The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 695

Technically she did lose the Resistance in TLJ (or at least 99% of it). But I see your point regardless, and that is worded better. I think that tying in Padme’s path with that of unconditional love is proper in the sentence structure, seeing as how even in her final moments she claims there’s still good in Anakin despite him killing all the Jedi. Leia then does a similar thing with Ben due to our other suggested change: “Ben, come home”

As the old adage goes, “It’s like poetry. It rhymes.”

I does not track for me with Leia’s character that she would be afraid of her inner darkness so much that she would quit being a Jedi. If anything that would be sort of a reason to keep being one and working on that. Idk. It’s a good clean up but I don’t personally mind the original idea of Leia sensing the death of her son at the end of her Jedi path (which explains why her body only disappears after Ben dies).

That’s not exactly what it says, though. She’s just afraid that following the same path as her father will lead her into too many situations where she may give in to hatred like him. And we actually SEE her being aggressive in the flashback to get the upper hand. Thus why Luke appears shocked and Leia appears sad.

The goal is to make Rey and Leia’s Jedi paths the same without directly stating it. Both of them instinctively use their aggressive feelings to gain the upper hand in a fight. Leia decides to follow her mother’s path so that she doesn’t have this temptation on a regular basis.

But, ultimately, the point would be EXACTLY what you stated. Leia should have continued to work on overcoming her nature. It sounds corny, but she just had to actively choose love in the moment like she ends up doing throughout her life. This is why she is so insistent on training Rey despite her heritage. They have the same journey, and Leia is trying to remedy where she went wrong herself. But also where she went wrong with Ben, sending him away instead of training him herself.

I agree. We don’t often think about the amount of loss and hurt Leia endured. I mean, even just the long-term trauma of Alderaan.

One thing we could potentially do is simply replace “We’ll always be with you” and/or “But this is your fight” with some wording that could help clarify the intent of the original syntax.

“She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia feared giving in to hatred like our father, choosing instead to follow our mother’s path. Throughout her life, Leia lost everything. And everyone. But in the end, she still chose love. A thousand generations live in you now. Let her legacy guide you as you face the darkness.”

EDIT: A slight adjustment could nonetheless remedy the disconnect between the two ideas - “choosing instead to serve the galaxy with our mother’s compassion.”

If you understand that her mother’s path is to love and serve others despite everything, then the two sentences don’t have that “non-sequitur” quality. Padme fought for the Republic and Anakin despite losing both to the dark side. I know DZ said that Leia didn’t technically lose everybody, but I think that’s arguing semantics, especially because I hadn’t even considered how she lost her entire adopted family and home world. I was only considering what she lost in the sequels themselves. She lost her son to the dark side. She lost her brother first to the unknown for like 10 years, and then death. She lost her husband to that same son. She lost the New Republic she helped build. She lost nearly all of the Resistance she helped build. At some point you just have to accept the fact that Luke really isn’t exaggerating all that much when he says these things.

What Rey has to deal with in terms of loss is a cakewalk in comparison. Palpatine denied her a pair of loving parents. That’s about it. Thus why Luke telling her this story is meant to wake her up to the fact that she can overcome her hatred with love quite easily as a Jedi. All of this is wrapped up nicely in a conversation already in the film:

“All you want is for me to hate. But I won’t. Not even you.”

“Weak. Like your parents.”

“My parents were strong. They saved me from you.”

Her parents stood for the same type of love that Leia did. They all laid down their lives so that their children could live a better life.

I like a few things there, and there are some other things I’d keep the way they are.

“But Leia feared the hatred that turned our father” - I don’t think it was hatred that turned Anakin, hatred only came about once he had already turned. We can still use this wording, but it would have to use “anger” instead of “hatred”. Think back to Yoda in TPM - “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

I’m always going to disagree with wording Padme’s part as an afterthought, it needs to follow similar syntax to the mention of their father. You have to ask yourself: “Does this sentence make sense still if we exclude this reference?” If it does, then it’s fan-service, and not actually integral to the plot.

“Throughout her life” is necessary instead of what you have so that we can include Alderaan’s destruction and not just what she looses after declining the Jedi path. I prefer “still” over “always” only because it’s meant to emphasize that she was able to hold onto her ideals despite her circumstances.

I’d nix the “Rey” part, but the rest of that sentence is worded well. So, putting everything together:

“She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia feared the anger that turned our father, deciding to lead the galaxy with our mother’s compassion. Throughout her life, Leia lost everything, and everyone, but she still chose love. A thousand generations live in you now. Let Leia’s legacy be your guide through the darkness.”

I think it’s important to state anger/hatred instead of a vague sort of darkness. Because that is the natural reaction to losing everything in your life you’ve worked so hard for. It takes somebody incredibly special (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) to train the descendant of the man who has taken everything in your life away from you. And beyond that, to actually love her as a daughter and want her to succeed.

A shorter version is indeed required, but yours is missing the link between the two phrases, which is Padme’s loving path and Leia also choosing love despite her circumstances. In other words, we have the “non-sequitur” stuff going on again. But I see what you’re getting at. We need some way to make it clear that she chooses to become a politician and then general instead of a Jedi. Which is why I specifically stated “lead the galaxy” because Jedi aren’t supposed to necessarily be leaders, they’re protectors. Maybe I just need to go back to “choosing instead to lead the galaxy…”?

I also think we still need “through the darkness” because we need to justify why the next thing Rey would say would be concerning getting to Exegol. By removing that part like you’ve done, we generalize things too much and make her response kinda come out of nowhere.

EDIT: This is where I’m at atm - “She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia feared the hatred that consumed our father, choosing diplomacy and love like our mother. Throughout her life, Leia lost everything, and everyone, but, in the end, she still chose love. A thousand generations live in you now. Leia’s legacy will guide you through the darkness.”

https://youtu.be/76rQthHMekw?si=mseJoCDwndC7kGjc

This video is not mine, I found it on YouTube and it’s a trailer only. This was made by a fan called LioZ where you see Anakin Skywalker’s Force Ghost facing off against Emperor Palpatine with appearances from other Jedi Force Ghosts like Obi-Wan Kenobi and more. This is its revisioned version, its cut is called “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (LioZ’s Cut)” which will be released this year.

I think I’ve figured it out. We need to make Leia the antithesis of her father. Bound by attachments, but strong enough to not let them bring her to darkness.

“She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia was defined by her attachments, choosing to lead the galaxy through diplomacy, as our mother once did. Throughout her life, Leia lost everything, and everyone, but, in the end, she still chose love. A thousand generations live in you now. Leia’s legacy will guide you on Exegol.”

I’ve come to accept the fact that Padme has to be a fan-service reference, because it’s almost impossible to weave her into the sentence in any other way. That being said, I suppose it isn’t entirely fan-service, as it clarifies the type of diplomacy she favors (political). As for the connective tissue between the two phrases, it’s now a juxtaposition. Stating that Leia is defined by her attachments, and then subsequently stating that she lost all of them, yet she still chose to love, is powerful stuff. It brings the saga full-circle, where Anakin’s daughter is able to succeed in overcoming loss, and his grandson is able to save the one he loves from certain death in the first place.

Yes, the DOTF dialogue is as follows:

Luke: “This is why the Jedi live in isolation. The pain of loss only leads to the dark side.”
Leia: “I’ve lost everything, and everyone. But I’d still choose to love.”

As for the whole Leia knowing thing, we can certainly keep giving that more thought. I believe the last line we left off with was:

“Because you’re a Palpatine. Leia sensed his power in you.”

But, yeah, this doesn’t effectively convey that it was something that happened between episodes 8 and 9. Off the top of my head, the next best thing would be “Leia sensed his power as she trained you.”

I think the attachment statement works best being a part of the sentence concerning Leia choosing diplomacy. Diplomacy is all about getting to know everyone around you on a deeper level. Also, after “But” you should ideally be giving a reason for why Leia isn’t suitable for being a Jedi, rather than simply admitting it was personal preference (which feels more like a cop-out). Who knows, perhaps Luke was partially in favor of Leia stopping the Jedi path because of being with Han and having a son? As we see in Book of Boba, he wants Grogu to completely forgo Mando and his past. But I think we can all agree this isn’t the right way to do things as a Jedi at the end of the day. This edit would give the example of Leia to prove that.

So the lesson in the sequels is finally what it should have been all along: defining yourself by your attachments (Rey Skywalker) is a really good thing, even as a Jedi, but you have to have the strength to let go when the time comes. And to not fall into hatred or anger when they are taken from you (Anakin and the Tuskens). It was actually George’s intention to convey this lesson through Star Wars, I believe. Hopefully Rey’s new Jedi Order differs from Luke’s in this way for her upcoming film. It kinda sucks that in the EU this was precisely the lesson Luke incorporates into his own new Jedi Order, but this is the path Lucasfilm has chosen, so it’s best to just embrace it at this point.

I didn’t know you still had access to that Zorri line. Yeah, I tried it myself but wasn’t fully satisfied with it due to the voice modulation being gone.

I can try to regenerate all of the Kylo stuff again at some point for further tests, along with the dagger thingy. Something like “That dagger showed me what happened to them.”

You bring up a solid point about the Leia flashback. I think a part of the reason I had originally brought hatred/anger into all of it was to account for that look she gives him. Positive connotations like Leia having close attachments with a lot of people doesn’t necessarily match her expression. And I do agree that if we were to solely do AI voices over the flashback that it would blend in nicely. Granted, the tail end of Luke delivering the monologue is over a shot of Rey looking at Leia’s lightsaber, so it would still have an AI voice in “the room”. So perhaps it isn’t something worth worrying about until we know for sure how this would sound.

I’m wary of reverting to prophecy to handwave away the reason why Leia feels it necessary to give up being a Jedi. That would mean both Luke and Leia gave up on important stuff because of worrying about the future. I guess that matches with their father screwing up because of worrying about the future, but it still kinda sucks for the Skywalker fam. I think it’s more simple to point out that Leia is in clear violation of a core Jedi tenant being practically married and having a child. As for why they even started training? Perhaps she didn’t realize she was pregnant until they were already a long ways into it.

The problem is that none of those sentences feel immediately intuitive with each other. It feels like a bunch of random thoughts stitched together haphazardly, unless you understand Padme also lost everything and still chose love despite it all. But that might not come to a casual viewer immediately, much less Rey.

It also doesn’t account for Leia’s look of grief/sadness.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

So the lesson in the sequels is finally what it should have been all along: defining yourself by your attachments (Rey Skywalker) is a really good thing, even as a Jedi, but you have to have the strength to let go when the time comes. And to not fall into hatred or anger when they are taken from you (Anakin and the Tuskens). It was actually George’s intention to convey this lesson through Star Wars, I believe. Hopefully Rey’s new Jedi Order differs from Luke’s in this way for her upcoming film. It kinda sucks that in the EU this was precisely the lesson Luke incorporates into his own new Jedi Order, but this is the path Lucasfilm has chosen, so it’s best to just embrace it at this point.

If you want to seed this idea earlier, you can include part of Anakin & Palpatine’s opera scene during Rey’s vision in TFA after she touches Anakin’s lightsaber:

“The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inward, only about themselves.”

“And the Jedi don’t?”

It both sets up the final lesson & sets up Rey’s tendency to go straight to the dark, especially if you’re using Starlight as a baseline.

I’ll have to check out this fan edit. There’s a “review” of it (or at least a version of this fan edit, apparently there’s a few variations) on the new episode of the School of Movies podcast.

I’ve listened to a bit of their podcast so far and it’s given me an idea for v5. How do we feel about reinstating the Hux/Pryde/Chewie exchange as a sort of Force-vision that Rey experiences as she stares up at the Kijimi sky? So we are actually seeing what she is seeing just like the rest of her visions in the movie?

I also think this brief drum beat from TPM would go hard at the part where Kylo is slowly approaching Rey on the Death Star wreckage after that huge wave came. There is currently just silence there before the music kicks back in.