True. Maybe meeting Jannah and co. was his awakening to “Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t be celebrating the deaths of my former comrades.”
But arguably, any sane person should have been questioning that much sooner. But we’re working with a very limited amount of resources here.
I like everything you’ve got there, RL.
But I’d argue against modifying the crawl or making regular broadcasts of Finn and Poe. It’s quite clear toward the beginning that Poe really does have his doubts about whether everybody out there is ever willing to come together. Thus why it’s more impactful when he talks about there being “more of us” later on. Doing this would rob us of any really character development for him.
I just realized: Why not replace the shot from TROS of Leia clinging to Han’s medal with the shot from TLJ with her holding Han’s dice? It’s something that means more to the Sequel Trilogy rather than being a callback, & it further sets up the idea of Leia summoning Han’s force ghost for Ben later on.
She doesn’t have them, Luke does. Doesn’t he take them off the Falcon in TLJ and then they aren’t seen again?
Yes, they’re still on Ahch-To, probably in Luke’s hut. Unless Rey managed to steal them along with the texts (but that sounds unlikely since she doesn’t even know Luke removed them in the first place).
Now, this may seem presumptuous, but I feel like that’s one of the easier things possible. Once he decides to stay with Jannah on the Destroyer, we get a montage of hologram message playing on FO Destroyers, using AI voice lines and his model from Battlefront with a hologram filter over it.
I didn’t say it would be good, but a mockup should be possible. I’m tempted.
Then it sounds like this would be our only option for the idea.
There is a deleted scene of Kylo Ren on a Star Destroyer bridge. He could be VFX’d out and replaced with the hologram.
Hmm, it’s an interesting idea, but might be clumsy. We would’ve griped about this if the movie did this.
Which idea? The quick word replacement of “people” with “stormtroopers” in Finn’s sentence or the more in-your-face ideas?
Also, about Kylo Ren and the whole hidden power thing. I believe he knows about the fleet but is aware that he needs to kill whoever is in charge in order to steal it for himself.
Plus what always struck me as odd about that montage (including the one from the original film) is that the Star Destroyers are the only ships in frame. Like, who or what exactly is attacking them? Besides the Holdo Maneuver shot, there’s literally no battle going on.
If it were an inside attack, this would make WAY more sense.
The easiest thing to do would be a Finn AI voice line:
“Poe, stormtroopers are rising up all over the galaxy.”
Sure, he would have only had an indirect link to that, but it’s better than nothing.
EDIT: Another thought just occurred to me. Really, this would be fixing a gaping plot hole. Assumably, Lando bringing everybody to Exegol would have given the FO free reign to take control of key systems since everybody would be gone. And then our heroes would have been in the same dire straights from Episode 8. So in all reality, this is the only explanation which patches this up.
EDIT: Replace Finn’s offscreen line to Poe about people rising up all over the galaxy with him saying, “Poe, I just lead a stormtrooper rebellion via hologram all over the galaxy. It was epic.”
Dang, that’s ironically all we needed to finish Finn’s arc in this movie. Not this line particularly lol but the concept itself. Imagine he beams out a hologram message for FO troops to rebel and that’s why we see the montage of FO Star Destroyers going down.
Would have been a better explanation than the sloppy “the people just did it”.
Yup, unless somebody can think of any character in the film that desperately needs a new AI line, I think it should be set.
Am I crazy or does the bandit music that plays when they are watching Shin and Baylan sound exactly like the theme of the Knights of Ren? See the comparison below:
https://youtu.be/KjGtYdsg4to?si=LMp6sGDqTcxm9AzR
It would be interesting if, since these guys are from the home world of the Dathomirian witches, that their fascination with the dark side stems from that. Plus, it’s fitting that their first Jedi opponent had the last name of WREN.
Oh boy, I’m definitely reading too much into this. I’m probably wrong, but thought it would be fun to share.
They should have just gone by the Sith Eternal. That’s literally the name of Palpatine’s faction until Kylo walks into his science lab that day. He just decides to change it to be all quirky or something who knows.
It’s what Palps refers to his fleet as in the intro with Kylo. Imo probably the reason they picked that name was to make it seem like they had planned this all along. Like a “See guys, there’s a reason it was called the First Order! Because there was a Final Order just waiting to happen!”
I have no feelings about it one way or the other.
it was a power that made sense for Jedi to have originally and to have abandoned by the time of the PT as they got more dogmatic and became more and more detached.
Yes, but you cannot possibly expect the majority of people to come to this conclusion without at least a couple of clues in the film. Unless you are an avid Star Wars fan and purposely trying to play devil’s advocate, there is no way you could come to this conclusion.
Having both the Jedi text diagram and Rey’s brief explanation is enough for the general audience to pick up on without going into a nerdy deep dive like I just did lmao.
That could have worked as an explanation. But the fact that Palpatine can drain their energy without their approval signals to me that he is using a different version of the same power.
Perhaps Plagueis was capable of draining life from one individual and giving it to another. And Palpatine “perfected” the maneuver during his time on Exegol by figuring out how to drain Force energy into himself.
I get it, this is all speculative mumbo jumbo, but I believe it is the most reasonable explanation for everything seeing as how it brings the whole saga full circle.
Yeah, you’re right, Hal.
I do disagree though that Rey explicitly confirming where she learned it from in the scene is useless. What we currently have in the texts is definitely something a more casual viewer could gloss over or be unsure of what exactly it’s referring to. When Rey refers to the texts in the later scene, it ensures that everybody has made the connection from earlier in the film.
I think it ultimately just comes down to how important you think explaining the power to the audience is. Personally I think not very (I wouldn’t mind if you blinked and missed it), but for this edit it’s of course up to Hal to decide.
Her using the power without explanation is not what is troublesome. What is troublesome is the fact that it is a power which completely invalidates Anakin’s entire arc because it is clearly a Jedi power in origin and yet if it had existed when there was the threat of Padme dying from childbirth it never should have been an issue for him to stay on team Jedi.
So, for the conclusion of the Skywalker saga, there needs to be a clear and direct explanation for why this power wasn’t around during the other movies. It being an ancient and obscure ability makes sense. As Anakin tells Palpatine: “I know there are things about the Force they aren’t telling me.” Maybe he was correct about that, and only Jedi Master’s could access the restricted section to read about this power which had since become forbidden in more recent times due to Jedi disillusionment (“Mourn them do not, miss them do not.”)
See, now this power has arguably enhanced the prequels instead of tearing them down. The Jedi’s own dogma brought them down.
Yeah, you’re right, Hal.
I do disagree though that Rey explicitly confirming where she learned it from in the scene is useless. What we currently have in the texts is definitely something a more casual viewer could gloss over or be unsure of what exactly it’s referring to. When Rey refers to the texts in the later scene, it ensures that everybody has made the connection from earlier in the film.
We could always kill two birds with one stone by changing our illustration of Force healing. It could explain Rey’s crackly saber a bit. Either it could just show a shattered Kyber crystal being given Force energy, or it could be an additional illustration next to our current one. Although that runs the risk of being too crowded visually.
I think the first option makes the most sense. It would mean that Rey is trying to use this power in an unconventional non-Jedi way with the serpent. But perhaps the Jedi were wrong to not want to use this power on sentient beings? Idk, this is all stuff I covered in my novelization so I’m a bit biased.
I never asked the two guys I watched v3 with about Palpatine’s plan, but seeing as how they never questioned it during the movie or after it was finished I’d have to wager that it made sense the way we currently have it. As in, it doesn’t necessarily need to be explained any more.
Right, maybe it could go between “Ah, victory!” and them on the stairs?
Or we could just redub “He calls it the Final Order.”
Yup, at this point, I’d probably just assume they brought Oscar Isaac in for some late stage ADR. Not bad at all.
Is there some way to re-order that in a way that makes more sense?
I’ve heard the complaint before that the gang just kinda shows up in the city without any explanation so this would at least show them entering the city. But I’d recommend muting Jar Jar’s weird sound lol.
I’m sure this was considered at one point, but to help slow down the brisk pacing at the beginning of the movie this establishing shot could be helpful:
https://youtu.be/_EVdO6MA2GY?si=ElqIinfx33ifO6FI&t=77
It would probably go after the Queen is looking outside, and before the droid announces that they have achieved victory and captured her.
If we put back Palpatine’s line, “I never wanted you dead, I wanted you here,” it would not be clear that he changed his plans. Originally he really did want her alive all along, even when she was a child. The narrative for Ascendant is that he really was trying to have her killed, since he had already invested years and years into Kylo Ren with that mighty Skywalker blood.
This is the way to do it. Canon is that the Skywalkers have more potential strength than Palpatine, so it does make sense. Of course, that particular line is removed from Hal’s edit of ROTS “[Anakin] will become stronger than either of us.” But I think it still stands fact regardless.
So Kylo is stronger than Rey (he easily beats her on the Death Star wreckage). And Rey would have been born when Ben was around 9 years old. So it makes sense that Palpatine always wanted to kill her. Maybe in this continuity he never meant for his son to escape Exegol.
Oh, sorry, I got it mixed up. I thought you said “when he is dead”.