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REY NOBODY - A Collaborative Thread — Page 12

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I’d get rid of the “rey” right before kylo says “tell me where you are” as him saying rey starts to get repetitive. I’d also go with just “it’s anger that fuels you” and cut the rest of that line.

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Alright: In my eyes, the scene on Ahch-To is a key sequence of the film: instead of exiling herself, Rey (guided by Luke) realizes that she must fight for what she stands for. Now, if one simply strips away any reference to her origins, very little remains of the scene.

I wasted hours and days trying to somehow change the message of the scene, inserting lines from other Mark Hamill films and even interviews. Nothing was remotely satisfactory.

I’ve recently tried something different: Luke challenges Rey to reflect on herself again (“I’m scared of myself” “OK, but who exactly are YOU?”). She realizes that she is not only much more than her dark visions, but above all that she can choose who she wants to be (“This is your journey”).

So here is my attempt at the scene:
https://vimeo.com/689951972
PW: fanedit

It’s certainly not good and I’m a complete newbie to editing, but maybe it’ll at least serve as an inspiration for you pros.
(I especially want to expand her thoughts/memories of her “good” side in contrast to her dark visions. Oh, and my edit is centered around the theme of “Balance”, hence the the line by Luke)

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 (Edited)

fidodido said:

Alright: In my eyes, the scene on Ahch-To is a key sequence of the film: instead of exiling herself, Rey (guided by Luke) realizes that she must fight for what she stands for. Now, if one simply strips away any reference to her origins, very little remains of the scene.

I wasted hours and days trying to somehow change the message of the scene, inserting lines from other Mark Hamill films and even interviews. Nothing was remotely satisfactory.

I’ve recently tried something different: Luke challenges Rey to reflect on herself again (“I’m scared of myself” “OK, but who exactly are YOU?”). She realizes that she is not only much more than her dark visions, but above all that she can choose who she wants to be (“This is your journey”).

So here is my attempt at the scene:
https://vimeo.com/689951972
PW: fanedit

It’s certainly not good and I’m a complete newbie to editing, but maybe it’ll at least serve as an inspiration for you pros.
(I especially want to expand her thoughts/memories of her “good” side in contrast to her dark visions. Oh, and my edit is centered around the theme of “Balance”, hence the the line by Luke)

That’s very cool!

I don’t know that you need the last bit of new dialogue from Luke. You could leave it with the original “confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi” because the vision gets the point across fine on its own.

I’ve been struggling with this scene in my edit, so I might play around with this idea. Cool stuff!

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SpenceEdit said:

That’s very cool!

I don’t know that you need the last bit of new dialogue from Luke. You could leave it with the original “confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi” because the vision gets the point across fine on its own.

I’ve been struggling with this scene in my edit, so I might play around with this idea. Cool stuff!

Thank you, Spence!

I would love to use the “confronting fear”-line, but since my edit will end the jedi, I would have to change it to something like “confronting your fear is your destiny”, and I wasn’t able to make this sound right…

Looking forward to see what you’ll come up with!

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Okay, so not exclusively a Rey Nobody idea, but I think this idea would be helpful for any edit that wants to replace the Rey Palpatine stuff with Rey’s potential desire for power in order to save her friends.

Even in the theatrical version of the film, there’s this idea that Rey could potentially fall to the dark side. But we are never given a solid reason why she would beyond her bloodline, as well as Palpatine basically holding her friends hostage at the climax of the film. This idea may have been strengthened if we could have had a scene of Rey tapping into the dark side and seeing how it could help her accomplish her goals. Instead, the one time she really taps into the dark side in this film is when she thinks she has killed Chewie, which probably would make her more afraid of the dark side, rather than her being drawn to it.

Basically, I’m wondering how feasible it would be to change Chewie’s fakeout death and just have Rey lose the force tug-of-war. There would be a few benefits to this change.

  1. We get one less fake-out death in this film.
  2. Kylo can use this moment to tempt Rey. “I needed you to see it. The power of the dark side. You need power to keep them safe.” These lines can be used during the Force bond duel.
  3. This feeds into Rey’s self-doubt and the potential what-if of her giving in.

Obviously this would require a few lines changes in later scenes regarding the heroes thinking Chewie’s dead, but there’s really just three moments, I think they can be trimmed after playing around with them a little.

The main thing would be to cut Rey blowing up the transport in a way that doesn’t feel obviously edited. I’ve kind of done a rough edit of this idea with some shot rearrangement, cropping and shot reversal. I think a new VFX shot of the transport flying away could help sell it, or at the very least some solid sound mixing.

Curious what people think.

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 (Edited)

I like that idea, and not just because I used Rey’s “CHEWIE!” in my Starlight edit already.

Another benefit to this idea is that it completes the maybe intentional mirroring of her parents abandoning her on Jakku, since I imagine that Chewie is now as much a surrogate parent to her as Leia.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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That is true. Though I wonder if you were going for a Rey Nobody edit that cut out the connection between her parents and Ochi and his ship, if you would remove or change the flashback of that same/similar ship flying away from Jakku.

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Anyone know the voice line situation with Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga?

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 (Edited)

Haven’t heard anything about usable audio from the Lego Skywalker Saga yet.

After working on some things for Spence’s edit, I went back and made a rough interpretation of the Force bond duel, I did shorten the scene slightly, but I tried to keep most of the scene intact, but with new dialogue and visions to help establish Rey’s fear of losing her friends. I used the theatrical as a basis, but a final version would use Ascendant. Also, the visions themselves are really rough, and are more placeholders than anything. I kind of just wanted to see if this idea would work.

Personally, I think I prefer Spence’s approach. I sat down and watched the first 30 minutes of ESB:R tonight, and I couldn’t help but compare the filmmaking language between that and TROS. I definitely am a proponent of the use of some visions when it comes to ST ideas, but I do think the less flashbacks/visions are used as a storytelling crutch, the better it would be for the movie.

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RogueLeader said:
Personally, I think I prefer Spence’s approach. I sat down and watched the first 30 minutes of ESB:R tonight, and I couldn’t help but compare the filmmaking language between that and TROS. I definitely am a proponent of the use of some visions when it comes to ST ideas, but I do think the less flashbacks/visions are used as a storytelling crutch, the better it would be for the movie.

Here is the most recent version of where I ended up with that scene, for context.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I4gQtIMFhUsZL7WxBO7_7xDSVvAZGP9L/view?usp=sharing

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That works really well although I like RL ending the scene with “I have you now,” otherwise it feels a bit abrupt like oh okay we’re done now.

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DominicCobb said:

That works really well although I like RL ending the scene with “I have you now,” otherwise it feels a bit abrupt like oh okay we’re done now.

I actually stole that and added it in since I rendered this lol

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SpenceEdit said:

DominicCobb said:

That works really well although I like RL ending the scene with “I have you now,” otherwise it feels a bit abrupt like oh okay we’re done now.

I actually stole that and added it in since I rendered this lol

Haha, that makes me happy. The first time I edited the scene, I also cut his line, “So that’s where you are” because I think it works better with him realizing in silence where she is, and it makes “I have you now” hit harder. Both ways work fine though.

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The scene feels hollow, but it is convincing as a real scene from THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (2019) if it had been that way in the theater for sure.

Ascendant removes the line from an earlier scene where Kylo says he will turn Rey to the dark side when he finds her. It felt unnecessary and would make sense that’s something he wouldn’t want to just blatantly state.

However, incorporating it here could give this scene… a little bit more of a reason for being. Hardly a dramatic revelation, but it’d be something.

Also, in this version of the scene, there’s no hint that something dramatic is coming in the next scene, though we do still know that he’s on his way and they gotta go, so I guess that still works.

The scene just ends up, “I pushed you in the desert because I’m going to turn you to the dark side.” No shit.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:

The scene feels hollow, but it is convincing as a real scene from THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (2019) if it had been that way in the theater for sure.

Ascendant removes the line from an earlier scene where Kylo says he will turn Rey to the dark side when he finds her. It felt unnecessary and would make sense that’s something he wouldn’t want to just blatantly state.

However, incorporating it here could give this scene… a little bit more of a reason for being. Hardly a dramatic revelation, but it’d be something.

Also, in this version of the scene, there’s no hint that something dramatic is coming in the next scene, though we do still know that he’s on his way and they gotta go, so I guess that still works.

The scene just ends up, “I pushed you in the desert because I’m going to turn you to the dark side.” No shit.

I actually tried it that way around, and it felt even less natural. I feel like “I don’t want to have to kill you” at least shows Ren leaning a little light side. It’s something.

The problem is, in a Rey Nobody context the scene is pointless, it’s just another fight. So I am kind of okay with it just being another fight. I really like what RL is trying to do with it though.

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No, totally. It’s going to end up being pointless in a Rey Nobody cut. And I think you handle it about as well as can be. It at least feels like it could have been that way. It’s just that if it were, we’d be highlighting its pointlessness. lol

My stance on revising fan edits.

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 (Edited)

I kind of would like to see a hybrid between my version and Spence’s. Like the structure/pacing of Spence’s version, but with some of the dialogue choices from my version.

It would be optional, but it would be nice if there was just enough for a hint of a motivation for why Rey would even want to join the dark side.

Optional change: “I pushed you in the desert because I needed you to see it. The power of the dark side.”

Optional change: “You need power to protect them” or “You need it to keep them safe” put that line around where I have it.

Because as I have it now, the additional visions of her friends feel superfluous, and it makes what happens in the future sort of confusing. Do her friends die? Or does Rey kill Palpatine and save her friends? Are there two different visions? So just a line or two about needing power to protect her friends might be enough to establish that idea, especially if you change the earlier scene so Rey doesn’t use lightning and “kill” Chewie.

To set up that Kylo has something dramatic to reveal to Rey, I think you could just put back Kylo’s line “You don’t know the whole story” and then when it cuts to that close up of Kylo, he could say, “But I do” or “But I’ve seen it” or “But I know”

Anyway, those last two changes would be enough to set that idea up in Spence’s version of the scene.

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I will tinker! Though I’m resistant to removing the Chewie/lightning bit.

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Of course! Beyond your scope. Just meant for a Rey Nobody edit in general.

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SpenceEdit said:

RogueLeader said:
Personally, I think I prefer Spence’s approach. I sat down and watched the first 30 minutes of ESB:R tonight, and I couldn’t help but compare the filmmaking language between that and TROS. I definitely am a proponent of the use of some visions when it comes to ST ideas, but I do think the less flashbacks/visions are used as a storytelling crutch, the better it would be for the movie.

Here is the most recent version of where I ended up with that scene, for context.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I4gQtIMFhUsZL7WxBO7_7xDSVvAZGP9L/view?usp=sharing

I think mercilessly chopping it down like this might actually be the best approach. The only thing I’d like to see changed is the line “who you are” replaced with “your power”. Maybe it’s my familiarity with the original movie but “Who you are” still implies some kind of identity reveal to me.

I’m resistant to the idea of removing the lightning personally.

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NeverarGreat said:

What if we had our cake and ate it too?

Show some lightning but not the full blast, allowing the ship to escape. A few thin tendrils escaping her fingers would highlight that the power is coming from a dark place while not being so destructive that it would frighten her out of using it.

I just think it’s a pretty effective scene as is (or at least it would be if it wasn’t undercut moments later). It jolts the viewer awake, or at least it did for me in the theater. Personally I have no problem with the idea that Rey has latent darkness within her that’s she’s actively trying to struggle against, yet she can’t help but be pulled down that path. I don’t necessarily see the benefits of having it be something that she’s choosing to tap into.

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I agree that it’s an effective scene in isolation, but as you say it’s more effective for what it promises than for what it delivers. I guess it comes down to whether a shocking moment should remain for its own sake or whether it should serve a more organic whole.

Btw, I didn’t mean to imply that the lightning is intentional on Rey’s part. I would imagine in either case that it comes unbidden to the surface, so I see no conflict with your intent. Rey still has latent darkness that she struggles against and yet is drawn to, it would just be more seductive due to not (apparently) killing her friend.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)