Idea: 'The Sequel Trilogy - complete redux' (an idea and discussion thread) — Page 2

DougieP said:

Your probably right. As much as the sequels arn’t for me, I actually like Finn but that might be just due to John’s likeability. He’s a cool guy lol. I actually felt bad when he was going to sacrifice himself. So, yeah it would be good to keep them together as to establish character etc. Hopefully find some lines from Poe that can be mashed together to give some sort of explanation to Finn when they meet up again so that he didn’t leave for no reason.

I think the character of Finn, Rey and Poe, especially as they are portrayed in TFA, are the best thing of this trilogy.

Not a bad crawl, I might actually use this as a template and tweak it a bit for my own edit, If you don’t mind lol.

Of course, feel free to use it! Exchange ideas is the main reason of this topic!

I think the biggest problem would be with a continuity issue due to Kylo Ren with his helmet off/on and scarred face/no scar. Mainly since the whole trilogy would be completely rearranged.

Yes. But if the story is improved, I think this would be a minor issue (and maybe the scar can be added or removed by someone with a good knowledge of After Effects or similar programs?)

Also, as you said previously, I would also prefer Luke to go in person. Would be easy enough to do.

I’m thinking about it and I still don’t know how easy would it be. Why does it appear so young? How does he survive? Or is he killed in the duel? One option would be moving the duel at the end of TFA, explaining why he is younger. Or could he be digitally aged to make him duel at the end of TLJ? (maybe the best option)

Need to keep in mind that his lightsaber would have to be recolored and handle replaced with his green one.

Yes! That’s mandatory!

Would love an actual clash of blades too but no idea how to properly pull that off. Maybe I’m just dreaming but I’m gonna try anyway.

… speaking of dreams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmOPXhFensg 😄

Jake Skywalker said:

I’m thinking about it and I still don’t know how easy would it be. Why does it appear so young? How does he survive? Or is he killed in the duel? One option would be moving the duel at the end of TFA, explaining why he is younger. Or could he be digitally aged to make him duel at the end of TLJ? (maybe the best option)

Well, I have only seen TLJ once as I was let down but as far as I remember, Luke only had a bit of a haircut and beard trim. Correct me if i’m wrong. I’d just take it as Luke had a shave on the way. Don’t think thats an issue.

Personally, when I get round to editing I’d probably make it so that Luke just keeps Kylo busy for as long as he can. He bought time for them, knowing that he wasn’t going to make it if he did. He sees the falcon leaving the planet and, knowing that he is now one person vs Kylo, Ties and a bunch of walkers, he is happy to go. Kinda do a Ben thing and have it so that when Kylo slashes through Luke for the first time, just mask over Luke, have him fade out and put in a cloak drop.

With Luke footage being 95% at the island and the rest on crait, I don’t think there is any other option to be fair. Due to Han not duying in TLJ, if follwing the story edit I mentioned before, we actually could have all three of them meet up together and say goodbye to Luke. Would have to mask in Han and find some dialogue for him. I’d be happy with a single line and then cut to something else.

Since Han hasn’t died yet. Was thinking of using that shot where they jump to hyperspace with the Rathtar on the window in TFA. Could use this shot when they leave Crait. Just remove the view from the windows and put a moving shot of crait outside. Think Han says “punch it chewie” in this shot. Cut back outside and luke sees the falcon shoot off. Then lets Kylo take him out.

Han obviously doesn’t HAVE to be the one flying it here but as there is only so much footage of old Han, I’d repurpose it all as much as possible to keep him on screen.

… speaking of dreams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmOPXhFensg 😄

Exactly what I was thinking of!

I agree to an extent with most of the criticisms but unlike OP and a lot of others who share them, I don’t hate the films at all just as I didn’t hate the Prequels either. The Sequel Trilogy has not ruined Star Wars just like Rebels, TCW, and the Prequels didn’t ruin it either. And let’s not forget the Holiday Special. Star Wars fans are too hyperbolic.

I do think they missed an opportunity at showcasing a new dynamic. Instead, the Republic is destroyed like that and the heroes are once again Rebels. I feel the same about how Lucas decided ti create a new planet, Naboo, instead of having it be Alderaan so that way when it’s destroyed in ANH, we’d have had more of a connection to that place. I thought about tweaking the Prequels to change all instances of Naboo into Alderaan but that’d be next to impossible. Without the technical wizardry of Adywan, I certainly wouldn’t be able to fix Sidious’ face in ROTS much less restructure the Prequels so significantly that Naboo becomes Alderaan. Hosnian Prime is perhaps a different story if it’s mentioned in the Opening Crawl and all instances of its name are simply cut, leaving us to assume it was Coruscant.

The Sequel Trilogy has seemingly pulled the worst elements of the old Legends post-ROTJ continuity into the new Canon without carrying over some of the better aspects. Both continuities now share the silly premise of “yet another superweapon!!” I wonder if Lucas hadn’t made a Death Star II, if we would have had the bajillion other superweapons in Star Wars history… But I digress. I would have much preferred the new dynamic of the New Republic battling a small faction known as the First Order that still believes in the ideals of the Empire. The old Legends continuity managed to find a way to tell stories that had this dynamic while still having stakes. At the end of the day, they both used the OT as a crutch. After ROTJ, they battle Imperial Remnants which basically amounts to the heroes of the OT battling against stormtroopers led by some new red lightsaber wielding villain. That’s the same as TFA and TLJ albeit with completely different framing. It does feel like their victory in ROTJ was for nothing. Technically, in canon, it’s been thirty some odd years but TFA is literally the first film after ROTJ, in the main saga, and so the fact that we go from “we did it!” to “welp, it was nice while it lasted” just like that is disappointing.

That said – Luke using the Force at the end of TLJ was fucking awesome. I couldn’t think of a better send off for him. The rest of his story in TLJ, to an extent, bugs me. I still can’t determine if it’s purely because I grew up with a Luke who won, who rebuilt the Jedi Order even with many several and varied trials and tribulations along the way, including falling to the Dark Side like his father before him, or if it really is a shame coming off the previous film, ROTJ, to see it all fall apart. If you look at it this way, they really have hit a reset button.

• Han reverts back to being a smuggler which pretty much walks back all of the character’s growth and arc from the OT.
• Luke hasn’t succeeded in rebuilding the Jedi Order so was it really that much of a “Return” of the Jedi?
• The bad guys are still stormtroopers, still flying TIE Fighters, piloting AT-ATs and STs, using mini Death Star tech, and even building an even larger and deadlier Death Star
• The good guys are still called Rebels

Snoke didn’t have to be anyone but they really haven’t gone anywhere in TLJ except backwards. Rey still hasn’t trained much with the Force, the Resistance is still on the run and is back to being a Rebellion, the First Order has basically reinstated the Empire apparently, etc. This is compounded by the fact that it also takes place immediately after TFA which doesn’t allow them to make any sort of jumps in where the characters are at. Even on a microlevel, Rey and Poe have only just met which is weird since everyone has mostly liked the new, younger cast thus far. For two of the big characters not to interact at all for two out of three of the films in the new trilogy is really weird. The OT had a marvelous group that had amazing chemistry. The Prequels didn’t have this because AOTC needed such a massive leap in time and thus swapped out the actor for Anakin out of necessity while one of the other major characters in TPM, Qui-Gon, is too dead to still be around physically. Add on some inferior dialogue and you’ve got a core group of characters that don’t have the best chemistry. But now the new trilogy HAS wittier banter (though some humor in TLJ didn’t feel Star Warsy to me) and characters who have a lot of chemistry and instead, they decide to splinter them up.

Finn interacts with Poe and Rey and BB-8. Poe interacts with Finn and BB-8. Rey interacts with Finn and BB-8. That’s it. That’s how it is in both films. They had an excuse in the first one; they didn’t realize Poe would be as popular as he was, they initially planned to kill him off anyway… but after seeing that chemistry at work, it’s mind boggling that they didn’t, at the very least, have him, Finn, BB-8, and the new character of Rose all go to Canto Bight. That would have been there Butt City. Instead, they decided to fracture the group more by not only having Rey on Ahch-To but also split Poe and Finn up again. So now, they have all of one film to finally stick together and that’s a shame.

TLDR I agree with the criticisms though that doesn’t make me hate the new films just like my criticisms of the Prequels didn’t make me hate them either. I love Luke’s display of Force Mastery at the end and I don’t mind what they did with Snoke. My issue lies more in the over arching story. It definitely should have been New Republic versus First Order. I’ve written new opening crawls for both TFA and TLJ that emphasize the role of the New Republic, acknowledging its presence as if it hasn’t been completely destroyed. From there, the only edits that need to be made are to the few instances where they imply “no one is coming”. No, fuck that, the New Republic absolutely would be coming but they just can’t get the signal far enough or something to that effect. That’s about the best you can hope for. The rest would basically be a fan film, not a fan edit.

TLDR sections should be shorter.

hk47awesome said:

I agree to an extent with most of the criticisms but unlike OP and a lot of others who share them, I don’t hate the films at all just as I didn’t hate the Prequels either… TLDR I agree with the criticisms though that doesn’t make me hate the new films just like my criticisms of the Prequels didn’t make me hate them either. I love Luke’s display of Force Mastery at the end and I don’t mind what they did with Snoke. My issue lies more in the over arching story. It definitely should have been New Republic versus First Order. I’ve written new opening crawls for both TFA and TLJ that emphasize the role of the New Republic, acknowledging its presence as if it hasn’t been completely destroyed. From there, the only edits that need to be made are to the few instances where they imply “no one is coming”. No, fuck that, the New Republic absolutely would be coming but they just can’t get the signal far enough or something to that effect. That’s about the best you can hope for. The rest would basically be a fan film, not a fan edit.

Yeah, I get all that and mostly, if not completly, feel the same but…like you said, the over arching story is a problem. For the most part, there is none and if there is anything at all that you can think of, there is no progress, change or learning curve for characters happening at all. Which is why I feel like the sequels need to be heavily edited (one of quite a few reasons). TLJ is a huge example of this and the ending is so final feeling that there is no next objective for anyone to be excited for the next film except “kylo has to die/convert to the light side”. Of course, this was the same objective as in previous middle chapters but there was much more pilled on top of that.

It seems like Disney are more concerned of making each film it’s own thing and, if you look at each film as is, they are good as long as you don’t take them too seriously. Unfortunatly, some people do and find flaws. If you compaire character personalities, motivations, past story lines, galixy politics etc. that are all set up in previous fiilms, it doesn’t totally match up and sometimes not make sence. Plot points are dropped and forgotten about between films. Lots of decisions made for nostalgic reasons and not for actually making something new and good.

If you take a few flaws of the films so far:

-TFA was a copy of ANH
-Rey doesn’t have any training or need it at all but previous films say that you do. If the force can just make Rey stronger to balance out the light and dark (official explination apparently), why didn’t the force just balance out Luke so that he could kick vaders ass at the end of ep5?
-No large over arching story between films

These flaws are all fixed by doing the edit mentioned on page 1 - Have Rey trained in TFA and have the Resistance trapped on Crait at the end of the film. The more flaws you find and attempt to fix, the better the sequel trilogy could turn out. Just chaning the Resistance to the Republic and making it so that they cant get the message out on Crait doen’t fix the majority of flaws.

Jake Skywalker said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

reducing Starkiller Base to just that: a base.

Yes. Or maybe, just maybe, the FO capital planet?

It’d be kind of anticlimactic to destroy the enemy captital in the first film. Besides, it didn’t look like an actual city. It seemed to be only a military base. Then again, for all we know, military bases might be the closest the First Order has to cities, and maybe all their “citizens” are conscripted into the army. Anyway, I just don’t see the point in making it their capital.

I would like to add cacti to Jakku and maybe water to make it more distinct from Tatooine.

That would be great! Or, maybe, just changing the sand and/or sky colour could be enough to make Jakku different.

I had also considered changing the sky color, but I didn’t think it was possible, given that chroma key couldn’t do it (I tried). I don’t think we’re gonna keyframe a third of the film to change Jakku’s sky color. I figured adding things like cacti would be more feasible.

Han’s character can be fixed extremely easily by making him a Resistance general who does smuggling on the side, and was sent to find out what happened to Poe. If you remove the Rathtar scene like so many seem to, you could even make him a fulltime general with no smuggling.

How do you make him search for Poe? I don’t recall him even speak about or interact with him.

He just needs to say he’s looking for a certain Resistance member.

I don’t see any problem with what happened to Luke’s character, and while I do agree it sucks to be back to the “last Jedi” status quo, there’s not much we can do about it.

Well… I’m wondering if it’s possible to move the Luke Vs. Kylo duel at the end of VII, making Luke to be actually there. And then having the Rey training in VIII, as it is but before she make any use of the Force. Of course this isn’t easy…

That’s an interesting idea, but I’m pretty indifferent to it. Besides, it’s not really doable.

Luke had no problem lifting his lightsaber from the snow in ESB. I agree that performing a mind trick is on a whole other level, and thus should be cut, but that’s about it.

Luke already had some sort of training with Ben a the beginning of TESB. Before meeting Ben he wasn’t able to do any of the Force related stuff. So should be Rey before meeting Luke.

Oh yeah, I’m sure one session of blindfolded blaster bolt deflection is all you need to reach the skill level of a padawan.

DougieP said:

I have more or less the same feelings as the OP and yeah, there is barely any explanation on what’s going on politics wise etc. I had no idea where the First Order came from or why the New Republic and the Resistance weren’t part of the same team.

The lack of political context irked me at first. Eventually, I realized the relationship between the Republic and the Resistance is at least roughly analogous to the relationship between the French Resistance and Free France in World War II. This is an imperfect analogy but the closest historical example I can think of at the moment.

The Republic and the First Order each occupied a large part of the galaxy. Wary of an arms race out of a fear it could provoke war, the Republic signed a disarmament treaty with the First Order, which reneged on the agreement. The Republic secretly provided indirect support to the Resistance while publically denying this.

Jake Skywalker said:

Hello there!

2. The rebels won the war
   They won. Period. We can’t accept to see that nothing changed. That the OT characters and their efforts lead to NOTHING at all. We can’t be satisfied with just a line in the TFA’s crawl saying that “the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire” to make us watch the same Empire Vs Rebellion story we already saw. I, personally, find depressing seeing the New Republic been destroyed in ten seconds, compared with the great ad “historically accurate” Palpatine’s rise to power we see in the prequels.
   What should be done: contextualize the First Order as the reorganised Imperial remnant, a second grade power in a galaxy changed since the OT.

I agree the idea of an Empire 2.0 is highly depressing. So was World War II. I think it was meant to be depressing.

5. Inconsistencies with the depicting of the Force
   No one can use the Force without training. Not even Anakin could.

Logically, one person must have been the first Force user in the galaxy if you go back far enough. That person must have taught himself without training. Right?

LordPlagueis said:

The lack of political context irked me at first. Eventually, I realized the relationship between the Republic and the Resistance is at least roughly analogous to the relationship between the French Resistance and Free France in World War II. This is an imperfect analogy but the closest historical example I can think of at the moment.

The Republic and the First Order each occupied a large part of the galaxy. Wary of an arms race out of a fear it could provoke war, the Republic signed a disarmament treaty with the First Order, which reneged on the agreement. The Republic secretly provided indirect support to the Resistance while publically denying this.

See, this is all good stuff and makes them feel like less of an empire 2.0 but the problem is that none of this was actually in the film. Its a huge shame. However, this may have been done intentionally since TFA was meant to be a nostalgic film with it being so close to ANH. Problem is that the nostalgia doesn’t hold up through repeated viewing and you start asking questions to which the film (or the whole sequel trilogy) doesn’t answer.

LordPlagueis said:

Logically, one person must have been the first Force user in the galaxy if you go back far enough. That person must have taught himself without training. Right?

While true, I imagine that scenario being a long long process of them discovering the power to becoming fully trained. Far longer than normal Jedi to be trained (from kid to adult). I’d even say that he/she wouldn’t have even come close to mastering the power but passed what little they knew to someone else who continued exploring the possibilities. Now we come to Rey with huge spikes in knowledge and power without even being told that any of these possibilities exist. Like I said in a previous post in this topic, apparently the cannon explanation is due to the force balancing her out with Kylo (which is why there’s a lot of talk about balance etc in TLJ) but if that’s the case then now Disney have went and put a plot hole in the original trilogy since the force never balanced out Luke and Vader so that he could kick his ass in Cloud City. It’s as if they just wanted to skip any training so that they could just carry on with the story without any regard as to what has come before.

TBH I can’t see this working as a real edit, but I can see it as kind of a ‘proof of concept’ edit. Either way, if this gets of the ground I’d be interested to see how it turns out. I think ‘alt’ edits are pretty cool.

I think the trilogy should have its own ship. The Prequels had Padme’s ships, which, while different in each film, all had the same interior, as well as the same chrome texture on the exterior. The Originals had the Millenium Falcon, obviously. The Sequels have…also the Falcon. How about the Falcon is destroyed when it crashes on Starkiller Base. All subsequent scenes featuring it would have another ship in its place. I really hope Episode IX introduces a ship like this to make adding more natural, not to mention not having to design it ourselves. The main issue will be rotoscoping the characters whenever they’re in the Falcon cockpit to place them in the new ship’s cockpit instead. That would probably be a nightmare. We could simply cut most of those shots, since they aren’t that important. We’d be cutting the shot of Luke in it anyways, since all he does is look at the familiar cockpit and retrieve the dice, none of which works if it isn’t the Falcon.

NeverarGreat said:

The Falcon is stitched into the ST’s DNA. No amount of rotoscoping can change that, since almost every scene with the Falcon relies on it being that particular vessel of nostalgia.

I’m not sure whether or not you mean nostalgic for the viewer or the characters but ether way, I completely disagree.

If you mean for the characters - There are only two scenes as far as I remember that reference nostalgia so far. One with Luke entering and turning the lights on and “Chewie, we’re home”. These can easily be cut or, if really needed, changed. It’s not like they constantly talk about the old days while aboard it.

If you mean for the viewer - While the final film isn’t out yet, I’ve started doing some background replacement in advance for my “Sequel Trilogy Redux” and my son became interested so I showed him parts of the film that I thought might hold his attention while I pointed out characters and names. One was the escape from Jakku and he really liked it, mainly BB8 who he calls “Baby 8”. At no point did he say that “the Falcon held the scene together due to nostalgia”. To him, it was a new ship, it could have been any ship. It really doesn’t matter what ship it is, the Falcon isn’t necessary.

The only scene that I would agree with you on is with how Han picks up Rey, Finn and BB8. The Falcon is needed for Han to be searching for it and he found it because it can be easily tracked (which is flimsy anyway, I can poke holes in that). But since I want to have Rey follow BB8s instructions on where their base is and head straight there, where Han is still a general, this whole scene is scrapped for me. Falcon not needed.

Anakin Starkiller said:

I think the trilogy should have its own ship. The Prequels had Padme’s ships, which, while different in each film, all had the same interior, as well as the same chrome texture on the exterior. The Originals had the Millenium Falcon, obviously. The Sequels have…also the Falcon. How about the Falcon is destroyed when it crashes on Starkiller Base. All subsequent scenes featuring it would have another ship in its place. I really hope Episode IX introduces a ship like this to make adding more natural, not to mention not having to design it ourselves. The main issue will be rotoscoping the characters whenever they’re in the Falcon cockpit to place them in the new ship’s cockpit instead. That would probably be a nightmare. We could simply cut most of those shots, since they aren’t that important. We’d be cutting the shot of Luke in it anyways, since all he does is look at the familiar cockpit and retrieve the dice, none of which works if it isn’t the Falcon.

If this were done by someone else and it was good enough, I’d consider asking permission to use it. For me, however, it’s not a big enough deal for me to want it changed since I think there is so much other work that needs done. Whoever did this would probably need to have experience in 3D modeling/animation which I don’t have. Maybe the OP does?

NeverarGreat said:
The Falcon is stitched into the ST’s DNA. No amount of rotoscoping can change that, since almost every scene with the Falcon relies on it being that particular vessel of nostalgia.

The Falcon should be in almost every scene, as far as I’m concerned. 😊

I didn’t mean to imply that every scene of the Falcon is there purely because of nostalgia, just that its initial inclusion was very much for that purpose (and to get Han on board).

Hence why I would still feature the Falcon in TFA.

NeverarGreat said:

I didn’t mean to imply that every scene of the Falcon is there purely because of nostalgia, just that its initial inclusion was very much for that purpose (and to get Han on board). But once the Falcon is now the ST ship of choice, there’s really no way to change its identity.

Listing all the scenes which rely on it being Han’s old ship:
-Han and Chewie finding and boarding the Falcon
-Han complaining about the compressor, and Rey’s solution
-The Tracking Ball reference and Game table
-Han thinking about hiring Rey to look after the Falcon

-Luke mourning Han’s death and the metal dice
-The Falcon drawing TIEs away at Crait (Requires Kylo’s hatred of Han and the Falcon)

I get what what your saying but I think we are both looking at this from a different point of view. Not to speak for you, but I am assuming that you are looking at this from the viewpoint of the films as is with minimal/no editing. I’m looking at it from my own personal heavily edited version of TFA (which a few of those points are cut) but mainly from my in-progress “sequel trilogy redux” project. While TLJ isn’t out yet on BR/DVD, as long as my plans work out and don’t get changed, the only point there that’s going to be included is the game table reference (and a slight possibility of drawing the TIEs away). Nether of them are even necessary, at least not for my version. Ive only seen the TFA once in cinema and a quick glimpse on cut scenes when editing so I actually completely forgot that two of those points even existed.

But . . . but . . . why would you want to exorcise the MF from these films???

To give them an identity. ^And ^cuz ^it’s ^ugly.

To give them an identity. It’s a pretty ugly design on the outside anyway.

Might I suggest you rename this thread “The Sequel Trilogy Radical Redux”? It better matches the name of the similar Prequel Trilogy thread and makes for some nice alliteration.

Anakin Starkiller said:

To give them an identity. ^And ^cuz ^it’s ^ugly.

Only one response is appropriate:
http://larkable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Ford-not-in-Star-Wars-Episode-7-cast.jpg

(I don’t know how to put up pix here.)

The Falcon? Ugly!?

She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid.

Gothamknight said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

To give them an identity. ^And ^cuz ^it’s ^ugly.

Only one response is appropriate:
http://larkable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Ford-not-in-Star-Wars-Episode-7-cast.jpg

(I don’t know how to put up pix here.)

Hello friend. Just do this:


snooker said:

The Falcon? Ugly!?

She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid.

I knew I had that one coming. To clarify, I quite the interior. It’s just the exterior I don’t like. It looks overly flat and awkward.

And like I said, I wouldn’t want to cut it just because I don’t like the exterior. The reason I’d replace is to give the ST a ship to call its own.