It would be hard not to, a lot of those ideas had potential. I think it’s criminal how Coruscant isn’t featured in TROS.
I’m posting this thread because I have a fairly specific set of ideas already for this rewrite, but any comments are welcome! Here are the first few scenes, in summary form:
STAR WARS EPISODE IX
THE FINAL ORDER
Open on Kylo and his legions suppressing yet another local uprising on a colony world in the mid-rim. The fighters, claiming allegiance to the Resistance, invoke Luke’s name in their suicidal runs on the more heavily armored and deadly First Order cruisers. Kylo nevertheless wins the day, despite heavy losses.
On Coruscant, Hux reviews the losses and Kylo’s final report. Thrawn stands behind him. He denigrates Kylo’s tactics as unbecoming of a Supreme Leader, bemoaning the state of the First Order with an unbalanced Skywalker at its helm. Thrawn comments on the frivolous waste of chasing down the Resistance as he has singlehandedly won the core worlds for the First Order.
They walk the halls of the First Order palace, coming to a room off-limits to anyone but Kylo. Thrawn nevertheless has the codes, and they enter Kylo’s sanctuary. Here are his artifacts, his broken mask which has been welded together, Vader’s mask, broken lightsabers and old Kyber crystals, Sith paraphernalia. Thrawn approaches Kylo’s mask. He remarks upon how Kylo himself broke the mask and had it remade, and how curious it was that one so eager to destroy finds it difficult to actually take action. He claims that Kylo is in fact governed by his legacy to such an extent that he is unable to move beyond it. He tells Hux that the First Order knows very well where Leia is hiding, directing all these uprisings, but Kylo refuses to destroy her because of his conflicted soul. He urges Hux to take action, to do that which he has wanted to do since the beginning, that someone fighting on the front lines is susceptible to…accidents. With Kylo out of the way, Thrawn would be under Hux’s control, and would gladly end this insurrection. It is Leia who keeps the legend of Luke alive, Thrawn says, and to kill her is to kill the Resistance. Hux asks of the girl who is so important to Kylo, and what threat she poses. Thrawn pauses beside a collection of curious artifacts – the helmet of a Rebel pilot, a small potted flower clinging to life, a stuffed Rebel fighter doll – and says that she is nobody, capable of inspiring no armies, no resistance to their will, Force or not. For the Force is a distraction from real power, the power to rule galaxies.
Perhaps it’s not so much that the scenes would have significantly improved the film, but more the apparent lack of effort on Disney’s part that has everyone so bitter.
As far as script rewrites, I really liked the discussion about Kylo turning in the first act and think that would be just a whole lot of fun.
I guess I’ll be fanediting this movie in the ‘Script Writing and Rewriting’ section then.
I’m with you too. It’s just impossible to work with what we have. I’ve already started work on a modified version of Trevorrow’s “Duel of the Fates” draft, and I’ll be sharing that here soon.
I look forward to it!
It seems our paths are similar. After hearing the discussion about Duel of the Fates, I almost couldn’t help but start writing a script in my head. I haven’t ever committed to writing a whole new script for something, but maybe this is the one that happens.
I guess I’ll be fanediting this movie in the ‘Script Writing and Rewriting’ section then.
I don’t remember women and children in that scene.
And I think more is in order.
All joking aside, it would be a nice touch.
Although a 3-in-1 edit would have been neat, it’s probably unfeasible as you say. But a 2-in-1 ESB and ROTJ could be really good, and I had actually been thinking along those lines for a theoretical fanedit.
Open with Palpatine’s arrival at the partially destroyed Death Star. He senses Vader wants to continue his search for Skywalker, and says that Luke will eventually seek him out.
Cut to Hoth, and Luke’s misadventures in the snow. He is knocked out by the Wampa and remains offscreen while the Probe Droid plot is moving forward.
The Emperor dismisses Vader to go wait on the command ship, where he hears his officers talking of a transmission of the Probe Droid. Vader’s decision to follow it despite his master’s insistence that he have patience is now a foreshadowing of their familial connection and weakness.
The Imperial fleet arrives over Hoth as Han is still missing, looking for Luke, and then a search party is sent out and find Han even as the walkers advance on the base to drive up tension. Cut the Bacta sequence and skip straight to Luke suiting up and getting in a speeder.
The asteroid chase could again be cut in favor of simply putting the Falcon on the Star Destroyer.
Luke’s training could be shortened, Vader’s communication with the Emperor can be cut because of redundancy.
Lando and Leia escape Cloud city and jump to Hyperspace before the Vader/Luke battle is finished. When Luke calls out to Leia from the antenna, there is no response.
Tatooine. The band plays Baroque music and dancers twist their bodies to the beat. Han is seen in Carbonite against the wall. Night falls, and a masked figure arrives and rescues Solo. ‘Who are you?’ ‘Someone who loves you’. Shot of the Falcon flying away from Tatooine.
The Rebel fleet is assembled. The plan to attack the Death Star is underway, and cuts before Luke arrives. There is a montage of preparing for battle and the shuttle goes into Hyperspace.
Luke awakens in Bacta. a sinister droid places a device against the tube and he ascends. Form cut to the elevator shaft with lights rising on its surface. It opens and Luke appears beside Vader. Together they walk into the throne room. Cut after ‘you will call me master.’
The shuttle flies past the command ship. Repurpose footage of Leia sensing Luke’s presence from ESB on the Falcon. He senses her as well from the throne room. Luke says ‘You’re gravely mistaken. Soon I’ll be dead. And you with me’. The Emperor makes his speech about his plan.
The shuttle lands and the troops file out. Cut straight to them opening the door to the bunker and beginning to set the charges. The Ewoks arrive as a surprise to everyone. The rest of the battle, and the film, plays out as in the original. I don’t know how Leia as Luke’s sister would fit into this, but perhaps it could be cut altogether.
Because now that the last great worm of Tatooine is dead, its sequestered waters do spread across the arid soil and push back the advancing dunes. And so the Tusken’s millennia of toil draws to a close with the fulfillment of this prophecy.
It’s an angle I hadn’t considered from Luke’s perspective. Does he go to Vader more apprehensive because he couldn’t even persuade Jabba to relent? Or does he feel serene, since the Force will provide victory regardless of his own persuasiveness?
So you are something of a paradox.
^ NeverarGreat or Return Of The Jedi? 😉
blushes
Is ‘cm’ some term used by Rebel scum? On my planet we use the metrics of the great and glorious Empire.
PM Sent!
PM Sent!
Regardless of your opinions on it, I definitely think now that the trilogy is over I feel like The Last Jedi will be seen as the most important movie in the trilogy. Maybe not now or in a year from now, but as time goes on I think people will appreciate that this movie had a lot more to say than either TFA or TROS. To me it felt like JJ wanted to honor Star Wars in a very superficial way with his films, whereas Rian showed his love for Star Wars by challenging AND reaffirming its central themes. I’m not going to argue about its execution, but this thread and the interesting conversations we have here prove to me that there is a lot more depth with this film in comparison to 7 or 9 worth discussing.
I have no doubt in my mind this is true. I believe I said as much when the film came out, years down the line this will be universally regarded as one of the very best SW films.
I don’t know about universal. For people who see movies as a vehicle for artistic expression and more thoughtful thematic material, sure. People for whom movies are nothing more than thrill-rides, the quality of which is judged by the number of 'slposions in it (there are a lot of people like this), probably not.
Whether or not it will be regarded as one of the very best SW films, it should be. At the very least as one of the most daring and interesting.
I will go further and give it an A+ for the best postmodernist Star Wars film and extra credit for its use of metanarrative.
The problem a lot of people have with it is that it shares almost nothing in common with the OT in terms of genre or tone.
The most disappointing thing must be Reypatine.
I thought that Captain Phasma was a very underutilized villain, especially in The Last Jedi. She doesn’t really get to do much, gets unceremoniously thrown in a trash compactor off-screen in The Force Awakens, and loses to Finn in her only fight scene.
There were many things the writers could’ve done with her, like having her hunt down Finn and Rose on Canto Bight as they are looking for the code-breaker.
But since she’s Rule 63’d Boba Fett, it makes sense her bark is worse than her bite.
At least Boba was pretty cool in one of the movies he was in.
There’s a higher quality version of that clip here:
There was only one conclusion that made sense for him in Episode IX.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
About the Dreadnought destruction:
In the moment it isn’t heroic. There’s a shot of Poe looking at Paige’s bomber falling into a fiery inferno and he does a sad face.
And then while everyone’s celebrating on the cruiser, Leia looks at the death toll and sighs.
The movie’s take on self sacrifice is: Useless self-sacrifice is bad. Paige didn’t need to die. If the battle had gone differently, she would have lived.
Her sacrifice is only useless until it is revealed that hyperspace tracking is a thing, making their destruction of the fleet-killer retroactively heroic and vinticating Poe’s actions. Kinda muddles the message there.
Holdo needed to destroy the Supremacy and only had one way to do it.
Actually she needed to destroy all of the Star Destroyers and had a one-in-a-million chance of doing it. It’s a good thing she lucked out, because if even a single Destroyer was left operational, hindsight would have made her death a ‘useless self sacrifice’. Kidna muddles the message there.
Finn’s self sacrifice wasn’t needed because it wouldn’t have changed anything.
I mean, it might have. He had better odds than Holdo, anyway. Kinda muddles the message there.
So in the first instance heroic sacrifice is bad (wasting life and equipment on bad odds), even when it is later revealed that this sacrifice saved everyone.
In the second, heroic sacrifice is good, even when it wastes life and equipment on even worse odds.
In the third, heroic sacrifice is again bad, and I don’t even need to know the odds because they are surely better than rolling a thousand natural 20’s on a total enemy kill.
The theme of TLJ is that noble sacrifice is bad when it isn’t worth the cost. Great. It’s just too bad that the text of the film contradicts and muddles that message at every turn.
It kinda works! Maybe having the chatter be a bit louder from the left side right before he shoots, then get cut off more abrubtly would better sell that it’s coming from that trooper.
Regarding Han shooting the stormtrooper, are you just adding it back in as-is? I don’t think adding anything to it is really necessary, but I had some other thoughts of what could be implemented to it. I think I had suggested Han reacting to the lucky shot with surprised, “Huh”, but instead of that, you could add a sound of the stormtrooper’s blaster “charging”, or the stormtrooper could start saying, “Don’t move” or something along those lines, to imply Han heard the stormtrooper behind him and shot in the direction of the sound. Or have a shot buzz past Han. Anything to give Han an indication that a stormtrooper is behind him, since right now it seems like Han just “knew” a stormtrooper was there. It honestly doesn’t bother me but I could see how adding some kind of hint could improve the moment, maybe.
Good idea about the sound, his shot didn’t bother me but I can see such a change being the best of both worlds.
I wouldn’t say it’s completely irrelevant. Many people noticed that the Luke scene had to be re-shot for TLJ and the scene did look and feel quite different in many ways from that of TFA, that’s one of the reasons I repurposed the TFA scene as a vision/dream.
I will say that this particular point of editing is a non-issue though. There’s no reason that just because two completely different scenes are intercut means that they are taking place at the same time. It could be true, but it just as easily could be false.
A practical anything in those movies would have been better than CGI.
