Anyway, moving on.
So after looking through the Crait battle once again, and seeing the changes I’ve made to the battle, I still found myself feeling like something was off. So I decided to watch the Crait battle again to monitor my emotions during the climax, and I found out that the thing setting off my “Uh-oh” sensors was
Luke’s lightsaber confrontation with Kylo.
I decided to remove a few major lines from that confrontation, and I think my issues have been resolved. I’ll have to look it over again just in case, but I think I’ve done it.
With that in mind, here are the lines I removed from the confrontation:
The first two are “Did you come back to say you forgive me? To save my soul?” and “No.” I’m not sure what it is about these two, but they came across as redundant after all the changes I’ve made. Surprisingly, the removal of those two lines makes the beginning of the fight completely told through visual, which made it more effective. I’m still looking for a concrete reason why it works, but maybe it’ll make more sense after I watch it again.
The next line is “I failed you, Ben.” I have no idea why it took me this long to realize it doesn’t work, but it did. I think I already mentioned in the general changes list that I cut out Luke’s lightsaber bits from the flashbacks, which pretty much means that Rey was right. He didn’t fail Kylo, Kylo failed him. So now, all Luke says to Kylo is “I’m sorry.” which comes with a more plausible feel to the moment.
The last line I’ve cut out is a gigantic one. “The rebellion is reborn today. The war is just beginning. And I will not be the last jedi.” I had already cut out “The rebellion is reborn today. The war is just beginning.” in the workprint, so I don’t think that requires much of an explanation. However, I want to focus on “And I will not be the last jedi.” This goes back once again to my intention of creating a more ambiguous ending. The cutaway to Rey after that line gives off an implication that either she is “the last jedi”, or that she will bring about a new generation of jedi. This doesn’t work so well for what I have in mind. So, I’ve reduced Luke’s entire speech down to just the part that was foreshadowed during Rey’s training: “Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.” This leads to a reaction shot of Kylo, then cut to Rey. I like this approach. It’s effective for foreshadowing reasons, and it makes the sparkle of hope that Rey will stick with the rebellion not quite as on the nose. I’m fine with offering just a glimmer of hope that she won’t join Kylo. Not a lot, but just enough to tease and foreshadow the next film. Otherwise, lessening the effect of Rey being the last jedi is good for what I want to accomplish.