All theories are wrong; some are useful.
The Force should be beyond the ability of people to fully comprehend. I think the best way of viewing the Snoke lines is that he is identifying a connection between Rey and Kylo, but the full truth is not apparent to him, whatever that truth ends up being.
In TLJ the Rey/Ben dynamic feels very much like Rey is being drawn towards trying to ‘fix’ Ben, which is definitely a thing that can happen in romantic fiction with ‘bad boy’ characters.
Poe’s fleet appears almost within the ring of the shipyards of Arkanis, the Resistance ships already in a protective formation around the central Destroyer and Resistance squadrons deployed. Poe orders the TIE squadrons to launch with the transports and protect them on their mission. Red squadron happily complies. An officer on the bridge reports that the station is at red alert and their TIE defenders are launching from all points. Examining their formation, Poe allows himself a small sigh of relief. Finn’s voice comes onto the comm, asking what Poe thinks, and Poe responds that the TIE’s are launching from their standard ports which are far from the Destroyer’s location, and from what he can tell they are largely uncoordinated, evidence that Hux is in charge and is scrambling a hasty defense.
Finn’s transport group reaches the hangar below the administrative tower and Red squadron lays down fire on the shield generators. As the shields fail the TIE barrage continues into the hangar, peppering the ships of the wealthy financiers of the First Order. The transports land amid the wreckage as the doors of the hangar automatically close behind them. Even as they shut the transports open and waves of soldiers pour out with Finn and Rose in the lead, headed for the lifts and the control center of Arkanis.
A roar echoes in the darkness of night. Rey starts awake. Their ship still sails on a cushion of air above the river, Ben sitting cross-legged in the bow and R2 at the stern. She asks what that roar was about, and Ben says that he doesn’t know. He is staring up at objects in the sky. As Rey follows his gaze she can see against the darkness the light of morning beginning to glow on the underside of a fleet of Star Destroyers hovering many miles above the forest. They have just arrived, Ben explains. She asks if they will obey the laws of the planet and Ben says that if they broke these laws there would probably be quite a light show, which he hasn’t seen. He says that they can only hope that the First Order will take their path, by which point they will be far away. Rey looks back, worried about Chewie on the Falcon alone.
They arrive at the end of the river where it opens into a large lake. On a hill abutting this lake is the castle, though it looks more like a tower with many spires made of stone and bone. The three suns strike the top of the tower even as they gaze upon it, and it glows starkly white. They move under one of the many buttresses supporting the cathedral-like structure of the lower tower, seeking the center of the structure. In the very center of the space is a looped chain affixed to a small platform. On one side of the space is a waterwheel. An axle connects the chain and wheel. The three assemble on the platform and release the catch, whereupon the power of the flowing water carries them slowly up the interior of the tower to the sound of a mechanical jingle and clank. Rey notes that these people sure are serious about their old-school solutions to problems.
…
Connix sits in the cockpit of the cloaked reconnaissance craft on the edge of the Arkanis system. Through her instruments she views the shipyards. They seem very quiet. BB-8 chirps worriedly from his socket, and Connix agrees that there doesn’t seem to be any presence from Thrawn’s fleet, only the remnants of Kylo’s fleet which show only flickers of activity from repair crews. The life signs on the ships correspond to the original crew size, most still in the forward section designated as reconditioning. She doesn’t trust it, but the sensors can’t be lying. She patches through to the Admiral.
On the bridge, Finn and Poe stand in full uniform ordering everything to be in readiness. The fleet is assembled in empty space close to the Arkanis system awaiting the reconnaissance. Connix’s image appears on the viewscreen and she reports the situation. Threepio translates BB-8 and says that by his estimate and based on the lack of military presence in the system, their plan has an eighty-seven percent chance of success. He cautions, however, that BB-8 has a bad feeling about it. Finn wasn’t aware that droids had feelings, and Threepio echoes BB-8’s sentiment, surprising everyone. Poe admits that this might be merely a ruse by Thrawn to draw them in, but states that they must act regardless, for the stakes are far too high.
He asks if Finn’s troops are assembled and Finn asks the question into a communicator. In the main hangar, a collection of troopers and officers stands ready to board the transports. He goes over the plan once more. Poe will go in with the fleet and take care of the light TIE defenders guarding the shipyards, then they will storm the operational center of the shipyards and lock down the destroyers from this central location. They shout in assent to Finn’s question and Finn gives the order for boarding. Poe suggests that Finn get to his transport if they are to capture an entire fleet, and Finn goes to the lift. Rose accompanies him. Finn asks why she would, and she responds that they have another chance to retrieve the Master Codebreaker, and this time they can get it right. Finn smiles at this half-jest and the doors close.
The Resistance Fleet jumps into Hyperspace.
…
As they reach midway up the tower, a large window coincides with the rising suns and almost blinds them in its brilliance. A stained-crystal artwork in the window splits the suns into a multitude of colors which wash over the three. They arrive finally in the underbelly of the castle keep. Moving through servant’s quarters and kitchens, they make their way to the convocation chamber at the highest level. As they walk through what looks to be a main hall, they hear the telltale whine of Kylo’s wide-winged shuttle. Death Troopers quickly file into the hall to secure the area, while armored royal guards file out in stately fashion. The three quickly rush into a side alcove which turns out to be little more than a disused closet. Inside they find a rusting droid long deactivated. R2 burbles in surprise, but Rey and Ben move to shush him as the Death Troopers approach their position. Ben readies his blaster and Rey grabs a broom handle as a makeshift quarterstaff. Ben looks askance at the weapon.
Suddenly the deactivated droid comes to life. R2 retracts his manipulation arm from the droid’s head, and the droid rises to its feet. R2 burbles excitedly and the Death Troopers converge on the closet, drawn by the noise. Ben and Rey are almost frantic, but just as the Death Troopers arrive R2 and the other droid exit the closet. The Troopers pull up their weapons and order the duo to identify themselves. The mystery droid pulls itself up to its full height, a lanky seven feet, and introduces itself as ZE-7, the sparring droid of Luke Skywalker’s New Jedi Order and more recently the misused and forgotten butler of the Knights of Ren. He also introduces R2 as his counterpart, essential in holographic demonstration of Jedi Masters and their training. The Troopers seem exasperated by this spiel and order the droids to lead them to the Knights of Ren. ZE-7 complies happily, saying that they will probably be waiting in the convocation chamber. The group moves away, allowing Rey and Ben a moment to find another way to the chamber. They locate a small spiral staircase that leads outside the tower and wrapping all the way to the chamber and beyond to the very spire of the tower.
he looks like a preorder bonus
Okay, that was an actual lol.
A yellow saber would also foreshadow his rising out of evil, and be especially cool considering Rey’s constructed saber color.
What if the silver on his mask was gold like in the TFA concept art?
Why not make it all gold?
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/9BCBJNNU
It feels odd to go from Kylo on the destroyer to down on the planet with no establishing shots in between.
However, the crawl is a big improvement. The only thing that feels very strange to me is to mention that Leia is ‘ailing’ right before playing up the strength of the Resistance.
Other than the actual VFX challenge of changing the hilt, is there any reason why Anakin’s saber couldn’t be replaced by Luke’s green saber for the entire ST? This TLJ concept art shows it. It would clear up a few things in TLJ: we’d clearly see Luke reject HIS saber, rather than just rejecting the saber his Dad killed all those kids with (which would be understandable even if he wasn’t so disillusioned!); and it’d make his attempt to force project himself to Kylo as Kylo would remember him be more accurate (Kylo would never have seen him with the blue saber before). There’s no explanation for how the blue saber wound up in Maz’s basement anyway so that doesn’t matter. It’d make the two sabers which defeat Palpatine in TROS be the same two we see in the flashback, more cleanly representing Luke and Leia. Ditto at the end - the lightsabers directly correspond to the two ghosts we see, and there’s no room for “I don’t like sand” jokes to undermine the moment.
Plus green is my favourite saber colour.
You’d have to cut Maz’s line where she says the saber belonged to Luke and his father before him. It would also feel weird to have Kylo say that the lightsaber belongs to him, since it would be Luke’s personal saber and not the one passed down from Anakin (whom Kylo worships).
I wouldn’t have really had an issue with the saber being Luke’s green one from the beginning, but as it stands the blue saber is baked into the ST pretty effectively.
The Emperors return, no matter how it’s handled, nullifies Anakins sacrifice, Luke’s mission to redeem him & therefore entire point of the OT.
Seems like a bad idea.
I’ve never understood this argument. Vader wanted to overthrow the Emperor since Episode 3, so doing it in a way that risked his life would be more a calculation than a sacrifice. Besides, the redemption of Anakin Skywalker doesn’t hinge on him destroying the Emperor, it hinges entirely on choosing to protect the life of his son. That’s how he is going to win, if you will 😉
Similarly, Luke’s mission is to redeem his father, not necessarily to destroy the Emperor. Luke intentionally goes against the wishes of his mentors in his decision to redeem his father instead of taking revenge on Vader and the Emperor.
The fact that the Emperor survives ROTJ actually clarifies the victory of ROTJ in a thematically important way. Despite being a pathetic film, TROS actually does get this one thing right.
It was actually George playing 5 dimensional chess when he wrote Palpatine’s home planet having a tradition of electing their monarchy.
Amazing article, 005! I agree with almost every point you made. Hopefully an article on such a high-profile site will lend some kind of legitimacy to our movement.
What could be more legitimate than the preservation of art?
Great article btw! I’ll never be able to look at the X-wing 180 shot the same way!
Make his only line a recurring “kill me…”
Do we even have a ‘best edits’ thread?!
I get a bit of tunnel vision with regards to projects unfortunately, and right now I’m trying to finish my TROS script. I know it’s not as high interest or visibility but when I see the light at the end of that tunnel I’ll be able to get back to this again 😉
I haven’t really even touched editing software in a while. I would like to foreshadow the Dyad idea, if there’s a way to do it.
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/9B2MMNNU
There’s gotta be something wrong with the UHD conversion because it’s way oversaturated.
Note: I adjusted the lightsaber logistics so that Kylo’s saber is left on the wreck of Kylo’s destroyer where it is found by Thrawn and given to Hux. This will soon become relevant.
Also, by my count I’m up to 30 scenes, or half of the script.
Return of the Jedi is the best title of the series because it has three meanings.
Luke has returned to the story as a Jedi
Anakin has returned to the light
The Jedi will return to the galaxy
How come the opening crawl says that Luke Skywalker is the leader of a group of freedom fighters? He only gets lost and abandons them whenever he feels like it.
In my headcanon the Rebel leadership views Luke and his buddies as liabilities, only keeping them around because Luke and Leia are celebrities in the Rebellion.
Reveal at the end of a ANH that Tarkin was Han’s uncle all along.
They were estranged because Tarkin always wanted to know the odds.
The BBC footage is great. I would not include the cutaway to it at the end of the scene, however.
I agree about the cutaway. But the BBC footage was only 720p. Or were you talking about this footage? Beacuse this is from a Swedish documentry.
Yes, that’s what I meant.
The BBC footage is great. I would not include the cutaway to it at the end of the scene, however.
Finn stares up at the ceiling from his bunk in the captain’s quarters of the destroyer. The ship is draped in darkness as the night shift goes about their quiet work. There is a beep at the door, and Finn shifts into a sitting position, rubbing his back, and tells the visitor to enter. Poe walks over to the seat near the bed and sits. Finn asks what the problem is, and Poe answers that he can’t sleep. He realizes that he’s keeping Finn up but Finn tells him that he wasn’t asleep. Poe says that he had that feeling before entering Finn’s room. He shifts to sit on the side of the bed with Finn. He says that he can’t get any sleep in his own quarters either. He still has nightmares from his other incident on a destroyer. Finn says that he understands all too well, and reflexively rubs his back again.
With the discussion turned to Ben, Finn wonders what he and Rey are up to. Finn responds that they are probably accomplishing all sorts of miracles in the Force together, what with the strength of their connection. Detecting perhaps some regret, Poe asks if Finn had a connection with Rey. Finn says sure, but then seeing the meaning reverses course and says that they are just friends. He shifts awkwardly, and Poe tries to cover with a jab about how well he gets along with Rose. Finn agrees, but says that he’s now her commanding officer and that wouldn’t be proper. He turns away. Poe says that he hopes Finn doesn’t view him as a commanding officer, at least not here. He places his hand on Finn’s exposed back. Finn turns slowly to look at Poe.
There is another beep at the door. Poe and Finn practically leap off the bed. The door opens to reveal Rose. Breathlessly she informs them of a communication from Arkanis. As her eyes adjust to the darkness, she sees the two of them clearly. She orders them to come quickly. Finn asks if that’s any way to talk to her captain, and she says ‘Oh, and put a shirt on…Captain.’
In the comms office adjoining the bridge, Rose plays back the message. It is an image of Xindo, clearly in the comms office of another destroyer. All three look at each other, with Finn and Poe saying as one ‘The Master Codebreaker!’ He informs them of the mission to recruit the Knights of Ren and the reconditioning effort on Kylo’s fleet. He tells finally of Code Thirteen. Finn is stricken. The message ends. Poe and Rose look to Finn and ask what Code Thirteen means. He takes a moment. Finally he says that it signifies a complete failure in crew programming. Rose says that clearly their sabotage was more successful than they thought. Poe pushes Finn to say the final piece, which he does. He says that all officers and crew of the fleet, over a million enlisted men and women, will be terminated.
I still think that if you’re going to show something explicitly Hyperspace related with this weapon, it should be an effect which puts the red beam into Hyperspace. For example, the beam could be red as it exits the weapon but would turn blue and disappear as it reaches a certain distance from the weapon. I’m thinking as the beam moves past the destroyer, Kylo sees it turn blue and disappear. It might cause some distortion above Takodana if we’re using the original cut of the film, I imagine a blue distortion appearing at once from horizon to horizon as if parts of the beam are ‘leaking’ out of Hyperspace. Then it emerges fully over the Hosnian system, becoming red again.
Fantastic color.
