The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant Special Edition (WIP)

This is an ongoing fanedit of The Rise of Skywalker based on Hal 9000’s TROS Ascendant. Furthermore, it is intended to be paired with NeverarGreat’s The Force Awakens: Starlight. Most changes will be accomplished using AI voice work, although I can guarantee all of them will be as seamless as possible. If you don’t believe me, then listen to some of the samples linked below.

The main goals of this project are to bring clarity to Rey’s backstory and Palpatine’s motivations, which are some of the messiest parts of this film (even after the changes made by Ascendant), as well as enhance Kylo Ren’s arc to be more congruent with where The Last Jedi left him and his established fear of living up to Vader’s legacy. This is especially important in a film that has the central theme of “confronting fear”. He is arguably the most meaningful character in this trilogy, and this edit will effectively convey his independence and own goals despite Palpatine’s return.

Below are some of the changes you should expect in this edit:

• “Vader” calls out to his grandson on Mustafar (matching Adam acting like he heard something startling), leading Kylo to his Wayfinder
• Instead of Palpatine simply instructing Kylo Ren to kill Rey when he goes to Vader’s mask, Palpatine will take the form of his grandfather and they will duel on the site of Kylo’s greatest insecurity - Starkiller Base. This scene will make it clear that Kylo is not interested in the Sith at all and wants to make something new. The implication by the end of the scene is that Kylo has shut Palpatine’s voice(s) out of his head, perhaps even by the re-construction of his mask. Various tests of this can be found in this thread.
• Replace Kylo Ren’s line: “Palpatine wants you dead” with “Palpatine wants me to fight you.” Off-screen from the first scene of the film, Palpatine has told Kylo that he wants either him OR Rey to take the throne (but not both), depending on who is the strongest.
• Luke will reach out to Kylo Ren, trying to convince him to come back to the light. This replaces another instance of Palpatine simply telling Kylo to kill Rey. This is meant to fulfill his line from TLJ: “See ya around, kid.” It also is meant to chip away at the idea that Palpatine is the only voice trying to speak into his head. And finally, it makes their appearance together at the end of the film less awkward since they didn’t leave on the best of terms in TLJ.
• Instead of explicitly going after Rey, Palpatine will simply be going after his son in the backstory, unaware that Rey exists. This makes Ochi less of an idiot for not finding a child left alone on Jakku, or for not noticing the screaming child in his rear view mirror. We no longer have to rationalize his ship leaving Jakku as his parents having stolen his ship at a prior date to make sense of things, he can actually be on board it now. Palpatine only discovers Rey’s existence at an undefined point, perhaps in The Force Awakens, but it doesn’t really matter.
• The second flashback of Rey’s parents has been recontextualized to suggest that Palpatine was checking to see if Rey’s father could now use the Force, but had him killed when he discovered he’s a “powerless failure”. This matches other canon content about Rey’s father, and is accomplished without spoiling Rey’s heritage in the moment.
• Kylo will make it clear at the end of their dyad fight that Palpatine wants one of them to take the dark throne, instead of talking about Palpatine wanting to kill a child. This makes Rey’s terrified reaction more justified (“No…!”), since she’s had a vision of herself upon it.
• Reinstate Kylo’s line to “we’re a dyad in the Force”. I personally prefer that this was something always shared between them, given their interrogation scene in TFA.
• (Possibly) add an additional sentence at the end of Kylo’s reveal: “We’ll kill him. Together. And make a new order.”
• Modify a conversation between Finn and Poe to suggest that Ochi only discovered Rey’s existence from a vision given by his dagger after killing her parents and was intent on informing the Emperor about her on Exegol - only to end up dying with the secret. This explains why Ochi would be returning to Exegol according to D-0 instead of finishing the mission he was sent on in the original film (killing Rey) by going back to Jakku. In this new chain of events, he needs to find out what Palpatine wants to do about this development before he can even look into his Jakku lead for the child.
• Replace Luke’s line of “It was fear that kept me here” with something along the lines of “Failure was my greatest fear” to prevent Luke in TLJ from being a complete coward. This is not what Rian Johnson intended, he wanted Luke to genuinely feel that his intervention would lead to failure.
• Reinstate Palpatine’s line: “For my grandchild to come home! I never wanted you dead. I wanted you here, with me.”
• Luke reaches out to Ben a final time as he clutches a dead Rey, encouraging him in the moment. This matches perfectly with some unexplained acting Adam Driver does where it appears he hears somebody and starts looking around in the distance.

I’ve watched this dialogue evolve through countless iterations in the other threads, and I’m very excited to see this version come to fruition. Excellent ideas here!

Thank you! I don’t doubt that this project will take most of the year to develop at the very least. But I wanted to get a jumpstart on things so that we have a (somewhat) firm foundation to build upon.

I’ve been fascinated while reading all your ideas in the other threads, I cant wait to see how you implement them.

Thank you for your endorsements, everyone!

Hal, the first order of business would be to create a version of the Ascendant dyad-duel scene and hangar scene with all of his lines removed except for the following:

• Rey. Wherever you are, you are hard to find.
• I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it. I needed you to see it. (Remove this line, still). Rey…
• So that’s where you are…

This will almost assuredly be a resource for other editors like Nev. Although, if it’s easier to blend in new lines than it is to create an almost entirely blank scene for some reason, just let me know. No rush on this, either.

In the meantime, my personal goal at present is to create a draft of the Kylo Ren and Luke conversation. I’m eyeing the track “Torn Apart” from TFA, mostly because it fits the mood of the scene with the Falcon being transported to the Star Destroyer and since they allude to Han’s death (and possibly even Chewie’s).

Furthermore, I’m also going to get in contact with Seize the Frame, the creators of the Vader vs. Kylo Ren fan film. I mostly want to see if they have a 5.1 surround version of the project they’d be willing to contribute, or at the very least a version of it without the voices or music, only the foley.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

In the meantime, my personal goal at present is to create a draft of the Kylo Ren and Luke conversation. I’m eyeing the track “Torn Apart” from TFA, mostly because it fits the mood of the scene with the Falcon being transported to the Star Destroyer and since they allude to Han’s death (and possibly even Chewie’s).

I’ve finished a rough test of this, and I think it works fairly well. I’d love to hear some thoughts about it, but keep in mind that the sounds of the TIEs aren’t there yet and neither are Kylo’s footsteps at the end. When the screen goes blank, that’s where the transition back to BB-8 stumbling upon D-O would be.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qQyQltxI54mePv91WIZ4XGJYQi4pJiMP/view?usp=sharing

EDIT: I’ve updated the Kylo Ren lines for more inflection to match the feedback of my brother. Second edit, I’ve changed them again.

I’d love to see a mock-up of the Vader vision, I think that could be a really cool scene. What’s the dialogue look like right now?

I’ve talked to the guys who made it briefly and it sounds like they’re going to look for a version without music, but they have to hope the file still exists somewhere.

So far, here is the dialogue I’m thinking of:

“You’re just Palpatine.”

“I am your own fear.”

They fight briefly, and Kylo loses badly.

“It is no wonder your mind dwells on this forest… You are unworthy!”

Then he pulls the old Snoke maneuver on “Vader”. I personally like the idea that Kylo uses tactics outlawed by the Sith and Jedi in the scene - shutting off his lightsaber while interlocked, and launching a saber at him. It shows he doesn’t care about tradition, just whatever gives him the edge in terms of power.

I don’t have a Vader voice clone yet, but it should be fairly easy to do. Once I have it, I’ll also generate “Your mother once thought as you do” for Ady’s Episode 6 thread. If he wants it, that is.

I think leaving the Vader fight with no dialogue would work the best, allows for more interpretation. Vader didn’t talk in Luke’s vision either.

But Rey’s does talk, at least with one line, in this movie. What if we just remove Vader’s second line? I think it’s important to clarify that this doesn’t necessarily have to be “just Palpatine” he’s fighting, since we’d have learned that Palpatine has been Vader this whole time.

Honestly I’d probably just remove Palpatine’s line at the start, I’m not a huge fan of how it makes Snoke seem like a straight up meat puppet for Palpatine instead of his own autonomous character that Palpatine and his followers engineered. It also makes a bit more sense for Kylo to go and pray to the Vader mask if he didn’t just find out that Palpatine is screwing with him through it. Will probably do that for my personal cut.

I like it for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the way Snoke was cast aside so easily in TLJ warrants an explanation for his origins that is equally mundane - such as being a puppet (with the red curtains in his throne room to match). For another, we know Anakin’s ghost is fully detached from Vader. Therefore, there is nobody who could be speaking to Kylo through that mask besides Palpatine. Now, sure, you could make the argument that he never actually saw or heard anything, treating it more like an inanimate idol. But then we have to explain why he is seeing something now for the first time, which we simply don’t have the time for.

I think the reason Kylo goes to the mask is simply because Palpatine is a notorious liar. He wants to make sure he’s telling the truth about his beloved grandfather. Perhaps even let out his rage at Palpatine through it. Which is, of course, what he does by killing “Vader”. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.

Thanks! It would also be the hangar scene, if you don’t mind. I’m sure this will all take quite a while to do.

Hi!

I love the whole premise, and all the ideas and changes are great!
The inclusion of the fan film made me think - what else
is out there to use?
You all have probably seen or heard about SW Theory’s Vader film (I’m not trying to start an argument about his work or him as a person), and there are a few shots, which could be useful when Kylo kills Vader. I’m thinking about this short scene:

https://youtu.be/Ey68aMOV9gc?feature=shared&t=280

In this scene, Vader holds up the Japor snippet he gave to Padme as a child. Now, in this case, maybe by changing the hue it could pass as Kylo’s hand, taking the snippet from Vader, as he’s on the ground. This could emphasize the parallel between them, underline the importance of love, as well as bridge the trilogies in another way.
Might be a silly idea, or maybe too 4th wall-breaking, but I just wanted to add something I haven’t seen floating around.

This kinda lines up nicely with the timing of the Cloning Palp Storyline from BB. Right after Anakin becomes uninteresting as a host via barbecue, Palps starts the Clone project.

TheDimitrios said:

This kinda lines up nicely with the timing of the Cloning Palp Storyline from BB. Right after Anakin becomes uninteresting as a host via barbecue, Palps starts the Clone project.

Yes, this is my intention. Palpatine says to Yoda that Anakin will become more powerful than either of them, but then when he gets burned to a crisp he loses a lot of his potential. His cloning projects would explain why he isn’t bothering with creating more life again, because it’s the far safer option of the two. Then Luke shows up and his plans change again. He dies anyways, and makes Snoke who falls apart and inhabits a clone which is also falling apart. At this point he realizes cloning isn’t viable, creating Rey (if that’s your interpretation) and starting to groom Ben into Kylo.

As for the japor snippet, I really wish it was simply in Kylo’s quarters in reality. I’m not sure if it belongs in that vision since Palpatine’s hands are in that in some ways. In an ideal world, he is simply keeping that artifact in his quarters with the rest of them and brings it with him to Endor to give to Rey. Then we could have a shot of him clutching it before/after Han shows up. And we could place it between the twin’s lightsabers that Rey buries on Tatooine. In other words, I don’t think this is particularly feasible without people willing to contribute VFX.

I am not a screenwriter haha. This is why I shared it the essence of what I wanted to convey before generating anything. I like all that.

I’m now satisfied with the lines for the Kylo and Luke scene. It just needs the sounds originally from the scene, minus the original music.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QqcnX1e1Hb2lhCuCPh4Cho3bejxjY6XM/view?usp=sharing

Here is what I’m thinking for the duel dialogue now:

“You were never real!”

“Your fear is.”

They fight.

“Your mind dwells on your failure here. You are unworthy.”

And here is a test with all of the audio incorporated except for Vader’s lines, any music we want to add, and none of the audio from TROS:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZCa7rcVks5-rshPiXI8J53GM5TI77kJM/view?usp=sharing

This works pretty well!

These new sequences are amazing. They’re going to add so much depth.