DominicCobb

fidodido said:

I counted six scenes with explicit mentions of Reys Palpatine-heritage (including the one big, fat first encounter between her and Palpatine on Exegol) and three or four scenes in which it somehow is implied (but probably could be worked around). If one would more or less just cut them out or somehow alter them, the plot would not just still makes sense, but actually would even make more sense, especially from a philosophical point of view (because, you know, Rey Nobody…).

Based on my three viewings, I already have a pretty detailed plan of how I’ll get rid of Rey Palpatine. I don’t want to share until I have the film in front of me, just to make sure. But for help, these are the key scenes I’ve identified.

• Palpatine says for Kylo to beware Rey, because she is not who she seems (this is the end of their conversation and should be easily lopped off)
• Kylo and Rey’s force bond/duel where Kylo discusses Palpatine having her parents murdered. This is obviously setting up the reveal in the next scene. How much you want to leave and how much you want to change is up to how you want to solve the reveal. Regardless, Kylo’s lines about Rey’s parents (and how they’re portrayed in the flashback) are contradictory with what we’re told about them in TLJ.
• The hangar reveal. As with the past scene, Kylo is masked, so everything he says can be changed. Rey basically says nothing.
• Luke talks with Rey about being a Palpatine. Lines will have to be cut, not just Luke saying “because you’re a Palpatine,” but really the whole bit about Leia still wanting to train her despite her blood. I can’t think of anyway to retain those lines without Rey Palpatine.
• Rey confronts Palpatine on Exegol. A handful of Palpatine’s lines directly mention their relation. But I believe these can be safely excised.

Those are the main ones, but depending on how far you want to take it, there might be more. If you want to take Rey’s parents out of the story entirely, you’ll have to remove lines in a few different scenes, get rid of all the flashbacks, and probably change the ship in TFA. There’s also the running theme of Rey being “afraid of who she is.” Depending on how much you want to change, you might have to remove this too.

Personally, I think the simplest/most pain free option is to simply remove Palpatine being her grandfather and her parents trying to protect her, and just make it so that Palpatine wanted to “kill” her because he saw her future and that she would take the throne. Kylo basically already says this outright, so mostly it’s just judiciously removing lines and shots, and then I think you have to place emphasis on Rey’s vision during her training to more believably make it the dark cloud that hangs over her during the film (in place of her lineage).

RogueLeader said:

Lucasfilm Sound Designer Matthew Wood was on a podcast today or yesterday where he said he went to Adam Driver’s house in New York and recorded new lines for Kylo in his closet, the same night as his interview with Seth Meyers. People seem to be speculating that this likely was to make Palpatine Rey’s grandfather. Some have speculated that the dyad angle had a stronger focus and was likely what Palpatine was after from the start, rather than being surprised by their connection.

Yeah I saw that. I think I might have even mentioned the possibility here shortly after I first saw the film. The more I think about it though, the less sure I am of it being a super late reshoot change. It was in all the leaks, which were out well before the final pickup and ADR sessions. Still, it’s no accident that Kylo has the mask for those crucial exposition scenes. Whether they knew Rey would be a Palpatine or not during principal photography, I think they wanted to leave that aspect open to change further down the line, one way or the other. Rey literally never once acknowledges that she’s a Palpatine. This is definitely on purpose, either they added it later, as we’ve speculated, or they wanted the option to get rid of it later, as hopefully we will now be able to do.

To stray topics a little, I was wanting to have a conversation about how to handle the conclusion of the political subplot of the film. At the end of the movie, we see First Order Star Destroyers inexplicably fall apart across the galaxy. It really just repeats ROTJ, where the Empire was seemingly defeated and everyone was celebrating across the galaxy (and look how that turned out). I’m wondering what people think might be the strongest approach to conclude this story.

Some seem to like the idea of emphasizing the cycle of war and resistance by showing the Resistance forces chasing down a Star Destroyer, as sort of a reversal of A New Hope, basically to say that whenever tyranny rises there will always be those who will rise to fight it.
Alternatively, I think it would be also interesting to see a unification or peace between the First Order and the Resistance, to signify that the Republic that broke apart in the Clone Wars is finally coming back together. There is some symbolism there of healing old wounds that I think can be found throughout the film. Any other ideas? Would like to know what you think. Most of these would be theoretically achieved through some new CG ship model shots rather than entirely new filmed footage.

Also, just kind of wanting to gauge people’s interest in a fan edit where Ben Solo lives at then end of TROS. You can vote here to help give me a sense if people would like to see it.

I joked you were a very democratic fan editor before, nice to see you back it up in a literal way haha.

I voted yes, but for me it’s not a simple question to answer. I would have preferred he lived in the film, because I would have liked to see him have to live a life of atonement, not just because I didn’t want my favorite character to die. So I don’t mind his death, but the way it’s done, particularly with Leia, isn’t great, so in a way I would prefer that he survived. But ultimately which I prefer comes down to which can be more believably executed.

Neither here nor there, but Empire is a much better and more nuanced film than 1917 (a movie I think is great, by the way).

OutboundFlight said:

Concerning the box office, I recall most of us expecting higher than TLJ but lower than TFA.

Obviously there were people all over the spectrum, but yes, that was clearly what most of us were thinking.

StarkillerAG said:

The box office numbers are not final yet, but it has done very well. People have wanted to see it and keep seeing it.

Keep in mind that most people were expecting this movie to make almost as much as TFA

Anyone predicting that would have been rightfully in the minority.

ZkinandBonez said:

Isn’t that kinda what ANH was though? I mean aesthetically it looked just like many other serious 70’s sci-fi films, and pre-SE it was even a fair bit violent, yet at its core the story is basically a Flash Gordon-inspired kid friendly adventure.

I get what you’re saying, but it’s not really the same thing.

To me, Mandalorian feels like sort of a Saturday morning cartoon with a live action skin. Basically, it feels like one of the animated shows. Which isn’t really a problem for me, but I get the critique that some of the more adult aesthetics and posturing don’t exactly match what is at its core a kids show.

FreezingTNT2 said:

DominicCobb said:

StarkillerAG said:

I know DJ was wrong too, but the movie explicitly tries to make a compromise between DJ’s beliefs and the beliefs of the Resistance, resulting in the whole “save the things you love” scene, which was one of the worst scenes of the movie in my opinion. Throughout the movie, it felt like Rian was trying to make it seem like the heroes and villains should find a compromise, which doesn’t seem like a good lesson for a franchise all about the light always winning.

I’m not sure I understand. “Saving what we love” isn’t about finding a compromise. It’s about caring more for helping people than killing others. It’s the very ethos of the franchise. Selflessness, and all that. Vader takes down the Emperor not because of hatred, but because of love for his son. The Jedi defend what they love, the Sith attack using hatred to fuel them.

I get people not liking the line because it’s on the nose, but the message is very important. I don’t know what it has to do with DJ’s line.

That line creates an inconsistency in Rose’s character: earlier she was fighting what she hated (animal cruelty) by freeing the Fathiers at Canto Bight, and yet she stops Finn’s sacrifice and tells him that Saving What We Love™ is more important than Fighting What We Hate™, resulting in the First Order’s giant laser cannon blowing up the metal door.

Whaaat? She was saving the Fathiers. It’s not an inconsistency at all, it was literally setting up her line.

Take special note of the end of the scene, where they think they’re captured again. Finn says it was worth it to destroy the city and “make them hurt.” But then Rose takes the saddle off a Fathier and says “Now it’s worth it.” Again, the scene is literally setting up her line at the end.

yotsuya said:

DominicCobb said:

StarkillerAG said:

I know DJ was wrong too, but the movie explicitly tries to make a compromise between DJ’s beliefs and the beliefs of the Resistance, resulting in the whole “save the things you love” scene, which was one of the worst scenes of the movie in my opinion. Throughout the movie, it felt like Rian was trying to make it seem like the heroes and villains should find a compromise, which doesn’t seem like a good lesson for a franchise all about the light always winning.

I’m not sure I understand. “Saving what we love” isn’t about finding a compromise. It’s about caring more for helping people than killing others. It’s the very ethos of the franchise. Selflessness, and all that. Vader takes down the Emperor not because of hatred, but because of love for his son. The Jedi defend what they love, the Sith attack using hatred to fuel them.

I get people not liking the line because it’s on the nose, but the message is very important. I don’t know what it has to do with DJ’s line.

I do think that StarkillerAG is right, that this trilogy is very much pointing to the middle as the right way. And I think that goes hand in hand with saving what we love and selflessness. Extremism is bad. The entire core of Buddhism is based on Buddha trying all the religions of his day and deciding to take the middle way. That is what Balance of the Force is all about. It is exactly what Luke told Rey. Balance lies in the middle path. Not embracing the dark, but not shunning it either. The Jedi had grown to shun the dark. Any hint that you were on the path to the Dark Side and you were in danger. Nevermind that teaching young Jedi how to handle themselves in all situations was the way forward, they shunned all contact with any path to the dark side. And where did it get them? diminished power and a Sith Lord as Chancellor of the Republic. Balance does not mean accepting the dark side, but knowing it and understanding how to avoid it. The Jedi stopped teaching those skills and started having Jedi turn to the Dark Side. The middle is the path to balance the force. Selflessness not hatred. It is all part of the same message. Light and dark in balance. Yin yang. The middle way.

Well, the trilogy might have been pointing that way but they didn’t ultimately go that way. And I would not say what you’re talking about is the same thing StarkillerAG was talking about.

Ironically it might be more fitting to swap those titles.

I’m not sure I understand the desire to make Rey a clone one way or the other.

StarkillerAG said:

I know DJ was wrong too, but the movie explicitly tries to make a compromise between DJ’s beliefs and the beliefs of the Resistance, resulting in the whole “save the things you love” scene, which was one of the worst scenes of the movie in my opinion. Throughout the movie, it felt like Rian was trying to make it seem like the heroes and villains should find a compromise, which doesn’t seem like a good lesson for a franchise all about the light always winning.

I’m not sure I understand. “Saving what we love” isn’t about finding a compromise. It’s about caring more for helping people than killing others. It’s the very ethos of the franchise. Selflessness, and all that. Vader takes down the Emperor not because of hatred, but because of love for his son. The Jedi defend what they love, the Sith attack using hatred to fuel them.

I get people not liking the line because it’s on the nose, but the message is very important. I don’t know what it has to do with DJ’s line.

FreezingTNT2 said:

And yet Star Wars was heavily influenced by many sources.

No shit, and I think the chase as is is already inspired by said Battlestar Galactica episode. But no need to do it exactly the same way if you can do it differently.

StarkillerAG said:

But I do have somewhat of a problem with the ultimate message of the movie, which is basically “both sides are wrong, the real answer is always in the middle.”

That’s not the message at all.

DominicCobb said:

I saw someone online complaining about DJ’s line “You blow them up today, they blow you up tomorrow” line, saying it was a “terrible message.” This is obviously ignoring the fact that literally the next line in the movie is a hero saying “You’re wrong.” But of course if they acknowledged that there wouldn’t be anything to whine about.

FreezingTNT2 said:

Another disappointing aspect of the sequel trilogy: I thought the idea of having the heroes be chased down by the bad guys in space in The Last Jedi had potential and sounded good on paper, but it had poor execution because it is… a slow-speed space chase that involves fuel. A better space chase idea would be to have the heroes jump into hyperspace, and every time they do so the bad guys jump into hyperspace too so they could keep on following them.

This is literally the plot of a Battlestar Galactica episode, so they probably wanted to avoid directly copying that.

I saw someone online complaining about DJ’s line “You blow them up today, they blow you up tomorrow” line, saying it was a “terrible message.” This is obviously ignoring the fact that literally the next line in the movie is a hero saying “You’re wrong.” But of course if they acknowledged that there wouldn’t be anything to whine about.

Kylo says at the end of TLJ that he will “destroy” Rey. So I’m not sure if there’s any discrepancy, regardless of whether Snoke was a puppet or a pawn.

StarkillerAG said:

DominicCobb said:

StarkillerAG said:

I think The Mandalorian finally disproves the myth that Star Wars fans are impossible to please. The reaction to the show so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Even the small minority of people who don’t like the show aren’t angry about it.

I would say it proves the theory that many have had for awhile, which is that the only way to not make SW fans angry is to not play with the preexisting characters/story at all.

And is that such a big problem? Did they absolutely NEED to make a sequel trilogy? They could have kept Return of the Jedi as the true ending, and no one would have complained.

Well is the goal to try to annoy as little SW fans as possible? Because I think quite a lot of people have enjoyed what they’ve done with the story. As much as I dislike TROS, I’m very thankful for TFA and TLJ, two of the very best SW films they are. I really enjoy Solo as well. I’d hate to lose any of them. I’m sure many prequel fans would say the same about those films, regardless of the fact that they didn’t absolutely NEED to make a prequel trilogy.

To that end, let’s check back in five or so years from now and see if everyone agrees on the quality of the Mandalorian’s final season.

Maybe the show will go downhill by then, we don’t know. It doesn’t mean that Star Wars fans are hypocrites.

I didn’t mean to say SW fans are hypocrites (though many are, but that’s unrelated to what I’m saying). What I meant was Mando is universally pleasing right now because people have no preexisting attachment to the characters. In a few years, when the show is ending, fans will have specific expectations and wants, in a similar way to they do with the main saga.

Make a small-scale TV show that respects the canon and makes the audience care about the characters, and fans will eat it up.

The irony of course being that the show arguably disrespects the canon quite a bit in its treatment of Mandalorian culture.

I thought the show made it clear that Mando’s tribe is an extremist group, not necessarily connected to mainstream Mandalorian culture. Dave Filoni is one of the showrunners, and I doubt he would forget about his own story.

I don’t think that they made that clear at all. But that’s not a problem, because it is very easy to come up with that explanation/interpretation to make the discrepancy work. But there’s always an explanation/interpretation that makes a discrepancy with preexisting canon work. Some fans just refuse to think of what that explanation might be when they hate a work and think it “ruins” SW.

StarkillerAG said:

I think The Mandalorian finally disproves the myth that Star Wars fans are impossible to please. The reaction to the show so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Even the small minority of people who don’t like the show aren’t angry about it.

I would say it proves the theory that many have had for awhile, which is that the only way to not make SW fans angry is to not play with the preexisting characters/story at all. To that end, let’s check back in five or so years from now and see if everyone agrees on the quality of the Mandalorian’s final season.

Make a small-scale TV show that respects the canon and makes the audience care about the characters, and fans will eat it up.

The irony of course being that the show arguably disrespects the canon quite a bit in its treatment of Mandalorian culture.

Also, I have a few friends who are haters. They definitely exist. But who cares if there are haters? Like what you like.

RogueLeader said:

Yeah, I think it would be hard to really show enough that would be a satisfying answer to that question, I just thought it could be the initial motivation for why Kylo connects with Vader’s helmet.

I had totally forgot about that scene between them. That definitely would need to be changed, but like you said, if you can change it appropriately it could help show the two villains at odds. I think another scene I would like to change somewhat is the First Order meeting.
These scene goes like this:

First Order Officer Quinn speaks up, dismissing the Sith Eternal as “a cult, conjurers and soothsayers.” Pryde refutes these concerns, stating that the resources of the First Order will be increased ten thousand fold by the incorporation of the Sith fleet into their own ranks. With a spiteful glance at a glowering Hux, Pryde notes that the influence of this ancient power will “correct the error of Starkiller Base.” Unconvinced, Quinn wonders aloud if the ships are truly a gift, and what Palpatine might demand in return. In response, Ren brutally chokes the general through the Force and lifts his body to the ceiling. The fallen Jedi then commands his officers to prepare to crush any worlds that will defy the Order, and that he and his acolytes will be hunting the scavenger.

Why Kylo chokes that guy makes so little sense to me. If anything, he probably agrees with Quinn more than anyone else in that room. He’s probably bringing up points that Kylo has already thought about. Like you said, I’ll have to go back and watch it again, but I would really like to be able to end this scene without Kylo choking that officer.

I think the only way to square it is that he’s saying something Kylo knows but is upset by. Like, Kylo doesn’t want to join up with Palpatine but he feels he has to. Asking what Palpatine wants in return sets him off because it’s “kill Rey,” which he doesn’t want to do and he doesn’t want to admit it.

That said, the scene, like any with the mask, is a good candidate for dialogue replacement. I’m just not sure what.

That’s a fun idea. It would be nice to see some sort of payoff to Luke’s line. I think in JJ’s mind the flashes sort of conveyed this (we see Han’s death still haunting Kylo, as well as visions of Luke, which sort of ties in with Luke saying he’ll always be there just like his father), but in reality the flashes are so quick they accomplish next to nothing, I think.

One thing I’d be worried about would be getting too bogged down trying to show Palpatine’s survival, but if there’s a way to make a sequence to show a further division between Kylo and Palpatine, great.

I already plan to change the dialogue in the scene where Palpatine talks on the phone with Palps, which feels very much like a slip back into ‘Kylo reporting to his master’ territory. I think I know how I’d like it to go, but I’d need to see the scene/dialogue again so I can say exactly how I’d change it. But in the most general sense the idea would be for Kylo to push back against the order to kill Rey and for the scene to end on Palpatine’s “Do not make me turn my fleet against you.”

Okay, this is making me think of something else.

Since the film has come out, I’ve been keeping a notepad of ideas of sort of “how I would have done it.” Silly, sure, but I’ve found it a healthy way to work through my feelings on the film.

One of the ideas I had, is that you could have accomplished something interesting if Kylo spoken to the ghost of Anakin. But, what if it wasn’t just Anakin, it went back and forth between Anakin and Vader, like in the TFA concept art? And Anakin/Vader talks about how both the darkness and the light lives within him, just as it does in Kylo, and that ultimately the choice is his to make.

So what if we have something like this when Kylo touches Vader’s mask? Make it a scene by itself. Kylo touches the mask, then we cut back and forth to ethereal images of Anakin and Vader fading in and out of black. Hopefully between the two versions there’d be enough dialogue to work with. You could then follow this scene with Kylo repairing his mask, as if the choice he’s made is the dark side (for now).

In my mind, what would have made this work well is if the ghost makes it clear Snoke is the one he had been previously talking to, but now he’s actually talking to his grandfather. With TROS, obviously it’s tricky because of the “every voice inside your head” line. Maybe just cut that?

RogueLeader said:

I agree, Trevorrow’s script at least had a moment where Rey acknowledged how she would be a different Jedi, when she says to the Force ghosts, “Our master’s were wrong. I will not deny my anger and I will not reject my love.” I think generally that was on the right track. Jedi can’t shun their natural human emotions, they have to acknowledge their feelings and handle them appropriately.

Besides whatever silliness he had about Kylo killing her parents and her kissing Poe, it seemed like his draft treated Rey far better, or at least gave her a story that was a more logical follow up to what came before. Shame.

I wish it could come from Rey, but the only ideas I can think of to make a more explicit way to get this concept across would be to either, a) Give Luke some kind of dialogue that is along those lines when he gives Rey her pep talk, or b) have one or more of the Force ghosts (Luke, Anakin, Ahsoka) say something to Rey along those lines. Maybe we could do both to reinforce that idea. I think it would definitely make sense for Luke to be the one to have came to this conclusion, and pass that truth onto Rey. We would just have to dig around for lines that would fit in well with this idea. There might be a lot more weight to this idea than them just telling her to “Rise, rise, rise” over and over again.

Yeah I was thinking you could add something in Luke’s pep talk, I remember a lot of his dialogue was offscreen (weird considering they reshot it). You probably could add something in the voices scene. That actually reminds me, I had the thought awhile back that perhaps you could even add the voices of people like Maul and Dooku? They were wronged by Palpatine as well. You could potentially make the argument that while Palpatine = pure evil, Maul and Dooku were more complex and didn’t see the dark side that way.

The one idea I had for Rey was to say something like “I’m the darkness and the light” right before she says “I’m all the Jedi.” Tricky though, to find the lines and then to make it seamless.

RogueLeader said:

I’m guessing they had to go with a look similar to TFA because of her scenes with Leia.

I keep seeing people say this but it’s definitely not true. I mean, first of all, I think there’s pretty much only one Leia moment in TROS that was originally filmed with Rey for TFA (the hug). But more importantly, something like that wouldn’t matter. The only thing they used from the deleted material was Carrie’s head, so the only thing that needed to match was the lighting. I mean, even Leia wasn’t wearing the same outfit.

While it would be difficult to change her outfit through the whole film, it would be interesting if at the end of the film she has a somewhat different look.

I think it would be cool to make her clothes half black/half white, just like you did with Obi-Wan’s in that test you did awhile back. It could also be symbolic of her acknowledging both the light and the darkness in her.

I would absolutely love this. I also had the thought that, when you see Rey light up her saber, instead of seeing hints of blue and green before it ignites, you see blue and red.

Ultimately both of these things would just be sort of subtle subtext, it would really be great if there was some way we could explicitly have her reconcile the light and the dark within her.

Wexter said:

DominicCobb said:

This is a great example of why it was so stupid for JJ and co. to try to appease the fans. The fans have already made up their minds. You can try to fight something like the “Mary Sue” label, but people will just reinterpret anything to make it fit their narrative. Might as well continue forward with the character as written rather than try to make those happy who will always find some way to complain.

It’s also very stupid to constantly seek validation from fans online. So what if I don’t like some of the narrative decisions they made. They should have still tried to make the best out of it. They should have the balls to stand behind their own decisions. With TROS they just went out of their way to try and address everything you could possibly read online about the sequel trilogy. That goes at the expense of coherent storytelling.

Exactly. Have some confidence in the story you’re telling.