Burbin

Yep, emphasis on “on paper”, we’ll have to see what can be cooked up. Though most of what I describe are things already present in the original and/or V1, by splitting Kylo and Rey’s vision in the beginning we already get to see the inherent darkness Rey is struggling with, we already see her descent more and more into the darkness, which culminates on the DSII, where she is supposed to be following these dark whispers. The proposed changes would just help bring these things to the forefront.

Like I said previously, I agree that leaving the translation as is works fine (fine for TRoS levels, that is). Somebody inscribed the location of the Wayfinder on an ancient whispering dagger, it could’ve been Palpatine, Ochi or one of those smelting monkey fellas, and I guess the sith runes cause the blade to whisper guidance towards the Wayfinder. Maybe it could be inferred that the blade was given to Ochi in order to retrieve Palpatine’s Wayfinder. I say this to mean it’s fine to leave it as is on V1 if the dub changes don’t pan out.

But, at least on paper, I think the 3PO dub could be a net gain. The main positives I see are that it gives us a chance to directly address the whispers that are now prevalent in the film, cement them as an inherent property of the dagger. It also allows us to tie this to Rey’s descent to the darkness. It would work like this: We see Rey is still fighting against her inner darkness, you could say she’s still holding on, trying to be a Jedi. The new dagger translation would tell her she needs to let go and embrace her darkness in order to find the Sith Wayfinder. It’s not something she would’ve done willingly, but now she thinks there’s no other way and so she gives in, which leads her down the dark path and completely messes with her. Now there’d be a nice parallel on Exegol, where Palpatine would again tell her she needs to embrace her darkness, she’d again think there is no other way, but thanks to Ben now she’d be able to resist.

This makes it way more interesting than the theatrical cut where her descent to the darkness is basically “Oh no, I’m Palpatine’s grandaughter, I guess I’m destined to become evil like him! It’s in my genes!”. Here it would be more layered and tie better with the previous films, and this would also be helpful to the nobody cut.

And as a nice bonus now all of the dagger can be ancient, runes and all.

Did Ochi also carve into it to match the wreckage and added the protractor? That just makes it more ridiculous, not less, and just sounds like more expanded damage control “explanations” of things that weren’t thought out in the film.

Thankfully that bit has already been removed, and with the added sith whispers there’s already an air of mysticism to the dagger that makes it seem like more of an artifact. I guess having the coordinates for the Wayfinder carved on it is no less ridiculous than a large chunk of the DSII surviving, Hux being the spy, the Sith fleet needing a signal just to take off from Exegol, or Palpatine returning for that matter. I’m also not a fan of chopping up the shore scene even more, and I’d miss the Babu Frik joke too…

However the 3PO redub is still just something being played around with, not set in stone, we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out and if it’s worthwhile. At least the new 3PO lines could probably be useful for a new hangar scene sormtrooper exchange, I’d really like to see what axlanian comes up with.

Neerb said:

Coming into this current discussion late, but was the “heads up” at the beginning of these clips always there? Because it sounds clearly added in post, and also… doesn’t make sense with the visual? We hear Poe (I think?) say “heads up,” but then he and the rest of the cast spin around in sudden surprise, like they all just hear the horse hooves at the same time and nobody actually said “heads up” in the scene because nobody was keeping watch.

Probably not worth doing anything about, especially if it’s been there since the theater and I never noticed it, but these clips all starting with that moment just made it stick out to me.

The placement of the “heads up” line is a result of trimming the blade protractor thingy, the line was originally on a shot of Rey looking at the thingy whith Poe turning his head as the horses walk in on the background. I think removing it is kinda awkward since it makes the trim more noticeable, now it just feels like two different scenes fading into eachother. Which is what it is, but the line helps blend them together.

Nice work Sherlock! I think the “ally” line works the best out of those tests.

I agree Rey’s “please” sounds unnatural and added in though, same with the added Rey and Finn lines at the end of the other 3PO lines. And even on paper, Rey doesn’t know Jannah & co. can help them so why would she say “please”? I think it works better if she just plainly states their business, showing some trust but also being a bit blunt, then C3-PO helps by remarking they’re “allies” before Jannah decides to offer help.

We’re trying to remove the dumb concept that the sith artifact with ancient runes was actually just made sometime after RotJ, explain the added whispers further and explicitly tie them to Rey’s arc while we’re at it. I agree that overdubbing 3PO will probably be really hard to pull off convincingly, but I think it’s worth giving it a shot and see if it can work.

Damn, nice catch on the Babu Frik conundrum, this idea so far had been pretty non-intrusive with the rest of the film.

At the very least, even if the 3PO dub doesn’t pan out, I still think it’d be a worthy edition to remove Rey’s lines when picking up the dagger and replace the ‘screams’ with sith whispers. Her reactions seem tailor-made to bring attention to these whispers that later become very important.

You seem to know your stuff better than me CaptainFaraday, so I’ll take your word and say that’s it!

I think the way I’d look at it is that the dagger would talk to those it chooses for their “darkened heart”, hence why it whispers to Rey on the cave, but you’d have to channel you inner darkness (“Embrace your anger, let your hate take part”) for it to actually guide you to the Wayfinder.

We’re basically reworking what the movie has (Rey reacting to something when she picks up the dagger). So on Pasaana she would pick up the dagger and hear some strange whispers no one else hears, she doesn’t know what it means and neither do we. Then on Kijimi both we and her would be like “oh the blade whispers, and only to those it chooses”, and also “oh the blade reveals the location of the Wayfinder!”. Then on Kylo’s quarters she hears them again, and I agree this time they should be louder when she picks it up, this time she’s trying to listen.

I don’t know which approach will work best here, it must be clear that Rey learned the location of the Wayfinder, so the simpler solution would be to show it: a shot of the Wayfinder floating inside the Death Star, a shot of the wreckage, the sound of waves. I said previously this could be used as an opportunity to expand things further, but I’m afraid the message could get muddled if we move to Kylo or Dark Rey, though I agree it’d be worth playing around with it. Whichever is the case I agree it would be good to have whispers say “Endor” and “Death Star” to further explain how she knows where to go.

CaptainFaraday said:

Well, the Wayfinder is mentioned by name in the final line. Originally, the third line described Kef Bir (“Beneath the depths of misty fells”), but we decided to change it because the dagger is supposed to point the way to the Wayfinder regardless of where it is, so having a description of its current physical location inscribed on the blade would contradict that.

Oh yeah, I was agreeing with your inclusion of the word ‘Wayfinder’, since others were suggesting it shouldn’t be a part of it.

Here’s my shot at what the inscription could be:

This blade only whispers to a darkened heart
It will guide to the place where the Wayfinder dwells
Reveal your hatred, reveal your might
To those that it chooses, only this blade tells

The phrase “only this blade tells” refers to the whispers in the third person (instead of “only we tell”), so maybe the rest of the inscription should too. For the second line I think the dagger’s new role should be abundantly clear, for both Rey’s new vision guiding her to Endor, and her following the whispers on the DSII wreckage. The third line implies an active roll: you must tap into the dark side to “activate” the dagger, so again, Rey’s descent to the dark would be more clear. And I like the idea of the dagger already “choosing” and “calling out” to Rey from the moment she picks it up, meaning it can sense there’s already enough darkness within her. She’s already been tapping into her dark side since the opening (and the previous movies), and we even see her cast lightning moments after finding the dagger.

I also tried to make it sound a bit more ominous and evil, and it also sounds like a twisted version of TFA, when a different blade whispers to Rey, and Maz tells her to embrace the light, that it would guide her. It might subtly help make that parallel I mentioned earlier more apparent.

CaptainFaraday said:

Here’s what RogueLeader and I have got for Sith-3PO’s translation of the dagger:

We whisper to a darkened heart
Unveil the way with secret art
For faithful Sith whose hatred swells
Wayfinder, only this blade tells

I think the first line is a perfect opening line, anyone paying attention would immediatley connect it to the whispers Rey heard in the cave. However maybe it could be “we only whisper to a darkened heart” to really drive that point home.

I also think the inscription should say ‘Wayfinder’ somewhere, it not only makes things simpler to follow, but it also would warrant 3PO’s reaction to finding the blade, he knows for sure “it’s the clue Master Luke was looking for”, a clue to find the Wayfinder. Though now it doesn’t say exactly where it is, it shouldn’t be too cryptic.

Lando specifically says that Ochi “was carrying a clue that could lead to a Wayfinder”, so I think the dagger should be tied to the Wayfinder. As long as it doesn’t mention Endor and there’s no thingy that lines up with the DSII wreckage it could still be seen as an old Sith artifact. Both the dagger and the Wayfinders could be ancient, or at least far older than 30 some years. Lando says only two were made, but doesn’t say when, perhaps they’ve been carried down through Sith generations, wich would tie to the rule of two and the fact Vader had one and Sidious the other.

sherlockpotter said:

I wanted to try extending the Rey/Finn moment, to give us more time to play with. By doing so, I thought we could also highlight even more how far away from her friends Rey is getting right now.

V1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/184g4AqJx73cGdEvEOuSMQo7mc1vIJczA/view?usp=sharing
V2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WyXHZZhkVrbW1iEaZi9tS9lGe1nPnLuw/view?usp=sharing

I really like what you did with the whispers in V2, I think it would work if they’re the same whispers she hears when she picks up the dagger on Kylo’s ship, so it would be more like she’s thinking about it, like they’re stuck in her head. It makes sense since she would’ve been talking to Finn about the vision she just had there. It also makes more sense to switch the scenes around because in this version Rey would’ve had to tell them to head to the Endor system so it makes more sense to open with this conversation.

The only nitpick i’d have is we stay on that shot if Rey for a bit too long, maybe Finn’s line could start at the tail end of the Falcon shot, and the whispers could be trimmed down a bit, here’s a quick mockup of how that could look like:

https://vimeo.com/532427690

Also with this new sequence there would need to be a “jumping out of lightspeed” sound effect when they reach Endor, which shouldn’t be too hard to add since the camera already holds for a bit before the Falcon appears.

As a couple of extra points:

But now in this version Luke not only gives her a pep-talk, he gives her a new, fully functioning lightsaber, a new chance to fully embrace the Jedi. So now on Exegol the struggle is clear, recover the light or embrace the dark, and notice how she doesn’t use the new saber until she finally chooses to firmly stand against the dark as a Jedi. It’s almost like this is how it was always meant to be.

I just remembered it was decided to remove Luke’s line: “you will take both sabers to Exegol [because your pal Ben’s gonna need one]”. So now it could be interpreted as Luke giving Leia’s lightsaber to Rey as a replacement for the old, broken one. Rey doesn’t feel worthy of wielding this new saber, so she decides to take both sabers to Exegol, but continues using the old one. It isn’t until she fully rejects the dark that she finally reaches for and proudly wields Leia’s saber, and now the fact there’s an extra saber for Ben is just a nice bit of poetic luck.

Also if we carry this idea of focusing on the whispers throughout the film, it could give a new context to the implementation of Duel of the Fates, as now it could be seen as if the evil whispers have turned into a full blown choir as Rey has allowed herself to be consumed by her darkness until now… until now she has become the very thing she swore to destroy.

“Is the dark side stronger?”
“No! no, no… quicker, easier, more seductive."

With what the movie does, the changes that have been done so far, and things being proposed this is what I’m thinking:

As Jarbear said, we’ve been seeing Rey being drawn to the dark side in TLJ, and you could argue even in TFA. She’s been using it as a shortcut to achieve her goals. Now cut to TRoS, where we finally see her trying to slow down and train as a Jedi, but it’s not working, she calls to the Jedi but no one answers, during the training course we see that her Jedi fighting technques are failing her, we see her get more and more angry, lose control, and take that shortcut again to finally hit the ball. Her use of the dark side here ends up triggering a vision (unlike the theatrical where everything, even Rey getting mad, is implied to be a by-product of her connection to Kylo). So here we see first hand that there is darkness inside her, and we have a vision of her turning dark.

Now on Pasaana, she finds a Sith dagger, and as soon as she picks it up, it calls to her through whispers in her head, she gets a worried look (we cut the mom scream and the line “horrible things have happened with this”). The lightsaber once called to her, and we took it as a sign she was destined to become a Jedi, but we now see the opposite. The lightsaber is now silent and broken because of her choices in TLJ, perhaps she broke her chance to become a Jedi, maybe now her destiny is to become a Sith, just like we saw in the vision.

Then on Kijimi the inscription in the dagger is translated, and it is revealed that the dagger calls out to those with great darkness within them or something like that, something that cements that the reason she heard those whispers is that the dagger sensed her inner darkness. Then she hears those whispers once more on Kylo’s ship, and she ends up following them. When she finds the dagger she again looks worriedly as it starts whispering to her again, only now she understands what that means (so you could even keep her saying “no” as in “no, I’m not evil, stop talking to me”). Then, if that idea pans out, she would have a vision here. You could sprinkle some more evil Rey foreshadowing in it as it’s very relevant.

“If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will”

So now by the time we get to Endor, everything is setup in it’s place for the edit that’s already in V1. Now it’s clear that following those whispers means Rey is descending deeper and deeper into the dark side, culminating in her meeting her “true self” inside the Wayfinder room. Now Kylo’s words ring far more true to the audience: “Look at yourself. You wanted to prove to my mother that you were a Jedi… but you’ve proven something else.”

Rey chooses to literally “follow” the dark path, which consumes her to the point she ends up stabbing Kylo with no hesitation. It truly feels like she can’t escape her destiny of becoming a Sith, so she exiles herself on Ach-to. But now in this version Luke not only gives her a pep-talk, he gives her a new, fully functioning lightsaber, a new chance to fully embrace the Jedi. So now on Exegol the struggle is clear, recover the light or embrace the dark, and notice how she doesn’t use the new saber until she finally chooses to firmly stand against the dark as a Jedi. It’s almost like this is how it was always meant to be.

sherlockpotter said:

But my question to you would be: what are the odds that our heroes are looking for a clue that will lead them to a Sith Artifact; and then they find a Sith Cultist, who has a mythical blade carved in ancient, unintelligible runes, and Rey can sense oodles of Dark Side energy coming from it.

The question is, what are the odds that this isn’t what they’re looking for? Balance of probability, and all of that. “Darn it, Rey, you were supposed to grab the other mythical Dark Side weapon that the Sith Cultist was hoarding in the cave that was emanating Dark Side energy! Doh!”

Like, seriously, how many Sith Artifacts do you think Ochi brought with him into this cave? They’re not exactly growing on trees, ya know? You said it yourself, 3PO is all about statistics. Statistically, how many magical Sith Artifacts are they expected to find?

EDIT: Okay, okay, okay, what if we could make 3PO say, “This must be the clue Master Luke was after”? Would that alleviate your concerns?

They’re not particularly looking for a Sith artifact, or a passage in ancient Sith runes, so the odds that it isn’t what they’re looking for are pretty high. Maybe Rey would think it’s important, specially if it calls to her, but unless the odds are 100% 3PO’s reaction to it would be off, and even if his lines could be altered seamlessly he would still be too cheerful over some meaningless runes. I think the best course would be to just let 3PO read the thing.

sherlockpotter said:

Well, here’s the tricky thing actually, with the new angle we’re taking with the Dagger, it doesn’t really say the “Location of the Wayfinder” anyway. Personally, I still think Sith Runes are enough of a giveaway to accept that the Dagger is important.

Besides, Rey senses something fishy about the Dagger, so clearly it means more than Ochi’s special knife. How many artifacts, carved with ancient Sith Runes, imbuded with pure Essence of Dark Side, discovered near a confirmed Sith Cultist, are we reasonably going to find?

I guess my question to you would be what are the odds that this one random artifact filled with scribbles happens to be the one thing holding the key to finding that particular thing they’re looking for? And why would 3PO, who is all about the odds, be so excited and sure that it is the one thing they needed if he doesn’t know what it says? Even if we remove the location of the Wayfinder from the inscription, 3PO’s reaction to seeing it wouldn’t make sense unless he knows for sure it IS the clue they were looking for.

As for the new inscription, maybe it could end with something like “to those it chooses, only this blade tells”, this would reinforce the idea I was talking about earlier of the dagger reaching out to Rey from the moment she picks it up (instead of “I can hear my momma scream!”), and the idea that those same whispers can guide Rey on the DSII as it’s already implemented. And it wouldn’t make it all about Rey, she would simply be “chosen” by the dagger, maybe implying the dagger can sense the darkness growing inside her, but she wouldn’t be a “Chosen One” in any capacity.

sherlockpotter said:

Burbin said:

sherlockpotter said:

I’ve removed Rey’s line. Personally I’m not bothered by this one so much either way (I guess I’ve finally found my breaking point for “stupid, but not movie-breakingly stupid”), but I present this so that others can weigh in:

https://streamable.com/g624m1

Removing Rey’s line actually gives a bigger focus to the whispers, perhaps they could be amped up, In fact… maybe the whole concept of Rey hearing her mum’s scream when near the dagger could be axed from the two scenes it appears in, in favor of focusing on her hearing sith whispers instead.

The second time we hear the ‘scream’ is in Kylo’s quarters, where she looks worriedly at the dagger. We could cut before she says “no” and replace the screams of lil’ Rey and momma Rey with more, perhaps louder whispers. This would offer a better setup for the change on the Death Star II and the “only this blade tells”, if we focus on the dagger constantly reaching out and talking to Rey. The idea of the dark side reaching out to Rey, culminating in her following that voice in the DSII would be a really nice way to convey her descent to the dark, and it would be a better/smarter parallel to TFA instead of a lame repeat of hearing someone screaming “no!”.

I’m not a fan of trimming 3PO though, how would he know the dagger is the clue Luke was looking for if he doesn’t know what it says?

He recognized the language as “the runic language of the Sith”; so, on a quest to find a Sith artifact, he would probably infer that a dagger covered in Sith-iness is relevant. Sith Wayfinder…Sith Runes…slap a blue paw print on that sucker, and you’ve got yourself a clue.

I don’t know, to me it seems like unnecessary obfuscation of something that’s perfectly fine and clear originally, without gaining much from changing it. Imagine going to Kijimi and erasing 3PO’s memory only for the translation to be some unrelated thing like “This is Ochi’s dagger, do not steal. Long live the Sith”.
_

“It’s the clue that Master Luke was looking for!”

“How do you know that? Hey 3PO, I said how do you know that? How do you know that’s the clue Luke was looking for if you can’t translate it? Did you read the script? Hey what’s that in the sand next to those bones? Is that the script?”

sherlockpotter said:

I’ve removed Rey’s line. Personally I’m not bothered by this one so much either way (I guess I’ve finally found my breaking point for “stupid, but not movie-breakingly stupid”), but I present this so that others can weigh in:

https://streamable.com/g624m1

Removing Rey’s line actually gives a bigger focus to the whispers, perhaps they could be amped up, In fact… maybe the whole concept of Rey hearing her mum’s scream when near the dagger could be axed from the two scenes it appears in, in favor of focusing on her hearing sith whispers instead.

The second time we hear the ‘scream’ is in Kylo’s quarters, where she looks worriedly at the dagger. We could cut before she says “no” and replace the screams of lil’ Rey and momma Rey with more, perhaps louder whispers. This would offer a better setup for the change on the Death Star II and the “only this blade tells”, if we focus on the dagger constantly reaching out and talking to Rey. The idea of the dark side reaching out to Rey, culminating in her following that voice in the DSII would be a really nice way to convey her descent to the dark, and it would be a better/smarter parallel to TFA instead of a lame repeat of hearing someone screaming “no!”.

I’m not a fan of trimming 3PO though, how would he know the dagger is the clue Luke was looking for if he doesn’t know what it says?

We also see encoded transmissions being used by the Rebellion in Rogue One, with a major point being the risk of interception by the Empire. Makes sense Leia would want to avoid live communications that could leak to the First Order that Rey & co are on their way to Pasaana. Same with Lando, who seems like the only one who knows about Ochi and the Emperor’s Wayinder.

Here’s the new version of the purple saber switch using the clip Hal sent me:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/6q57njbt7sku8dn/file

I think I see Hal’s intent with the new shot and I think it works. On the opening shot we see the TIEs are a ways off from the planet, so having an ‘establishing shot’, as I refered to it, of the surface allows some inferred time for the TIEs to actually reach the planet, then we can cut back to them. It’s a nice transition from ‘TIEs on space’ to ‘TIEs on the surface’, plus it’s a really pretty and striking shot that would be obscured with TIEs flying around.

And I don’t think the castle having no trees is an issue since it’s shown to be on a cliff in the background: the ‘establishing’ shot establishes lava and trees, then we se lava on the castle shot, and then we se trees on the flyover shot.

Hal 9000 said:

Here’s the ‘Burbin’ version to consider, too: https://vimeo.com/529837651

I don’t think flipping the shot works, whether it is for this version or the three shot version. The focal point of that shot is the lava flow so it’s disorienting to flip around to the right since the previous shot has our attention on the left side of the frame, with TIEs flying onward, the contour of the planet and SD (with the flow of the lava on the left it almost mirrors the contour of the planet in the previous shot so it fits really well), and whether we cut to the TIEs flying over the castle or the forest, the focal point would switch back to the left again. Don’t know if I’m making sense…

And besides for this version it makes more sense for the lava to be on the left and the forest to the right, since the TIEs in the next shot move ‘right’ into the forest. Otherwise, unsurprisingly, I think I like the ‘Burbin’ version the best, and I agree with Testing as to why I’m not a fan of the castle shot, it stands out too much for it to work as the second or third shot in the whole movie.

I think we’d probably want the audience to focus on the fact that there is a forest growing on Mustafar, so it might not be necessary to add TIEs to the establishing shot, we could just have the noise from the TIEs slowly creep in to lead to the flyover shot.

Even though I helped dim the castle lights, I’ve never been a fan of that castle shot, I agree that it’s slightly off in execution, but I’m also not a fan of it in principle. Because the castle is not really relevant to the sequence so I don’t think it should be highlighted front and center, MR’s castle in the background shot alone works far better imo just as a small cameo.

So I think the best sequence might be to only have the other two shots: TIEs flying towards red lava planet > Establishing shot of the planets surface, revealing a forest growing amidst the lava > The TIEs, now descended to the surface, fly over the forest > cut to Kylo on the surface of said forest.

I disagree, I think it’s a bad finale for both the sequels and the saga, and it pretty much condemns TLJ to be seen as an odd momentary derailment instead of the step forwards it should’ve been. But we’re getting into subjective territory again.