Hal 9000

I rewatched TFA and TLJ over the last two days, the first time watching either since TROS came out. This was my first ‘full hindsight’ viewing, assessing how the story washes over me after I know how it all turns out.

I found TFA relatively free of tension with TROS. Rey maintains hope of her parents returning for her, though comes to admit that she is lying to herself and turns her attention to Luke. She awakens the Force within her, including aggression and darkness at the end. Snoke is a shadowy figure who we know is working behind the scenes for Palpatine, likely the way Dooku does. TROS:A alleviates this weirdness by not requiring the audience to see Snoke as a totally artificial being who would be technically very young.

TLJ was surprisingly smooth also, with Snoke again being the weirdest part. It does not seem at all hinted at that he is a cloned vessel, so I prefer to think of him as a Dooku-esque recruit with a history all his own that we don’t see. Ben cannot bring himself to kill Leia, who goes on to represent the last vestige of light that comes to redeem him. Rey and Luke fear her inner darkness. Rey’s parents do feel like a weird point here, as Rey seems to admit to herself that her parents really did ‘throw her away like garbage’ and ‘sold her off for drinking money.’ Her initial memories of them and their noble promises give way to letting them go and no longer concerning herself with the good-for-nothings. Then, in TROS she has these repressed ‘bad hope’ memories and longings reignited by being forced to again view them as noble and good. I guess. Luke saves the day, making the difference between no one coming to help on Crait when the Resistance calls for help and everyone coming in TROS.

It seems healthy for Rey to move on from her attachment to her parents, with TFA and TLJ agreeing. For TROS to essentially say, “Oh, no, you’re wrong, they were actually good people” seems like a regression. Rey had already grown past them, y’know?

I guess I’ll have to watch TROS next in order to take the whole ST story in within a short timeframe and see what else sticks out to me. Also, I watched my fan edits so there honestly may be other things that didn’t stick out because they’ve been addressed and I didn’t think about them.

How would a reboot even go? If you were going to start over, you may as well smooth over the incredibly rocky continuity to the point that the plot would be quite different. And if you’re going to boil it down to its archetypal elements, why not just tell a new story using them?

For sure, any of that sort of thing would be welcome, as long as it fits in nicely.

Also, there will not be any trailer music used. I like the trailer music, but not in the movie itself.

“I warned my apprentice that as he grew stronger his equal in the light would rise. Skywalker, I assumed, wrongly.”

He wasn’t entirely wrong.

Also, do you think maybe Palpatine was written to want Rey dead in order to harmonize or lampshade the weirdness of his proxy (Snoke) seeming to pretty sincerely?

CaptainFaraday said:

Hal 9000 said:

I guess that POS finally just had something really break.

Technically, there’s nothing stopping me from having Poe say this after they crash…

“And then Poe yelled, ‘GOD FUCKING DAMNIT PIECE OF BULLSHIT,’ as he kicked the Falcon’s console, fracturing his ankle.”

From then on, he stays aboard the Falcon and uses a wheelchair at the base before boarding his X-Wing.

I guess that POS finally just had something really break.

Wow, yep, wrong thread.

Just had a disturbing thought: Do you think Maz Kanata was dying during TROS? She sure seemed rigid, like rigor mortis was setting in.

Well said, that’s right: what works best for the moment, though it’s understood that the saber is more or less the same “really.”

Because I had the chance I decided to watch TFA this afternoon, the first time since seeing TROS. I didn’t notice anything that really seemed to stick out. Rey’s parents were kind and she misses them. Snoke brought up the First Order to reforge the Empire. Kylo Ren encounters his equal in the light. Rey taps into some of her darkness.

Makes sense! I’ll do TLJ someday soon as well. Not expecting it to be as smooth.

Hmm, without having seen the scene I imagine it’d be better to have it more or less consistent. No other saber has matched the user’s mood in such a way.

Thanks; done.

Thanks for the feedback, and I’m glad it coheres.

I didn’t remove anything about hyperspace tracking, so perhaps you just missed it.

If you ditch the compass in favor of Sith whispers or mystical guidance, you could use it to point to the Wayfinder regardless of where it might be. But you’d have to maybe have a sticky note on the handle he put the location onto.

The dagger really don’t make no sense.

We did consider it, and then Sir Ridley did it. It’s already taken care of.

No, that’s just my interpretation thinking through Rey’s journey.

And the only thing pre-TROS that implies to me that Kylo had heard Vader’s voice is the word “again.” He asks Vader to “show me again the power of the darkness.” It still doesn’t need to mean a literal voice. But TROS just seems to want to make everything painfully literal.

Hesgesmfg, wonderful post! Not much else to say about it but I appreciate the thought and articulating what I often try to go for.

I think it’s best to leave both the TLJ “It was I who bridged your minds” and TROS “I have been every voice” lines alone.

Trying to ignore the non-film material and chatter, here’s what I imagine piecing together from perhaps multiple viewings: Rey is essentially a neo-chosen one, gifted by the Force in a time of need. Destiny brings her to Kylo Ren, and the two find themselves at a stalemate. Snoke comments that they are equals on either side of the luminous divide. They each spiral around each other, attempting to draw the other into their place. Snoke takes credit for this, though he’s clearly playing with powers greater than himself as their connection persists past his own death. Palptine appears and tempts Ren with the idea of he and Rey forming the alliance he tried for once before. Rey senses and fears the same. Kylo presents her heritage as a trap, which Luke reverses as he did before on Crait. Rey and Ben join, each briefly fulfilling their desires before the latter fades away, the Force investing itself now fully in Rey.

Rey is no one. She can’t stop needing her parents, believing they’ll return one day. She comes to discard this belief, turning her attention to Luke as a surrogate. He fails her while she learns to rise above questions of the past. With a broken blade she wonders how to build herself up after the necessary deconstruction that has taken place. Now, she fears her own darkness that now has no container and wonders if the lack of defense mechanisms may let out something terrible. Kylo facilitates a demonstration to confirm this, sacrificing Chewbacca. Rey is forced to revisit buried memories of her parents, finding that they loved her after all but were taken from her. She also learns that she is the progeny of a hitherto not immediately relevant bad guy, reinforcing her fears. She goes too far once more and exiles herself in order not to test herself and risk unleashing darkness which had frightened even Luke. She resolves to venture into the darkness to bring it illumination and take the risk. She finds Palpatine’s offer tempting in order not to lose those whom she has come to love, and joins with Ben to defeat him. She falters and passes after giving up herself to fight the darkness, though Ben’s redemption provides a surplus which he uses to restore her. He has now healed her in return, and she proceeds to bring the elixir of balance to the galaxy.

Weakest point to me is the Palpatine lineage, as this seems only to muddy the water and give the audience a big dumb thing to follow along with, short-circuiting nuance. But don’t worry because there absolutely will be two versions of the project, one for both heritage possibilities for Rey.

I hate to respond with something that may sound terse, because this is some good and insightful discussion on the finer points.

If I still had TLJ in front of me I imagine I may remove the line about Snoke bridging their minds, but I’ll just keep it in mind in case anything else ever compels me to revisit it again.

But I probably will leave the relevant TROS lines alone.

Hmmm. I count four stormtroopers and only one Wilhelm.

TFA: Restructured V1:

TFA: Restructured V2:

TLJ: Legendary:

TROS: Ascendant:

Boy, what a lot of discussion that’s taken place since I popped in last!

I guess it’s probably better to leave this alone as it is, more or less. I do wonder, Burbin, if it would prove doable to change that line as you propose. “We’ve become a dyad in the Force.” It’s a subtle thing, but would help the audience get what is happening in a way that fits in with the other pieces.

I remember wondering how that worked since they are different ages, it couldn’t be something intrinsic. I know Kylo says “become” in his first scene in TFA. Might be worth at least trying.

Snoke sure seemed to be a mere meat puppet in a cursory reading of TROS, IMHO. He’s every voice in Kylo’s head and essentially just Palpatine with a paper mask. And if that’s so, it makes little sense that Snoke seemed acutely aware of Rey and Kylo’s connection and Palpatine seems surprised by their dyad-ness. Unless the dyad thing was just like, “Oh, well I didn’t know it was THAT far.”

All this is why TROS initially made me feel like Doc Brown at the start of Back to the Future III.

While it’s hard to disagree with that sentiment, my fan edits have always involved finessing the details like that to at least allow for plausible headcanon readings. When done well, the “official” answers are not contradicted but a saga-only viewer could infer something more straightforward.

Oh, well lol I guess that was harder to spot since it didn’t affect sync. Oh, well!

And if it were moved it doesn’t really benefit us. I’ll probably leave it alone.

“At last. Snoke trained you well.”

“I killed Snoke. I’ll kill you.”

“My boy, I made Snoke… The First Order was just the beginning. I will give you so much more.”

“You’ll die first.”

“I’ve died before. Kill me, and my spirit will pass into you. As all the Sith live in me.”

If we wanted to remove the line, I imagine it’d be best to simply remove the footage where it takes place. Maintain the pace, just without that line present. The Snoke line remains prior to any shots walking us closer to Palpatine including his clone vat.

Not sure whether to, but if so that’d probably be best.