NeverarGreat

That was surprisingly moving! Even though the Falcon liftoff to hyperspace over Canto Bight doesn’t make too much logical sense, it definitely feels compelling and might not even need to make sense.

In this version, is Canto Bight on Tatooine? Because if that were set up earlier, it would potentially be really cool. Of course, it would require changing the time of day in the Broom Boy scene.

https://imgur.com/gallery/ho0I10x

You’re a Jedi Rockstar.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Rey Troi looks like an action figure which had its head taken from a different, slightly smaller action figure.

Even moreso is Han Riker.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Have Leia stay in space 'til Crait, then float down, enter the atmosphere as a meteor and striking one of the AT-M6s with meteoric force.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zya0yW129ss

Yep, I’m definitely going to work on these in order so TFA will be done first, whenever that happens.

Agreed on both points. I’d be interested to hear any ideas people had on how to establish these things other than in a crawl.

Hal 9000 said:

Darth Sadifous said:

JakeRyan17 said:

idir_hh said:

As the boy pulls the broom to him and begins sweeping, a voice crackles into a distant speaker. It is Poe, saying ‘We are not alone. What our mothers and fathers have fought for we will not let die. Today we make our last stand…for the galaxy!’ Many ships jump into hyperspace here, not just one.

Goosebumps.

Edit: Since Crait is now the opening of the film do you plan on including palpatines broadcast in there in some capacity? After the galaxie’s decline to help, hearing the broadcast could be what sets up the rallying of the people’s Fleet at the end of the film.

I integrated the Broadcast into the Crait sequence here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tUe4Nz4dKptm5UzcBu2QhX9N9FuaISoa/view?usp=sharing

It still may not be useful, but its definitely possible to integrate.

This is pretty cool, but I think another possible area to integrate it is when the resistance has already fled the base and Kylo is staring at the disappearing dice. The camera lingers on the radio equipment inside the makeshift base. You could have the broadcast play here at the end of TLJ and have TROS pick up with Kylo obsessed with finding Palpatine or the origin of the broadcast at the least.

Thinking about it some more, Palpatine really shouldn’t speak at all except in Kylo’s and Rey’s head so cool as it is it wouldn’t work.

DominicCobb said:

Don’t listen to me, but the shuttle seems kinda goofy. Like he brought that whole big thing? If it were me using it I’d cut away after Ben leaves the shot and not linger on it.

I would have no objections to either ship. In the end it’s just a single shot and the important part is that it is an old Imperial ship with a hyperdrive.

I’m not sure of the Fortnite broadcast as of yet. It might not be needed.

Exactly. I will give a bit of leeway due to the talk that it was the studio heads which required all the cuts to the film late in the process, but the primary fault is still with the filmmakers for overstuffing the film with pointless elements in the first place. Besides, regardless of the pacing the underlying story is fundamentally vapid.

Knight of Kalee said:

poppasketti said:

Here’s some Alts for the Tie replacement:
https://vimeo.com/421655865
pw: fanedit

Lol!

Jokes aside, Vader’s TIE Advanced is a genuinely good option. It makes sense in-universe, and though it’s kind of fanservice-y, it feels like a nice payoff having that TIE and the X-Wing it chased all those films ago, now side-by-side. George Lucas would be proud of that “rhyme”.

We need to have a branching option on the final Blu-ray that randomly shows one of these alternates each time.

StarkillerAG said:

Interesting ideas, but is some of this stuff even possible? Not sure how you’d do things like have Ben be a Force ghost when he talks to Han, or change Palpatine to be a disembodied spirit. It just doesn’t seem feasible.

The Kylo Force Ghost would be the trickiest one to achieve, but since Han is opaque in this scene, it probably wouldn’t feel weird to have Kylo be semi-solid as well. Besides, for transparency all you need is a background tracked to match the movement of the scene and then fade the original footage over top of it. Most of Kylo’s shots are against a misty or cloudy sky, and the rest can just use Death Star junk. Tricky, but doable.

The Palpatine ghost I’m thinking could just fade into a solid form in one shot, so there wouldn’t need to be much work to do in that case. Much more difficult would be in seamlessly cutting out so much of the rest of the finale and Kylo’s involvement.

idir_hh said:

I see you’re putting your writing skills into use, Nev!
TLJ was already too long a film so moving the battle of crait into the opening might be just the right idea. It also allows the film to breathe and enjoy a fleshed out opening with dramatic action and character building. I wonder if some of the Cultists from Exogol could be added to the background in Snoke’s thrown room, Snoke’s allegiance to the Sith Eternal cult would need to be emphasised. Subtle things like playing around with the colour of his robes (purple, black, red) would really give him that “sith” aesthetic. Could even overlay subtle hints of Palpatine’s voice as he utters certain words like “a new Vader…”.
I’m really intrigued by how you’re approaching Kylo Ren in this. Is it meant to be implyed that he has became possessed by the spirit of Palpatine after striking down Snoke? It’s very reminiscent of the very early TROS leaks by MSW. I really like it.

Yep, Kylo being possessed by the Spirit of the Sith just seems like such an obvious way to do his redemption that I don’t know why they didn’t go that direction. Killing Kylo also gives Rey a much more believable potential for evil in my opinion since she is now literally possessed, something that not even Luke had to face.

JEDIT: Edited the first post to elaborate on the end of TLJ.

UPDATE: I have no plans to edit TROS for the foreseeable future. Take the ideas below as thought experiments only. In light of this, my TLJ edit would serve as the completion of the Starlight Project.

Opening Crawl Just For Fun:

https://vimeo.com/564435856

Password: fanedit

…

I have debated for months about even bothering to complete this trilogy since most of TROS is irredeemably bad. Unfortunately, The Last Jedi for all its merit still doesn’t feel like a satisfying end for these characters, so Starlight would either be an incomplete story or have an embarrassingly perfunctory final chapter.

In light of this, I’m considering a more unconventional edit of TLJ and TROS:

EPISODE IIIV - THE LAST JEDI

Since the Force Awakens will end with the Falcon leaving for Luke’s island, the extra scene of Rey and the Jedi Steps will be one of the first scenes in The Last Jedi, and the story of TLJ from here mostly follows the film with some added deleted scenes. A Sith Wayfinder could be added to Snoke’s throne as a visual connection between Snoke and the upcoming Sith fleet. The death of Snoke shows his eyes glow red and his spirit leave Snoke’s body.

The climactic scene of the film is Holdo’s Sacrifice. Rose and Finn go where they belong, and when Kylo awakens on the Supremacy his eyes smoulder red. The scene is followed by Yoda and Luke and then the Broom Boy scene. As the boy pulls the broom to him and begins sweeping, a voice crackles into a distant speaker. It is Poe, saying ‘We are not alone. What our mothers and fathers have fought for we will not let die. Today we make our last stand…for the galaxy!’ Many ships jump into hyperspace here, not just one.

EPISODE IX - THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

The Rise of Skywalker begins with a pan down to Crait and the arrival of Finn and Rose and BB-8. The Broom Boy scene at the end of the previous film acts as a misdirection, as there is no response to the Resistance’s call for help. Luke’s arrival and confrontation with Kylo will be edited so that Kylo seems more conflicted about his identity. To do this I would remove his final raging run against Luke; in this version Luke will hand Kylo an ultimatum and Kylo will accept this without undue screaming. The voice of Palpatine again comes to Kylo when he finds the illusory dice.

After the Falcon leaps into hyperspace, Kylo consults the mask of Vader and Palpatine’s voice again speaks, telling him that he’s been every voice inside his head. Palpatine tells Kylo to bring him the girl and he can have the Sith fleet. He sees a vision of Rey on the throne, a vision shared with Rey as she meditates on the new Resistance base. Mustafar minute, Kylo on Exegol, and the Iceberg/Lightspeed skipping are gone. The Falcon lands and they hear that somehow Palpatine has returned and there’s a Sith fleet on Exegol. Rey learns of the wayfinder and they go to the desert planet to find it and the dagger. Cut Rey Palpatine and Rey’s parentage. She merely finds the dagger without healing the snake and she Force lightnings Chewie. Kylo is now so consumed by the Sith spirit that he rebuilds his mask.

They get to the Death Star and they fight. Rey kills Kylo. This shock kills Leia as well. Rey flees in Kylo’s TIE fighter to Luke’s island, fearful of the sudden voices of the Sith in her head. Her eyes begin to shine red. Kylo, now a ghost, meets the spirit of Han and is redeemed in death. On the island, Luke says that Rey needs to face her fear and go to Exegol. She does so, leading the Resistance to the Sith Fleet.

Rey goes to the Sith throne. Around her are the Sith cultists and Palpatine’s disembodied voice fills her head. He tells her all sorts of lies, such as that she is a Palpatine, that she belongs on the throne, basic Sith stuff. The roof opens up and she sees her friends being struck down over the planet, Palpatine’s voice telling her to take the throne and save them. She assents. A sudden shock strikes her to the ground and Palpatine’s laughter fills the throne room. As she lies on the ground a ghostly form appears and coalesces into the body of the Emperor. ‘Look what you have made’ he says to her prostrate form. The cultists chant as he sits on the throne and unleashes lightning on the fleet. Rey beseeches the ghosts and they appear to her, Ben included. Between them all she rises and defeats the ghost of Palpatine. Above her the Resistance is victorious, and she flies away in the X-wing.

After the celebration, she buries the sabers on Tatooine as her friends play games on the Falcon, and then the Falcon flies into the sunrise.

poppasketti said:

I updated the shuttle shot to add a little bit of damage/wear! I agree with smpearce that it would help sell the model a little more:

Shuttle Tie Replacement
pw: fanedit

I would even advocate for more extreme damage such as a hole in one of the wings and/or burn damage. Really sell the idea that it’s been through a Death Star explosion!

act on instinct said:

The more I dwell on it the less I blame this movie for its shortcomings, I feel like I can’t lay all the criticism on IX’s shoulders given the tight spot it was in. Had there been a through line things would be different, but especially in hindsight I got issues with the whole trilogy and TROS inherited some of that baggage, forcing it to be worse than it would have been with a cleaner structure underneath to support it.

This movie could have been about Max Rebo getting the band back together for one final performance of Jedi Rocks and it would have been better than TROS.

I don’t buy for a second the argument that the movie was dealt a shit hand from which to build from. Palpatine’s terrible return was the fault of TROS. Rey Palpatine was the fault of TROS. The lack of a final character arc for Finn, the total waste of Hux, the corner they painted the story into in the final battle, the joke of a final scene was all the fault of TROS.

There was a universe of squandered possibility here, and the filmmakers deserve no credit for this complete abdication of vision.

The problem isn’t that the TIE is still operational, it’s that there’s never been evidence that the old models had Hyperdrives and plenty of evidence that they did not. Besides, the shuttle is more specifically tied to Vader’s fate in ROTJ.

I don’t think the ship needs to be any bigger. After all, any size difference could be due to landing slightly farther away.

I dunno, four commas in that final paragraph is rough.

Dooku was every voice inside Maul’s head.

Lovely work, even if still a bit floaty.

Hal 9000 said:

Oh my God.

I just had a terrible thought.

Palpatine in TROS is about Trump. Evil came back up from nowhere but don’t worry because “there are more of us.”

That’s honestly the first thing I thought of when that line came up, but that would imply that the writers are familiar with the concept of allegory.

^I mean, he would still find it, it just wouldn’t be immediately identifiable as the wayfinder.

kewlfish said:

NeverarGreat said:

That’s a good point about Rey’s point of view. Thinking about it, it’s not impossible to combine that idea with the Mustafar vision idea. How about:

Kylo kills the cultists and comes to a stop. Before him is the stone container inserted via VFX (cut the shot of him turning). He opens the box and places his hand on the square item inside. Use shot of him turning and then his environment dissolves into the interior of the cultist’s base on Exegol. After the Exegol scene it returns to the shot of Kylo standing over the box, this time with it open and the Wayfinder still upside-down inside.

This allows for the audience to put the pieces together as Rey does.

I like this idea but would you still use the Kylo traveling to Exegol sequence?

No, this would start with him already inside the building.

That’s a good point about Rey’s point of view. Thinking about it, it’s not impossible to combine that idea with the Mustafar vision idea. How about:

Kylo kills the cultists and comes to a stop. Before him is the stone container inserted via VFX (cut the shot of him turning). He opens the box and places his hand on the square item inside. Use shot of him turning and then his environment dissolves into the interior of the cultist’s base on Exegol. After the Exegol scene it returns to the shot of Kylo standing over the box, this time with it open and the Wayfinder still upside-down inside.

This allows for the audience to put the pieces together as Rey does.