The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 678

I have always bumped into something that I want to bring up. The original crawl states that Kylo “rages in search of the phantom emperor, determined to destroy any threat to his power”. The film supports this by showing that when he arrives to Exegol the first thing he does is turn on his lightsaber before getting down the temple and also the first thing he says in retort to a seemingly benign statement by Palpatine is “I killed Snoke, I’ll kill you”. The movie makes it very clear that he’s going to Exegol to kill.

However, Ascendant’s crawl says that what he seeks on Exegol is a “hidden power that would allow him to destroy any threat to his rule”. This is not reflected in the behavior that he shows in the film. If his mission is really to get this power it would make little sense why he would be so confrontational and gung-ho on killing whatever is on Exegol. Sure, he has always been an erratic character but you would imagine he would be in a more exploratory attitude if he still presumably does not know how to retrieve the power he seeks. I think it runs the risk of muddling the character motivations. Is he there to retrieve a power or is he there to kill it?

Yes, you’re right. That part I wasn’t clear enough about. So are we to assume that Kylo Ren knows before getting to Exegol that he knows Palpatine is guarding the Final Order fleet?

Hal 9000 said:

Hmm, it’s an interesting idea, but might be clumsy. We would’ve griped about this if the movie did this.

Which idea? The quick word replacement of “people” with “stormtroopers” in Finn’s sentence or the more in-your-face ideas?

Also, about Kylo Ren and the whole hidden power thing. I believe he knows about the fleet but is aware that he needs to kill whoever is in charge in order to steal it for himself.

losthead said:

Now, this may seem presumptuous, but I feel like that’s one of the easier things possible. Once he decides to stay with Jannah on the Destroyer, we get a montage of hologram message playing on FO Destroyers, using AI voice lines and his model from Battlefront with a hologram filter over it.

I didn’t say it would be good, but a mockup should be possible. I’m tempted.

Then it sounds like this would be our only option for the idea.

There is a deleted scene of Kylo Ren on a Star Destroyer bridge. He could be VFX’d out and replaced with the hologram.

I think changing it to “stormtroopers are rising up” would be clumsy and out of place, it would take away from the whole point of the movie’s ending about how everyone needs to come together to defeat evil, not just some stormtroopers. I actually think the new Finn/Jannah lines work really well with the ending, Finn talks about how the Force brought them together to help the Resistance, and that’s exactly what happens in the end, everyone comes together to help in the fight, which brings an end to both the emerging threat on Exegol and the First Order’s reign over the galaxy.

Finn’s line and the subsequent montage do fill like a quick way to hand-wave away the First Order conflict from the previous movies, but bringing up some random stormtrooper rebellion that we never see would just add to how rushed it all is.

Burbin said:

I think changing it to “stormtroopers are rising up” would be clumsy and out of place, it would take away from the whole point of the movie’s ending about how everyone needs to come together to defeat evil, not just some stormtroopers. I actually think the new Finn/Jannah lines work really well with the ending, Finn talks about how the Force brought them together to help the Resistance, and that’s exactly what happens in the end, everyone comes together to help in the fight, which brings an end to both the emerging threat on Exegol and the First Order’s reign over the galaxy.

Finn’s line and the subsequent montage do fill like a quick way to hand-wave away the First Order conflict from the previous movies, but bringing up some random stormtrooper rebellion that we never see would just add to how rushed it all is.

Yes, it’d feel like it came out of nowhere.

Now if someone could figure out a way to build up the storyline throughout the film, and have Finn send out a message to the stormtroopers during the battle, that’d be interesting. It would be ReaL interesting if someone here were working on an idea like that.

DominicCobb said:

It would be ReaL interesting if someone here were working on an idea like that.

I have been summoned.

Since it has been brought up, I have been playing around with the idea of adding a little more to Finn’s arc. Really, it is the only way I could imagine one could do the “stormtrooper rebellion” idea, and then it might feel rushed, like Burbin said. Also, not all of these ideas would have to be used, but these are all of the places I felt the idea could be implement to make it feel set up as much as possible.

To clarify, I’m not saying this has to be for Ascendant! This is just what I have been cooking up on my own, but I thought I could share in case any of it could be useful for Ascendant.

Crawl

In the crawl, it could mention that Leia has had her bravest heroes send out messages of hope throughout the galaxy. This includes Finn and Poe. This is to help set up the stormtrooper subplot and the people’s fleet coming to the rescue at the end.

First Finn and Poe Scene

In Finn and Poe’s first scene, when they are attacked by TIE fighters, when we cut to the TIE interior, we could hear that the Falcon is broadcasting one of Finn’s messages on open channels. The TIE pilot says as much and tells the other pilots to turn it off. It is basically Resistance propoganda, Finn sharing testimonial in order to de-radicalize other stormtroopers. Also cut Finn cheering when he destroys TIEs.

Resistance Base

When Rey is reading the Jedi text, we hear one of Poe’s broadcasts on the radio that is on the table in front of her. “The First Order wins by making us think we’re alone. But there are more of us.”

First Order Briefing
During the First Order briefing scene, change Pryde’s dialogue and the off screen officers dialogue from this:
Pryde: Such range and power will correct the error of Starkiller Base.
Off screen officer: We need to increase recruitments. Harvest more of the galaxy’s young.

To this:
Pryde: Such range and power will correct the error of the Battle of Crait.
Off screen officer: And the stormtrooper program. There have been more defections.

This would be a simple change that could set up other stormtrooper defections besides Jannah’s group.

Pasaana

On Pasaana, when the stormtrooper catches them, we cut most of the trooper dialogue and hear Finn off screen say, “Wait! You don’t have to do this!”. Also cut Finn cheering when he kills/nearly kills stormtroopers during the speeder chase.

Kijimi

This is more related to Poe, but when he speaks with Zorii, make it clear that Zorii is simply repeating Poe’s own words to him.
Poe: How long’s it been like this?
Zorii: Ever since Skywalker. People have been fighting, and dying.
…
Poe: I can’t walk out on this war. Not until it’s over… Maybe it is…
Zorii: You don’t believe that. Hey. “They win by making you think you’re alone.” I’ve heard your broadcasts. “There’s more of us.”

Star Destroyer Rescue

I think it’d be helpful to this idea if Finn and Poe were stunning all of the trooper on the Destroyer instead of straight up killing them. Maybe you just recolor their blaster shots a light blue, add some kind of stun mask to troopers when they get hit, and an altered stun blast sound, to imply their shots are stun shots, but slightly stronger so they can penetrate armor and keep them down longer.

Endor
We could keep the Jannah scene as we currently have it. If you wanted a more conservative approach, you could leave out most of the previous ideas (maybe besides the officer mentioning defections), and maybe Finn doesn’t realize the power his story wields until he meets Jannah, which then encourages him to do what he does on Exegol.

Resistance Meeting

When Poe and Finn are laying out the mission plan, we create a new insert shot of R2 recording the speech their giving. Then, during the prep montage, we reuse the shots of R2 transferring the Palpatine message earlier in the film to make it look like he is transferring Finn and Poe’s message from his memory to the Falcon (for Lando and Chewie to broadcast to the galaxy).

Battle of Exegol
When Finn stops and notices they are resetting their systems and decides he has to do “something”, instead of hacking one of the turrets and shooting the command deck, him and Jannah hack into the navigation signal and use it to send a message to the stormtroopers.

Rose: Finn, where are you? The lander’s leaving. (OS) Finn!
Finn: Go without us. (Cut) We’re taking this entire ship down.
Finn (OS Add): We’re gonna reach out to the stormtroopers.
Rose: What? How?
Finn (OS Cut): We’re gonna hit the command deck.
Finn (OS Add): We’re gonna slice into their nav signal.

Cut the shots of them on the rotating turret.
Add the insert of Jannah plugging the cables together here. And add her saying off screen “You’re in!”

Then, we get a brief montage from inside the Star Destroyer. In this montage, we’d hear Finn’s voice playing over the intercoms.
Some of the shots we could see:
An insert of a computer screen that illustrates their system being “hacked” and now displaying audio waveforms.
A modified shot from earlier in the film where the two stormtroopers look at each other. Mask them out and put them in a different room/hallway. As we hear Finn’s voice, maybe we hear one of the troopers say, “The Finn?”
First Order officers scrambling at their own monitors trying to stop what’s happening.
Empty hallway shots taken from the Vehicle Flythroughs video for the Finalizer as we hear Finn’s voice echo down the halls.
From TFA, a modified shot of two troopers walking around the corner off camera.

A possible version of Finn’s speech:
Stormtroopers! This is FN-2187, now Finn. The First Order only sees us as numbers. But we’re more than that. We had names, families, stories! Now’s the time. To remember! Break free! Resist!

Then, at the end of the battle, you would cut the turret firing on the command deck and Finn and Jannah’s reaction. Instead, we would take shots from TFA from when they blow a hole in the oscillator. I actually have a rough cut of this part already, but basically I’ve cut it to appear that stormtroopers are shooting at each other. We could add new trooper dialogue here to help get the idea across of what is happening. One of the defiant troopers gets shot, but his shot hits a reactor that sets off a chain reaction, causing the entire room to explode. As we follow the explosion traveling upward, we cut to outside the Star Destroyer, where now we see the whole ship exploding, leading to the command deck blowing up. I’ve also timed it to where it doesn’t interfere with the current flow of the scene or score. So it is brief, but lasts just long enough to get an idea of what is happening.
One or two of the shots would need to be adjusted to make it feel more like a generic facility interior and hide the oscillator chasm. But cropping, flipping and color grading can help make these shots feel distinct from their TFA counterparts.

Then, as everyone is flying away, we hear Finn say to Poe. “Stormtroopers are defecting. People are rising up all over the galaxy.”

Those all sound amazing, I would love to see them realized even if they don’t make it to this edit. I’d definitely use it for my own cut.

RL, you really impress with your ability to find places to sneak these things in!

I like everything you’ve got there, RL.

But I’d argue against modifying the crawl or making regular broadcasts of Finn and Poe. It’s quite clear toward the beginning that Poe really does have his doubts about whether everybody out there is ever willing to come together. Thus why it’s more impactful when he talks about there being “more of us” later on. Doing this would rob us of any really character development for him.

Yeah, I think I agree with that. And kind of like what I mentioned with Finn, I like the idea that maybe he was unaware of the impact he’s had on other stormtroopers, but once he knows he changes his approach.

True. Maybe meeting Jannah and co. was his awakening to “Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t be celebrating the deaths of my former comrades.”

But arguably, any sane person should have been questioning that much sooner. But we’re working with a very limited amount of resources here.

Those are some really cool ideas RL, I would’ve loved to see something like this on the actual film, however I don’t think this would actually work with the material we have available. If things played out the way you put it, then Finn’s plan on Exegol would just lead to the stormtroopers all killing each other instead of Finn actually saving or “leading” anyone, Lando swoops in and saves Finn & Jannah while a ship full of poor unbrainwashed troopers falls into a fiery death.

And then I assume this message also goes out to the other Final Order ships (since it reaches all the First Order ships across the galaxy), which means the whole civilian fleet would also be shooting down ships full of these newly unbrainwashed troopers, killing them all without a second thought.

Burbin said:

And then I assume this message also goes out to the other Final Order ships (since it reaches all the First Order ships across the galaxy), which means the whole civilian fleet would also be shooting down ships full of these newly unbrainwashed troopers, killing them all without a second thought.

Nah, Sith troopers are a different breed entirely. They’ve basically been raised in a religious cult and have only seen the grey skies of Exegol. Whereas FO stormtroopers have seen countless worlds and scenarios that could help them shake off their conditioning.

Well in the movie we have no indication the red troopers are different than regular troops. At one point I thought it would be interesting if you implied they were clones bred on Exegol.

And I had considered that as well. My initial notes had Finn basically telling the troops to abandon ship instead of “fighting back”, and then Finn says that “Stormtroopers are surrending”, implying that troopers were taking escape pods and being picked up by the Resistance. So, at the very least, Finn’s trying to save stormtroopers rather than kill them. So something like that could work, but you don’t get any of that imagery of the troopers rising up.

Regardless, I do think the change to the Finn and Jannah scene does a lot for Finn’s story already, even if we did nothing else.

Yeah the issue is we don’t have any real footage to work with, and if things are only going to be implied then they shouldn’t really be pushed to the forefront. I think Jannah’s line “you started something” already implies there could be other defectors besides her group, it could even be a factor in the FO’s struggle to maintain control, but I don’t think this should be pushed as a major plot point in the movie since we can’t give it the proper payoff it would need.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Burbin said:

And then I assume this message also goes out to the other Final Order ships (since it reaches all the First Order ships across the galaxy), which means the whole civilian fleet would also be shooting down ships full of these newly unbrainwashed troopers, killing them all without a second thought.

Nah, Sith troopers are a different breed entirely. They’ve basically been raised in a religious cult and have only seen the grey skies of Exegol. Whereas FO stormtroopers have seen countless worlds and scenarios that could help them shake off their conditioning.

The movie doesn’t actually explain anything about the random red troopers so this doesn’t really help, also in the First Order briefing where the lady says “we need to increase recruitments”, they’re all talking about the new fleet so I assume she means they need more troops to command this new fleet.

Love all those idea, RL! And I might have an idea that could help you with some of the Battle of Exegol stuff. I’ll PM it to you.