The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released) — Page 595

CaptainFaraday said:

Episode X: The Search For More Money

🤣🤣🤦Don’t give them ideas Cap

I know this comment is super late considering you’re almost done with V.2, but I was wondering what your overall ideas and opinions are on TRoS’s scale? In my opinion, aside from the Galaxy Fleet sequence, (which is given about a minute’s worth of attention) the movie’s scale seems very small, smaller than TFA’s and TLJ’s, and inappropriately small for a finale to the saga. It seems more like a scavenger hunt than a war against the First Order, which largely feels like an afterthought. Out of all the Star Wars movies, this one felt the least like the “wars” part.

I know these are problems pretty ingrained into the structure of the film, but some ideas like expanding the Kijimi uprising were interesting. Have you ever though about contacting a good VFX artist like Starforge to expand the Exegol Battle/Galaxy Fleet sequence to make it more of a fitting finale? Maybe for a distant future V3, I know at the moment you’ve already put an amazing amount of work into improving this film.

I suppose this is more of a TLJ change, but I wonder if it would be possible to add holocam droids flying around above Kylo and Luke in their duel. Maybe use the extended footage from Canto Bight to make it clear it’s being broadcast across the galaxy. That way, when the TROS civilian fleet shows up, it feels even more like a natural extension of TLJ’s scale.

Well, for one it makes Luke’s intentions regarding his plan be about two different things (distraction and accepting his place as a legend). And for another it removes the implication that some downtrodden kid managed to hear the story as it trickled all the way down from people who are supposed to be serving the First Order, not spreading propaganda against it, which has always kinda bothered me.

EDIT: Just had an amusing thought. I suppose this is why Hux had to be made a spy in TROS, because how else would the story have gotten out? lol

The Kijimi rebellion idea was really cool, did anything ever come of that? I remember seeing some cool mockups of a couple scenes.

Hal 9000 said:

It doesn’t really sound like there’s a lot there to do. And the theatrical has artificially large stakes by having a huge fleet of essentially Death Stars. If lowering the stakes means removing those I’m okay with that. But after the huge things happening in 7 and 8, and especially how the latter feels like a halfway decent ending in its own right, I’m okay with a more character focused epilogue. (Not that that’s what we got.)

I definitely agree that it’s not what we got. It really seems like the initial intention was to go for scale over character, as evidenced by the sheer amount of planets and locations in the film, but things like the final battle fall flat and it feels like it was because of things getting cut. For example, when you look at behind the scenes footage and TV spots they initially had more filmed for the cavalry charge on the Star Destroyer, a sequence that felt half-hearted and choppy in the final version. You can tell things were heavily cut here, for example, as soon as the Sith landing craft touch down it cuts straight into a heated battle, even as the ramps have barely opened and the Sith troopers haven’t even come out and dispersed. Also, we see Finn and Jannah riding an orbak and the next time we see them they’re on foot with no sequence of events showing as to how this happened, which was probably shown before heavy cuts were made.

Also, would it be possible to PM me a new link to your edits? The old link from a few months ago doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. Thank you!

On scale: reminder that the original end of the Saga was a small scale skirmish in a forest, while “Death Star 2, yes we’re actually calling it that” happens in the space above, and then this song plays.

The only thing really climactic about it was the hero and villain’s Jedi confrontation. I think all we can do for TROS is try to fine tune that same aspect of the story, and we’ve probably got it as good as we’re gonna get so far.

Neerb said:

On scale: reminder that the original end of the Saga was a small scale skirmish in a forest, while “Death Star 2, yes we’re actually calling it that” happens in the space above, and then this song plays.

The only thing really climactic about it was the hero and villain’s Jedi confrontation. I think all we can do for TROS is try to fine tune that same aspect of the story, and we’ve probably got it as good as we’re gonna get so far.

Fair point. It wasn’t until the Special Editions that we actually got to see the effects all this had on the galaxy at large.

Speaking of which, didn’t we add planets like Naboo to the sequence in TROS? That’s also something.

Yes, Naboo, Coruscant, Bespin and Jakku are in the end sequence.

Not exactly in regards to Ascendant, but I think it would be cool if there was a montage where we saw different planets hear Poe and Finn’s rallying call. Like maybe we could see the Falcon flying in hyperspace, hear Finn and Poe’s speech but with some radio/recorded distortion, and then cutting to establishing shots of different planets or something. Though I think it is difficult to try and reuse shots from other films/shows without it feeling too fanedit-y.

At the very least, I think it would be cool if when we saw the Falcon take off and fly away from the base, we also heard a bit of their speech with some audio recording distortion that fades off as the Falcon flies away, making it clear that it was POE (and Finn) and their rallying call that brought the galaxy together, not just “Lando”.

RogueLeader said:

Yes, Naboo, Coruscant, Bespin and Jakku are in the end sequence.

Not exactly in regards to Ascendant, but I think it would be cool if there was a montage where we saw different planets hear Poe and Finn’s rallying call. Like maybe we could see the Falcon flying in hyperspace, hear Finn and Poe’s speech but with some radio/recorded distortion, and then cutting to establishing shots of different planets or something. Though I think it is difficult to try and reuse shots from other films/shows without it feeling too fanedit-y.

At the very least, I think it would be cool if when we saw the Falcon take off and fly away from the base, we also heard a bit of their speech with some audio recording distortion that fades off as the Falcon flies away, making it clear that it was POE (and Finn) and their rallying call that brought the galaxy together, not just “Lando”.

That would be really awesome and interesting idea! The shots of the Resistance preparing their vehicles could be replaced with the planet shots, but it would take work to make them look different than previous material. Maybe have someone render them in Unreal Engine or something like that and do wide shots instead of close ups? Some animations can look almost 100% realistic if done well and with the camera at a distance.

I rewatched this and really enjoyed it. The edits are great, but I think I’ve genuinely started to like this movie. I think it’s got a lot of heart. I think I’ve also come to terms with the Rey Palpatine twist. It ties into the familial mythic aspect of the franchise when I think about it. The main villain of the franchise is destroyed by one from his own blood. That woman later inherits the name of Palpatine’s worst enemy, the family he’s tried to manipulate and crush for a century. It’s the ultimate defeat. The worst part of it, the horrid pacing, unfortunately can’t really be fixed with fanedits. Most of the edits here really lift the movie though. It adds that much needed connective tissue to the rest of the ST and more importantly, the entire saga. I especially love the references to Luke’s sacrifice on Crait.

I still think some of the additions feel a bit superfluous. The additional dialogue personally stands out for me, especially the Knights of Ren. All respect to the hard work involved in adding that, but it doesn’t seem organic to me.

Very excited for v 2.0. Great work everyone who worked on it.

I remember someone trying to edit a scene where Ben listens to Lando’s call while flying to exogol, that would be a cool scene.