The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 468

I just double checked - Disney+ does confirm that the original line is “Ghouls.” I could see it being a comedic “Cool,” but I think my personal preference would still be to have the stormtroopers be kind of intimidated by them. Especially since the Knights are kind of lame in the film, I think it’s important to try to make our first impression of them at least be intimidating and powerful, rather than just some hired goons with dumb, oversized medieval weapons and weird masks.

AntonioGK, those lines are well done, but I do think the second one definitely stands out still, unfortunately. I was also thinking, as an alternative to the “Death/Birth of her son” line, we could change it to simply “Leia sensed her son at the end of her Jedi path.” That way, we’d still get that double meaning thing of Ben’s birth; but rather than alluding to his “rebirth” at the end, the double meaning would be that he would be waiting for her, in the Force, when she passes; and they would go on together in the Cosmic Force, each having completed their journeys as Jedi.

MR, thank you! bbghost’s original example of the idea removes the jump cut, so we could definitely go with that version instead. (I was just trying to be fancy with it lol.)

I don’t really feel a need to modify the “ghouls” line and didn’t have an issue understanding the line. The word is a little unusual, maybe slightly archaic, so I get it. I could potentially get behind replacing it with “Here?” But, that line might be better suited to a situation of someone being told they would be coming later.

And I’m sorry, but I do not think those (or really any) Mark Hamill impressions have a place in this project. They’re fine for mockups or ideas of what could have been, but in no way would those literal recordings have flown if actually mixed into the film to be exhibited.

“Knights of Ren.” “Maybe it’s another drill.”

Hal, what do you think about my suggestion for the “Death/Birth of her son” line?

For “Here?”, I was thinking it would mean: “Knights of Ren?” “What are they doing here?” But I felt the simple “Here?” would flow better. Plus, it adds a bit of intrigue to their introduction, beyond, “Whelp, I guess these are the legendary Knights of Ren! …That’s kinda disappointing. Oh, they’re ghouls, I guess?”

I suppose…aside from the lack of any emotional audience engagement with the Knight’s introduction, I just don’t really understand what the term “Ghouls” is functionally trying to express about them? What do “ghouls” even mean in the Star Wars universe? Are they magical? (I mean, they fights with machetes and stuff, so I guess not.) Are they demons? (Does it matter if we never see their faces?) Are they just kinda scary? (The stormtroopers don’t sound scared.) Do people find them disgusting? (They just act like bounty hunters. Big whoop.) It doesn’t even feel like terminology that belongs in Star Wars to me - heck, I don’t even think they use the term “ghost” in any of these movies. So, depending on your interpretation, “Ghouls” can either be a nothing line, or a line that makes no sense whatsoever. And if we can add a lot of gravitas to these antagonists by overdubbing one or two lines, I think it could be worth it.

But if I’m alone in that thinking, maybe I’ll just put out a casting call in the Redux thread for use in my own edit. 😉

Changing the line from death to birth could work, but you’d have to have the right audio to source it from. It’s something I’m fairly neutral about. If it sounds seamless I imagine I’d go for it.

I think just poaching the single word “birth” and blending it into the extant line could work.

Sherlock, I think they’re using the word “ghouls” in the sense of describing somebody as “ghoulish” -like saying someone enjoys being morbid. But yeah, I always heard it as “cool.” I think a serious line would work better than a joke in that moment, if Hal does decide to replace it.

I’d be good with “here?” I mean, let’s be real too, where have they been minus the Rey Vision in TFA … so I’d think even troopers don’t see them pretty much ever.

Plus it clears up the confusion with that word. Lol.

I think we’d be making fun of the line if it was “here?”

“Yeah dude they’re right in front of you. Kathleen Kennedy really screwed that scene up, and the movie was fine up until then.”

I think “Here” depends on the delivery, Hal. Like, if it’s a quizzical “Knights of Ren? Where? Here?” then yeah, it would be weird. But if it’s an awed, terrified “Oh my god, they’re here? Why are they here??” then I think it would work just fine.

That’s also why I think the initial “Knights of Ren” would benefit from being redubbed as well. So that becomes less a matter-of-fact, “Oh look, it’s ‘Kyle’s’ posse again,” and more of a disbelieving “Oh my god, the Knights of Ren are here? In the flesh??”

sade1212 said:

I like the “Here?” idea because it conveys that the Knights don’t often make appearances amongst the First Order, giving a small nod to their physical absence from the first two movies.

sade1212 - In one line, you perfectly expressed what I’ve been trying to say. Lol thank you!

EDIT: And also, since I don’t think I was very clear in explaining my Leia line idea, this is a very rough, quick example: https://streamable.com/wu6213

(Again, the double meaning here is that Leia originally assumes that when Ben is born, it means her journey is complete. But actually, it means that when Leia becomes one with the Force, Ben will be there to greet her. This interpretation also has the side effect of making Leia’s journey about Leia herself, instead of some other character.)

I personally think your Leia’s son line edit is a big improvement over the original. If we could get the word “birth” in there instead of “death” it would be even better, but that would just be gravy. It’s already good without it.

Can’t type well at the moment but for me the line would need the word birth to be preferred over the original.

And yeah, anyone care to record a trooper line? Sherlock, perhaps? I’m sure Axlanian could process it.

Oh god…I mean, I’ll take a stab at recording a line if it comes to that, but I have a voice that I would describe as “Mickey Mouse with a head cold.” The anti-Morgan Freeman, if you would.

-1 for changing “Death” to “Birth”.

If we change it to “Leia foresaw the birth of her son”, we’re implying that parenthood is sufficient reason to quit being a Jedi - as if you can’t both become a (force using) major player on the galactic stage and also raise a child. This also doesn’t quite work because she remains a politician and general, both major player roles, whilst still having young Ben.

As it stands, as “Leia foresaw the death of her son”, that’s saying that Leia (implicitly) saw her son’s birth and existence, but then (explicitly) saw that continuing down the Jedi path would end in tragedy, so she sought to focus on her political and military strengths instead of leaning into the force as a solution.

We have to remember that one of the main themes of the Star Wars franchise is that fear of loss leads to the darkside.

• Anakin feared the loss of Padmé, and this gave him an emotional vulnerability which Palpatine was able to exploit. (Hell, Anakin even foresaw the death of Padmé, leading him to become Darth Vader.)
• Luke feared the loss of his friends, abandoning his training under Yoda and going to face Vader on Bespin too early.
• Luke later feared the loss of his sister, which on the second Death Star was almost successfully exploited by Palpatine in the scene where Luke almost gives in to the dark and batters Vader against the throne room railing.
• Leia feared the loss of her son, which in the current context we could view as a similar potential vulnerability if she continued down the Jedi path.

She’s also proven quite right - Luke loved and trained his nephew Ben, overreacting (or at least acting too rashly in the moment) in response to his fear of losing Ben to the darkside. He recognised his failure in that moment as a reaction to the fear of loss yet again, leading him to question that core belief, and ultimately to shut himself off from the force and go into exile.

Luke even teaches Rey as one of the core lessons, “confronting fear is the destiny of the Jedi”. What fear is he referring to there? I think it’s safe to say, fear of the loss of a loved one. Luke learned this lesson - too late for himself, but in time to pass it on to Rey as the inheritor of the next generation of Jedi. Leia recognised the threat of her feelings for Ben should she become a Jedi, and sought to avoid the issue by not continuing down the Jedi path.

The Jedi of the Republic knew of this vulnerability and forbade emotional attachments - romantic love and parental love. Ultimately, the Sith under Palpatine were able to exploit this forbiddance too. I believe that the later journey of Luke and Leia (from about ROTJ onwards through the Sequels) is about them recognising that denying love is just as dangerous as permitting it, and that instead, healthy emotional processing of emotional attachments (and learning to let go) is part of the solution.

It’s a tragic irony that Luke’s fear of Ben turning to the darkside helped turn him to the darkside, and also that Leia’s fear of Ben’s death ultimately put him on a path which still led him towards his death - but it’s a triumph of Leia’s love and willpower that she was able to help return Ben to the light before he died.

But this way, yes she lost the life of her son, but no she didn’t lose him in spirit. (This way, the addition of a Ben force ghost at the end would compound her success, and act as a sweet-end-of-bittersweet fulfilment/subversion of her vision.)

The lesson took three generations - Anakin’s failiure, Leia’s middle ground, and Luke finally getting it enough to pass it on. While I agree that it doesn’t quite land here in terms of the character ramifications for Leia and Ben, I think the broader message of the saga here is very strong, and should win out.

I think what EddieDean’s said is well reasoned, and I can understand that way of approaching it. My counterpoint for liking “birth”:

She sees that Ben’s birth will signal the end of her time as a Jedi, and we never really get the sense that being a Jedi is something she’s particularly invested in compared to being a leader and statesman (and while it doesn’t matter two bits for the movie, the novel makes this explicitly canon). She gets pregnant, and so decides that’s her signal to go back to her true calling.

Then you get this lovely double meaning, where her Jedi path is picked up by Rey and completed, and this time when it ends, Ben is born again from the ashes of Kylo Ren. So her vision was true, both times, without anything weirdly fatalistic or motivated by fear.

I respect that analysis, Faraday, though I’d challenge your final line there where I believe you’re saying you’d prefer fear not to be a motivating factor.

However, I think it’s important to preserve and permit fear (both of loss and of other natural fears), because I think the message that the movies are trying to convey is that it’s how we react to our fear that’s important.

Fear of loss, fear of harm, fear of death, etc - all of these things will exist within all beings forever, BUT we can still choose to act on our fears (and the emotions they generate) in a healthy, positive way.

The Jedi of the Republic feared loss so avoided attachments - but this came with its own cost. They raised Jedi only from a very young age so they could cut attachment out of the equation. Qui-Gon, we know, followed a slightly different Jedi path than the rest of the Council, and ultimately was the one who managed to get Anakin trained, even though he was officially too old. He knew there’d be attachments. That put the Jedi Order (and the Jedi that followed after the fall of the order) on the path which, though it included Anakin’s fall, ultimately led to a new type of Jedi - the Jedi of Rey’s generation. I think Lucasfilm are pushing this particular throughline.

And this is more speculative now, but perhaps that’s what the Chosen One prophecy is about. “Bringing balance to the force” was never about the quantity of Jedi and Sith institutions, nor the dogma of the lightside and the darkside, but about fixing the Jedi Order’s mistaken unhealthy approach to fear, turning force philosophy into a balanced viewpoint which permits fear but teaches healthy management of it. I think this is supported by the fact that the Sequels tried to lean into balance within both Rey and Kylo (as much as they didn’t do well putting that on screen), and ultimately Rey’s saber being a new colour rather than one of the usual binary options.

I think ‘fear is natural, learn to manage it’ is a really, really strong message.

Eddie, I do agree that Leia giving up being a Jedi because of “the birth of her son” does have somewhat anti-feminist, “Get back in the kitchen, woman” vibes to it. But I also think that “the death of her son” doesn’t quite work either.

EddieDean said:

However, I think it’s important to preserve and permit fear (both of loss and of other natural fears), because I think the message that the movies are trying to convey is that it’s how we react to our fear that’s important.

Fear of loss, fear of harm, fear of death, etc - all of these things will exist within all beings forever, BUT we can still choose to act on our fears (and the emotions they generate) in a healthy, positive way.

The problem with this is, the film never treats it as if Leia succumbed to fear when she gave up being a Jedi. If the film treated it as a mistake (“Leia gave into her fear. Now it falls to you to finish her path…”), then yeah, it would be thematically relevant; but as it stands, it actually works against the theme of “Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi.” No one calls her out for being afraid of one potential future (“Always in motion, the future is…”), and her sacrifice is treated as heroic instead. And then, Rey comes along and “finishes [Leia’s] journey,” and Ben dies anyway.

It’s just…kinda stupid? They want you to think that Leia sacrificed something she desperately wanted in order to protect Ben; but then Ben dies, making Leia’s actions effectively pointless. Heck, you could even argue that by not becoming a full Jedi (and somehow, tangentially, allowing Ben to live), she’s somewhat responsible for all of the destruction caused by the First Order.

It’s just weird, and sloppy, and thematically muddled.

Personally, I think if we just say “Leia sensed her son at the end of her Jedi path,” without the word “birth,” it doesn’t have such an anti-feminist connotation. It sounds less like she was forced to give up Jedi-ing because she’s a mommy now, and more like she felt, with Ben’s arrival, that it was time to move on. To me, at least.

Alternatively, perhaps we could do a slightly more intensive restructure of the line? Something like: “When her son was born, Leia decided to surrender her saber to me, saying one day, someone else would continue her journey…” That would be a lot harder to pull off seamlessly though, assuming the audio clips even exist.

That’s all valid. And I certainly agree that in terms of the importance of what I’ve been saying specifically to Leia and Ben’s story, it’s fairly minor, because that plotline isn’t particularly well developed for Leia and Ben.