ziggyonice

NeverarGreat said:

Totally fair, I’ll take another look at it and probably revert the lines (and some music) back to the previous version.

In my defense, I was up until 4 AM re-cutting all the sound effects from the 2017 workfiles for Restructured, so I probably wasn’t in a lucid state of mind at that point. 😉

Hey, no worries! It’s ALL great work! I stop by here nearly every day to see if you have anything new to share.

idir_hh said:

The overall sound is much improved but personally I think the it flows better without the extra Snoke line.

I’m going to have to agree here: it was better without the “I’ve felt it” line.

I think it’s clear that, in Snoke saying that “there’s been an awakening,” that (obviously) he felt it. No need to include the extra dialogue to get that point across.

Also Neverar, I actually preferred the music in the previous version (66) than in this new version (67). The best part in my opinion was that, in that first overhead shot of the forest, the music sounds quite bleak as Snoke says, “There’s been an awakening” and “The Dark Side.” But then — ah ha! — a light! As the forest begins to light up, the tone of the music changes to a much more optimistic melody, just as Snoke says, “And the Light.”

In your newer update, the music is too jolly throughout the entire sequence and I feel like it diminishes the difference between the darkness and the light, which is revealed when Rey looks up and sees the Falcon.

If I had a choice, I would say go back to 66 in almost every way. It was an excellent execution, with perhaps only a few sound effects tweaks needed.

Either way, great work. I just preferred (order) 66.

Just watched it again. Yes, I got chills. Excellent execution.

The training line is not necessary.

That is pretty slick. I really like it, actually.

Not sure how you come up with these ideas but they’re fantastic and so different than anything else.

RogueLeader said:

Sort of what I’ve been picturing:

Finn: Where’s Rey?

Cut to same island shot. Then cut to Rey entering frame, looking back Chewie, R2 and the Falcon. An abridged approach to the cliff, trying to avoid repeating shots. Use the same music as Rey’s first scene in TLJ, Rey reaches the top and it cuts to the empty cliff side on the swell of music (originally the musical point where Luke tosses the saber). She then goes back down to the village. Luke shuts the door before she can see him. She knocks, stands there, looks around. Looks toward the ocean and cut to the insert of the X-Wing submerged in the water.

When you cut to Luke in the hut, you also can cut the shot of him folding his ceremonial robes.

I really like this. Yes, it would require painting Luke out of the scene altogether, but I don’t think it would actually be terribly difficult, particularly for the wide shots.

ChainsawAsh said:

Love it! Still don’t like the boyfriend line, though. 😛

I’m okay with it. A little humor is totally okay in Star Wars. And of all the forced humor, that single line is far from the worst.

Speaking of, I’ve been hard at work on recreating the original '77 crawl font, and though I’ve had to guess on some characters it’s basically complete. Here it is in purple overlaid with the original crawl:

https://vimeo.com/359372926

Password: fanedit

That looks pretty damn close. Nice work.

I think the crawl is certainly going to be pretty important here and I would anticipate a lot more feedback on what it should say. Going back a few posts on this thread, I really liked the spirit of Dr. Krogshöj’s write up in that it includes some additional information about the political state of the galaxy. However, I think it’s actually a little too political.

So I wrote up a version previously (which I’ve since edited slightly here) and included some of your phrasing you mentioned in another post (particularly in the third paragraph).

So without further ado, here is my take on what the crawl should look like:

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the fledgling
REPUBLIC has been threatened
by the sinister FIRST ORDER,
born from ashes of the Empire.

Lead by a mysterious shadow,
this faction of evil grows
quickly, annihilating all in
its path until Skywalker, the
last Jedi, has been destroyed.

Determined to defend the
vulnerable Republic, a small
RESISTANCE is desperate to
find Luke and request his help
in defeating the darkness that
spreads across the stars . . . .

I like this because:

1. It gives some background on the First Order growing quickly
2. It describes the First Order as a “faction,” implying that they’re still a smaller (but growing) threat
3. It indicates the First Order is lead by something mysterious (aka Snoke)
4. It helps to describe some of the political state of the galaxy without going overboard
5. It describes the Republic as “fledgling” (like a young bird learning to fly) and “vulnerable” (which might explain why the Republic fleet doesn’t join the Resistance’s fight sooner)
6. It doesn’t mention Leia in the final paragraph, making her reveal more surprising
7. The “darkness spreading across the stars” is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Starkiller base, sucking life out of stars
8. “Across the stars” just sounds cool but also its the name of John Williams’ theme from Attack of the Clones
9. It’s also fairly short and fits within the same approximate word count as the other crawls (75 words)

I hope some of this helps you identify the direction the crawl should go!

Okay, I had to have my own attempt at the crawl:

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the fledgling
REPUBLIC has been threatened
by the sinister FIRST ORDER,
born from ashes of the Empire.

Lead by a mysterious shadow,
this faction of evil vows to
annihilate all in its path
until Skywalker, the last Jedi,
has been destroyed.

Determined to defend the
vulnerable Republic, General
Leia Organa leads a RESISTANCE
to stop the rising foe and find
her brother Luke before they do…

Okay, here are my notes on the Starkiller Infiltration sequence. Yes, I know that you have indicated that audio is not completed, but I’ve included some comments about what needs to be changed there as well.

1. First shot of Rey trying to escape the restraints has repeated audio: her breathing and struggling sound the exact same just a second apart from each other.

2. In the original, when Finn has Phasma lower the shields, he says, “You want me to blast that bucket of your head? Lower the shields.” While I don’t think the first part of that line is necessary, the second part is a good reminder to the audience of what we’re doing here. I really think you should consider keeping that second part of the line in.

There is a shot where Phasma’s helmet blocks Finn’s face as the camera pans across her — maybe you could have him speak the line just as the camera blocks his face with Phasma’s helmet? Like this:

“Lower the shields”
“You’re making a big mistake.”
“Do it.”

3. I really preferred when the alarm wasn’t silent. When Phasma stands up and says, “You can’t be so stupid as to think this will be easy,” the klaxon should start going off. (I think you did this in one of your earlier edits.) Otherwise, it seems confusing to me about why it randomly starts going off moments later. Like, did they get caught? Maybe there should be a different alarm sound that just goes off on the console Phasma was working on? And then the full klaxon goes off? I don’t know.

4. I liked that you got Rid of Finn’s joke line about Han’s nodding his head to point toward Rey. It was just a little too much attempt at humor and it fell flat.

5. The Kylo on the Falcon sequence looks good. The audio during the cockpit sequence is great. It would be cool if there was some way to animate some small moving dots representing ships in the distance, but the flashes of lights on the clouds might do it.

Absolutely gorgeous work.

This is the best version you’ve put together, and I really do not have much to say about it — which is a good thing. Here are my notes:

• The ocean/beach sound effect has a loud bird chirping that I found a little annoying and distracting. Could you use a different take? I’m not opposed to the occasional bird sound (it is an island, after all). The bird sound effects when she wakes up is fine. But this one bird in particular on the ocean/waves crashing sound effect is chirping a little too often and a little too loud. It’s coming from the left channel and you can hear it even on the far away shot of the island. On a separate note, if you wanted, I would be okay with a distant porg sound effect once or twice to better connect it to to TLJ.

• The sound effect when the light fades onto Rey’s face and she wakes up is perfect. I don’t know what that is — some sort of mysterious scraping sound — but whatever it is, it’s great.

• I like that you can hear C-3P0 distantly saying “general” before it shows Leia.

• The white bloom effect and blur that reveals Luke is great. The fade to white at the end is really a great touch.

• Can you turn up the volume just a little bit on the Force theme that plays when Rey is holding out the lightsaber? I think it’s just a tad too quiet compared to the swelling music that plays immediately after.

• Interesting choice to remove Rey calling Finn her “friend” when she says thank you. I’m not complaining. I actually think this is a good decision, as I always thought it sounded a little unnatural.

It’s looking really, really good. I watched this like 20 times, haha.

Welcome back, Nev. Good luck with the move into the house and looking forward to seeing your work again.

NeverarGreat said:
There was a bit of a lull in work today though, so I tinkered around a bit (more work on the Starkiller firing) and took another stab at parallel editing the Luke dream with full dream filters:

I think parallel editing is definitely the way to go here for the maximum benefit of the music.

First of all, I absolutely agree with you that the parallel editing is the way to go. It is far more polished makes the build up with the crescendo in the music much better than in the sequential version. Some may disagree with me here, but it looks super slick.

Secondly, a few notes…

1. When Rey wakes up, I think we need to see a shot of the island from afar — maybe the ocean shots from The Last Jedi trailer? My thoughts here are that, in the current state, we see Rey wake up, but don’t have any indication that she ISN’T still on D’Qar. For all the audience knows, she was sleeping in a room with stone-lined walls to begin with at the Resistance base. So then it’s a little confusing if someone doesn’t notice the “dream effect.” Bottom line: can you fit an island shot in there, just as she wakes up and just before R2-D2 wakes up?

2. I compared this most recent edit with your previous take and I noticed you swapped the position of the scenes where C-3P0 says, “R2 has some much-needed good news.” Just my opinion, but I think the original placement was better. With the new position, Leia says “Tell me” just before we see Luke for the first time and I think it distracts from his reveal. Maybe you could put that scene just after the really wide / faraway shot of Rey climbing up the mountain?

3. I wish there was more music here to fit more shots in. Are you open to repeating the first couple verses of The Jedi Steps to fit in more? Like, I think it’s important that we see the map piece from BB-8 be hooked up to match the map that R2-D2 is showing. If you had just a few more seconds, I think it could be done. Any chance you might be willing to consider repeating the first ~10-15 seconds of the song? Or maybe you could use some of the extended version of the song from the suite?

As always, great work. Hope to see you again soon.

I just wanted to say I love you, NeverarGreat.

Really, really great work on the Starkiller firing scene.

One thing I think I missed though: you no longer have Hux yelling, “Fire!”

I think that makes it a little more powerful, specifically when that female First Order agent turns to face the camera. If he yelled it right then, I think it would be as though she is listening to his orders.

Also, it’s just a little scarier when that happens.

Or maybe not.

One more thing: it definitely needs some audio work (which I’m sure you’re aware). Missing some explosions and X-Wing sounds.

NeverarGreat said:

I guess the question becomes, which version of the edit has more promise? The sequential edit might lose the saber entirely as well as the Leia scene while also raising the question of where Rey is after the dream, whereas the parallel edit could keep these things while maybe not being the most intuitive from the outset.

The parallel edit looks so much more polished than the sequential version does. The sequential version feels very rushed because it has to fit the music.

Add the “dream effects” to the dream sequences for the parallel version and it’ll be more apparent. I absolutely prefer the parallel version. Also, I noticed you don’t have the faraway shot of the island in the parallel version (while you do have it in the sequential version).

I’ve mentioned this before: you can always do multiple versions of the same fanedit. Just duplicate your project file. Yes, it’s a little more to maintain, but there will never be one “100% right” version.

That said, your parallel version is so much more slick, in my opinion. Just make the dream clips easier to identify as dream clips.

Personally, I think the parallel editing is great.

And this is coming from the guy that didn’t like it originally.

NeverarGreat said:

In the latest version of the dream sequence I’ve significantly slowed the first handful of shots to achieve a similar effect. I think that plus the different TLJ aesthetic gives an otherworldly feel to the scene. I’ve also done away with Finn being medic-ed and shifted some shots for the finale to cover the weird transition from the Falcon in the clouds to it flying past the rings.

https://vimeo.com/335299081

Password: fanedit

I’ll admit, you may have sold me. The transition from Rey sleeping to her waking up is beautiful and the Jedi Steps makes this “dream” feel very mysterious.

The only nitpick I had was this rendition is that I felt like it would be more powerful — maybe — if Leia saying “Luke” while looking at the map happened BEFORE he turns around and faces Rey. I feel like we need more time on Luke’s face.

EDIT: On another watch, I don’t know if this is necessary. Maybe just to try it.

Other than that, I liked it. Really interesting idea.

I actually don’t hate the new Vader / Kenobi battle sequence. I agree that not all of it would fit when integrated into A New Hope; however, there are at least a few shots that I think would be worthwhile to include.

I saw this mock-up on another thread and you can get a feel for what I am talking about:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yyvEBmTmjtLDrvKjLj5BFlouKwlxz1n3/view?usp=sharing

NFBisms said:

ok i tried to do it, using star wars revisited:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yyvEBmTmjtLDrvKjLj5BFlouKwlxz1n3/view?usp=sharing

I’ll be honest, that’s actually not half bad.

There ARE some shots in here that could be used. Obviously using the entire sequence might feel out of place (mainly just because of some choices made with regards to camera work and mediocre effects). However, using some of it sparingly looks decent, I won’t lie.

NeverarGreat said:
Two versions would be tricky unless you also prefer the original version with R2’s coincidental awakening, since I’d have to make two entirely different versions of an edit-heavy sequence.

Eh, I don’t think it would that difficult. Obviously things are still set to change, but going with your idea of having Rey fix Artoo — that works fine. In fact, I think I’d keep everything after that.

Basically, keep everything immediately after Artoo wakes up.

The only thing I can think of that could be questioned is where is Rey when Artoo shows the map. Granted, she wasn’t in the original scene either, so I don’t really know if this matters.

…What I’m trying to say is that JJ makes the search for Luke the point of the movie when Luke’s role should really be about what his legend means to others.

I certainly do understand what you are saying, and they are good arguments. What I disagree with you about is that I don’t think JJ made the “point of the movie” to be about the search for Luke. Just because Luke is the focus of the ending scene doesn’t mean that what the movie is about has changed. Also, I do kind of feel like it is necessary because he is a legend, a myth. When the audience sees the mysterious that surrounds him, when we experience that same build-up of curiosity that Rey feels, that’s how you know that the scene is successful.

I like some of this a lot, and I dislike some of it.

If I were doing a fanedit of ANH, I think I might use some of this footage, but probably not all of it. Either way, it does make this battle feel a lot fresher and more like what we would expect from these two characters.

I would definitely strip out this music though and replace it with John Williams.

Today, the team creating the long awaited remake of the Darth Vader vs. Obi Wan Kenobi fight was released:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to2SMng4u1k - 6 minute video - from the FXitinPost youtube channel.

This looks spectacular. Would look great integrated with the rest of A New Hope.

NeverarGreat said:

However, now that I have R2 find the map at night with Rey nowhere in sight, it begs the question of what she’s doing at that moment. Sleeping would be the obvious answer, but what better place to put the dream of the island? Honestly I didn’t intend for this when making the night shot though it probably should have occurred sooner:

https://vimeo.com/334596045

Password: fanedit

This is an interesting concept. I don’t dislike it. I like that we’re still getting this feeling of mystery that comes with the Luke reveal in the original.

However, I do think I’m going to have to agree that it is considerably more complex. I feel like movies generally need to be pretty simple and straightforward. Weaving these two sequences together isn’t impossible, but I just think it’s a little unnecessary.

Again, you know my love for the original ending based on my comment above and previously. I’m open to changes to it, but I believe that whatever changes are made needs to ensure the sense of mystery powerful build up to Luke’s reveal remains intact.

NeverarGreat said:

I agree that it’s a great scene, it just doesn’t really work for me as a literal cliffhanger at the end of TFA.

What could I do to convince you to consider more than one version of your fanedit?

Multiple versions of the same fanedit are not uncommon. You have so much very good content that you’ve worked on here. I just believe that the ending scene with Luke is a defining moment for the saga. However, opinions like mine here are not uncommon — everyone has their own take on things and are looking for their “go to” version of their favorite fanedit, after all.

If there’s any way I can convince you or help you make an alternate version, please let me know. It isn’t terribly difficult, especially with the cost of storage being so cheap. Plus, you’d be opening the door to more people being able to enjoy your work based on their version they most enjoy.

You don’t have to answer now, but please at least consider it for the future.

poppasketti said:

Yeah still thinking about a V2 possibility that will do just that! I have gotten some feedback, though, from a couple of people (literally 2!) that did like my take on that scene so I may have to keep an older version for them too.

Just going to throw in my two cents:

Fanediting is something is fluid and always changing. There is no one “right” version of a film; rather, there are many different ideas and interpretations — each of which carries its own weight and has just as much value as the last.

With that said, it is my opinion that a faneditor should never consider a project to be finished. While I certainly hope that one finds satisfaction in their own work, the truth of the matter is that we do this for others. What fun is creating a fanedit if there’s no one to watch it? Making tweaks to satisfy even a small number of viewers means that you have given people a definitive experience they haven’t received elsewhere.

Constantly getting feedback to be improving, conceptualizing, or even just making the most modest of changes — that is what makes this hobby so enjoyable.

If you decide to make more changes — and I encourage you to do so — don’t think of it as “version 2.” You aren’t improving upon your original work (which is incredible, by the way), rather you are just trying out a different approach. An alternate cut. See where it lands, and most of all, have fun. Worst case scenario, you make someone else’s dream cut. You always have your first run to fall back on.

Keep all your versions. Hell, make fifty of them if you want! Storage is cheap and editing is fun. Find what works best and what people love. Who knows, maybe you’ll find something you like even more than your original. We are what they grow beyond, that is the burden of all faneditors.

Pretty wild how the additional footage makes this sequence much better. It actually seems as though the Rebels and Ewoks are at least somewhat in control.