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Unusual Sequel Trilogy Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 20

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Has someone removed the Snoke hologram scenes from TFA before? Can the movie work without them?

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Do you think Luke using a lightsaber on Crait should be removed altogether, to help sell the idea that he is not willing to fight Kylo and his troops? (He can still dodge Kylo’s attacks, though.)

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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No, Luke proudly holding the blue lightsaber that he rejected twice throughout the film is too symbolically important to lose.

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ChainsawAsh said:

No, Luke proudly holding the blue lightsaber that he rejected twice throughout the film is too symbolically important to lose.

Plus the synergy with his earlier “go out there with a laser sword” line, and the kids’ toys at the end and the broom boy holding up his broom.

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Cutting Luke’s lightsaber entirely wouldn’t add anything to the film, but I’ve been tempted to try to VFX it to be his ROTJ saber. I’m torn between the symbolic importance of the blue lightsaber being the same one that he previously rejected, and the fact Luke otherwise seems to be aiming to appear to Kylo as Kylo would remember him. For all of Kylo’s thirteen years of training at Luke’s Jedi temple, his master had a green lightsaber - we know this since Luke uses that same saber in ROTJ and in the TLJ flashback. And yet, when Luke appears to Kylo again and ignites his saber, it’s blue. Surely Kylo would immediately spot something was up, since every other time he’s ever seen Luke ignite his saber, it’s been green. I mean, the audience notices Luke’s saber colour change ESB to ROTJ, right? It’s a glowing laser sword, it’s not subtle. And if Kylo notices Luke’s saber is now blue, he’d probably glance at the hilt, realise it’s the saber that just got split in half, and suspect Luke is up to something. It risks giving the game away and having Kylo realise he’s being played.

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sade1212 said:

Cutting Luke’s lightsaber entirely wouldn’t add anything to the film, but I’ve been tempted to try to VFX it to be his ROTJ saber. I’m torn between the symbolic importance of the blue lightsaber being the same one that he previously rejected, and the fact Luke otherwise seems to be aiming to appear to Kylo as Kylo would remember him. For all of Kylo’s thirteen years of training at Luke’s Jedi temple, his master had a green lightsaber - we know this since Luke uses that same saber in ROTJ and in the TLJ flashback. And yet, when Luke appears to Kylo again and ignites his saber, it’s blue. Surely Kylo would immediately spot something was up, since every other time he’s ever seen Luke ignite his saber, it’s been green. I mean, the audience notices Luke’s saber colour change ESB to ROTJ, right? It’s a glowing laser sword, it’s not subtle. And if Kylo notices Luke’s saber is now blue, he’d probably glance at the hilt, realise it’s the saber that just got split in half, and suspect Luke is up to something. It risks giving the game away and having Kylo realise he’s being played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwWrmSP65lM

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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DigMod said:

My idea is to treat the sequel trilogy like a Star Wars Infinitities story. The idea would be that the Rebellion failed at Endor, Palpatine never died, Luke either dies on the Death Star or on Crait, Rey is the other hope Yoda refers to, Darth Vader learns how to transfer his life force into Kylo Ren and seeks to overpower Palpatine, etc.

The presentation would be slightly different and along the lines of the opening scenes of TROS but with Blue text a la Solo to describe the new history leading up to the infinity story. I’m still fleshing out in my mind of how it could all work, but I’ve realized after TROS that I don’t believe I can fix or create continuity with the OT, nor do I have the desire to.

I wish JJ would have utilized the force realm Ezra found in rebels and retconed the entire saga a la Donnie Darko or the Kevin timeline of Star Trek. This approach is as close as I can get and accept what we’ve received. Hopefully I can find a way to pull it off.

This is a great idea and it reminds me of the Legend of Zelda timeline. This cleverly avoids some of the baggage of the sequels repeating original trilogy stuff.
I like the idea of Luke being jaded because he failed to save his father, not Ben.

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FreezingTNT2 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwWrmSP65lM

I’ve seen it. Unfortunately it’s not quite well done enough to implement into the film itself since it’s clear that the saber is composed of still images tracked over the original. I’m not entirely sure how I’d hope to improve on that with my own mediocre skills, however.

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sade1212 said:

FreezingTNT2 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwWrmSP65lM

I’ve seen it. Unfortunately it’s not quite well done enough to implement into the film itself since it’s clear that the saber is composed of still images tracked over the original. I’m not entirely sure how I’d hope to improve on that with my own mediocre skills, however.

Why not put a CGI version of Luke’s saber hilt onto Anakin’s saber?

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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Now that we have the whole Sequel Trilogy, I wanted to re-outline how the Superweapon aspect of Starkiller Base could be removed. Starkiller Base is mentioned briefly one time in TROS, but it could easily be removed I believe. This was arguably one of the weaker, eye-rolling aspects of The Force Awakens, and if a major fan editing project is to be done to the Sequel Trilogy, why not remove this aspect if it can be done? In the past I was concerned with not diverging too much with canon, but I personally would like to see major changes from the canon in TROS, so removing Death Star III from TFA does not seem so bad anymore.

This change would require some new visual effects shots and some voice acting for new OS character lines to provide plot context. I’m going to lay out what I think needs to be done to accomplish this:

First, I think it would be beneficial to delete all of Snoke’s scenes, or at least the last scene where the room is collapsing.

Any establishing shots of the planet need to be replaced with a planet with no trench or laser cannon. (But something still visually distinct). Also add a sizable fleet to its orbit.

Use Restructured’s Act 2 where a Star Destroyer arrives at Takodana.

After Hux gives his speech (remove, “This fierce machine which you have built, upon which we stand.”), we see the First Order fleet jump to hyperspace.

During Act 3 there will be a new scene where the First Order fleet arrives at the Republic capital (perhaps Coruscant). Using cg models and other filmmaking tools, we’ll create a brief battle sequence, which ends with Dreadnoughts bombarding the Senate building and killing Kor Sella and the Chancellor. With this in mind, we could create a brief sequence where Republic fighters escort Kor Sella’s ship to the planet. These scene would be intercut with the battle on Starkiller Base.

When Kylo Ren interrogates Poe, he mentions that they have the rest of the map. (Dialogue taken from Rey’s interrogation).

During the Resistance Base scenes, when 3PO looks at the map, we’ll generate a new line mentioning that the First Order likely has the rest of the map. Something to that degree, at least.

We totally cut the Resistance briefing scene. At this point we will have heard that the First Order has the rest of the map three times (Poe’s interrogation, 3PO’s analysis, and Rey’s interrogation). There is enough information that the audience should pick up what the objective is.

Scenes on Starkiller Base should be regraded to appear as if it is nighttime or twilight.

Cut Finn’s line about the shields during the hyperspace approach, but keep Han’s line about “if we get any higher they’ll see us!”

Cut Han’s line, “Then how do you know how to disable the shields?”

Cut Han’s later line where he mentions the shields again after they enter the base.

Cut Finn’s line to Phasma, “lower the shields!” and change the screen graphics to show the other half of the map. Possibly generate a new shot of data chip popping out of a terminal. Have Phasma trigger an alarm.

Create new ADR for Resistance officers, pilots, and First Order officers mentioning the planetary tractor beam and referring to the oscillator as the tractor beam. Could change the sun draining computer graphic with one related to the tractor beam, something reminiscent to the graphic of Obi-Wan deactivating the Death Star’s tractor beam.

So after they trigger the alarm, the First Order activates the tractor beam, then the Resistance sends in pilots to destroy it so they can escape with the map. Would be nice to have a pilot ask, “Where is their fleet?”

Remove any shots of the sun being drained. The scene of Kylo killing Han, the draining sun will be replaced by a moon, and a Star Destroyer will pass infront of it, mirroring the opening scene of the movie.

Cut any shots of the planet falling apart. Possibly create a new shot of the Falcon and X-Wings leaving the planet.

When they put Finn on the gurney, replace the line “we got a heartbeat” with “He has the map!”

The shot of Leia mourning, have a rebel officer OS say, “We’re downloading the map, now, General.”

BB-8 wakes up R2 to tell him the good news, and 3PO says something along the lines of, “Come, R2 we must find Master Luke at once!” R2 then plugs in somewhere to download the map and then projects it.

If we could create new space battle sequences, I think it would be interesting if this could extended to TLJ and TROS. TLJ could open with Republic fleets being defeated by First Order surprise attacks. And even with TROS, we could open with more ragtag groups ambushing First Order fleets. We could even move one or two of the First Order Star Destroyer destruction shots to the beginning of the film, to emphasize the stakes for the First Order to find an upper hand to the growing opposition.

EC Henry explains in this video pretty well how he made a “space battle” video for Eckhart’s Ladder’s channel. Henry aka Aalenfae also has some great ship models that he shows off on his YouTube channel that would be fun to use. It could show off some more interesting ship designs people felt were lacking from the ST. Angelos Karderinis, also known as Angel, does a lot of the renders for his designs. But Henry has a lot of cool designs that would be fitting for some New Republic vs First Order action, like New Republic X-Wings, Y-Wings, B-Wings, a new Tri-Fighter ship, as well as the TIE-Vector and a First Order Bomber.

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I like this plan very much, RogueLeader! I think TFA would be near perfect if we didn’t change the MacGuffin so abruptly from the interesting Map to Skywalker to the retread, stop the planet killer!

Regarding the new look for the First Order’s base, what about the very first shot of TFA, where they fly over what I assume is an ice moon of Jakku?
IMG

Maul- A Star Wars Story

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RogueLeader said:

Any establishing shots of the planet need to be replaced with a planet with no trench or laser cannon. (But something still visually distinct). Also add a sizable fleet to its orbit.

The Art of Star Wars The Force Awakens had some pretty interesting designs for Starkiller base.

Peace is a lie
There is only passion…

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FreezingTNT2 said:

sade1212 said:

FreezingTNT2 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwWrmSP65lM

I’ve seen it. Unfortunately it’s not quite well done enough to implement into the film itself since it’s clear that the saber is composed of still images tracked over the original. I’m not entirely sure how I’d hope to improve on that with my own mediocre skills, however.

Why not put a CGI version of Luke’s saber hilt onto Anakin’s saber?

Well yeah, that’s the idea, but VFX is hard and I have very little experience with it. My AE skills go exactly this far. There’s a 3D model of the saber in Battlefront, and it wouldn’t be difficult to get it into Blender or something, but then the trick is making sure your virtual camera has the same focal length as the original shots, painstakingly animating the hilt in 3D space to match Anakin’s, and attempting to light the saber correctly. There’s a reason that ImmersionVFX went the route of just warping still images - much more straightforward and only marginally less convincing. You could get away with leaving Anakin’s hilt in some shots, since it’s known to show up when it shouldn’t anyway.

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Regarding Starkiller Base, I think it would be interesting to use “Ilum” from Jedi: Fallen Order, which is Starkiller before the laser was built. Still having that trench could help make it clearly be Starkiller, but now the implication could be that the First Order just mined the planet for resources.

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I have the game but I haven’t gotten this far into it. Let me look at some playthroughs and see what I can find. I assumed this shot was the initial approach to the planet, since it has the title card on the bottom.

EDIT: Apparently when you return to the planet after you beat the game, the trench is visible in the approach cinematic.

This video shows the difference at the 0:45 mark.

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Do you think if it is a good idea if you have the opening scene in The Rise of Skywalker where Kylo gets the wayfinder and meets Darth Sidious play in The Last Jedi before we cut to the shot of the Resistance evacuating from D’Qar and the “oh no” scene?

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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This seems to be a popular idea right now but I’d rather not give Palpatine a Thanos cliffhanger moment in TLJ. I’d like to add more little hints to his survival and machinations throughout the trilogy though.

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Speaking specifically to the ending of IX, I’d like to cut 3PO getting his memory back from an R2 backup file. Instead, keep the memory wiped, and at the very end of the film, have him be with Rey when she goes to Tatooine. He watches silently as she buries the lightsabers, and everything. And instead of Rey igniting her own saber, have 3PO ask what it all means. Then, Rey smiles or something and starts walking away, and 3PO follows. “Well, you see…a long, long time ago…”

Then, her speech fades into the distance as the music swells, and we pan up to the binary stars before the film ends.

This way, all of the episodes seem like part of a retelling to 3PO from Rey. Sort of.

Maybe a little cheesy, but I don’t think it couldn’t be done.

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There was a massive missed opportunity to have R2 tell all the stories of their adventures to 3PO in the final scenes. Can you imagine how cute/heartbreaking that would be?? aaghh

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Also: the final scene of the movie is very clearly heavily edited. Along with theories that Ben dying was a late editing change (footage of him laying down to die was reversed along with Daisy’s reaction), it’s all just so strange. I hope we get some morsels of deleted footage in the home release aaaa. The final shot of the movie was entirely fabricated, too: http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/JM91CNNU

This movie is a mess!!! Maybe with fan-editing we could even shift it closer to its original state? Which I assume was better?

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Yes! That idea with R2 and 3PO is exactly what I want try and do with the end.

Whoa. I’ve heard and seen clips regarding Ben’s death scene, but I had not seen that Rey on Tatooine/Pasana frame comparison. How do you think the final shot was different?

I had heard rumors about the whole gang being there with Rey at the end, but do you think the original ending had Ben and Rey together? I’m confused by all of that.

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I don’t know if it’s necessarily safe to assume it was originally better, but it’s certainly possible. I think the Reylos are naturally clinging on to this as evidence Ben wasn’t supposed to die, but I’m not sure it proves that. Like RL what I read was originally the ending featured the whole gang.

While I love the gag of R2 putting 3PO’s memory back despite his protests, I’d love to use that^ idea if someone can figure it out.

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Death for Ben feels right for a redemption arc. Just as it was right for Vader’s. The best reason I’d have for hoping he’d live is to differentiate it and feel like an ending that redeems even his grandfather’s failures by symbolically living a fulfilling life with his Padme.

My stance on revising fan edits.