Honestly, season 2 ending works great as a finale to the series too. If you have some other higher quality shows on your watchlist I’d say go check them out instead of this.
WitchDR put it perfectly. Just going through the motions in the least interesting way possible.
Remember having to write essays in school, and sometimes having to scramble to wrap up the concluding paragraph before time ran out? That’s how this finale felt.
This is so cool! Honestly Star Wars is such a fun setting for table top. I wonder if there are more source books for this system?
(If this film doesn’t have a Wilhelm scream, by God we’ll add one.)
Speaking of which, did you know researchers recently uncovered the original recording? Check it out! Here’s an article about it.
So cool! It would be cool to insert the other takes of the scream in different edits as well.
Even new Star Wars stories set in the OT time period, like Andor, (my new favorite show), fall victim to the dramatic consequences of the Sequel Trilogy “reboot” plot. You sort of need to mentally ignore the Sequels when watching Andor, otherwise you’re watching a small band of desperate revolutionaries endure nightmarish prisons, make impossible moral sacrifices for a better future, etc., only to have the Empire rise again around two decades later, and then be destroyed again in a similar but discontinuous way by different people.
The old EU in all honesty wasn’t that great (it went off the rails pretty quickly), but at least it told an overall story that was a progression of the OT events, as the former Rebels of the OT became the political and military leaders of the New Republic. The New Republic was depicted as a flawed institution, but it placed the OT heroes in different roles and exposed them to different challenges, progressing the OT story instead of just resetting back to Rebels vs. Empire.
I feel like a lot of these issues could’ve been alleviated with relatively minor changes. The ST films could have made it clearer that the New Republic wasn’t destroyed, but maybe in disarray after Starkiller Base destroyed the Senate. The TLJ and TROS crawls could have explained that battles were being fought across the galaxy between scattered New Republic forces and the First Order, and they didn’t reunify until TROS.
I’m sure this will be repetitive for those who have seen me say this before, but if you just went a little further, they could have removed Starkiller Base, and just had the events of the Sequel Trilogy take place within First Order space. The New Republic would be mostly offscreen, unable to make the first move until the First Order directly attacked them. Leia, who could even be described as a former Chancellor, would lead a resistance movement that is just within First Order territory. In TFA and TLJ, the New Republic would not be able to help them for geopolitical reasons, but once they informed the Republic about the hidden fleet and their plans to invade the galaxy, the ships that show up at the end could be the New Republic fleet, which would more directly vindicate all of those people who sacrificed their lives to restore the Republic.
You could give similar treatments to Han and Luke. Han, for example, could still be working with the New Republic. His ship that captures the Falcon in TFA could be a New Republic ship. And part of the reason he is estranged from Leia is because he can’t associate with her due to her being the leader of the Resistance, which I could imagine being Leia’s decision.
With Luke, you could have him tell Rey that he sent the surviving Jedi into hiding on another planet, and TROS could end with the implication that Rey is going off to find them. You could even potentially suggest that Luke’s Jedi Order serves the Republic, and thus also can’t get involved with the First Order.
Anyway, I don’t think this would’ve been the best way to tell the story if I were writing it from scratch, because people actually wanted to see the New Republic and see Luke’s new Jedi Order, but I guess I’m trying to illustrate that they could have generally told the same story without totally erasing the character progression and accomplishments of the previous generation.
I feel like there is potential in doing a fan edit that makes these changes, but I feel like it is kind of up in the air until we see what this new movie decides to do.
I don’t think this episode makes up for the problems with this season overall, but there’s a lot to like with this episode as well.
I really loved the cyberpunk vibes from the initial scenes on Coruscant. There was a great shot of the Imperial probe droid looming over Kane. Haven’t been impressed with the cinematography much this season but I really liked the look and feel of that scene.
The nerdy lore-loving part of me really enjoyed the Shadow Council scene. It presents a really intriguing concept, and while the acting from the warlords was a little campy here and there, it fits for Star Wars. I feel like Pellaeon was pulled right out of the pages of the Thrawn Trilogy. Looks just as I imagined him, and I liked the actors performance. He had this slightly dramatic way he moved his hands as he spoke, which I thought played into how Gideon called him out with always speaking with authority. You kind of get this vibe that he is trying to project more authority to persuade the other warlords to listen to him and wait for Thrawn’s return. But you also get a sense that he is trying to alleviate his own concerns with Thrawn’s long absence.
Again, I did say the other warlords were a little campy, but they set them up nicely I thought. They all have interesting looks, different costumes that set them apart. The few lines we get from them gives us a hint at their personalities. And one moment I enjoyed was when Gideon said, “I account for what goes on in my sector, no more, no less. The same can be said for every member of this council.” And the other warlords immediately chime in with, “Yes”, “Of course”. BUT, you can tell, just like Gideon, they all have their own ulterior motives that they’re also hiding. It definitely adds dimension to this concept of a Shadow Council. These warlords have an uneasy alliance with each other. I get the feeling that Brendol Hux and Pallaeon’s factions have more resources than the other warlords, and they use that as leverage to keep them quiet, and fall in line with their plans.
You can definitely argue they are trying to retroactively make the run and gun of the sequel trilogy work better, but I do appreciate the effort. I’m not saying it is brilliant storytelling, I’ve been pretty disappointed in it, but one thing I have liked about this season is that it has given some interesting tidbits of world building for this post-ROTJ era (7 years after the Battle of Endor I think?). The New Republic rangers, the Mandalorian reunification, and the Imperial Shadow Council, all make for interesting concepts that would be fun for a Star Wars tabletop game or something like that.
Has this most recent episode given you confidence in being able to put together a decent edit for this season?
The amount of work you are putting into making every single shot look as good as possible is pretty incredible. Aligning two different sources frame by frame and masking out parts you don’t want is something I wouldn’t even had considered.
I had considered playing around with a ROTJ edit this year for the 40th anniversary, but I feel like comparing whatever source I use to your version would make it hard for me to go back and watch my own edit!
Since there were always rumors of Episodes 10, 11 and 12, I think it cool from an old-school perspective to make an edit that embraces that idea.
Since Daisy came on stage I do think this will happen and not end up abandoned like many other announced projects. But I do wonder, long term, if there will actually be 3 movies or not. Guess you could endlessly speculate. We’ll have to wait and see!
With the “Rey killed your parents” idea, if you could change Luke’s line, “Because you’re a Palpatine” with “Because of your parents.” or something like that, with maybe slight alterations to his mouth movements, you wouldn’t have to change anything else about that scene.
Also, if you could give Luke a new offscreen lines before “Some things are stronger than blood” you could recontextualize that line to be about Rey’s bond with Leia being very close, rather than it being about her blood relation to Palpatine.
Also, this might be a bad idea, but I wondered if a Rey Nobody edit could still work with the Emperor still referring to Rey as Empress Palpatine. Like, Palpatine would know Rey’s quest for belonging and family, so it could be his way of saying, “the belonging you seek is with me”. But, it could also be a way for Rey Palpatine to still be hinted at for those who like that. Kind of how Deckard being a human or replicant is left ambiguous. Anyway, just a thought.
It’s pretty simple: not taking the prequels into consideration!
Haha, that is Hal’s actual voice! Unless we want to make an AI voice or Hal to use for edits forever.
Just got caught up on Mandalorian and had some general thoughts about tackling season 3.
This may not be necessary for what you might be thinking about right now, but I think there are some tools that could be useful in really transforming season 3 content to fit whatever mold you might have in mind.
For starters, as the season progresses I really am digging the idea of separating Din and Grogu for a longer period of time. I do think there will be times where it will be a headache to remove Grogu from certain shots, but there are techniques that can be used accomplish that.
Overall, I could see it being possible though. It might be ambitious, but considering everyone thought having them separated for at least some period of time was a no brainer, I feel like making this change would be pretty transformative, a lot like TFA: Restructured with Starkiller Base.
Another tool that could be useful, even if you used it sparingly, are the new voice AI tools that are being made. Considering a majority of our main characters are wearing helmets, this could be really helpful for scene/plot restructuring, or even crafting more interesting lines. I’ve really felt the writing has been lacking this season, like video game NPCs, so this could be fun to play around with.
This YouTuber, Dewit, posted this video today with an example of Din Djarin.
I’m curious if there would be enough voice samples that could be used to do this for the Armorer and Bo Katan.
I actually think it would be useful to apply this to the existing Luke scenes as well. I know his voice is already AI generated, but I feel like the software has already improved a lot since his featured episodes were released, and his line could be given more emotion and sound bit more realistic if they were remade. This would also allow you to change what Luke tells/teaches Grogu to fit a more Legends-esque version of the character.
Dewit also has an interesting example for Luke at the end of this video It does sound a bit more like “Mark” than “Luke”, probably because he trained it on interviews rather than the films, but I feel like it has more emotion than how he sounds in the Mandalorian. Perhaps if the AI was trained on his lines from the OT, specifically from ROTJ, it would fit more closely with Mark’s “Luke” voice.
I can’t recall if you used it or not, but it would be nice to use Shamook’s deepfake of Luke for the Season 2 finale if you haven’t already used it. Also, not a big deal, but it always sort of bugged me that Luke didn’t even really introduce himself to Din before leaving with the child. A simple “I’m Luke Skywalker” would’ve been nice.
(Also? Since you’re a legends fan too, it could be cool to make Luke’s training planet Yavin by adding the red gas giant to the sky in an establishing shot or something.)
And this idea could even be applied to Boba Fett for any BOBF content that maybe could’ve used a certain line here or there from
Boba.
Anyway, what JarJar Bricks has been doing for TROS: Ascendant has been pretty crazy, but you are still limited mostly to using it for off screen dialogue, or having to use VFX to match mouth movements for a few words here and there. With the Mandalorian, you would have a lot more freedom to redub all of these helmeted characters, and you could even record new voices for Mandalorian characters with brief speaking roles if you needed to convey some information.
And speaking of lines in general, I think it would be nice if you could trim down the use of “This is the Way”. I feel like the Mandalorians day it for every little thing, and it takes away from its gravitas when used for the most trivial things. “You can sit by the fire. This is the Way.”
Hard to have a lot of ideas about the overall plot until this season is over, but I thought it would be useful to keep this stuff in mind when imagining what can be done with this season.
Congrats Eddie! It is well deserved.
Initially I wasn’t sure how feasible it would be to extend the absence between Din and Grogu, but as this season is going along I’m definitely more interested in trying to make it work. Think it would be a strong benefit.
While I have also had the Qui-Gon crystal as my head canon for a long time, there was a brief period of time where I was storyboarding a way to actually film this scene you imagined, Bingowings. You’ve described it before and I was pretty inspired by it.
You could use existing shots of Luke’s X-Wing from the OT, and you would just need some new Death Star wreckage elements, some green crystal shards, and a little R2 arm to film and add to some shots. I thought Luke returning to the wreckage would be a cool scene to have near the start of ROTJ and parallel the end of ANH. At this point I think I was trying to reconfigure the plot of ROTJ to be a reverse mirror of ANH.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing this edit released!
I always have fun reading your thoughts, NFB.
I feel like he wouldn’t comment on it until he actually saw it, like when they first clash sabers in his chambers. Unless he is just gonna talk about the physical modifications she made to it. I think Kylo actually says something in that moment while they’re holding their sabers against each other, so it could be a good spot.
Since the voice AI tool is allowing us to not having to trim as much and make the edit more seamless, I think the voice AI stuff would have a significant benefit during the chamber duel in regards to a Rey Nobody edit. You could keep the entire scene, just replace Kylo talking about her parents to Kylo talking about the fate of her friends, and you could replace the “flashbacks” with “flashforwards” of the battle.
Damn, that last one is good.
So I’m going to add an image to this post, and what you can do is go down to where it says “QUOTE” and click that. You will see what I had to type to insert the image into it. For the image, you will have to use a url that ends in .jpg (other formats might work but that’s the only one I’ve ever used). I usually will post the image on imgur, and then use the url link for posts here.
So you type an !, then whatever the name of the image is in brackets [] (the name can be anything), and then the url is in parentheses ().
You can always “QOUTE” other people’s comments/posts if you want to see how they formatted their post, but don’t click “POST”, otherwise you’ll be actually quoting their comment in a new post (which you can do if you want to reference a statement someone made in a post in order to reply to it.)
Definitely share that animated storyboard video!
And restoration work is always welcome, but if removing dust and scratches from the footage becomes too much of a challenge, you could always version of ROTJ that has more dirt and grain to have the new footage more closely blend it. And that could give the film a “lost cut” sort of quality.
I’m gonna PM you about the music issue!
Welcome to the forum!
I always love to hear about people working on Return of the Jedi! What’s great about these forums is that it is a place where you can bounce ideas around and get constructive feedback. I’d be curious to hear what things you already had in mind, like where/how you were going to incorporate some of these unused shots.
A user on the forum called timdiggerm put together a wonderful resource called Reconstructing the end of ROTJ with Storyboards that could be a source of inspiration for some ideas, especially if you want to lean in a more purist direction.
I think what Ady is doing is going to be amazing, but I will say his say that what he has planned for the Battle of Endor will probably stand on its own. In the past I believe has has said that he is not planning on using most of the deleted scenes because the quality does not match the look he is going for. With that said, I do think there is a lot of potential for other projects to use the deleted scenes to really add to the battle in a different way. You mention leaning toward the purism side, and I think incorporating footage shot for the movie is a cool way to do that.
Also, I’m sure other people, including myself, would love it if you shared whatever you made with whole forum! There are some members that have been working on deleted scene restorations, but I don’t think anyone has tackled any of the Lost Rebels footage, but I may be wrong.
What source did you train that model on?
Looking back at that scene, I think you could get away with some dialogue changes in those final few wide shots of their conversation.
I think if you established Palpatine has been the intermediary between Anakin and his mother, I guess you would have to make it so he already knows she is living at the Lars homestead? So you would have to cut the Watto scene, unless he decides to go to Watto to find out where the Lars homestead is.
Just quick googling, but I found this site. Not sure if the links work or not, or if it is actually high quality.
Honestly my head canon after TLJ was that Luke didn’t really “die” from Force projecting himself, but confronting his greatest failure (Kylo Ren) and forgiving himself caused Luke to achieve enlightenment, and he just became one with the Force as the next step of his ascension.
I had hoped Luke would’ve played a role that was different from the Force ghosts that had appeared before, but it wasn’t that different honestly. That is something I liked about Acbagel’s Sequel Trilogy edits, because he does add elements that try and depict Luke that way. But I guess it is a difficult thing to balance, giving him more influence on the story without taking away from the new characters.