-wise. Perhaps the trimmed line, and a slight speed increase if it still sounds too rushed? https://streamable.com/ajq1ba

axlanian, thank you so much for the audio clips! They sound great!

And Burbin, we may never agree on which dagger version is a logical nitpick and which version is a logical leap; but if we go with the new dagger translation, we’ll have to remove the location being “inscribed on this dagger” anyway, so it may be a moot point. I guess we’ll see what happens.

Heck, maybe Rey senses how important the dagger is when she picks it up and telegraphs that there’s something significant about it. You know, like later in the movie, when she senses how important the dagger is, despite already having the translation? “Rey doesn’t know for a fact that the dagger will be relevant again! She abandons her friends for what might be a wild goose chase! Plot hole!” The dagger’s stupid no matter what. “It’s stylistically designed to be that way, and you can’t undo that. But we can diminish the effects of it.”

As Burbin said, the only significant change I made in the new version is to tweak the dialogue from “It’s [definitely] the clue” to “This [must be] the clue.” Like I said last time, I don’t think it’s a huge logical leap that, when they’re looking for a Sith artifact by tracking a known Sith assassin, they find what is clearly a Sith artifact (based on the Sith language written on it), and deduce that it’s relevant to their Sith-centric mission. And they’re desperate for clues anyway. To me, that makes a lot more sense than someone programming 3PO with an illegal Sith to English dictionary, but then programming him to also not actually be able to use it, or to input the coordinates into the navigation computer himself, or something. The former is a reasonable deduction that anyone would make, especially given that the new dialogue line implies a level of logical reasoning behind it; the latter actually makes no sense.

I considered included the “Oh I have read it” line, but I ultimately decided against it. At that point, you’d have to convey to the audience that he read it, but he was unable to comprehend the writing. It felt like it was getting back into messy, convoluted territory, so I removed that line too.

Burbin said:

Also this new change doesn’t fully work since when Finn asks “Where’s the Wayfinder?” 3PO says “I am afraid I cannot tell you” instead of “I am afraid I don’t know since I’m unable to translate this inscription and it might not even contain the location of the Wayfinder but I just have such a good hunch this is what we need I’d be willing to sacrifice my entire existence for it”.

“I cannot tell you [the translation] because I’m literally unable to translate it.”

I dunno, it makes sense to me…

Alrighty, Dagger discovery scene! The last time I tried to edit this clip, there was some concern that 3PO would know that this Sith artifact is the one they’re after. So I did a bit more dialogue tinkerage - now he thinks that “this must be the clue Master Luke was looking for.”

https://streamable.com/iy6dpe

There might be some subtle sync issues with the echoes in the cave, but I didn’t really notice until I muted the center channel and cranked the volume up, so I think it will be okay?

(You know, whether or not the other Dagger Vision components can be figured out, I do think that this scene and the new Jannah scene really help to smooth over some of the internal logic of the film. At least, that’s my impression.)

hedgesmfg said:

At this point, my only question is how long we debate the merits of what must be changed in the v2 before we’re all satisfied (mostly) satisfied with it. The scope of the project keeps growing and growing, and it’s hard to keep up with what’s going to be in the “final” version.

There are still a few effects shots in development, so we have a bit of time. After that, I believe there are two other potential “large-scale” changes being discussed (and then an endless list of smaller ones, of course!):

Revamped Dagger Guide Concept (so that it no longer has literal coordinates):

Things needed:

• Change 3PO’s lines when he picks up the dagger (I’m working on a cut, I’ll have something by tonight)
• Change dialogue when The Gang™ meets Jannah, to avoid mentioning Babu (Potentially done)
• Design a vision for Rey to see the Death Star when she picks up the dagger in Kylo’s Quarters
• Potentially have a moment where Rey tells Finn and Poe about the dagger (I have an idea in mind that I’m actually really excited about. Stay tuned…)

Revamped Kijimi Sequence (to show that the galaxy is starting to revolt against the First Order):

• Track in some anti-First Order propaganda posters (I believe some folks volunteered to design some pieces?)
• Add some more crowd-sourced voice clips (Things like “For Skywalker!” “Down with the First Order!” “For the Republic/Resistance!” “Protect the children!” (Tying back in with the earlier “Harvest more of the galaxy’s young” comment), etc.)
• Add some blaster and explosion sound effects in the distance.

And then whatever else Hal had on the docket for V2… (I think this is the most up-to-date list?)

Hal 9000 said:

I guess it’s about time for another “where are we” post. By my records, here’s everything currently outstanding. Things that, if they were suddenly all turned in, I would begin encoding:

• Sherlockpotter’s idea to remove Lando line “Leia sent me a transmission” (I just haven’t done it yet)

• Depict Kylo’s TIE with a different color stripe after his first one gets blowed up (poppasketti working on it)

• Have Rey’s saber sputter or crap out a little at end of DSII duel (Movies Remastered working on)

• Have both sabers spark and smoke like it’s Friday night after Palpatine gets blowed up (Movies Remastered working on, or perhaps is finished)

• Pasaana puppet show with Luke being a legend (snooker and/or RogueLeader filming and compositing elements - will also need a vocal dub to replace the one or two lines with something about Skywalker)

• Remaining footage of the crackly blue saber (I believe Movies Remastered is helming the shots that weren’t already done by kewlfish or Luka Frik)

• Fixed Jedi haircut footage from jonh to then be run through by NeverAr for regrading

So clearly there’s still several things outstanding but they are being tracked and will all come together in time. For the thousandth time, you’re all awesome and it’s an ongoing privilege to steer us along.

I also had a few other smaller ideas that were pending; but this comment is already too long, so I’ll bring them up again a little later.

Just tossing this out there as another Leia suggestion: https://streamable.com/gjnhdu

And, for those who missed my previous alt: https://streamable.com/wu6213

Hal 9000 said:

I am looking forward to things simmering down with my job, establishing my new source of livelihood, and family and all that crap and get back to real shit: TROS:A V2.

Yeah, geez, Hal. Forget about the people that love and depend on you. What about Star Wars??

That’s fantastic to hear those wonderful compliments! I really can’t accept any of them myself, since I joined up after V1 came out; but I definitely share the sense of gratitude for everyone’s who’s worked on this film!

Geez, all of this stuff with Luke-Snoke/meta-crisis Doctor just reminds me why I’ve never bothered with “expanded lore” (comics, novels, etc.), even back in the pre-Disney days. I’ll keep myself confined to the films and t.v. shows, thanks.

(Not knocking anyone who does prescribe to all of this supplemental material; just saying that it personally feels like a massive can of worms to me.)

Cap, I didn’t think you came across as grumpy at all. So I’m sorry if I sounded offended. Ha!

Okay, how about this…does Ben have to factor into her stopping her training at all?

“It was the last night of her training. Leia told me that she…sensed…the end of her Jedi path. She surrendered her saber to me and said that, one day, it would be picked up again by someone who would finish her journey.”

It’s a bit less concrete; but hey, it’s not unusual for Force-users to make random decisions based on vague feelings. “Rey, why are you going after the Dagger?” “A feeling.” “Finn, how do you know about the secondary tower?” “A feeling” “Leia, why’d you give up being a Jedi?” “A feeling.”

We cut out any underbaked prophecy mumbo-jumbo, avoid implying that mothers can’t be Jedi, and dodge the pointlessness of Leia stopping being a Jedi in order to save Ben’s life, when Ben dies anyway. Plus, we make Leia’s journey her own, rather than her just being there for the sake of Ben’s. We would lose the hypothetical “rebirth” double-meaning, but we didn’t really have a plan for implementing that anyway.

And Cap, Hal wanted to include the “Birth of her son” line, so I think discussions about that change are actually relevant to the thread here.

Sade, I was working on a cut that moves Rey’s death to immediately after Palps explodes. I think it removes some of the feeling of “Wait, why is she randomly dying all of a sudden?” and connects it more immediately to what she just did. It was up for discussion a few weeks back on the Ascendant thread; I can try to find the link for you a little later.

Eddie, I do agree that Leia giving up being a Jedi because of “the birth of her son” does have somewhat anti-feminist, “Get back in the kitchen, woman” vibes to it. But I also think that “the death of her son” doesn’t quite work either.

EddieDean said:

However, I think it’s important to preserve and permit fear (both of loss and of other natural fears), because I think the message that the movies are trying to convey is that it’s how we react to our fear that’s important.

Fear of loss, fear of harm, fear of death, etc - all of these things will exist within all beings forever, BUT we can still choose to act on our fears (and the emotions they generate) in a healthy, positive way.

The problem with this is, the film never treats it as if Leia succumbed to fear when she gave up being a Jedi. If the film treated it as a mistake (“Leia gave into her fear. Now it falls to you to finish her path…”), then yeah, it would be thematically relevant; but as it stands, it actually works against the theme of “Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi.” No one calls her out for being afraid of one potential future (“Always in motion, the future is…”), and her sacrifice is treated as heroic instead. And then, Rey comes along and “finishes [Leia’s] journey,” and Ben dies anyway.

It’s just…kinda stupid? They want you to think that Leia sacrificed something she desperately wanted in order to protect Ben; but then Ben dies, making Leia’s actions effectively pointless. Heck, you could even argue that by not becoming a full Jedi (and somehow, tangentially, allowing Ben to live), she’s somewhat responsible for all of the destruction caused by the First Order.

It’s just weird, and sloppy, and thematically muddled.

Personally, I think if we just say “Leia sensed her son at the end of her Jedi path,” without the word “birth,” it doesn’t have such an anti-feminist connotation. It sounds less like she was forced to give up Jedi-ing because she’s a mommy now, and more like she felt, with Ben’s arrival, that it was time to move on. To me, at least.

Alternatively, perhaps we could do a slightly more intensive restructure of the line? Something like: “When her son was born, Leia decided to surrender her saber to me, saying one day, someone else would continue her journey…” That would be a lot harder to pull off seamlessly though, assuming the audio clips even exist.

Oh god…I mean, I’ll take a stab at recording a line if it comes to that, but I have a voice that I would describe as “Mickey Mouse with a head cold.” The anti-Morgan Freeman, if you would.

I think “Here” depends on the delivery, Hal. Like, if it’s a quizzical “Knights of Ren? Where? Here?” then yeah, it would be weird. But if it’s an awed, terrified “Oh my god, they’re here? Why are they here??” then I think it would work just fine.

That’s also why I think the initial “Knights of Ren” would benefit from being redubbed as well. So that becomes less a matter-of-fact, “Oh look, it’s ‘Kyle’s’ posse again,” and more of a disbelieving “Oh my god, the Knights of Ren are here? In the flesh??”

sade1212 said:

I like the “Here?” idea because it conveys that the Knights don’t often make appearances amongst the First Order, giving a small nod to their physical absence from the first two movies.

sade1212 - In one line, you perfectly expressed what I’ve been trying to say. Lol thank you!

EDIT: And also, since I don’t think I was very clear in explaining my Leia line idea, this is a very rough, quick example: https://streamable.com/wu6213

(Again, the double meaning here is that Leia originally assumes that when Ben is born, it means her journey is complete. But actually, it means that when Leia becomes one with the Force, Ben will be there to greet her. This interpretation also has the side effect of making Leia’s journey about Leia herself, instead of some other character.)

“Knights of Ren.” “Maybe it’s another drill.”

Hal, what do you think about my suggestion for the “Death/Birth of her son” line?

For “Here?”, I was thinking it would mean: “Knights of Ren?” “What are they doing here?” But I felt the simple “Here?” would flow better. Plus, it adds a bit of intrigue to their introduction, beyond, “Whelp, I guess these are the legendary Knights of Ren! …That’s kinda disappointing. Oh, they’re ghouls, I guess?”

I suppose…aside from the lack of any emotional audience engagement with the Knight’s introduction, I just don’t really understand what the term “Ghouls” is functionally trying to express about them? What do “ghouls” even mean in the Star Wars universe? Are they magical? (I mean, they fights with machetes and stuff, so I guess not.) Are they demons? (Does it matter if we never see their faces?) Are they just kinda scary? (The stormtroopers don’t sound scared.) Do people find them disgusting? (They just act like bounty hunters. Big whoop.) It doesn’t even feel like terminology that belongs in Star Wars to me - heck, I don’t even think they use the term “ghost” in any of these movies. So, depending on your interpretation, “Ghouls” can either be a nothing line, or a line that makes no sense whatsoever. And if we can add a lot of gravitas to these antagonists by overdubbing one or two lines, I think it could be worth it.

But if I’m alone in that thinking, maybe I’ll just put out a casting call in the Redux thread for use in my own edit. 😉

I just double checked - Disney+ does confirm that the original line is “Ghouls.” I could see it being a comedic “Cool,” but I think my personal preference would still be to have the stormtroopers be kind of intimidated by them. Especially since the Knights are kind of lame in the film, I think it’s important to try to make our first impression of them at least be intimidating and powerful, rather than just some hired goons with dumb, oversized medieval weapons and weird masks.

AntonioGK, those lines are well done, but I do think the second one definitely stands out still, unfortunately. I was also thinking, as an alternative to the “Death/Birth of her son” line, we could change it to simply “Leia sensed her son at the end of her Jedi path.” That way, we’d still get that double meaning thing of Ben’s birth; but rather than alluding to his “rebirth” at the end, the double meaning would be that he would be waiting for her, in the Force, when she passes; and they would go on together in the Cosmic Force, each having completed their journeys as Jedi.

MR, thank you! bbghost’s original example of the idea removes the jump cut, so we could definitely go with that version instead. (I was just trying to be fancy with it lol.)

Not to go completely off-topic here, but does anyone else absolutely hate the Knights’ introduction? “Knights of Ren.” “Ghouls.” Ooooh, I’m so scared. The troopers just sound so bored and uninterested in them, so the Knights don’t come across as threatening at all. Since there are already a few people here with good stormtrooper voices, maybe someone would be willing to re-record the lines? Make the first line “Knights of Ren?” so that it sounds just absolutely terrified and almost awed (I’m thinking of how that one dude sounded when he learned the Emperor was coming to DSII in ROTJ.) and then the second trooper could sound equally awed and shocked with a different line.

“Knights of Ren?”
“Here?”
*cut*

bbghost said:

sherlockpotter said:

Quick crash landing mock-up, also incorporating bbghost’s idea:

https://streamable.com/hn6q21

Thoughts?

I like the idea, Sherlock. Where did you grab that landscape shot after the explosion from?

Thanks! I just used a shot from a little later in the film - right after the “ghouls” land, and right before the gang starts climbing the cliff up to Ochi’s ship. I reversed the shot and slowed it a little, so hopefully it’s not too obvious of a duplicated shot; but if it is obvious, I imagine any old desert landscape shot could work in its place.

And then over that, I just added some generic explosion sound effect that I found. Thinking about it more, I’d probably want to blend the “far away” explosion sound with the “close up” explosion sound a little bit better. I’d also love to get some bass into the LFE channel, but I’m not really sure how to do that.

Oh, also, when I was working on your idea of cutting out the extra firing, I kept an extra shot of the stormtrooper zipping about that I think you removed in your version? I wanted to keep it if possible, just to pad out the scene a little bit more. So I ended up reversing that shot too (so that the stormtrooper would maintain a constant movement to the right); and then, because Rey’s shot was now flying towards her, I added in an extra sound effect of a First Order blaster - now the shot originated from the stormtrooper. Because why not do all of that for an extra 10 frames that may-or-may-not work, right?

CaptainFaraday said:

Is there any kind of quick shot that could go between the camera whip panning to the left and then whip panning to the right? The frames are similar enough that it’s a slightly jarring moment.

Otherwise, this is a big improvement.

Cap, are you talking about the cut right before Rey fires, with them struggling to get up? It’s like that in the original film, but I can try to trim it down, maybe? Perhaps something like this? https://streamable.com/tj861b

That said, I like bbghost’s thinking about it creating a deliberate disorienting effect. I could go either way on that.

Quick crash landing mock-up, also incorporating bbghost’s idea:

https://streamable.com/hn6q21

Thoughts?

Frankly, I think it would benefit from both changes. Cutting down to just Rey shooting would reduce some of the literal and figurative noise of the scene; and having a brief pause before they start sinking would let the audience catch their breath for a moment before the next action beat.