Dex analyzed a dart in 3 seconds when the plot needed it analyzed for Obi Wan 😃

Interesting factoid I learned recently from the Art of Rise of Skywalker Book - at the time of the book’s original publishing deadlines - the lightspeed skipping scene was cut. That book apparently went to press (before getting delayed and delayed and delayed) under the assumption the theatrical version of Rise of Skywalker would NOT have that scene in it.

It’s an interesting point because: The Lightspeed Skipping being cut from this cut didn’t have a whole lot of theory being applied to it in a vaccuum to explain why or why it wouldn’t work from a storytelling perspective. It just didn’t feel like it worked, and so it had to be removed, and then the rest of the movie had to conform to that change as best as it could, and either it worked for the pacing, timing, and FEELING of the film, or it didn’t.

It ended up being a VERY good cut to make, so good that in fact it turns out at one point it was THE OFFICIAL CUT - at least, it was before the mad scramble of post-production and Abrams’ inability to stick to a single throughline and follow it, instead of basically trying to do all the cool things because they were cool and fitting them in whether they work or not.

I think there are a lot of changes being made on this edit that ironically, are being done in the exact same Abramsian spirit. They’re attempting to fix his big mistakes by using the exact same ethos: Looking at the film more in the abstract, as a theoretical exercise, and making decisions from THAT POV, rather than thinking of the film AS IT IS, making effective changes, and watching to see if they actually fix the film’s problems AS a film.

Basically - there are a lot of fixes being done whose concern starts and stops at the scene in question, and if it makes that one scene “seem” better, it’s considered a good idea and worthy of all the work being done towards its inclusion, despite the fact it’s not really helping the overall film, and now the overall film is just as busy and distracted as it originally was, only now in newly post-produced ways.