Jar Jar Bricks

Thank you for your endorsements, everyone!

Hal, the first order of business would be to create a version of the Ascendant dyad-duel scene and hangar scene with all of his lines removed except for the following:

• Rey. Wherever you are, you are hard to find.
• I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it. I needed you to see it. (Remove this line, still). Rey…
• So that’s where you are…

This will almost assuredly be a resource for other editors like Nev. Although, if it’s easier to blend in new lines than it is to create an almost entirely blank scene for some reason, just let me know. No rush on this, either.

In the meantime, my personal goal at present is to create a draft of the Kylo Ren and Luke conversation. I’m eyeing the track “Torn Apart” from TFA, mostly because it fits the mood of the scene with the Falcon being transported to the Star Destroyer and since they allude to Han’s death (and possibly even Chewie’s).

Furthermore, I’m also going to get in contact with Seize the Frame, the creators of the Vader vs. Kylo Ren fan film. I mostly want to see if they have a 5.1 surround version of the project they’d be willing to contribute, or at the very least a version of it without the voices or music, only the foley.

Thank you! I don’t doubt that this project will take most of the year to develop at the very least. But I wanted to get a jumpstart on things so that we have a (somewhat) firm foundation to build upon.

This is an ongoing fanedit of The Rise of Skywalker based on Hal 9000’s TROS Ascendant. Furthermore, it is intended to be paired with NeverarGreat’s The Force Awakens: Starlight. Most changes will be accomplished using AI voice work, although I can guarantee all of them will be as seamless as possible. If you don’t believe me, then listen to some of the samples linked below.

The main goals of this project are to bring clarity to Rey’s backstory and Palpatine’s motivations, which are some of the messiest parts of this film (even after the changes made by Ascendant), as well as enhance Kylo Ren’s arc to be more congruent with where The Last Jedi left him and his established fear of living up to Vader’s legacy. This is especially important in a film that has the central theme of “confronting fear”. He is arguably the most meaningful character in this trilogy, and this edit will effectively convey his independence and own goals despite Palpatine’s return.

Below are some of the changes you should expect in this edit:

• “Vader” calls out to his grandson on Mustafar (matching Adam acting like he heard something startling), leading Kylo to his Wayfinder
• Instead of Palpatine simply instructing Kylo Ren to kill Rey when he goes to Vader’s mask, Palpatine will take the form of his grandfather and they will duel on the site of Kylo’s greatest insecurity - Starkiller Base. This scene will make it clear that Kylo is not interested in the Sith at all and wants to make something new. The implication by the end of the scene is that Kylo has shut Palpatine’s voice(s) out of his head, perhaps even by the re-construction of his mask. Various tests of this can be found in this thread.
• Replace Kylo Ren’s line: “Palpatine wants you dead” with “Palpatine wants me to fight you.” Off-screen from the first scene of the film, Palpatine has told Kylo that he wants either him OR Rey to take the throne (but not both), depending on who is the strongest.
• Luke will reach out to Kylo Ren, trying to convince him to come back to the light. This replaces another instance of Palpatine simply telling Kylo to kill Rey. This is meant to fulfill his line from TLJ: “See ya around, kid.” It also is meant to chip away at the idea that Palpatine is the only voice trying to speak into his head. And finally, it makes their appearance together at the end of the film less awkward since they didn’t leave on the best of terms in TLJ.
• Instead of explicitly going after Rey, Palpatine will simply be going after his son in the backstory, unaware that Rey exists. This makes Ochi less of an idiot for not finding a child left alone on Jakku, or for not noticing the screaming child in his rear view mirror. We no longer have to rationalize his ship leaving Jakku as his parents having stolen his ship at a prior date to make sense of things, he can actually be on board it now. Palpatine only discovers Rey’s existence at an undefined point, perhaps in The Force Awakens, but it doesn’t really matter.
• The second flashback of Rey’s parents has been recontextualized to suggest that Palpatine was checking to see if Rey’s father could now use the Force, but had him killed when he discovered he’s a “powerless failure”. This matches other canon content about Rey’s father, and is accomplished without spoiling Rey’s heritage in the moment.
• Kylo will make it clear at the end of their dyad fight that Palpatine wants one of them to take the dark throne, instead of talking about Palpatine wanting to kill a child. This makes Rey’s terrified reaction more justified (“No…!”), since she’s had a vision of herself upon it.
• Reinstate Kylo’s line to “we’re a dyad in the Force”. I personally prefer that this was something always shared between them, given their interrogation scene in TFA.
• (Possibly) add an additional sentence at the end of Kylo’s reveal: “We’ll kill him. Together. And make a new order.”
• Modify a conversation between Finn and Poe to suggest that Ochi only discovered Rey’s existence from a vision given by his dagger after killing her parents and was intent on informing the Emperor about her on Exegol - only to end up dying with the secret. This explains why Ochi would be returning to Exegol according to D-0 instead of finishing the mission he was sent on in the original film (killing Rey) by going back to Jakku. In this new chain of events, he needs to find out what Palpatine wants to do about this development before he can even look into his Jakku lead for the child.
• Replace Luke’s line of “It was fear that kept me here” with something along the lines of “Failure was my greatest fear” to prevent Luke in TLJ from being a complete coward. This is not what Rian Johnson intended, he wanted Luke to genuinely feel that his intervention would lead to failure.
• Reinstate Palpatine’s line: “For my grandchild to come home! I never wanted you dead. I wanted you here, with me.”
• Luke reaches out to Ben a final time as he clutches a dead Rey, encouraging him in the moment. This matches perfectly with some unexplained acting Adam Driver does where it appears he hears somebody and starts looking around in the distance.

EDIT: Double-post

Darth Raditz said:

Going with the idea that the dagger was created by Palpatine, have Rey use that against him. Rey faces her fear, focuses in on the dagger’s origin, and uses that to get to Exegol (and leave coordinates for the Resistance to follow. That’s how you get around the lack of Wayfinders.

Nah, sorry, I can’t buy that. If Rey could use the dagger itself to find Exegol, they never would have gone to Endor in the first place. Remember, the dagger was made to guide the user to a Wayfinder. This is stated several times in the movie. Plus, there’s no indication she has it with her on Ahch-To. I think it got dropped somewhere on the Death Star wreckage? Not sure.

EDIT: Yeah, just checked the movie. The dagger was in her bag, which mysteriously disappears once Kylo appears in front of her. I’m assuming that in canon it was set on the ground in the destroyed throne room.

I couldn’t help myself, so I decided to come back LMAO.

There’s some good discussion here. I do like the idea that Kylo wants to nope the hell out. But I’m unsure how this would work within the context of what we have. Kylo smashes the Wayfinder that Rey finds to pieces and says, “The only way you’re getting to Exegol is with me.” This would ordinally work by simply removing that line, but then you have the problem of the other Wayfinder being on board his own ship, which implies he was planning on going there with Rey in his ship. He would have destroyed the other Wayfinder as well if he no longer wanted any part in this. Plus, it makes their fight scene quite pointless, as previously pointed out.

What I like about the idea on the other thread is that it gives purpose to why Kylo made the choices that he did in his life, and why he’s still so interested in the dark side. Kylo will tell Rey that they’re destined for power because Palpatine used the Force to make their bloodlines, and in turn manipulate their fates. Luke saw that Ben was destined for a dark power in TLJ (the Sith throne), and that’s why he drew his lightsaber on him. Kylo kills Han because he knows his purpose in life is to choose power over family. One of them, Ben or Rey, has to take the throne. It’s unavoidable, a fixed point in time. But what Palpatine could not foresee is that the Force created a dyad between Rey and Ben, a connection that “transcends fate” when they’re together. When Kylo figures this out, it becomes a sunk cost fallacy. He’s already devoted so much of himself to the dark side. He hates that he had to kill his father. He feels too ashamed to see his mother again, as he states to Rey on the Death Star. So instead of using their bond to break free from his destiny for power and darkness, he is obsessed with creating a new dark order with Rey. Yes, this is just a different flavor of Sith, but I think that’s the point! He wants those sacrifices he made at the altar of the dark side to mean something. This is why he’s so obsessed with not allowing Rey to confront Palpatine alone, because he knows that means she will take the throne and all will be lost. This is also what makes their duel on the Death Star wreckage another “Duel of the Fates”, because neither is giving an inch for the other and this means one of them is going to die, fulfilling fate, and ensuring Palpatine’s victory. Palps would have won, too, if it weren’t for Leia’s intervention and Rey’s forgiveness which is a result of that. It’s only because Ben arrives on Exegol that their dyad stops one of them from being possessed by Palpatine and taking the throne.

That’s cool to hear.

I’d ideally like to let simmer what I shared in these threads for a week or so before I go back at it. So I may go dark for a bit. That way other people can point out out anything I might have missed (in other words what might not work fully).

At this point a v5 would have to pick up whatever pieces of Nev’s edit or my edit it chooses to. I guess I should continue voicing these ideas over there, the only reason I brought it up here is because it’s tangentially related to the idea of the DOTF conversation between Luke and Kylo, which several people have voiced an interest in for Ascendant itself.

Exactly. That’s why we’d only be using brief snippets from it in rapid succession. Think of it like a “best of” montage in the style of Rey’s vision. The key is that Kylo has his helmet on in it, and upon defeating “Vader” he’d think he’s earned the right to don it again in reality, thus why the next scene is him reforging it.

Perhaps Kylo should even say something like, “You’re Palpatine” at the beginning of it. To which Vader responds: “I am your own fear.” This would all line up perfectly with how Rey is forced to duel her own fear on the Death Star wreckage.

In the spirit of DOTF, and since we’d already be removing one instance of Palpatine telling Kylo to kill Rey after he asks “Who is she?” I genuinely think it would be best to replace Kylo’s vision with Vader’s mask with repurposed footage from the Kylo Ren vs Vader fan film. Especially since we can replace their voice acting with true to life AI voice clones. The end result of all this would be an edit in which Anakin/Vader is at the forefront of everything, as he rightfully should be in his own saga.

No the guy said in the description of the video that he used Elevenlabs. But RL’s method of making voice clones can’t really be beat.

Technically their first fight in a forest was on Takodana. Granted, that was an unfair one since Rey only had a blaster and no experience with the Force. But yeah, I can change the wording there.

EDIT: I’ve changed it to “When we first fought, on Starkiller Base” only because, like I said, their first fight was actually on Takodana. So the clarification is necessary not just for the audience, but for Rey.

Just assembling all my pieces in one place. This is how I’ll (roughly) be doing the Leia flashback dialogue:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W99nUXhu5iqWQY4sQjBew1IBUmPSJo3M/view?usp=sharing

Here’s (roughly) how I’ll be doing the Leia flashback:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W99nUXhu5iqWQY4sQjBew1IBUmPSJo3M/view?usp=sharing

Ideally, I’d really like to remove that line of “We’ll always be with you” from Ascendant as it sticks out like a sore thumb. Ironic, isn’t it? That an AI is more convincing than the real Mark Hamill there.

Try listening to these new lines in sequential order - it gives you the same effect as being in the scene itself, minus the music. If somebody wants to help incorporating it all into the scene that would be awesome (I think the Reddit OP used a slow-mo effect to extend the scene):

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1k4pgQCk0wujIFGglUndWDKaTfEoSzkwc?usp=sharing

EDIT: The line I’d like Luke to say to Ben on Exegol would be “Choose love, Ben.” Because losing somebody you love (or fearing it) will usually make you angry. It’s only because he chooses love in the moment, true power, that he can save her, unlike Anakin with Padme. Here’s how that would work - https://drive.google.com/file/d/109i7N-nXjq_YdYVM7nziM2ER2R7MO46j/view?usp=sharing

Oh yeah I hadn’t considered that, either.

But I do genuinely think what I mentioned earlier is worth considering. Right after we return to Ochi’s ship, the original filmmakers were under the assumption that the audience was ready to go back to joking around because they knew it was all gonna be okay. This makes jokes like C-3PO’s awkward group hand-holding seem a little abrupt after such a dark moment. At least with introducing Luke at this moment instead of revealing Chewie is still alive, we remind the audience that this is Star Wars - nobody is ever really dead (especially so in this movie). So it’s at least slightly more warranted to return to a more jovial tone.

I’m also gonna drop the newest Luke part here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wbRulfz03IySD2_hX1CIB04SpSzOGpPA/view?usp=sharing

Just to clarify, Palpatine can still have a hand in how they’re created even if the Force itself was the one that made them. Palpatine uses the Force like a tool and tries to bend it to his own will. That’s the dark twist in what Luke says - they were made to end (kill) him. He wanted Anakin to eventually kill him in anger so he could possess him, and now Rey is on the same path as he was. Palpatine was twisting the Force’s good intentions for his gain throughout the entire saga.

About the Rey line, I can share a few options for people to rip the “am” off of. But it has to be sourced from her quiet(er) lines from earlier in the film.

In the meantime, I’m just gonna drop the completed dyad-duel and hangar scene Kylo lines here. I’m sure some of them will need more options (or maybe even need to be re-written), but I just wanted to get a proof-of-concept done:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FQYpAd-CS3KHYHjn2mbEK30uiNW9g59i?usp=sharing

That’s what Hal did for Kylo’s “we’ve become a dyad in the Force, Rey”. Personally, I think I preferred the original. But check out v4 there to see if that’s something you’re comfortable with.

Oh damn, you’re so right. For some reason I had it backward this whole time. We need it there for Chewie’s scene to be replaced. And that is a tad early for Luke Skywalker to be appearing in the film. But I suppose it does help in establishing Kylo’s conflict early, as well. And after a legacy character like Chewie is “killed” it would certainly lighten up the mood for a first time viewer.

I think it could work in a hypothetical edit in which Kylo reveals during the hangar scene that Palpatine never wanted him to kill her. Or that they are simply meant to fight each other, and he doesn’t want Rey dead necessarily, just one of them. This is what I’m doing in Nev’s brainstorming thread, currently.

Because we currently have the scene before Endor, the only purpose it serves is reminding us that Palps wants Rey dead and that Kylo knows where she’s going. Arguably, having no such indication that he knows where she’s going would make his sudden appearance on the Death Star better. I like how the novelization describes how Rey is convinced at first that he’s a part of the vision she was just experiencing because it makes no sense for him to be there.

I’d be down to tool around with the scene and use my own voice clones (I’m biased to think they’re better than this reddit user’s at the moment). Of course credit for the original idea should go to them, though.

EDIT: This would also allow Luke to say something to Ben when he finds Rey’s dead body because we’d have precedence for him speaking into his head. Basically whatever we want him to say there to match when Ben twists his head and looks around the shattered throne room for some reason. This whole idea would discredit Palpatine’s statement that he’s been every voice in his head, which I’d say is a good thing so it’s clear Kylo was never being mind controlled.

The reason I never bothered with that line is because she needs to say the line in a very specific way. Somewhat under her breath, whilst she’s simultaneously out of breath and exerting herself, and in a forceful and powerful way. I honestly wouldn’t rely on AI for any line that is supposed to represent a character’s entire journey. Stuff like exposition and that works, but when it’s something people will be scrutinizing I’d rather not bother with it.

If you have ideas for some other lines that can be improved I’ll give them a look. For example, I already re-did “He’s too dangerous” but without a v5 of Ascendant in the foreseeable future that will never see the light of day.

Fair enough. I’m biased in this way because I went into TROS day 1 knowing the whole story due to leaks from a bunch of months prior to release. I still think this approach has its merits, though, even without these other goofy leaks.

Potential Rey movie spoiler tag, my bad:

If the longstanding rumors of the Rey movie are to be believed, it’s understood that Rey will become pregnant by Ben despite the fact that he’s dead. Perhaps they’ll say she became pregnant when Ben poured his life essence into her. This would make sense because the camera lingers on his hand being over her stomach. I’m bringing this up because this whole Rey Chosen One idea would neatly align itself with what’s to come, given that Rey would be conceived of no father, herself. Ben would be doing the light-side inversion of Palpatine bending the Force to his will to create life such as Anakin and Rey, because Ben actually gives up his own life to create life. So while Anakin and Rey are genetically unrelated to Palpatine, Rey’s child(ren) would be authentic/genetic Skywalkers.

Nobody knows all of them for sure yet since he’s saving that for the release. But from what I can tell Obi-Wan learns Vader still lives in the cantina instead of Reva telling him. I’m sure there will be other changes like this that will have an effect on the overall story.