NeverarGreat

I like it!

If that’s true, then it seems at some point that they decided that the Dyad direction wasn’t working out, and its inclusion in the final film feels practically vestigial, with only two mentions in the entire runtime.

My vote is to perform a full appendectomy. By rewriting the hangar dialogue, we’re already halfway there.

Besides, TLJ already established everything we need to know about Rey and Kylo’s mind link, and even showed how physical matter could pass between them across worlds. There really doesn’t need to be a term for a beSnoke Force power established and explained in the prior movie, since this movie has quite enough new elements such as a rotting clone Palpy and Force healing.

What I’ve come to feel, rewriting this scene, is that Kylo’s theatrical lines don’t really match up with Rey’s lines, so I think he was definitely telling her something else in an earlier version of this film, something far more personal and less expository. All of her emotional lashing out and ‘I don’t want this’ doesn’t make sense when he’s talking about some Sith or Jedi prophecy or saying that her parents were loving people who protected her from Palpatine.

So that’s why I’m heavily leaning on the idea that whatever Kylo tells her must be something highly personal to her that she fundamentally doesn’t want to believe, and he has to say this right from the start of the scene, because she almost instantly responds with a tearful ‘You’re lying’. Kylo’s lines about Rey needing to see who she was make sense, but Kylo then following that with ‘I know the rest of your story’ doesn’t seem to warrant such an extreme response from Rey. It’s like he made a direct statement about her that cuts to the core of her being.

Hal 9000 said:

Just wanted to assure Nev that I was able to work a bit on the 5.1 for his Leia death scene, and while I am not done yet I will still return to it as I am able.

Cool! There’s no rush on any of this.

Also, I showed the mockup to my girlfriend to get her official report, and she liked it, so that’s iron clad proof it’s good 😉

In particular, she actually appreciated that there was no shot showing Kylo seeing the figure of Han emerging from the mist, because that would be too ‘on the nose’.

However, she was a bit perplexed by Leia’s line of ‘Together, Rey’. It took a minute for her to realize that she was asking Rey to help heal Ben. So perhaps we can run a few more variations of that line to make it more clear what is happening.

I think we’re pretty much on the same wavelength at this point, and it’s actually a solution that works with the film quite well, minus the explicit ‘Rey Palpatine’ stuff. I would actually also cut any mention of a Dyad, since it is barely in the movie and Force draining can just be a secret power of Palpatine like Force lightning was in ROTJ. In this version, we don’t really need a lot of exposition about Rey’s past, since it can be essentially the same as TLJ. The only added bit would be to explain Ochi and the dagger, and since it’s definitely a Sith dagger, that means that Rey’s past has to have an element of the Sith interacting with it.

“Rey….wherever you are…You are hard to find.

“You are hard to get rid of.”

“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it…I needed you to see it…who you are. I know the rest of your story. Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“You were right…your parents were no one. Worthless scrap dealers from nowhere.”

“Don’t!”

“You remember more than you say. You knew they were never coming back.”

“I don’t want this!”

“You hated them for it.”

“No!”

“But you couldn’t live with your hate.”

(Cut Rey’s vision of her parents…since they are nobodies.)

“You lied to yourself…but that only made your hate stronger.”

“Stop talking.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“Rey, I know how your parents died. They were drunk, on the far side of Jakku, when they were found by an agent of the Emperor. He wanted to know where you were…but your parents couldn’t even remember.”

(Cut vision of Rey’s parents getting killed.)

“So that’s where you are. You know why the Emperor’s always wanted you, Rey. I’ll come tell you.”

…

“Why did the Emperor come for me? Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me.”

“He never wanted to kill you, Rey…he saw what you would become…a powerful host for his corrupted soul.”

“Palpatine told me to kill you, but I know the truth. You are his true prize. There is darkness in you Rey, far more than there is in me. So don’t play his game. We can kill him, Rey…together.”

(Removes his helmet)

“You know what you need to do. You know.”

“I know.”

Alternately, riffing off of your idea of Rey killing Kylo, it could be that Palpatine is seeking a suitable host for his spirit. Palpatine wants Kylo to kill Rey just like Snoke wanted, for this would turn Kylo irrevocably evil and make him a willing host for his evil spirit.

Alternately, Kylo may say in the hangar that Rey is already suitable as a host for Palpatine, which is why Palpatine told Kylo ‘she isn’t what you think’. Rey killing Kylo would merely be more confirmation that she is the one who will be Palpatine reborn, joined to him deeper than blood.

For this idea we could move Palp’s dialogue about his Sith spirit back to the end of the film as it wouldn’t apply to Kylo in that moment, and just fill Rey in on this whole procedure during the hangar scene.

That would be great to have a clean version of that scene.

What I like about this prophecy idea is that it’s a dark reflection of the prequel prophecy. Anakin was ‘destined to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force’, while Rey is ‘destined to destroy the Skywalkers and restore the Sith’. And this version is better than the prequel version, because while that version was up to interpretation with regards to ‘balance’ and took six movies to come true, Rey explicitly fulfills the conditions of this dark prophecy by the end of the movie, but in a way that is unexpected and leads to the heroes’ victory.

JEDIT: If it’s important that Rey be nobody, then her backstory could be tied into the First Order child abductions, and this could tie in with Palpatine’s search for his destined heir:

“Why did the Emperor come for me? Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me.”

“He never wanted to kill you, Rey. He wanted to find his heir, one who would fulfill the prophecy he saw when he returned from death.”

“That’s why he commanded the First Order to harvest the galaxy’s children. It wasn’t just to build new armies. It was to find the one who could end the Skywalker bloodline and restore the Sith. But we can stop this prophecy, Rey, if we kill him…together.”

Essentially, the way out of this writing dilemma may be to have Rey’s backstory be shared with multitudes of other families at the time she was born, while her future is governed by a prophesy which applies to her because she just happened to be in the right place at the right time for the Force to use her for its own mysterious purposes. We can cut out the flashbacks to her parents while still keeping the canon broadly intact. Rey’s parents still sold her for drinking money…but only because the alternative was Rey being taken from them by the First Order. Her parents could still be killed, but because they defied the Order, not because they were specifically protecting Rey or believed that she was special.

Hang on, just had a thought.

Perhaps Rey is important to Palpatine because she shall be the one to destroy the Skywalker bloodline and restore the Sith.

• Her actions in TLJ force Luke to sacrifice himself to save her and the Resistance.

• Her stabbing Ben on the Death Star in the current version forces Leia to intervene and save her son at the cost of her own life.

• Finally, Ben gives his life in order to save Rey at the end of the film.

Palpatine could view anyone capable of destroying his most hated enemy to be his spiritual heir, worthy of sitting on the Sith throne. He tells Kylo to kill Rey at the beginning because he knows that either Kylo will kill Rey and join the Sith, or Rey will kill Kylo and fulfill her sinister destiny.

Kylo’s speech to Rey on the Star Destroyer would convey this information, letting her know that she was responsible for Luke’s death and would be responsible for Leia’s death as well as his own, unless she joined him now and they destroyed the Emperor outright. He’s telling her that by the end of this every Skywalker will be dead, unless she turns from her path and joins him.

“Why did the Emperor want to kill a child?”

“He didn’t want to kill you, Rey; he believes you to be his heir…the one who will destroy the Skywalkers and restore the Sith. But the prophecy is coming true…Luke is gone, Leia is dying, and I will soon follow, unless we destroy the Emperor…together.”

On the Death Star, this prophecy seems to be coming true in front of Rey’s eyes. She runs to Luke in fear, seeking his perspective of the destiny that is being fulfilled. He tells her that she must still confront that fear by going to Exegol, and Luke reassures her that this will not deter him from supporting her. He gives her Leia’s saber, since he knows that Leia would have still considered Rey family.

Finally, in the confrontation with Palpatine, she is joined by Ben and together they face Palpatine. However, he drains their life-force and so fulfills the part of the prophecy where Rey shall restore the Sith. After this, Ben suffers apparent pit death, and at this point the prophecy seems to be entirely fulfilled.

Then Rey is visited by the spirits of Luke and Leia and they tell her that her journey isn’t over. She must rise and fight for what their family stood for, and bring balance to the galaxy.

The final scene has her confirm that she is the spiritual successor to the Skywalker family.

So this is a version of ‘Rey killed her parents’ except it is forward-looking; she is destined to kill her newly adopted parents.

That version is great, though I can see a version where he is slightly more…sad? Like he’s almost unwilling to tell her.

Fan_edit_fan said:

After Andor season 2 it’s just all bleak and weak.

Actual lol, but also true.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Here’s how Nev’s line would sound in context of the scene (plus the file itself): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sWvJn8utKM3o28BAUsqHhnz3nhWqDWOO?usp=sharing

Sounds good.

I just want to say how astonishing this AI voice tech is. A few years ago changing actor’s lines was an impossible pipe dream, and now we can just transform a film with it.

Leia may not have known Palpatine was alive before the start of the film, but she still could have sensed Rey’s dark lineage. There’s no reason why Palpatine still needed to be alive for Rey to be descended from him.

Yep, I totally intended that connection…

😉

Hal 9000 said:

And I think I’ve come around on Poe as undercover cop. Zorri does tell him “He’s not stupid enough to come back here.”

So… there likely will be a V5 at some point. It’d be silly to be hasty about it, though. I imagine waiting until all the Rey Nobody pieces are finished to Dom’s satisfaction and then release a final version of both at once.

Nice! My idea wasn’t silly after all! Or maybe it was, just less so than the original film…

“Because you’re a Palpatine. Leia sensed it during your training.”

Superweapon VII said:

JadedSkywalker said:

Starcrash. I’ve finally watched a sci fi film that is worse than the Star Wars Holiday Special. One of the worst films i have ever seen, worse than At the Earth’s Core even.

This movie has a cult following, and I just don’t get it. Caroline Munro’s hot. Big whoop. T&A alone can’t elevate a bad movie to so-bad-it’s-good.

Maybe it depends on the crowd, but I remember seeing it at a special screening with a few hundred B-movie fans and thought it was hilarious.

Those are good thoughts, RL. I am constantly wondering how to do a Rey Nobody concept with this film without cutting out too much of what is already there, which makes me think that there needs to be some concept of Rey ‘becoming’ Palpatine’s heir through her actions. This speaks to the whole ‘Rey’s future’ angle you brought up, where her past really doesn’t matter. However, so much of this movie is concerned with her past that again, it’s impossible to ignore that there’s some aspect of her past that wasn’t fully revealed.

So how about this:

Rey’s parents didn’t even know she was Force sensitive. This was during the first major round of First Order child abductions, so Rey was taken off world and sold to Unkar Plutt because the alternative was that she would have been taken away with no compensation for the parents. The child abductions had the added benefit that Force sensitive children would be identified by the First Order and sent to the Emperor for training or extermination.

Unkar Plutt was in the business of buying children who would otherwise have been sent to become Stormtroopers, or killed. He would hide them in the desert, giving them the barest food to survive on as he collected a tidy profit from this business. Sometimes the parents would come and retrieve their children, but most of the time they never returned.

Ochi was the punishment sent by the First Order for those who defied them and hid their children away.

…

“Rey….wherever you are…You are hard to find.

“You are hard to get rid of.”

“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it…I needed you to see it…who you are. I know the rest of your story. Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“You were right…your parents were no one. Victims of the First Order’s atrocities.”

“Don’t!”

“The Order was harvesting children across the galaxy.”

“I don’t want this!”

“But your parents resisted.”

“No!”

“They sold you, to keep you safe.”

(Rey sees the vision of her parents and her abandonment.)
“My Love…be brave.”
“You’ll be safe here…I promise.”
“Come back! Nooo!”

“They paid for your protection…in more than one way.”

“Stop talking.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“Rey, what happened to your parents happened to countless people across the galaxy. Palpatine needed everyone to hate and fear what he had done. So his assassins tracked down anyone who resisted his Order…and killed them.”

(Rey sees her parents get killed.)

“So that’s where you are. Have you guessed why the Emperor wanted you dead? I’ll come tell you.”

…

In the hangar, Kylo continues:

“Why did the Emperor come for me? Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me.”

“Palpatine was defeated by a man who still believed in his father, who believed against all odds that the galaxy could be saved.”

“By destroying the galaxy’s children, he ensured that every orphan knew that he was the source of their hatred and despair. You can overthrow him, Rey, but if you do…you will become his heir and claim his dark throne.”

(Removes his helmet)

“You know what you need to do. You know.”

“I know.”

…

When Rey is reaching out to the Jedi at the end of the film, she is surprised to find that she doesn’t hear them. Rather, she has called to her the ones who can truly help her, her friends. She hears the voice of Finn, of Poe, of Chewie and Maz. She hears Luke and Leia, of course, but she even hears Han’s voice, making her realize that these aren’t ghosts reaching out to her but her own memories, their words the words of encouragement they spoke to her throughout her journey.

This was foreshadowed by Ben being redeemed by his memory of his father.

“You are nothing. A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me. I am all the Sith!”

“And I…I’m a Skywalker.”

…

Rey isn’t special. She’s not an outlier, but rather representative of a galaxy-wide tragedy which makes her struggle universal. Comparing power levels here is pointless because the story has never been about that. Rey cannot defeat hatred through power. “You want me to hate but I won’t.” Something like that.

Anakin Starkiller said:

NeverarGreat said:

Another question that arises from this is how does this affect Ochi’s ship? Is this the same ship that carried her parents away from Jakku, and if so then how is it on Pasanna and not wrecked in the Jakku desert?

Just change Pasaana to Jakku. They look the same already so you’d just need to swap out a line or two. They barely ever refer to the planet by name so it should be trivial. It’d also bring the trilogy full circle.

That’s possible, but that would also mean that Luke was searching for clues on the same planet as Rey, one of the most promising Force sensitives in the galaxy, and Lando would have been hanging out on an almost deserted planet for years without ever noticing that his beloved old ship was parked in one of the few spaceports gathering dust. It’s hard to imagine that Luke and Lando would have both overlooked these things.

I’ve been thinking some more about Rey’s backstory, and particularly what we want it to communicate. I think the reason TLJ’s revelation was so interesting was because it established that Rey was truly nobody, which meant that she had literally no connection to Palpatine or Skywalker at all. It removed a lot of the convenience of TFA if Rey was a nobody, though some questions still remained, and it was just a breath of fresh air. So here’s a story that comports with that idea and with the ideas in TROS:

Rey was born on a poor, distant ocean world and lived there with her parents for years. Eventually, when her parents learned that she was Force sensitive, they began searching for a way to have her trained as a Jedi. They had gone to Jakku because they had heard that Unkar Plutt had recently purchased the Millennium Falcon and they hoped that this ship would lead them to Luke via his famous friends. Rey was even learning Wookiee in preparation for this meeting, as a precocious Force sensitive child would.

Meanwhile, Ochi and his Jedi hunters were looking for Force sensitive children on the orders of a Sith cult. Palpatine desired to destroy as many children as possible to prevent a new Jedi Order from arising, and as a side effect he would spare the life of the most promising child and train this child as his heir.

Ochi and his hunters were on Jakku when Rey and her parents landed, already searching for this child. Thinking fast, Rey’s parents sold her to Unkar Plutt to protect her from Ochi and with the hope that someday Luke and his friends would find the Falcon and take Rey to be trained by Luke. To protect Rey’s location from Ochi, her parents left the planet on their ship, but were boarded and killed by Ochi and his hunters before they could escape into Hyperspace. Ochi searched for the child on Jakku and on many other worlds, but could never find her and eventually was killed in the desert of Pasanna.

And here’s how some of that could be communicated:

“Rey….wherever you are…You are hard to find.

“You are hard to get rid of.”

“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it…I needed you to see it…who you are. I know the rest of your story. Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“You were right…your parents were no one. Scrap merchants from the outer rim.”

“Don’t!”

“But you were strong in the Force, so they went looking for Luke.”

“I don’t want this!”

“They found my father’s ship on Jakku.”

“No!”

“But Palpatine’s assassin was close behind.”

(Rey sees the vision of her parents and her abandonment.)
“My Love…be brave.”
“You’ll be safe here…I promise.”
“Come back! Nooo!”

“They paid for your protection…in more than one way.”

“Stop talking.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“Rey, I know what happened to them. Tell me where you are…you don’t know the whole story. 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.”

(Rey sees her parents get killed.)

“So that’s where you are. You know why the Emperor’s always wanted you dead. I’ll come tell you.”

…

In the hangar, Kylo continues:

“Why did the Emperor come for me? Why did he want to kill a child? Tell me.”

“He wanted to kill every child with the Force, Rey. To stop Luke from rebuilding the Jedi Order. And he almost succeeded.”

“Palpatine had foreseen that a child would survive, one strong with the Dark Side. He told me that this child would become his heir, destroying him and taking the throne of the Sith. We can kill him, Rey…together.”

(Removes his helmet)

“You know what you need to do. You know.”

“I know.”

…

This actually changes fewer lines than my previous attempt, and explains away basically every convenient aspect of Jakku in TFA. It also handily gives some explanation for why Luke was delayed for so long in beginning a new Jedi Order.

Hal 9000 said:

It seems a bit backwards to massage the film to mesh with prior EU material since EU material will already bear that out in time as it does. If we say Poe left to join the Republic, even if that helps things that have been published so far surely it’ll come into conflict with future EU material.

Nothing wrong with making the change because you prefer it that way, but current EU seems like an unusual motivation.

Fair enough. There are still about 99 bigger problems in this film anyway 😉

Hal 9000 said:

It does seem like Rey and Kylo have a much larger reaction to Leia sensing/resolving what to do than they do when she actually does die. Kylo in particular when he stares off into space after collapsing, dejected; seems like he’s maybe just feeling that way because he himself is about to die.

Indeed, that’s the feeling I get from it as well, like they are just realizing that these are her final moments and then once she dies there’s a moment of silence. I think it works.

Also the music repeats itself once, so I might see if there’s another cue to sub in that works.

Ah, good catch. I hadn’t even noticed that.

Yeah, and to expand on that, when Finn asks Poe how he knows how to hotwire a speeder, to me it makes sense that someone in a paramilitary organization like the Resistance would be able to do that. It only makes sense that Finn is surprised by Poe’s hotwiring if it was previously established that Poe was from the by-the-book New Republic. If Poe’s history was unknown, there would be no reason for Finn to be surprised that a guy in the rough and tumble Resistance had some shady connections.

In short, the writers took the assumed canon of Poe’s backstory as a springboard for subverting that canon for surprise value, but by negating the canon they negated the whole reason for the subversion, like a sort of canon ouroboros.

Very nice!

Also, a small sound tweak suggestion: On Passana after we establish the Knights of Ren in their cool but useless photo shoot, there’s a really atmospheric shot of the desert and the ship in the distance, which gets almost instantly ruined by unnecessary bickering about needing to find ‘a useful droid’. It would probably be easy to cut these lines and pick them back up with Threepio’s line about going back to the Falcon, giving us a few more seconds of sinister mystery to take in Ochi’s ship.

Rey killed her parents is something that I was definitely thinking about using, but in watching Ascendant I was having trouble figuring out how it would work in practice. We would absolutely need some sort of reveal there, a VFX shot of Rey hitting the ship with lightning like she did in the desert, which is no small task.

Another question that arises from this is how does this affect Ochi’s ship? Is this the same ship that carried her parents away from Jakku, and if so then how is it on Pasanna and not wrecked in the Jakku desert?

As far as I can tell in canon, the ship is named the Bestoon Legacy and Rey’s parents used it when hiding Rey on Jakku, at which point Ochi discovered the ship and Rey’s parents and killed them. He then found some festive beads belonging to her parents which led him to believe that Rey was on Pasanna.

So for the plot to make sense in canon, Rey must damage the ship enough to kill her parents but not enough to destroy the ship itself. Then Ochi could find the ship and the festival beads would lead him to Pasanna.

The big problem with all of this remains the fact that the ship Rey sees is the one on Pasanna, and this doesn’t fit neatly into any story about Rey’s past, even the official one.

Hal 9000 said:

Nev, if you can send me the elements used other than the film’s soundtrack I’d be happy to recreate it in 5.1. (And send the stereo mock-up.)

Thanks so much Hal, you’re the best!

I’ve put all of the sound effects I used in a folder within the original folder link:

https://mega.nz/folder/aQcRgLrR#YHPDi5zV2VSgLIqTr0SFjg

These are just the first sound effects that I found online to drop into the mockup, so I’m sure there are better sound effects out there.

And looking over the Davinci timeline, I see that the final render isn’t even in stereo but in mono, which makes sense because the program did some weird thing where it split the 5.1 audio strangely into left and right channels and I would have definitely noticed if it was rendering like that. I can try to see if it will output in stereo, but I don’t know how much that will help.

I bet it would work that way as well, but to do that I’d have to rebuild the ambient sound around the entire line instead of just that spot, and, well, my struggle with 5.1 in Resolve is real.