Jar Jar Bricks

Octorox said:

Glad that you are doing these as an alternate option. For midichlorians I would consider the Phantom Edit route of adding back in oblique references but keeping out the exposition dump Qui-Gon gives to Anakin.

Yeah, I think this is a good compromise. I think most audience members can surmise that they are a singular indicator of a person’s potential in the Force just based upon the scene between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan on Tatooine. Disney canon does nothing more with the concept beyond this.

I’m in the midichlorian camp. It’s not explicitly mentioned by name in the new canon content, but it might as well be. They’re constantly talking about “m-counts” in all of the new content, as if giving it a different name makes it less controversial lol.

Wow it’s really crazy how blue the original Exegol is. Yucky.

sgscobie said:

That’s very George Lucas of you. So perhaps you should title them “[Special Editions]”. FYI, I think they’re great as is!

Hey, that was my idea for Ascendant! lol

I agree with DZ that might be a good idea. Although I don’t know if whoever rendered those out for you is still around.

Oh dayum this is so incredibly hype. I’m definitely going to use the first two!

Wow, what an absolutely fantastic episode compared to the last one! The best part is that I’m pretty sure at this point that he did indeed keep all their money from last episode, which aligns with the changes made there. I’m not sure how much of this episode you can feasibly trim up, but I do have some general suggestions, if you’re willing to hear me out again:

• The parent intro can probably be split into two separate scenes quite easily so you can space these out - the first scene being when Wim’s dad is accessing the terminal and gets caught, and the second scene being when he talks to Fern’s mother.
• The scene of the bounty hunter lady actually contacting the pirates can probably be cut.
• You might be able to cut the party splitting into separate teams and just have them all head to the same place.

Honestly, you’ve got a tough job figuring out what else to cut out. I enjoyed most of what was here this week, so maybe just slight cuts here and there will be enough. My personal theory is that Yod left the Jedi at a young age to turn to villainy and was Qui-Gon Jinn’s first apprentice.

Kada22 said:

Just notice this too. But really like your vision so far. I checked the previous pages, watched the remaining Drive files. I would say, love this Kylo vs Vader duel, but I think you should try do it a little faster. Now it has a “fan vibe”, it is really, really good looking, but too slow to me.

In response to this comment, I have prepared two versions of the duel. For my own personal convenience, I haven’t added any dialogue, yet. Here is the longer one (where I last left off on this project):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WiLWxP7WQJBP4J7j90lxr4jMw06Tkox5/view?usp=sharing

And here is the slightly shorter one:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CMQQWUEDFsqKk2U6v20XKfwto4dgiCIo/view?usp=sharing

Would appreciate some more feedback here. I happen to agree and prefer the shorter one.

Awesome!

I 100% agree. Rey and Kylo have the same character journey, they just start at opposite ends. Which is fitting seeing as how they form a dyad in the Force.

We’ve already done a really good job of making Rey’s character arc clearer in this way with default Ascendant. She feels unworthy of taking on the Skywalker family saber after she witnesses a vision of her most darkest moments throughout the trilogy, and of herself on the Sith throne in the future. Despite Leia telling her that she is as good as family, she still doesn’t feel like it is warranted deep down.

The revelation that she is a Palpatine shatters her completely. Kylo idolizes his grandfather while Rey is terrified of hers. The only reason she doesn’t let her fear stop her from action is Luke telling her that Leia also stopped her Jedi training for the exact same reason (fear of a dark relative), but she trained Rey and reached out to Ben with the Force when it mattered most.

Unfortunately, I feel that Kylo’s arc isn’t quite there in the original movie or Ascendant, which is one of the main reasons I’m making this edit. Beyond the whole “finding where you belong” arc for Rey and Kylo, fear is a common theme for almost every single character in this movie.

The problem is that Ascendant is using 2 whole Kylo Ren scenes for Palpatine to say the exact same thing to Kylo he says at the beginning: “Kill the girl.” We can use those moments to get into Kylo’s headspace better; to know his fears and need to find belonging.

As a result of those scenes being gone, we can also pull the twist that Palpatine never wanted Rey dead in a more believable way. I really like the idea that he just wants the two to fight so he gets whoever is stronger to come to him on Exegol. It reminds me of first poster for this movie.

Anywho, I’ve basically just described most of the changes I’ll be making again, besides that Palpatine was only going after Rey’s father originally in her backstory to smooth over some weird details.

Hopefully everyone is caught up now lol 😉

I’m officially getting back into this project as of this week. I just wanted to run a couple of small dialogue changes by everyone for the Kylo/Vader scene and Kylo/Luke scene. Anything that’s been changed is italicized:

Kylo: You were never real.

Vader: And yet your fear remains… we both know who is more powerful.

They fight.

Vader: The girl bested you in this place… you are unworthy.

Kylo pulls the Snoke maneuver on Vader.

Vader: You are no Sith.

Kylo: I know.

The other scene:

Luke: The dark side has failed you, Ben. Like it failed my father.

Kylo: Anakin was weak.

Luke: His love for his family saved him. I wish it could save you, too.

Kylo: I embraced my true nature.

Luke: You chose hate.

Kylo: I chose power!

I changed Vader’s line because it would be unclear to casual viewers who he was referring to (Rey) and where (Starkiller Base). I changed Kylo’s line to be congruent with what he tells Rey later in the film: “The dark side is in our nature. Surrender to it.”

I think the most effective characterization of Kylo for the trilogy is that he feels inherently unworthy of affection. He admits to being a monster to Rey in TLJ: “Yes, I am”. His mother sent him away because she was too scared to deal with his dark side, which we’ve hinted at in the latest version of Ascendant. Luke, of course, then contemplates attacking him in his sleep because he fears Ben’s dark potential. At that point, he feels as if the only way to feel accepted by anyone is by emulating Vader, and, later, by forging his own new dark path.

As much as Kylo would like to return to his mother (“You can’t go back to her now. Like I can’t.”) he feels that he would be scorned because he’s gone too far down this path by killing his father. So he just goes further down it so he can at least be accepted as valid for once. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle. Yet, at his darkest point where he’s about to strike down Rey, his mother still reaches out to him and accepts him. And Rey, despite initially retaliating in anger against him, reminds him that she also once wished to be with who he really is.

It’s certainly a compelling character arc, but unfortunately it gets muddied by the messiness that is the sequel trilogy.

Sounds good to me! Although if I recall correctly Yod was questioning where exactly they were as they enter the Fallen Sanctum, so perhaps SM-33 should only refer to it as such.

Yeah, I could see that working to explain where they go. Neel’s line would have to be really quick due to how brief the shot is, though. “Let’s get Yod, first” or “We need Yod.”

None of the new characters from this episode show up in any of the trailers. If I had to guess, it sounds like they’re just gonna go to one of the other “lost worlds” in the next episode to see if it has a coordinate room like this one did. In case this girl shows up briefly in the finale for some reason, at least she wouldn’t be a complete stranger. But obviously her interactions with Neel should go.

smudger9 said:

I was also surprised by the lack of any parent scenes on At-Attin. We know there are more to come from the trailers. It would really help the editing of this episode to have a scene or two on At-Attin to fill in the editing gaps.

Which trailers are you referring to? Just curious. The reason why I was insistent on deleting all parent scenes previously is because I wasn’t aware of the potential for this being an actual plot thread later on. Maybe there will be an entire episode entirely focusing on their perspective?

I do have a pretty good idea of what to do, though. We can’t see Neel’s mouth because of his trunk. Replace Neel’s final line in the destroyed house:

“Maybe you shouldn’t be touching that” -> “Let’s go get Yod from the ship”

Then we do the scene with Yod and SM-33. Then go back to the parents (perhaps a scene from a later episode). And then we transition to them entering the Fallen Sanctum. The dialogue here is perfect so the audience isn’t confused:

Yod: “So, who exactly lives here now?”

Neel: “On our planet, this is the Supervisor’s Tower.”

The only problem is that Yod now has their credits and hasn’t given them away. Unless he completely murdered those warriors earlier and didn’t actually give it up.

Kind of a filler episode this week. Not sure if it would be possible, but ideally the kids shouldn’t meet that clan of people. Or the scenes with them should be significantly cut down. Anything so the main characters get to the tower ASAP.

I will say that it’s worth seeing TFA: Starlight, if you haven’t. It makes the movie feel like a dark inverse of ANH instead of a direct ripoff, which is at least more clever. I feel it also foreshadows TROS better.

There aren’t necessarily many edits of TLJ on this forum that I’d think are strictly preferable to the original. There are some real improvements, sure, but if you didn’t like the original movie it isn’t going to salvage it. That is, unless you enjoy the Caretaker Village sequence explaining Luke’s philosophy. Watch that on YouTube, if you haven’t.

Apparently v7 has AI upscaled deleted scenes. From 2-3 years back.

Correct me if I’m wrong, Hal, but I think the transition from the Anakin/Padme kiss to Kamino was also adjusted again.

I would like to do that, but I almost feel like that scene would work better in an edit which retains the antagonism between Anakin and Obi-Wan, which this edit mostly removes. Granted, I do believe Spence removed most of that from the duel for his edit, since his edit took the same approach for the Anakin and Obi-Wan dynamic, so it’s worth considering.

To be honest, I was mostly waiting to see how PixelJoker95 handles that scene in his edit before I go all in on including it in AotC.

Those are all good changes. 👍

Let’s say the next 3 episodes trimmed down add up to about 1 hour and 15 minutes as well for a total of 2 hours and 30 minutes, won’t that be an issue with 2 whole episodes left? Idk, maybe there will be some filler episodes like there was for The Acolyte, but that was mostly due to them showing the same events from different perspectives. I kind doubt that will be the case here.

Yeah, after seeing Episode 3 I think it’s best to remove it. I wasn’t sure if they were going to immediately reveal his true identity or not, but since they’re dragging it on for so long it’s probably best to at least make him somewhat mysterious.

From this episode specifically, you could easily remove the following:

• The intro scene since it serves no purpose
• The kids and Jude Law going BACK through the pirates to reach the shuttle. Just cut shortly after he mentions the unguarded tunnel or something. This feels like Obi-Wan hiding Leia under his cloak all over again, because there shouldn’t be ANY children in the pirate base, and they should all kinda know that the only kids there are supposed to be in prison. Makes his character seem like an idiot.
• All of Jude Law’s scenes when he goes back to retrieve the droid - this way we don’t learn his true pirate nature from the goon that catches him. Plus, all of his action scenes here were cut (or never filmed), anyways.
• The scene where the owl lady calls in the X-Wings. This way we discover what she did at the same time as Jude Law’s character.

That’s just what came to me immediately after seeing the episode. I’m sure there would be more.

I thought the pirate opening was an excellent allusion to A New Hope’s opening. With the smaller ship being boarded by the larger ship, and the pilots in the good guy ship taking cover and waiting for the doors to open before opening fire.

They usually use the term “donor” in medical procedures / genetic applications. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s how Dr. Pershing refers to Grogu. But I suppose that would work better if we wanted to emphasize Luke fueling Kylo’s anger, since we already would have the visual of the hand.

Eh, I really do think modifying those two shots would be the most seamless way, so the scene keeps moving along. The first guy could be on the right side of a blue hand vat, and the second guy on the left. Palpatine stops speaking completely for like 10-15 seconds, which is perfect for an AI line. Something snarky like: “Your uncle / Skywalker was a most generous donor.”

This would fit seamlessly between the other lines imo: “I made Snoke. I have been every voice, you have ever heard, inside your head. Skywalker was a most generous donor. The First Order was just the beginning. I will give you so much more…”

The double meaning there being that Luke was (arguably) responsible for Kylo’s turn to the dark side, while also being the reason Snoke was able to be created via his unwitting genetic donation.

It would have to be a VFX replacement of one of the two (or both) super brief shots right before the vat of Palpatine clones. It could probably actually be a static image, given that the camera doesn’t move around at all.

The problem with the first shot is that one of the Sith goons is walking around right in front of the camera, obscuring the machinery. So maybe it would just have to be the second one, replacing the right side of the screen with the hand vat for those two seconds. But at that point it’s a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment. Which would probably be for the best if I don’t pursue the lightsaber bit.

Ah, fair enough.

So long as people won’t mind Palpatine referring to Tyrannus at the end to align with canon, I should be able to make it. Can call it a Clone Wars friendly edit since Yoda does crazy lightsaber moves in that show, as well.