RogueLeader

I had two more thoughts about this.

I think a part of the reason Finn is desperate for BB-8 to tell them the base’s location is because if BB-8 doesn’t, then it hurts Finn’s credibility as a Resistance member. If BB-8 refuses to, and Finn also doesn’t know, then it raises a lot of questions for Rey, and we don’t have any other dialogue to rationalize that.

And with Han, yeah, he has a “dirty” ship and he apparently doesn’t want to risk the First Order tracing it to the Resistance Base, but after the battle there, when he sees Kylo take Rey, he probably assumes he took her because she saw the map. So, Han knows that they got what they were after without BB-8, so the First Order won’t be following them anymore.

I think the logic of this stuff can get pretty nitpicky when you put it under a microscope, but I think you can rationalize it just as much as you can tear it apart.

While I would agree that it makes the most sense for the story if they don’t know how to get there, and they need Han to help them with that, it just raises questions of why BB-8 doesn’t know if you just try to cut that scene, or why he just doesn’t plug in the coordinates without telling them if it was a security issue. But we never really get any dialogue to explain that so it would still be a little vague.

So, you could either cut the scene and just imply BB-8 doesn’t know, have BB-8 refuse to tell them, have it be because Han doesn’t want to take them himself, or just don’t change any dialogue and accept the assumptions I mentioned earlier.

EDIT: I do have to say, it does help that BB-8 says the location is “need-to-know”, and how it seems like Rey relents and basically says, “if you can’t tell me where your Base is, then I’ll just drop you off at Ponema terminal”. Which helps explain why she doesn’t take them all the way there. It could raise the question of why Finn doesn’t tell her and would that make Rey suspicious, but the scene moves pretty quick and Rey seems to accept that she just might not be allowed to know. So either Rey assumes that Finn isn’t allowed to tell her, or that Finn doesn’t know because he is a just field operative or something.

Hal 9000 said:

(In moviemaking parlance based on how its presented; Luke’s being real murderous in reality.)

Yeah. The music during that scene is very heroic, but if you think about it, him threatening Jabba with death, and then killing all of his minions doesn’t exactly scream “the Jedi way”. But I think it serves the story.

His change list mentions a new death for Boba, and while he hasn’t explicitly stated what that entails, I think pulling a Jango has been implied a few times.

Maybe Han doesn’t feel like finding Luke is as important as it seems to us and the Resistance. So to Han, taking a brief detour doesn’t feel like a big deal.

Haha, I never thought of that! It’s all Han’s fault!
That is easy to say, but it is still likely something else could have gone wrong before they made it to the Resistance. Someone else could have tracked the Falcon, or someone could have recognized them at Ponema Terminal, who knows?

And if you make it to where BB-8 chooses not to tell them, then it kinda becomes his fault that all of that happens instead of Han’s. Alternatively, you could make BB-8 not know, but you would think a Resistance astromech would know where the Resistance Base is.

Every option presents problems, but I think just having Han not want to face Leia raises the least amount of issues.

Also, it is kind of weird that Rey is just gonna drop them off at Ponema Terminal. Why not just take them all the way to the Base, then go back? If she is so concerned about getting BB-8 to the Resistance, why not make sure he gets there?

So you would be losing those cute moments of BB-8 doing the head-turn between Rey and Finn, as well as the little lighter thumbs-up gag? I understand the logic behind this change, but I feel like those were moments that really sold the audience on BB-8 and would be a real shame to lose.

Also, why wouldn’t BB-8 know the location of the Resistance Base?

EDIT: Probably the idea with the least amount of changes would be to just make it that Han doesn’t want to take them to the Resistance himself. He can’t bare to see Leia again. So, he wants to take them to Maz and let it be someone else’s problem. So it isn’t because they don’t know where the Resistance Base is, or that the Falcon is a traceable ship, which makes it weird that they would take it to the Resistance Base. Instead, it is just Han’s own fear of facing Leia, facing what happened.

Another Revenge of the Sith idea.

I believe I’ve mentioned this before, and I’ve seen versions of this idea on blogs that try to “rewrite” the movie, so it isn’t new.
But what if Anakin executing Dooku played a part in Anakin not being made a master?

Just an idea, but what if in the dolly in shot of Anakin standing before the council, we were to add a hologram of Anakin standing over Dooku’s body, basically a security hologram from the Separatist ship. Then after the hologram fades, Windu tells Anakin is on the council, but will not be granted the rank of master.

The idea being that Anakin executes Dooku am immediately recognizes that it wasn’t the Jedi way. The Jedi then reprimand Anakin for this action by not making him a master. Then later, when Windu is about to execute Palpatine and says the same thing Palpatine did, that “He’s too dangerous to be kept alive”, it makes Anakin see the Jedi as hypocritical, and not any better than the Sith. That Windu is trying to do the same thing that Anakin was punished for.

The reason I even suggest this is that the only reason Mace and the other Jedi seem so weary of Anakin is because of his close relationship with Palpatine, but their attitude towards Anakin feels pretty hostile even from the beginning. They’ve known Anakin since he was a boy, so is his relationship with Palpatine enough to justify their distrust and coldness toward Anakin?

So, I wonder if Anakin did something at the beginning of the film that held a consequence, it would help explain the Jedi’s lack of trust in him. He is a powerful Jedi, but the death of Dooku would be proof that Anakin teeters toward the dark side. I also think Anakin’s actions carrying that consequence would be a little more compelling story-wise, as well.

Maybe someone could articulate the pros and cons of this idea better than I could. Would love to gets some thoughts on this.

Hey man, I totally understand your perspective and why it makes you so angry, but I don’t think anyone here is necessarily against you. I feel like your hostility towards capitalism and Hollywood in general is sorta seeps out sometimes onto other members on here.

I don’t know, I’m not trying to be rude. I get where you’re coming from, but I also don’t think the people on here are against you. Just sometimes your comments feel a little pretentious, and people are going to be less inclined to listen to you that way.

I’m glad we have someone that reminds us every once in awhile that Star Wars is a commercial product as much as it is a fairy tale, but maybe people are just put off a little by your fervor sometimes. But I get it. Just wanted to give you my two cents.

Written material seems to imply that Starkiller Base is capable of traveling through hyperspace. Like Hal said, with the way Restructured is cut, it is not necessary to have to speculate on that question in his version.

Yes, draining a system’s star basically dooms any planet that exists in it, but it’s not a really effective method of genocide if the people on those planets can still evacuate their world.

I know Star Wars is pretty fast-and-loose with the science in science fiction, but there are definitely more uninhabited star systems than there are systems with habitable worlds, so it’s not like they really have to choose a system to sacrifice in order to destroy another. There are literally billions of stars in the galaxy to choose from.

Sure, they totally could doom another rebellious star system if they wanted, but they don’t have to.

I wouldn’t say that he was necessarily implying that Yoda was really talking about Leia all along, I think it was just a cool editing choice.

I don’t think trying to foreshadow Rey would really work in the context of ESB/ROTJ. I mean, Yoda definitely meant Leia, and I also don’t think it is fair to downplay her importance either. She is just as much Vader’s daughter as Luke is Vader’s son.

I don’t really think there is another way to downplay Leia being the ‘other’ more than it already is. As far as Leia’s connection to the Force, all we get is her sensing Luke hanging underneath Cloud City (Which could be argued as just Luke calling out to Leia), Obi-Wan conforming that they’re siblings, and Luke telling Leia she has that power too.

As far as edits changing that, I think I would only approach that in two ways.

Option 1) I would make ROTJ a stand-alone film that is sort of meant to have been the last Star Wars film, where it doesn’t matter if Luke and Leia are siblings.

Option 2) I would try to add more hints that Leia is Force-sensitive, and try to downplay Luke/Leia kissing and stuff where possible.

Maybe it is because there were no battles there? Good question. I think it could make for a fun map, but there are a lot of other planets I could see them doing first.

So you think that it is really the sound mix that makes the new scores sound a bit differently?

Game footage for some background plates of Mustafar?

That is possible, although I don’t know if any game is high quality enough for it to be passing. If Battlefront 2 ever came out with a Mustafar map, I could see it working, or like I said, someone made the room from scratch in Unreal Engine
or something.

Otherwise, we’d just have to get random shots of the room from the movie and piece some empty background shots together.

Yeah, despite my own gripes with the score, I go back and listen to it a lot this past year, even more than the other scores. I catch my self going back to The Spark and The Last Jedi a lot. Luke emerging from the base and then later when it is revealed he is still on Ach-To are such great moments. I like listening to Ach-To Island, The Supremacy and New Alliance a lot too.

I was a little surprised there wasn’t a Ben/Rey theme. A theme could still show up in the last film, but I imagine it will be some kind of play on Rey and Kylo’s theme, maybe.

Yeah I get that. I’m hoping that since IX will probably be mostly focused on all the new characters, Williams be more focused on their newer themes, now that Luke and Leia will probably have limited screen time.

Yeah, a common complain I’ve heard is that Williams uses the Force theme a little too much in TLJ.
Honestly though, I wonder if we would feel differently about the ST scores if they were performed by the London Symphony Orchestra rather than a freelance orchestra. Like is is just orchestra size, the way they mix the music, or is it just Williams? I mean, no one can really help it if he can’t travel for health reasons, but it would have been nice to have had the LSO do all nine films.

Sure, sure, I can totally understand if you’re seeing a relation between something in the movies with your own experiences, I totally won’t argue you with that. Also sorry you’ve had to deal with that in the past.

The way I’ve seen Kylo and Rey’s relationship is that Kylo actually does care for Rey, he has compassion for her, but I think he still cares about himself and what he wants more. And if he hurt her in VIII, it wasn’t because he wanted to hurt her. I’ll admit in my own experiences, I have been the one to hurt people I cared about in the past because I was thinking about myself more than about them. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but my choices made it happen regardless.

Anyway, I don’t know how it will be resolved in IX, but I think keeping an open mind and just letting JJ take us along for this last ride might be the best way to enjoy the experience. And definitely after the movie comes out, we’ll have to have another conversation about what happens!

Huh, I didn’t notice it in your first version, but that little “Force” sound you added when Han grabs the saber really helps sell it.

You can kinda still hear the background music in one of Leia’s lines, and it’d be nice if that “too much Vader” line could fade out more.

A few other things, it looks kinda weird to me how he opens his mouth. I guess it is meant to be like he is about to say something, but I might cut that a little shorter, because it feels slightly jarring to me. Maybe don’t have his mouth open so wide? Not really sure.

Also, I can think there should be a lot more space between the “Vader” line and Kylo stabbing him. I’m guessing it is meant to be like Kylo’s instant reaction, but I kind of think it would be nice to keep a little bit of that tension the original had, where we are just sitting there waiting for the worst to happen. So maybe a less of a gap between Han’s two lines. Let them be a little closer together. I also think you shouldn’t use that shot of their hands tightening on the saber until after the light disappears and Kylo starts doubting Han. Because from what I understand, what he first hears about Leia is positive, but then when he hears Han’s words, it is negative, so maybe after he hears Han’s first lines (or both) then you can cut to that shot. Just my two cents though. The way you have done the room darkening looks really good too by the way!

A documentary would be interesting. At the moment though, I kind of picture a book that tries to collect as many sources as possible and try to put them in a relevant order, either when the information was spoken/written chronologically, and then relevant by subject. Kind of picture multiple quotes and quotations put in an order as if it was telling a story about a certain subject, with minimal interruptions by the editors of the book in order to avoid as much subjective framing as possible.

Then, at the end of each section or chapter, each editor could write their own summary of the information where they interpret it as they see it. But, let each editor share their own interpretation in order to keep primary sources, like interviews, tweets, book passages, somewhat separate from the editors’ subjective influence. That way reader’s can come to their own conclusions rather than the whole book being framed in a pro or anti-Disney/Lucasfilm light.

Sure, journalists are expected to be somewhat unbiased, but even professional journalists can be biased. Almost every article or news headline has been framed in some shape or form. And for something like this hypothetical Star Wars book, if it was being written/edited by amateurs, then showing some extra effort to keep the objective and subjective separate might lend a little credibility to the whole thing, rather than it being perceived as a project with ulterior motive to paint the new movies in a certain light.

These are cold, hard, objective opinions, Dom.

Lesser, this is a response to your comment!

I want to start off with what you said about Leia. I agree with you partially on that, but I actually think that Leia is having to deal with her unresolved atonement with her father through her son. Luke was not responsible for his Father being evil, so regardless of that, Leia is still having to deal with the complicated feelings of finding a way to forgive someone you love that has hurt you. And yeah, Leia might not feel as guilty as Luke does, but Leia does feel guilty for her son. In TFA, she blames it partially on Snoke and herself for sending Ben away in the first place. So she still feels a guilt of a mother who feels like she has failed at raising her son, and I think through this she is going to understand how to atone with her father as well.

When it comes to Reylo, and the idea of redemption in general, I think one has to keep in mind that the Saga is giving us themes through the lens of a fairy tale, so the drastic actions these characters take, like murder and torture, these are just analogous to the average, common mistakes and bad decisions we make in our everyday lives. But when these characters can be forgiven for things that seem really bad to us, it can make finding forgiveness for others for making more normal mistakes seems a lot easier in comparison.

So for example, Darth Vader can be seen as being metaphorical for the absent father, or even just a man who was not always the perfect father to his son. And Luke’s journey is about a boy whose idealized perception of his dad is shattered when he starts growing up and realizes his father is a flawed human being, just like everyone else. So, Luke’s story is a coming-of-age story, partially about a son forgiving his father for his mistakes and learning to love him despite that.

So we need to look at Kylo Ren in a similar way. Kylo is like a rebellious teenaged boy who has made a lot of stupid decisions that teenagers commonly make. He’s like the Biblical prodigal son. But 7 and 8 have also tried to show us that Kylo partially feels that his actions are justified because he thinks he has been abandoned and mistreated. He feels alone, and so does Rey. Yes, Rey and Kylo have fought and hurt each other, but that doesn’t negate the possibility of ever understanding each other. Have you never seen kids who have gotten into fist fights who end up being friends afterward?

And yeah, Rey is not going to fall in love with him after one fireside conversation, but since the interrogation in TFA, they have begun to see each others thoughts and feelings. This is exacerbated by the Force bond, and it appears that the moment they touched hands, it was like they were seeing all of themselves. It was like a Vulcan mind-meld, where they could, for the briefest moment, understand each other completely. Like two becoming one. To me, that is super powerful stuff, to imagine being flooded with the emotions of my enemy, momentarily empathizing with them in the purest way possible.

After that point, I think you could argue they can potentially know each more than even two lovers might.

But, I see where you’re coming from. Some people are concerned that Reylo reinforces the trope where the Girl who thinks “I Can Fix Him”, or the All Girls Want Bad Boys, Beauty and the Beast/Stockholme Syndrome trope.
Now, how this plays out depends on IX, but TLJ actually rejects this trope. For a point, Rey does think that if she does go to Kylo, that he will in fact turn back to the light. But, she turns out to be wrong. Rey being there was not enough to bring Kylo back to the good side. So, she leaves and, both literally and metaphorically, shuts the door on him. To a lot of people, this felt like Rey deciding that if Kylo/Ben is going to change, he has to be the one to initiate that change. Not her. She tried. And now, as Rian puts it in the commentary, they’re enemies, but complicated enemies.

And yeah, how they execute the last third of Kylo and Rey’s arcs in IX is going to determine its overall success, but I think it is naive for people to think that is just impossible for them to pull off a satisfying redemption, or even a satisfying relationship for the two of them. I think that just because you can’t imagine a scenario where it can work, doesn’t mean you should already accept that it can’t be done at all. They may have figured something out! It might be like what you’re imagining, or it might not! I think all that JJ and Chris wish is that people engage themselves with their story with an open mind and a willingness to be surprised.

I think it is just good to keep in mind that this Saga is about Hope, Redemption and Forgiveness, and while we shouldn’t compare a fairy tale 1:1 with reality, we should try to see how these themes can be applied to our own lives in order to benefit the relationships we have with others. I think that’s what they’re all about, in my opinion.

Also wanted to say I appreciate your civility, man! You didn’t come off as rude at all. I hope I don’t sound condescending either. If I do, I totally don’t mean to. This is just me trying to get out my own thoughts on it to share with you!

Sometimes I just laugh at the thought that we now live in a world where Star Wars fans are hungry for more George Lucas-made Star Wars movies. I’m not saying I wouldn’t want that, but after all the hate Lucas got after the prequels, there was a very vocal group of fans who thought Lucas had betrayed his own vision and felt he didn’t deserve to make them anymore, because he apparently didn’t understand who his fanbase was and what they wanted. Now, fans clamor for Lucas as if that era of vitriol in the fandom never happened. I personally think it is misguided to simply “give the fans what they want”, because I think fan consensus is a very fickle thing, as history has clearly shown.

And people could argue about this until their faces turn red, but no one’s opinion is going to change now. It’s just gonna take years to pass to really know how history is going to look back at all these movies.

The only way they will conceivably be remade is when Disney loses the copyright for the franchise, and it is a public domain IP.

But personally, I think the Saga is pretty great as it is. Its perceived imperfections are part of what makes them special, at least to me. Even if it was remade, no one will ever agree what is “proper” or not. Some might like the prequels or sequels remade, but then you would have a group of old timers who would see it as sacrilege to remake the original trilogy. It can never be done more “properly” than as it is now, so it will never satisfy everyone, in my opinion. With that in mind, why not try to appreciate the films for what they are?

Now saying that, I think it would be cool to eventually have comic book adaptions or new novels of the whole saga made in the context of the whole saga, with some slight liberties made to make the episodes more cohesive, possibly. But new movies that are just remakes of the old movies? Everyone who was alive when the OT was released would have to be dead before I can fathom that actually happening, when it is not as sacred anymore.

They might make animated adaptations of the films for very young kids, but they will never remake any movie in the Skywalker Saga.

Well it looks like to me they are pushing the standalone film ideas to the streaming service as multi-episode shows, and for actual movies it will just be multiple-film series, or trilogies, like B&W’s project and Rian’s trilogy apparently are. I personally doubt we will get anymore anthology films on the silver screen in the near future.

I wanted to get some thoughts from people regarding a slightly more radical edit idea for Revenge of the Sith.

VegetableMan brought up this idea, that may have been briefly suggested before, to have Anakin’s mission to Mustafar be to hunt down a group of surviving Jedi rather than the remaining Separatists leaders. There’s a few reasons why I think this could benefit the film, but mainly I think it would be a way for the audience to actually see Darth Vader “help the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights”.

First of all, who would be interested in an edit like this? You don’t have to read anything else, at the very least I would appreciate on hearing your interest in this!

I’m just going to try and quickly outline the necessary changes to make this work, or at least my interpretation:

• Cut General Grievous’ line about sending the Separatists leaders to Mustafar and “your ship awaits”. This way, it just seems like he is having a meeting with the leaders about keeping them safe, and then dismissed them from the meeting. Now, we can assume the leaders just get captured by the Clones a few minutes later. That ends the Separatist plot.

• Cut Sidious telling Anakin to “go to the Mustafar system” and wipe out the Separatist leaders.

• Somewhere between that scene and when Anakin meets Padmé, reuse the scene of Anakin contacting Palpatine from Mustafar through hologram for a new scene where a Republic/Imperial Officer contacts Palpatine to inform him that a group of Jedi have been spotted on Mustafar. Something along those lines. Now the audience knows, and Sidious just relays this info to Anakin offscreen.

• When Anakin sees Padmé after the attack, cut Anakin dialogue to say something like, “The Chancellor has given me a very important mission- on the Mustafar system”. Anakin still needs to tell Padmé he is going to Mustafar, but we need to remove mention of the Separatists. You could even make it “Jedi have gathered on the Mustafar system”, but that might be too much info to give Padmé at this point.

• Biggest thing, cut/replace all shots of the Separatists leaders on Mustafar with new shots of Jedi.

I wanted to quickly touch on what would be needed to do this:

1. You need Jedi costumes and actors, maybe around 5. As well as an Imperial/Republic Officer costume/extra.
2. You would need an Anakin outfit and body double who will be concealed by a hood. Maybe not the whole outfit, but at least a robe, a glove and Anakin’s lightsaber.
3. You would need to shoot various standing, fighting, dead body shots in front of a green screen. I know that I personally have access to a studio location where these can be shot. Alternatively, if each person had their own green screen they could shoot in front of, simple shots possibly could be stitched together usings quick cuts and limited movement. Anakin could be shot last in an attempt to match some of them.
4. New green screen plates would need to be made of the Mustafar “war room”.

While I know the new shoots are at least theoretically possible, I feel like one of the harder things for it would be to make new plates of the war room itself. I think it would be a bit of work to remove the Separatists from a lot of those shots, since a lot of them move quite a bit. I was thinking that maybe later shots of the room when it is empty, and when Anakin/Obi-Wan fight through it, could be used instead to create bits and pieces of empty backgrounds for that sequence. Not only that, but even if you were to make some usable stills, you still have to worry about the motion graphics on the screens as well as the hologram tables.

I personally think this would be the biggest challenge. If I had to guess, you’re talking about plates for an estimated screentime of about 30-seconds to 1 minute, based off cutting to how this movie currently is. Maybe you could make it shorter. That isn’t including shots of their dead bodies, but that would be a matter of throwing Jedi bodies on top of theirs, and erasing whatever is left.

The only alternative I could think of would be if a model of the room could be remade using something like Unreal Engine (or we just had Anakin turn off the lights before the fight starts!)

I would like to know how reasonable these ideas are, and what direction you think we should approach it at. This is especially geared toward people who are kinda vfx savvy.

And again, would love to hear who all would be interested in seeing something like this. I do think this could be possible, but for all the necessary planning, it would be nice to know how others felt about it. Because if people don’t think it is a good idea, it probably won’t be worth the trouble.