Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Redux Ideas thread — Page 83

NeverarGreat said:

Y’all clearly still haven’t considered the benefits of Sheev as a giant Sith Crystal.

• Invention of the Sheev illusion by the cultists serves as a dark counterpoint to Luke’s illusion on Crait
• Requires only knowledge and defense to see through the illusion
• Can be destroyed by Rey’s lightning
• Removes Sheev as a living entity
• Can include Rey Palpatine as part of the illusion
• Better explains the destruction of the Sith arena
• Can organically set up Force sucking ability through the Cultists powering the crystal

but of course the biggest benefit is:

• Giant crystal = cool

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

I’m not 100% against this honestly but how would illustrate this in the film without leaving the audience scratching their heads?

If you guys are unhappy with the lightning reflecting directly back into Palpatine, perhaps make it so that it doesn’t JUST reflect back into him, but in all directions, including him? It is a LOT of lightning, after all.

Interesting. Yeah, I definitely think Palpatine as an illusion would need to be hinted at once or twice in the film. So when he is revealed as an illusion the audience would go, “Ahhh, it makes sense now.”

Hahaha! Yeah, maybe Snoke was the leader of the Sith Cult or something.

It would make Kylo’s line in TLJ about wanting both the Sith and the Jedi to die make more sense if Kylo was somewhat aware of Snoke’s affiliation to the Sith Cult.

You could even describe Kylo’s quest early on as him hunting down the remainder of the Sith Cult to eliminate any threat to his power. That would more clearly depict the people he is slaughtering are the beginning of the film as Sith followers.

If you went with the crystal illusion idea, how would Palpatine sucking out Rey and Ben’s life force be factored into it?

Maybe it uses their force energy to conjure all that damn lightning.

Personally speaking, I think that any understanding of the force as ‘you should embrace both sides’ is fundamentally wrong and at odds with both current canon and George Lucas, but that’s not really what this forum is for discussing.

I mean, I think it is relevant to the discussion if it helps determine the merits of certain editing choices.

If you view embracing the dark side as being evil, sure. If the dark side is meant to represent the authentic human emotions that we often repress, like fear or anger, then I disagree. It’s the denial and repression of these emotions within us that leads to people becoming evil. If people were to acknowledge their inner dark side and have a healthy relationship with it, then that is perhaps what balance means.

Throughout IX, Rey’s relationship with her powers and inner dark side is reflective of how the Jedi view emotions throughout the saga. Yoda and Obi-Wan warn our protagonists about the dangers of fear and anger, and how they will lead you down the path of the dark side. Even love and attachment is a danger to them, and their only form of compassion is rather non-personal. But if we’ve learned anything from this story, it’s that these views on emotions are wrong. Anakin fell to the dark side not because the Jedi were right to be afraid. He fell because he didn’t develop a healthy relationship with his emotions. He lacked any emotional support after he left his mother, and sought that out with Padmé, which he had to keep secret from the Jedi, because they deemed any form of emotional vulnerability as dangerous.

This is something that was unfortunately repeated with Ben. Like Leia said, “I should have never sent him away. That’s when we lost him.”

Throughout the Saga, Luke is arguably at his best when he doesn’t listen to his masters. It was compassion and love, as well as fear and anger, that allowed him to save his father.

In Rey’s case, I think you can draw a comparison to how women are often viewed as emotional, and how it can be a weakness. Rey views her emotions as her weakness, and thinks it is dangerous enough for her to live out her days in isolation, like Luke tried to do. What if the message of this story that our emotions can actually be our strength? That it is okay to be afraid, or to be angry, and that those emotions don’t make us bad people?

If these movies are, at their most pure form, meant to be for kids, maybe that is the healthy kind of lesson a story like Star Wars would want to teach them. That you shouldn’t view your anger or fear as gateways to evil that must be suppressed. Instead, you can learn to “master the mad you feel”.

If you’re adamant on viewing the Force simply as a fictional magic system which has rules that cannot be broken, fine. But maybe we should consider viewing the Force symbolic of something personal within us, that doesn’t boil down to “one side good, one side bad”.

Even if the way I’m suggesting it be done may not be the right way to do it, I do feel like this question of balance was the inevitable problem that needed to be addressed in this film. Right now, I don’t think the theatrical film gives such an answer, and without an answer I’m afraid this movie will still be totally void of any kind of saga-concluding message, regardless of how much you try and polish it.

If the dark side is meant to represent the authentic human emotions that we often repress, like fear or anger, then I disagree. It’s the denial and repression of these emotions within us that leads to people becoming evil. If people were to acknowledge their inner dark side and have a healthy relationship with it, then that is perhaps what balance means.

You, IMO, have kernels of right, but you’re far off the mark. It’s not just repressing these emotions that leads to the dark side- it’s embracing them and feeding them. Feeling rage or jealousy or fear is natural, but the problem comes when you feed those emotions. This is something George addresses in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68dvgRT3Kx8

Force-wise, the idea is to recognize them, feel them, understand that they’re a part of you, but not letting them control you.

Here’s my view on the force, from a post I made a bit ago elsewhere, including my citations.

You can’t destroy the dark side. It’s a natural part of all life. It’s death, it’s rage, and sorrow, and doubt, and greed. It’s entropy. That’s the Lesson of The Cave. There’s potential for great darkness in all of us, and it must be confronted and understood. (Sources: The Clone Wars, Rebels, The Last Jedi.)

While balance is in the center, so to speak, the center is not using equal amounts of both, or their being equal numbers of Jedi and Sith. A good case study in why this is not so is The Bendu; the Bendu is basically a parable about why actively seeking to be in between the light and the dark isn’t enlightened. He’s wise, and he’s powerful, but he’s also indifferent to the suffering of others and can be thrown into a murderous rage with light goading. All he cares about is himself. He is, as he so often claims, the rock in the river, and it is so very easy to dislodge a rock and send it hurtling downstream. (Source: Rebels)

The dark side will consume everything if not opposed, (source: Age of Republic: Qui-Gon Jin), so it must be opposed. The light seeks balance; the dark seeks only further darkness.

Take Mortis, for example: while it’s said that both siblings are needed for balance, there’s a trap on taking that at immediate face value. The Sister, the representative of the light, seeks only to maintain balance. She’s a dutiful servant of her Father. The Brother, the representative of the Dark, however, seeks to disrupt the balance. He is an inherently destabilizing agent. Regardless of whether you think Mortis actually happened or not, this is something worth considering. (Source: The Clone Wars). Also, for the record, Dave Filoni wrote but never implemented a scene where the force priestesses

The easiest comparison to make comes from the old Episode III novelization (a fantastic read that I highly recommend). It compares them to literal light and darkness.

When you remove the light in a room, darkness immediately swallows the whole thing. However, no matter how much light you bring into that room, you will never eradicate the darkness entirely, because by virtue of being there, you cast a shadow.

You will never be able to eradicate rage or sorrow or death or war or greed, but you should accept that they’re there, and you should not bend to them. You should not let them control you. That’s balance. The tension created by life resisting this cosmic entropy, this cosmic draw towards our worst impulses and base instincts.