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Legacy of the Force - A WIP Rise of Skywalker edit

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 (Edited)

There are quite a few Rise of Skywalker edits out there, and a number of excellent ideas. After finishing my Fall of the Republic mashup edit of TCW/ROTS I was inspired by some of these ideas to make my own edit, drawing on what already exists and my own ideas.
I’ll be drawing on krausfadr’s Resurgence, joshuabri’s No Palp’s edit, DomincCobbs’ stuff, and Ascendant for a number of ideas, that I’ll detail down the road. Major shoutout to RogueLeader for a number of excellent ideas, some of which I’m trying to bring to life here.

Presenting

Star Wars - Legacy of the Force

A Delpheas the Wise Work in Progress Fanedit

My crawl adapted from krausfadr and joshuabri, with help from creativside:

The First Order rages
across the galaxy.
The Republic’s fragile peace
has been betrayed
and only the whispers
of Luke Skywalker’s
sacrifice serve to maintain
HOPE.

Despite the guidance
of General Leia Organa,
Rey struggles to find
BALANCE and hopes to
contact Luke’s spirit
to quiet her growing
fear.

Meanwhile, SUPREME
LEADER Kylo Ren heads to
the Unknown regions to
uncover his former master’s
final secret…

This is going to be a No Palpatine edit. And I know what you’re thinking, “that’s not gonna work”, but it does, surprisingly well I might add. Check out joshuabri’s edit if you don’t believe. However, I personally want an edit even more radical than just removing the central antagonist.

My long term plans are to make edits of the entire Skywalker Saga. I’m simply starting here because I think it has the most challenges and opportunities for me to learn new skills.

The work in this edit is going to proceed in three phases

Phase 1 will include:

The New Republic hasn’t been destroyed and will feature in the climax. Aside from the Starkiller base being a way to mimic ANH, the destruction of the New Republic always felt like a middle-finger to fans of the EU, where the NR played a major role in galactic politics during this era. So in my version, they’re still around, just re-tooled.

There is no Palpatine. I don’t necessarily hate Palpatine coming back in a clone to turn try and take over someone, it was in the old canon afterall, but I think it makes no sense for Rey’s story. In the EU it was all about Luke, Sidious, and Anakin and it worked. But Rey has no connection to Sidious, and shoehorning in this idea that she’s his grandfather was stupid. And a last minute choice according to Daisey Ridley. So he’s gone. Ren and the First/Final Order, and Rey’s internal struggles are the antagonists of this film.

Ren fights Vader (thanks to SceneFX for Force of Darkness footage) This helps establish what’s going on with Ren and his internal conflict.

Rey killed her parents (krausfadr). This helps fead Rey’s fear that she’s just going to hurt those she cares about.

Anakin replaces Han for Ben’s redemption scene. This accomplishes two things. 1) Ben isn’t manipulated to the light by Leia dredging up a memory of Han, it’s his choice, affirmed and encouraged by the person he’s been trying to connect with for years. 2) Anakin gets to play a small, but important, role in the finale of the Skywalker saga. And his final actions are helping to guide someone away from the choices he made. I’ve seen fairly convincing vfx of Anakin with Ben floating around on youtube, all it would need is possibly some better VFX integration, and a way to match up Anakin and Ben’s new and altered lines. (Check the first comment for my proposed script)

Ben lives. But he’s got a long road ahead of him, and we only get a hint of what that’s going to entail.

Rey is Nobody. I just didn’t understand the need to have Rey be a Skywalker if she wasn’t Luke’s daughter (which clearly she was going to be if you’ve watched TFA, read the TLJ novelisation, and watched the old interviews where Ridley was asked about Rey’s parentage and she said something along the lines of it being “obvious.”) So here she isn’t a Palpatine, she doesn’t take the Skywalker name, and when she’s on Tatooine there are no force ghosts. Rey’s looking forward.

Phase 2 will make any necessary adjustments based on feedback and any ripple effects from my edits of TFA and TLJ, as well as possible new VFX work from the community, such as Rey’s crackling Saber.

Phase 3 is likely to just be a version with Rey’s black outfit, so that’s way down the road.

I’ll be updating with the change list for act 1 soon.

Clips:
Ren is tested, part 2

My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available

The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)

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 (Edited)

Anakin guides Ben to the light script draft:

Ben senses a presence and turns to it. In the wide shot Anakin’s ghost appears.

Ben: “Grandfather.”

Anakin: “Ben.”

Ben: “Ben is dead.”

Anakin: “No. Kylo Ren is dead. Ben Solo lives. That’s why I’m here. (gentle pause) Ben, she will need your help.”

Ben: “It’s too late. She’s gone.”

Anakin: “It’s never too late Ben. You and Rey can bring balance to the Force. Finish what I started.”

Pregnant pause.

Ben: “I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.”

Anakin: “You do. We all do.”

Ben throws away Ren’s lightsaber, turns back and Anakin is gone.

As the camera pulls away for the wide shot, Anakin’s voice says:
“May the Force be with you.”

My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available

The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I’m excited about what I put together for my edit’s new opening.

I decided to start with the amazing shots of Ren on Coruscant with some VO of Snoke that sets Ren on his search for the Wayfinder and Exogol.

Once there as he’s searching the room that normally has Palps in it, he’s thrust into a vision sequence (the Force of Darkness fanfilm) and we hear Snoke saying “The last test” and once Ren kills Vader in the vision Snoke says “The Potential of Your Bloodline. A New Vader.”

And then it cuts to the fleet rising from Exogol with Snoke saying “Fulfill your Destiny.”
Then we cut to a (not destroyed) Starkiller base where Hux gives his “Last Day of The Republic” speech and then there’s a shot of a Star Destroyer + canon arriving over a planet.

Aaaand THEN we cut to Rey meditating.

It helps slow the pace some, keeps the focus on this trilogy’s established characters, implies Snoke knew about Exogol/always planned on using it, and ensures the First Order feels like a threat from the get go.

My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available

The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)

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 (Edited)

Yes. I’ve started planning out my changes to TFA and TLJ which will be based on HAL and Acbagel’s edits.

But I decided to start with this one cus I watched joshuabri’s No Palps edit and it kinda made me love the movie. So the goal of this edit is to build out the No Palps idea with elements like Rey killing her Parents (while also giving Anakin a meaningful moment in the ST) and then go back to 7 & 8 and adjust elements that ape the OT too closely or just make them feel like they go nowhere.

So in my TFA Starkiller base won’t be a weapon, the New Republic won’t be destroyed, and Han will have left Leia after Ben fell, not because smuggling was so irresistible.

My TLJ will have a Luke who is less despondent. He still despises the Jedi and wants them gone, but for legitimate reasons besides his own personal failure. Better pacing, better use of Finn and Rose, etc…

All to build to a RoS where the conflicts are between Ren, Rey and her fear of the Dark and the First Order and the Resistance. The fleet that shows during the final battle will be implied to be, at least partly, a Republic fleet. Which becomes a payoff from their lack of help in the other 2 films.

This helps it all flow and let’s the stakes build realistically, imo. We don’t go from a single weapon that can destroy star systems, to death star battering ram cannons, to a fleet of canon loaded destroyers. Now the first we’ll see of the new death star-based tech will be in TLJ and it won’t see mass use until the deployment of Snoke’s Exogol fleet, the Final Order.

My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available

The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)

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I love TLJ for the most part, and I have zero issue with the Canto Bight story (except I do think it should have been intercut between the other stories). However, I do have issues TROS and this sounds really amazing. I’m really curious to see your finished product.

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I really liked TLJ, my main issues were that I didn’t quite believe Luke’s reasons for hiding, and the weird pacing and as you said, not actually intercutting between some of the different storylines.

And thanks. I hope that my final product doesn’t disappoint.

My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available

The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)

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Time

Love a lot of these ideas, and especially agree with the title 😉 . Wondering how you’re going to pull off the Anakin content? Where are you getting that footage from that makes it look like an actual part of the movie?

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(The Bad Batch) Cinematic Version | A More Mature Edit

(The Mandalorian+Boba) The Way of Mandalore | A Compilation Edit

(Kenobi) | A Star Wars Legends Re-edit

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Delpheas said:

I really liked TLJ, my main issues were that I didn’t quite believe Luke’s reasons for hiding, and the weird pacing and as you said, not actually intercutting between some of the different storylines.

And thanks. I hope that my final product doesn’t disappoint.

Knowing that you really liked TLJ, I may be more inclined to see what you do with it now, I admit.

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Acbagel said:

Love a lot of these ideas, and especially agree with the title 😉 . Wondering how you’re going to pull off the Anakin content? Where are you getting that footage from that makes it look like an actual part of the movie?

Thanks! A number of my ideas were inspired by what I liked about your edits. And the title, well there really is no other option imo.

For V1 I’m starting with some mockups that some VFX artists did you can find on YouTube. I’m not too concerned about it looking 100% perfect for V1, but for V2… we’ll see.

My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available

The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)

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Really sounds interesting.

I’m curious how your “Ben Lives” change will look in the final cut. Is it simply that we don’t see Ben die or is going to integrated into the final scenes in any way?

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These are all very intriguing ideas and I can’t wait to see it come together.

How are you planning to create the needed lines (video and audio) for the conversation between Kylo and Anakin?

“It’s like rhymetry. They poem.” - Leorge Gucas

TROS Novelisation: The Faraday Edit, TLJ: Stoic Edition, ROTS: The Faraday Nudge, ROTS Ultracut: Order 66, Kenobi: Faraday Cut, Godzilla Vs Megalon, Godzilla Vs Gigan, Godzilla: Final Wars, The Light Rises, Faraday Jr.'s Star Wars

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orion13 said:
I’m curious how your “Ben Lives” change will look in the final cut. Is it simply that we don’t see Ben die or is going to integrated into the final scenes in any way?

Since the Anakin/Ben convo will be the final Ben scene, it works fairly well to leave it up to the viewer as to what happens after. I’d love to have Ben show up on Tatooine, but I kinda like the open ended nature of his Kef Bir/Endor scene.

CaptainFaraday said:
How are you planning to create the needed lines (video and audio) for the conversation between Kylo and Anakin?

For Ben someone made me the needed line using an AI voice synthesizer, and for Anakin I found a voice actor who does voice work that sounds like Hayden. It’s really excellent stuff.

The Anakin footage is from RotS, but ghostified. It’s not perfect, but it works and I like what it brings to the scene more than I’m worried that Ben’s line of sight doesn’t match where Anakin is for one shot.

My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available

The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)

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Thanks. I’m aware that some of my ideas won’t make for a seamless edit, so that’s why I’ll probably put out more than one edition of each version.

So V1 will have a version without Anakin and one with Anakin. (The later of which may also include some additional Rey & Luke dialogue on Ach-to that I feel is necessary to give that scene some breathing room AND feel like a proper resolution of Rey’s fear arc.)

My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available

The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

New Clip:

This from my version of Ren finding the fleet, which in this version is something Snoke was working on, and is giving to Ren now that he’s Supreme Leader. What you’re seeing is the end of a test Snoke prepared for Ren to determine his worthiness to inherit the Final Order.

It’s not finished, as I haven’t finished all the SFX for the fleet rising.

I’m looking for thoughts on Snoke’s dialogue and the use of the Anthem of Evil track.

Thanks in advance.

Ren is tested on Exogol, part 2

Thoughts?

My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available

The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)

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I like this idea a lot. I never thought to use Anakin as the force ghost, I was thinking of pushing this back and have it be Leia’s force ghost, but this could be even better!

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So, for a number of reasons, I have lost interest in this project.

The first and main one being, I’m no longer against the idea of Palpatine returning. I always appreciated it in the EU, and now that it is clear Filoni & Co are essentially recreating the EU, and laying groundwork for the ST via Mandalorian, I don’t want to contradict that material.

So, I may work on this to finish the Anakin stuff, but my heart’s not in it.

Cheers!

My Edits:
Revenge of the Sith: Refocused Available

The Clone Wars Refocused: The Chosen One (Mortis Episode)