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The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 483

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sherlockpotter said:

But again, in regards to saving her friends, none of this has any relevance to the themes of the film. This is when those themes are supposed to come to their conclusion; but instead of talking about Rey’s anger, or her heritage, or anything like that, J.J. and Chris are just like, “Meh, you better kill him Rey, or else all of your friends are gonna die,” as they flap their hands about. How has the film built towards this at all? What is the film trying to say by forcing this (external) conflict on Rey? How is this final dilemma (of the entire Star Wars saga) in any way satisfying?

How is it satisfying?

It’s not.

The writers wrote themselves into a very simple conflict with Palpy returning: Have Rey kill him or have her not. Based on the themes and her actions over the prior two films, there’s absolutely no drama with killing Palpy since she actively tried to kill Snoke and he called her a True Jedi for doing so, with absolutely no subtext as to any darkness associated with this action. The only drama would then come from her not killing Palpy, but there’s no reason for her to choose this so the final film had to manufacture a reason for her to not kill the most evil guy in the galaxy by making him her caring grandfather. This might almost work since it plays into the thematic line of her constantly wanting a place in the story, but the writers then decided that Rey should actually want to kill Palpy in anger due to the spirit transfer plot device, and so wrote Palpatine back into being Mr Evil by ordering the hit on her parents.

Now Rey’s back to the uninteresting place of wanting to kill Mr Evil, with practically no continuation of the theme of Rey’s belonging. The spirit transfer plot device and resulting revenge subplot effectively kills the theme of the films. Bringing Rey’s friends into this contrived mess of a conclusion merely serves as a distraction.

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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sherlockpotter said:

And even if the film was about “letting others have some control,” do we really want that other person to be Emperor “Darth Sidious” Sheev Palpatine, the conglomeration of all Sith past and present, and Lord of all Evil?? Just as long as he doesn’t invade Poland, amiright?

When did I ever say that was the right choice? When she confronts her fear, the right thing to do would be to deny his request, because in the end the galaxy is capable of saving the day without her. Her friends should be the ones in control of themselves.

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Jar Jar Bricks said:

sherlockpotter said:

But she’s never scared of losing her friends. She even abandons them at like three different occasions in the movie without a second thought. I don’t buy it.

Bruh. What? She abandons them precisely because she doesn’t want to put them in danger.

  1. She doesn’t want them to come along on her adventure because “It’s too dangerous”
  2. She doesn’t want Finn following her into the desert when she confronts Kylo for the same reason
  3. Yet again on Endor, does the same thing.

She is afraid of herself because she is worried about hurting her friends.

Crap, I forgot about Endor. That’s another one!

  1. Walking away as they’re entering Ochi’s ship for no reason. (She just had a feeling.)
  2. Leaving the Chewie Rescue Op to get the Dagger (because she had a feeling).
  3. Leaving them on the shore of Endor and taking the skimmer at high-tide (because she was impatient)
  4. Running away to Ahch-To (because, as she explicitly explains to Luke, she was scared of herself taking the Sith Throne, not because she wanted to protect her friends)

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NeverarGreat said:

sherlockpotter said:

But again, in regards to saving her friends, none of this has any relevance to the themes of the film. This is when those themes are supposed to come to their conclusion; but instead of talking about Rey’s anger, or her heritage, or anything like that, J.J. and Chris are just like, “Meh, you better kill him Rey, or else all of your friends are gonna die,” as they flap their hands about. How has the film built towards this at all? What is the film trying to say by forcing this (external) conflict on Rey? How is this final dilemma (of the entire Star Wars saga) in any way satisfying?

How is it satisfying?

It’s not.

The writers wrote themselves into a very simple conflict with Palpy returning: Have Rey kill him or have her not. Based on the themes and her actions over the prior two films, there’s absolutely no drama with killing Palpy since she actively tried to kill Snoke and he called her a True Jedi for doing so, with absolutely no subtext as to any darkness associated with this action. The only drama would then come from her not killing Palpy, but there’s no reason for her to choose this so the final film had to manufacture a reason for her to not kill the most evil guy in the galaxy by making him her caring grandfather. This might almost work since it plays into the thematic line of her constantly wanting a place in the story, but the writers then decided that Rey should actually want to kill Palpy in anger due to the spirit transfer plot device, and so wrote Palpatine back into being Mr Evil by ordering the hit on her parents.

Now Rey’s back to the uninteresting place of wanting to kill Mr Evil, with practically no continuation of the theme of Rey’s belonging. The spirit transfer plot device and resulting revenge subplot effectively kills the theme of the films. Bringing Rey’s friends into this contrived mess of a conclusion merely serves as a distraction.

Lol and yes.

“Because you are a PalpaWalker?”

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sherlockpotter said:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

sherlockpotter said:

But she’s never scared of losing her friends. She even abandons them at like three different occasions in the movie without a second thought. I don’t buy it.

Bruh. What? She abandons them precisely because she doesn’t want to put them in danger.

  1. She doesn’t want them to come along on her adventure because “It’s too dangerous”
  2. She doesn’t want Finn following her into the desert when she confronts Kylo for the same reason
  3. Yet again on Endor, does the same thing.

She is afraid of herself because she is worried about hurting her friends.

Crap, I forgot about Endor. That’s another one!

  1. Walking away as they’re entering Ochi’s ship for no reason. (She just had a feeling.)
  2. Leaving the Chewie Rescue Op to get the Dagger (because she had a feeling).
  3. Leaving them on the shore of Endor and taking the skimmer at high-tide (because she was impatient)
  4. Running away to Ahch-To (because, as she explicitly explains to Luke, she was scared of herself taking the Sith Throne, not because she wanted to protect her friends)

All of these are because she wants to put herself in danger instead of her friends. She also didn’t “just have a feeling” on Pasaana, she sensed Kylo approaching. Impatience on Endor? Nah, she knew Kylo was on the move and it was only a matter of time before he caught up to them. She did it to get the hell out of there before he did to protect them.

Running away to Ahch-To would make even more sense with your proposed change of her blasting Finn with lighting. She is afraid of herself because she could hurt her friends. She could have already killed Chewie previously if it weren’t for luck, and now has just proven that she could easily kill her friends in person.

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NeverarGreat said:

sherlockpotter said:

But again, in regards to saving her friends, none of this has any relevance to the themes of the film. This is when those themes are supposed to come to their conclusion; but instead of talking about Rey’s anger, or her heritage, or anything like that, J.J. and Chris are just like, “Meh, you better kill him Rey, or else all of your friends are gonna die,” as they flap their hands about. How has the film built towards this at all? What is the film trying to say by forcing this (external) conflict on Rey? How is this final dilemma (of the entire Star Wars saga) in any way satisfying?

How is it satisfying?

It’s not.

The writers wrote themselves into a very simple conflict with Palpy returning: Have Rey kill him or have her not. Based on the themes and her actions over the prior two films, there’s absolutely no drama with killing Palpy since she actively tried to kill Snoke and he called her a True Jedi for doing so, with absolutely no subtext as to any darkness associated with this action. The only drama would then come from her not killing Palpy, but there’s no reason for her to choose this so the final film had to manufacture a reason for her to not kill the most evil guy in the galaxy by making him her caring grandfather. This might almost work since it plays into the thematic line of her constantly wanting a place in the story, but the writers then decided that Rey should actually want to kill Palpy in anger due to the spirit transfer plot device, and so wrote Palpatine back into being Mr Evil by ordering the hit on her parents.

Now Rey’s back to the uninteresting place of wanting to kill Mr Evil, with practically no continuation of the theme of Rey’s belonging. The spirit transfer plot device and resulting revenge subplot effectively kills the theme of the films. Bringing Rey’s friends into this contrived mess of a conclusion merely serves as a distraction.

God, my brain hurts lol.

Like, yeah, there shouldn’t be any chance of her joining the Dark Side (and there effectively isn’t, no matter what we do), but with some of our changes here, we’re playing up the idea that Rey is already tapping into the Dark Side more and more during the course of the film. So my point is, I think we should try to carry that theme into the finale, and make Rey’s final choice be whether or not she will give in to her anger and succumb to the allure of the Dark Side. Rather than the scripted, “Have Rey kill Palpatine because it will inexplicably save her friends!”

In other words, make the climax of the film be an internal character struggle with a foundation on previous established themes, rather than an external blackmail…thing.

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sherlockpotter said:

In other words, make the climax of the film be an internal character struggle with a foundation on previous established themes, rather than an external blackmail…thing.

How is the “dark side” a theme? Confronting fear is a theme. “Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi.”

Rey has found her belonging in her friends in the Resistance. She is scared of herself, that she won’t be good enough, and that she will hurt those friends either physically or emotionally. So it makes perfect sense that Palps would use that against her to try and turn her to the dark side. And as I said previously, it is one of the overall themes of the saga itself. Doing stupid stuff to save those closest to you. Obviously the correct thing to do would be to let go of that fear, and not give in to it. In Rey’s case, to deny Palpatine and force him to attack, which would justify her attacking back.

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“Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi.” And her fear, as very clearly stated in the film, is that she will fall to the Dark Side; not that she will fail to save her friends.

Jar Jar, I don’t disagree that “wanting to protect her friends” could have been a good angle to take the film - in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the “Control the Fleet to save your friends” concept was taken from an earlier draft of the script with this in mind - but in the final version, it wasn’t developed at all. It’s like Finn’s “Rey, I never told you” bit…it’s part of a story element that didn’t make it into the final cut.

In my read of the film, I see a constant thread of Rey sort of “standing apart” from her friends. Not in the sense that it’s a deliberate choice on her part to protect them, but rather because she’s growing more distant. More isolated, more insular. The opening features Finn and Poe on their own mission, while Rey is focusing on her own training, which establishes the dynamic. You have the moment on Pasaana, when they start looking around together, and then Rey wanders off to take her Skype call with Kylo. The moment where she veers off course, without telling anyone where she’s going, because she senses Kylo approaching. When she’s standing in the corner of the ship after casting lightning, zoned out, until Finn comes to check on her. When she breaks away from rescuing Chewie to get the Dagger back. When she leaves them on the shore and takes the skimmer, recklessly ignoring Jannah’s warnings. Fleeing to Ahch-To without saying anything else to her friends. The entire finale has Rey in one spot, and Finn and Poe in another. There’s a motif in all of this; it happens in pretty much every scene.

The thing is, none of that is done to protect her friends, as you claim. On Pasaana, why didn’t she tell them, “We have to leave, now! Kylo is coming!” She just…wandered 100 feet away, as if that would hide them from Kylo? On Endor, she had no clue that Kylo would show up; “they didn’t have time to wait” because the film gave them an arbitrary 16 hour deadline until Doomsday. And on Ahch-To, she doesn’t mention her friends even once. She just said “I saw myself on the Sith Throne. I’m scared of my own powers. I’m going to hide here so that I can’t fall prey to the Dark Side.” She goes to Exegol to face Palpatine, not to protect her friends. (If she’s trying to keep them out of harm’s way, why does she provide them directions to get to the battle?) If you want to make an argument that she’s trying to protect her friends, you can; but there’s no evidence in the film that supports that beyond speculation and wild (re)interpretation.

Again, it’s a fine angle for a story, there’s just no buildup to it in this one. There is, however, buildup to her giving in to the Dark Side out of her own intrinsic, personal failings. My original point here was to point out how weird it is that the film spends so much time building up this “inner darkness” angle, only to swap over to a “protect my friends” direction at the eleventh hour. That’s just sloppy writing.

Of course, criticizing TROS for sloppy writing is like criticizing Star Trek for using too much techno-babble…

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sherlockpotter said:

The thing is, none of that is done to protect her friends, as you claim. On Pasaana, why didn’t she tell them, “We have to leave, now! Kylo is coming!” She just…wandered 100 feet away, as if that would hide them from Kylo? On Endor, she had no clue that Kylo would show up; “they didn’t have time to wait” because the film gave them an arbitrary 16 hour deadline until Doomsday. And on Ahch-To, she doesn’t mention her friends even once. She just said “I saw myself on the Sith Throne. I’m scared of my own powers. I’m going to hide here so that I can’t fall prey to the Dark Side.” She goes to Exegol to face Palpatine, not to protect her friends. (If she’s trying to keep them out of harm’s way, why does she provide them directions to get to the battle?) If you want to make an argument that she’s trying to protect her friends, you can; but there’s no evidence in the film that supports that beyond speculation and wild (re)interpretation.

It’s not really wild reinterpretation when the entire (unaltered, I might add) novelization supports the interpretation I’m suggesting. At pretty much every turn in the novelization Rae Carson is suggesting that Rey is distancing herself from her friends to keep them safe. And for myself, that makes the most sense.

She confronted Kylo on Pasaana so her friends can escape, and she knew Kylo was in possession of the dagger so he can track them to Endor. As for Ahch-To, she is afraid of falling prey to the dark side because of what it means about her. I need you to understand the difference. If she turns to the dark side, she imagines that she would be abandoned by her newfound family where she found belonging, and possibly hurt them as well. She is distancing herself from them all because she thinks that’s what they ought to do with her anyways. To quote TestingTheTest, it’s her “toxic, core belief.” Being abandoned (whether intentionally or not) at a young age can kinda mess you up that way.

EDIT: And obviously Rey opened up the way for her friends to Exegol because she can’t take down an entire fleet. That’s just dumb.

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But…this is the film, not the novel. We have to go by what’s expressed in the film. Again, it would have made sense, but it’s not what comes across at all.

If she was facing Kylo on Pasaana so her friends could escape, why didn’t she tell them to leave? In fact, they would have been able to escape if they weren’t waiting around for her to come back, nor would Chewie have been captured when he was sent out to tell her to stop playing around.

She doesn’t go after the Dagger because “Kylo can use it to track us!” (Can Kylo even read Sith? Eh, sure, why not. Who cares?) She goes after it because of “a feeling.”

There’s no evidence to suggest that she’s worried about being abandoned by her friends. She says it’s because of something else entirely, and the film doesn’t explore it at all visually. (And I’ve already commented before why I don’t believe for one second in “Rey’s inherent belief in her own self-worthlessness,” so I won’t get into that here.) It’s like…you know in Avengers 2, when Tony Stark has the vision of all of his friends dying? That’s what this angle would have needed. Instead, Rey has a vision of a chair. A f*cking chair. “Ooh, if she sits there, it will mean she’ll have lost all of her friends!” Seriously?

Again, it doesn’t matter what you (or I) think Rey should be feeling; it doesn’t matter what the novel retcons her into thinking. Look at what the film itself is presenting to you.

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I brought it up to prove that it’s a fair interpretation. I’m not saying your interpretation isn’t fair, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say that about mine. We’re never going to agree on this. That’s fine. Film/storytelling is art, and everybody can interpret their own side of things out of it.

I guess all I’m trying to do here is stop us from proceeding down a radical path in this edit. Hal’s edits usually don’t stray too much from the originals in regard to changes. I’ve gotta be honest, but you lean a lot on the side of removing tons of different portions of the film. I don’t like that because I’m super bad at video editing, so putting excised content back into the movie is pretty hard and never turns out right. Whereas in your case, you’re clearly capable of doing these changes to your own personal edits and such. So I guess it’s hard for me to understand why you so vehemently advocate for these things.

I’m definitely not saying that everything needs to revolve around my needs, but what I am saying is that there is a line that we shouldn’t cross with a basic edit like this, and I feel like this would be crossing that. This change supports your personal interpretation of Rey’s arc, while making it impossible for others to be had.

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Like I’ve been saying, man - Yours would be a perfectly fine direction to take a story; I just don’t see evidence of it in this story. I’m not trying to claim my interpretation as definitive either, but I’ve tried to back it up with supportive evidence. It’s not a personal attack against you or your opinions; it’s just discourse. You can have any interpretation of a story that you want, provided that you can support it with evidence from the text. (In this case, “the text” being the script and the direction, not the novel.)

But really, I suggested removing and/or changing…one line of dialogue? I’d hardly call that “a radical path,” or “removing tons of different portions of the film.” It’s a change that would benefit the direction that we’ve already been taking the movie, so it’s not like I’m trying to rock the boat here with some wacky new angle that I think we should all adopt. I’m arguing for thematic clarity, as themes are important parts of storytelling. And I figure, yeah, I could remove that line; but maybe other people would want it changed too. I didn’t realize that removing this one line was crossing a line, after 100+ other changes have already been made.

Honestly, this just turned into a repeat of the “Leia sent me a transmission” debacle, where I suggested removing one (different) line of dialogue, and it turned into a four page comment battle about people’s headcanons. It’s one line, and it’s just a suggestion. An important suggestion, I think, when discussing themes; but a suggestion nonetheless.

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sherlockpotter said:

I just don’t see evidence of it in this story.

Correct. You don’t, but I do.

But really, I suggested removing and/or changing…one line of dialogue? I’d hardly call that “a radical path,” or “removing tons of different portions of the film.” It’s a change that would benefit the direction that we’ve already been taking the movie, so it’s not like I’m trying to rock the boat here with some wacky new angle that I think we should all adopt. I’m arguing for thematic clarity, as themes are important parts of storytelling. And I figure, yeah, I could remove that line; but maybe other people would want it changed too. I didn’t realize that removing this one line was crossing a line, after 100+ other changes have already been made.

I was referring to what has been suggested by you before. This was simply the culmination of what I’ve previously witnessed.

And to be honest, I still have no idea what theme you’re referring to. The “dark side” isn’t a very clear theme. Whereas dealing with fear has been present throughout the entire saga, and makes sense imo given Rey’s actions.

In the end, this is Hal’s decision. I’ll just have to keep my copy of v1 handy and try to merge the two versions if stuff like this starts getting through. I didn’t want to have to do that (since it will be imperfect), but looks like I might have to.

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For what it’s worth, I as an audience member thought, in both versions, official and Asc v1, that his “kill me and save your friends” was totally irrelevant to anything that concerned Rey in that moment and also I feel like she just wouldn’t do it just because it’s suspicious that he would want her to, even if she doesn’t know about spirit transfer - and it feels that way especially because we do. So I think sherlock’s suggestion is brilliant.

And also for what it’s worth, I disagree with several key changes that Hal has been insistent upon, and I understand his reasoning nonetheless. So while of course it ultimately comes down to him, I have mostly seen great arguments in favour of sherlock’s suggestions, and, after all, it’s just an alternative version to a greatly flawed movie

reylo?

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KumoNin said:

And also for what it’s worth, I disagree with several key changes that Hal has been insistent upon, and I understand his reasoning nonetheless. So while of course it ultimately comes down to him, I have mostly seen great arguments in favour of sherlock’s suggestions, and, after all, it’s just an alternative version to a greatly flawed movie

I think that’s mostly why I disagree with Sherlock a lot. I don’t see this movie as “greatly flawed”, but rather frustratingly close to being just right. Unfortunately for myself it would seem most agree with Sherlock’s mindset as well.

This difference in thinking is definitely causing a bit of an issue here. V1 was very subtle in its changes. It was made with the intention to improve upon what was already there.

But with v2 people want more and more excised from the film from what I’ve seen. I disagree with that, and I’d like to hear how Hal feels about the direction of this project in that regard.

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Ascendant keeps getting more and more interesting with tweaks like the puppet show, further extending Mustafar establishing shots, etc. I did notice in the force ghost scene, version 2 of jonh’s VFX was used. Unfortunately in Obi-Wan’s closeup his head looks very elongated. It just isn’t quite right as it looks like the credits of a 70’s movie on tv where everyone suddenly gets stretched. You have to be a little bit old to know what I’m referencing.

I used the old school shot of Obi-Wan from jonh’s V1, and would highly recommend using that shot or else or seeing if jonh can fix the aspect ratio of the head in his V2.

EDIT:
This is a trailer I made, but see Obi-wan at 1:34
https://videopress.com/v/o8GSNkz2

heil Palpatine!

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I’d say the central theme of the film is fighting alone vs standing together:

Poe thinks the Resistance is alone, that the rest of the galaxy has given up. “They win by making you think you’re alone. Remember? There’s more of us.” It’s no coincidence these words are echoed by Poe while talking about rallying the people: “The First Order wins by making us think we’re alone”, and by Lando once the galaxy does come together: “There are more of us”. This is why the Resistance alone can’t/shouldn’t have the means to defeat or permanently cripple the Final Order. The finale is all about putting their faith in the people, it’s about everyone coming together to fight against evil. The entire galaxy coming together needs to be THE reason they win against the Sith Fleet.

As underused as Finn is, the little we do get is him thinking he was alone in leaving the First Order, only to find there were more defecting stormtroopers, who join him and end up being a major help in the final battle. And Rose is left alone by the movie to hammer this theme home.

Of course this theme is also present in Rey’s struggle, and is one of the few things I think carries over well from the previous films. Rey has always felt alone, all her life she had to fend for herself on Jakku, and her main struggle in TFA and TLJ was her seeking belonging, first with Han, then with Luke, and finally with Kylo (or rather with Ben, as we see in this film). In this movie we see her trying to find belonging in 1- Her friends, and 2- The Jedi, but as we see from the opening, she is not only separated from her friends, but also no one answers as she calls out to the Jedi. She is alone, and even when her friends join, she still feels alone since she feels like they don’t understand her and her troubles: “People keep telling me they know me, I’m afraid no one does”.

I agree with Jar Jar’s read of Rey’s struggle (and I haven’t read the novelisation), Rey pushes her friends away because she’s afraid of herself, not because she doesn’t care about them, quite the opposite. By the time we get to Endor she feels she has failed not only her friends and the Jedi, but even Ben (by striking him down with no hesitation). She’s failed everyone she seeked belonging with, and so she’s now completely alone. Palpatine plays into this by telling her that the belonging she’s been looking for has always been with the Sith, that this is her place as his grandaughter. He goes a step further by suggesting that accepting her place would give her the power to stop the conflict, saving her friends (same thing Kylo refused to do in TLJ). Rey thinks it’s her only choice, until she senses Ben, she realizes she’s not alone and she’s able to “stand thogether” with him, followed by all the Jedi coming to her aid once she reaches out. She embraces Ben, she embraces the Jedi, and she’s finally able to embrace her friends on Ajan Kloss once the struggles are over.

I think this movie is “greatly flawed”, I specially despise it as a sequel to TLJ. However, like I’ve said before, it is what we have to work with, and there is stuff to work with. I agree with Jar Jar that we should focus on improving what we have instead of just removing large chunks out of it otherwise we’ll be left with a whole bunch of nothing.

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Some great discussion going on here.

I think another problem the film runs into is not showing Rey how the dark side is the “quick and easy path”. She should’ve been given more reasons why the dark side would give her the power to save her friends. For example, imagine her regular Jedi skills were failing to help protect her friends on Pasaana. Instead of thinking she killed Chewie with the dark side, imagine she used the dark side to kill some of the Knights of Ren and save her friends. I think it makes more sense if she thinks that she isn’t strong enough to protect her friends, unless she gives into that dark power. But I think the film constantly reminds Rey that the dark side will actually hurt her friends, so you end up with the situation that was described in the end, where Palpatine is just forcing her to join the dark side, and we personally haven’t seen why she would want to. At the very least it would be nice if Rey actually said she fears the dark side because of how powerful it makes her feel.

Or, maybe she has this power, the dark side is “in her nature”, but it is a risk to her friends. And the only way she can learn to control and harness that power is if she joined the Sith. I think the film already leans in this direction, but I don’t think it is ever really stated this way. It would be nice if Palpatine had actually made this a case for her joining the Sith, rather than Palpatine being like, “Bwahaha! Now you have no choice but to let me possess you!”

And that lines up well with Kylo and Palpatine both trying to use her insecurities to have her “join” them. They’re both offering her what she wants, some semblance of control. It would be nice if Rey’s conversations with these two characters could be altered to emphasize this idea. They’re both like, “join me”, but they don’t give her good reasons why, imo.

It would be interesting if you could change some of Palpatine’s lines to make it sound like if Rey kills Palpatine, she will simply take his power. Power she needs to save her friends. (But in reality, Palpatine will just use her as his new host). So, for example, you could give Palpatine new lines like this.

Palpatine: You’re too weak. Only I have the power to save them.

Then later after she agrees, instead of saying “She will take her revenge”, Palpatine could say, “She will take my power”.

I don’t think either of these things are drastic changes. And it lines up well with what Hal said earlier. With Ascendant, Rey sort of knows that some kind of transfer is happening, but she doesn’t know to what extent. These changes might actually help, because it might make it clearer that Palpatine is misleading her to believe that all that is being transferred is his powers to her. But in reality, it’s his entire spirit, which will take away Rey’s free will. Plus, I don’t think this idea invalidates either interpretations presented from Jar Jar and Sherlock.

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I really like those ideas RogueLeader. That she is supposedly too weak to save them and only by doing this will she be strong enough to help out.

It’s like a half truth. She’ll be strong enough to do anything, but she also won’t be in control.

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Thanks Jar Jar! I think it parallels well with Anakin wanting more power to save the one he cares about. I think this “rhyming” will help the audience understand what’s going on, since we’ve seen something similar before. I would like it if it could be clarified that Rey wants Palpatine’s “power” in order to control and harness her, well, power. So she is weak in the sense of lacking any control of her own raw abilities, making her dangerous to those around her. But, I think this keeps things simple. Plus, it’s probably the best we can get with what we have to work with.

Nice thought on it being a half truth! Very good way to put it. I think Palpatine works best when he is being deceitful and speaking in half truths.

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We already have Palps saying “Weak. Like your parents.” So you could source that word from there. Not sure about the rest unfortunately.

Does anybody know if the new Lego Star Wars game is actually going to have the voice actors return like in TFA? If so, I’m excited for what opportunities that opens up.

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 (Edited)

Exactly. So, in the film, you have the line, “Weak. Like your parents.” If you could find a good instance of Palpatine saying “to”, you could make the line, “You’re too weak”, or just “You’re weak”.

It would be simple enough to change the line, “Only you have the power to save them” to “Only I have the power to save them”. You have lines like, “Long have I waited”, “I never wanted you dead. I wanted you here…”, and “That is what I want”.

For, “She will take my power”, you have the original line, “She will take her revenge”. There are several instance of him saying “my”, like when he says “my spirit will pass into you”. You also have the line “She will take my life”.
For the word power, you have “Only you have the power to save them”, “A power like life itself”, “The power of two restores the one true Emperor”, and “A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me!” The emphasis on that last line might fit the best, if you can isolate it cleanly enough.

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Burbin said:

I’d say the central theme of the film is fighting alone vs standing together:

Poe thinks the Resistance is alone, that the rest of the galaxy has given up. “They win by making you think you’re alone. Remember? There’s more of us.” It’s no coincidence these words are echoed by Poe while talking about rallying the people: “The First Order wins by making us think we’re alone”, and by Lando once the galaxy does come together: “There are more of us”. This is why the Resistance alone can’t/shouldn’t have the means to defeat or permanently cripple the Final Order. The finale is all about putting their faith in the people, it’s about everyone coming together to fight against evil. The entire galaxy coming together needs to be THE reason they win against the Sith Fleet.

As underused as Finn is, the little we do get is him thinking he was alone in leaving the First Order, only to find there were more defecting stormtroopers, who join him and end up being a major help in the final battle. And Rose is left alone by the movie to hammer this theme home.

Of course this theme is also present in Rey’s struggle, and is one of the few things I think carries over well from the previous films. Rey has always felt alone, all her life she had to fend for herself on Jakku, and her main struggle in TFA and TLJ was her seeking belonging, first with Han, then with Luke, and finally with Kylo (or rather with Ben, as we see in this film). In this movie we see her trying to find belonging in 1- Her friends, and 2- The Jedi, but as we see from the opening, she is not only separated from her friends, but also no one answers as she calls out to the Jedi. She is alone, and even when her friends join, she still feels alone since she feels like they don’t understand her and her troubles: “People keep telling me they know me, I’m afraid no one does”.

I agree with Jar Jar’s read of Rey’s struggle (and I haven’t read the novelisation), Rey pushes her friends away because she’s afraid of herself, not because she doesn’t care about them, quite the opposite. By the time we get to Endor she feels she has failed not only her friends and the Jedi, but even Ben (by striking him down with no hesitation). She’s failed everyone she seeked belonging with, and so she’s now completely alone. Palpatine plays into this by telling her that the belonging she’s been looking for has always been with the Sith, that this is her place as his grandaughter. He goes a step further by suggesting that accepting her place would give her the power to stop the conflict, saving her friends (same thing Kylo refused to do in TLJ). Rey thinks it’s her only choice, until she senses Ben, she realizes she’s not alone and she’s able to “stand thogether” with him, followed by all the Jedi coming to her aid once she reaches out. She embraces Ben, she embraces the Jedi, and she’s finally able to embrace her friends on Ajan Kloss once the struggles are over.

I think this movie is “greatly flawed”, I specially despise it as a sequel to TLJ. However, like I’ve said before, it is what we have to work with, and there is stuff to work with. I agree with Jar Jar that we should focus on improving what we have instead of just removing large chunks out of it otherwise we’ll be left with a whole bunch of nothing.

Good discussion. I lean alongside this comment. This mindset of explaining what we have, and trying to make it work/flesh it out as best as it can. This is at the heart of Hal’s editing perspective with trying to change as little as possible with these edits, I feel. (Although, yes, 9 has had way more changes than 7 and 8, but still).

I like this series of edits because not everything is drastically changed. It could easily be canon. Also, this Rey stuff still makes sense to me and is satisfying enough as is. Especially when she sees Kylo at the very end and passes the lightsaber to him. More tweaking can definitely be made, but I disagree with doing anything major when this story aspect works well enough.

Save the Sebastian Shaw Ghost! Save the dream…!