The Rise of Skywalker: Untold (WIP) — Page 3

Snooker! Thank you, I may very well take you up on that! Your work on Ascendant was amazing!

Honestly, where I’d love to take the story is: I’d have the last shot of Rey be of her hugging her new family. She is then completely removed from the epilogue, and instead Ben arrives on Tatooine. He’s returned to where it all started, in order to create a new beginning for himself. Last shot of the film is him, silhouetted against the binary sunset, as John Williams’s score swells around him.

That said, I’m also trying to be realistic. The amount of VFX work, in my mind, would be enormous. Even if we strip it down to the bear essentials and make some concessions, you’d still need a shot of Kylo flying away from Exegol, and from Rey, after the battle. (If I were directing the movie from scratch, I’d probably also include shots of Ben in the cockpit and jumping to hyperspace, but you could probably work around those.)

What do you do after that? Assuming Rey still goes to Tatooine (because trying to remove her from all of the shots wouldn’t be feasible), I’d probably structure it like this: Rey stands up, senses something, looks over. Rather than seeing Ghost Luke and Leia, she sees Flesh Ben walking up. (Something like the shot on Pasaana, but you’d have to paint out the smoking wreckage of the ship behind him.) At that point, I see three options:

• Ben joins her on the Falcon. You see Rey walking away, BB-8 in tow, and then Ben following her. They fly away together. You’d need to comp Ben into the shot somehow.
• Rey stands and waits for Ben. They stand silhouetted together. I’m not a fan of this - I support Hal’s decision in Ascendant to not leave Rey stuck on another desert planet for her final shot in the series.
• Rey ditches Ben. She walks away, the Falcon flies off as Ben is silhouetted. This feels like the worst one to me. It’s just a rehash of their same relationship - he chases her, she escapes, Ben is left alone and forsaken.

So, talking it all out, you’d minimally need four new VFX shots to make #KyloLives work in this version of the film:

• A shot of his ship flying away after the battle on Exegol.
• A shot of him approaching on Tatooine.
• A shot of him seeing Rey from afar.
• A shot of him following her to the Falcon.

Truth be told, that’s less than I thought it would be; but it’s still more than I’m capable of doing. It’s an idea that I’d love to see realized, but one that I’ll put near the bottom of my wishlist. If someone else is willing to help build the shots, I would be happy to include them!

That shot of Ben silhouetted in the twin suns is fantastic. I would love to see that completed as an alternate ending even if it’s not used in this project.

Thanks for the update, Sherlock, warms my heart to know you’re still working on this! I’ll admit, I’m more a fan of the “Rey waiting for Kylo” option with the ending, since an ambiguous ending is different enough from RotJ & it works as a meta-commentary for the franchise in general (“where do we go from Episode IX?”).

I’d hate to give you even more visual work to do, but I floated around the idea on other threads of incorporating the fan film “Force of Darkness” into the beginning, like with joshuabri’s edit. The idea being Kylo has an “ESB cave” scene as he picks up the Wayfinder has to fight Vader to get it, but here’s my spin: recolor Vader’s lightsaber blue & get a Christensen/Matt Lanter sound-alike.

The idea being that Kylo has to fight Anakin Skywalker to get the Wayfinder, who manifestation is filtered by Kylo’s view of Vader. New dialogue could be added to help better set up the idea that Palpatine’s still out there even if we’re not explicit, & the image of Vader holding a blue lightsaber would just be really cool to see.

Great to see you, Raditz, glad to have you on board!

Seize the Frame did an incredible job with the Force of Darkness film - in fact, some of my early concepts for this cut involved incorporating their project into this one. Ultimately though, I decided against it. There are several tiny details in FoD that are just a bit off from TROS - the way they frame their shots, the style of the fight choreography, and especially the music. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all excellent as its own thing; but I worried that the two styles of filmmaking wouldn’t quite mesh together. Not to mention, to replace the music with John Williams score, it would also require me to redo all of the foley and sound FX.

For me, J.J. has a very distinctive way of putting together his movies; and I want this project to feel like a cohesive, professional film. I was working on the Dagger Vision sequence, for example, and there are things I included in there that, normally, I wouldn’t have chosen to edit that way; but I did it anyway, because it felt more like J.J.'s style.

That said, I do have other new bits that I’m working on, to flesh out Kylo as a character more. So hopefully he’ll still have a satisfying arc at the end of the day!

I think that Rey looking over her shoulder, Ben walking up (as we have in Pasana) and then the VXF of the twin suns behind him would be absolutely gorgeous. Ben showed up on Exegol on his own, we don’t have to see him leave there. I had actually imagined something for my own edit down the road where during the celebration, after Rey hugs Poe/Finn, there’s a slow reverse of the hug and then a serious look at them with some dialogue (probably VO’d with the angle on Finn and Poe) from elsewhere that roughly has her saying: I have to tell you something.

So that covers them knowing about Ben.

• The group on the Falcon
• Rey buries the lightsabers
• Rey looks over her shoulder
• Ben walks up, silhouetted against twin suns
• Falcon takes off

Viewers can assume that Ben joined them or that he left on his own and he and Rey just had a talk. It’s ambiguous, depending on preference. Still, voila, #kylolives!

There’s some really cool ideas in the cut list - things like the new shots of the Sith Fleet deploying and all the scenes with significantly redone dialogue especially. I’m excited to see how you’ve managed to achieve that. I’m curious to also see the effect of having Palps hidden away for most of the movie, since it’s basically the polar opposite approach to the theatrical cut’s minute one ripping-off-the-plaster.

sade1212 said:

I’m excited to see how you’ve managed to achieve that.

You and me both, dude. 😉

It’s definitely hard to say how the Palpatine restructure will play out without having the completed edit. Something about doing it this way just feels right to me though, so I hope it works in practice! In my mind, removing him as the looming threat allows it to feel more like a Rey movie instead of a Palpatine movie. It also helps to drive a greater wedge between Rey and her friends if she’s the only one burdened with the knowledge of Palpatine’s return. Plus, it’s not a reveal that should be tossed in unceremoniously. You’ve got to earn it, build to it.

I just hope all of that will come through effectively!

Glad to see you, sade; thanks for reaching out!

Hi all, happy Star Wars Day!

There was some discussion earlier about preserving Hux dying in this edit. (The original plan was to scrap his death entirely, along with half of the Finn/Poe/Chewie escape.) I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and here’s where I’m at:

Hux is shot twice in the film, poor bloke; unfortunately, I don’t think either “shot” (ahem) will work in this edit. The first time, when Finn shoots him, the framing and pacing (and setting) of the shot is all off. It’s designed to be a comedy shot, and I don’t see a way of repurposing it to have the proper dramatic weight.

The second shot also wouldn’t work. Hux is bandaged - which doesn’t make sense if Finn and Poe and Chewie are never re-captured, and Hux never has to break them out. And there’s no way to cut around that costuming, because it’s all one continuous take.

So instead, we’re going to have to get creative.

I’ve been experimenting with the idea of Pryde shooting Hux as part of a coup. This is my progress so far. Obviously, it still needs a fair amount of cleanup before I’m ready to officially include it, especially with the composite masking and the lip sync; but before I waste time trying to do that, I wanted to get people’s opinions: How do we feel about this scene? Does it make sense? Does it add anything worthwhile to the overall story? Will audiences be confused about Pryde’s motivations?

(For context here, I’m planning on moving the Leia scene up in the film - so it would go Hangar Scene -> Leia Scene -> Hux/Pryde Scene.)

https://streamable.com/zeqwdm

I guess…my thinking is, I don’t really understand the point of removing Hux and then just replacing him with a functionally identical character. There’s no storytelling value in doing it in the theatrical version; and I think there’s even less value in going out of the way to do that again here. And purely in terms of plot, Hux’s death serves absolutely no purpose in the film either.

So, given that, I think I’m leaning towards leaving this scene on the cutting room floor. Overall, I want this edit to feel like a more cohesive follow up to the previous two films; and I think that pointlessly throwing away Hux halfway through goes against that objective. For now, I think I’ll proceed as originally planned, and keep him alive.

Just thinking that if anyone wanted to add any additional Ben Solo content, there could be potential shots from Adam Driver’s movie 65. He looks very Ben Solo-ish in there.

Hello! This summer ended up being unexpectedly busy for me, which took me away from editing for a while. But, I am happy to say that things are progressing! My main focus has been on enhancing the new dialogue for this edit with additional bits of AI-generated content, splicing it all together in order to get the most natural, emotive performances possible. So far, I have around 75 lines of “reconstructed” dialogue, i.e. dialogue for named characters, whose voices are already established.

To that end, I’m excited to finally present a significant scene that I’ve been working on: Leia’s death. If you’re interested in reading more about my thought process behind these changes, you can do so below.

Explanation:

Leia’s death never worked for me in the film. We’ve seen characters - including Leia herself - use the Force to sense even hear each other across great distances plenty of times before, so I refuse to believe that that’s what killed her. So the only explanation I can see is that Leia, like her mother before her, lost the will to live. It’s stupid at best, and disrespectful at worst.

My goal here was to give Leia an actual reason for dying; and what would be more fitting than sacrificing herself to save her son? Rey channels Leia’s life force into Ben - which also explains how Rey is able to heal a mortal wound without dying, while the same action costs Ben his life at the end.

In addition to the plot logistics, I believe this version is much stronger from a character perspective. Leia gets to have a final conversation with her son, reaffirming him of her love. This then helps to justify Ben’s redemption in the next scene. (Leia: “Ben…” [dies]. Ben: “Oh okay, I guess I’m good now.”)

This also helps to push Rey’s new character arc along very nicely. In my version, she’s not going to fall due to the abstract concept of genetic moral inheritance; she’s fighting against her own innate anger and darkness. At this point in the story, she has lost control of her emotions entirely. In her anger, she stabs Ben when his back is turned, destroying Leia’s efforts to save her son. Leia now has to sacrifice herself to save Ben, to fix Rey’s mistake. Leia’s death is now Rey’s fault, because Rey lost control. It’s no wonder, then, that Rey would flee to Ahch-To, afraid and ashamed of what she’s done.

This scene involved a whole slew of original Leia dialogue, and the score and soundscape have been completely replaced. Feedback is always welcome, especially in regards to the “Force Voice” reverb effect.

https://streamable.com/o63f91

Additionally, just to put it out there, I still need help wrapping up two VFX shots, involving paint outs and tracking. If you have some experience with After Effects and are wiling to help, please reach out!

Thanks for watching! More (hopefully) soon!

Welcome, ildiem! Thanks for checking out the project!

I see what you’re saying. There is Rey’s earlier line with the Snake, “transferred a bit of life”; but I can see where we’d need to establish the jump from “a bit of life” to “the whole life.”

Maybe something like “Rey, please, we can still save him. Let me save him. Bring him home.” Is that still too vague? I don’t want to bog down the scene with too much mechanical exposition, you know?

As I am now introduced to this thread, I must say there are a lot of interesting ideas. I hope you can accomplish what you are looking for.

I think I like the notion of Hux surviving and avoiding any betrayal. His betrayal and quick assassination went by so quickly and felt very cheap watching it. There is no perfect solution here for that, but the best of the bad solutions is to probably just show him with a few repurposed shots. Perhaps there is a possibility of AI added dialogue for him? I wonder if the actor has dialogue from another TV show or movie that can be repurposed for brief use?

The notion of Leia force healing Ben, which leads to her death, is the correct and logical choice. Another editor, Acbagel, has a work print of an edit to this movie. I liked what he did there. He had an illusion of Han Solo distract Kylo that led to him dropping the lightsaber. After that, Rey leaves without participating the healing process. Only Leia is involved. I think your added dialogue with that would be an excellent fit.

The Acbagel edit also uses an ending with Rey dying and Kylo on Tatooine burying the lightsabers. The material there could at least be partially useful for what you are trying to accomplish.

On another matter, there is another major edit to the sequels with information found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fanedits/s/9JmdYVdwcE.

The planned release is for December. That edit plans to make Rey a lost twin of Ben Solo and has Snoke on Exegol (with an apparent Sith identity to be revealed). I have no idea how this will turn out, but the sample clips posted by the editor 21C Peasant on his YouTube channel look well done. There may not be anything relevant there for you, but this is one to keep your eye on just in case there is something you would like to incorporate if it turns out excellent.

https://m.youtube.com/@21cpeasant91/videos

Yeah, that’s where I’m planning on leaving Hux at this point. I wanted to explore the idea of still killing him off; but as you pointed out, it all just felt forced. I actually do have some additional Hux dialogue ready to go, and then I’m going to try reusing some old shots during the finale. Like you said though, no perfect solution. They really did a number on him in the theatrical film.

I do think I want to keep Rey in the scene during the healing process - like I mentioned above, I think it’s a rather pivotal moment for her character. I definitely am curious about the “Ben lives” angle though - it’s something I’m interested in, but I don’t think I have the skillset to get it to where it needs to be in order to work. I’ll be sure to take a look at those other edits you mentioned!

Thanks for the feedback!