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The Final Order - A no Leia/Rey Nobody TROS edit by Spence (Completed)

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 (Edited)

Hi All!

I’ve been kicking around some ideas for this movie basically since it came out. As some of you know, I did do a light revision to HAL9000’s stellar edit of this movie that more fit my tastes and pacing. I don’t advertise it as so much of the work is originally HAL’s, but I think I’m going to take another, very different crack at it.

I’m also breaking my rule of not editing movies I really dislike, because I really dislike this movie. However, there’s possibly enough elements in there to make it work, and I can’t get it out of my head.

It’s easy to say that bringing back Palpatine is a mistake, but I’ve softened on that a bit. I’m actually a little more Ok with Palpatine as the big bad of the entire series. That’s not actually the problem.

The big problem, to me, is a lack of focus. The movie is all over the place, trying to cram in too many plots, subplots, and character arcs. Nothing is given enough time to breathe, so nothing ever feels satisfying. I can tell you what TFA and especially TLJ are about. I have no idea what Rise of Skywalker is about. I have no idea what it has to say.

So, how do we fix this? My core ideas:

  • Leia needs to not be involved in the plot. Her sloppily worked in deleted scenes from TFA don’t fit, have no purpose, and completely take over the story of Rey and Kylo. I love Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia, but they should’ve just let her rest.

  • Rey cannot be a Palpatine. TFA and TLJ set up a completely different arc for her. In those movies, it’s about her being a nobody with tremendous power that doesn’t belong in this story. She’s figuring out what her place is. In TROS, the plot is almost completely based around her lineage. I know a lot of people don’t like that she’s just nobody, but the solution is not to eliminate two movies worth of character and plot development to change it to something completely different.

  • Rey cannot, at every turn, be assisted by other Star Wars characters. She defeats Kylo because Leia intervened. She defeats Palpatine because the spirits of the past Jedi intervened. She’s the hero. She needs to do it herself.

How does that create focus? Well, because the movie is now about Kylo being pulled to the light, and Rey being pulled to the dark. They’re both on the brink of their respective breakthroughs. Kylo feels remorse for killing Han, and he feels the loss of his mother. He definitely feels something for Rey. The light is trying to grab him more than ever, and he’s fighting as hard as he ever has.

Meanwhile, Rey is filled with anger toward Kylo Ren, and it pushes her to lean more and more toward the dark. And now, Palpatine sees her as his heir, as someone who can take the Sith throne. She doesn’t want it, but she’s dangerously close to it.

The duel on top of the wreckage of the old Death Star, and in a way the wreckage of the original trilogy, is the breaking point for both. Originally, Kylo is about to kill Rey but stops when he hears Leia’s call. Then, Rey strikes him down out of hatred and anger, but is instantly distracted by Leia’s death. This muddies the scene exponentially.

So instead of Leia being involved, what if it went something like this?

https://vimeo.com/675580565

It’s a rough proof of concept, but I think you can see what I’m going for. Both characters made their own decision. Both have agency. And the ramifications of those decisions are what lead them to fighting together in the end. Kylo comes to the light, and Rey is able to defeat Palpatine with this power she doesn’t fully understand, the power Palpatine wanted her to use as his heir. Story arcs complete!

At the end, no past Jedi come to help Rey. She’s alone, and she defeats Palpatine on her own.

Here’s a work in progress draft of Leia’s new death scene, moved to near the beginning of the film. Still needs sound work, but it’s a good proof of concept:

https://vimeo.com/678293433

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A lot of this is exactly what I thought would be the theme of the movie - Rey and Ben’s respective journeys in different directions. It’s what I’ve tried to do with my own personal cut - but this looks fantastic. While it’s sad to see Leia go so early it makes the Death Star duel so much better.

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wow, just wow.

this really works well, you’ve done a really good job making this work!

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YES!
That sounds exactly like what this movies needs: a sense.
Can’t wait to see what you’ll put out!

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fidodido said:

YES!
That sounds exactly like what this movies needs: a sense.
Can’t wait to see what you’ll put out!

It’s very early days right now, but RogueLeader has graciously agreed to let me use some of their work from the Rey Nobody thread, which will be a big help!

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Anybody good with opening crawls? I’ve not found a decent way to make them on PC that doesn’t require some special effects knowledge.

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The death star scene looks great, a little more Ben(Kylo) for the Leia death scene is needed, but overall, great there too.

Really like this idea. A LOT.

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I have been playing around with the ending, and I think I found a vibe I like. This is using some stuff from HAL’s edit. There’s not really a need for her to have an interaction with the random old lady in this version.

https://vimeo.com/681559817

I think that static shot of the binary suns needs to have Rey in it, somehow, but I’m not sure how to accomplish that. Perhaps mask her standing up from the shot with the old lady into it? I’m not great with visual effects, but that seems to be the missing ingredient. I’m going to comb through the BTS stuff to see if there’s something usable there.

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 (Edited)

Really looking forward to this project; I’m a huge fan of your ROTJ edit!

I personally think ending on Rey & BB8 in front of the twin suns is the stronger of the two sun visuals, so I would drop the Falcon shot and move the silhouette shot to the end.

JEDIT: Watched it again.

Not sure how to describe it, but I keep feeling a bit of a disconnect between Rey after she sees the Force ghosts and the Falcon shot. It’s like she has three emotional beats in this sequence but we’re only getting closure for two of them:

1: Lighting the saber
2: Seeing the Skywalkers
3: Seeing the binary suns

Yeah we know she’s in the Falcon, but I don’t think we make the same emotional connection to it as we do when we see her silhouette in front of the suns.

Plus it mirrors the original Binary Sun beat closer without the Falcon.

“That’s not how the Force works!”

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GMatias said:

Really looking forward to this project; I’m a huge fan of your ROTJ edit!

I personally think ending on Rey & BB8 in front of the twin suns is the stronger of the two sun visuals, so I would drop the Falcon shot and move the silhouette shot to the end.

JEDIT: Watched it again.

Not sure how to describe it, but I keep feeling a bit of a disconnect between Rey after she sees the Force ghosts and the Falcon shot. It’s like she has three emotional beats in this sequence but we’re only getting closure for two of them:

1: Lighting the saber
2: Seeing the Skywalkers
3: Seeing the binary suns

Yeah we know she’s in the Falcon, but I don’t think we make the same emotional connection to it as we do when we see her silhouette in front of the suns.

Plus it mirrors the original Binary Sun beat closer without the Falcon.

I think you’re right. I love that Falcon shot form HAL’s edit, but it may not be fitting here particularly well.

I just updated it to make that change. It definitely works better. Eliminating the Falcon stuff make it a more powerful ending.

https://vimeo.com/681559817

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I love your ideas. They’re a pretty radical departure but that’s what I love about this place. You see things from other editors that completely reshape your own views of what’s possible. Kudos and let us know what you come up with.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

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SpenceEdit said:

I think you’re right. I love that Falcon shot form HAL’s edit, but it may not be fitting here particularly well.

I just updated it to make that change. It definitely works better. Eliminating the Falcon stuff make it a more powerful ending.

https://vimeo.com/681559817

I like that much better. I’d even think about taking out the duplicate shot at 00:16-00:20 to keep from diluting the final shot impact in even the slightest way. Maybe drag the following shot back to start at 00:16 and either let it run the extra 4 seconds to cover?

“That’s not how the Force works!”

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 (Edited)

Haven’t checked out the clip yet but I think part of the reason for the Falcon shot is because a lot of people came out of the theater thinking that she was going to live on Tatooine. The shot of her standing in front of the suns is also reused from another part of the movie: https://twitter.com/im_organa/status/1211461346040172545?s=20&t=W-zNqxWK_FA03QtKZYYenQ

EDIT:
I think in the context of how you edited it, it does work better without the Falcon shot.

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I like the ending, feels very organic & has a big BttF Part three vibe to it (“Your future isn’t written yet, so make it a good one”).

From a technical standpoint, Rey vs. Palpatine is also well-done, but I’m curious about the context in the film itself. I appreciate wanting Rey to be a stronger character & not needing help from anyone, but against Palpatine, I worry that that goal would make her triumph feel unearned. If anything, the lack of Jedi just heightens the feeling of “how do we know Palpatine won’t just come back a third time” that was present in the theatrical cut.

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Darth Raditz said:

I like the ending, feels very organic & has a big BttF Part three vibe to it (“Your future isn’t written yet, so make it a good one”).

From a technical standpoint, Rey vs. Palpatine is also well-done, but I’m curious about the context in the film itself. I appreciate wanting Rey to be a stronger character & not needing help from anyone, but against Palpatine, I worry that that goal would make her triumph feel unearned. If anything, the lack of Jedi just heightens the feeling of “how do we know Palpatine won’t just come back a third time” that was present in the theatrical cut.

I don’t know that the plot point about Palpatine really can be resolved, as it’s so half baked and the material isn’t there to fix it.

In this version, Rey doesn’t do all the “be with me” stuff. It’s about the power she has an how she will use it. She isn’t encouraged by the Jedi past, she’s encouraged to stand up because of the people she cares about.

By losing the Palpatine connection, I lose the justification of why she’s so strong in the Force, but I can live with that. I’m more interested in the emotions of it, the decision she makes to use her power to defeat Palps.

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Since you intend to both limit Leia’s role (accordingly, she doesn’t train Rey early in the film) while also eliminating the Palpatine lineage, what’s your plan for the sequence on Ahch-To?

If you just cut out everything about Rey Palpatine here, as well as the part about Leia, there’s not much left of the scene.
In my eyes, however, this is a key sequence of the film: After she has striked Kylo down in her anger, she is so afraid of her feelings that she wants to exile herself. Luke motivates her to accept those feelings, confront them and keep fighting.But if that only lasts a minute, it loses credibility.

I’m curious what your idea is!

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fidodido said:

Since you intend to both limit Leia’s role (accordingly, she doesn’t train Rey early in the film) while also eliminating the Palpatine lineage, what’s your plan for the sequence on Ahch-To?

If you just cut out everything about Rey Palpatine here, as well as the part about Leia, there’s not much left of the scene.
In my eyes, however, this is a key sequence of the film: After she has striked Kylo down in her anger, she is so afraid of her feelings that she wants to exile herself. Luke motivates her to accept those feelings, confront them and keep fighting.But if that only lasts a minute, it loses credibility.

I’m curious what your idea is!

So. This sequence is tricky and I’m still playing with it. But basically there’s no mention of Palpatine. Rey’s fear is now that she will turn to the dark side and take the throne. She sees visions of that, Palpatine sees visions of that, so it’s all set up.

Luke: It was fear that kept me here. What are you most afraid of?

Rey: Myself.

Luke: Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. If you don’t face Palpatine, it will mean the end of the Jedi. And the war will be lost.

Then the scene progresses as normal with the Leia flashback.

It’s worth noting I removed the “weapon of a Jedi deserves more respect!” “I was wrong” and the goofy shoulder shrug when Luke lifts the X-Wing, just so he’s not clowning around as much and we aren’t dragging on The Last Jedi.

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I’ve tried roughly the same thing. But somehow it feels so… unsatisfactory. Does what’s shown that way sufficiently justify Rey’s change of heart?

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I mean I’m not 100% happy with it, but that scene is horrendous in the original version anyway, so I don’t know that there’s all that much to be done with it.

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SpenceEdit said:

This is my attempt at it so far, if you care to take a look. I included the surrounding scenes because the Leia stuff doesn’t happen here now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xyqd6_NTFkYfmhuFUgBT_w64YZTk4UdL/view?usp=sharing

Yeah, that works.
I would have loved it if this scene has had some more weight to it, like being the third lesson Luke was owing Rey from VIII. But there is just not much to work with.

Under those circumstances, your take seems to be the most solid one.

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fidodido said:

SpenceEdit said:

This is my attempt at it so far, if you care to take a look. I included the surrounding scenes because the Leia stuff doesn’t happen here now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xyqd6_NTFkYfmhuFUgBT_w64YZTk4UdL/view?usp=sharing

Yeah, that works.
I would have loved it if this scene has had some more weight to it, like being the third lesson Luke was owing Rey from VIII. But there is just not much to work with.

Under those circumstances, your take seems to be the most solid one.

Definitely agree, given the available material you’ve done a really nice job.

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STF78 said:

fidodido said:

SpenceEdit said:

This is my attempt at it so far, if you care to take a look. I included the surrounding scenes because the Leia stuff doesn’t happen here now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xyqd6_NTFkYfmhuFUgBT_w64YZTk4UdL/view?usp=sharing

Yeah, that works.
I would have loved it if this scene has had some more weight to it, like being the third lesson Luke was owing Rey from VIII. But there is just not much to work with.

Under those circumstances, your take seems to be the most solid one.

Definitely agree, given the available material you’ve done a really nice job.

It’s one of the few parts of it that I’m not happy with how it’s turning out, but there just isn’t really the material to improve it. I really only cut like 3 lines of dialogue, there just isn’t much there to work with to begin with.

The other struggle with this edit is the pacing. By cutting Leia out of the movie, there’s not much to cut away to during the Pasaana/Kajimi stuff. So we essentially stay with the main trio almost in real time until after the fight on the death star.

It’s not necessarily a negative, but it does make for a breathless pace. Considering how fast paced the original is, it almost works better this way because it’s at least focused. We aren’t jumping around as much.