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Unusual Sequel Trilogy Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 73

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JakeRyan17 said:

It would make it so that Finn wanted to join the First Order, which in and of itself wouldn’t make sense.

I think it could be possible. We know he was a janitor for most of his First Order career, and the raid on the Jakku village was his first battle. It’s possible that he just joined the lowest ranks of the First Order to make a living, but upon seeing the atrocities that the First Order committed he had a change of heart. The other troopers don’t have that excuse, they’ve presumably been beating down and oppressing people for a long time.

And brainwashing can happen at any age, either way there would be a level of brainwashing happening. I feel like we’re just looking for excuses to not care about people dying, which… I dunno. Kinda goes against the “empathy” argument to me.

Well, people tend to be less receptive to brainwashing at an older age. It’s why so many authoritarian governments turn the school system into a propaganda machine: they want to make their citizens into brainwashed servants at the youngest age possible. If the stormtroopers were voluntary adult recruits, that would mean they agreed with the First Order’s neo-Imperial ideas at least somewhat. And I don’t think getting revenge on oppressive mass murderers signifies a lack of empathy, if anything it signals the opposite: you can recognize when someone is being oppressed, and will do whatever it takes to stop it.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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My point is more that brainwashing is brainwashing. My mom didn’t used to be racist or homophobic, now she is. We can make broad strokes about why she deserves to be murdered more than her child she’s raising in that worldview, but to me it just kinda seems moot. We can call her stupid, or blame her for not understanding trickle-down farces… but at the end of the day she was brainwashed, but she’d deny being brainwashed.

If we’re against killing brainwashed people, then stunners are the way to go. Trying to parse out which brainwashed people deserve to die and which we feel bad about is what feels antipathetic to me.

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JakeRyan17 said:

My point is more that brainwashing is brainwashing. My mom didn’t used to be racist or homophobic, now she is. We can make broad strokes about why she deserves to be murdered more than her child she’s raising in that worldview, but to me it just kinda seems moot. We can call her stupid, or blame her for not understanding trickle-down farces… but at the end of the day she was brainwashed, but she’d deny being brainwashed.

If we’re against killing brainwashed people, then stunners are the way to go. Trying to parse out which brainwashed people deserve to die and which we feel bad about is what feels antipathetic to me.

Is your mother murdering civilians?

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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No, but she says civilians deserve to be murdered by cops… again: brainwashing is brainwashing. Anyone can be radicalised.

I’m just saying that if we want to feel better about stormtroopers in Star Wars being people, stunners is the way to go. Trying to find reasons to excuse murders just feels wrong. Stormtroopers being abducted as children or conscripting as adults doesn’t really matter. They are adults now with the ability to go against those orders (as Finn, Jannah, and several others have) or not. I don’t think we need to create an age limit for when someone joined they deserve to die or not.

If empathy is the goal, looking for excuses why some people deserve to die and others don’t, especially separated from their own actions (as no one is changing what the First Order is doing, we’re not talking about cutting out the violence stormtroopers inflict here), just doesn’t feel like the path to it.

If people being killed bothers you, stunners solve that problem. A new backstory that’s barely different doesn’t really change the fact that people who used to be in the same position as Finn and Jannah are now being killed by them.

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I just had an idea: what if we found a way to make it look like Snoke was the one who smashed Kylo Ren’s helmet? He insults the helmet multiple times so it seems like something he would do, and then it would make Kylo reforging his helmet seem like he’s growing rather than regressing.
Maybe, we could even move the scene of him reforging his helmet up to the end of The Last Jedi, as an epilogue/cliffhanger.

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Well, are ya, punk?

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He is regressing though, he went from being the big bad in charge to Palpatine’s enforcer.

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Rey and Finn Vs Kylo Force Awakens (Fan Edit) ROUGH CUT edited by me: https://vimeo.com/496352932 password: ReyVKylo
The video that i was inspired by:
https://youtu.be/4yZYRQrk9eQ
this is my version of the fight, kylo is a threatening villain and rey is a force user with great potential (I’m sorry if it’s bad, this is my first fan edit)

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Skybatman said:

Rey and Finn Vs Kylo Force Awakens (Fan Edit) ROUGH CUT edited by me: https://vimeo.com/496352932 password: ReyVKylo
The video that i was inspired by:
https://youtu.be/4yZYRQrk9eQ
this is my version of the fight, kylo is a threatening villain and rey is a force user with great potential (I’m sorry if it’s bad, this is my first fan edit)

I like some of the changes, but were you trying to make it that Rey opens up the crack in the ground at the end? That seemed to be the implication, wasn’t sure if it was intentional. Other than that there was a spot where the music shifted when she used the Force to get the lightsaber, that’s the only flaw I noticed. Cool concept.

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Thank you! It sucks editing on a smartphone. And yes it was intentional that crack, Rey has the force, but doesn’t know how to use it properly, that why she needs a teacher

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Damn! It’s extra impressive if you did that on your phone.

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I just had an idea: what if we found a way to make it look like Snoke was the one who smashed Kylo Ren’s helmet? He insults the helmet multiple times so it seems like something he would do, and then it would make Kylo reforging his helmet seem like he’s growing rather than regressing.

Please, of all the things the Sequels did, the helmet is handled perfectly. Don’t ruin it.

He is regressing though, he went from being the big bad in charge to Palpatine’s enforcer.

Eh, it was never quite a master and apprentice dynamic. Kylo was still standing on his own, he was just trying to gain power from Palpatine. He wasn’t really obeying his orders per say. The only thing he did for him was track down Rey, which could be described as little more than a sidequest. Din Djarin isn’t Cobb Vanth’s enforcer, is he?

Rey and Finn Vs Kylo Force Awakens (Fan Edit) ROUGH CUT edited by me

What did you change?

On a different note, while I never cared much for the Mary Sue accusations levied against Rey, there is actually one instance in TFA where I think it’s true, and that’s her breaking herself out of prison with a Jedi mind trick. Is there a way to make Han, Finn, and Chewy responsible for her escape? Maybe Phasma orders Rey be brought to her at gunpoint?

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I never said master and apprentice, but Kylo did lose his armies to Palpatine. Whether he became servant or not, his character was regressing from the power and autonomy he gained in TLJ.

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I’m not sure he’s super fussed about continuing to be Supreme Leader after he yeets his saber into the ocean. Rey does explicitly ask him earlier in the movie if he’s serving a new master, and he denies it.

Kylo’s plan since moment one of meeting Palpatine is to team up with Rey and kill him, which is amusingly basically what happens (besides the minor point that he joins Rey in the light rather than her joining him on the dark side).

The mind trick in TFA also rubs me the wrong way because it feels like another JJ Abrams nostalgia lift, rather than something the character would actually think to try.

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But that’s the thing, he wants to overthrow Palpatine to regain the power and status he lost. After the Force memory his mother sent of his father, he grows to no longer need that. But it was still his goal throughout the beginning of the film.

Destroying his mask was a symbol of autonomy, relying on himself, free from bondage or trying to free himself. The mask was a symbol of him being trapped in his desires to have control. He takes control when he destroys the mask, and he realises he does not have control when he remakes it. When he takes the mask of throughout IX, it’s to take control of a situation.

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Skybatman said:

Rey and Finn Vs Kylo Force Awakens (Fan Edit) ROUGH CUT edited by me: https://vimeo.com/496352932 password: ReyVKylo
The video that i was inspired by:
https://youtu.be/4yZYRQrk9eQ
this is my version of the fight, kylo is a threatening villain and rey is a force user with great potential (I’m sorry if it’s bad, this is my first fan edit)

You did great! I really like the idea of Rey opening the ground with the force.

I did eliminate the first ground opening behind her as she later just runs off where the hope should be. Think that’s a continuety error in the original.

I can’t believe you did that on a phone. Well done.

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Anakin Starkiller said:

On a different note, while I never cared much for the Mary Sue accusations levied against Rey, there is actually one instance in TFA where I think it’s true, and that’s her breaking herself out of prison with a Jedi mind trick. Is there a way to make Han, Finn, and Chewy responsible for her escape? Maybe Phasma orders Rey be brought to her at gunpoint?

I always figured it was ok because (1) Ren had just told Snoke she, tho untrained, was powerful in the Force, and (2) he had JUST tried to do something like that to her.

In TLJ she described the Force specifically as a power Jedi had to control people, so maybe she already had heard enough rumors of the Jedi mind tricks by this point to realize if she had the Force, she could do that too.

“That’s not how the Force works!”

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Movies Remastered said:

Skybatman said:

Rey and Finn Vs Kylo Force Awakens (Fan Edit) ROUGH CUT edited by me: https://vimeo.com/496352932 password: ReyVKylo
The video that i was inspired by:
https://youtu.be/4yZYRQrk9eQ
this is my version of the fight, kylo is a threatening villain and rey is a force user with great potential (I’m sorry if it’s bad, this is my first fan edit)

You did great! I really like the idea of Rey opening the ground with the force.

I did eliminate the first ground opening behind her as she later just runs off where the hope should be. Think that’s a continuety error in the original.

I can’t believe you did that on a phone. Well done.

Thank you.

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GMatias said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

On a different note, while I never cared much for the Mary Sue accusations levied against Rey, there is actually one instance in TFA where I think it’s true, and that’s her breaking herself out of prison with a Jedi mind trick. Is there a way to make Han, Finn, and Chewy responsible for her escape? Maybe Phasma orders Rey be brought to her at gunpoint?

I always figured it was ok because (1) Ren had just told Snoke she, tho untrained, was powerful in the Force, and (2) he had JUST tried to do something like that to her.

In TLJ she described the Force specifically as a power Jedi had to control people, so maybe she already had heard enough rumors of the Jedi mind tricks by this point to realize if she had the Force, she could do that too.

  1. The mind trick is not the same as Kylo Ren’s Force probe, in terms of how to use it properly.

  2. Okay, but that doesn’t mean Rey should know how to use the mind trick.

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JakeRyan17 said:

No, but she says civilians deserve to be murdered by cops… again: brainwashing is brainwashing. Anyone can be radicalised.

Anyone can be the victim of propaganda, sure. Do I view my parents as victims of their propagandistic media diet? Yes. But they also haven’t picked up arms and joined a terrorist organization bent on ruling the world. At a certain point there’s a choice with an adult, brainwashing or not.

I’m just saying that if we want to feel better about stormtroopers in Star Wars being people, stunners is the way to go. Trying to find reasons to excuse murders just feels wrong. Stormtroopers being abducted as children or conscripting as adults doesn’t really matter. They are adults now with the ability to go against those orders (as Finn, Jannah, and several others have) or not. I don’t think we need to create an age limit for when someone joined they deserve to die or not.

Of course it matters if they joined as adults…that means that the choice Finn consciously made in TFA to defect was available to every one of them before they even joined and they all joined anyway. When Finn tells Rey he made a choice…well that’s actually his second choice. His first was to join in the first place, and his defection is him merely atoning for that choice like Vader atoning for his decision to follow Sidious. Before this atonement Han was right to shoot at Vader on Cloud City in an attempt to kill, even though you could argue that Vader was definitely brainwashed by Sidious to be evil over the course of Anakin’s entire childhood. There was still a choice that Anakin made, the same choice that Finn would have made were he conscripted as an adult.

If empathy is the goal, looking for excuses why some people deserve to die and others don’t, especially separated from their own actions (as no one is changing what the First Order is doing, we’re not talking about cutting out the violence stormtroopers inflict here), just doesn’t feel like the path to it.

If people being killed bothers you, stunners solve that problem. A new backstory that’s barely different doesn’t really change the fact that people who used to be in the same position as Finn and Jannah are now being killed by them.

Actually, stunners solve basically nothing since almost all of the First Order troopers die in starship crashes. Millions died before our eyes in the final minutes of TROS. If they were willing recruits, that’s entirely different than if they were kidnapped as children and programmed to be soldiers. We don’t cry out at the destruction of the Death Stars. Why? Because we view those inside as willing and complicit soldiers fighting for an evil empire, not as victims who were raised in isolation to kill.

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It still just feels like an excuse to make murder seem more palatable, which just seems silly in the first place. It’s either right or wrong, and the level of brainwashing necessary makes their age seem moot to me. Again, conscripted as children or not, they are all adults that can choose to leave, the way Finn and Jannah (and even Hux) did. This also means that the rest, conscripted as children or not, chose not to defect.

I feel like this change doesn’t actually change who dies or who doesn’t. It just makes us feel better about some deaths, and that feels like a strange goal. Are we supposed to feel more excited by people being brainwashed at 18 instead of 17? What age does empathy wear off, exactly? At what age do we say people taking the same exact actions deserve to die versus don’t deserve to die?

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I feel like I’m in college, attending a debate on morality with Nev and Jake on stage. I’m taking notes for my extra credit assignment.