Jar Jar Bricks

I had a legitimate shower thought today. Did people in 1980 hypothesize that Obi-Wan genuinely thought he was telling Luke the truth about his father? So Darth’s reveal to Luke is just as devastating to Ben as it is to Luke.

What I mean by this is, what if George Lucas had gone a different direction and revealed in Episode 6 that Darth Vader (still a separate apprentice of Obi-Wan in this continuity) had an affair with Anakin Skywalker’s wife while he was out fighting the war? Darth betrayed his friend by doing this and then killed him when he learned the truth. And Obi-Wan was never made aware that Luke’s mom did this, naturally assuming that Luke is Anakin’s son. I guess the Emperor would need to be none-the-wiser, as well.

This would have ultimately been significantly less of a retcon than what we got. The ending of the original trilogy would have ended up exactly how the sequel trilogy went, with Luke rejecting the last name of Vader and taking on the name of Skywalker in honor of Obi-Wan’s friend.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just remembered that a part of Vader’s reveal to Luke is that he refutes ever killing Luke’s father, and states that Luke doesn’t know the truth of what happened to him. So this wouldn’t have been something people thought of after seeing ESB, unless they thought Vader was lying about only that one part of the reveal. Still, this idea could have worked if it had been implemented into ESB itself to be less of a retcon.

Yes, what I posted above are just 2 new changes that I’d like to see implemented.

I’m planning on making more significant strides on this project come late December. Namely I want to assemble all of my AI voice lines in one place and nail down a final cut of the Vader fight. Once I have all of the resources in one place it will just be a matter of implementing it all into the cut.

ThiscouldbeR2D2 said:

What do you think of this, Adywan?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z6TpkT-6AY

It’s no coincidence that something like this has only surfaced a year and some change before the movie’s 50th anniversary. I would expect a re-release in theaters with the unaltered version in May 2027.

I’ve added a couple of other ideas to the potential change list:

• Use AI video software to modify the brief footage of one of the Exegol Sith cultists to be operating a machine with a severed hand in it (Luke’s hand) to match current canon. Snoke was created using many genetic sources. I also like the idea that Rey’s father escaped Exegol with the Skywalker saber and traded it off, thus why it calls to Rey when it ends up in Maz’s possession.

• Rey has a PTSD flashback of her parents flying away while the shuttle carrying Chewbacca is flying away, which is what causes her to lose her balance and unleash the lightning. This fits nicely because the ship her parents left in is right next to them; this helps the audience put the pieces together before Rey states it herself, and also shows that Rey is still insecure about her parents leaving her / seeing it manifest with her current “family”.

I think both of these additional changes should fit in smoothly. I’d still like to investigate potential Chewbacca / Kylo audio Rey could hear when she’s staring up at the Star Destroyer from Kijimi, but I’m unsure if this would land in a way that didn’t feel contrived.

NeverarGreat said:

It’s a nice conclusion to that arc.

If you wanted to simplify it, you could have Finn say “Rey…” through the Force, and Rey responds with “I know.”

Essentially, he’s been trying all this time to tell her how he feels, but in the end, through the Force, he doesn’t need to tell her, because their relationship is empathic and beyond words.

There’s also the callback to Han in ESB, which gives it that hint of romance if viewers want to interpret it that way.

I like this a lot. Leave it open-ended enough and the audience won’t be subverted.

My problem with that running gag is that Finn shouldn’t have any reason to feel ashamed or nervous about telling Rey something as simple as “I think I can use the Force.” It feels like a bait and switch because 9/10 people would naturally assume he wants to tell her that he’s in love with her due to only being willing to share it prior to certain death. We already had enough subversion of expectations with TLJ and even in this movie itself with all the death fake outs.

All that being said, that is definitely where the plot line should be resolved if somebody felt the need to include it.

Yeah, sorry about this. I’ve been busier than expected.

I think if there are some other Andor lines that we needed generated I’d do it, but it seems like a lot of effort for just that one line, assuming that it works perfectly fine without it.

Did anybody ever suggest putting a shortened version flashback of Rey’s parents leaving her on Jakku right before she screams and unleashes her lightning on the transport? Along with child Rey screaming “No!”, of course. This could honestly work well for either version of your edit, for a few different reasons:

1. Chewbacca, a person she loves, is being taken away from her on a ship while she stands helpless below on a desert planet’s surface.
2. The ship that Rey knows her parents were on is literally right next to her, so of course this trauma would be on her mind in that moment. I guess this doesn’t apply to the nobody edit, though.

In the context of standard Ascendant, I do think that this movie could have delved a bit more into Rey’s feelings of inadequacy and trauma before it’s eventually revealed that her parents were actually good people. Kylo alludes to it in their first conversation in the film, after all. In the end, you’re simply replacing one dark line of thought (fear of losing those you love) with another (seeking vengeance against Palpatine for taking those she loves).

That was quick! Thanks.

Just watched the “max” version. Good stuff! AI lines worked better than I could have hoped.

A couple things:

1. The deleted scene where Sebulba flashes his vents has an issue with the black bars from the aspect ratio. They appear white, which makes the whole sequence kinda stick out like a sore thumb.
2. The audio transition from the droidekas back to the control room (where you removed Force speed) is a little rough. I’m not sure if there’s a better way to do this, though. The visual pacing is fine, it’s just the audio for a second.

Thanks for making these versions!

I’d be okay to do that this weekend. That’s definitely the only part that really needs to be changed IMO in order for Andor as a show to make sense.

I think all the edits that are putting in Andor music and flashbacks are cool and all but Rogue One already has a great score. Plus, I doubt a younger audience would be able to sit still through that show (and some of it isn’t age appropriate). So Rogue One should definitely be able to stand on its own, which your edit will do since it’s still mostly the original movie.

O00ll00O said:

Trying again now.

Thanks Hal, works now.

I watched the change you made with headphones on. I love the idea of this dialogue change, but personally it sounds a little jarring to me. The music cuts weird and the voice sounds closer to JEJ than Vader.

This is a limitation of ElevenLabs voice cloning, likely because they are trying to emulate human speech perfectly, not characterized speech.

The dialogue I made for Zorri in Ascendant is also identical to the actor’s voice but is missing the voice filter. I have the same issue with my Threepio voice clone not having the robotic sound effect. Fortunately, I was able to figure out how to replicate Threepio’s effect quite easily on Audacity. For Vader and Zorri I’m not even sure where to begin.

Once again, if anybody out there knows how to do those character’s voice sound effects that would be awesome!

Honestly, that sounds great to me! If it was the whole sequence I would definitely question its inclusion. But the underwater city itself looks so cool that I think it’s worth the slight hit to the pacing. Also makes the Gungan army a bit less of a Deus Ex Machina at the end.

Remind me, is it the whole underwater sequence that’s included, or do they just get the ride and then we cut back to Theed?

Does anybody recall who did the voices for the Knights of Ren? I’m interested in replacing their dialogue at the end for my edit:

“Palpatine offered us a better deal.”

“He is the Ren now.”

With it recently being revealed that Quimir and Osha go on to form the Knights of Ren, I think it’s important to keep them distinct from the Sith. Technically, Ben coming back to the light shouldn’t necessarily make them renounce their loyalty to him, as their plan in this edit was always just to kill Palpatine together. Them calling Ben a “traitor” doesn’t make sense when that plan never changed. The only way to explain why they’d attack him and serve the Sith is if they are traitors themselves.

Hal 9000 said:

And yes, the midchlorian explanation is there for the Max version. If midichlorians are to be included, they’ve got to be established as symbionts in order to dovetail with the Gungan-Naboo aspect to form a theme.

That’s fair. I like Qui-Gon in that scene but it’s definitely one of little Ani’s worst is all lol.

So does that include the midichlorians explanation scene on Coruscant or just the blood test? Because I feel like the concept of midichlorians is quite self explanatory without going into the whole “symbionts” weirdness way later on in the movie.

But yeah either way these changes look epic. Thanks Hal. Excited to watch this weekend.

Admittedly, I do think his death was mishandled in the original TROS. So yeah, I kinda understand why Adam Driver wanted him to continue on.

But with this edit his death lands quite nicely, between his mother calling him “home” and then being with his family as Rey buries the sabers at the homestead. I just wish this was how it released originally. Apparently Adam Driver is interested in continuing to play the character though, which is really interesting to me. If we ever get a live action series when he was a Jedi I hope he’d be willing to play him again. Or just be his voice in an animated project like The Clone Wars that helps set up the sequels better.

If the fanbase somehow comes together to force Disney to make the Ben Solo movie, I’d assume that we’d need to remove his ghost from this edit. That project was probably written to explain his absence away. Perhaps the dyad tethers him to life somehow, and Rey is like a horcrux lol.

Yeah, ElevenLabs is a bit of a rabbit hole once you start down it lol. Some personal experience there.

Sounds awesome! I’m excited to give it a watch.

It’s kind of like if Qui-Gon never tried to use the mind-trick on Watto. You have this power introduced earlier in the film with him successfully mind-tricking Boss Nass, and so thankfully somebody realized that you needed to explain why that wouldn’t work a second time to just free Anakin and repair the ship. Granted, the explanation given was shitty, since all Watto needed to say was “I am not a weak-minded fool” instead of “I’m a Toydarian”.

But yeah, when you introduce something like this, it feels like a Chekov’s gun that never gets resolved or explained away.

Man, that works so well it’s crazy.

You could try lowering the pitch on the line. The AI does have a habit of making him a bit too effeminate lol

Threepio lines to cap off his new backstory of having been a navigator before being dumped on Tatooine.