- Post
- #1345717
- Topic
- The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
- Link
- https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1345717/action/topic#1345717
- Time
nl0428’s restructure of the post-Leia death section of the movie allows for removing the destruction of Kijimi, along with the sole pre-FO-personnel-getting-involved-as-lead-by-Pryde interior glimpse of one of the Final Order destroyers.
The destroyers will all still have those big guns mounted, but nothing in the movie would need to spell out “THESE ARE MINI DEATH STARS” or actually destroy yet another planet.
Any thoughts about this? In this order, it does make it look like Ben was standing around for a while, and we lose the direct transition from the crew reacting to Leia’s death to him dealing with it. I guess a restructure wouldn’t even technically be needed to remove Kijimi. Just have Palpatine say “come to me on Exegol, General Pryde,” and go to Poe praying to Leia. (That’s not sarcastic, he’s interceding to her for help even if it’s symbolic; we all do it.)
I like this re-edit of all the Leia post-death stuff, but personally I think the Han convo is in the wrong spot. It should occur before Rey stabs Kylo. Here’s my edit…
https://vimeo.com/419340064
fanedit
And here’s my reasoning…
I think there’s more emotion this new way because Kylo’s already had the convo with Han, then Rey stabs him…but you can tell Rey senses the internal struggle of what just happened to him. He’s mournful after he senses Leia’s death, and now he’s also wavering on a turn from the dark side…makes it much more believable that she’d heal him.
Personally, none of the original arrangement makes any sense. Leia is already gone…then Han shows up later…so it’s not Leia doing the Han force projection when she originally distracted Kylo…at that point, it’s entirely Kylo “seeing things”…the problem is that you don’t know what his struggle is as he’s standing on the cliff edge…he tries to kill Rey, then his mom basically distracts him into dropping his saber and nearly gets him killed. It’s very sloppy, in my opinion.
Having that convo in this new spot gives Kylo a reason to drop the saber…his guard is down and he’s showing some regret in reliving the memory in that moment…plus, why would he look back like that for so long in surprise if nobody was there? Did he think Leia was gonna be back there and jump out from behind a rock? He looks behind himself for a long time…only thing that makes sense is that Han is already there and Leia is force projecting the memory…it’s not realistic in the moment that Kylo would change from being a raging lunatic on the verge of killing Rey just because he heard an echo of his mom’s voice.
Essentially, there are two things that are a major improvement about this order…1) it makes much more sense for the viewer that Leia is the one actually projecting Han’s memory a la luke did in TLJ…2) its very symbolic – the saber drop = the death of Kylo Ren…the arm drop = the death of Leia…this arrangement shows how the events are linked, as it should be.
As for what comes next, insert this new scene as in the clip, then have things progress as normal. Then, you can have Kylo toss his saber after Chewie is inconsolable, or stretch that out to later where nl0428 has it – personally I think it works well after Chewie. I have that part edited too, but not outputted to watch. Basically though, just mirror the saber shot from the convo from earlier since he’s looking to the right now into the ocean. Then, cut to him tossing the saber. I even re-scored this a tad using the Torn Apart music from TFA with the same musical timing. He’s faced with the same choice, except now he throws away the saber and the Kylo Ren mantle. He’s now Ben…
P.S.- It’s a Force memory convo, so it’s not real anyway. Kylo with the face scar already gone doesn’t matter. It’s what he’s projecting himself as in that moment, you could say.