Burbin

To put it simply, TRoS is a soft reboot of TLJ, it walked back on everything TLJ did, it regressed the state of the characters and story to the way it was at the end of TFA and pushed them back into the old mold. I think the main divide comes from people who are frustrated at TRoS and want to minimize that walk back from TLJ as much as possible, and people who liked that TRoS went back to doing the same old stuff and don’t want to see it trimmed too much to gel better with the previous movie. The stance I can’t reconcile with is acting like TRoS is a perfectly fine continuation of TLJ and that it all makes perfect sense if you really think about it.

TestingOutTheTest said:

Burbin said:

My point was TLJ left things open ended, you only see that as set up for Ben being redeemed because that’s what happened in the end, but it could’ve gone any other way. Just think of this interaction between Luke and Leia:

“I came to face him, Leia. And I can’t save him.”
“I held out hope for so long, but I know my son is gone.”
“No one’s ever really gone.”

On one hand, this clearly reads as Kylo being past the point of redemption, as even Leia has given up on him, on the other, Luke only says he can’t save him, and comforts Leia by telling her no one’s ever really gone, though that leads into Han, so it could be read in a multitude of ways, that’s what made TLJ great.

If Kylo was past the point of redemption, then Luke wouldn’t have told Leia, “No one’s ever really gone.”

He then gives her Han’s dice, you know, Han, who is dead. So what did he really mean by that? That her son is gone but not forgotten? Like I said it could be read in a multitude of ways, they could’ve had Kylo NOT be redeemed in ep IX and this conversation would still make sense. You would be here telling us how dumb we are for thinking he might be redeemed.

I wouldn’t be opposed to Kylo chosing to turn after losing everything and finally seeing the error of his choices, as Sherlock suggested, but the point of TLJ was that Kylo chose not to turn good even after the ‘big bad’ in the throne was dead, instead he chose to become the Ruler of the First Order, he chose to become the ‘big bad’ and sit on the throne himself. Things could go in any direction after this.

No. That reinforced Kylo’s desire to be evil, but even then he’s left broken. This is just like in TFA, he kills Han to clear away these goody-goody feelings but it doesn’t work, it makes him even more regretful. Just because he decided to rule the First Order doesn’t mean his goody-goody feelings are gone - in fact, TLJ showed him being conflicted at the end.

Leaving him unredeemed undermines the point of his arc.

Yes Kylo is broken, divided, conflicted… the point in TLJ is that just because somebody is broken, divided and conflicted it doesn’t mean they HAVE to turn. Kylo is given the choice, and he chooses to remain evil. He could’ve kept holding to that choice all the way to the end. Leaving him unredeemed would undermine nothing.

Again, you only see it like this because that’s how it played out in the end, letting go of her parents and dealing with feelings worthlessness were key parts of her character arc, but so was finding her place in this story and wanting to be someone important.

Most importantly, she’s the protagonist, she works as a surrogate for the audience. And as such, in a metanarrative sense, she needed to let go of her parents because we needed to let go of her parents, she wanted to find her place in this story because we wanted to find her place in this story, we wanted her to be someone important, we wanted some big revelation, and so did she. Her parents being no one wasn’t just the hardest answer for Rey, it was the hardest answer for the audience. An audience who spent years specutaling where she came from, who she would be related to, where she would fit in. Like Kylo says, the fact that her parents were no one meant she had no [set] place in this story. She had no connection to anyone, she was free to choose whomever she wanted to be. Making her the grandaughter of Palpatine undoes this, now she is shoved back into the mold, the hero is the offspring of the villain, that was the easy and obvious answer, and what we’ve all seen before.

No.

People only speculated as to who she’s related to because they hoped it would explain her “powers” and wanted a payoff for what they thought was a set-up for “her parents being important”. TFA and the entire saga already explained her abilities, and TFA never set up her parents being important - in fact, Maz literally says they aren’t important.

Yes.

You just explained why her being a nobody was the right choice, so you can’t say under the same breath that TRoS making her a Palpatine was a stroke of genius. And you’ve also just laid out to Sherlock that Rey DOES care about her importance, and her place in the story:

Rey wants to learn “her place” as a way of justifying as to why her parents left her. The point of TLJ is that she refuses to accept that her parents threw her away like garbage - she literally lashes out at Kylo, denying his taunt that “[her] parents threw [her] away like garbage.” She waited all those years on Jakku, having been lying to herself that there had to be some good reason as to why her parents left her, that she is of some importance, at least to them, showing that they truly loved her and cared for her, that she is worth something. It is for this reason she convinces BB-8 in TFA that her family would be back for her… someday.

However… Rey wants to find out what her “place” exactly is. For the past decade and a half of her life, she had been lying to herself that she would realize what her importance was upon finding out who her parents were, and that if she does find out what her importance was then she would feel loved, since in this hypothetical scenario her parents did abandon her for an important reason, showing how much they care for her.

The “place in all this,” itself, never really mattered to Rey. She was only going to use it as a way to justify her parents abandoning her… so she would belong to them, feeling loved. The reason she says to Luke, “I need someone to show me my place in all this,” is, well… you see, she wants to find her importance merely to use it as a way of justifying her parents abandoning her, feeding the lie that they truly cared about her and believed that she was worth something so that lie would never die off, so, for the rest of her life, she would feel loved — henceforth pushing away her feelings of self-worthlessness.

So you can’t go contradicting yourself by saying that wasn’t a part of her arc. Of course Rey doesn’t want to be related to Obi-wan or Palpatine, that’s purely the fan speculation side of it, but she did want some big revelation about her parents that would justify being left to rot on Jakku.

TestingOutTheTest said:

Burbin said:

TLJ freed this new story and allowed it to become it’s own (much like Kylo in the film), it revealed that there was no set place for these characters to fit in (much like Rey in the film), no set story ‘destined’ to play out. It opened the door for the final chapter to be something new, different and original. TRoS closed that door shut, shoving everything back into the original mold: Rey goes on to be trained as a Jedi, there is some big revelation about her backstory, Kylo turns to the light, and together they defeat Snoke Palpatine, which marks the end of the First and Final Order, and the return of the Jedi and the New New Republic. The Empire is defeated by taking down the ‘big bad’ on the throne again.

I feel like you’re implying Kylo Ren was set up to be irredeemable, except we literally end with him broken, kneeling on the floor in the base.

My point was TLJ left things open ended, you only see that as set up for Ben being redeemed because that’s what happened in the end, but it could’ve gone any other way. Just think of this interaction between Luke and Leia:

“I came to face him, Leia. And I can’t save him.”
“I held out hope for so long, but I know my son is gone.”
“No one’s ever really gone.”

On one hand, this clearly reads as Kylo being past the point of redemption, as even Leia has given up on him, on the other, Luke only says he can’t save him, and comforts Leia by telling her no one’s ever really gone, though that leads into Han, so it could be read in a multitude of ways, that’s what made TLJ great.

I wouldn’t be opposed to Kylo chosing to turn after losing everything and finally seeing the error of his choices, as Sherlock suggested, but the point of TLJ was that Kylo chose not to turn good even after the ‘big bad’ in the throne was dead, instead he chose to become the Ruler of the First Order, he chose to become the ‘big bad’ and sit on the throne himself. Things could go in any direction after this.

Then in TRoS they literally just bring out a new ‘big bad’ AND a new throne in order to completely undo Kylo’s growth. Now he is shoved back into the mold, the conflicted villain is turned good and helps take down the true ‘big bad’ in the throne, as we’ve all seen before. Just think about how we never see Kylo sitting on his Supreme Leader throne, because he is not allowed to be that character, the way we see him command officers around has no more gravity than the way he did it in TFA, and he goes back to just doing the bidding of an old disfigured monster again.

I also feel like you’ve missed the point of Rey’s arc in TLJ, it isn’t about finding her place in all this or being important in general, it’s about letting go of her parents altogether, coming to terms that, to them, she is completely worthless — reinforcing her arc of how she eventually overcomes her irrational, toxic core belief that she is worthless and refuses her lie that she is only worth something if others think she is. She only wanted to find out as to what her importance (in a good way) is so she would use it to justify as to why her parents left her on Jakku, feeding her lie that her parents truly did love her, feeling loved, to push away her feelings of self-worthlessness that hold her back and leech off her happiness.

I do feel TRoS undermined Rey’s arc by having her parents be noble people who loved her, but the idea of her being Palpatine’s granddaughter does not; when she stabs Kylo Ren, she becomes convinced that, because of a combination of her heritage and her Force-sensitivity, she is meant to be consumed by the dark side in the way her grandfather was, so she exiles herself, believing that the Resistance is no longer going to give her any validation once she turns to the dark side — Luke proves this wrong by reminding her of Leia training her, regardless of her heritage, showing that the value of others is determined by their heart, not their heritage, and convincing her to face Palpatine and determine the fate of the galaxy, showing that it is not her heritage that determines her future, but it is she, herself, who determines it.

Again, you only see it like this because that’s how it played out in the end, letting go of her parents and dealing with feelings worthlessness were key parts of her character arc, but so was finding her place in this story and wanting to be someone important.

Most importantly, she’s the protagonist, she works as a surrogate for the audience. And as such, in a metanarrative sense, she needed to let go of her parents because we needed to let go of her parents, she wanted to find her place in this story because we wanted to find her place in this story, we wanted her to be someone important, we wanted some big revelation, and so did she. Her parents being no one wasn’t just the hardest answer for Rey, it was the hardest answer for the audience. An audience who spent years specutaling where she came from, who she would be related to, where she would fit in. Like Kylo says, the fact that her parents were no one meant she had no [set] place in this story. She had no connection to anyone, she was free to choose whomever she wanted to be. Making her the grandaughter of Palpatine undoes this, now she is shoved back into the mold, the hero is the offspring of the villain, that was the easy and obvious answer, and what we’ve all seen before.

So, in conclusion, bringing back Palpatine was lazy, dumb, and bad for Kylo’s character, and making Rey a Palpatine was lazy, dumb, and bad for Rey’s character. You can try to rationalize how they “made it work”, but the fact of the matter is it’s a regression for both characters.

RogueLeader said:

I feel like the ways both the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy end feels sort of inevitable. Perhaps time has added to this feeling, but Anakin falling to the dark side, and then him being redeemed by his son, feel like these are the only ways these stories could’ve gone.

When it comes to the story of the sequel trilogy and the way they end, I feel like those are harder to pin down. I know George said the sequels were about the “grandchildren” and the torch being passed to them, per se, but I can understand the struggle the writers had when trying to figure this out.

I guess I am curious to hear if people feel like the ending of TROS felt like the right or inevitable ending to them. And if not, what do you think that ending should have been? Could you potentially edit TROS to get closer to that ending you imagined?

To be fair, there was no indication that Vader could be redeemed by the end of Empire, and of course he wasn’t even Luke’s father by the end of Star Wars. Only by looking back at the whole trilogy you could connect the dots of an overall story of a son redeeming his father, but things could’ve gone in many different directions at any point in the trilogy. Obviously in the prequels the ending was inevitable, and they leaned on setting up what would happen afterwards, so by looking at the story from ep I to VI as a whole, it does seem inevitable that Anakin would turn back to the light, as we get to see just how conflicted he was in turning to the dark side.

By leaning so heavly into what came before, the way TFA played out did end up giving a heavy feeling of inevitability, by the end we felt we knew how it would all play out, because we had seen it before. We had another Vader, and this time he’s set up from the very beggining as a very conflicted villain, as having a familial connection to our heroes, and as having an old, disfigured Master who turned him bad, and who’s the real evil behind it all. And we had another humble hero, stuck on a desert planet, but destined for greatness. We even had the sage-like figure who dies by the end, followed by a quest to find an old Master.

And so in our minds we could already see how the rest of the trilogy would play out: Rey would go on to be trained as a Jedi, there would be some big revelation about her backstory, Kylo would turn to the light, and together they would defeat Snoke, which would mark the end of the First Order, and the return of the Jedi and the New New Republic. This is why, looking back, I think TLJ was great despite some of it’s flaws, because it was able to take something old and cast it into something truly new. This is also why it was so divisive, because many (myself included) were just ready to simply continue the direct retelling through to the end, we wanted to see Luke training Rey in the ways of the Force, we wanted to see Kylo turn good, we wanted all the speculation behind Rey and Snoke’s backstory to have a cathartic payoff. It took me years of retrospection to realize how fresh TLJ was to the franchise, because it didn’t actually go against anything TFA set up, as many accused it of, but rather it went agaist our preconcieved notions of how those things should play out, of how this story should work. We were shown things aren’t as simple as the Old Tales (OT, get it?), that maybe the Jedi weren’t infallible (as is shown in the prequels), maybe somebody can’t turn good after doing so much bad, maybe defeating an Empire is not as simple as taking down the ‘big bad’ sitting on the throne, and maybe there isn’t some big legacy revelation that sets everything in place.

TLJ freed this new story and allowed it to become it’s own (much like Kylo in the film), it revealed that there was no set place for these characters to fit in (much like Rey in the film), no set story ‘destined’ to play out. It opened the door for the final chapter to be something new, different and original. TRoS closed that door shut, shoving everything back into the original mold: Rey goes on to be trained as a Jedi, there is some big revelation about her backstory, Kylo turns to the light, and together they defeat Snoke Palpatine, which marks the end of the First and Final Order, and the return of the Jedi and the New New Republic. The Empire is defeated by taking down the ‘big bad’ on the throne again.

So, to answer your question, TRoS is definitely THE most inevitable feeling ending of them all, but after TLJ… it shouldn’t have been.

Yeah, there’s still a hint of blue, but very desaturated, it’s why I said “pretty much grey”. I guess I’ll just say I personally prefer nev’s approach, which personally does read to me as the first lights of an early morning, at least from the second establishing shot onwards. Though perhaps the TIE torching bit could use a slight hint of blue.

DominicCobb said:

The big sticking point for me is the dark grey look of the sky and the frame in general. Dark grey sky reads to me as either overcast or, unfortunately, artificially darkened.

To me a harsh blue hue is usually what gives away day for night instead, compare it to the night scenes in TLJ, the hue there is pretty much grey rather than blue.

There had been talk of “adding lava” to the forest shot to make it blend better, so this seems like the perfect replacement, if having both doesn’t work. I believe Popasketti did the other shot, however, and he doesn’t have a lot of free time.

sherlockpotter said:

Burbin said:

…we have to assume they CAN’T generate a plan to disable the signal permanently.

…Yes the battle is won by destroying the nav tower, which leaves the fleet stuck on Exegol

Dude, if your argument contradicts itself, I’m gonna assume the plan makes no sense. I’m sorry. Also, again, I tried to explain from the beginning that I was insulting the writing, not you. If that wasn’t clear, then I apologize.

No offense taken! I thought this debate was civil enough, sorry if I seemed insulted or if I offended you in any way.

My argument the movie’s plot doesn’t contradict itself, the plan is to disable the signal temporarily, they execute the plan, but Finn goes a step further and takes it down for good, I don’t see how it’s so confusing. I’ve layed everything out in excruciating detail, and you choose to ignore it all and say “I’m gonna assume it makes no sense”.

For context: My original suggestion was to simplify the Exegol battle by cutting a mere eight(?) words of dialogue, so that the Resistance’s plan going into the fight is to destroy the Navigation Tower. Without the signal from the tower, the Sith Fleet won’t be able to leave Exegol, rendering them harmless.

Burbin is arguing that we need to keep those eight words, because they prove that the goal of the entire battle is not to “permanently” disable the signal, but instead to temporarily disable the signal. Then, in the “just minutes” while the navigation signal is down, the Resistance is going to take advantage of the ships’ lack of “navigation,” and swoop in and blow up all 10,000+ Final Order ships. On a whim, Finn decides to just go rogue and blow up the signal anyway; and, coincidentally, the rest of the (10,000+) ships are all immediately destroyed off camera.

I’m arguing we stick with what the movie gives us, a plan that is laid out in detail, and then carried out through. I’m arguing taking out lines have it make less sense, not more. If you just take out “eight words”, Poe’s POV makes no sense, and if you continue trimming, you’ll be left with nothing.

You’re arguing to change something that by your own admission you don’t understand.

sherlockpotter said:

Let’s allow Exegol to make even the slightest amount of sense. Please.

Yes, let’s allow Exegol to make the slightest amount of sense, by keeping the internal logic explicitly layed out by the movie both in the mission briefing, and built upon during the whole Exegol assault, istead of trimming everything away and, with nothing to replace it, being left with just nothing, having to fill in the gaps in your head to adhere to some head cannon that is not explicit anywhere in the film.

Look, Finn seems shocked that the Nav Tower is coming back online. Once it’s actually destroyed, Poe says “Their fleet is stuck here! They’re toast! Come on!” And then he sort of gestures over his shoulder, and he never takes out another SDDSSD. In fact, NO ONE TAkES OUT ANOTHER SDDSSD. They just leave, because what’s the First/Final Order going to do? Follow them? They’ve been trapped. The visuals of the film show that, as soon as the Nav Tower is destroyed, the Rebels start to leave without taking out more ships.

You say no one takes down another ship, even though after Ben and Leia fade away there’s literally a 16 second wide shot of hundreds of ships crashing down, and some more behind Rey as she leaves the Sith Citadel, with no more fuctional enemy ships left in the air as everyone leaves. Just because they don’t continue the montage of ships being taken down doesn’t mean the gazillion of civilian ships just decide to hang out and eat lunch while we focus on the main characters. The visuals of the film show that, as soon as the Nav Tower is destroyed, the civilian fleet continue taking down the rest of the Final Order fleet.

I guess I’m coming at this from a perspective of “What plan makes logical sense?” rather than “What do each of the characters say?”

So, like, we’re agreed that the Nav signal is required for the fleet to leave Exegol, right? In that case, the plan should be to destroy the nav signal, right? Because if their entire plan hinges on disabling the signal temporarily…my god, that’s just utterly stupid, isn’t it? Like, I genuinely can’t wrap my head around that plan. That actually goes beyond stupid; it’s utterly incomprehensible.

The plan is to “hit the fleet while they’re vulnerable on Exegol.” So why would the plan entail only keeping them on Exegol temporarily, when they could keep them on Exegol permanently? I’m talking from a logical, plan-making perspective. Which one makes more sense?

Disabling the signal temporarily is not “utterly stupid” if it’s the only option they have, you’re working on the assumption that they choose to do it temporairly, instead of it being the only choice, which again, it’s done that way to give the mission urgency, we have to assume they CAN’T generate a plan to disable the signal permanently. What IS utterly stupid is to conclude the final battle in the final film of the saga with the unspoken assumption that they just decide to leave a huge fleet of fully operational war machines behind, just because “they’re stuck”, instead of following the laid out plan to take them down. How does that make logical sense? What actually makes sense for them to do?

I’ve gone the past year and a half assuming that the battle was won by destroying the nav tower. Because it has to be. Maybe that’s on me; maybe I gave the film too much credit, letting it have even one sequence that’s somewhat intelligible.

Yes the battle is won by destroying the nav tower, which leaves the fleet stuck on Exegol and allows the civilian fleet to take them out, you were right on the money there. Finn assures victory by bringing the command ship down, otherwise a portion of the fleet might’ve been able to escape the atmosphere once the nav signal was restored.

Seriously, I’m trying to understand this cockamamie plan to “temporarily disable the Nav beacon, and then blow up a seemingly infinite number of ships in the few minutes during which they’re stalled”…and it’s like trying to conceptualize infinity. My brain can’t do it. I’m not being hyperbolic. Swear to god, I can’t comprehend it.

You are being hyperbolic. The plan is very straightforward and is laid out in detail on the mission briefing.

sherlockpotter said:

Burbin, I appreciate the defense, I do; but I still can’t get behind it. Finn was all set to leave after disabling the signal - everyone was leaving - and then he was like “Hold up, they’re resetting their systems. The nav signal is coming back online! I have to stop it!” The way he says it definitely implies that they weren’t expecting the nav signal to come back online.

And look, even if you’re right - that Chris and J.J. wrote the entire thing to temporarily stop them from leaving (which is nonsensical), and then the Rebels managed to defeat an extra 7,000 ships off-screen (which is bad filmmaking) - why do we have to prescribe to that? If it’s possible to tie everything up in a nice little “They can’t get off the planet” bow, and cut through all of the obfuscation, why can’t we do that? Even if it’s not 1:1 with the filmmakers’ original intention. That’s sort of the point of this edit, no?

I think I’ve layed out the logic of the Exegol assault pretty thoroughly, and why I can’t get behind the removal of those lines. Yes, Finn acting so surprised is the only bit that might seem contradictory, perhaps the signal on the command ship would come back sooner than expected, since the plan was to hit the tower on the ground, or perhaps Finn gets a last minute idea to take down the ship while they reset their systems.

The thing is everything else points to the stall being temporary, and I don’t see how that’s “nonsensical” but making it permanent makes perfect sense, seems to me like it’s the opposite. Changing this would contradict everything else. The main plan, as clearly laid out in the briefing, is to hit the Fleet while they’re vulnerable on Exegol since shields don’t work on it’s atmosphere, and without shields hitting the cannons causes a chain reaction that brings down the ships. Deactivating their nav signal is only step one on the plan, as a means to stall the fleet from leaving the planet, step two is Lando riling up the people and step three is taking down the Final Order. You seem to be under the impression that the plan was to leave the fleet stranded on Exegol, while taking out a few ships on the way, but it’s explicitly stated the main goal is to take the ships down.

Changing this also turns Poe’s POV of the battle into nonsense, as every line he speaks clearly indicates he believes the ships won’t be stuck forever:

“We’ll have to hit them ourselves! Except… they’re stuck here and we’re horribly outnumbered, so we could just leave and regroup with Lando!”

“This is our last chance, we’ve got to hit those cannons now! Or… maybe later! They are stuck here guys don’t worry!”

“Poe, the command ship!”
“Oh, cool, it blew up, the fleet was already stuck here anyway, but hey, they’re toast, come on!”

sherlockpotter said:

Oh god, every time I think about any scene in this movie, it gets more and more confusing lol.

Okay, so, here’s the thing. Yes, they establish that hitting the underbelly canons will destroy the ships. Yes, they say they want to disable the Nav beacon. And yes, I agree that the mission is “about the nav signal itself.”

But, like, they don’t need to “temporarily disable” the Nav signal in order to destroy the underbelly canons. The underbelly canons are a weak spot because “Shields don’t work in atmosphere” or whatever.

Right, they don’t need to disable the signal to shoot the canons, they need to disable it to stop the ships from leaving atmosphere, where they’d become unstoppable as their shields would protect their “weakness”. Only by stopping the ships on the planet they can be destroyed by shooting the cannons.

And if - as we agree - “[the ships] can’t leave without [the nav signal],” why is their plan to disable it temporarily instead of permanently? How does that make any sense? And if they are trying to disable it permanently…why don’t we let Poe’s mission briefing establish that?

Like I said, the whole thing is dumb if you think too hard on it, why can’t they just shoot a torpedo at the tower and blow it up? Because we’re told they need a ground team to disable it, they “can’t take it down from the air”, we’re not shown or explained why, we just have to take their word for it, like wise we have to assume they can’t leave the fleet permanently stuck there because we’re told they can only do it temporarily. Of course from a storytelling perspective, the reason why is temporary is to keep a sense of urgency and tension, as there should still be a chance for the Final Order to escape, and so there should be an urgency to take down the ships while they can. Instead of “we disabled the nav signal, the whole fleet is stuck here for good!”. We don’t get that release of tension until Finn takes the command ship down.

Also, after Poe says “They’re stuck here! They’re toast!” J.J. kindly cuts to a wide shot of the Sith Fleet:

And in the background of that wide shot, we can see roughly 4200 Super-Duper-Death-Star-Star-Destroyers (classic SDDSSDs) still hovering perfectly in formation, completely unopposed, completed un-blown up. Yet Poe isn’t screaming “Hurry! The Nav Signal is destroyed and they can’t leave the planet! We have to blow them all up before they don’t leave the planet!” He’s just like, “Nah man, they’re stuck.” And they get outta there without exploding any more ships.

Poe’s full line is “they’re toast, come on!” implying there’s still work to do, so it’s safe to assume they continue taking down the rest of the SDDSSDs while Lando rescues Finn and Jannah and Rey is busy dying and such. Yes the sheer number of SDDSSDs is ridiculous, but we get an equally ridiculous amount or civilian ships so the implication is supposed to be they take 'em all down. And in case you’re not convinced, that is the plan as discussed in the briefing: “Fighters and freighters can take out their cannons if there are enough of us”, it might seem like there’s just too many of them, but as Lando says “There are more of us!”. There’s still debris falling down as Rey leaves on Luke’s X-wing that implies they kept on blowing them up, and all the enemy ships are gone on those final shots, so it’s all wrapped up in a nice bow. Again, it’s ridiculous by the sheer scope of the fleet, but that’s the way this movie operates.

So, given that they unconcernedly leave a whole bunch of ships behind; and that, if the navigation signal is gone, they won’t be able to navigate off of the planet, my read of the situation is:

1. They send a sabotage crew in to destroy the navigation tower.
2. They send an aerial crew for cover fire and support.
3. Finn tries to destroy the Nav tower with his grenades, but it’s not powerful enough, and the Nav tower starts to come back online.
4. Finn decides to destroy the entire command ship to make sure the nav tower is destroyed.
5. Poe’s feeling pretty hopeless because so many of them are dying while trying to take out the nav tower.
6. Reinforcements come, and give the Resistance the additional support they need to hold off the First/Final Order and let Finn complete his mission.
7. Finn blows up the ship. Poe thinks this went according to the original plan. He doesn’t realize Finn had to improvise to destroy the nav tower, and is still stuck on the ship.
8. Falcon picks up Finn and Jannah.
9. Everyone ignores the second, fully operational tower on the ground, because f*ck it. WE WON, BABY!

[3] Things go according to plan, Poe is fully aware the nav signal won’t be down for long.
[5] Poe is feeling hopeless because they’re counting on backup to take down the fleet, there’s too many ships for the Resistance alone.
[6] The civilian fleet is not there to help Finn, it’s there to take down the Final Order, the whole fleet. Poe doesn’t even know of Finn’s plans.
[7] Poe is surprised that the command ship is destroyed which turns the fleet into sitting ducks. That wasn’t part of the plan, a surprise to be sure, but a welcomed one.
[9] Everyone ignores the second, fully operational tower on the ground, because there’s no ships left for it to guide.

I think the part I don’t understand in your explanation is, “the plan was always to temporairly disable their navigational systems.” Like…why? Why would you decide to temporarily block them from leaving, then try to destroy every single one of their 10,000+ ships in the “just minutes” before the navigation signal goes back online? The navigation signal that doesn’t even need to be destroyed for them to destroy the ships, because the ships already don’t have shields in atmosphere?

Because it’s the only shot they’ve got at defeating the fleet. If they don’t blow them up while they’re on Exegol then they’ll never be able to blow them up. If they don’t block them from leaving the atmosphere it’s over.

It’s like in ROTJ - Han didn’t just disable the shield generator for 60 seconds and then tell Lando, “You’ve got 60 seconds to destroy the Death Star!!” He just destroyed the shield generator. End of story.

It’s more like an inverse of the plan in TLJ to temporarily disable the tracker so the fleet can escape.

And I don’t blame you for reading it the other way. Chris and J.J. clearly had no clue what was happening in their own finale. It’s mind-bogglingly poor writing, in so many ways that I honestly just scratched the surface here. But all of this confusion on both of our parts sort of gets back to my original point. If we can make this whole thing make a lot more sense by just cutting a few words, why wouldn’t we?

I agree it’s bad, specially after a less ridiculous plan fails in the previous movie, and Poe and Finn were supposed to learn from it. But it’s what we’ve got to work with, and we have to work with what we’ve got. I don’t think cutting a few words does anything to make it better, I think it would make it more nonsensical, and remove elements of urgency and tension that at least work on a surface level.

sherlockpotter said:

Burbin said:

What’s the issue with the “for just minutes” line?? I think it’s pretty straightforward:

The original plan is to disable the tower on the ground, when they reach Exegol Pride switches the signal to the command ship, so the plan changes to disable the tower on the ship, they succeed in disabling it, which leaves the ships stuck “for just minutes” (Poe reiterates this by saying “Nav signal’s down, but not for long!”), but Finn decides to take the whole ship down, which leaves the fleet stuck for good.

Of course there’s still the tower on the ground someone could fire back up, but at that point there’s a whole galaxy of ships attacking the Sith Fleet on their bright red weak point so it’s safe to say “they’re toast”. The whole fleet is destoryed, and the people who built it are crushed by rocks, so it’s all taken care of. The whole thing is kinda dumb, but if we removed all the dumb things in this movie we’d be left with nothing. In this case removing the line would turn the plan into a “we do this one thing and we win, period.” wich would massively lower the stakes of the Exegol assault. Instead the plan is to stall the ships from leaving Exegol long enough for Lando to rile up ‘the galaxy’ to come and take them down.

Disabling the navigation systems is not the main goal or the win condition, the plan was always to temporairly delay the Final Order. In fact their “victory” in disabling the tower happens during the ‘lowest point’ in the battle, since “no one is coming to help them”.

That doesn’t make sense though. You’re saying that the entire Sith Fleet is stuck for good because “Finn decides to take the whole [command] ship down.” When was it established that knocking out the command ship would cause a chain reaction and blow up the entire 10,000+ ship fleet? If knocking out the command ship will cripple the entire fleet, why do they even care about the nav tower? Why don’t they go after the command ship in the first place? It’s not like the nav tower is actually a shield generator that’s protecting the command ship, because they establish that “shields don’t work in Exegol’s atmosphere.” And how would that chain reaction work out logistically anyway? Is every ship connected directly to the command ship’s computer? And if so, what do they need the damn nav tower for??

The film makes it very clear that there’s only thing that unites the Sith Fleet - the nav tower signal. You take that out, the ships can’t leave the planet. The command ship isn’t even mentioned - not in the pre-mission briefing when they’re expositing all of this nonsense, not when they arrive on the planet - until it becomes the source of the navigation signal.

And if we ignore all of that and stick with the “command ship” theory anyway, that means we’re trying to do the entire battle sequence without setting up the plan, the goal, the plot, or the stakes. Hal, that’s not “subtlety”; that’s just sloppy writing. We can avoid all of this confusion if we just cut four words from the script. Four words!

It’s not a “theory”, I’m literally just laying out what happens in the movie. I’ve been mostly agreeing with everything you comment on this thread Sherlock, but I think you’re misunderstanding this whole plot point.

When was it established that knocking out the command ship would cause a chain reaction and blow up the entire 10,000+ ship fleet?

That’s not what I’m saying, the fleet is stuck there because they lose the nav signal from the command ship, the ships are blown up by hitting the underbelly cannons, it’s all set up in the pre-mission briefing. It’s not about the ship or the tower, it’s about the nav signal itself. They can’t leave without it.

“Nav signal’s down, but not for long!” is a direct call back to the fact the plan was always to temporairly disable their navigational systems, that’s why soon after Poe says “I don’t know R2, maybe nobody else is coming” and “we’ll have to take them ourselves”, because he thinks they’re losing their ‘window’ to attack the ships while they’re stuck. Otherwise, why not just take down the nav signal and leave until they get the resources to take down the ships? There would be no urgency at all. That’s why it’s important to set up that the ships will only be stuck there temporairly, taking out those four words makes everything worse, we’re left with lower stakes, no urgency, and an even more implausible setup.

Later on in the fight Poe still believes the fleet is only momentairly disabled, which is why he says “This is our last chance, we’ve got to hit those cannons now!”, he doesn’t know Finn is trying to take the command ship down, and so it’s not until he sees the ship blowing up that he realizes “The fleet is stuck here! They’re toast, come on!”. So the whole dynamic of the Exegol assault won’t make sense if you take out those four words.

What’s the issue with the “for just minutes” line?? I think it’s pretty straightforward:

The original plan is to disable the tower on the ground, when they reach Exegol Pride switches the signal to the command ship, so the plan changes to disable the tower on the ship, they succeed in disabling it, which leaves the ships stuck “for just minutes” (Poe reiterates this by saying “Nav signal’s down, but not for long!”), but Finn decides to take the whole ship down, which leaves the fleet stuck for good.

Of course there’s still the tower on the ground someone could fire back up, but at that point there’s a whole galaxy of ships attacking the Sith Fleet on their bright red weak point so it’s safe to say “they’re toast”. The whole fleet is destoryed, and the people who built it are crushed by rocks, so it’s all taken care of. The whole thing is kinda dumb, but if we removed all the dumb things in this movie we’d be left with nothing. In this case removing the line would turn the plan into a “we do this one thing and we win, period.” wich would massively lower the stakes of the Exegol assault. Instead the plan is to stall the ships from leaving Exegol long enough for Lando to rile up ‘the galaxy’ to come and take them down.

Disabling the navigation systems is not the main goal or the win condition, the plan was always to temporairly delay the Final Order. In fact their “victory” in disabling the tower happens during the ‘lowest point’ in the battle, since “no one is coming to help them”.

That’s just the way the deepfakes work, if the face is obscured or at an odd angle then it won’t be detected. The system won’t have enough data to construct a deepfake to put on top of it. In the clips I put together I used fade-ins to hide the shift into the deepfake.

DZ-330 said:

I suggested and was talking about my idea haha.

Ohh I see now haha 😃 well it was a good call.

DZ-330 said:

Awesome! Nice seeing your idea become a reality. Great work Burbin!

Edit: After watching a few times I would suggest maybe making the purple a little stronger. I feel like the blue is drowning it out a little. Or maybe slow down slightly while she ignites the blade.

Oh it wasn’t my idea, I’m not sure who first suggested it, I actually hadn’t even noticed the green and blue flashes when she ignites the saber, and I think it should remain subtle. But I’ll see if I can work on it some more once I get the original shot.

Sure! I guess it’d be good to apply it to the original shot.

poppasketti said:

[Edit: Burbin, sorry, didn’t mean to post so quickly together. That looks nice!]

It’s cool! Mine’s just a quick little edit and off the current topic.

I like that it looks yellow, it kinda looks like gramps’ old Jedi Fighter!

I gave it a shot to alter Rey’s saber switch lights to purple and blue as it was discussed a few pages back:

https://vimeo.com/525235954
pw:fanedit

Okay, it seems all my work masking the Rogue One deepfakes might not have been in vain, as comparing my clips to Shamook’s it seems I used a higher fidelity source for the movie (I used Hal’s fanedit), so everything other than the deepfake is of higher quality on my clips.

Here’s a comparison (keep in mind I gave the mask some opacity to help it blend):
http://www.framecompare.com/screenshotcomparison/KG6Z7NNX

I don’t know if it would be practical or necessary to redo all of my clips with the new sources to get the best all around quality, but when I have the time I will at the very least be redoing the shots that were previously missing from Shamook’s video.

Hal 9000 said:

Here’s what I intend as the final look and ordering of the Ach-To sequence. I tried to add a very subtle purple to the sunrise. (Any footage before or after the sequence is not color corrected in this clip, nor is the saber flashback.)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16kfx-ovM2HjYCqiexhK76qnAAIuq-guZ/view?usp=drivesdk

There’s a visual glitch I noticed on the top and bottom on the first establishing shot.

Personally I prefer Neverar’s original regrade for the sunrise, feels more natural.

Shamook said:

Burbin said:

I’d be quite glad to have my work be rendered useless if Shamook could provide source quality files of the Leia/Tarkin deepfakes, as well as the missing Tarkin shots where I used other sources that are of notably lower quality.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/n0m06uo7or6lfsb/AAC4xdD26_gbj_LTFJ5MjqVLa?dl=0
There are 24 clips of Tarkin and 1 of Leia in that dropbox folder.
They should be original film resolution and quality.

Can you let me know which Tarkin shots that you used other sources on, my file management is terrible and I may have them somewhere.

Wow, fantastic! I used other sources for shots that weren’t included in your Youtube video, so taking a look at your files and going off from memory I believe they are shots 02, 05, 09, 15, 16, 17 and 23 (couldn’t find any source for this one). So it looks like they’re all here!

I’d be quite glad to have my work be rendered useless if Shamook could provide source quality files of the Leia/Tarkin deepfakes, as well as the missing Tarkin shots where I used other sources that are of notably lower quality.

Hal’s already said he doesn’t mind the line or the continuity error so I don’t see a reason to continue this topic here.

I mean, it kinda makes sense there would be rumors that the old decrepit guy that has the rule over the whole galaxy with an iron grip might be seeking to prolong his dictatorship indefinitely.