OutboundFlight

So we have a Death Star 3. Let’s do something interesting with that.

What if instead of just destroying the Hosnian system, Starkiller destroys dozens of planets in one launch? This would explain how the Republic collapsed – they had ships at bases across the galaxy, but Starkiller was able to destroy all of them in a single mass launch.

In addition to Coruscant, Starkiller could also target “symbolic targets” to weaken the Republic’s resolve for fighting. Endor, Corellia, possibly even Tatooine if TROS was edited, all removed in one attack. A Star Wars 9/11.

These planets won’t return anyway and their destruction would rally audiences to start caring about the Resistance - First Order conflict. I may not care about avenging Hosnian Prime, but I do care about avenging the Ewoks!

Unfortunately, I switched software in the past two years and I couldn’t access the original file, nor did I think to publish a detailed changelog at the time, so I’m afraid not. I can however list out all my changes to the best of my memory.

– Custom crawl, in red text, explaining a “dark acolyte” (Savage) is searching for Maul.
– A greatly trimmed “Brothers”, removing most of the fluff, though unfortunately not the snake.
– “Voyage of Temptation”, the second episode of the Season Two Mandalore arc, is included because it introduced Satine’s relationship with Obi-Wan. The episode’s main plot remains intact but it is trimmed to 12 minutes by removing redundancies, such as the multiple dining scenes and the multiple spider droids. Instead, each happens in one scene and it makes for a faster pace.
– One scene from the follow-up “Duchess of Mandalore” is used to show Dooku abandoning contact with Death Watch.
– “Revenge” has been almost entirely removed, consisting of only the scene on Dathomir and Obi-Wan meeting with Yoda. This was because I had no way of introducing Ventress within the film’s limited scope and “Revival” hits the same beats anyway.
– Interspaced between the movie in various bits is “Twin Suns” from Rebels. This was never ideal and I was always displeased by how this came out, but by the nature of TCW at the time there was no emotional ending to Maul’s story.
– “Revival” has very few changes. The only I can remember was cutting one of Maul’s lines that Kenobi arrival was “too soon” because in this context Maul still hasn’t met Kenobi yet and is calling him here intentionally.
– “Eminence” cuts out the extended and pointless Nal Hutta attack. Instead, it jumps straight from the Pyke’s arrival to the attack on Jabba’s Palace, tightening the rise of the Shadow Collective.
– “Shades of Reason” and “The Lawless” are not significantly altered in any way. It’s been a while so I might be forgetting a line or two I cut, but no major plot beats were altered.
– The edit ends with “Twin Suns”, trying to conclude Maul’s story in a thematically resonate way, although in hindsight I don’t know if combining TCW and Rebels’ very different styles works as well as I was hoping.

Artan42 said:

EddieDean said:

Back to finishing off the Ryloth arc:

S01E20 Innocents of Ryloth - Excludable

The problem with this episode is that it adds nothing at all. Obi-wan goes and rescues some innocents from droids, whilst two clones we never see again meet a twi’lek child.

Waxer and Boil show up again in the Umbara arc for a minor but dramatic scene. The child is Numa (I think) and one of the two gets a graphic of her on his helmet. Numa shows up again in Rebels as part of Chem’s unit wearing parts of clone armour in the same colours as Waxer and Boil’s unit (212th? I think they’re part of Cody’s mob).

Not massive issues if you were to cut the episode but due to the same creative team, there’s basically only one episode that doesn’t connect to any other and receives no call backs in Rebels or The Mandalorian, and that’s ‘Lightsabre Lost’. Everything else is called back in some way, small or large, in the future.

And even that’s connected. The old Jedi who teaches Ahsoka in that episode returns in the middle of the Anakin / Bariss duel in the Wrong Jedi (admittedly, it’s an unimportant cameo)

It’s inevitable to cut certain story arcs. That said, imo Innocents of Ryloth is the best of the Ryloth trilogy for its emotional core. It’s the first episode that actually shows the damage of war beyond clones and droids. Storm and Liberation are solid battle episodes, but Innocents focuses on the lesser known combatants in war, and for that reason I suggest it should remain.

I agree. Not to disrespect any of the amazing and ambitious fan editing projects on the forum right now (props to all of them, I could never make that many edits)… but I’ve always felt trying to adapt the Clone Wars into individual movies simply doesn’t work. All too often it feels like putting two disconnected story arcs together: that’s part of the reason I moved away from my original plans following Maul, when I planned out an Ahsoka related Season 1 and 2 edit but couldn’t get it to flow properly. TCW is designed to be episodic.

A more open-minded fanediting project, where each episode can be as long or as short as possible, is honestly the best way to watch TCW. Even as someone who owns all the Seasons on DVD and frequently rewatches my favorites on Disney +, I’ll admit there’s lots of filler in the show that could be cut for a better viewing. Definitely the smartest and most flexible way to approach things.

Wow, this looks amazing… may I have a link?

ZkinandBonez said:

Of course the irony here is that it’s really just us SW geeks that can be excited or annoyed at them bringing in EU characters. F.ex. I share my Disney+ account with my mother (who’s a very casual OT fan) and whenever I ask her about the latest episodes it never even occurred to her that some characters were from other series until I mention it. As far as she was concerned regarding chapter 11 it was just fun to see other Mandalorians that were allowed to take off their helmets and since it added to Din’s story she enjoyed the episode. The name Ahsoka means nothing to her so its just the name of a “new” character to her.

I personally think Favreau did a really good job at incorporating Bo-Katan into Din’s character development, while also referring to stuff that matters to CW/Rebels fans. We know what the darksaber is, but to others its just a setup for a future plot-thread.

That’s true… I didn’t think of it from that perspective.

Ima be honest… I wasn’t a fan of this episode. It was decent, but nothing stood out to me. The Clone Wars characters are cool in theory, but I’m worried the dark saber plot-line is going to take over the narrative. I hope this doesn’t become Siege of Mandalore #4 (how many times is Bo Katan gonna try to retake it lol).

The reason Season 1 was so great was because it was something new, with original characters and original stories. This felt more like New Mandalorians show up and fights Stormtroopers for 30 mins. I thought Chapters 9 and 10 did an amazing job recapturing the originality of the first season, but this Chapter fell flat unfortunately.

JakeRyan17 said:

Like and Leia also act like they know everything they care to know about Snoke.

And my point is that for decades A New Hope was treated like a sequel to unseen events, and it wasn’t confusing. When the explanation came of how the Empire rose, most fans rejected it. Also, again, the difference is that the characters we know and interacted with were directly impacted by the events of the prequels. There’s no shared history with Snoke, so it doesn’t matter.

Take a Legends/EU example: the Yuuzhan Vong aren’t really explained. They just come from far away. Over the course of those stories they kinda delve into pertinent details, but they’re not giving all of this unnecessary information just to fill out more pages on Wookieepedia.

If that backstory reveal doesn’t affect what’s happening in the current story: it doesn’t matter. Snoke’s backstory never impacted the current stories being told. Pre-TROS continuity had him as an ancient dark force calling out to Palpatine from the Unknown Regions in novels and games. But what would such a reveal in the film matter when talking to characters that were born after Palpatine’s death? What would it matter to Luke and Leia who were concerned with toppling the Empire and restoring democracy to the Galaxy in the OT and have to help or not help do that again? When did they state that they’d defeated the Dark Side of the Force? Where does this plot point come up that you’re so attached to?

Again, it’s just for fans who want to fill out Wookieepedia pages. It did not serve the actual story being told. If you’re mad that we got the stories we got, a lot of people are mad at JJ Abrams for his decisions to do an off-brand A New Hope story and reset that status quo. The problem isn’t Snoke and the First Order, the problem is hiring a man who can’t write to be co-writer and director.

I’ll give you the Vong point, but I think the key difference boils down to that storyline starting with the Vong’s emergence in a New Republic Galaxy. I know TFA supposedly starts with the New Republic in control, but that’s never really the case. With the Vong, we see how the New Republic is failing to properly address this threat until it is too late.

When it comes to cohesion, every Star Wars episode ends a certain way, and every successive episode follows up on that. When you watch 1-6, it feels like a singular unit (at least generally, I know the Prequels have some weirder elements). The ST feels detached from that because of the thematic gap between 6 and 7.

TPM: Anakin will be a Jedi and the Republic cannot handle threats like the Trade Federation.
AOTC: A Clone Army has been created and a War will begin.
ROTS: The Empire has risen, The Jedi destroyed, Anakin is Vader, and Luke will be raised on Tatooine.
ANH: The Rebels defeated the Death Star.
ESB: Han is missing and Vader is plotting to re-capture Luke.
ROTJ: The Empire is defeated!

Every movie before follows what the last movie set-up except for TFA, which jumps right to the First Order and Resistance. This is not a natural continuation of the plotlines as much as it is an attempt to reset to something safe (which I understand given the PT’s then-poor reputation). The more I think about this, the more I think it was planned this way. By having effectively a “hidden trilogy” between the OT and ST, JJ had a mystery box to incite hype towards what could come in later installments. Unfortunately, said promised answers ended up very contrived (the Palpatine reveal), which I think we can both agree weren’t for the best, regardless of our views on TFA and TLJ.

But this reply is getting too long. I think we’re getting off-topic and moving beyond the point: faneditng ideas. So to try and shift the conversation back, how feasible would it be to rotoscope a different character into Snoke’s place? I’m imagining the Emperor could have multiple clones, tying the trilogy together rather than having two evil old man dark lords. Not ideal, but I’ll settle with what’s possible.

JakeRyan17 said:

Except, again looking at Star Wars/A New Hope, they mention an Old Republic. What happened to that Old Republic? Why is there a senate to be dissolved if this Republic has been gone for so long? Is the Empire new? How’s it gain so much power so quickly?

Snoke doesn’t undo anything of the original trilogy. Palpatine not being defeated does, but a new threat coming from the Unknown Regions does not.

It’s not any more or less established in universe, your need for every answer coming from a 30 year gap is not the same as a flaw in storytelling.

For me, it comes down to how unlike a first installment, typically sequels continue the story of their predecessors. You can start midway through a backstory for a first movie, but a sequel? It’s just confusing and makes the first movie feel redundant. Imagine in Episode V’s crawl opened with the New Republic many years after the defeat of the Empire. It wouldn’t make any sense and would make ANH feel pointless in retrospect.

I’m not opposed to Snoke appearing, but it’s so upsetting to watch all of the OT, watch the ending celebration, and be hyped to see a New Republic victorious… and that never happens. We just reset to a Resistance / Empire dynamic again. It feels like there’s a trilogy missing to bridge this gap.

(That said this isn’t something we can fix in fanedits… the best we can do is try to explain who Snoke exactly is to give it some semblance of cohesiveness).

I think we’re jumping the gun here. 9 and 10 can are nice filler episodes, but entirely irrelevant to the bigger picture. You can establish in the crawl that the Mandalorian is searching for others of his kind, and he is transporting a passenger to a planet in search of finding one. Then start with Episode 11.

Mando’s line in the cantina could be repurposed at some point to explain how he got Boba Fett’s armor. The only continuity issue is the ship being wrecked, but the Falcon’s hyperdrive got crummy between 4 and 5 so I don’t think that matters.

Anakin Starkiller said:

That’s strange because it never bothered me while Leia being Luke’s sister does for the same reason.

I think it’s because Boba being a modified clone doesn’t really shrink the universe as much as provide context. There were millions of clones fighting in the war just 20 years ago, of course some would pop up as bounty hunters if the Empire sent out a flyer. It’s a retcon but it makes sense if you recall in the OT Boba Fett isn’t a special bounty hunter, he was just in the right place at the right time.

Whereas Luke/Leia is just terrible all around.

SandMTV said:

If Maul and Grievous are one in this version like JXeditor’s Prequel Trilogy, then who’s going to fill in Maul’s role in the Siege of Mandalore? Ventress, Savage Opress, Cad Bane, or some other enemy?

I don’t think the Clone Wars show would exist in this theoretical continuity.

Having read through these nine-year-old ideas… they’re amazing! The only concern I’d have is a lack of screentime, as cutting all of Tatooine would really mess with the movie’s pacing. One idea I have is to start with an extended prologue of Obi-Wan (deepfaked Qui-Gon) finding young Anakin on Tatooine, ending with Maul’s return before a time jump of 8 years later. The only issue is you’d need to find a reason for Jar Jar and Padme being there. Maybe just deepfake them too, cause why not!

thebluefrog said:

OutboundFlight said:

I think it would be an awesome twist if Sidious was kept secret until Episode II. Audiences watch Episode I and assume Dooku is the big bad and Maul his apprentice. Go through Episode II knowing about Dooku and suspecting him to make the Empire. And then at the end, we reveal Dooku is just another pawn in a far greater conspiracy.

I know it doesn’t really matter now: everyone knows Sidious is behind it all now, but if we were designing this edit for someone who’s never seen the PT I think this would be a much better way to go about it.

Conceptually, it makes sense, and would work if PM was a differently-structured movie.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work with the overall 6 movie structure since seeing Palpatine’s subtle machinations are key to the entire overarching plot.

I don’t think it’s as difficult as you’d expect.

Step One: Pixalate the Palpatine Hologram and deep-ify the voice, like a mysterious Bond villain.

Step Two: Rotoscope Dooku into some key scenes. I recall a fanedit inserting Dooku into the Jedi Council scene in TPM, but I can’t find it anywhere on Youtube. I probably saw it here through a Vimeo link. But if we added Dooku to the Jedi Council we’d have an establishing scene.

Step Three: The hardest part would be inserting Dooku into the Palpatine / Maul scene. This would be the one time he actually talks, possibly using deleted scenes dialogue. Maybe cut the scene entirely and redub the Maul Apprentice scene in the ship meditating.

So it’s very simple, but enough for first-time viewers to put together the puzzle. A mysterious Sith is talking to Gunray, but we can’t connect the voice (which has been altered through the hologram) to Palpatine. Then, we see a Jedi Council member working with the Sith Maul. So the big bad must be Dooku!

Palpatine would remain seemingly innocent until the big reveal at the end of Episode II.

I think it would be an awesome twist if Sidious was kept secret until Episode II. Audiences watch Episode I and assume Dooku is the big bad and Maul his apprentice. Go through Episode II knowing about Dooku and suspecting him to make the Empire. And then at the end, we reveal Dooku is just another pawn in a far greater conspiracy.

I know it doesn’t really matter now: everyone knows Sidious is behind it all now, but if we were designing this edit for someone who’s never seen the PT I think this would be a much better way to go about it.

jarbear said:

thebluefrog said:

OutboundFlight said:

jarbear said:

How is changing the look of an established thing to make it “new” makes sense? That’s like Vader’s lighter saber turning black during the final battle cuz … he’s fighting for the emperor/reasons!

If you wanna change the look for something cuz it looks cool … that’s your choice and go for it with your own edit … and this is a general redux thread for the movie … but trying to justify it and be angry that people don’t agree using valid reasoning is silly and bad story telling/writing.

I disagree. If Vader used the force on the Emperor in 1983 and his sword turned black, it would have been written in as a new force power that happens when you become super angry or reach your destiny or whatever and fans would follow it adamantly. The same as Luke (a Jedi) now having a green lightsaber.

Yep. People get too bogged down with the weight of canon and don’t remember the things that have “always been this way” were new ideas at one point. I mean, take why Mace Windu has a purple lightsaber:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKowrRnERrY

Lucas: Good Jedis only use blue and green. Bad guys only use red. This is how lightsaber power works.
Jackson: Please?
Lucas: Ok.

There, canon suddenly changed.

Reasonable argument, but doesn’t quite fit the mold specifically about changing something that has always been “this” to “now it changes to “this”. The first Star Wars movie introduced different colored lightsabers. More colors came after that movie. So the door was opened right away for that and continued. The audience can see the bad guys consistently used red throughout. Could they use other color sabers? Sure! But they like red … just like a gang can have a “rule” to only wear orange sleeveless hoodies.

Force lighting has stayed the same look throughout the trilogy. Same in the OT, PT and ST.

And no, the argument “ well Lucas could have done “x” and people/fans would accept it” is a bad argument. Trying to use a “what if” to justify a reason to do something new/different is bad, come on man. “Let’s make “x” glow when using the force cuz Lucas could have done that in “y” movie to support it…”

Maybe we’ve gotten off-topic. We seem more interested in talking if the idea is “logical” when we should be talking about why include it in the first place.

The entire point of this (if I understood it correctly) was that Rey’s blue lightsabers vs Palpatine’s blue lightning amidst the electric blue of Exogol made for a very one-sided color pallet for the final duel of all of Star Wars. So people started talking about making Exogol green a la the Nightsisters, and then someone suggested Palpatine’s lightning being red.

I think this is an improvement for several reasons.

1. In Star Wars, the Jedi have been most commonly represented as Blue, while the Sith have always been represented with Red. While Palpatine and Dooku both used blue lightning in the past, Palpatine is really emphasizing the “Sith” in this movie, as we see in his “I am all the Sith” speech.

2. Palpatine’s lightning is more powerful than anything we saw in ROTS or ROTJ, but this isn’t clear until he randomly destroys the fleet. Making it a different color would signify this is a real danger, something on a scale we haven’t been before.

3. It provides strong visual contrast, rather than tons of blue flying everywhere. Especially if mixed with a green Exogol, I think the red against blue would make a great symbolic and visual end.

jarbear said:

How is changing the look of an established thing to make it “new” makes sense? That’s like Vader’s lighter saber turning black during the final battle cuz … he’s fighting for the emperor/reasons!

If you wanna change the look for something cuz it looks cool … that’s your choice and go for it with your own edit … and this is a general redux thread for the movie … but trying to justify it and be angry that people don’t agree using valid reasoning is silly and bad story telling/writing.

I disagree. If Vader used the force on the Emperor in 1983 and his sword turned black, it would have been written in as a new force power that happens when you become super angry or reach your destiny or whatever and fans would follow it adamantly. The same as Luke (a Jedi) now having a green lightsaber.

I think y’all overthinking this. Red = Cool, unique, and a visual contrast against Rey’s blue saber. That’s all it needs to be.

But if we have to get technical, I guess you could say stealing force power channels the deepest depths of the force and this is even more dangerous than standard lightning. It’s something on a scale we haven’t seen since the Son (or for most fans, ever).

Actually… this would explain why Palps can suddenly force blast an entire fleet…

I think both TPM and ROTS get bad reps for being connected to the shitstorm that is AOTC.

TPM is boring but is clearly trying… had George Lucas not directed the actors so bad, it could’ve been on par with the OT. But the lack of any emotion makes it such a drag to watch, I can’t consider it the “best prequel”.

ROTS is completely bonkers but unlike AOTC at least there’s some semblance of a story (albeit one Lucas had to follow) happening. IMO it’s the best prequel, but I’ll admit a lot of my enjoyment comes from the tragedy of Anakin – something that really only hurts once you’ve seen TCW. Without TCW, the movie’s just a serviceable story with great ideas but forced execution. Definitely not the masterpiece Reddit makes it out to be.

Now AOTC on the other hand. Don’t get me started 😃…

To be fair… enthusiasm for Star Wars was at an all-time low. At least that’s how I saw things irl… in 2015 the marketing for Star Wars was huge. Everyone talked about it that December. Then in 2016 and 2017, the excitement was less than in 2015 but still far-reaching. Everyone was at least aware of the Star Wars movie coming out even if they weren’t planning on watching it.

But in 2019 everyone was… tired? At least from what I saw, there wasn’t much general excitement for the movie. Maybe the marketing was too focused on “the end” when everyone knew Disney would keep making movies. Maybe this was the first movie without the return of an iconic character (Han/Vader/Luke). Or maybe it wasn’t Disney’s fault at all and three was just the magic number for people to become tired with the franchise.

I don’t think it had anything to do with low reactions to TFA or TLJ, but there definitely was a dip in enthusiasm among general audiences.

I have to admit, I’ve been in the “ROTJ isn’t good” camp for a while now… but lately I rewatched it and I remembered how good it really was.

It’s the type of movie that sounds bad on paper but when you watch it it somehow works. A lot of moments require you turn your brain off (Luke’s plan, the Ewoks, the 2nd Death Star etc) but these all lead to payoffs that make it worthwhile (unlike some other movies cough cough). It’s also probably the most emotional of the Star Wars movies. Possibly tied with Empire. But you can really feel for Luke’s struggle with the dark side in the final confrontation, mirrored with the complete hopelessness of the situation outside. That’s something neither the PT or ST ever come close too, and boy did they try.

I wouldn’t call it a good “film”, but it is a good “movie”, and a great “blockbuster”.

Maybe reimagine Starkiller Base as a Star Forge. That would explain how the First Order got so strong. Hux’s speech would mark when the first dreadnought built by the forge hyperspaces to Hosnian and uses mini Death Star tech to destroy the Senate.

I’d keep the restructured approach. Not once did I think D’Qar was in any danger. It’s just instead of a superweapon being launched against the Republic, it’s a fleet of dreadnoughts.

Chase Adams said:

The rules are clear, post screenshots of the most ridiculous Star Wars related Youtube thumbnails you can find. Must be legit, no edits.

This isn’t a place for debates about the contents of the videos at all, videos must be judged solely by the thumbnails.

Start your searching!

Here’s one to kick off: 😂

Great idea for a thread!

I find those “Old Anakin” photoshops unintentionally hilarious, in part because Anakin’s ghost has been established as ROTS age (why would they age him), and also because of how… terrible it is.

StarkillerAG said:

Also, the season 2 leakers suffered a big hit in credibility recently. Two weeks ago, they said that the trailer would feature a scene of Ahsoka fighting two bounty hunters, but that fight is nowhere to be found here. They also said that Sasha Banks would play Sabine, but she seems to be an original character here. Now I’m starting to doubt whether there really will be any animated characters returning in this season. It seems like we’re back to square one in terms of leaks, and that’s actually really exciting to me.

Tbh, I never really like the idea of Sabine, Ahsoka, ex coming into Mando… and this is from a huge TCW fan. Everyone loved Mandalorian because it was a breath of fresh air. It made the galaxy feel big again in a way we haven’t seen since the OT. Adding a ton of Clone Wars characters just because they can is honestly disappointing, I’d prefer for Mando and Child to meet new characters and have original adventures.

(Also Ahsoka should be dead by now I like her too but cmon Filoni is she gonna be alive past TROS now?)

StarkillerAG said:

Excellent post, Broom Kid. I was trying to avoid answering the question directly, but you summed my feelings up perfectly. Just because Abrams made one good Star Wars movie doesn’t mean he can’t make a bad Star Wars movie. His on-the-fly storytelling method is the main reason why the latest movie was so disappointing. Sometimes it’s a blessing, like in TFA, other times it’s a curse.

In general, it’s a lot easier to start something without a plan than end something without a plan. See: Lost.

That’s not to bash Abrams, who I think is a very talented director (not writer) but maybe it’s best to keep him limited to first/second installments.

Agreed. I think Disney is partially at fault for hiring Abrams instead of Trevorrow, Johnson, or anyone else, and they knew what they were getting when they signed his contract: damage control. But everything that went down in the production was Abrams.

At least that’s my take, someone with no insight into the film industry and is very likely completely wrong. But going off what we know of Disney and Abrams from the past I think this the most probable scenario. I know there are sources that suggest JJ was really unhappy with the final cut and blamed it on studio execs but honestly, I think that’s just BS by angry fans wanting upvotes on Saltier than Crait.