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The Starlight Project Part 2: The Last Jedi (WIP)

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I don’t know how that restructure is possible. It’d front load the film with almost solely Luke/Rey scenes (there’s only one solo Kylo scene that would work, and the Kylo/Rey scenes would have a continuity issue with his face stitches), which in turn would make the latter parts feel light on those characters.

I’d also kill the propulsive pacing/tension/suspense of the Resistance’s plight that hangs over the film (and adds the urgency to the Rey/Luke stuff).

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 (Edited)

After seeing this again in the theater, I have further ideas on how to approach this edit.

There’s little reason to keep the opening battle, since the only players of importance in this are Leia and Poe. I believe that it’s still necessary to open the film on Luke’s island, but the film can still have much of its intercutting between the island and the chase. Here’s a rough idea of what the crawl could look like:

Hope is gone. With
the Republic in ruins,
the First Order has
driven the Resistance
from their base and
tracked them across
the galaxy.

Searching for a way
to evade Leader Snoke’s
relentless pursuit,
two Resistance agents
seek the location of a
skilled code slicer and
ally of the Resistance.

Meanwhile, on a solitary
planet in the depths
of uncharted space,
the last Jedi has
finally been found…

The scenes might follow this order (I still don’t have a good memory of every scene, so apologies if there are missing scenes):

-Luke and Rey meet, Luke throws the lightsaber.
-Rey argues with Luke, Chewie breaks down the door, Luke boards the Falcon, meets R2, Rey follows Luke on his daily routine.
-Rey discovers the Jedi Texts.
-Rey practices with the lightsaber, introduced to the Caretakers in this way.
-Luke decides to train Rey, the first lesson.

-Leia in hyperspace, the First Order arrives.
-Attack on the bridge crew, Leia unconscious, Holdo hints at secret sources of hope (It might be possible to make Finn and Rose Holdo’s secret backup plan).

-Rose and Finn arrive on Canto Bight, are put in prison (maybe give Rose a flashback of her sister dying in battle so we understand the significance of her medallion).

-Rey and Ren, darkside cave, Luke’s flashbacks.

…and so forth.

The rest of the movie would play out as it does. It would be simple to cut out Finn’s superfluous battle with Phasma, and cut from them running to the shuttle to escaping the destruction. It would be nice if Luke had his green saber at the end, but it’s probably more work than it’s worth.

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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As with other TLJ edit projects that are being planned, let me know if I can be of any help. I’m hoping for a slew of well-done, polished TLJ edits for people to choose from, and the best resources to cull from for my own endeavor. (Even if it is just for myself!) 😃

My stance on revising fan edits.

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I’ve got one that I’m 80% of the way through, but my laptop can’t keep up with 1080p past a certain point in Premiere.

Haven’t seen anything about Neverar’s, but I’m interested in seeing as many as I can - I already plan to crib 90% of my Five Armies battle from Spence. 😛

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Hal 9000 said:

Have plans for editing the Hobbit already been described somewhere I can reference? I find that interesting.

https://forums.fanedit.org/showthread.php?tid=15702

The main goal would be to make a three-in-one edit that is around 2 hours 30 minutes and recaptures the magical adventure angle that I feel has been missing from both the original movies and all of the edits so far. One idea for this that I haven’t seen anywhere else is that I’m planning on cutting Rivendell entirely and keeping quite a bit from the Mirkwood elves.

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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I’m still torn between cutting the evacuation and leaving it in, but for the following idea all that would be gone.

Have the movie open with first couple of scenes with Rey and Luke on the island. Right after Luke says ‘It’s time for the Jedi to end’, cut to the kids on Canto Bight playing with their Luke doll, and the slave master ruining their fun. Cut before the magic broom. Perhaps have some shot establishing that they are caring for the animals, then begin the Canto Bight scenes as edited.

In this way, the Luke doll acts as the thematic visual link between the casino and the primary plot, and it more organically sets up the final shots of the movie.

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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 (Edited)

But the kids are acting Luke vs FO in Crait with the doll. It has a lot more impact if it’s after the confrontation.

In fact the scene is there to establish how he’s a true legend after doing that.

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Collipso said:

But the kids are acting Luke vs FO in Crait with the doll. It has a lot more impact if it’s after the confrontation.

In fact the scene is there to establish how he’s a true legend after doing that.

Exactly, that’s the whole point of that scene and kinda the main pay off of Luke on Crait.

I didn’t completely catch it on my first viewing but it’s definitely there.

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I had thought both times that this happens as the Falcon is in hyperspace, hence the blue streak across the sky. Granted that it’s a different planet, but I figured this was more JJ style fudging of time and space. And how would people in the galaxy even hear of Luke’s Crait actions unless the Resistance was broadcasting it Mr Universe style? I guess I just assumed they were playing out some imaginary scenario based on Luke’s legend, and not his real actions.

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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I kinda feel like the idea is these kids might not have even heard the name “Luke Skywalker” until what happened at Crait. This was of course the original plan for Rey, who ultimately just ended up being someone who heard the stories but didn’t totally believe them. For these kids, a full generation removed, it’s certainly possible they’d never heard of the Jedi or what they could do until Luke showed up on Crait and stood up to the First Order, igniting a spark of hope and inspiration in them.

As for how they know, as usual the final scene in Star Wars is ambiguously displaced from the timeline of the rest of the film. Who knows when that was.

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DominicCobb said:

As for how they know, as usual the final scene in Star Wars is ambiguously displaced from the timeline of the rest of the film. Who knows when that was.

Agree with everything you said, but ambiguously displaced endings are more of a prequels thing than an OT thing, since in the OT none of the endings require a time jump of more than a few hours.

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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NeverarGreat said:

DominicCobb said:

As for how they know, as usual the final scene in Star Wars is ambiguously displaced from the timeline of the rest of the film. Who knows when that was.

Agree with everything you said, but ambiguously displaced endings are more of a prequels thing than an OT thing, since in the OT none of the endings require a time jump of more than a few hours.

Well that’s why it’s ambiguous. Just because it doesn’t have to be more than a few hours doesn’t mean it can’t be. In fact, in the case of ESB and ANH, I find just a few hours hard to believe.

Anyway, whether it’s an OT thing or a PT thing or an ROTJSE or a TFA thing it doesn’t matter. It’s not hard to imagine the final scene of TLJ is a bit later.

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Another thought related to the idea that the Mon Cal cruiser and bombing fleet is the final form of support from the Republic:

Vice Admiral Holdo could be explicitly identified as part of the Republic military.

For backstory purposes, she was only to be the one in charge of delivering the ships to the Resistance, except that when the Hosnian System was destroyed she became a member of the Resistance by default.

This would make Poe’s suspicion of her more believable, and make her role in the story more meaningful - she’s the last of the New Republic (as opposed to the Resistance) military leadership. Even her sacrifice is more poetic, since she’s more explicitly avenging the destruction of the New Republic.

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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NeverarGreat said:

Another thought related to the idea that the Mon Cal cruiser and bombing fleet is the final form of support from the Republic:

Vice Admiral Holdo could be explicitly identified as part of the Republic military.

For backstory purposes, she was only to be the one in charge of delivering the ships to the Resistance, except that when the Hosnian System was destroyed she became a member of the Resistance by default.

This would make Poe’s suspicion of her more believable, and make her role in the story more meaningful - she’s the last of the New Republic (as opposed to the Resistance) military leadership. Even her sacrifice is more poetic, since she’s more explicitly avenging the destruction of the New Republic.

How are you going to pull that one off?

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Collipso said:

NeverarGreat said:

Another thought related to the idea that the Mon Cal cruiser and bombing fleet is the final form of support from the Republic:

Vice Admiral Holdo could be explicitly identified as part of the Republic military.

For backstory purposes, she was only to be the one in charge of delivering the ships to the Resistance, except that when the Hosnian System was destroyed she became a member of the Resistance by default.

This would make Poe’s suspicion of her more believable, and make her role in the story more meaningful - she’s the last of the New Republic (as opposed to the Resistance) military leadership. Even her sacrifice is more poetic, since she’s more explicitly avenging the destruction of the New Republic.

How are you going to pull that one off?

The same way I pull everything off, Pinky!

By including it in the crawl?

Thinking cap on!

Maybe instead of having some random official tell Leia that a ship is on its way in TFA, there could be an image of Holdo on the screen and there could be dialogue from offscreen:
"General, the Vice Admiral of the Republic has pledged her support!"
Or maybe see if there’s any of Laura Dern’s dialogue from another movie that could be used for this purpose.

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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 (Edited)

Here’s a crawl which would communicate some of this information:

The FIRST ORDER reigns.
Having destroyed the
peaceful Republic, Supreme
Leader Snoke now deploys
his merciless legions to seize
military control of the galaxy.

Taking command of the
last of the Republic fleet,
General Leia Organa flees
deep into uncharted space,
awaiting the return of
Jedi Master Luke Skywalker
to restore hope to the fight.

Fearing that they cannot evade
the First Order for long, Poe
Dameron has disobeyed orders
and sent two operatives to the
casino city of Canto Bight,
where a shrewd gambler may
hold the key to their escape…

Then have the Casino scenes up until they are jailed, then cut to Luke and Rey, then after some time has passed on the island cut to Leia traveling through hyperspace.

Interestingly, this makes TLJ much more of ESB in reverse, since the Resistance begins in deep space just as the Rebels ended in deep space.

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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NeverarGreat said:

Interestingly, this makes TLJ much more of ESB in reverse, since the Resistance begins in deep space just as the Rebels ended in deep space.

When you think about that, the pattern of “mirror” episodes looking alike continues with the ST:
I-IV-VII
II-V-VIII

Only III-VI don’t really look alike… so is IX going to be quite different as well ? I certainly hope so.

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Collipso said:

A not so gentle restructure.

I just can’t think of anything essential in the Resistance base evacuation and resulting scenes that can’t be more effectively implied through the passage of time.

Also, I think opening the movie on Canto Bight would give it an entirely different feel - there are many movies which open on some scene that doesn’t end up being very consequential, but the point of the scene would merely be to re-establish these characters and their new roles. The expositional nature of the scenes would also function as further set up for the story and the universe instead of a distraction from our main characters.

I really want to play with the idea of moving the scene of the kids playing with the Luke doll, maybe as a way to segue back to our heroes in prison. So after ending the first scenes on Canto Bight with Finn and Rose’s imprisonment and then introducing Luke’s unexpected nihilism, to then cut back to these kids imagining Luke as a hero might be a really effective juxtaposition.

MalàStrana said:

Only III-VI don’t really look alike… so is IX going to be quite different as well ? I certainly hope so.

This is also my hope.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)