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The Last Jedi : a Fan Edit Ideas thread — Page 16

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Yeah, that somewhat bothered me. Why would you cut away from his reaction? I can only speak for myself, but I think a lot of people would be interested in seeing how Luke would react to finding out Ben killed Han.

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 (Edited)

I really hated The Last Jedi and hope there is a film in there that could be salvaged.

A lot of it is the jokey nature of it, and by that the Marvel-esque meta humour. And make the heroes a little less Millenial if that makes sense.

I’d even change the opening crawl to suggest something like the First Order are capitalising on the chaos inflicted by Starkiller Base on the New Republic to drive out the Resistance from their territory and annex New Republic systems.

Make this the START of their campaign, don’t say that they’ve already overrun the Republic and essentially undone Return of the Jedi and reverted to Empire versus Rebels.

Indeed cut out all references to the Rebels or Rebellion. That belongs in the OT, the Resistance are supposed to be the undercover forces of the real government!

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No jokes in Star Wars! If people make jokes therefore the film is wrong! If people aren’t boring how is this movie in any way realistic? Who would ever quip in a war?

0/10 Rian Johnson fucked my childhood

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snooker said:

No jokes in Star Wars! If people make jokes therefore the film is wrong! If people aren’t boring how is this movie in any way realistic? Who would ever quip in a war?

0/10 Rian Johnson fucked my childhood

True

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I’m okay with the humour. It’s just not always in keeping with the tone of the scene and the characters in them. Like for example, Luke dusting off his shoulder, whilst he is about to face his nephew, that he considered murdering and thus set off a chain of events that created a evil that is responsible for the killing hundreds of innocent lives.

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I cannot wait to see what ideas people come up with, and to have a go myself. I’m a complete novice and have never tried anything like it before, but I feel like I have to save Luke skywalker my head cannon. There is a film in there I feel it…

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Snoke&mirrors said:

that he considered murdering and thus set off a chain of events that created a evil that is responsible for the killing hundreds of innocent lives.

That isn’t what happened.

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Jeebus said:

Snoke&mirrors said:

that he considered murdering and thus set off a chain of events that created a evil that is responsible for the killing hundreds of innocent lives.

That isn’t what happened.

Yes it is. Luke considered murdering Kylo which caused Kylo to go full dark side. Doesn’t matter if Snoke had already corrupted him, Luke showed us in RotJ that no one’s ever truly lost, so if he acted different he would’ve possibly saved Ben. However, he considered murdering him, which caused him to go full dark side, and that indirectly killed countless innocent lives.

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I thought that the reason Luke considered killing Kylo was that he really was completely corrupted, and the reason he stopped was that he realized he’d be killing his own nephew. Luke’s action merely formalized Kylo’s inevitable turn and gave him a rationalization for his later evil.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Either way the wiping the shoulder of dust doesn’t carry the tone.

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NeverarGreat said:

I thought that the reason Luke considered killing Kylo was that he really was completely corrupted, and the reason he stopped was that he realized he’d be killing his own nephew. Luke’s action merely formalized Kylo’s inevitable turn and gave him a rationalization for his later evil.

Yes.

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Snoke&mirrors said:

Either way the wiping the shoulder of dust doesn’t carry the tone.

Disagree.

Actually I’m not even sure what this means, I just thought it was a fun little moment.

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Sorry, poor English on my part. I think you are right, it’s just a fun little moment, but for me it should be more dramatic and less “fun”. Removing that moment for me, would maintain the dramatic mood better.

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Something I wish, and this applies to both the TFA and this movie, but I wish we could somehow replace the starfighters in the films so there not just a copy and past of X-Wing and Tie-Fighters again. I know that’s completely unrealistic, unless the person who does that is Adywan (at this point, I honestly think he could do anything), but I wish we could have gotten something more for example like this for the Resistance:

https://s13.postimg.org/8il7176dj/Untit56656led.png and https://s13.postimg.org/ttir4xlrr/Untit56656l54ed.png

And this for the First Order, if we got instead the original design they almost used, as shown in this concept art:

http://overmental.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/IMG_1091.jpg

Now I acknowledge that reasonably, the only person who could maybe make this happen is Adywan, so it’s probably an unreasonable idea, but still. I continue to find it ridiculous that it’s essentially just X-Wings and Tie-Fighters again. I love those designs, they are a huge part of my childhood, but their presence just feels lazy and part of me wonders if there would have been as much comparisons on the TFA and A New Hope if not for them.

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Nerdman3000 said:

Something I wish, and this applies to both the TFA and this movie, but I wish we could somehow replace the starfighters in the films so there not just a copy and past of X-Wing and Tie-Fighters again. I know that’s completely unrealistic, unless the person who does that is Adywan (at this point, I honestly think he could do anything), but I wish we could have gotten something more for example like this for the Resistance:

https://s13.postimg.org/8il7176dj/Untit56656led.png and https://s13.postimg.org/ttir4xlrr/Untit56656l54ed.png

And this for the First Order, if we got instead the original design they almost used, as shown in this concept art:

http://overmental.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/IMG_1091.jpg

Now I acknowledge that reasonably, the only person who could maybe make this happen is Adywan, so it’s probably an unreasonable idea, but still. I continue to find it ridiculous that it’s essentially just X-Wings and Tie-Fighters again. I love those designs, they are a huge part of my childhood, but their presence just feels lazy and part of me wonders if there would have been as much comparisons on the TFA and A New Hope if not for them.

Just to counterpoint… I had the exact opposite thoughts the other day. I was thinking it is annoying how they feel they have to introduce a whole slew of new vehicles and alien species every film for who knows why. (OK I know why… as Yogurt would say - merchandising! Gotta sell new toys, not let kids just be content with the ones they already have!) It’s feels like both sides completely redesign their ships every couple years. There is already plenty of variety in SW and I’d rather they focus on creating good stories in the existing universe rather than redesign it every. single. time. Now I don’t care enough that I want someone to go in and replace everything with vehicles from ANH or even the OT or anything, but just something that went through my mind a few days ago as I was dwelling on TLJ again and was poignant as a counter to your post.

Also, might want to quit slobbing on Adywan there. There are tons of people who can and have put out good edits. He’s fine, but other people deserve lots of credit as well and are perfectly capable of doing what you are saying, though I hope they don’t waste time doing so when there are much larger issues, IMO.

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The ships in the Sequel Trilogy make sense for the most part.

The biggest change I wish they’d made was to have a different ‘main ship’ other than the Millennium Falcon. The Prequels had the Naboo cruisers, which fit the style of a more civilized time. The Millennium Falcon fit the style of a used and broken-down universe suffering under an Empire. This trilogy could have used a ship like that, such as a scavenged and modified Imperial Shuttle that Rey would use to search the wrecks. It would have been reminiscent of Luke’s Skyhopper while still making sense in universe.
Scavenged Skyhopper
I imagine something like this but with extra cargo space and some Rebel/Republic designs painted on the wings.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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I would have completely rewritten the Ben and Luke exchange that led to Ben becoming Kylo Ren. In the movie, the way Luke essentially turns on Ben and considers killing him goes completely against everything we know about Luke. It was a betrayal to the character. How can the one man who believed there was still good in his father, Darth Vader, believe that Ben is lost to the Dark Side just because Luke can sense Snoke having got to him and so he contemplates murdering his nephew?! No, no, no. So instead of what we got I would have written this story element in one of two ways.

Option 1:
During the training of the new generation of Jedi, Luke beings to see how Ben is easily frustrated and at risk of being lured to the Dark Side of the Force. After much effort to talk with Ben about the dangers of the Dark Side of the Force, Luke instead decides that the best course of action, in an attempt to stop this from happening, is to refuse to continue Ben’s training and possibly expel him from the Jedi Academy all together. Luke thinks that by stopping Ben’s training before he gets too powerful he will have stopped Ben’s training before he becomes too powerful. But in a moment of cruel irony it is this very abandonment of his nephews training that ultimately leads Ben down the path of the Dark Side and to Snoke, who offers to complete his training. Maybe Ben has issues with his father Han and sees Luke as an adoptive father of sorts and so the betrayal from his uncle is felt more deeply because of this. In any case, this event is the trigger that sets in motion the rise of Kylo Ren. Snoke possibly sensed this would happen and waited until the moment was right to finally lure Ben to the Dark Side.

In a moment of anger at being told he will be expelled from the academy/his training will be stopped Ben loses it and a lightsabre battle takes place between Luke and Ben. This occurs in a similar vein as to when Luke fought Vader on Cloud City in so much that Luke can easily defeat his nephew (in the same way Vader could easily have defeated Luke) but Luke still hopes that he can bring Ben back to the Light Side of the Force. Because of this belief, he deliberately doesn’t try to strike Ben down and instead adopts a more defensive combat style similar to how Obi-Wan took with Anakin. Luke is the better swordsman (he’s now the fully-fledged Jedi Master we always wanted to see instead of the uncoordinated strikes from ROTJ) and manages to disarm Ben of his lightsabre. In a scene that clearly honours but doesn’t outright copy both Obi-Wan’s prequel “You were the chosen one” line to Anakin and Vader’s “You are beaten, it is useless to resist” line to Luke, the Jedi Master switches off his lightsabre and tries in vain to convince Ben not to give in to the Dark Side of the Force. But in this moment of pause Ben uses his force powers to bring down the temple academy ceiling on them both. This would be similar to how it was in the actual film though more epic than just bringing down a hut roof where Ben had been sleeping.

Ben survives this and the commotion stirs the rest of the Jedi padawans to investigate what has happened. There is a confrontation between himself and the rest of the Jedi padawans with some choosing to side with Ben while some remain loyal to Luke. A fight ensues with ultimately Ben and only those who sided with him surviving. They will in time come to be known as the Knights of Ren. One of the Jedi Academy aides and last remaining survivor of the slaughter, Lor San Tekka, is cornered by one of Ben’s group but before he can be struck down Ben intervenes and saves him because Ben was fond of the old man. In what appears to be a scene of compassion showing that Ben is not entirely lost to the Dark Side, there is a darker undertone as he says that he is only being kept alive so that he can tell others about what happened here. Ben doesn’t see Lor San Tekka as a threat because he is just an old man without any Force abilities. This scene is especially unsettling as it shows that Ben is fully aware of the path he has chosen but also suggests that he could still be brought back to the light side as he didn’t kill everyone in the same way Anakin did at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

At this point Ben thinks Luke is dead and orders the temple burned after which Ben and his followers leave. Ben of course will ultimately come to discover that Luke survived their encounter and this will fuel his desire to kill Luke Skywalker and ultimately lead to his motivation to complete this act at the start of The Force Awakens. He is consumed by it and this makes both films stronger for it. This will ultimately also serve to increase his anger even further when he finally thinks he has killed Luke at the end of The Last Jedi only to realize he’s been denied the battle he’s been waiting for.

After Ben and those who sided with him leave the Jedi Academy in ruins, the scene ends with the burning temple and it is revealed that Luke survived. We are given the same scene where Luke’s hand rests on R2 as he watches the Jedi Temple burning. At this moment, Lor San Tekka reunites with Luke with the latter feeling lost at what has happened and announcing that he plans to visit the site of the first Jedi Temple on Ahch-To, a site strong in the light side of the Force, to communicate with the Jedi Masters of old for guidance on what he should do next. Ultimately however, this leads to his self-imposed exile and Luke deciding to abandon the ways of the Force and feeling that it is best the Jedi Order finally ends with him. As Lor San Tekka knows that this is where Luke has gone it perfectly explains how he has the map to Ahch-To in his possession at the start of The Force Awakens. The reason for his contacting the Resistance with this information is because it was not until now with the rise of the First Order and Snoke along with his apprentice Kylo Ren that it was realized that Luke was needed once more. Having Lor San Tekka at the New Jedi Academy also explains why he says to Kylo “I know where you come from, before you called yourself Kylo Ren” in The Force Awakens.

Option 2:

Luke sees how Ben is being lured to the Dark Side of the Force but feels that as his uncle he just can’t get through to him and so he goes in search of Ben’s mother, Leia. Han’s whereabouts are unknown after he and Leia separated and it is implied in this version that this happened before Ben becomes Kylo rather than as a result of it. Perhaps the separation could be because Han did not agree with Leia that their son should become a Jedi since Han could see the dangers of what that could mean if Ben turned to the Dark Side? In any case, Luke goes in search of Leia in an act of desperation. Luke leaves Ben and the other Jedi padawans in the care of the elders like Lor San Tekka from The Force Awakens and leaves on a mission to bring Leia back to the new Jedi Academy in the hopes that she can get through to her son before it’s too late. This would be a nice twist on the original movies where Luke felt there was still good in his father to come back to the light side while in this movie it’s reversed and it’s up to the mother to convince her son not to turn to the dark side. As George Lucas says all to often “It rhymes…it’s like poetry.”

In the time that Luke has been gone Ben has managed to convince some of the other Jedi padawans that Luke cannot be trusted or has abandoned them or something like that – a “You’re either with me or against me” moment similar to Anakin’s line to Obi-Wan in the prequels. A fight breaks out between those siding with Ben and those loyal to Luke which leads to the death of many of the other Jedi padawans. Ben leaves with the remaining Jedi that sided with him. They will ultimately become the Knights of Ren. Luke senses that something is wrong, in much the same way Obi-Wan sensed the destruction of Alderaan or when Leia sensed Han’s death and he races back to the Jedi Temple. By the time Luke returns to the Jedi Academy he finds it ablaze and discovers the bodies of many of the new generation of Jedi killed at the hands of Ben, thus leading to his decision to exile himself and give up on training a new generation of Jedi. As with Option 1, perhaps Lor San Tekka survived somehow and is aware of Luke’s exile and it is for this reason that he alone knows of the location of Luke Skywalker that ultimately leads into the opening scenes of The Force Awakens.

Sadly I have no experience with fan editing and so I can’t make any of this happen.

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I like your ideas, but I’m not convinced that Luke would leave for exhile and close himself off from the force without the fact that it was his direct mistake as a Jedi that caused Ben Solos turn. I feel like this personal family torment and on research, the reality of the Jedi legacy COMBINED is what causes him to cut himself off from the force and ultimately not rush across the galaxy and save Han Solo. He sensed danger for his friends, the pain, the terror and in a brief moment he reacted as he did when Vadar tormented him with Leia which reminded him that he is not Luke Skywalker - the legend - he’s just a man.

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Just to clarify by “his direct mistake as a Jedi” I’m referring to him making a mistake whilst he’s a Jedi. The mistake to believe that the force is theirs to own, to train people in the art of manipulating it and to think that Jedi masters are infallible, especially since they have repeatedly been the proponents in the cycle of violence as
Shown in Darth Vadar and now Kylo Ren.

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Personally, I’ll always wish that George had given us a Sequel Trilogy storyline to the OT back in 1999, instead of the Prequel Trilogy he focused on - I recall seeing interviews with Mark, Harrison, and Carrie from around that period, and they all looked wonderful despite being much older than their earlier OT glory days.

The thing is, I’m sure George could have easily come up with a new Sequel Trilogy which would have involved the whole OT gang onscreen together again some way, at this point. But alas, I got the likes of Jar Jar stepping in poodoo instead.

And by the time the actual Sequel Trilogy came along, J.J. ended up coming up with a TFA storyline which ‘estranged’ Luke, Han, and Leia from each other…and which killed off Han…thus depriving me of a potential ‘reunion’ scene with those 3 characters in it’s follow-up.

Which all added up to a missed opportunity, as far as I’m concerned.

However, we are where we are, and now Rian has conceived a TLJ storyline which seems to dliberately subvert certain expectations, and actually dismiss some of the things set up by J.J.'s instalment.

Fair enough, but it’s going to be interesting to see how things pan out due to the unforeseen loss of Carrie, and the fact that J.J. is back in the driver’s seat for the next chapter.

Anyway, with a few alterations it seems possible to tweak TLJ into something I’d much prefer to see - something a lot less ‘jokey’ in tone overall, but which retains the humorous moments I happen to like.

But as I recently mentioned on page 14 of this thread, the MAIN thing I’d like to alter for myself is how the ‘Luke being tempted to kill his nephew’ scene was handled - Well, what I’d originally intended to do was just make Luke tell Rey THE TRUTH STRAIGHT AWAY about his ‘brief temptation to kill Kylo’, when first recounting his ‘backstory’ concerning Kylo to her - this at least would make him seem less evasive about it than the movie does.

However, I had the opportunity to go and see TLJ for a third and final time with another family member the other day, and was pleased to confirm that I could cobble together a version of the ‘Kylo backstory’ I’m even more satisfied with…which DOESN’T involve Luke being ‘tempted to kill Kylo’ with his lightsaber at all! 😃

So here’s how I intend to alter things for myself -

…at the point where Luke starts to tell Rey about Kylo, he ends up saying “…by the time I realised I was no match for the darkness rising in him…it was too late…” (at this point we see Luke in close-up, as Rey whispers “What happened?”)

…then I’d CUT to the close-up of Kylo asleep as Luke’s voice-over continues “…I’d sensed it building in him…”, and as the shot pans up to reveal Luke standing nearby with his hand outstretched, we’d continue with the rest of Luke’s voice-over until we eventually see his anguished face in close-up as his voice-over ends on him saying “…Snoke had already turned his heart…”

…then at this point, I’d CUT to the shot of the ‘training temple’ as we hear the words “I went to confront him, but he turned on me”, as we then see Luke being violently ‘forced pushed’ through the wall by Kylo’s arms, as Luke yells “BEN, NO!”…and continue on from that shot as per the movie, where we then see the scene of devastation as Luke’s voice continues “He must have thought I was dead…”, and continue on as we see the younger ‘hooded Luke’ in close-up as his voice-over ends with “…I failed…”

…and continue on from that as per the movie, as we revert back to ‘old Luke’ in close-up as he says “…because I was Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master…a legend…”

…and continue on from that as per the movie, as Rey responds and eventually says “…you didn’t fail Kylo, Kylo failed you…I wont!” (as we end in a close-up of her face)

So NO ‘moment of lightsaber madness’ needed whatsoever, and I’m quite content to have Kylo’s flawed personality and Snoke’s influence be the main object of Kylo’s ‘turn to the dark side’ for my version…which Luke could do nothing about at the time, except feel that he let Leia and Han down extremely badly.

(and of course, that requires a certain amount of removal/re-structuring of some later scenes too, which allows me to alter some other moments I’m not keen on either) 😃

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Oops, apologies but something’s come up, and I posted that accidentally before I finished it… and can’t edit it for time being. will do so later today, and hope to describe something I’ve just found out it’s possible to re-cut the way I want.

EDIT - above post completed now.

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Luke in exile because he failed at training Han and Leia’s child was straight from Lucas’ outline he sold to Disney in 2012. The biggest difference was, in his outline, that would have been part of the story told in VII, rather than something that happened between VI and VII. Luke would exile himself in VII after a character based on Darth Talon literally seduced Han and Leia’s kid to the dark side with Luke failing at preventing this, then Luke would have to be found by “Kira” (later Rey) in VIII.

Lucas hired Arndt to write VII, but he had a problem with Luke in VII taking too much focus away from the new leads. It was Abrams’ and Kasdan’s idea to make finding Luke the MacGuffin of VII, pushing his appearance to the ending to avoid overshadowing the new leads, which also meant that the fall of Ben Solo had to happen off-screen before VII.

There’s more of Lucas’ ST in the final product than many are claiming, but his VII pretty much got split between the final version of VII and VIII.

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ChainsawAsh said:

Luke in exile because he failed at training Han and Leia’s child was straight from Lucas’ outline he sold to Disney in 2012. The biggest difference was, in his outline, that would have been part of the story told in VII, rather than something that happened between VI and VII. Luke would exile himself in VII after a character based on Darth Talon literally seduced Han and Leia’s kid to the dark side with Luke failing at preventing this, then Luke would have to be found by “Kira” (later Rey) in VIII.

Lucas hired Arndt to write VII, but he had a problem with Luke in VII taking too much focus away from the new leads. It was Abrams’ and Kasdan’s idea to make finding Luke the MacGuffin of VII, pushing his appearance to the ending to avoid overshadowing the new leads, which also meant that the fall of Ben Solo had to happen off-screen before VII.

There’s more of Lucas’ ST in the final product than many are claiming, but his VII pretty much got split between the final version of VII and VIII.

Where did you find all this info?