Jar Jar Bricks

Ah, yes, here is what I was talking about:

bbghost said:

Just quietly, I think this is one of my favorite small bits of editing I’ve done so far to this film:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fe-6n7XalPBHtDnJD7nDz9sG57ayMQYw/view?usp=sharing

I feel it would solve the issue you have with it as well Sherlock because this way there isn’t as much emphasis placed on the fight between them and the rocket trooper. But that’s just my opinion.

sherlockpotter said:

You know, one of the worst examples of this film’s rushed pacing is, I think, right before they get swallowed up in the cave on Pasaana. Their ships explode, they crash-land, they immediately start firing 10 million blaster shots at the last stormtrooper, which then starts zipping around. It smashes head-first into a cliff, it explodes, and they immediately start sinking into the ground. So you have a cacophony of noise, and two tangentially related problems that are immediately stacked on one another without any breathing room whatsoever.

What’s funny is that I thought this scene needed the exact opposite approach. I can’t remember who drew it up but somebody made it so that only Rey fires, her first shot lands, and the stormtrooper explodes. I like this because they landed in quicksand, so I would imagine it would start sinking them much quicker than what is shown on screen. They shouldn’t even have the opportunity to open fire as a group. Personally, I think allowing them to linger on the sand longer would only make that issue worse.

I think I’m going to work on 2 versions for these next 2 chapters. The first one will be with good parents, and the second will be with bad ones. Depending on which is worse (by my own opinion and others), I’ll go with the opposite.

Isn’t that the same thing as a vision? I mean I’m willing to go either way on it but I’m just curious why you would prefer it that way specifically.

I was going to mention that in the hangar scene. He receives a vision about her, and regrets letting her dad escape Exegol. Rey was born on Jakku, so he doesn’t know about her until the vision.

Here is something I’m a little more proud of so far:

Rey entered a bright, white space with soaring ceilings and clean perfection. Kylo Ren’s private quarters.

She stepped forward slowly and carefully, drawn to the dagger. The room was beautiful and light-filled, but devoid of any warmth. Various artifacts were placed around the room upon pedestals. Rey thought his quarters resembled an art exhibit more than a place of rest.

On a prominent white pedestal lay a necklace. Not the one he had ripped from her neck on Pasaana - it was much simpler in design, and yet elegantly crafted. It was a pendant of some kind, an amulet, unfamiliar sigils carved in some sort of organic material, strung on a loop of leather. Rey thought the charm was beautiful. She couldn’t help but wonder what sort of significance it had to Kylo.

A few more steps brought her to another prominent pedestal, deep black in contrast with its surroundings, jutting from the shiny white floor. Displayed atop this pedestal was a warped black mask, its eyeholes and vocoder still gaping but melted like heated wax, smeared into a display of perpetual agony.

She stared at it for a long time - too long - unable to look away. She’d seen this mask in Ren’s thoughts, when he’d tried to pull Luke’s map from her mind on Starkiller Base. It had also appeared in her visions on Ajan Kloss. It had belonged to his grandfather. Was this whole place dedicated in his honor?

But that horrible mask was not what she’d come for, and she wanted nothing to do with it. She glanced around… there! On another white pedestal lay Ochi’s dagger. On a table next to it were Chewie’s things - his bowcaster and satchel.

It’s quite similar to something you’d expect Thrawn to have (art gallery), but I thought it would be fitting for the japor snippet. And by the way, the snippet was not buried with Padme according to canon, so Kylo did not have to do any grave digging on his grandma. It was left in a glass display case on Naboo outside her tomb.

As for Palpatine not knowing about Rey, I see that to be a little convoluted. Clearly her parents have been in hiding for however old she is in years plus a couple extra years, so why would he wait all that time to track them down?

The sequence of events I’m thinking of is that Rey’s father escapes Exegol by hijacking the Bestoon Legacy, he flies to Jakku (which is right next to the Unknown Regions) where he meets Rey’s mom. They leave Rey there, flying off in the Legacy. Ochi is sent after them to find Rey, and also to retrieve his ship back.

My explanation on why the actual clone with his spirit inside looked more “normal” is that his spirit was eating away on the dark side essence within the clone, thus losing its wrinkled dark side skin and becoming more like a normal person.

RogueLeader said:

Also, you could kind of explain it away that perhaps these clones are a byproduct of both science and Sith alchemy. Perhaps they have to infuse these clones with the dark side in order for them to be even viable for his spirit.

That is actually how I explained it in my novelization. Great minds think alike!

Eh, I just looked it over again. It’s definitely an inference even from there. Either way works with what we have in canon, but imo the idea that he always looked like that makes the most sense because the dark side is supposed to corrupt you physically.

Testing is right. That is actually his true form. The ROTS novelization describes it as the “face of Darth Sidious” or something. He decides at that moment that it could be advantageous to keep it that way since it would appear that he was injured by the Jedi.

As for the clones, it’s correct that Rey’s dad is a completely different thing than those clones in the vat in canon (strandcast). However, even without the whole strandcast thingy (which I don’t care for myself) one could rationalize him as an unmodified clone, similar to Boba Fett.

But if you watch the film he says/reveals a lot more information than what you said there. And as I said before, none of it would make much sense. Ex: “It was Palpatine who had your parents taken. He was looking for you. But they wouldn’t say where you were. So he gave the order.” That quote would come just after a flashback which I modified to show Rey’s dad lying to her that he would come back for her if she just kept quiet. That same person would almost certainly just reveal her location to save his life. That’s why I came up with the PTSD explanation, but that cannot be incorporated until it’s revealed he’s a clone of Palpy.

I think the entire dyad fight would have to be overhauled for this idea to work properly. The reason for that is because Kylo is revealing information in the scene which makes no sense without the context that she is a Palpatine.

The only ways I can think of to solve that would be to completely eliminate the flashbacks and reveals for later in the novel (gutting the fight as a result), or to straight up reveal her true heritage in the fight. But then what’s the purpose of the hangar scene?

Ugh. I knew this might be an issue but I didn’t think it would be this hard.

I’m having trouble writing this chapter with the idea that Rey’s parents were bad people. The problem is that I would have to heavily rely on the idea that her father has PTSD from Exegol. But obviously we don’t know that he was a clone experiment at this point in the novel, so there isn’t anything except spite towards Palpatine there that could explain why they don’t give up her location in the flashback. Thing is, that’s coming just after another flashback which demonstrates how inherently selfish people they are, so I don’t think spite is a good enough reason. They clearly only care about their own lives.

If anybody has any ideas to fix this, I’d definitely tinker with it some more. But I had other ideas regarding good parents that I’d like to try in the meantime (like that perhaps they actually paid Unkar to watch her, and that they only purchased drinks to cope with losing her).

I do believe her parents being good people has its fair share of issues. Not only does it really mess with Rey’s arc where she wants to prove herself because of her “abandonment”, but it’s also kinda stupid that her parents give her to Plutt of all people. I suppose the whole “proving herself” side of things could just swap from it being because of abandonment to being a Palpatine, but idk.

Sorry for the rant.

CaptainFaraday said:

Also, NFBisms very kindly provided me with a couple of his original VFX shots, so, I’ve been able to integrate them into the edit!

Ooh what are those for?

Here’s the official/canon explanation for his behavior from the novelization (although I know most here don’t care for that):

Poe stepped into the hold from the cockpit. His face was haggard, but he seemed as determined as ever. He’d been so serious lately, often on the verge of anger ever since Crait. He felt responsible for the decimation of Resistance, Rey knew. She understood what that was like, and braced herself. She wasn’t going to blame him one bit for laying into her; she was just going to take it.

So the impression I’m getting is that he was angry at himself and taking it out on others - and droids were prime targets.

Chapter 10 Changelog (was a big one):

• Plenty of streamlining (removing unneeded details), and making things more clear
• C-3PO cycles through his memory banks before he says that he’s saying goodbye to his friends. This is what prompts Poe to ask what he’s doing. It achieves the effect that he is also looking at Luke, Leia, and Han before he dies.
• Finn eyes Zorii and Poe exiting the workshop longingly
• Removed all romantic inclinations between Poe and Zorii. They are just old friends.
• Overhauled Poe being a Debby Downer about nobody helping the Resistance:

1. Zorii points out that Kijimi City is in a state of active rebellion, as are many other worlds. It isn’t just about the First Order instilling fear.
2. Poe witnesses a group of teenagers doing graffiti art of a man holding a glowing sword when she tells him this.
3. Poe admits that people are rebelling, but insists that everyone is out for themselves since nobody came to help them on Crait.

• As a result of the aforementioned change, I have removed a second reference to the retcon that the First Order was blocking their call to the galaxy
• Rey tells Finn that Ochi’s ship was used by her parents, not that they simply left in it (which implies that Ochi didn’t notice the screaming girl behind him).
• 3PO’s message refers to the Sanctuary Moon of Endor. Finn refers to it as where the second Death Star exploded, not where the last war ended.
• Chewie is not revealed to still be alive until Rey senses it. As a result, moved Kylo’s interrogation scene to directly after this.
• To see changes to the interrogation scene, see the bottom of the last page
• Moved Zorii’s scene from the next chapter to the end of this one
  Link:
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/15Tg1J8GT7T42bciRhcsFWJYUxdIpSN_w/view?usp=sharing

RogueLeader, back at it again. Thanks.

What I thought was strange about that scene is that I thought the film made it pretty clear that Kylo used the Force to shut Hux up. According to the original novelization, all he did was stick up a finger, which I don’t like as much.

Alright, I put the following directly after the Knights of Ren scene I wrote from the previous chapter. I forgot about this scene, so when I saw it I knew it had to go back in, but it didn’t fit in the next chapter. I made a few modifications to it, namely to preserve the Chewie reveal, but I also threw in a reference to Vader dialog. If it’s too overt I’ll remove it:

General Armitage Hux and a handful of other executive officers strode down a hallway of the Steadfast. They approached their Supreme Leader with some good news. Hux had been intending on delivering it first, but he was beat to it.

“Sir,” Allegient General Pryde said. “The Knights of Ren have tracked down the scavenger.”

“To the capital of Kijimi,” Admiral Griss added quickly.

“They’re searching there now,” Pryde said.

Hux needed to insert himself before his peers had delivered all the good news. He asked, “Shall we destroy the city, Supreme-”

Ren stuck a long finger in Hux’s face, using the Force to freeze his vocal chords in place.

“Set a course for Kijimi,” he commanded everyone. “I want no capital disintegrations.”

His words dismissed them all, and Kylo Ren hurried off alone. Hux stood with his hands clasped behind his back and watched him go, wondering how he always managed to say the wrong thing.

It’s really easy to use imo. What it spits out looks great as well. The real trouble is aligning it with the music and having it fade away properly.

I don’t think Rey was ever explicitly okay with it. Finn just kinda goes with the flow. Poe is outright mean to him, but that is to be expected since he’s this trilogy’s version of Han.

I totally get that, Creation. I also see TROS in that way at times.

But at the same time, after going through the novelization I came to realize how agonizingly close TROS was to being a good finale not only for the sequels but also for the saga as a whole. I guess in order to avoid that frustration for the actual movie I’ll just have to consider it exactly as you said: a goofy adventure.

Oh I see. I can definitely see where you’re coming from there. So would you say this is a sort of merger between the theatrical and Labyrinth of Evil?

CaptainFaraday said:

ROTS is such a flexible movie to fanedit, because it’s such a sprawling epic with so many different ideas jumbled in there. It’s perfectly competent in its theatrical cut, but there’s so much content in it that everyone can tailor it to their own interpretation of its themes and ideas. So I agree it’s got kind of a “holy grail” status to find the exact right one for each of us. What’s your preferred edit of it, out of interest?

I used the wrong analogy, my bad. I meant to say that I feel like it shouldn’t be modified or changed beyond reinserting deleted scenes. Even the goofier parts of the movie have such meme potential that it feels wrong to remove them. I’m sure other people disagree with that, but I’d be willing to bet they didn’t grow up with the movie 😉

I’m excited that you’re moving on to film edits! Your changelog looks promising; looks like you put a lot of effort into this.

But ROTS is kinda the Holy Grail of the saga for me, so the only edits I keep of it are extended editions. I’d still be interested in a link to check things out when it’s ready, though.