You should watch Hal’s TFA edit in full, it’s really good. The juxtaposition of Han’s death and the Republic’s destruction is a big punch in the gut, and it sets up the tone of TLJ wonderfully.
I definitely will, I downloaded it the other day. Just have been focused only cuts and watching other things. Again, I love the concept of it.
When I initially approached this, it wasn’t to change away from what the directors were doing. I just wanted the Palpatine reveal to make a little more contextual sense. Then the character of Zorri pissed me off enough that I decided to go all-in on StormPilot.
Zorri’s character doesn’t really have a purpose in the film. She shows up and reveals more of Poe’s backstory, but none of that backstory affects what we know about Poe and it doesn’t make us or the other characters question trusting him. She then leads then to Babu Frik, when Poe already knew where he was since he navigated to the planet and city where his workshop was, and that workshop was far from new. She then introduces yet another McGuffin, only to hand it over moments later without any action on our heroes’ parts. She also tempts Poe away from the cause, but again we know Poe too well by this third film to know he would never be tempted. She also has one of the many interchangeable hero shots in the end battle. The only other scenes she has is where she dismisses Poe’s romantic advances, and this happens twice. Both scenes have it where it can be read as her being interested or disinterested in Poe, but both are explicitly clear in communicating that Poe is straight.
Zorri Bliss’ entire character is there to scream “No homo”. That felt a bit insulting after the marketing campaign about LGBTQ+ representation only to find a quick, wide-shot with two unnamed characters, who have never shared the screen prior to this moment, kissing. One of them, Commander Larma D’Acy, has a larger role in The Last Jedi but is never named on screen, while her partner, pilot Wrobie Tyce, barely has any screen time in The Rise of Skywalker at all.
I always read Finn as being straight, since 2015 when he was obsessed with Rey and her possible boyfriend. I ignored his amazing chemistry with Poe, and his motivation in Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker again being tied to the female characters around him, I wrote the idea off. Fans wanted Poe to be gay, even Oscar Isaac wanted Poe to be gay. Introducing Zorri Bliss was an insult to LGBTQ+ fans who would’ve been much happier without Zorri and the random kiss at the end to have been between Poe and a male member of the Resistance.
End of rant explaining why I added StormPilot to my cut. Apologies if that’s something you couldn’t care less about.