RogueLeader

Well in the movie we have no indication the red troopers are different than regular troops. At one point I thought it would be interesting if you implied they were clones bred on Exegol.

And I had considered that as well. My initial notes had Finn basically telling the troops to abandon ship instead of “fighting back”, and then Finn says that “Stormtroopers are surrending”, implying that troopers were taking escape pods and being picked up by the Resistance. So, at the very least, Finn’s trying to save stormtroopers rather than kill them. So something like that could work, but you don’t get any of that imagery of the troopers rising up.

Regardless, I do think the change to the Finn and Jannah scene does a lot for Finn’s story already, even if we did nothing else.

Yeah, I think I agree with that. And kind of like what I mentioned with Finn, I like the idea that maybe he was unaware of the impact he’s had on other stormtroopers, but once he knows he changes his approach.

DominicCobb said:

It would be ReaL interesting if someone here were working on an idea like that.

I have been summoned.

Since it has been brought up, I have been playing around with the idea of adding a little more to Finn’s arc. Really, it is the only way I could imagine one could do the “stormtrooper rebellion” idea, and then it might feel rushed, like Burbin said. Also, not all of these ideas would have to be used, but these are all of the places I felt the idea could be implement to make it feel set up as much as possible.

To clarify, I’m not saying this has to be for Ascendant! This is just what I have been cooking up on my own, but I thought I could share in case any of it could be useful for Ascendant.

Crawl

In the crawl, it could mention that Leia has had her bravest heroes send out messages of hope throughout the galaxy. This includes Finn and Poe. This is to help set up the stormtrooper subplot and the people’s fleet coming to the rescue at the end.

First Finn and Poe Scene

In Finn and Poe’s first scene, when they are attacked by TIE fighters, when we cut to the TIE interior, we could hear that the Falcon is broadcasting one of Finn’s messages on open channels. The TIE pilot says as much and tells the other pilots to turn it off. It is basically Resistance propoganda, Finn sharing testimonial in order to de-radicalize other stormtroopers. Also cut Finn cheering when he destroys TIEs.

Resistance Base

When Rey is reading the Jedi text, we hear one of Poe’s broadcasts on the radio that is on the table in front of her. “The First Order wins by making us think we’re alone. But there are more of us.”

First Order Briefing
During the First Order briefing scene, change Pryde’s dialogue and the off screen officers dialogue from this:
Pryde: Such range and power will correct the error of Starkiller Base.
Off screen officer: We need to increase recruitments. Harvest more of the galaxy’s young.

To this:
Pryde: Such range and power will correct the error of the Battle of Crait.
Off screen officer: And the stormtrooper program. There have been more defections.

This would be a simple change that could set up other stormtrooper defections besides Jannah’s group.

Pasaana

On Pasaana, when the stormtrooper catches them, we cut most of the trooper dialogue and hear Finn off screen say, “Wait! You don’t have to do this!”. Also cut Finn cheering when he kills/nearly kills stormtroopers during the speeder chase.

Kijimi

This is more related to Poe, but when he speaks with Zorii, make it clear that Zorii is simply repeating Poe’s own words to him.
Poe: How long’s it been like this?
Zorii: Ever since Skywalker. People have been fighting, and dying.
…
Poe: I can’t walk out on this war. Not until it’s over… Maybe it is…
Zorii: You don’t believe that. Hey. “They win by making you think you’re alone.” I’ve heard your broadcasts. “There’s more of us.”

Star Destroyer Rescue

I think it’d be helpful to this idea if Finn and Poe were stunning all of the trooper on the Destroyer instead of straight up killing them. Maybe you just recolor their blaster shots a light blue, add some kind of stun mask to troopers when they get hit, and an altered stun blast sound, to imply their shots are stun shots, but slightly stronger so they can penetrate armor and keep them down longer.

Endor
We could keep the Jannah scene as we currently have it. If you wanted a more conservative approach, you could leave out most of the previous ideas (maybe besides the officer mentioning defections), and maybe Finn doesn’t realize the power his story wields until he meets Jannah, which then encourages him to do what he does on Exegol.

Resistance Meeting

When Poe and Finn are laying out the mission plan, we create a new insert shot of R2 recording the speech their giving. Then, during the prep montage, we reuse the shots of R2 transferring the Palpatine message earlier in the film to make it look like he is transferring Finn and Poe’s message from his memory to the Falcon (for Lando and Chewie to broadcast to the galaxy).

Battle of Exegol
When Finn stops and notices they are resetting their systems and decides he has to do “something”, instead of hacking one of the turrets and shooting the command deck, him and Jannah hack into the navigation signal and use it to send a message to the stormtroopers.

Rose: Finn, where are you? The lander’s leaving. (OS) Finn!
Finn: Go without us. (Cut) We’re taking this entire ship down.
Finn (OS Add): We’re gonna reach out to the stormtroopers.
Rose: What? How?
Finn (OS Cut): We’re gonna hit the command deck.
Finn (OS Add): We’re gonna slice into their nav signal.

Cut the shots of them on the rotating turret.
Add the insert of Jannah plugging the cables together here. And add her saying off screen “You’re in!”

Then, we get a brief montage from inside the Star Destroyer. In this montage, we’d hear Finn’s voice playing over the intercoms.
Some of the shots we could see:
An insert of a computer screen that illustrates their system being “hacked” and now displaying audio waveforms.
A modified shot from earlier in the film where the two stormtroopers look at each other. Mask them out and put them in a different room/hallway. As we hear Finn’s voice, maybe we hear one of the troopers say, “The Finn?”
First Order officers scrambling at their own monitors trying to stop what’s happening.
Empty hallway shots taken from the Vehicle Flythroughs video for the Finalizer as we hear Finn’s voice echo down the halls.
From TFA, a modified shot of two troopers walking around the corner off camera.

A possible version of Finn’s speech:
Stormtroopers! This is FN-2187, now Finn. The First Order only sees us as numbers. But we’re more than that. We had names, families, stories! Now’s the time. To remember! Break free! Resist!

Then, at the end of the battle, you would cut the turret firing on the command deck and Finn and Jannah’s reaction. Instead, we would take shots from TFA from when they blow a hole in the oscillator. I actually have a rough cut of this part already, but basically I’ve cut it to appear that stormtroopers are shooting at each other. We could add new trooper dialogue here to help get the idea across of what is happening. One of the defiant troopers gets shot, but his shot hits a reactor that sets off a chain reaction, causing the entire room to explode. As we follow the explosion traveling upward, we cut to outside the Star Destroyer, where now we see the whole ship exploding, leading to the command deck blowing up. I’ve also timed it to where it doesn’t interfere with the current flow of the scene or score. So it is brief, but lasts just long enough to get an idea of what is happening.
One or two of the shots would need to be adjusted to make it feel more like a generic facility interior and hide the oscillator chasm. But cropping, flipping and color grading can help make these shots feel distinct from their TFA counterparts.

Then, as everyone is flying away, we hear Finn say to Poe. “Stormtroopers are defecting. People are rising up all over the galaxy.”

I actually never liked the Final Order term either, I just figured it could be kept because it is onscreen dialogue from Poe. The only other times that term is mentioned is Palpatine off screen, and I think the exposition Resistance guy once?

You could potentially cut the shot, and slightly extend existing shots to fit the runtime without affecting the score. Or find/create a new shot that could be used for this scene. And that way you wouldn’t have to cut back and forth between original and AI dialogue. Might not be right for this edit though.

Even though I helped make the new shot, I’m glad krlozdac brought this up to debate the pros and cons of using it vs a different idea. These are definitely good discussions to have.

The dyad would’ve been a good way to have the power in the movie without it disrupting future storytelling. Like only they can do it. At the very least, full-on resurrection could be something only they could do maybe. Guess it just depends on future stories.

As far as the movie goes, Rey doesn’t seem surprised that she can heal the snake. She just decides to do it, and explains to BB-8 what she did. Which to me signals she learned it from somewhere, and the obvious answer being the Jedi texts.

It could be an ancient Jedi ability, or it could’ve been an obscure ability Luke learned somewhere else and wrote about, since we know Luke also wrote in the texts.

Beautiful. Add it to the “Changes to the OT to better match the ST” thread.

A part of my heart breaks to think all of those hours down the drain, but to be honest most of that afternoon I spent working on that shot was me just figuring out how to do it. Gotta kill your darlings I guess. But now that I know the easiest way to do it, I wouldn’t care to add whatever to those shots if I was provided the drawings and the shots needed to make them (honestly should just snag a high quality digital version of the movie). I need a better quality version of that Jannah shot too.

It would require some creative editing, but maybe the beginning of his dream could depict related his ambitions of greatness, and then the vision devolves into both Padmé and his deaths. Something that shows him in a position of power, as a Jedi Master, or being the celebrated chosen one who achieved his destiny, or in a position of power in the galaxy. Like, he sees this power and greatness he will one day have, maybe alongside happiness with Padmé too, and then he loses it. That way, we know his fear of loss is not only tied to losing Padmé, but losing the power he foresaw him having.

It would be interesting if this could be tied to Palpatine. Like, he know these visions of power are tied to Palpatine, and being associated with him. It would be ironic if he was seeing his future as Vader, but depicted in a way that looks “good”, like he is Anakin rather than Vader, Palpatine rather than the Emperor. So he does he end up getting the power he saw in his vision, but not in the way he saw it. For example, imagine the scene at the end of the film, with Vader the Emperor on the bridge of the Star Destroyer, backs facing camera. You could have the same shot, but we see the backs of Anakin and Palpatine instead. So Anakin interprets that as him bringing peace to the galaxy through military power. Stuff like that.

Anyway, not really sure what imagery you could use. It could be even simpler than that. Just picking a few existing shots and laying the right pre-existing lines underneath it.

I do like the logic of that! It’s better than Rey just happening to flip through that page the day they find out about Exegol.

As of now though, I think we’re changing that page to set up Force healing, since it plays a bit of a role in the movie too and is never really addressed. We can assume she had just scene that read about it before this day. Though your idea would still benefit from her seeing it in a vision for the other reasons you mentioned.

If you stuck with just adding new dialogue to the hologram scene, you could have Palpatine say something like:

Soon, I will have a stronger vessel.
or
Soon, my spirit will have a more worthy host.

It could be a way to address the question of, “Why would Palpatine tell them something that would make them want to kill him less?” It’s like, Rey probably would’ve killed you before you told her that. Yes, I think he tells her because of his hubris and sees that there is no other way (until there is), but it would alleviate that question if the audience could learn about his plans for spirit transfer while he tells a confidant of his intentions.

Also, everyone would probably know he is talking about Rey here, but it is still vague. He could be referring to a new clone body. But then on Exegol when he says, “That is what I want” it would confirm it is Rey.

Ah yeah I see what you’re saying.

It’s not bad! Could be played around with a little more.

I’m wondering if it would flow better if we get both pieces of new dialogue, and then have Poe say, “He calls it the Final Order” afterward. I’m not sure if that is more complicated with how the music and maybe Chewie’s growl is baked into the surrounding tracks.

Hal 9000 said:

The Rey Nobody edit, like all of these fan edits, exists in a parallel universe in which it is the final film that was presented and marketed to the world. (Nevermind that this parallel universe would probably also have its own Hal9000 project.)

In other words, the reader must be assumed to be someone for whom this version simply is the movie, with no other context assumed.

This is a great perspective. My mind is settled then!

CamSMurph said:

Burbin said:

I can’t believe I’m seeing a Finn in this movie that actually feels like he went through TLJ’s character arc.

Neither can I. Still no Duel of the Fates, but we’ll take what we can get. 😃

Unfortunately can never reach the heights of DotF’s imagery for Finn. Maybe not for Ascendent, but I may have a few more tricks up my sleeve for Finn’s story arc…

And regarding the Palpatine hologram line, I think that is why I liked “Only the strongest shall rule”. It says a lot with very little. Plus, I’d rather any new Palpatine lines be vague about Rey’s bloodline so it could be used for both Rey Nobody and Rey Palpatine. Honestly would love to see an edit that actually makes me like Rey Palpatine. How can an edit make that work in a way that isn’t convoluted? Lol.

For the Rey Nobody edit, I thought it would be interesting to have Palpatine still kind of suggest that they could be family, in a literal or figurative sense. Like, he could still call her Empress Palpatine, or something like, “Long have I waited for a family”. And then Rey could just call him a liar. He may be telling the truth, or could just be playing into her desire for belonging. Kind of in a similar way they address if Deckard is a replicant or not in Bladerunner 2049 with ambiguity. That way, a Rey Nobody edit could still kind of work for people who have accepted the Rey Palpatine thing too. But maybe viewers who are aware would just be confused and be like, “Wait I thought this was a Rey Nobody edit??” not realizing it is being framed as manipulation. Plus, someone could still technically view her as Rey Palpatine in a Rey Nobody edit, it is just not addressed in the movie. Probably just better not to mention it at all though.

I’ll get those to you Hal when I get a chance!

And true. It’s the only hologram scene so you can excuse it sounding different than everything else, especially if you just replace all of the scene’s dialogue.

Have we hammered down the Poe line in the briefing?

Thanks Neerb! Maybe it’s just because I’ve been imagining it for so long, but I do feel like I have more of a emotional reaction to this scene now than I did before.

I had another go at the “And you” version, and touched up things here and there.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gfn_2npNuyDawhQUpbNYrDRLoHEwxU2o/view?usp=drive_link

Jar Jar Bricks said:

RogueLeader said:

The “And you” version I just slapped together quickly because the reading came to me. I’m curious if people would prefer that line reading if I nailed it down, or like the v1 line reading. Again, not based on quality but just the line alone.

EDIT: Also, is the new shot okay?

What is this “new shot” you’re referring to? 😉 Don’t tell me or it’ll stand out all of a sudden.

New Shot? I meant new show. Is Ahsoka any good? 😅

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Haha, and thanks Jar Jar! Honestly I just spend way too much time thinking about this stuff.

The “And you” version I just slapped together quickly because the reading came to me. I’m curious if people would prefer that line reading if I nailed it down, or like the v1 line reading. Again, not based on quality but just the line alone.

And that’s a good point krlozdac, but my train of thought was like Jar Jar’s. Finn’s story planted the seed. But, I don’t think they ever collectively planned to defect. Them laying down their weapons just sort of happened in the moment. Maybe Finn’s story planted a seed of morality in them, and it began taking roots, and then bloomed suddenly. It’s like, before hearing about Finn, they may have slaughtered those civilians. But it awoke their consciouses.

EDIT: Also, is the new shot okay?

I had a go at the Finn and Jannah scene.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JVfNWEHbAeUcyaNeV9w66N-iYoT2XSiJ

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Hal 9000 said:

Changed Rey’s line to Leia as she turns over the lightsaber from “your brother’s saber” to “your family’s saber” to begin to plant a seed about eventually identifying herself with the Skywalker family (AI voice provided by Jar Jar Bricks)

In a callback to a line modified earlier, when Leia hands Leia the saber before she departs the base, she tells Rey, “You are family” (AI line provided by Jar Jar Bricks)

I had nothing to do with these two. RL did both of these 😉

Did not mind at all but thanks for the credit Jar Jar!

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

• Jannah AI voice to make it clear her company views Finn as their inspiration for rebelling

So yeah, here’s this:
https://youtu.be/3DCC0abhlw8?si=Ldy4RsWbMnQocf-E

I think the first line sounds pretty good but the second one could be improved (or removed entirely). Really it’s only the first one that’s important.

This is really good! Did you use the whole sample you sent me, or just the lines from this scene?

I NEED this.

I think you could just replace all of it to make it the same, and add new hologram distortion effects, because it isn’t a lot of dialogue.