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Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Redux Ideas thread — Page 6

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I might hold back revealing Chewie is alive a bit longer, so we learn he’s alive when Rey and the others do.

After the Emperor talks with Kylo, I’d suggest cutting from that to the Falcon arriving at the first stop on the journey to find the wayfinder, dropping all the info dumping at the start of the film with the Resistance and trusting what we see in the initial crawl.

Now, this works fine for me, because I left Luke alive at the end of my LJ edit, so I can keep the line “this is the co-ordinates master luke left us” to indicate he’s helping the resistance (and then use footage of his death from The Last Jedi that I cut so he dies simultaneously with Leia awakening Ben), so I can retain his conversation with Rey later on his island.

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RogueLeader said:

Here is some thoughts on potential deleted scenes:
• Kylo Ren and the Oracle
• Extended Luke and Leia flashback (I doubt the visual effects were even completed)
• Maz gives Rey a pep talk before going to Pasana.
• Lando talks about his long lost daughter.
• Kylo kills Hux.
• Lando talks to Finn back at the Resistance Base.

I feel like a lot of deleted material would be the trimmings of the scenes we mostly got, or original versions of scenes before they were reshot.

Add to this the shot of Leia handling the medal seen in the trailer (and given to Chewie at the end).

Nien Nunb is also seen in the rebel briefing but entirely absent in the space battle and the victory celebration (possibly his fighter is destroyed, but the tide turning against the rebel fighters was already represented by Greg Grunberg’s death).

Having just read the original plot spoilers, most of the deleted scenes would contradict the final edit (such as Kylo kills Hux) and so couldn’t be used in an extended cut. In the case of Rogue One Lucasfilm didn’t see fit to release any of that ‘alternate’ material so am not sure we should hold our breath in this case.

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 (Edited)

Also
-Alternate intro for Palpatine being tied to a bed.
-Alternate achto scene
-Finn’s confession
-More scenes at the beginning with FO generals
-Alternate climax with force ghosts attacking palpatine
-Luke appearing to leia as she died
…etc etc

Peace is a lie
There is only passion…

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Matt.F said:
Add to this the shot of Leia handling the medal seen in the trailer (and given to Chewie at the end).

Oh god, the Chewie medal must go away. It came from nowhere, is the shameless fan service in the movie by far.

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 (Edited)

Here are some of the cuts I would make, not knowing what deleted material we have to work with:

1.) Try using a mixture of cuts and alternate Kylo Ren dialogue (perhaps from the video games?) to remove the “Rey Palpatine” reveal from the film. Ideally, I’d also like to remove any implication that Rey’s parents were trying to hide her or protect her from Palpatine. To me, this twist cheapens the the reveal at the end of The Last Jedi: that Rey is ‘no one’ and needs to forge her own path forward. It’s as if, after The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi came around and said “no, actually Darth Vader was lying, Obi-Wan was your father”. I found it supremely unsatisfying.

I think it would be enough just to imply that Palpatine senses Rey’s growing power and wants Kylo to nip it in the bud by killing her. However, when he notices Rey straying toward the dark path and Kylo coming to the light, he changes his plan and encourages Rey to strike him down and take his place, the same tactic he tried with Luke and Anakin before him. Stuff like the force lightning reveal and Dark Rey could still work in this context imo, as could the idea of the “Force dyad”.

I don’t even mind the ‘Rey Skywalker’ moment at the end in this context, as it makes sense to me for Rey to adopt the legacy of the people who helped her find her place in the world, although I’d trim the old woman specifically asking for her surname, so it’s just “Rey… looks at force ghosts of Luke and Leia Rey Skywalker”

2.)I’m okay with Luke catching the saber, it feels like a nice reversal of that controversial moment in the Last The Jedi and further cements the arc that Luke went through in that film. However, I really dislike the line he says about “treating a Jedi weapon with more respect”. Imo it feels like a pointed dig at The Last Jedi rather than a natural evolution of Luke’s character. I think that line could be safely excised from the movie.

3.) I’d remove the throwaway line about the Holdo maneuver. Again, it feels like unnecessary lampshading of a moment in The Last Jedi and ripped me out of the movie.

4.) I’d remove Finn trying to tell Rey something and not getting a chance throughout the film. I know the implication is that Finn is trying to tell her he’s Force sensitive, but I don’t think this is clearly communicated or paid off satisfactorily in the film.

5.) I’d remove that last conversation between Lando and Jannah. This moment confused me in the film and felt like a vestige of a cut plotline. I saw it as a sort of fatherly interaction but other people I’ve spoken to thought Lando was hitting on her…so I think it’s safe to say that this scene didn’t land for a lot of people.

6.) I’d remove the sequence of the Star Destroyer blowing up Kijimi. I think the massive size of the fleet creates enough stakes on its own. Do we really have to go back to the superweapon well and make each one a Death Star?

7.) This one is more debatable, but I’d consider removing the implication of a romantic history between Poe and Zorri, as well as Poe’s attempts to get her to kiss him. I like that the two of them have a history but the romance angle feels unnecessary and, in my opinion, isn’t given nearly enough time to feel properly developed.

8.) There’s a lot of fanservice in this film, And i’d have to give it more thought as to which fanservice moments worked for me and which didn’t. Off the top of my head, the one only that seems like a no-brainer to remove is Chewie getting his medal. in hindsight this felt super out of left-field.

9.) Can scenes be shuffled around so there’s more time between Chewie’s “death” and his re-emergence as a First Order prisoner? We barely have a chance to let that sink in before it’s unceremoniously reversed. I also wonder if it’s possible to remove the restoration of C3PO’s memory by R2. Perhaps even have R2 try to restore his memory and fail, creating a sad moment between the two friends. It just feels like there’s too many fake-out deaths in this one movie.

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Has anyone ever considered ending The Last Jedi with the shots of the First Order’s defeat throughout the galaxy (meaning that Luke’s sacrifice truly has inspired hope across the galaxy), before we see the new Resistance base and the final Tatooine scene (without “I’m Rey Skywalker!”)?

The unfortunate reality of the Star Wars prequel and Disney trilogies is that they will always be around. Forever. They will never go away. It can never be undone.

I also prefer to be referred to as “TNT”, not “Freezing”.

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Octorox said:

Here are some of the cuts I would make, not knowing what deleted material we have to work with:

1.) Try using a mixture of cuts and alternate Kylo Ren dialogue (perhaps from the video games?) to remove the “Rey Palpatine” reveal from the film. Ideally, I’d also like to remove any implication that Rey’s parents were trying to hide her or protect her from Palpatine. To me, this twist cheapens the the reveal at the end of The Last Jedi: that Rey is ‘no one’ and needs to forge her own path forward. It’s as if, after The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi came around and said “no, actually Darth Vader was lying, Obi-Wan was your father”. I found it supremely unsatisfying.

I think it would be enough just to imply that Palpatine senses Rey’s growing power and wants Kylo to nip it in the bud by killing her. However, when he notices Rey straying toward the dark path and Kylo coming to the light, he changes his plan and encourages Rey to strike him down and take his place, the same tactic he tried with Luke and Anakin before him. Stuff like the force lightning reveal and Dark Rey could still work in this context imo, as could the idea of the “Force dyad”.

I don’t even mind the ‘Rey Skywalker’ moment at the end in this context, as it makes sense to me for Rey to adopt the legacy of the people who helped her find her place in the world, although I’d trim the old woman specifically asking for her surname, so it’s just “Rey… looks at force ghosts of Luke and Leia Rey Skywalker”

2.)I’m okay with Luke catching the saber, it feels like a nice reversal of that controversial moment in the Last The Jedi and further cements the arc that Luke went through in that film. However, I really dislike the line he says about “treating a Jedi weapon with more respect”. Imo it feels like a pointed dig at The Last Jedi rather than a natural evolution of Luke’s character. I think that line could be safely excised from the movie.

3.) I’d remove the throwaway line about the Holdo maneuver. Again, it feels like unnecessary lampshading of a moment in The Last Jedi and ripped me out of the movie.

4.) I’d remove Finn trying to tell Rey something and not getting a chance throughout the film. I know the implication is that Finn is trying to tell her he’s Force sensitive, but I don’t think this is clearly communicated or paid off satisfactorily in the film.

5.) I’d remove that last conversation between Lando and Jannah. This moment confused me in the film and felt like a vestige of a cut plotline. I saw it as a sort of fatherly interaction but other people I’ve spoken to thought Lando was hitting on her…so I think it’s safe to say that this scene didn’t land for a lot of people.

6.) I’d remove the sequence of the Star Destroyer blowing up Kijimi. I think the massive size of the fleet creates enough stakes on its own. Do we really have to go back to the superweapon well and make each one a Death Star?

7.) This one is more debatable, but I’d consider removing the implication of a romantic history between Poe and Zorri, as well as Poe’s attempts to get her to kiss him. I like that the two of them have a history but the romance angle feels unnecessary and, in my opinion, isn’t given nearly enough time to feel properly developed.

8.) There’s a lot of fanservice in this film, And i’d have to give it more thought as to which fanservice moments worked for me and which didn’t. Off the top of my head, the one only that seems like a no-brainer to remove is Chewie getting his medal. in hindsight this felt super out of left-field.

I have a TON of my own opinions that I might share at some point but I like a lot of what you’ve said so I’m gonna respond to a few of your suggestions:

  1. Rey is a Palpatine. I don’t know if there’s any realistic way to work around it. Regardless of how people feel about it (it worked well enough for me once I just kinda accepted it) I don’t think there’s a way of cutting it out without butchering what’s already a pretty choppy movie. I understand your sentiment, though, and if you figure out how to actually pull it off then more power to ya!

  2. I think Luke’s line works well if you’re able to look at his story arc in TLJ separate from all of the internet backlash. Luke Skywalker at the end of TLJ on Crait would probably say something very similar if given the chance (he even uses the Skywalker lightsaber, which in my mind, indicates that he has come to terms with what he represents as a legend).

  3. I agree, except that it looks hella dope. Also, I’ve just accepted that Palpatine has a massive hard on for destruction on a planetary scale and wonder if maybe all ST films should just embrace Death Star tech, especially since now we know that Palpatine was somehow behind Starkiller Base a la Snoke…

  4. Poe and Zorri is amazing. Especially the silent interaction between the two of them at the end of the film. I’d consider it a crime to remove it.

I agree with all of your other suggestions. I think the toughest part of all of this is gonna not just be improving ROS, but creating a cohesive sequel trilogy!

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I like the idea of editing it so that Rey and not Luke lifts the X-Wing.

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Octorox, agree with all of your points, and that they’re the priorities. I’m pretty sure Rey Palpatine can be cleanly excised. I don’t think your 7 (Poe/Zorri) is that vital to remove - it’s a charming bit of Poe, though doesn’t really add much and I can’t remember why she’s even a part of the story. On your 9, can we simply have Chewie die? I can’t remember how many other shots he’s in but it’d be nice to have his death be permanent, and a factor in the rest of Rey’s story and doubt.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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With hindsight, I probably will end up rendering my Last Jedi fanedit “non-canon” in my trilogy and just leave that middle portion alone (you can pretend Han is alive throughout it though) and focus on book-ending it with “The Ford Awakens” and “Rise of Skywalker”

Here’s my outine

-Movie opens the same way, only with Palpatine’s fortnite message playing over the massacre that Kylo leads
-After The Emperor talks with Kylo, cut to the Falcon arriving at the first port of call in the Wayfinder quest with Rey and the others. Cut out Rey training.
-Cut a reference to Han being killed when Rey and Kylo bridge minds
-Cut Rey and Kylo’s lightsabre duel in Kylo’s quarters. 
-Try to keep Chewie’s fate unknown to the audience until Rey senses him on Kylo’s Destroyer
-During the Death Star duel, Leia contacts Ben, Rey wounds him, Leia doesn’t die. Felt unnecessary to drain her life force just to give him a phone call
-As noted above, cut C3-PO getting his memory restored. CONSEQUENCES
-Cut Kylo entirely from the final battle with the Emperor. Now when Rey defies Palpatine and puts her sabre away, he tries to cut her down in anger, the Jedi tell her to rise and she destroys him
-Conclude the film with Rey and her friends heading out into a free galaxy, Leia knows Rey will return one day once she figures herself and her powers out, they embrace one final time
-End the movie on Kylo at the Death Star ruins reuniting with Han and throwing away his lightsabre. The Skywalker line lives on and is redeemed

Any thoughts on this?

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Do you guys feel that Zorri and Jannah were introduced strangely as potential love interests for Finn and Poe? I feel they wanted to make it clear they’re not gay, or something.

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Hal 9000 said:

Jannah was a love interest for Lando.

Also, we need to give Rey’s father a third eye.

Pedophilia

The unfortunate reality of the Star Wars prequel and Disney trilogies is that they will always be around. Forever. They will never go away. It can never be undone.

I also prefer to be referred to as “TNT”, not “Freezing”.

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Technically not but I saw it as a father figure moment.

Peace is a lie
There is only passion…

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I would like to see an edit which aims to replace the fight fire with fire approach with a peaceful solution. The grand finale of the Skywalker Saga can’t be hateful, but needs to be compassionate, that’s what being a true Jedi is all about and what Shmi was raising her son to be.
We have seen Rey heal monsters two times in this movie, Palpatine is like the ultimate monster and his body is crippled (look at his fingers, wehhh…), why not let her “heal” him during the scene in which Palpatine wants her to strike him down. She could disempower her literal evil grandpa and put him in retirement home (metaphorically speaking).

Maybe we could change the dialog of the force-time-call during Palpatine’s speech to “I know what I have to do…” and have them touch hands or hug and then cut to Palpatine screaming in terror, crushing his temple with force lightning, while his finger regenerate. You would have to work mainly with the sound design and maybe some closeups of their faces (and fingers lol). During the collapse of the temple or planet, Ben may save Rey via teleportation, resurrect her if needed and die. Ideally Ben would stay on Endor, because then Rey could burn his corpse the way Luke did with Vader. This would draw another desperately needed connection between Ben and Anakin, the bloody Protagonist of this show, who is absent during the whole third act.

Obviously most of this would require a lot f clever editing and I don’t know whether or not this is possible at all, but anyways this may be the place to make it happen.

“Vader! Hologram, now!”

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I don’t but that the film on the whole is a rejection of TLJ but it most certainly a rejection of “save what we love…”

I mean really? “We’re taking the them”? Finn went totally off the rails. And you can see where it could have went, after meeting Jannah he should have decided to save instead of destroy, and help start a stormtrooper rebellion.

I have no idea how to fix this.

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Many of these have already been discussed but here’s my list:

  1. New crawl that does not mention Palpatine by name or talking about the dead speaking.
  2. Cut lightspeed skipping.
  3. Continuity is off between Rey cutting down the last tree, BB8 watching Rey, and the tree having landed on BB8.
  4. Trim BB8 and C3PO dialogue after Finn says “we go together” to Rey about going to Pasana. It’s out of character for C3P0 to want to go on a mission. Also, remove him telling R2 that he’s his best friend.
  5. Cut Finn and Rose discussion about her having to study specs of old destroyers.
  6. Remove Stormtroopers dialogue as Kylo and Knights of Ren walk by. Instead they just look at each other.
  7. Have Rey tell the group that they “have to go” and cut to them running to steal the speeders.
  8. Cut goofy parts of chase such as “they fly now” and the flying stormtrooper whirling around after being hit.
  9. Cut stormtrooper holding up dagger before loading Chewie into the transport.
  10. Trim Babu Frick laughing after Zorri and Poe joke about not trusting each other.
  11. Trim Zorri Bliss dialogue (ex. I don’t believe you believe that).
  12. Trim some of C3P0’s silly lines after having memory wiped “I don’t know who this wookie is but this is madness”.
  13. Trim Poe saying “3P0, move your metal ass” and his reaction.
  14. Cut Finn yelling “Rey!!! Poe!!! Whooo!!!”
  15. Trim stormtroopers “It’s good” and “thank goodness your here”.
  16. Cut Goonie dagger
  17. Cut Jannah telling Finn there’s another skimmer and their attempt to go after Rey on the death star.
  18. Remove Maz explaining what Leia is about to do to stop Ben.
  19. Cut star destroyer blowing up Kijimi (remove all references of fleet ships having super weapons).
  20. Trim Luke saying “what are you doing?”
  21. Cut Luke and Leia training.
  22. Cut Luke raising Xwing out of the water. Either after Luke says “you have everything you need” or after Xwing is shown bubbling in the water.
  23. Have massive Rebel fleet come earlier in the battle (always happens at the last minute).
  24. Cut Poe giving up and apologizing to everyone.
  25. Remove Zorri “so long sky trash” Poe “who’s that flyer” Zorri “take a guess spice runner”.
  26. Somehow have the ‘ground crew’ wait for Poe and Jannah (remove them hanging on to the ship as it falls and the Falcon coming to the rescue).
  27. Cut star destroyers being defeated around the galaxy (Bespin, Endor, Jakuu).
  28. Cut Chewie receiving medal.
  29. Remove odd conversation between Jannah and Lando.
  30. Remove old lady asking “Rey who?”.

Would also love to incorporate some of this film into TLJ to help flesh out that story.

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I agree with you, Pan that it would be cool to emphasize the way this war is finally resolved would be through an act of non-violence.

If you think about it, though, technically the moment Palpatine dies, Rey is actually defending herself and Palpatine destroys himself with his own power.

I think I would have preferred something more nuanced, but I think it would be difficult to re-edit it too radically.

@Dom

Yeah, Finn’s story arc is a bit of a shame, and I don’t really know how you could improve it without shooting new material. I wish that moment with Jannah and Finn in the Falcon would have been him convincing her why she needed to fight the First Order rather than staying in hiding. It would have been like the new Finn talking to the old Finn that wanted to run and hide.

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Hal 9000 said:

Jannah was a love interest for Lando.

Also, we need to give Rey’s father a third eye.

No, Jannah is Lando’s daughter that was kidnapped as a child, which is why he stayed behind on whatever the desert party planet was called.

The parts that actually make this clear were cut out of the movie, but that last bit was left in for some godforsaken reason (much like the parts with Finn wanting to tell Rey something that he never ends up saying, which was apparently supposed to be that he’s Force sensitive).

I saw the movie again today and decided I don’t know if I actually want a fan edit of it because I pretty solidly enjoy it all the way through, but I would very much like to see an extended cut that restores some of the cut subplots (especially Kylo learning about Palpatine on his own on Mustafar in the opening scene instead of putting that in the crawl and making the opening scene pretty much pointless).

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RogueLeader said:

I think I would have preferred something more nuanced, but I think it would be difficult to re-edit it too radically.

You may most certainly right on this one. And I can see your point of view, that Rey “defended herself”, although it was far from an act of compassion. Basically it was the reversal of the Fin not crashing the super gun.

“Vader! Hologram, now!”

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 (Edited)

I was thinking about what changes needed to be made to the other films to remove Rey Palpatine, and I think one of the biggest things would be to cut Ochi’s ship flying away from Jakku in the TFA flashback.

I remember awhile back I had this idea of creating a new shot to replace that one in TFA, instead we’d see two people disappearing over the top of a sand dune, with the sun in front of them (making them dark silhouettes).

This could parallel beautifully with the end of TROS if you had Ben Solo live and meet Rey on Tattooine. We could see his silhouette coming towards her over the horizon, with the twin suns rising behind him. Not only would you get a reversal of that classic “cowboy riding off into the sunset” cliché (which Gary Kurtz wanted for Luke in ROTJ), but these two parallel shots would also be a nice callback to this line in TFA:

Whoever you’re waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back. But, there’s someone who still could.

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If you hypothetically had Ben Solo live, how could you do it? A part of me does like how Ben realized he would need to give his life to save hers, and the rules of Force healing are clearly established in the film. But I would like to figure out how to have him survive appropriately for the sake of a potential fan edit. I was thinking maybe in a close-up of Ben’s hand on Rey, we could see the hand of a Force ghost also lay their hand on top of Ben’s. Maybe Leia or Anakin? Basically she or he helps him in order for them both to live. Wanted to get some thoughts on this.

Maybe the idea would be that Force healing is a power Jedi can have. But reversing death, once a living thing dies, is a power beyond any mortal. So when Obi-Wan says, “I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine” in ANH, we see that power can also be resurrection. And I can see the poetry of it being Anakin at the end. He desperately sought that power to save Padmé from a death that he foresaw. He sold his soul for that power and fell to the dark side. But since he turned back to the light and became one with the Force, he finally understands what that power means, and he uses that power to help Ben save the woman he loves.

This would sort of retcon ROTJ in a way. If Ben and Rey represent the new balance of the Force, saving Rey from death would be the way Anakin actually brings balance to the Force. Not by throwing Palpatine over the ledge, but by healing Rey. Anakin would fulfill his destiny as Chosen One not by killing the last Sith, but by saving the last Jedi. An act of love over an act of violence.

You could argue that basically what he does with Luke in ROTJ, but he saves Luke through an act of violence. With this idea, his way of restoring balance would be a purely non-violent act.

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Lots of interesting ideas being discussed here BUT the more I think about this pulpy breakneck stitched-up Frankenstein of a movie, the more I’d like to see an extended cut without redactions/removals before even considering a reimagining of what we got.