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The Force Awakens: Starlight (V1.1 Released!) — Page 11

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So Kylo Ren’s prayer basically would replace where Hux’s speech and the Hosnian destruction is in the theatrical, right? That actually makes sense. I think fundamentally having this scene gives the audience some time to reflect on Rey’s decision.

By taking the First Order stuff out, maybe the Takodana stuff did feel rushed, but by inserting that moment there in its place, it gets back some breathing room. I also like the idea that he is praying before battle, basically.

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Yeah. There’s a part of me that thinks JJ originally had a version of the movie closer to Restructured, but realized in editing that he needed to pull the First Order stuff earlier to keep them more active in the story.

Maz’s castle and the interrogation(s) will be the most important changes in this edit.

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I was thinking some more about the critizisms of Restructured, and how it seems like Leia is reacting to only the Hosnian destruction instead of Han’s death. Maybe cutting her slow-motion reaction into two shots would be effective - the first shot being right after Han falls down the shaft, then the destruction of Hos like before, ending with Leia closing her eyes in grief.

On a related note, Hux says that without the Republic the Resistance will be vulnerable, implying that they will suffer some immediate setback that will allow the First Order to win the race to Luke. Yet if the Republic is only providing financial assistance to the Resistance, it wouldn’t immediately be placed at a disadvantage with the destruction of the Senate. That got me to thinking about what sort of thing the Republic could provide which would be immediately ended with its destruction, and the only real answer is communication. Perhaps if the Republic was allowing the Resistance privileged backdoor access to the Holo-net at all times, which allowed them to have a vast web of spies throughout the galaxy able to communicate in real-time with the Resistance. I imagine this is how the Resistance was able to respond so quickly at Maz’s castle.

But how to suggest such a thing? I could change the subtitles of the lady at the castle, to imply that she’s using the holo-net to speak with parties unknown. And during the attack on the Republic, I could have the Resistance listening to all the frenzied communications of the Hosnian system, which are cut short in Leia’s final shot. I’m thinking of something like this:

https://youtu.be/HRkXbTTYfSU?t=2m9s

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I’ve had the same thought about cutting Leia’s reaction into two. Although I wonder if you would need to replace that one shot of Leia that we see as the Starkiller laser is racing toward Hosnian Prime. Not sure what you could replace it with.

I don’t know if the audience would put two and two together with that idea, but regardless I think the idea of radio chatter being cut off when Hosnian is destroyed could add to the weight of all those deaths.

I think it would be difficult to get this idea across with the spy’s subtitles, though. I guess we would have to just throw some ideas out and see if anything works.

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 (Edited)

I’d definitely need to replace the Leia reaction shot, but if I am able to use a shot of the Raddus escaping, it might work.

The radio chatter would have to be recorded specifically to make it clear that it’s coming from Hos.

The spy subtitles idea is a bit out there, but maybe I could use a technique of suggesting Republic involvement while still keeping it vague:

Female spy: “Inform our friends…I’ve found their droid.”

This is to suggest that Republic intelligence and military are helping the Resistance, giving it eyes and ears in every corner of Republic territory.

Also, I’ve just updated the first post with the more recent ideas.

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 (Edited)

Another day, another crawl…

The Republic is in peril.
From the Empire a new
order has risen, forging a
weapon of ultimate power.

Tormented by visions of
the mighty FIRST ORDER
and its impossible weapon,
warriors trained by Luke
Skywalker have defected
from the Republic and
driven their master, the
last of the Jedi Knights,
into exile.

With only the terms
of a tattered armistice
preventing total war,
the Senate supports a
covert RESISTANCE
to find their guardian of
peace and justice amid
the countless stars…

I think it’s really important for the story to frame the First Order as something that far predates Luke’s Jedi Academy, since the original crawl makes it seem like the First Order just appeared on the scene no more than a few years before the movie starts. I’ve also given some indication of the Galactic Concordance, which the official crawl should really have mentioned to show that the Empire was never really defeated in full.

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I had another idea about restructuring the battle part of Maz’s castle. Here’s how the scene originally played out:

-Rey stays behind to hold off the troops
-Han and Finn emerge and are taken prisoner
-Resistance arrives
-Rey fights with and is immobilized by Kylo
-Cutaway to trooper requesting air support
-Kylo senses the map, orders the division out

With this, it feels like Finn has forgotten about Rey since we don’t see him looking for her as she’s being roughed up by Kylo. Also, the Resistance arrives long before Rey is even immobilized by Kylo, meaning that the parallel narratives are not in emotional sync.

Here’s the old idea for what I was trying to do by giving Kylo some more agency:
https://vimeo.com/214272131
Password: rough

-Rey stays behind to hold off the troops
-Rey fights with and is immobilized by Kylo
-Han and Finn emerge and are taken prisoner
-Kylo senses the map, orders the division out on a whim
-Resistance arrives

In this, although the narratives are more in sync it feels like too much time passes between Kylo ordering the division out and them actually retreating. Also, his extra agency isn’t really worth the illogic of his action.

Here’s the proposed new version:

-Rey stays behind to hold off the troops
-Han and Finn emerge and are taken prisoner
-Rey fights with and is immobilized by Kylo
-Resistance Arrives
-Kylo senses the map, orders the division out (no cutaway to the ‘request air support’ trooper required)

In this version the narratives are emotionally synced and there’s a clear progression from one narrative jump to another without too much time passing between them.

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It’s interesting you decided to put more focus on Luke’s fallen students in your new crawl.

ChainsawAsh made a good point about one aspect of one of your crawls, but I think it is relevant to the crawls in general. Whatever is mentioned in the crawl, it "sets the audience up to expect that to be a focus of the movie”, but it can be disappointing or confusing if "it ends up being minor subtext at best.”

Which is why I don’t think so much focus should be put on his students. Now we are expecting his students to be the main baddies, even though we won’t even really see the Knights of Ren until (maybe) the last film in the trilogy, sans the master himself, Kylo Ren.

Personally, I think why Luke has vanished should remain a mystery, and we discover why as the movie unfolds along with the other characters.

To be honest, I prefer this crawl you did.

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the power
of the Jedi Knights has
faded into legend.

This is pretty solid, with the added benefit of retaining that great first sentence.

This idea of the Jedi and their legendary status also is a big theme within the TFA and TLJ, so it fits Ash’s idea of setting up what the audience should expect.

Now, I think the second paragraph could be changed

In his absence, the remnants of the Empire have emerged from the darkness of space and have reformed as the FIRST ORDER.

In his absence, the mysterious FIRST ORDER, a remnant of the fallen Empire, has emerged from the dark corners of space and…

Biding their time on the fringes of space, a remnant of the fallen Empire known as the FIRST ORDER has emerged from the darkness to…

“emerged from hiding” maybe

I think something like this, particularly the second or third one, could help make it clear that the First Order existed before Luke’s exile, but possibly his disappearance encouraged the First Order to come out of hiding. This seems to be the case in new canon material as well. The First Order did exist before Luke vanished, but senators like Leia were only becoming aware of some dark force lurking on the fringes of space around the same time Luke did vanish. The last part of that sentence could either deal destroy the remains of the Jedi religion, something to do with a weapon, yada yada. It could be interesting to say something about the First Order emerging from the edge of known space with mysterious power or something like that to vaguely hint at Starkiller, Snoke, or their surprising rise to power. Could be overthinking it now, which should be the slogan of crawl writing.

And that third paragraph can deal with the Resistance. Something like you have already.

While the [New] Republic strives
for a diplomatic solution,
a few bold senators fund a
covert RESISTANCE to
counter these attacks and
find their guardian of
peace and justice amid
the endless stars….

I think an angle like this is a pretty good way to approach the New Republic situation. Like I’ve said on threads, I think, alternatively, mentioning how Leia might believe First Order spies/supporters have infiltrated the Republic could also help explain the New Republic’s indecisiveness and a motivation to create a task force outside of the Republic. Technically both angles are true in canon.

The only problem I see with this structure for the crawl is that it kind of goes against the grain of all the other opening crawls. By the third paragraph, the crawl should be giving details of what we are about to see in the very first scene. By now it really should mainly be talking about the search for Skywalker.

The Republic/Resistance situation, and maybe some First Order stuff, really should be focused in paragraph two.

Which is why I think the overall structure needs to be closer to the original crawl. Keep the first sentence. Either cut the second, or integrate/replace it with the first stuff about the First Order. Luke’s absence didn’t create the First Order, but make it clear that maybe his presence was keeping them in the shadows. Holding them at bay.

Man, this was a lot more than I was planning to write about the crawls. Sorry, Nev. I know this probably feels like a Sisyphean task.

Regarding your post about restructuring Maz’s castle battle, I think your logic is sound and I think you should go for it. Honestly, I think you should make some test scenes, all the way from Rey waking from the Force vision to Finn screaming out “REY!!!” as she flies away with Kylo Ren. I really need to see your ideas.

I had some other thoughts/suggestions I wanted to share but I’ll save them for another post.

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Thanks for the detailed input, I’ll be referring to it when I inevitably work on the crawl some more (have a more finicky 70-100 words ever been written?)

I wish I could keep making video mockups like I did when working on Restructued, but various Premiere/computer cost issues have prevented me from doing any actual editing for a while. That’s one reason why I’m so focused on the crawl right now.

Also, Vimeo has clamped down on their storage allotment, so I’d have to make a new account there as well.

Ah well, it’s just life. I’ve recently gotten a new job, so there may be some money for hobbies soon. 😉

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I feel you, man. I’ve also been more on the discussion side of things lately than doing any actual work to show for it.

As far as your storage issue, whenever you get back to working on stuff, maybe you could go through and delete any redundant videos you might have on there, or consider using something like Google Drive as well.

I’ll go ahead and share the other thoughts I had as well since your more idea-focused atm.

Thought 1) I like the reydream in the desert, but do you think it might be too early in the film to show Rey having apparent Force-visions?

Kylo Ren does say she “imagines an ocean”, but in TLJ Rey says she’s only seen the island (and the Force tree?) in dreams. She does say though that “something inside me has always been there”, so you could argue for the island-vision being placed before her journey begins, but would adding this mystical foreshadowing vision to the tail-end of her opening montage take away from it’s sympathetic monotony?

Another option could be for Rey to be having an actual dream of the island and possibly the Force tree (maybe the dolly of the sacred texts) and hard cut to Rey waking up in the interrogation room.

I still like the reydream, just food for thought of a possible alternative. I try to imagine people’s reactions if we had seen the reydream in theaters.

Thought 2) Possibly add voices/sounds during Rey and Kylo’s mind invasion, to further imply the transferring of information. I like the subtleness of it as is, but could be interesting to see. At first we are hearing voices and sounds related to Rey, but as it progress, it slowly transitions to voices/sounds related to Kylo Ren. I went back and read your cutlist and it seems you actually sort of had an idea like this already. I don’t think visuals are necessary, though. It helps keep things vague, imo.

Thought 3) This isn’t a really big deal, but I feel like Phasma should be removed from third act of the film. I think this would honestly improve the movie, and improve Phasma’s character in general. I would argue it is the second biggest universal complaint next to Starkiller. We all brushed it off because we were hoping it would create interesting dynamics for Phasma in the next film, but we really didn’t get any of that, so overall I think it would be best to cut it out altogether.

How to do this, though? Obviously, you would need to cut most of the shots with Phasma in it. It would be nice if one could possibly photoshop her out of one of the shots of the screen that shows the shield’s status, and trim the scene short to remove her completely. Maybe an alternate, static shot of the screen could be made in its place to get that information across.

At the very least, trimming the way Finn is handling the situation might help. This is idea isn’t really related to your plans and I’m sure you’ve talked about this but I’m curious on your thoughts regarding Phasma.

I have a lot to say about Finn’s arc and how it could be improved too, but I’ll probably put that on the general TFA edit idea thread since it isn’t necessarily related to your edit.

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  1. I’ve also been thinking about the Reydream. It would be ideal to show it as an actual dream somewhere, but I don’t think it would work so late in the movie. Maybe just toning down what is there even more, so that she sees only a really vague outline of the island, would work and be less jarring for a first-time audience. They might interpret it as more of a mirage than anything on the first viewing.

  2. My idea for the interrogation is actually one of the things I’m most excited to work on, when I finally get the chance. In particular, I’d like to use the as-of-now unused images of the Starkiller beam traveling past the destroyer, since that with the voiceover of Kylo saying ‘I’ll finish what you started’ would strongly connect him in favor of the Starkiller and provide an interesting point of departure from Vader ANH. I’ve discussed the full sequence previously in the thread, but suffice it to say that I intend to make this scene much more intense.

  3. I don’t actually have strong feelings on Phasma one way or another. It’s a shame that she’s such a non-character, but on the plus side she seems to be Finn’s primary human point of grievance with the First Order, so taking her out of the last act might negatively impact Finn’s story.

And on that note, please do share your thoughts on Finn! He’s my favorite character from TFA, and recently I imagined the movie with him as the main character. There’s a good argument that Finn and Rey are both equally important main characters in this movie.

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About Finn.

Basically, I think Finn should be made into a more selfish character in 7. Three major reasons for this.

  1. He would have more interesting character development.
  2. His motivations would be made clearer by simplifying them.
  3. Watching him grow from a lower point would be much more rewarding for the audience.

This also would require minimal changes.

If possible, don’t have Finn shake his head when he doesn’t help execute the villagers. Finn’s still good at heart, but it is a little on the nose and I think lowering his gun is a stronger action by itself.

When Finn first sees Rey getting mugged, he doesn’t run over to try and help Rey, he just gets up to see what is happening. He’s not a hero at this point.
But when Rey asks if he is a part of the Resistance, he immediately begins playing the role of the “hero” because it could be a ticket off Jakku. He grabs her hand because that’s what he thinks a hero would do, not because he truly cares about Rey or BB-8 at this point in the story. By not painting him as a nice guy before this moment, I believe it could help recontextualize his actions.

Trim Finn’s confession at Maz’s castle. Primarily the line, “I wasn’t going to kill for them.” This makes it sound like his morals were his main motivation, while in this version it was actually self-preservation. You could argue Finn was trying to not make himself sound as bad, but that just make things unclear for the audience, going against the premise of this change.

And those are the main things. These changes also help justify why Finn would kill other Stormtroopers, like when him and Poe are escaping. At this point all he cares about is his own survival, not doing the right thing. So if other Stormtroopers get in the way, so be it. They literally make a joke about Finn’s priorities just before with the “Because it’s the right thing to do/I need a pilot” line. I think Finn’s main goal already in the theatrical film is to run and survive, but these few changes help keep that clear, and toning down his niceness early on makes his overall progression more satisfying.

While it isn’t necessary, I think this is also why cutting Phasma out of the third act would help improve his arc. Phasma and Kylo Ren represent two different things for Finn. When Finn faces Kylo, it represents him facing death (Finn probably associates death with Kylo Ren, and he even looks like the grim reaper) to protect someone other than himself.

So when Finn faces Phasma in 8, she should represent whatever he overcomes in that film. The dilemma of choosing a side, basically. And I think Phasma is a good symbol for that.

That’s why I think Phasma shouldn’t even be in the third act of TFA. Finn “beating” Phasma at that point sort of takes the wind out of the purpose of their confrontation in 8.

At the VERY LEAST, one could do sort of what I think darthrush is going to do in his TFA cut and really deemphasize Finn’s celebratory attitude while they have Phasma at gunpoint, so cutting their conversation together “I’m in charge now!”, and maybe “Yeah, there is”, Finn grinning, after the trash compactor line.

I think similar changes can be made to 8 as well, like adding back most of his deleted scenes to clarify his motivations, like Hal is planning to do. Make Finn seem less eager to help the Resistance after he gets caught (maybe things like cutting, “If I can get on that ship…” and maybe don’t have Finn interrupt Rose when they’re telling Poe the plan).

Honestly these are mostly small trims, but I think they would go a long way to help clear up Finn’s motivations in both 7 and 8.

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I agree that Finn’s character is inconsistently portrayed. At some times, he’s the guy who just wants to do good and get along with everyone, then he’s a self-interested coward who kills when it’s convenient. Fear of the First Order drives him to cowardly running away, but there’s also an underlying decency. I think it’s the conflict between these two drives that make him a compelling character to me, and also why it’s almost a universally agreed-upon edit to remove him mowing down Stormtroopers when escaping the Star Destroyer. Finn doesn’t strike me as being angry with the First Order to the point of murdering his fellow troopers. The line you bring up, ‘Because it’s the right thing to do - I need a pilot’ is good because both things, I believe, are true for Finn. When you humanize a single Stormtrooper, surely this should mean that the story treats them as more than endlessly disposable soldiers.

It all comes back to his first scene in the village. Finn wasn’t acting out of self-interest when he failed to kill the villagers, since he was in no danger. Instead, he put himself in danger by not following orders, an inherently selfless act which exposes his ultimate conflict. So if your thesis is that Finn begins the movie as entirely self-interested, his first scene doesn’t bear this out. A selfish person would have killed those villagers to protect their cover and run at the first opportunity. This tells me that Finn is definitely not motivated purely by self-preservation, but by refusing to kill except in self-defense. These are very different things.

I’m considering how to show this through edits, and I think I can do quite a bit to make Finn more hesitant about killing, beyond the hangar escape. For example, make him fire to destroy the TIE fighters in the desert only after the Falcon has taken some serious hits, and remove his violent murder by lightsaber at Maz’s castle. Every time he kills a fellow trooper, it should weigh on him in some way. I feel like this is the only way Finn makes sense.

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True, true. I do agree that your assessment on Finn’s dichotomy is pretty accurate. I think the hard part is figuring out what is too much of one side, and what is not enough of the other, you know?

I do think he is a good person from the beginning. A little self-serving, but good. Like you said, he doesn’t want to kill the villagers at the beginning. But for me it was a debate of whether or not he should be a little more on the selfish side at first to have him progress as a more selfless person, or have him fluctuate.

It’s like, he did something “good” that put him in danger. Will he want to do that again if he can avoid it? Even though helping the Resistance seems like the right thing to do, he still doesn’t want to do it at the beginning of TLJ. Maybe that’s where the dilemma stems from?

I think you’re right, though. You could have him kill the other Stormtroopers less, especially that brutal saber move on Takodana. Haha. Maybe in the hangar he could still blow up the empty TIEs though to create some chaos, if that could work. And those changes would help if he ends up trying to save Stormtroopers in IX, which I hope they will go in that direction with him.

So what do you think about moments like when he runs over to help Rey even before he meets her? A part of me feels like having him running over towards the fight yelling “Hey!” seems like the writers were trying hard to make him seem like a good guy.

My only guess is that as a Stormtrooper, he thought he would be a hero, a protector of the galaxy. When he snapped out of it, he realized he was the opposite, but he still wants to be that hero. But that might seem weird when he doesn’t seem compelled to join the fight for the galaxy with the Resistance.

I don’t know. It has to be a balance, but a proper balance. Appreciate your thoughts on all of this.

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I see Finn’s arc in TFA as going from someone who learns the value of life (and thus fears losing it) to someone who will give his life for his friend. In TLJ, he goes from fighting for a single person to fighting for a noble cause.

I don’t know how much Finn wants to be seen as heroic. Obviously he wants to be valued, and at the beginning of TFA he believes that the only way to do this is to lie about himself, but that’s about it.

This has given me some more to think about for sure.

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Gadzooks, I’ve just had a crazy revelation about Maz’s Castle, and I don’t know why I never had it before.

When Rey has her Force vision with the lightsaber, Maz tells her that her parents are never coming back, but that someone still could. What is Maz talking about? Maybe the guy that she just admonished for wanting to run away, the person that just left Rey while still obviously caring about her, the one that will immediately return and try to rescue her?

No, the first name that pops into her head is Luke. Obviously. Then she runs away from everything because she’s scared, and after that things are done to her by other characters.

How’s this for a radical edit:

Rey has the Force vision. After the part where she’s on the desert and everything goes dark, she finds herself in the Rathtar hallways, alone, searching for Finn who’s been captured by the beasts. She runs after him, shouting his name, and runs into Kylo in the forest.
When Maz confronts her and says that ‘someone still could’ return, she says nothing, and when Maz tells her to take the saber, she says she’s never touching it again, but not that she doesn’t want any part of it. She leaves the castle, shouting Finn’s name as she runs into the forest.
Meanwhile, Finn turns from the ship as if he hears something on the wind…but it’s the First Order. He races back to the castle asking about Rey.
Rey looks up and sees the First Order ships in the sky, presumably as she’s still running in the wrong direction looking for Finn. That’s the problem with the castle, it doesn’t have any sort of paved parking lot. She runs back toward the castle. BB-8 is erased from the shot.
Finn is taken to Maz in the basement, Maz being the last person who saw Rey. She gives Finn the lightsaber.

Thing is, I don’t see any reason why this wouldn’t work, and it would make so much more sense than what we have. With Rey intending to find Finn but getting captured, we instantly know how both characters feel about each other and what their motivations are, and when they are finally reunited the audience can more acutely feel the reunion.

Of course, this is a big change for Luke’s place in the story as the McGuffin, but that was never really Finn’s or Rey’s interest anyway. That was for Leia and the Resistance. So really, with this change Rey goes from wanting to find Luke to wanting to find Finn, and makes a strong argument for ending the movie with Rey leaving the Resistance base.

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Hope I didn’t bring too much up to add to the confusion!

Nev, that is a REALLY interesting idea. It’s possible it could still work both ways. Maybe Maz is thinking of Luke, Rey doesn’t say it though. But when Rey refuses that call and goes looking for Finn, it shows who Rey is more worried about at this moment, and it at least gives her a better reason for running off. I’d like to see what other people think about this though, opinions for and against it.

Also, cool idea reusing shots from the Rathtar sequence that a lot of people usually cut.

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That’s the great thing about context - a crummy scene in one context can be a great one in another, and I think that as a realization of her loneliness in a vision, her running through an empty ship looking for her friend who’s been snatched away by a monster is almost a perfect fit.

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Really cool idea! I like the way you’re able to think outside the box like that. I wonder if that change would give any problems later on, though. If you reduce the importance of Luke and increase the importance of Finn then maybe the ending where she leaves Finn behind and goes after Luke wouldn’t work as well.

Also, how do you feel about including the deleted scene with the doctor saying to Rey “your friend will be fine”? I was initially against it, it seemed like it would be unnecessary sugar coating of the situation. But it would make Rey seem more comfortable with leaving Finn without worrying too much. And it would downplay the importance of Finn’s injury to the audience, he wakes up in the beginning of TLJ anyway.

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 (Edited)

hi! sorry not to give a more detailed input, but the posts here are a bit lengthy and i really don’t have the time right now, so i’m sorry about that.

but about the crawl - i’m not a fan of the all-caps in general, i don’t think they’re necessary at all, so have you ever given a thought to only capitalizing FO? and not resistance? or maybe neither?

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Sir Ridley said:

Really cool idea! I like the way you’re able to think outside the box like that. I wonder if that change would give any problems later on, though. If you reduce the importance of Luke and increase the importance of Finn then maybe the ending where she leaves Finn behind and goes after Luke wouldn’t work as well.

Also, how do you feel about including the deleted scene with the doctor saying to Rey “your friend will be fine”? I was initially against it, it seemed like it would be unnecessary sugar coating of the situation. But it would make Rey seem more comfortable with leaving Finn without worrying too much. And it would downplay the importance of Finn’s injury to the audience, he wakes up in the beginning of TLJ anyway.

That scene always felt weird to me. In theory it would make sense, especially with the emphasis on their relationship, but in practice the doctor’s delivery is almost creepy and I don’t know if there’s a natural place for that scene.

It definitely makes sense for the movie to end without the trip to Luke’s island, given this idea. But then again, one of the reasons for the Reydream scene was to emphasize her connection to Luke, so maybe connecting her with Luke in one scene and disconnecting her in another scene makes it a wash? The island is still in play right now. I don’t have any definitive ideas on how to make it absolutely necessary/cut it completely without losing good stuff that I already like in the movie.

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NeverarGreat said:

Sir Ridley said:

Really cool idea! I like the way you’re able to think outside the box like that. I wonder if that change would give any problems later on, though. If you reduce the importance of Luke and increase the importance of Finn then maybe the ending where she leaves Finn behind and goes after Luke wouldn’t work as well.

Also, how do you feel about including the deleted scene with the doctor saying to Rey “your friend will be fine”? I was initially against it, it seemed like it would be unnecessary sugar coating of the situation. But it would make Rey seem more comfortable with leaving Finn without worrying too much. And it would downplay the importance of Finn’s injury to the audience, he wakes up in the beginning of TLJ anyway.

That scene always felt weird to me. In theory it would make sense, especially with the emphasis on their relationship, but in practice the doctor’s delivery is almost creepy and I don’t know if there’s a natural place for that scene.

It definitely makes sense for the movie to end without the trip to Luke’s island, given this idea. But then again, one of the reasons for the Reydream scene was to emphasize her connection to Luke, so maybe connecting her with Luke in one scene and disconnecting her in another scene makes it a wash? The island is still in play right now. I don’t have any definitive ideas on how to make it absolutely necessary/cut it completely without losing good stuff that I already like in the movie.

Yeah, I see. I don’t really like the doctor scene either, it’s not exactly good. But it might serve a purpose, I haven’t decided if I’ll use it yet. I plan to end the movie with Rey leaving and save the island for TLJ, so I would like to end on a hopeful note.

In regards to the Reydream it isn’t clearly connected to Luke until we see the Island “for real” so for first time viewers it might not help explain her need to find Luke, but I still think it’s a good addition either way. Perhaps you could even add a faint sound of Luke calling for Rey or something, but maybe that’s a bit too much.

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I’d say go for it, you don’t know whether something will work until it’s tried.

That reminds me though, I was going to try and have some reference to the Force Tree from TLJ in TFA, so that it makes more sense when Rey says that she’s seen it in her dreams.

Maybe there could be a dream sequence where we see the island, then the interior of the tree with the books, before she is awakened in the interrogation room. Have some sort of chanting/music to make it seem like the Force is speaking to her from these texts, and it could go a long way to explaining why Rey is gaining power so quickly.

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Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:

I’d say go for it, you don’t know whether something will work until it’s tried.

That reminds me though, I was going to try and have some reference to the Force Tree from TLJ in TFA, so that it makes more sense when Rey says that she’s seen it in her dreams.

Maybe there could be a dream sequence where we see the island, then the interior of the tree with the books, before she is awakened in the interrogation room. Have some sort of chanting/music to make it seem like the Force is speaking to her from these texts, and it could go a long way to explaining why Rey is gaining power so quickly.

I really like that idea!

Return of the Jedi: Remastered

Lord of the Rings: The Darth Rush Definitives