Neerb

I’d definitely keep the Superman vs the League fight. It doesn’t matter for the story, but it’s one of the biggest draws for superhero team-ups: seeing “who-would-beat-who” and “how do these two things interact” sort of playground-discussion comic book fan stuff. Flash realizing Superman can see and keep up with him was easily the most fun part of the theatrical cut and is still one of the best moments in the Snyder cut.

If there’s anything to bring over from the theatrical version, the one thing I think absolutely should be brought over is Whedon’s version of the scene where Flash gives Wonder Woman her sword in the tunnel fight. In the theatrical cut, there is a parademon right behind Diana as she’s falling, about to catch her, and because Flash taps her sword into her hand she is then able to quickly spin around in mid-air and slice the demon. It’s a fun and exciting bit of action showing the team work together. In Snyder’s version, however, the parademon is inexplicably missing from that shot, so Flash’s sword-tap accomplishes nothing (if Diana didn’t catch the sword, she’d just pick it up of the ground when she landed) except for knocking the wind out of himself when he reaches the bottom.

The only problem here is that the theatrical is 16:9 while Snyder’s is 4:3, but my ideal version of this movie would be edited to be 16:9 anyway.

DominicCobb said:

Neerb said:

This might seem kinda needless, but there’s something else I think might be worth touching in that scene.

After Rey says “I don’t want to go without your blessing, but I will,” we get a reaction shot of Leia look up at her. I think that shot would be better as the very last shot of the scene, after Rey says “It’s what you would do.” I think that better sells that Leia/Carrie is actually there reacting to Rey/Daisy, and that Rey’s words are why Leia returns the saber in the next scene.

I’ve tried this before. It works decently, though I’m still not sure if I’m going to do it.

Is there a particular issue that makes you unsure?

This might seem kinda needless, but there’s something else I think might be worth touching in that scene.

After Rey says “I don’t want to go without your blessing, but I will,” we get a reaction shot of Leia look up at her. I think that shot would be better as the very last shot of the scene, after Rey says “It’s what you would do.” I think that better sells that Leia/Carrie is actually there reacting to Rey/Daisy, and that Rey’s words are why Leia returns the saber in the next scene.

If a suitable extra line for Leia is not found, I think a viable alternative might be to just shorten Rey’s silent reaction by maybe 50% so that she responds quicker.

Do we know for sure that the hair is still happening? Last update I recall, ~80 pages and two months ago, was this post by jonh which seemed to basically say that he can’t do it all and has done all he can:

https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1400030/action/topic#1400030

I think “It was fear that kept me here” is better where it is than replacing it with “lesson three.” Fear did keep Luke there, after all. Fear that the Jedi have done more damage than good and need to die out (at the height of their power the Jedi created Darth Vader), fear of facing those he had failed (admitted as shame in the Ben flashbacks), fear of his own creations (it didn’t scare him enough then, it does now). His belief that his self-exile is a penance and a self-sacrifice for the greater good means it’s not exactly “cowardice,” but it all still comes from a dark place of fear, from a certain point of view.

It could be implicitly one lesson. Courage and the righteous duty of the Jedi are stronger than Rey’s “evil blood.” After all, Luke’s got experience there.

I don’t totally think the line needs to be in at all, but if it is I think that’s an okay spot (replacing the “Rey” that’s already clearly added in post).

Could the line be as he’s moving to sit down, before “some things are stronger than blood?” Plenty of room for it there, and that’s really when he gets into “lecture mode.”

I’m with jarbear. The scene flows in such a way that I don’t really buy that time is passing that fast despite the jarring color changes, and it seems to skip from dusk straight to dawn. I think it would need to start at night and become dawn (maybe not believably possible) or be broken up by another scene for me to buy it if I saw it a first time. Someone mentioned the Falcon trip from IV, but the start and end of that trip were broken up by the Alderaan scene.

Actually, we already went through the trouble of adding a new establishing shot of the island, so why not use it? So first, we see Rey has wrecked her ship on the island. Luke steps out for his big reveal and says “what are you doing?” Then we cut to a different scene; maybe the Poe and Finn scene moves here, maybe the Palpatine & Pryde scene moves here, idk. Then we cut back to the island with our new island shot and drop in on Luke and Rey’s conversation. At that point we don’t even necessarily need the color changes, or at least they needn’t be so dramatic, as the scene change already tells us time has passed.

It’s a real shame TROS never once specifically addresses Luke being an inspiration (the TROS writers really just didn’t give a single thought to this thing, lol). Zori says people will help if you ask, Lando goes and asks off screen, and that’s it. Hal’s chorus of “for Skywalker!” is nice but I really wish we could add something else.

That looks pretty good! I think Kylo’s crackling was intended to thematically reflect his own aggression and instability, so going harder on Rey’s makes it a better match imo. Too light and it might just look like a technical glitch on the movie’s part.

That was purely coincidental. When Owen says he’s afraid Luke is too much like his father, he means he doesn’t want Luke running off on adventures and getting killed, as all the Jedi were hunted down and killed by the Empire. Even now that’s probably how the scene is meant to be read from Owen’s perspective; nothing about the scene, or the movie, implies that Owen is afraid Luke will be “like his father” by being an evil power-hungry genocidal monster, and it’s highly unlikely Obi-Wan told Owen that Anakin is now Darth Vader.

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan has pause when Luke asks him about his father because the very next thing he says is that a pupil of his murdered Luke’s father and all the Jedi. Obi-Wan feels uncomfortable and probably guilty talking to Luke about it. It’s only retroactively that we now point to and see connections where there originally were none.

Frankly, I think that will happen to a lesser degree with the ST too; in the future, kids who liked the movies at a young age and didn’t have all the behind the scenes chaos (or the loss of the Legends EU) at the forefront of their minds will read the movies as more connected than we currently do. For example, I think Rey’s vision in the cave in TLJ, where she’s surrounded by darkness and copies of herself, will certainly be read retroactively to foreshadow her dark side clone heritage, even though the scene was originally written to just mean that she’s by herself because her parents were no one.

sherlockpotter said:

I see this from the other perspective - since we were considering removing Finn’s line about “Palpatine has always wanted Rey alive,” but we weren’t sure how to make the scene work without that line, I say we should just axe the whole scene. If we assume that they learn about Exegol and how to get there just by tracking Rey, we won’t need D-O for anything except toy sales.

That would require some editing of the scene where they’re tracking Rey, and I don’t think that would be better than just cutting Finn’s last line about Palpatine wanting Rey alive. In the original, after Finn told them that D-0 had information on Rey, they started looking at D-0’s information talking about the planet and how difficult it would be to get through, only for 3P0 and R2 to then present the solution of tracking Rey. The beginning bit where they’re talking about Exogol’s surroundings doesn’t make sense if they don’t know where Exogol is yet.

Also, if Finn doesn’t get information about Exogol from D-0, then D-0 literally does nothing and serves no function in the movie.

TestingOutTheTest said:

Please don’t remove the “I never wanted you dead, I wanted you here”. It reinforces how Palpatine is manipulative and a liar.

That might be okay, actually. The more problematic line was Finn confirming that Palpatine didn’t want her dead as a child, but without that the audience would probably now just assume Palpatine is lying.

As much as I like my own idea (in theory) for this movie, one of the main things Hal wants out of this edit is to not just make it better itself, but to make the trilogy feel more cohesive as a whole. The connection between Palpatine and Snoke is very iffy at best, but it is at least a connection. Plus, if the “voices” line were cut to avoid potential confusion of Snoke’s free will, it would also take away the only “payoff” we ever get to Kylo speaking to Vader’s helmet in TFA, which, again, is iffy but at least a connection of some kind. The more conservative solution he’s proposed, cutting only Finn and Palpatine’s lines to more convincingly sell the idea that Palpatine changed his mind in the climax of TROS, is a way to preserve those connections while still also making TROS at least a bit more coherent in of itself.

On that note, if we’re trimming Palps’ dialog about “never” wanting Rey dead, I’d like to bring up my example of such a cut from last night (which I promptly derailed from for the other idea)
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1411675/action/topic#1411675

RogueLeader said:

Maybe I’m just not smart enough to understand the nuanced storytelling that is The Rise of Skywalker.

If the modern prequel fanbase is any indicator, 15 years from now people will be saying this unironically.

Uh… two is better than one? I guess?

TestingOutTheTest suggested keeping the “lifeforce of your bond” thing in, which sounds just as handwavy as a Dyad without distracting us with proper nouns. If Palpatine was Snoke, then Snoke giving them a bond could be a long-game setup (in story payoff, not literal planning) for Palpatine to drink that bond up. Would just need to lessen/cut out Palp’s surprise when it happens, along with Kylo saying in the hangar that Palps doesn’t know.

Is the dyad related to healing? The first thing she heals is a snake. And going outside the movies while still in live-action, Grogu healed someone too.

lol, and we’re sure all this is the better option than Snoke just not knowing her identity and Palps never wanting her dead? (half-kidding)

Cutting Finn’s line is a good idea though. Even if we were going the no-kill route, it’s very on the nose and seems like it was added in post.

Just to play Snoke’s advocate for a second regarding the consistency in plans: could we potentially assume that Palpatine just didn’t know Rey was his granddaughter in the last two movies? Her first public appearance and the Battle of Crait are only like a week apart, after all. It could have been in the time gap that followed, after she’s shown her strength and Snoke has died, that Palpatine realized who Rey really is, not unlike Palpatine and Vader learning who Luke is between IV and V. Sure, Snoke probed her mind in the throne scene, but he was preoccupied with Luke’s location and died very soon after, and it’s not like her memory was a steel trap considering Kylo mind-linked with her and came away assuming her parents were random drunks.

Okay, okay… I’m spitballing here, it might sound crazy… but what if we’re approaching this backwards? What if the most straightforward way to sell Palpatine’s plan is to actually take him at his word at the end, and instead remove all traces of him wanting Rey dead?

Opening on Exogol: Palpatine offers the fleet “if you do as I ask.” Kylo, after a moment considering it, silently lowers his saber in agreement. Palpatine smiles menacingly to end the scene: a deal has been struck, but we the audience don’t know what. We can still guess, however, that it could be Rey-related, because Hal’s edit transitions right into Rey meditating.

Board room meeting now has a new context to it. When an officer asks Kylo what the Emperor wants, Kylo silences him immediately. We the audience don’t know what Kylo and the Emperor’s deal was, so we don’t know that Kylo’s outburst is unreasonable; on the contrary, we’re now more intrigued that Kylo is keeping this so secretive.

When Palpatine chastises Kylo after Pasaana, remove references to killing Rey. Full remaining dialog:
“Perhaps you have betrayed me. Do not make me turn my fleet against you.”
“I know where she’s going. She will never be a Jedi.”
“Make sure of it.”
We now know for certain, though we already suspected, that Kylo’s agreement involves Rey somehow. The threat, however, is still vague.

From here out, Kylo mentions twice aboard his ship on Kijimi that Palpatine tried to kill Rey as a kid, reveals that she’s a Palpatine, and suggests that they should team up instead. We think we get it now: not only is this the big reveal that Rey is a Palpatine, but it’s the big reveal of Kylo’s mission to kill her and finish the job.

After Endor, Palpatine says that Leia has ruined his plans. We assume this is because Kylo couldn’t kill her. But we’re still assuming wrong.

Finally, on Exegol, in a genuine third act twist, we learn the truth from Palpatine himself, unedited: he never wanted her dead, he wanted her here with him. The audience can now infer that bringing Rey to Exogol was Kylo’s true mission all along, and Kylo had lied to Rey about Palpatine trying to kill her as part of his attempt to manipulate her to his own ends, planning to betray Palpatine from the beginning. Even the times it seemed Kylo was genuinely trying to kill Rey, he was spiting the Emperor rather than serving him. And since Kylo must have actually known Palpatine’s true goal all along, as Ben he is now rushing back to Exogol because he knows Rey is playing into Palpatine’s hands.

Thoughts?

Here’s my attempt (again, I’m sorry about the flashing lights, idk why it’s breaking like that)

https://vimeo.com/514582031/30fc504bd0

cut lines:

• “for my grandchild to come home”
• “i never wanted you dead. I wanted you here, with me”
• “palpatine”

moved lines:

• “long have i waited” is swapped with the musical sting that originally immediately followed it; this allows for less silence before the next line of dialog, and as a bonus Rey now “senses” Palpatine before hearing/seeing him
• “you will take the throne” is now in place of “i wanted you here, with me” (attempting to sync “you will” with Palp’s “with me” lip movement)

Even with the throne stuff and the scene after this playing out as usual, this change at least makes it so that Palpatine isn’t saying “psych!” directly to the camera right out the gate. Makes him a bit more menacing too maybe, not that I totally disliked the Evil Gramps stuff. Oh, and cutting “Palpatine” is just pre-emptive for Rey Nobody.

Another idea to potentially go along with this, although maybe it’s too distractingly on-the-nose: what if, the first time Rey sees the throne in person, there’s a very brief flash of her previous Dark Rey visions? Perhaps this would help cement how Rey fears the throne not just as a temptation, but as a prophecized inevitability. An audience member might even infer, in the spirit of Labyrinth of Evil, that it must have been Palpatine himself planting the vision in the first place, selling that this is [somehow] proceeding exactly as he has foreseen.

With so much cut, I’m not sure there’s enough time left for any feelings to really set in, or for the audience to understand what exactly is happening. It goes by so fast, like

“You’ll kill me”
“Yes”
“You’ll take the throne”
“No”
And then Ben arrives and Rey senses him, at which point we know Rey is no longer feeling tempted.

Hmmm, the only thing I can think of right now for highlighting the cannons is to reintegrate the attack on Kijimi, but cut before we see the planet erupting. Palpatine says to “let it [a world they know] burn,” and we see this new cannon is strong enough to crack mountains and raze a city, but by dramatically cutting away to a different scene after the close-up I don’t think a new viewer would necessarily assume the planet exploded.

Downsides:

• The “conjuring” line is still there, so adding back the laser, a viewer might think even more that these are all new ships
• Without cutting to a reaction by the heroes, there might not be enough closure and the audience might spend the rest of the movie waiting for us to go back to Kijimj. But of course we can’t have the theatrical reaction as is, because it’s the most attrocious series of forced exposition in the movie which also specifically states that they blew up the world. It would have to be either a very heavily edited version. Maybe… during the last few seconds of the destruction visual, the audio transitions to Poe’s voice mentioning the planet was attacked in a vaguer sense, and then when the visual cuts we’re at the scene with Poe and Leia, as if he’s talking to himself to her.

Hal 9000 said:

I’m not sure it’d be worthwhile to try to tone down the noble attitude of Rey’s parents because it’ll still be implicit.

The nobility would still be implicit unfortunately, but by drawing less attention to it I think it could help de-emphasize the parents’ overall role in the story and their value in Rey’s eyes, particular with the Palpatine showdown. Even if her parents still seem noble on Kijimi, by cutting their reference on Exogol we at least aren’t still thinking about that nobility so late in the story.

As it is in the theatrical, the “my parents were strong” scene both muddies Rey’s arc (she spent the last two movies learning to not rely on her parents for self-worth) and undercuts the tension in the scene (Palpatine wants Rey to kill him in hate, but she basically says “my rage is already righteous and justified by love and the audience knows it”).

But without that line, Rey’s parents, noble or no, basically just act as plot points, as they should: their bloodline means Rey’s a Palpatine, and their death is used by Rey as an excuse for her hate, but the story’s not about them and they aren’t talked about as empathetic characters Rey truly cares about after Kijimi. The only source of hope and light that Rey takes into the final battle with her, and that she is actually saved by and rewarded for believing in, is that of the Jedi and the Skywalker legacy.