Jar Jar Bricks

I had no idea the work for Rey’s lightsaber sputtering out and her tickling Finn with some lightning was completed. While I disagree with the majority of the changes in this edit, those changes do sound pretty cool for Ascendant.

Granted, I believe Hal previously said that her blasting Finn was too much or something. Honestly, I think both of these things are what is missing in Ascendant to make that scene impactful beyond mindless lightsaber clashing. The lighstaber giving out signals Rey’s own feelings of unworthiness to contribute to the Skywalker legacy, and her blasting Finn is yet another reason to abandon everyone without a second word. If these two things are indeed completed, I’d love to see them.

Okay, so I (partly) take back what I said. It looks like SORA can also accept video input and apply what is essentially just CGI over top of things based on your text inputs. Granted, you still couldn’t insert things like TIE fighters, but I could see this being extremely useful for other things like changing the environment in shots. I bet it could also remove things from a certain shot, too. This would all be extremely useful, obviously.

I think it’s important to state anger/hatred instead of a vague sort of darkness. Because that is the natural reaction to losing everything in your life you’ve worked so hard for. It takes somebody incredibly special (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) to train the descendant of the man who has taken everything in your life away from you. And beyond that, to actually love her as a daughter and want her to succeed.

A shorter version is indeed required, but yours is missing the link between the two phrases, which is Padme’s loving path and Leia also choosing love despite her circumstances. In other words, we have the “non-sequitur” stuff going on again. But I see what you’re getting at. We need some way to make it clear that she chooses to become a politician and then general instead of a Jedi. Which is why I specifically stated “lead the galaxy” because Jedi aren’t supposed to necessarily be leaders, they’re protectors. Maybe I just need to go back to “choosing instead to lead the galaxy…”?

I also think we still need “through the darkness” because we need to justify why the next thing Rey would say would be concerning getting to Exegol. By removing that part like you’ve done, we generalize things too much and make her response kinda come out of nowhere.

EDIT: This is where I’m at atm - “She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia feared the hatred that consumed our father, choosing diplomacy and love like our mother. Throughout her life, Leia lost everything, and everyone, but, in the end, she still chose love. A thousand generations live in you now. Leia’s legacy will guide you through the darkness.”

I like a few things there, and there are some other things I’d keep the way they are.

“But Leia feared the hatred that turned our father” - I don’t think it was hatred that turned Anakin, hatred only came about once he had already turned. We can still use this wording, but it would have to use “anger” instead of “hatred”. Think back to Yoda in TPM - “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

I’m always going to disagree with wording Padme’s part as an afterthought, it needs to follow similar syntax to the mention of their father. You have to ask yourself: “Does this sentence make sense still if we exclude this reference?” If it does, then it’s fan-service, and not actually integral to the plot.

“Throughout her life” is necessary instead of what you have so that we can include Alderaan’s destruction and not just what she looses after declining the Jedi path. I prefer “still” over “always” only because it’s meant to emphasize that she was able to hold onto her ideals despite her circumstances.

I’d nix the “Rey” part, but the rest of that sentence is worded well. So, putting everything together:

“She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia feared the anger that turned our father, deciding to lead the galaxy with our mother’s compassion. Throughout her life, Leia lost everything, and everyone, but she still chose love. A thousand generations live in you now. Let Leia’s legacy be your guide through the darkness.”

One thing we could potentially do is simply replace “We’ll always be with you” and/or “But this is your fight” with some wording that could help clarify the intent of the original syntax.

“She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia feared giving in to hatred like our father, choosing instead to follow our mother’s path. Throughout her life, Leia lost everything. And everyone. But in the end, she still chose love. A thousand generations live in you now. Let her legacy guide you as you face the darkness.”

EDIT: A slight adjustment could nonetheless remedy the disconnect between the two ideas - “choosing instead to serve the galaxy with our mother’s compassion.”

If you understand that her mother’s path is to love and serve others despite everything, then the two sentences don’t have that “non-sequitur” quality. Padme fought for the Republic and Anakin despite losing both to the dark side. I know DZ said that Leia didn’t technically lose everybody, but I think that’s arguing semantics, especially because I hadn’t even considered how she lost her entire adopted family and home world. I was only considering what she lost in the sequels themselves. She lost her son to the dark side. She lost her brother first to the unknown for like 10 years, and then death. She lost her husband to that same son. She lost the New Republic she helped build. She lost nearly all of the Resistance she helped build. At some point you just have to accept the fact that Luke really isn’t exaggerating all that much when he says these things.

What Rey has to deal with in terms of loss is a cakewalk in comparison. Palpatine denied her a pair of loving parents. That’s about it. Thus why Luke telling her this story is meant to wake her up to the fact that she can overcome her hatred with love quite easily as a Jedi. All of this is wrapped up nicely in a conversation already in the film:

“All you want is for me to hate. But I won’t. Not even you.”

“Weak. Like your parents.”

“My parents were strong. They saved me from you.”

Her parents stood for the same type of love that Leia did. They all laid down their lives so that their children could live a better life.

The space horses they ride look a lot different than the real-world ponies they use in those Ewok movies though. I’m not sure how it could really be used.

There’s also the opposite idea that the First Order was sent to kill them all by Jannah and her company. Probably at the direct command of General Pryde, because he was a part of the original Empire and wants revenge for Palpatine.

Thus why I made my offer. I don’t think that not wanting to hurry through that means that you can’t work on trying to see ideas contributed there to fruition. Ideally, we’d have a timeline of all the changes we want to see and then leave it there to simmer for a while before it’s actually rendered out.

Hmmm, that is unfortunate. How about I give you all of the time necessary to see Ascendant v5 to fruition, first? Then we can move on to more experimental work like in this thread?

That’s not exactly what it says, though. She’s just afraid that following the same path as her father will lead her into too many situations where she may give in to hatred like him. And we actually SEE her being aggressive in the flashback to get the upper hand. Thus why Luke appears shocked and Leia appears sad.

The goal is to make Rey and Leia’s Jedi paths the same without directly stating it. Both of them instinctively use their aggressive feelings to gain the upper hand in a fight. Leia decides to follow her mother’s path so that she doesn’t have this temptation on a regular basis.

But, ultimately, the point would be EXACTLY what you stated. Leia should have continued to work on overcoming her nature. It sounds corny, but she just had to actively choose love in the moment like she ends up doing throughout her life. This is why she is so insistent on training Rey despite her heritage. They have the same journey, and Leia is trying to remedy where she went wrong herself. But also where she went wrong with Ben, sending him away instead of training him herself.

Technically she did lose the Resistance in TLJ (or at least 99% of it). But I see your point regardless, and that is worded better. I think that tying in Padme’s path with that of unconditional love is proper in the sentence structure, seeing as how even in her final moments she claims there’s still good in Anakin despite him killing all the Jedi. Leia then does a similar thing with Ben due to our other suggested change: “Ben, come home”

As the old adage goes, “It’s like poetry. It rhymes.”

I think the second line’s delivery is perfect, but the first can definitely be improved. Unfortunately, the second one kinda needs to have improved wording in order to bridge the two sentences together in a more understandable way:

Something like - “But Leia feared giving in to hatred like our father, choosing instead to follow our mother’s path. Yet Leia still lost everything in life. And everyone. Despite this, she always chose love.”

DZ-330 said:

Quick fix…?

"She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia felt she could better serve the galaxy through diplomacy, as our mother once did.

Our father’s past troubled Leia too, but she knew that choosing to love would always overpower any darkness.

A thousand generations live in you now. We’ll always be with you, but this is your fight."

Just because someone is “troubled” by something doesn’t necessarily mean that they fear it. I think we have to use analogous language to make the connection clear. And honestly, the first sentence in v4 always felt like blatant fan-service to me. The fact that the sentence can stand on its own without “as our mother once did” makes me feel icky about it. Why does Rey need to know this shoe-horned comment about Padme to understand why Leia left the Jedi Order? It’s completely useless information to her. Thus why I feel both of her parents need to be the reason behind Leia leaving the Jedi, not just inspiration.

“But Leia feared giving in to hatred like our father, choosing instead to follow our mother’s path” cannot function without understanding those two characters and their journeys. Which is bad for casual fans, but honestly those aren’t the people who are gonna be critiquing character motivations at this capacity, anyways. And if they are, their arguments are moot because they should have an understanding of the whole Skywalker Saga, first.

That’s definitely the most reasonable take for the first line, seeing as how my other one opens up a big can of worms concerning science we know little about.

I like that second line, but I do kinda miss no longer having her fear of becoming like her father mentioned as for why she abandons the Jedi path. That was a critical part of Luke and Rey’s conversation earlier, about what they’re most afraid of and how it made them want to abandon their duties. Tying Leia into that as well brings things full-circle.

My goal with the first line was to make it clear that Leia is fully aware of everything that Rey is experiencing, desperately trying to get her to admit the truth so that she can teach her a lesson. But instead Rey chooses to lie. It’s also another scene that is extremely awkward and feels more like a one-sided conversation in the original. Even when Leia finally says something to Rey (who clearly needs more emotional support than that), it’s evident that it’s taken from her asking for a status report on Poe and BB-8 from TFA. The goal here is to recontextualize the line so that it actually feels like a natural part of the conversation. In this case, you could place both sentences together and they make sense independently of Rey speaking: “What’s troubling you, Rey? Don’t tell me what things look like, tell me what they are.”

Agreed on the second line’s delivery, I’m going to continue adjusting that for a take I’m more satisfied with.

As for your third point, that’s certainly part of it. Basically, she chooses the path that she feels is least likely to lead her to the dark side and hatred (being a public figure like her mother). Instead, Leia still lost everything and everyone. Prime dark side stuff. But, regardless, she choses love in the end over hatred for all that happening. So it’s up to Rey to deny that being a Jedi and taking action can be something which makes you fall (why she’s on Ahch-To in the first place), and instead choosing love/acceptance is a universal trait anybody can do to overcome the darkness they struggle with.

Rey takes this lesson to heart when she says this to Palpatine later on: “All you want is for me to hate. But I won’t. Not even you.”

EDIT: How about this for the second line - “Leia sensed his nature in you…” I think this would evoke the nature vs. nuture debate quite well. What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?

Also, I still firmly believe that v5 should take the approach that Leia managed to sense Rey’s bloodline as she trained her, which only served to double her efforts. I think that this thread is essential because it means Leia’s unconditional love is the throughline for both Ben and Rey’s arcs in this movie, meaning she truly is at the heart of Episode IX. She was meant to be at the center of the finale while 7 was still being written, and George’s treatments also wanted her to be extremely important in 9.

To make this point even more clear I’d recommend pairing this with the new Luke/Leia flashback voiceover I shared awhile back, and also making it abundantly clear that Leia knows something is up with Rey earlier on. It was such a weird choice to place so much emphasis on death omens and lightsaber prophecies in the original flashback instead of what really matters about Leia’s character. So, basically, watch the following 3 tests in order:

1. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GBVdK7MAawRusH451b-mwzNdoVUDwxux/view?usp=sharing
2. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LDX3H05d7ZA22lMHj2OWK2mF2gly4qTd/view?usp=sharing
3. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SH4R3i8wNuwrP8bN85aLe82Tn5E87vBj/view?usp=sharing

Here are the Kylo lines I’ve got so far:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ytA9EU11nYZANGJYGB38D7wE5xNtRpsA?usp=sharing

Again, keep in mind that if some of these aren’t quite there yet I’m more than happy to generate more options. A lot of them you won’t be able to tell for sure until they’re actually in the movie itself, but I think in this case it doesn’t hurt to work backwards so we know what kind of delivery we want.

Like I said in the sequel idea thread, the problem will be that you won’t be able to describe those things by name in any prompt for a software owned by a big company. Or else they risk inevitable Disney lawsuits.

We’re gonna have to wait for open-source, community-made models that have the Star Wars movies in their training data. So we’re still a number of years out from something like this being usable for our purposes.

As for the Kylo/Luke convo, I definitely agree that this movie should have given some closure to the betrayal that Kylo felt from his uncle so as to make their appearance together at the end more meaningful.

Unfortunately, that modified scene definitely falls under philosophy #1 that I stated earlier. Which is why it only really belongs in my other thread, and not necessarily here.

Besides, one of the reasons for that scene modification was to remove the reminder that Palpatine wants Rey dead. This edit is taking the approach in that it wants to make it abundantly clear Palpatine always wanted Rey dead until Kylo is redeemed, which is why the default scene needs to stay. In my other thread, I’m taking the exact opposite approach in that Palpatine wants Kylo to fight her because he knows she will more than likely kill him, but even if Kylo wins, Palpatine himself doesn’t lose. It’s a win-win scenario for him. Definitely a more nuanced approach that speaks to Palpatine’s genius. But I think one of the goals to this project was to streamline things and make them easier to understand.

It’s funny to me how even Ian McDiarmid thinks the only logical way to justify Rey Palpatine is either that Palpatine has sex, OR that he manipulated the midichlorians:

https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a46783801/star-wars-palpatine-sex/

He’s probably unfamiliar with the canon explanation of her father being a clone, but honestly as I consider that more it’s just so convoluted compared to the two options listed above. Genetically speaking, that would make Rey his daughter, not his granddaughter. When a novelization is retconning its own movie, and you can argue semantics with all of it, it’s definitely not a good look.

I’m definitely going to see this project through to the end as it seems like the most logical alternative to preserving the reveal while also (somewhat) denying it by the end to enhance taking on the Skywalker name and her genetic nobody-ness. But I want to make sure Ascendant v5 is complete first as that is what I intend on using as a base for this. I’ll still be uploading various tests like the Vader duel and stuff but I expect things to slow down here for a bit.

Cool. I’m gonna get to work sometime soon on ripping Threepio’s lines from this movie for a more accurate clone. I’ll also re-generate all of the Kylo lines as the new voice model is practically flawless compared to what came before.

I’m hoping Kylo’s voice will be seamless enough to avoid having to splice lines together like they are in v4 for “become a dyad” and “Captain Hux”. The latter case isn’t super noticeable, but the former stands out a lot at the moment.

Even if we had access to it at the moment, it would only really be useful for establishing shots due to copyright. They’re not gonna allow you to describe certain things like “lightsaber” or “TIE fighter”.

We’re gonna have to wait for the open-source, community-made models which are trained on the Star Wars films themselves. This might be another 5 years. Any company which allows Star Wars images to be generated with their software are gonna be sued into oblivion.

The raw line as well as the one I applied the echo effect to is in the following folder:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HJVzot6mTzlUYWbOqXKVzwsRvxk0UqrW?usp=drive_link

To help narrow things down concerning the line itself, consider that, beyond justifying Kylo dropping his lightsaber, it gives a whole new meaning to the new final scene/track of the movie “A New Home”. Since Ben joins his mom and uncle there, it means that is where they’re being laid to rest in peace. Their “new home” together. So “come home” takes on a whole different meaning than what you initially expected.

Concerning your other point, it is especially poignant considering the fact that OpenAI just unveiled AI video that’s like 90% there. However, I don’t think you’re considering the two different ways you can employ all this technology:

1. First, as you stated, you could completely morph a story and its points into something completely different and unique to you. This is what I’m doing in my own thread.
2. Alternatively, you can sprinkle in the AI creations to emphasize and clarify certain interpretations that were already present in the original film itself. This is what Ascendant ought to be doing as much as possible, imo.

This new line touches on the second point far more than the first. Leaving the scene devoid of audio allows for more interpretation, sure, but it’s also confusing and dissatisfying compared to how they could have honored Leia and Carrie.

I really think you should make #2 into the official stance of this edit so other ideas can come through. The Zorri stuff about Poe being undercover is definitely #1, as this is a completely different plot point, and thus shouldn’t be included. Her line establishing that Luke started the chaos on Kijimi would be #2, because it’s true even in canon from a certain point of view. Now if only I could get her voice to work 😉

I’ll upload the Leia line shortly. I just need to access my computer.

I can get her to whisper it instead to make it completely seamless:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1prxAlqCmTX6gZR2zfD1OTU3HovEkb4sW/view?usp=sharing

I don’t mean to be rude or blunt, but if you seriously don’t think that this sounds 99% natural then you’ve clearly got some sort of preconceived biases going on. There’s a lot of negative discourse around AI in the media, so I understand trying to minimize it so as to not alienate skeptical people (as we just witnessed with bbghost). But this project wants something that could have been released in 2019 with no one the wiser had they never been told the specifics of how things were manufactured. You have to imagine yourself in the shoes of that casual 2019 Star Wars fan who has no idea what AI even is. If that isn’t enough to convince you, then consider this. Going into this movie, nearly everybody was aware of Carrie’s passing, which allows for an abundant amount of grace. I don’t see how this is any different than CGI-ing Grand Moff Tarkin and Leia herself in Rogue One or CGI Luke Skywalker in the TV shows.

Ultimately, this movie is supposed to be respectful of both Carrie Fisher’s legacy as well as Leia Organa’s. I don’t see how the Woody doll treatment (pull the string to see what random archived line comes out!) is in any way respectful to either. I firmly believe that any way to alleviate this issue is worth pursuing. Especially in this scene, since it’s so awkwardly quiet and is lacking that “beat” which would cause Kylo to drop his lightsaber.