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The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 94

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I’m having mixed feelings about Mustafar. Part of me doesn’t want the clearest shout-out to the prequel trilogy removed. On the other side, moving from the crawl right to Kylo jumping out of hyperspace over Exegol could fit a bit better, that scene is much longer has a lot more breathing room (and as jonh pointed out, the buildup is nothing that can’t be explained in the crawl). Besides, Exegol with the reveal of Palps and the Final Order already makes for a more impressive, cold opening, which is a nice change of pace after ROTS, TFA and TLJ opened with action scenes.

The main con to the Mustafar beginning is the lack of context provided. Is there any expositional way of justifying Kylo’s trip to Mustafar besides the crawl and Vader’s helmet as guidance?

With regards to the Fortress Vader establishing shot, would it be feasible to paint some scorched patches of forest in the background or around the castle? I’d do a photoshop mockup of this if only I had the time for it. The color correction already was a great starting point, at least for those of us that want to improve the Mustafar scene.

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Anakin Starkiller said:

Cinefy said:

I rescored Han Solo’s cameo / Ben Solo’s redemption to have a more Skywalker feel, did this back when the HDR released.

I used the theme from the Phantom Menace when Anakin is freed from Slavery, feels like a really beautiful call back and flows perfectly with this scene, especially being that Ben Solo is the last Skywalker it felt just right, the Saga begins with Anakin being freed to this track and now it ends with Ben Solo being freed from the darkside.

Rescore Test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQt906lt7-U

I’m curious to see how well this blends in with the rest of the scene, as the original had music. Is the dialog on an isolated channel?

Alright, I have to admit the emotional music change here by Cinefy worked much better than I would have thought, and actually inspired me to go back and try one more time. It really does symbolize a parallel back to young Anakin becoming “free”. I still think Leia should have a more active role in Kylo’s turn to Ben, but I think I’ve found a compromise that may work.

In this version, the fight continues unbroken like some of you mentioned didn’t work before, except Rey interacts in real-time with Kylo – she won’t sense Leia’s death yet because it occurs later. I moved up the Palp/Pryde convo with a wipe as Palp immediately senses Leia’s interruption of Kylo killing Rey. Then, a wipe back to Kylo signifying he’s had some time to ponder. Han appears, but it’s a still-alive Leia projecting him. We have the emotional redemption music beginning as Leia passes, Kylo senses, R2 reacts, Rey senses, and finally there’s adequate time passage here for the Falcon to arrive back to the Resistance to also get the news. It finally ends with Rey on Ahch To throwing shit. I did have to lose the group shot around Leia though. I’ve always been sort of indifferent to Maz’s line there anyway, but the bigger issue for me is that I feel like that shot would have been better with our main players grieving her. Unfortunately, there’s no Rey/Poe/Finn/Chewie since they are offworld doing other stuff, so it didn’t bother me losing the shot. I could try to fit that shot in somewhere else though if people really liked it.

Anyway, the arrangement here combines all the emotional reactions from those who knew Leia. I really like now how it goes right from Chewie’s pain to Rey’s sadness/anger. In the film, I took it as Rey being more upset that she failed in her mission, not realizing the wayfinder Kylo destroyed wasn’t the only one (with the second being right under her nose in the ship she stole). Now, it’s not just that emotion that is drawn out here, but also her grief over Leia. To me anyway, this gives even more depth to Kylo’s ship now getting the brunt of her frustrations. Alright, enough talk, here’s the new clip…

https://vimeo.com/419974604
fanedit

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I think that latest version of the Mustafar scene, assuming Hal wants to keep the Battlefront footage, is perfect! Looks good and not too “pristine” so to speak.

I think cutting Mustafar altogether would be an unfortunate loss, though Vader’s Castle would probably need to go unless one is able to change the background of the wayfinder scene to appear to be inside the castle, or maybe put some of the iron trees on the ridges in the establishing shot so it’s clear it’s the same place. I also agree that Ajan Kloss probably shouldn’t be Naboo. It makes for a nice parallel on a surface level but the more you think about it the more of a bad idea in-universe it seems for them to stick their big base there, especially on Leia’s part as has been said.

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Rey’s initial shock at Leia’s death is too important to cut. Her realization that she just inadvertently took advantage of Leia’s death to get a cheap shot in on her son, her tearful little moment with the wounded Kylo. Her decisions to heal Kylo and to go into self-exile both hinge on this moment, because she realizes how dark she just went and that Kylo did in fact still have some good left in him (an idea she mostly abandoned after her failure in TLJ, hence the TLJ callback in this scene with “I did want to take Ben’s hand”).

Keeping Leia alive longer only lessens the impact of her death, and I don’t think it’s worth it just to explain Han’s appearance as a magic trick. If we really want to imply that Leia was directly responsible for Han’s appearance, my recommendation would just be to move the disappearance of Leia’s body to be after Kylo tosses his lightsaber (instead of its original placement after Kylo’s corpse disappears).

Edit: Also, sorry if I’m seeming too much like a downer on these posts. I respect the great work everyone’s putting into these edits. I’m just trying to voice as many potential audience concerns as possible while the edit is still in progress. In the end, of course, this is Hal’s project, so I’ll trust whatever he feels is best. 😃

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Neerb said:

This whole Mustafar thing is starting to border on fan film for me, personally. We have repurposed footage from Rogue One, National Geographic, and Battlefront 2, but in the end the scene is still going to be as rushed, choppy, and poorly explained as it was in the theater. If anything, it might be getting more confusing to follow (we’re currently at three very different establishing shots). None of Hal’s edits have felt this “fan film” before, and that’s not even accounting for all the other crazy special effects stuff that’s going into this fan edit.

On that note, I’m also not totally sold on Rey’s outtake visuals for her final line. It’s a weird camera angle for such a dramatic moment (which makes sense, because it’s B-roll), and it also has an odd sort of slow-motion effect when she turns.

That’s the thing about the Mustafar minute, though: It’s so poorly edited in the released film that there’s really only two options for making it work in a fan-edit: Completely creating the elements you need to make it work as a piece of visual storytelling, or jettisoning it altogether.

The simplest, fastest, and cleanest method to “fix” the Mustafar Minute is to just delete it (in terms of visual or narrative info it’s almost completely useless and unnecessary), but I understand why people are loath to do that, there’s multiple reasons why people would prefer to try rescuing the footage that’s there. But the only way you can rescue that footage in the opening is to augment it with stuff that either was never shot, or was shot but is completely unavailable to anyone making the fan-edit.

The only other option is to lean into how disjointed and nonsensical it already is and use it solely as flashback fodder, mixed in with a vision that contains other flashbacks and flashforwards.

however: I think the alternate angle of Rey saying “Rey Skywalker” is actually BETTER than what’s in the film - I disagree that it’s a weird camera angle, I think it’s honestly a unique choice to feature the hero in profile declaring her hero status overtly (that’s what the scene really is), and I think it works better because of that - it’s very “comic book cover”

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DarthYcey said:

https://vimeo.com/419974604
fanedit

That’s really nice.

I wish there was a way to have the Han memory happen before the fight in some capacity, as if the fight is really about Ben working through his guilt. His dropping the saber at the end would then be the point of his turn. What if he turns and sees the image of Han, then he drops his saber and the scene continues. Then afterwards he has the Han memory scene.

Just some thoughts.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Neerb said:

Rey’s initial shock at Leia’s death is too important to cut. Her realization that she just inadvertently took advantage of Leia’s death to get a cheap shot in on her son, her tearful little moment with the wounded Kylo. Her decisions to heal Kylo and to go into self-exile both hinge on this moment, because she realizes how dark she just went and that Kylo did in fact still have some good left in him (an idea she mostly abandoned after her failure in TLJ, hence the TLJ callback in this scene with “I did want to take Ben’s hand”).

Keeping Leia alive longer only lessens the impact of her death, and I don’t think it’s worth it just to explain Han’s appearance as a magic trick. If we really want to imply that Leia was directly responsible for Han’s appearance, my recommendation would just be to move the disappearance of Leia’s body to be after Kylo tosses his lightsaber (instead of its original placement after Kylo’s corpse disappears).

Man, there’s just no pleasing you haha j/k. I bet I could still keep Rey’s reaction in there, just cut the ‘Leia’ part. Arguably, she could still have that dark moment realization without Leia dying, and still want to heal Kylo. I don’t think Leia dying in that moment has to happen to make this work. And I did think too about moving up her body fading into the Force. If you think Leia sticking around to conjure up Han takes too long, then it’s definitely too long to wait for the Exogol conclusion for her to join the Force. I don’t think it’s unrealistic that her laying down was actually her just getting into a more comfortable position to begin the Han thing. Again, people may disagree, but Leia saying ‘Ben’ shouldn’t kill her. Force users communicate and sense things like that through the Force all the time without dying. A Luke-esque act like projecting someone across the galaxy is what would realistically kill her. Again, no disrespect meant…appreciate the honest feedback.

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Yeah, the Naboo idea probably wouldn’t work. Still, cutting Mustafar is probably the best course of action. If we want a prequel shoutout, perhaps inserting Coruscant or another prequel/Clone Wars planet into the final battle montage would work.

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Man, I’ve done a little bit of work on Mustafar… but I’m kind of coming around to not having it… the novelization really shows how much better this scene was before cutting the Pryde/Hux interaction, the Oracle, Kylo becoming more unhinged and putting the First Order’s plans on hold to find this Phantom Emperor… man it sucks we don’t have those deleted scenes

Clips - for Editors folder -https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mfEISVdMldOKuSNjcjYO2QSggvqI_7-Y

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kewlfish said:

Man, I’ve done a little bit of work on Mustafar… but I’m kind of coming around to not having it… the novelization really shows how much better this scene was before cutting the Pryde/Hux interaction, the Oracle, Kylo becoming more unhinged and putting the First Order’s plans on hold to find this Phantom Emperor… man it sucks we don’t have those deleted scenes

Yeah. I’d pay real money to have access to, at bare minimum, the Eye of Webbish Bog Scene with the Oracle.

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NeverarGreat said:

What if he turns and sees the image of Han, then he drops his saber and the scene continues. Then afterwards he has the Han memory scene.

Now that’s an idea… it wouldn’t interrupt the existing scenes too much, but still have that implication of Leia’s involvement. Combined with Leia’s body disappearing after Han disappears, I think that could maybe work. Of course, if Leia’s disappearance is moved up, that does mean any other scenes with Leia’s body need to still happen before the Han conversation begins.

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NeverarGreat said:

DarthYcey said:

https://vimeo.com/419974604
fanedit

That’s really nice.

I wish there was a way to have the Han memory happen before the fight in some capacity, as if the fight is really about Ben working through his guilt. His dropping the saber at the end would then be the point of his turn. What if he turns and sees the image of Han, then he drops his saber and the scene continues. Then afterwards he has the Han memory scene.

Just some thoughts.

Yeah, that was my last version, except I used the whole Han convo until the saber dropped, then it proceeds as normal. I like the idea of showing Han there for a second and he drops the saber, but it may seem really awkward getting back to the convo later unless we just wave it off as ‘Well, son, I’m back to talk now’. I don’t know though, it could work. That would certainly sell it more why he’d drop the saber…he’s shocked to see his dad. And for the amount of time he’s looking behind himself, it does give the implication that someone is standing there, not that he’s just staring off looking to see if he can see Leia.

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omnimuffin said:

kewlfish said:

Man, I’ve done a little bit of work on Mustafar… but I’m kind of coming around to not having it… the novelization really shows how much better this scene was before cutting the Pryde/Hux interaction, the Oracle, Kylo becoming more unhinged and putting the First Order’s plans on hold to find this Phantom Emperor… man it sucks we don’t have those deleted scenes

Yeah. I’d pay real money to have access to, at bare minimum, the Eye of Webbish Bog Scene with the Oracle.

Alas they cut story for time… I wonder why they wouldn’t let this movie be 3 hours long? Endgame was 3 hours long and it felt like nothing… I’d watch a 3 hour long Star Wars movie as long as it was paced well

Clips - for Editors folder -https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mfEISVdMldOKuSNjcjYO2QSggvqI_7-Y

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FWIW: I think moving Leia’s body disappearing to immediately after reaching her son is a decent idea. I’ve never at all liked the idea that Leia effectively dies when “Kylo” does, but her corporeal body just lays under a sheet for the next half hour of the movie. It’s such a weird way to “pay homage” to Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia, by using the suggestion of her dead body as not much more than set dressing.

If her body disappears just before she distracts Ben, it removes that sort of distasteful use of the character from the film, AND it makes Maz’s explanation of what’s even happening with her a little more coherent - we literally see it take “all she has left” to do that.

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Neerb said:

NeverarGreat said:

What if he turns and sees the image of Han, then he drops his saber and the scene continues. Then afterwards he has the Han memory scene.

Now that’s an idea… it wouldn’t interrupt the existing scenes too much, but still have that implication of Leia’s involvement. Combined with Leia’s body disappearing after Han disappears, I think that could maybe work. Of course, if Leia’s disappearance is moved up, that does mean any other scenes with Leia’s body need to still happen before the Han conversation begins.

Broom Kid said:

FWIW: I think moving Leia’s body disappearing to immediately after reaching her son is a decent idea. I’ve never at all liked the idea that Leia effectively dies when her son does, but her corporeal body just lays under a sheet for the next half hour of the movie. It’s such a weird way to “pay homage” to Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia, by using the suggestion of her dead body as not much more than set dressing.

If her body disappears just before she distracts Ben, it removes that sort of distasteful use of the character from the film, AND it makes Maz’s explanation of what’s even happening with her a little more coherent - we literally see it take “all she has left” to do that.

If Leia disappears right after Kylo throws his saber, I’d be fine restoring Rey’s ‘Leia’ reaction because then the sheet dropping later does give the allusion that Leia was still around helping Ben to turn with the Han projection, even though she passed from the physical world earlier. That also solves the problem of having Leia’s body stick around until the end of the movie. I still think it would be interesting to show Han standing there before Ben drops the saber to really sell his surprise. There’s a lot of time of Ben just looking back there. Also, moving up the other Leia body scenes would give Kylo more time to breathe and ponder things before Han shows up.

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Not my thread, but if we were to remove Mustafar I’d much prefer starting the film at the point where Kylo’s TIE is flying through space with the Wayfinder, rather than right on Exegol. First of all, it’d allow for more buildup to what is a pretty big reveal, second it gives a little bit of excitement to the opening, third it shows how difficult it is to get to Exegol (important considering the whole film is about getting there), and finally it’s just a killer piece of score I’d hate to lose.

If some VFX wiz could make that shot work as an opener I’d love to see it.

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I think any amount of “buildup” there is negligible though. The openings to each movie after a tilt down usually aren’t exciting at all. Ominous or mysterious, sure - which is what the tilt down to Kylo’s jumping into frame would be - but I think the difficulty of getting to Exegol isn’t really an idea that needs setting up beyond what comes later.

The idea that it’s at all that difficult to fly to Exegol is completely blown apart by the events of the film no matter what: The film goes out of its way by the climax to point out it’s not really very hard to navigate the path there at all (since roughly 5 million ships keep popping in and out of the system going both ways) - the real hard part is knowing where to go

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I don’t know, nobody flying to Exegol seems particularly stressed by doing so. The “difficulty” is completely no-sold by the actors in the various cockpits, and is made apparent solely through visual noise and VFX filler substituting for storytelling.

The closest comparison in Star Wars I can think of is “There’s Always a Bigger Fish” from TPM, where neither of the Jedi seem too freaked out by giant leviathans coming after them. But in that instance, there’s at least Jar Jar expressing how dangerous and freaky this whole thing is, and some POV shots showing just how close the close calls are. There’s not even a Jar Jar analog for any of the “traveling to Exegol” scenes in TROS though. It’s just actors doing “business as usual” miming of flying in between VFX shots of a whole bunch of stuff on screen that ships aren’t really having any problem steering around.

Poe and Finn have more visible trouble escaping the ice planetoid than anyone in the movie has getting to or leaving Exegol.

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jonh said:

I personally still think that the movie should start with this clip. And completely erase mustafar. (Which doesn’t seem to mustafar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4k12QPAh_c

Good call, jonh! Here’s a quick mockup of that idea:
TROS - Alt Opening without Mustafar
pw: fanedit

Yeah, I agree. I think of the issues the Mustafar scene has, the simple one I remember raised here is that it was unusual for a Star Wars opening to smash-cut from space to a planet surface. Usually there’s a couple establishing flybys. It’s one of the many pacing issues, and a little scene buffer could help.

Personally, I’m indifferent to Mustafar. Kewlfish, Chase Adams and others have done a good job mining options for this. I do think the battlefront footage, while fun, feels like a lot of extra outside material. If we do add 1-2 establishing shots to this scene, I think they should be simple shots that match well with the Kylo stuff.

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^^^ that’s the one.

I feel like if you went straight from the crawl to this shot and you showed it to someone who hadn’t yet seen Rise of Skywalker, they’d have no idea there was a whole weird disjointed sequence that preceded it, and they wouldn’t be at a loss or adrift for what happens in the following sequence on Exegol, either. Mustafar is more or less extraneous as it is in the finished film.

That shot above just needs some new music editing/cue replacement (something closer to what was actually used in the clip) to smooth it out.

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Broom Kid said:

I don’t know, nobody flying to Exegol seems particularly stressed by doing so. The “difficulty” is completely no-sold by the actors in the various cockpits, and is made apparent solely through visual noise and VFX filler substituting for storytelling.

That’s not really what I meant, the literal difficulty of flying through the nebula and all that is not that important. But what is important is properly conveying how far flung the place is, which is lost if you start the movie with Kylo already there, and yet it takes our heroes an hour and a half to reach it.

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poppasketti said:

jonh said:

I personally still think that the movie should start with this clip. And completely erase mustafar. (Which doesn’t seem to mustafar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4k12QPAh_c

Good call, jonh! Here’s a quick mockup of that idea:
TROS - Alt Opening without Mustafar
pw: fanedit

Yeah, I agree. I think of the issues the Mustafar scene has, the simple one I remember raised here is that it was unusual for a Star Wars opening to smash-cut from space to a planet surface. Usually there’s a couple establishing flybys. It’s one of the many pacing issues, and a little scene buffer could help.

Personally, I’m indifferent to Mustafar. Kewlfish, Chase Adams and others have done a good job mining options for this. I do think the battlefront footage, while fun, feels like a lot of extra outside material. If we do add 1-2 establishing shots to this scene, I think they should be simple shots that match well with the Kylo stuff.

I’m personally good with that. My original preference is something like that and was being “hopeful” for those to “make Mustafar work.”

Maybe having two alt openings, this one and one with Mustafar as editors are working on it. (I like this simpler approach. Alternatively, maybe even using some of the fight shots of Kylo could be used during his “vision” scene so not so much used material from the previous movies are used, even just one quick flash of the battle)

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

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Broom Kid said:

I feel like if you went straight from the crawl to this shot and you showed it to someone who hadn’t yet seen Rise of Skywalker, they’d have no idea there was a whole weird disjointed sequence that preceded it, and they wouldn’t be at a loss or adrift for what happens in the following sequence on Exegol, either. Mustafar is more or less extraneous as it is in the finished film.

Agreed. Mustafar is a cool bit of lore and violence, but I’m not sure its theatrical inclusion makes the movie any better simply as a movie, and as impressive as the additions by this thread have been so far, I feel they’re ultimately just going toward making an unnecessary and hard-to-follow sequence last longer, when what it really needs is more depth and purpose (which only some really nice deleted scenes could potentially accomplish).

Assuming it is cut, however, I’m not sure exactly where to start. I do get Dominic’s thoughts about the purpose of the nebula scene, but I also like the ominous nature of Kylo’s ship just appearing. This decision’s a bit harder to judge from a hypothetical first-time-viewer perspective, I think.

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DominicCobb said:

Broom Kid said:

I don’t know, nobody flying to Exegol seems particularly stressed by doing so. The “difficulty” is completely no-sold by the actors in the various cockpits, and is made apparent solely through visual noise and VFX filler substituting for storytelling.

That’s not really what I meant, the literal difficulty of flying through the nebula and all that is not that important. But what is important is properly conveying how far flung the place is, which is lost if you start the movie with Kylo already there, and yet it takes our heroes an hour and a half to reach it.

I agree, if we’re cutting Mustafar then we need to start after the weird Wayfinder transition scene with Kylo’s ship streaking towards the nebula… there is a quick pan to the Wayfinder which can either be cut or mentioned in the crawl.

I just feel like if we keep cutting there won’t be any movie left to watch because we’re not adding anything back in for balance shrug

Clips - for Editors folder -https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mfEISVdMldOKuSNjcjYO2QSggvqI_7-Y