NFBisms

this is so wizard

What makes it worse is that it’s not bad in the way that makes fanediting it fun.

If you’re in college, Adobe CC is free right now until May due to COVID.

…That probably isn’t relevant to most of us, but just thought people should know. It’s sorta related.

I’ll be honest, I really really don’t care for Reylo, but it is undeniably really hot. We should lean into that.

Instead of Samuel Kim’s piece or even Across the Stars, I say we use Lapti Nek

I wonder if we can make “Palpatine just sort of forgets” a full on plot point. He’s old, he should be pretty senile now, right? His memory isnt what it used to be and he can’t quite recall what it is he wants to do. Which is why he starts quoting himself, why his plans for Rey are so inconsistent and can explain away whatever inconsistencies arise from editing to our preferences. I started this post as a joke but now I kind of want to do it.

Dementia Palpatine is the edit we deserve

I mean, either way, I think her never talking to Anakin again from then until Malachor works better for both her story and Anakin’s. I know Filoni came up with their reunion pre-ROTS/Mandalore way back then as well, but that just adds to my gripe with his storytelling. Did he not realize how much more sense it makes for Anakin to still be carrying his hurt about her into ROTS? Or how Ashoka sustaining guilt for leaving works for the drama of finding out he’s Vader?

I guess I meant to say, he didn’t have to adhere to that unfinished/unrealized story arc, especially after TCW got cancelled. It worked just fine, better even, without it. That said, I’m a dumb dumb baby boy who is also very excited about finally seeing it completed. I do love Ashoka and will watch the arc and love it. I just kinda disagree with it. In my eyes, it should have been Siege of Mandalore, but Ashoka dies in Order 66 and Malachor never happens. Or don’t do it and Malachor is Ashoka’s end.

Filoni’s just doing the revisionist Lucas thing, saying “The Clone Wars was always a show about Ashoka and Rex,” and making them super important characters to the main story of the series. And even The Mandalorian now, apparently.

poppasketti said:

NFBisms said:

Ok, here’s a quick mockup: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dWl61mMYFgDO3DAVQO-K_1UNZejk5CPC/view?usp=sharing

That’s pretty cool. I think for it to work you’d need to pitch-shift it up just a little, and then extend the shots before and after to give it a little breathing room. That should give it enough to blend and feel like something he’s saying just a little under his breath.

I agree. Something more like this?

I’m sure there’s also a lot of “The Empire” he says elsewhere that we could stick after “…era” if we really want to hammer it in. I don’t volunteer.

Ok here’s a quick mockup: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dWl61mMYFgDO3DAVQO-K_1UNZejk5CPC/view?usp=sharing

It doesn’t blend seamlessly but perhaps someone better at audio editing who has more time and actually wants to do this can make it work somehow. it was a shot in the dark anyway.

Rearranging the lines in the way Rogue outlined would help too. It does sound more like a note to end on than stick in the middle as I just did.

i’m very uninvested in this movie tbh, sorry if im not being much help

Season 1 episode 16, he says “relics of a bygone era” around the 12:30 mark. Again, haven’t tested it yet.

I actually went looking for something like that a while back and I think I did find some vague “First Order is planning an attack” and “relics of a bygone era” that we might be able to use. I haven’t tested any of it with TROS though.

Let me see if I can find them again.

I honestly wish Filoni would just let Ashoka die already. Or be uninvolved. Not that I dislike the character, but I think he’s already crossed into writing-fanfiction-with-his-OC territory.

Her sendoff in the finale of TCW season 5 was already a good ending, but she came back in Rebels. Her defeat by Vader on Malachor made up for it by being an even more emotional ending for her. But then she even survives that, to even after ROTJ! Then Filoni doubles down to before all this and says that Ashoka actually talked to Anakin after she left the Jedi Order, they apparently made up, and she led the Siege of Mandalore against Maul. Essentially, he took away the impact of both times her story ended, just to keep her alive or involved in the story. I think Ashoka was a great character, but Filoni has made her more important and powerful at the expense of a satisfying arc or reason. Her existence is purely fanservice at this point.

I kind of wished they did try to de-age Hamill for Luke or something. If Din really needs to meet a Jedi.

give rey hand flamethrowers

what about a tank of Reys

paja said:

I got a two ideas, Making Solo Cowboy bebop style, by replacing the score with the anime’s score and re-grading it to make it look more like Bebop, Adding and changing sound effects, changing the aspect ratio to 4x3 and others

Did you end up making this? Because I started my own Coaxium Bebop and it seems you came up with the idea before me.

Here’s a pretty detailed rambling about the Force from George himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68dvgRT3Kx8

Lucas talks about the dark side as selfishness versus the light side as selflessness.

From video: “And you want to keep it in balance.” ^(following left/right arm movements reminiscent of a metronome)

Selfishness is dark side. The dark side itself is not the anger, greed, hatred, fear, jealousy, etc. - those are all just extensions of self-preservation and greed - manifestations of the extent you are passionate about what you desire. How angry or scared you are, defining how far you’re willing to go in your actions. What you want, how much you want, as correlative to what you’ll do to keep it. Serving only yourself and those desires - following a path paved by those intentions - is imbalance.

And it’s easy because at their basest level those feelings are natural, “biological pleasures” as Lucas puts it. You can want innocuous things, you can even want good things. That’s what makes it dangerous, that’s its power. Where the Light Side requires discipline to maintain, passion and desire is human.

Lucas talks about it as motivated from those tangible, quantifiable things - not occult magic. No side of the Force actually corrupts or controls you. Not any more than a child learning and pushing the limits of what they’re capable of, men earning money and status, or a politician with “power” in an authority sense. If anything, you corrupt it. The Force within yourself.

Lucas says that Force remains in balance when you follow its will. But he makes it a point in the video’s opening lines to say that you still have free will. A choice to reject it if you want to.

TLJ adheres to that point and tries to reiterate that almost to a fault (since a lot of ppl don’t like Luke’s arc in it. Or Poe’s. Or Finn’s. Even Rey’s for that matter). Luke talking about the “balance in nature between light and dark” is in a conversation all about the Force within oneself. The natural balanced energy that Rey could feel throughout the island as well as within herself. Luke specifically says this doesn’t belong to anybody, nor is it a power you wield. This entire point you brought up as a fundamental misunderstanding, is slavishly adherent to Lucas’s ideas.

it really hurts* to see people interpret the movie this way but i will refrain from repeating a previous held debate

*not really, obviously

ShamanWhill said:
The ways in which the Force are discussed in the Disney sequels are contradictory to the ways in which the Force is discussed in George’s Star Wars Saga. So please refrain the future from referencing those movies. This thread is a place for us to invent what the proper cannon should have been. Thank you!

I mean, unless we’re discussing what about them that it isn’t. Like, I think, TROS is way way off, but TFA is at least vague, and TLJ is slavish in its adherence to George Lucas’s Force and Jedi. So when I bring up the Disney films I’m not actually discussing from a perspective of them as canon, but just parsing out what about them fit and what would have been done about those ideas, if at all, in the hypothetical universe where Lucas got to make his sequels.

I think context for how they’re referenced in this thread matters, if you want to police it that badly. I don’t think I’ve used them as proof of a point, just a jumping off point for the discussion on what Lucas would mean with the concept of “balance.”

We’re not in a vacuum, much less in that alternate reality where the movies didn’t happen.

Well, TROS and TLJ are fundamentally incompatible, so you shouldn’t take Luke’s later “I was wrong” to heart if we’re talking about how TLJ discusses a middle path.

To me, the films maintain that the dark side is rooted in selfishness. Not anger, hatred, fear, jealousy, etc. alone… Those are all just extensions of self-preservation and greed - manifestations of the extent you are passionate about what you desire. Being selfish is a natural human instinct, and I think ROTJ especially shows that it actually doesn’t corrupt you. Not any more than a child learning and pushing the limits of what they’re capable of, men earning money and status, or a politician with “power” in an authority sense.

Two examples of the Dark Side we see in the OT: Luke Skywalker wanted to save his friends so badly, he became angry, let his hate for the Empire drive his actions. Darth Vader once wanted to be more powerful than other Jedi, he let that jealousy dictate his path. But they were both able to pull back. They could make that choice, and Vader after thinking it was “too late for him.” Dark side corruption isn’t magic, you still have responsibility for yourself. It’s never too late.

Perhaps the idea that we should be thinking about, isn’t what would make a gray Jedi different, but that the examples we follow that have triumphed were essentially gray Jedi. TLJ advocates for a middle path by straight up contextualizing the Jedi teachings as having failed, twice, and that the future should grow beyond those teachings.

I imagine Lucas’s ST would have skipped the extra steps and gotten straight to that point. His PT already shows that the Jedi as idealized by Obi-Wan was far from perfect. Perhaps his Luke would have been enlightened on that front already, or the conflict would have been introduced in VII and not VIII.

Well, selfishness isn’t inherently evil. We all have a natural inclination towards self preservation, we all want things: to be happy, to be respected, for those we care about to be, to have the things we like.

Outside of TROS, “darkness” always always had its roots in those intentions. Desire. It doesnt make you want to do bad deeds for no reason, but the extent you want - your passion - convincing you that you have to do whatever it takes to achieve those goals. How many parents would kill for their child? Protecting your children isn’t bad, but the act of killing is questionable, justified or not.

I figure if anyone explores the dark side as a tool for good, it would double down on greed as natural, human desire. TLJ kind of does it by showing how selfless sacrifice can actually hurt the ones you love, and that saving yourself means you can live to fight another day with those you care about.

isnt your icon revan

I would keep Rey Nobody but somehow maintain the integrity of “Sheev fucks.” But that’s just me.

That’s so wizard!

It’s a life lesson we should all hear, really. Ghosts need to eat too.

Ghosts need to eat, too.

Well, I think he only ignored world-building and plot for sure, but the entire movie was just character arcs and the themes that guided them. So I 2/3 agree with you.

But yeah, Rian is a very theme-oriented filmmaker, and I was just trying to explain what makes him that way, and how people like myself enjoy the film. I totally understand why people didn’t like it, and I’ve been the first to say on this page how unwieldy and perhaps misguided TLJ and its approach was. Star Wars is a brand - a lore that people follow - not just a series of films. Rian should have known that audience, not assume they were all film nerds. It’s not like TLJ is particularly super well-written enough anyway.

I guess I do want to dispute the idea that themes shouldn’t be put first. I think they inform pretty much all good storytelling, and you need to prioritize thematic consistency to bring any story together. I think focusing on theme can’t overtake plot, character, and world. It can only enhance them. But not caring about it can ruin them. The themes are the story. That’s where everything about your story comes from. Why it’s being told. People just doing stuff somewhere doesn’t work without a any sort of through-line to tie it together.

I do get Rian’s approach, though.

While worldbuilding is an important part of writing any story, another school of writing would more emphasize themes - the why. What was the point of the story, and why did you need to tell it?

Worldbuilding is of course a great exercise in imagination and fleshes out your story, but it doesn’t necessarily justify your story’s existence on a deeper level. As someone who dabbled in film school, this is an attitude a lot of film academics and artsy professors push on you. Escapism and fun, is all well and good, but the best work is about something. While there’s only so many new ways you can combine tropes and derivative elements from thousands of years of storytelling, the unique experiences of different individuals in an ever-changing world will never run out.

Write not to make the most interesting, fleshed out worlds, or the coolest, most interesting characters - write a story with purpose and meaning to you, because everything has basically been done before. (And that can manifest in a multitude of different ways, not just plot.) That doesn’t exclude cool worlds and characters, but creativity from that perspective will naturally be more unique than just emulating what you like.

It was often explained to us as good practice because film is a two hour medium and you never know if you’ll get a sequel. Or the opportunity for an expanded universe. Moviemaking is a business, and your first pitches won’t spawn franchises without any proof of profit. And the studio wouldn’t need your hero’s journey in a sci-fi/fantasy world if they already have properties/options in that same niche. Without big names or money, it’s about making the Expanse when Star Trek exists.

This is definitely where Rian comes from. And it’s not something you can just unlearn. Especially when that’s how you begin to enjoy things. So when he gets the Star War, the question he feels he must answer with his film is “Why are there sequels?” from a thematic perspective. Not “How can I expand an existing universe?” If anything, the Star Wars world as already built on the back of at least 8 other films, hours of TV, tons of books, and so many comics - was a luxury for him. He just doubled down his film. He never considered it part of his job to curate anything more than those two hours.