I did an edit of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker for fun that massively overhauled the film to be more narratively consistent with the other sequel trilogy stories. Unlike a lot of edits however, this is not feature length as my goals with this would simply cut too much and lack a sense of pacing to be coherent or watchable. Due to this, my edit subscribes to the 24-minute pseudo-summary format with a film-like structure. It’s very fast-paced as a result and also uses some montage-style editing; a choice that was very deliberate and necessary for certain character interactions.
Story wise, this is structurally similar to the original film but changes the details and certain aspects of characters. This also meant that it’s slimmer too as I was able to remove the fluff and narrative pinballing from ROS. However, the most massive difference of all: the absence of Palpatine altogether.
Also know that structurally, this is more an anthology of adventures with sprinkles of character moments and a conclusion. More like a companion piece to the other films than anything, so know that if you wonder why Rey, Finn, and Poe are just having random adventures. That’s an unfortunate byproduct of the Sith Wayfinder removal, but I didn’t want to jerk around pointlessly as much as the original film. Really the main throughliine is the rise of the Sith Empire, so that’s what I opted for instead of a Macguffin. Just wanted to set the expectation.
I’m not going to say that this is ENORMOUSLY better than the film, but I found it watchable which is helped by the very short runtime. This is not a middle finger to Disney or anything, I was just humoring an idea in my head and it was more done for fun. I even tried to keep certain respect to the original film by working within it’s parameters by only using footage and music from the original film (with a couple brief exceptions). Music was very deliberate in this edit, as it narrowed down character and situational motifs and tried to use them when appropriate (unlike the theatrical film, but that’s a whole other thing). Even if it’s not liked, I tried to make sure this project was very technically polished with proper music transitions, edits, convincing sound design, etc. So hopefully it comes off as professional as possible. Anyways, I’d love to hear what you guys think, although since it’s finished I won’t be able to make any changes. I will send a link to those interested!