Joonas did say that? Super interesting, there are so many lost deleted scenes throughout these films that I wish they would put on the saga home collection…
Bouncing back to the epilogue, I had another weird idea. The Sequel Trilogy didn’t want to touch politics with a 10-foot pole, but if we can insert a character into a new shot and make it look good, we might be able to create one new sequence to address it.
What if we made Lando the new Chancellor of the Republic?
It might seem out of left field at first, but think about it. He’s probably one of the most well-traveled and experienced characters still kicking. He has experience with the underworld during his gambling days, he has leadership experience from when he was the Administrator of Cloud City, and he has military experience during his time as a Rebellion General. Not to mention he is the war hero that destroyed the Second Death Star. Lando has a knack for moving up the professional ladder.
A part of me had hoped Leia might survive Episode IX because ruling the Republic always felt like a natural progression for her, but since she is gone, I could see Lando feeling a sense of responsibility to rebuild the Republic she cared so much about and ensure they don’t repeat the same mistakes that led to the First Order.
As far as implementing this idea, I think it would just be a matter of inserting a decent shot of Lando either into the Senate chambers or the Chancellor’s office. Maybe create a shot of him sitting down or looking out the window.
The biggest thing I wish I could figure out as far as conclusions is regarding Finn and the Stormtroopers. I had a rather ambitious idea previously, but I just don’t see a practical idea involving reformed Stormtroopers outside of shooting new footage.
We have Jannah and her people, but they don’t visibly look like Stormtroopers and Finn has no role in recruiting them, really. The only other thought I had is you could cut Jannah’s line, “He said you were the last hope” to imply that they are friendly, but not a part of the Resistance. Then, when Finn and Jannah are talking, offscreen Finn could say, “We have to fight” (taken from TLJ), then Jannah and Finn could look at each other before cutting to the next scene. So now Finn recruits the rogue Stormtroopers to rise against the First Order.
Anyway, sorry for bombarding this thread with my ramblings. I’m a lot of talk lately but not a lot of show.