Re-did the trailer for this thing after finally getting the hang of trailers post Acolyte & Rogue One edits. At some point I should probably knock one out for Solo and Spectre, too. I was never 100% happy with the trailer I made initially so… new one!
oooooh
That’s a pitch for Episode 14’s potential new title, yeah? I like that one.
Maybe call it “Trust Goes Both Ways?”
The trailer shot insert works real well
Broom Kid, the link to your clip show is dead, so I have no idea what it contained. Do you still have this to present?
I don’t, sorry! Funny enough, that clip show/proof-of-concept reel of some ideas ended up getting iterated on and iterated on to the point it just… became its own edit.
Also, plan to include an adjusted score-only audio track since Broom Kid provided one. May need some additional material of course.
This I can do, and will do happily once the edit’s locked. It’s definitely gonna need adjusting due to any reinsertion of scenes but it can definitely be done.
Hey everyone, quick heads up: I updated this to v2 recently while I was putting the finishing touches on the Rogue One: Special Edition. It’s now 23 seconds faster than the last cut! Still looks the same, still sounds the same, still sticking to that dog-eared Del Rey paperback feel.
“Wow,” you might say. “23 seconds. Oh boy.” Yeah, don’t get too excited Princess. I know. You see, what had happened was…
In the late stages of finishing the Rogue One: SE (available now, btw!) I was waiting for some stuff to do some other stuff, and I remembered that there were always 4 or 5 things in Solo that I’d meant to pull out of that edit, that I’d just… spaced on! Maybe if I’d slowed down like I had done on Rogue One, I wouldn’t have forgotten in the first place, LOL. So I just dragged the old “Solo.Alt.Final.Forreal.V5.Ugh.ProRes” into Final Cut while I was waiting and… did 'em!
So, yeah. Twenty-three seconds. I’m not even rounding down, buddy. But you’d be surprised (or maybe not, considering this movie) at how many little callbacks, overexplanations, and on-the-nose moments could be fit into :23 seconds (Spoilers: It’s about five of 'em). I guess to make this v2 post interesting, I should actually note the primary changes the Alternate Cut makes to the movie, which I didn’t when it first released:
PRIMARY CHANGES: Not every microedit or dialog trim has been noted, but the major edits and changes to the film are below (v2 changes in italics.)
Lucasfilm/A long time ago title card replaced with modified versions of Return of the Jedi’s (taken from TN1’s 4K83 scan, modified by Ooohteedee for his OTD83 project)
Movie begins with a Star Destroyer dropping out of lightspeed and approaching planet cutting to second half of “Han Solo: Imperial Cadet” deleted scene. Star Destroyer scene by YouTube user Coastlake via their “Blender Test 003”. This opening transitions straight to Mimban, deleting the entirety of Corellia.
New title card (taken from Theatrical Trailer) dropped between shower gag and Han & Chewie’s post-rescue conversation. “What’s your name anyway?” gag trimmed up
Gang campfire discussion trimmed for pacing and to improve comedic beats, and ensuing Coaxium heist edited slightly to reduce extra explanation/exposition.
Han’s punch-interrupted apology to Beckett trimmed for pacing/performance.
L3’s confrontation with the tranya addict running the droidfight ring trimmed to remove fanservicey callback
Approach to Kessel Mines, and securing of station for 2nd Coaxium heist edited for pacing/performance/removal of fanservicey wookieepedia flexing.
Maul appearance and conversation with Q’ira completely deleted.
Showdown with Beckett edited so Han no longer goes to him after shooting him down.
Han & Chewie meeting with Enfys lightly edited for performance
Iris out to credits brought forward in time with music crescendo and hyperspace tunnel.
If you already have the edit, and you’re like “I don’t need a v2 just to make it less than 30 seconds shorter” – Heard chef! Thanks for giving it a shot in the first place! If you have the edit and you’d like the update, just re-download at the link you already got, the file’s been updated (In fact, anyone who has reached out in the last 3-4 days already got v2!)
If you’ve never gotten this edit before but this seems like something you wanna try out, PRIVATE MESSAGE ME A REQUEST, OR EMAIL ME DIRECTLY AT STRAIGHTCUTSNOCHASER AT GMAIL. DO NOT JUST REQUEST A LINK DOWN BELOW Not only is “link plz” not a great way to get noticed, not only will site ownership probably just wipe it out (it’s against the rules here!) but it’s honestly way better odds you’ll get seen and get your request fulfilled faster if you just PM me, anyway. 😃
Any suggestions, comments, critiques, questions - whatever you got, I’m all ears.
EDIT IS NOW AVAILABLE
PRIMARY CHANGES: As usual, the sheer number of edits/microedits for pacing and to remove redundant/awkward dialog beats would make a complete changelist pretty exhausting to look at, but the bigger alterations will get noted below (and in cases where changes from prior fanedits remained as the edit evolved, the original edit will be named)
Notes on keeping Darth Vader: This is one of the scenes I feel actually is enriched by Andor Season 2, even if it was primarily received as fanservice at the time. Firstly, as plot - Vader’s threats are why Krennic goes to Scarif and orders up all of Erso’s planning papers. But dramatically/thematically - Krennic in Season 2 tends to be deployed as THE self-consuming fascist ceiling Dedra Meero is going to smash against in the Empire. She’s going to get greedy for power, get manipulated, try to end-run that manipulation, and get ruined for it. Krennic does so with ONE finger. And in this movie, Krennic finds out he’s got a ceiling, too. Tarkin - amidst HIS achievement (!) - takes his project after over a decade, he tries to end-run Tarkin, and Vader, without even putting a finger on him, shows him how disposable he is, and maneuvers him straight to the place where he dies. It’s like poetry. It rhymes. Now where have I heard that before…
I did not cut it!
Well, I did not cut ALL of it. It’s sort of like in Spectre how you only needed “And now we know what C stands for.”
Him deadpanning “Are you kidding me?” is legitimately funny.
I think I’m locked at a final running time of 2:06:12
I appreciate the reach out anyway though, thanks! I’m okay with keeping Guy Henry’s vocal performance as-is, I’ve already trimmed down some of Tarkin’s lines in this cut anyway.
The other thing that jumped out at me that I don’t think I noticed as much on previous watches - I mean I noticed it, but I don’t think I noticed how much of it was still hanging around - there was obviously an edit of this movie where Cassian and Jyn clearly have a much flirtier relationship that culminates with kissyface in that elevator on Scarif. In the original cut, nothing actually happens in the elevator (in this Special Edition I’ve simply gotten rid of the elevator ride altogether) but there are still like three or four weird moments setting that up still orphaned in the theatrical cut.
Now, seeing as Bix is a real thing and we know where she is and who she’s holding in a wheat field somewhere, none of that can stay. But it was interesting seeing how much of the theatrical cut seemed to tie Jyn’s maturation as a character and getting over her dads’ abandonment of her, into her suddenly wanting to make out with Cassian.
Editing Jyn was interesting: I found a lot of what improves Jyn’s character came from trimming out the more demonstrative and overtly smartass moments (i.e. curtseying and “I appreciate the support” after Cassian volunteers, for example) and doing way more with how expressive Jones is as an actor. The weakest part of her character was her putting up a front anyway. It was always unbelievable, and nobody in those scenes ever really believed it, so why keep any of that stuff? She’s wounded but earnest, and that’s what’s on her face, and that’s what comes through. And if this cut is trying to be a better bridge between Andor and Star Wars, this version of Jyn hopefully works better as a midway point between Cassian and Luke Skywalker, too. I’m aiming for a little more openly earnest, but still scuffed up and pissed off. The key difference is that she believes to a degree Cassian just can’t.
The crimey wiseass doesn’t play, and she drops it as soon as anyone pokes her hard enough in the eye so… just skip to the part where she’s being angrily earnest in the first place. Less fronting, less words, more emoting, better pace. Less lines, and more room to read between them, I guess.
Presumably you have heard this voice adjustment. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Bp9Z3wbEj/
I haven’t! I don’t have facebook and clicking that link brings me to a locked page.
I’m familiar with a guy named Canadian Vader on YouTube as well - his style is, to cite the Beastie Boys, slower and lower in general. It’s a good impersonation, but I prefer the Golden performance of that scene.
I also haven’t been able to find anyone doing anything with “Prepare a boarding party” but that ended up being a non-issue because that scene is mostly cut in this Special Edition anyway.
Yup! I don’t think there’s any other way to get it. I used yt-dlp, grabbed the highest bitrate possible, converted it to the proper framerate, retimed it, and had to re-edit to fit the scene proper since the scene as uploaded to youtube is also slightly edited IIRC. While I was in there doing all that and converting it to mono for the center channel mixing I added a little bit of extra processing to nudge it a LITTLE closer to taste towards 1977 Vader.
Is there a better source available? I honestly didn’t mind that the YouTube source was what it was in this instance since 77 Vader isn’t exactly hi-fi sounding in the first place.
Well, I don’t think he’s getting tortured for longer, I think he gets chucked in the cell right after the scene ends. I’ve never read it as Saw’s got him plugged into the mindreading ballsack the whole time 😃 Also nothing says Saw’s not bs’ing him a little either. Saw’s on that Rhydo. He says a lotta things, haha.
But since it’s a tone thing, not a plot thing for me, the only real argument I think I can make for it, is if it plays in the context of the cut! But if it doesn’t, the fact I’ve got it consolidated into a single 3-min sequence should make it super-easy to lift right out for folks who prefer a more plot-oriented POV on the edit!
In the theatrical I agree it seemed like he got Bor Gullet’d and then took a nap and was good, LOL.
But I think placing the now-3min sequence between Rings of Kafrene and Krennic meeting Tarkin, the movie-time between Saw being a giant weirdo (and Mon underlining that through dialog about 6min later) and Cassian/Chirrut/Baze finding him during Galen’s message, the “getting over it right away” doesn’t actually feel like that anymore: Instead of checking back in with Bodhi every 6-7min, now he’s getting absolutely screwed by the Partisans in one intense 3min glut (if this was a reshoot then this is Gilroy work, which makes a little more sense as to why it fits butted up against the Andor/Tivik scene that was also straight Gilroy work) then Tarkin talks about him, then the Alliance talks about him, then we see the Empire flipping Jedha upside down for him, and when we finally see him again outside of the one hologram on the street, it’s about 30min later and he’s mumbling to himself about being the Pilot.
Since my aim is trying to rebalance tone and characterization in the context of Andor being released & Rogue One having aged 7 years, that Bor Gullet is not as plot important (and you’re 100% right, it never was!) isn’t a big deal I don’t think. The focus for me is more on what introducing Saw fully before the Alliance does for that tone, and poking at how what he’ll do to Bodhi (and how Bodhi will endure it) will feel like for post-Andor rewatchers. Can I heighten what’s happening without overtly bringing in references FROM that show; but calling that feel to mind through reshaping all those scenes into one sequence by cutting for pacing/performance.
LOL that is probably the gentlest way to put the absolute most pressure on me possible 😃
Seriously though, Thank you, man! And hopefully this works for most folks, although if some of the choices do not work for some viewers, hopefully it can become the base for some “half-ass” edits for other folks! In the reddit version of this thread, the reinstatement of Bor Gullet (which is a thing that’s happening here) has caused some “hmmmmmm’s” to pop out - which I get!
But also, I figure at this point, what made Bor Gullet cuttable in 2017 is not as applicable in 2025. When the movie came out, all we knew of Saw was The Clone Wars and a Rebels appearance? So him being a complete wackjob with a pet beanbag monster was… WAY out there. But now? Oh, Saw Gerrera drooling and shouting and taking massive hits of Rhydo is extreeeemely in character, LOL. Plus now Bodhi’s defection/capture is one 3 minute sequence, it’s not cut up and spread around the first half of the movie anymore.
“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally, they became heroes.”
-Senator Leia Organa of Alderaan, as quoted by Alan Dean Foster
Star Wars, from the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, by George Lucas (Nov. 1976)
Hello there!
The quote above, written by Alan Dean Foster and referring to Han & Luke, I feel applies a more closely to the characters of Rogue One, the 2016 prequel to that story, and that film’s 2022 prequel, Andor. Heroes of the unsung, unknown variety; their victories and sacrifices all the more meaningful and poignant because of it. It’s almost impossible to rewatch Rogue One, almost 10 years after its premiere, without two seasons of Andor weighing on it, pushing some to see it as a sort of “series finale” to that show.
But I don’t think it really works as a series finale to Andor; yet Andor is clearly, intentionally building to it. Showrunner Tony Gilroy specifically begins to fold the more hopeful/fantastical elements of both Rogue One (which he famously rewrote/reshot/re-edited) and Star Wars into its tapestry near the end, explicitly, for that reason! But Rogue One is still most solidly built, dramatically, as a bridge. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Special Edition is my attempt to reverse engineer the bridge, to carry viewers from a complicated 2016 to a more fantastical 1977 in a more streamlined manner; but also back towards the darker, demanding 2023-2025 series.
Sequences are compressed, not just to save time, but to maximize performances - there’s a TON of awards-caliber actors in this flick (the cast’s collective CV - maybe the best pound-for-pound cast IN a theatrical Star War - includes 2 Oscars, 2 Oscar Noms, a Cannes Grand Prix, a Cannes Best Actor, and 2 Emmys in it!) Those scenes have been rearranged a little too; some of Gilroy’s reshoot material is now stacked on top of itself at the open instead of spread out across the first 45min. And the stuff he didn’t reshoot has been made (yup, I’m gonna say it) faster and more intense. In 2016 the callbacks and (yup, gonna say this, too) fanservice was a little more welcomed (or tolerated). In 2025 it’s almost Alien: Romulus levels of elbows-to-the-ribs, and a lot of it’s been removed as a result. Although some of it’s fine. I don’t mind a pitcher of blue milk sitting out. It’s good and good for you. Healthy bones. Makes you strong enough to pull the ea–
Context is the key word here. There’s a lot of context coming to bear on this cut, context folks didn’t have (hell, that didn’t exist yet!) in 2016. Not just Andor, and all the context that show now provides to characters like Cassian and K-2SO, Orson Krennic and Saw Gerrera, even General Draven and Mon Mothma; but context via the previous edits and editors who have worked on this film in the interim. Some of those choices and ideas have been folded into this Special Edition.
That’s why this is a Special Edition: Normally I just do straight cuts and some music replacement. But since this started as some proof-of-concept tweaks, on a forum, to an edit of an edit, and then grew pretty quickly into something way more involved than that, there are things in here I don’t normally incorporate: You’ll see deepfake fixes to the CGI Tarkin & Leia from Shamook, as touched up by faneditor Burbin and integrated by Hal9000, as part of his own remixing of a top-notch edit by DigModiFicaTion. You’ll hear voice-over replacement of Darth Vader from Ryan Golden, as famously heard on YouTube via the Star Wars Story channel.
You won’t hear, however, any music from Andor folded into the soundtrack - not for lack of trying! Multiple scenes had Britell/Roberts cues mixed in at various points, but they all eventually came out. Same with attempts at using shots from the series as flashbacks; The problem was one of tone and style. I don’t think you can take what’s structurally, fundamentally Jyn Erso’s story in this film, and retrofit it to be equally Cassian’s. Especially since, on a larger thematic note, Cassian’s two seasons were ALL ABOUT how he, and his friends (who are everywhere), learned to put other people, and their growing, maturing cause, ahead of themselves, all for the sake of a better future.
I found I was short-circuiting both Rogue One and Andor when I tried to force this movie out of Jyn’s POV - thin as it might be. Although: trimming off a lot of her sarcastic/simplistic fronting and letting Jones’ performance speak more through her expressive-yet-subtle emoting REALLY helps that characterization. Turns out the less you have her posing, the realer she feels.
(That said, if you ARE looking to try a version of this movie that is literally turned into episodes of that show, please check out NFBisms amazing Andor: The Rogue One Arc.)
ANYWAY: If Rogue One is a bridge being retrofitted, then Jyn Erso has to occupy the midway point between Cassian Andor and Luke Skywalker (at least the one at the beginning of Star Wars) as best she can in order for it to work. Cassian has to be a supporting character here, not a co-lead, or Andor doesn’t make sense as a journey for him anymore. Jyn damn sure is not a Jedi, but she IS a believer. The corners of the galaxy they both occupy are dirty and grimy, but they’re literally knocking on doors to rooms that are about to be populated by wizards in bathrobes (a lesson Krennic already knows in his own way). Britell’s music can be pitch shifted and key transposed to blend into Giacchino’s, but the tenor of those compositions just didn’t combine for me, no matter what I tried. I guess that ended up being a metaphor for the project overall.
But the feel and style by which Andor’s story was told (if not through its music or repurposed shots) was absolutely front of mind as the cut evolved. And when changes were applied, they were applied so as to take the ingredients of Rogue One - Grieg Fraser’s photography, Michael Giacchino’s music, Gilroy’s sense of building pressure and dry humor - and cook ‘em up with a little more of that flavor. Especially now that we have so much more context to work with.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Special Edition
2hrs, 6min. 1080p, 2.39:1, 5.1 Dolby Digital, English subtitles (alien-language subtitles burnt-in)
Chapters:
Notable changes can be found in this follow-up post here.
if you would like to check it out yourself, DIRECT MESSAGE A REQUEST OR EMAIL ME DIRECTLY AT STRAIGHTCUTSNOCHASER AT GMAIL. DO NOT JUST REQUEST A LINK BELOW. Not only is “link plz” not a great way to get noticed, not only will site ownership probably just wipe it out (it’s against the rules here!) but it’s honestly way better odds you’ll get seen and get your request fulfilled faster if you just DM me, anyway. 😃
Any suggestions, comments, critiques, questions - whatever you got, I’m all ears.
one half of one! It happens pretty quick, too.
edit: I almost forgot I put it up on YouTube for people to stumble across, LOL.
This is how the movie now opens, and where the 1/2 of a deleted scene appears -
honestabe said:
I apologize if my post came across as aggressive.
Nah, you didn’t come off aggressive at all, don’t sweat that! It just gave me a moment to realize I hadn’t quite clocked or thought it all the way through, LOL. It’s okay. I’m gonna hang back for another month since as it turns out, that’s when the guy whose project this is gets back in here, and he’s gonna actually take another pass at this!
It’s all good 😃
honestabe said:
I think you made enough changes for a new thread. I also do not want Hal’s thread to get sidetracked here. I would like for him to retire from editing like he stated a while back. He has contributed more than enough to the fan editing community.
Just saw this, and straight off - apologies if I overstepped. I didn’t realize a) Hal was trying to get out of the game and b) this could be construed as putting a buncha stuff on his plate. I was basically just getting the ideas on their feet to see if they’d work and/or what you guys thought of seeing them as audio/video and not just theory. I’ll reach out - which I shoulda done in the first place!
Sounds interesting. Would definitely like to see some clips!
Alright, here’s the halfass clipshow!
https://vimeo.com/1089604497/96ef54b8e8
Just thought it’d be interesting to see some of these ideas up on their feet
I agree with those calling to reinstate the Andor/Tivik scene.
I’d also argue the following:
- I think it’s now worth reinstating Cassian’s instructions from Draven to kill Galen Erso. As you argued originally, it was to keep the audience in Jyn’s perspective and related to her line on trust. But in retrospect now we’re coming from the Andor show, I think its inclusion adds more value, by adding more tension to their mission earlier, given that the Andor we know is off to do something perfectly reasonable given the context but that will put him in conflict with our newly introduced focal/vital character.
- I’d remove the scene of Jyn climbing up out of the records vault and having to dodge a slicing door that’s for some reason on a weird open-shut timer. I don’t think it adds any legitimate threat, and only comes off as a bit goofy tonally.
I had time today after finishing another project early (and apparently after succumbing to a wish to give myself carpal tunnel after the last month of doing this way too much) so I actually halfassed Hal’s halfassery that is, of course, wholeassed-but-just-humble-about-it-really 😃
SO: I went through the last couple pages of this thread today, and took note of the suggestions, and decided to try implementing them just to see if they’d work in a cut, and then I got a couple ideas while I was in there, so I just… did 'em. In the spirit of halfassing stuff and all. I can post clips of some of this stuff for people’s perusal if interested?
Correct, the audio from this (the runtime and the fps should be exactly the same down to the millisecond, LOL) should be easily muxable into any mkv of this ep (720p, 480p, 4K HDR) once extracted in full. Anyone with an existing 4K HDR/DV rip of this should be able to just drop the .ac3 file into their muxer of choice and voila.
It would be kind of comedically overkill to share the entirety of a 40+min .ac3 file solely to get a single syllable restored in the sound-mix, but that’s where we are, because LFL wouldn’t get out of Tony’s way on this one.
This is GREAT news, especially for massive fans of both Tartakovsky and this micro-series. I’m super happy to see this. Congrats to everyone involved, and honestly, congrats to us for getting to time travel back to 2005.
I get it, I just disagree. but it’s not my cut and I wouldn’t stop anyone, or want to, from making their cut look and sound the way they want it, either. Apologies if it’s reading as overstepping, I don’t mean for it to come off that way! Just sharing (probably oversharing) my thoughts in the wake of the show.
For what it’s worth though, my understanding was that Partagaz ultimately approved her arrest, and essentially set her up to be the patsy (more or less) for Ghorman in the first place. Tarkin chumps Krennic, Krennic tries to end run him and THATS when he hits the ceiling. That Vader considers him an annoyance is the point: Krennic thinks he’s a big dog who can end run Tarkin after Tarkin big dogs him, and gets casually choked for it like it’s nothing. It’s not even a finger being laid on his head. And for as much as Andor concerns itself (and is great because of this) with the lower echelons of both the Rebellion AND the Empire, it’s worth remembering the real ceilings in BOTH those institutions ARE Force-powered, ultimately. When we get to THE linking piece between 2025 and 1977, there’s really no reason to pretend otherwise anymore from a storytelling perspective (which Gilroy himself understood by slow-rolling The Force into Andor midway through S2 as part of his goal to flesh out the movie he saved in 2016)
But again: that’s just clarification into my POV, not an attempt to really change anyone else’s POV, much less change their edits. I want people to do what they feel is right for their cuts and their versions of the things they’re making for their own libraries and to share with their friends and followers more than anything. Apologies again if it came off as anything otherwise.
I don’t think the point is to cut the hallway scene. At least when ive expressed cutting vader its been the scene with krennic on mustifar.
I think cutting him period is probably going too far. Krennic bullying Dedra pays off in the way he ends up becoming just like her when he butts up against that same fascist ceiling in Rogue One. She overreaches and winds up getting put in her place by both Partagaz and then Krennic. Krennic overreaches and gets chumped by both Tarkin, and then Vader. I get the general instinct, but I also feel like Gilroy is looking at Rogue One (and was looking at it when he got called in to fix it in the first place) as he’s making Andor and knows what it is he’s both leading into and also mirroring in subtle ways as he builds out his arcs.
Cutting Vader for the sake of cutting him to make Rogue One feel more like Andor feels, to me, like a short-circuiting of what Andor was doing in the first place by trying to build TO Rogue One.
I’ll DM you the wav of the mix so you can mix it into the episode proper, but yeah, you don’t need to ask permission or anything like that, just go ahead and use it! If I put anything out there, it’s automatically fair game for anyone else to transform however they see fit!
Funny story - I tried posting just that scene, as I had it on YouTube, to reddit on Mother’s Day (I hadn’t posted it to r/fanedits yet and thought that morning “hey, this would be kinda funny”) and it got deleted for “not being a fanedit” so just a heads up - trying to post it to reddit might NOT go so well. I never got an explanation on HOW it’s not a restoration according to their rules, either, but I didn’t think it was worth pressing the issue - it almost never is - especially over a single syllable, LOL.