RogueLeader

Yeah I think Palpatine’s plan is a worthy discussion to have too.

At one point I considered a potentially option could be something like this:

Palpatine knows Kylo wants Rey (everything with Snoke proved that), so when they meet on Exegol he tells Kylo, “You shall rule all the galaxy as the new Emperor… and Empress…” This gets Kylo to lower his weapon and listen to what Palpatine has to say. And maybe he even tells Kylo his plans to possess her, saying it is the only way he can have her. But Kylo doesn’t want Rey to lose her soul, so he does what he can to prevent her from going to Exegol. Maybe he knows the healing abilities of the Force dyad at this point, or maybe he doesn’t.

Alternatively, and sticking closer to the theatrical, this is another way you can do it:

Palpatine, whose experiment with immortality seems to be slowly failing, offers Kylo Ren to be his successor, maybe even telling him that he has groomed him for this role. That it is his destiny.
But to prove his resolve, he has to kill Rey. But Kylo has had a vision of Rey on the Sith throne. He know Palpatine isn’t telling him everything, and it’s true. Palpatine sees Rey and Kylo fighting as a win/win scenario. Whoever doesn’t die, he can seduce and possess. Palpatine just isn’t aware that their Force bond has the power to actually resurrect him. This basically how Ascendent has it I think, and the the theatrical film as far as I recall, just maybe not as clear as it could be.

Another thing I find interesting is reading the leaks of an earlier version of the film. It seemed like at one point in production, Palpatine was going to appear very weak/frail when Kylo encountered him, maybe even on his death bed. Palpatine was going to tell Kylo about the dyad, and that he wants Kylo and Rey to rule together as a Sith power couple basically. And it seemed that Palpatine was aware that their Force bond had the power to resurrect him (kept that info form
Kylo obviously), and bringing them both to Exegol was his goal from the beginning. I’m guessing they chose not to go that route because they didn’t want Kylo to just be following Palpatine’s orders, or having Palpatine tell Kylo to bring Rey to Exegol would parallel ROTJ too much.

I guess another issue you have with Palpatine wanting Rey to come to Exegol is that you’d think if Palpatine could speak to Kylo in his head, he could basically telegraph to Rey where she could get a Wayfinder in order to come to him. At least by going with the option of Palpatine wants Kylo to kill Rey, you can argue he wants them to fight each other in order to determine which would be the stronger candidate as his new vessel/successor.

This could be good. I also had the idea of maybe Kylo saying that if Rey kills him, she’ll fall and join Palpatine. Like he saw her kill him in a vision, which would be surprising to Rey. So when she almost kills Kylo, it’s what triggers her to go to Ahch-To. So kinda similar to your idea, but a little more big picture with destroying the Skywalkers in general.

I might try to see if I have time to mess with the scene and make clean audio for people to insert dialogue into. If we wanted to replicate the audio 1:1, the new dialogue would need to echo into the other channels. But I could at least make clean channels and then once dialogue is decided, those lines could be added to the other channels.

EddieDean said:

Yeah, those are all good points. I don’t imagine this as a Rey Nobody edit, so much as a 'Rey Somebody but it makes a bit more sense and we don’t have to think about Palpatine having sex’ edit.

Lol this mental image has haunted me ever since 2019 and has been driving me this whole time.

hinventon said:

Yeah, I think making a clean Rey nobody version as a base is a good idea first. Then we can use it to make some more radical ideas. The Rey nobody version of ascendant is honestly pretty good on its own so I’m not sure what else needs to be done to get this clean version. Is there anything not present in that version that we would like to add without adding any more complex storylines?

One thing Spence did (and did well) was heavily trim the hangar duel scene to cut out existing dialogue related to Rey Palpatine. I think now with the voice AI stuff, we could potentially redo the audio for this scene and add some new dialogue. Just generally making the scene feel less edited and more seamless by padding it out more to something a little more closer to the theatrical version.

I also think it wouldn’t hurt to revisit the current Rey Nobody version and see if everything makes sense narratively, or if we could make some changes that will help the whole thing make more sense.

It is crazy to think about, isn’t it? Think about how many headaches we had trying to piece new dialogue together.

But I will say I am pretty happy with how things are now. We can change dialogue where it is narratively necessary for what we’re trying to do, and I think being limited by just off-screen or masked dialogue is a good creative constraint.

Maybe you should just considering revisiting the film for new versions every so often rather than we have a new batch of ideas we can implement. Just wait a year, then implement whatever new ideas are ready to go.

I don’t think I suggested that a few pages back, but I’m sure I’ve suggested a similar idea in the past. Since Palpatine mentioned in ROTS that Plagueis had the power to create life, and it was never confirmed that Anakin was created by Plagueis (it seems like the Force created Anakin on its own, or the very least as a response to what the Sith were doing), perhaps Rey could be like an anti-Chosen One. A perfect vessel created by Palpatine.

Just a question to think about though. Does any alternate version where Rey is somehow inherently special/unique sort of defeat the purpose of a Rey Nobody edit? Based on TLJ, the only thing that makes Rey significant is her natural talent and connection with Kylo. She doesn’t have some kind of special destiny. So if you make Rey a product of Palpatine’s machinations, whether she is his descendant, his creation, his pupil, etc., you’re just replacing one thing that contradicts the message of TLJ with another.

And again, if you’re talking about canon, would making something close to “Rey Palpatine” but not “granddaughter Palpatine” be more contradictory to canon than just just bringing it up at all? If you make her whole dilemma in TROS be based on her visions of the future rather than her past, her self-doubt, etc., you don’t have to contradict her canon backstory. You’re just omitting it, and then the audience can fill in the gaps however they want, Rey Palpatine or not.

I see what you’re saying about maybe coming up with some solution so if she is referred to as a Palpatine or Palpatine’s granddaughter in future content it could still make sense, but honestly don’t you think we’d edit that stuff anyway if it gets brought up again? At this point we don’t even know if/how it will be relevant in future content. There also is a risk that these alternate backstories could make addressing narrative hiccups even more complicated if you’re worried about potentially contradicting future content.

Again, I’m not saying “my way is the right way”, just genuinely trying to brainstorm a solid option. Like I said, I’m sure I suggested Rey as a new “chosen one” or “anti-chosen one” at some point in the past, a part of me still finds it appealing! But another problem with all of these ideas is that everyone is gonna have different opinions on if they like this alternate backstory, or that alternate backstory. Because we’re having to make a new origin story for Rey almost whole-cloth, using only what we’re visually given in TROS as a skeleton, you could see how people would have different opinions about these ideas.

This is, again, a benefit of just trying to nail a version of Rey Nobody that doesn’t try to replace the Rey Palpatine reveal with some other backstory alternative. Rey’s worries about her future vision and her concerns with her ability to actually control her power are already there, so maybe we should beef that up instead. It doesn’t contradict anything because that narrative stuff is already there, it’s just sharing runtime with all of the Rey Palpatine stuff.

Still kind of have the issue where her good parents chose Unkar Plutt of all people to protect(?) their daughter.

Perhaps they kidnapped Rey from Palpatine to try and ransom her for even more money/influence and things went south? Maybe Ochi was wanting to do the same thing too, so Rey ended up lost due to everyone’s greed?

Regardless, I feel like these ideas have 2 issues. 1) They feel very exposition-heavy. Kylo just delivers A LOT of backstory that we mostly don’t see. Is it really compelling?
2) These last two versions both still contradict TLJ. I know Hal’s version of TLJ cut some of these lines but to reiterate:
“They were filthy junk traders, who sold you for drinking money. Dead, in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert.”

If you show the flashbacks of her “good” parents, it directly contradicts the idea that her parents sold her for drinking money, which is stated in the text of the previous film, and it is never addressed why Kylo said this despite it not being true. Did Snoke/Palpatine deceive him? If you’re gonna directly contradict what was stated in TLJ, I feel like it should be directly addressed, not left for assumption. Or edit TLJ so it isn’t stated. But if your someone who likes that reveal in TLJ, that wouldn’t be really satisfying.

Just throwing out another option, if you wanted to go with an idea that doesn’t contradict TLJ at all, I think I would cut the parent flashbacks in TROS, and make Rey’s whole dilemma be revolve her natural power vs her ability to control it. Throughout the film she hurts, or almost hurts, people she cares about because she loses control of her powers. Maybe her Jedi training isn’t enough to control her dark side. So Palpatine/Kylo can offer her mastery of her power, to protect her friends, and she struggles with the choice she has to make.

Here is a version of the Force bond duel and the hangar with this in mind.

Kylo: Wherever you are, you’re hard to find.

Rey: You’re hard to get rid of.

Kylo: I pushed you in the desert because you needed to see it. You have power, but can’t control it. Not without me. Rey.

Rey: You’re lying.

Kylo: You know it’s true. Your friends aren’t safe around you.

Rey: Don’t.

Kylo: You know what will happen to them. I’ve been in your head.

Rey: I don’t want this!

Kylo: Search your feelings!

Rey: No!

Kylo: Don’t deny it! Accept it!

Kylo: If you can’t control the dark side-

Rey: Stop talking!

Kylo: -it will control you.

Kylo: Tell me where you are, I’ll help you.

Kylo: If you face Palpatine on your own, without embracing who you are, you will not succeed. And your friends will all be destroyed.

Rey: No!

Kylo: So that’s where you are.

Kylo: You know what will happen if you face him alone.

Rey: No.

Kylo: I’ll come tell you.

Kylo: Rey, I saw what you will become. I know the rest of your story.
Rey: Tell me.
Kylo: He’ll offer you the power to save the ones you love, and you’ll sell your soul to protect them. You will join Palpatine, and take the throne. But it isn’t too late. I feel the pull to the light. And you, the darkness. We’re a dyad in the Force, Rey. Two that are one. We’ll bring true balance, together. You know it’s the only way. You know.

So really you’re playing a similar angle that Palpatine played with Anakin and with Luke in the other films, but it is built on the foundation of the insecurities that have been established for Rey. And I think this angle is the most believable as far as if the audience even partially believes it could happen. Palpatine used the same “save the ones you love” argument with Anakin, and it worked.

Another benefit to this is it actually contradicts canon the least out of any option we could go with. Rey could still be a Palpatine for all we know. That potential backstory is just simply never brought up. The identity of Palpatine’s granddaughter died with Ochi, basically. If you still want to believe that. And as far as the Ochi’s ship issue goes, you can either ignore it, change the ship in the TFA vision to a different ship or different shot, or recontextualize it as a vision of Ochi’s ship in the future (associated with her friends/future family) rather than her parent’s ship.

Maybe this reveal isn’t as big of a reveal as some other options, but it’s possible we could also edit the hangar scene to feel less like a “big reveal” moment if it felt necessary.

Whenever I mess with TROS again myself, I may just try to rebuild the SFX for the Force bond duel and the hangar scene and share them. That way, we could just have a version of those scenes so anyone can insert whatever dialogue they want into those scenes, trim it however they want, etc.
Might be the best way to test some of these ideas out.

Nev, I do like the new lines. There is a cool Moses parallel with Rey being the child that survived a purge to avoid a prophecy from coming true.

I will say that I think you summarized my thoughts pretty well at one points: What do we want to communicate? Or, what idea is the most important to us to convey?

What is the goal of the Rey Nobody edit? To stick as close to canon as possible except making Rey a Palpatine, or maintain Rey Nobody concept as it was revealed/established in TLJ?

To me, an important aspect of the TLJ reveal wasn’t just that her parents were nobodies, but that they also didn’t care about her. I think with a lot of suggested Rey Nobody options, it still retcons the reveal that her parents were shitty people and makes them martyrs for Rey’s survival. So a part of me feels going with this type of option only half-succeeds at the potential goal. An alternative that people who wanted to sees TROS as a proper follow up to TLJ won’t be 100% satisfied with (what TROS edit would be though?)

Yes, that may mean you have to alter more of TROS, but I think that brings the conversation back to what we are wanting to communicate. What is more important, details related to plot, or related to character? If it is character, then I think it is worth changing plot details, like Ochi’s ship and Rey’s parents’ ship being the same ship. I personally have trouble believing that if Rey’s parents cared enough about her to die for her, they would choose Unkar Plutt, of all people, to take care of her. Why would they sell her? It still doesn’t make a lot of sense in the theatrical version.

To me, Rey being on the same planet as the Falcon is best left as a coincidence. Maybe Rey wasn’t actually inherently gifted or powerful with the Force from birth, but when the lightsaber called to her in TFA, when she connected to Kylo’s mind, when she began believing in the Force, the Force awakened in her. Maybe the Force chose her during the events of TFA. To me, something like this gels better with the whole point of making a Rey Nobody edit in the first place.

But again, I guess it depends on what the priorities are when it comes to this type of edit. Story vs canon, ease vs difficulty, etc.

A part of me wonders if an edit that goes “Your parents were no one, BUT…” doesn’t wholly commit to the Rey Nobody concept of TROS being a film that feels like a follow-up to TLJ in a way that doesn’t contradict it. A part of me worries of any version of Kylo’s lines/monologue that is related to previously unknown information about her past will feel like a conversation that should’ve happened in the last movie. To avoid that, I think you could go the route of Kylo’s goading and reveal being related to Rey’s future and not her past. With the way TLJ ends, it makes me think it wanted Episode IX to leave Rey’s origins behind. There’s nothing important there. What’s important is who she is now and who she chooses to become.

With all that said, I do like what you’ve suggested Nev and see the benefits to this option. I mean you would just really change Kylo’s dialogue, and wouldn’t have to make a lot of cuts. Again, a lot of the ideas people throw out are good. I even flip flop on which ideas I like the best. Since we have Nev’s creative mind and others brainstorming ideas I thought it would be worth bringing this up again. I just thought it would be worth having this conversation again.

Right, that’s sort of the idea. It seems foolhardy either way going back to that crew. I know it was cut for Ascendant but Zorii says he wants to blow Poe’s brains out, which feels fitting if he was actually a rat or undercover cop, basically. The sentiment that she wants to kill him is there regardless.

I’m not typically one to care for canon, but all the novels and comics before TROS established that Poe was a New Republic pilot before he left to join the Resistance. Zorii’s line contradicts that, and leaves no room for that to still make sense. You could keep the same line, but have Zorii say, “-left to join the Republic”. I’d be happy with even that little change.
Or, maybe Zorii just found out Poe was working undercover, rather than Poe having somehow screwed up their operation.

I get what Terrio was going for, giving all of our heroes a shady past, but it just hadn’t been established that way at all for Poe up until that movie. And it is kinda weird to have the Latino character turn out to be a drug runner imo. Having him be undercover sort of mitigates that.

I mean, if you’re trying to stick to as close to canon as possible, then I definitely think the angle you’re going for would be great. I think if you’re going with that approach, I would play around with the trying stick the dialogue as close to the original as possible, and save the “reveal” of her being sold/adopted by Palpatine until the actual hangar scene.

For a “Rey killed her parents” angle, I wouldn’t worry about canon and just make Ochi’s ship and her parents ship 2 different ships.

I could potentially help with a final version of/when it comes to that.

I worry the Rey backstory stuff could be too complicated. A positive of this version would be that you could keep the movie as close to the theatrical version as possible but still make Rey not a Palpatine, or at least not one by blood.

On the other hand, you still have some retroactive issues, like her parents having a change of heart and being good or whatever.

I like this quote of your’s Nev:

We already know from the OT that having an evil relative doesn’t matter, so it doesn’t really matter if Rey is a Palpatine or not. But what does matter is a person’s training and their actions, especially in regard to the Dark Side.

This is why I do sort of keep coming back to “Rey killed her parents”. It doesn’t really contradict the last 2 films, and it stills makes it so Rey doesn’t have an important backstory. Plus her own actions in the past define her potential destiny, not her parentage. Makes it different, but not convoluted. Your general audience member would understand it.

I think making the Sith Throne a “secret” that doesn’t really get spelled out until the climax could potentially leave the audience confused. I think it is a safer bet to make it clear early on in the film that the throne is the source of Palpatine’s power to cheat death. Then, at the end of the film, you could decide how you want to clarify how Rey decides to destroy it. The voices of the Jedi tell her, internal monologue, something. Does Rey really need a connection to Palpatine beyond the power he offers? It’s not like Rey briefly being his adopted child is going to make the audience think that she actually might join him more than any other option.

I guess it does give you the angle of “Rey has been trained” if you want to try and address that question.

So, putting simply, her backstory would be this: Rey’s parents were followers of Palpatine. They gave up Rey to be trained as a Sith and eventually be Palpatine’s heir/apprentice, but they had a change of heart and ran away with her. They hid her, then got caught and killed. The trauma of Rey’s abandonment made her forget everything.

It could be interesting if Palpatine tried to manipulate her, and say that her parents took her away from having a better life than they did. Hmm.

Speaking of Rey killing her parents, didn’t Palpatine also kill his own parents in Legends?

EDIT: I will say the toughest thing about the Rey Palpatine/Nobody stuff is deciding on an angle and the dialogue. If some kind of consensus could be made on that, I don’t think it would be so hard to actually make the scenes with the dialogue. Just need some brainstorming to come up with something.

All good points!

NeverarGreat said:

All potentially good ideas, y’all.

JEDIT: That’s a nice line from Leia! I may stick that in and see how it works 😃

I’ve just personally tried to distance myself from using visions as a way to solve problems in an edit since the vision-heavy early days of Starlight, since to me it now feels somewhat artificial, like the hand of the editor is reaching through the screen to tell the viewer what to think and feel rather than allowing the story to unfold naturally. Often, when it feels like we need a vision to explain something, that may mean that this thing should have been established earlier but it wasn’t. An ounce of prevention and all of that.

So it feels like Han’s voice comes out of nowhere in this fight, and it does. Can we foreshadow this earlier in the film?

Possibly. We have already established that Palpatine is ‘every voice’ inside Ben’s head. Later he communes with Vader’s helmet and Palpatine again speaks to him, urging him to kill Rey.

But since Kylo has already been told that Palpatine is every voice in his head, why would he bother trying to commune with the helmet again? It could be that he desperately wants to hear a voice from his family, only for Palpatine to say something like “Vader cannot help you. From the beginning, your only teacher was me.”

Or even, what if he put his hand on the mask and had no visions, but rather heard only Palpatine’s mocking laughter? That way he reforges the mask out of despair of hearing any other voice in his head, all the way until he is about to kill Rey, then realizes that there is another voice in there, one not bound by the Force or visions. It is merely his memory of his father that gets to him, something that Palpatine can never silence. For this, I think it would make sense for Kylo to have no visions of Han prior to this in the film, but for Palpatine to continue saying that there can be no other voices in Kylo’s head but his own.

Just some stream of consciousnesses thoughts about this post.

Could we reuse the scene of Palpatine threatening to turn his fleet on Kylo after failing to capture Rey, and instead have Kylo be hearing/recollecting the conversation he had with his father in TFA?
“Take off that mask”
“-using you for your power.”
“When he gets what he wants he’ll crush you.”
“You know it’s true.”

Or, perhaps we could intercut these lines with the existing lines from Palpatine. The idea being Han is the voice of Ben’s conscience, and it is trying to break through Palpatine’s influence. It could be subtle maybe.

Having a moment of Kylo feeling “The pull to the light” would be a nice juxtaposition to the scene immediately preceding this one, where Rey says, “I’m going to find Palpatine, and DESTROY him”, especially if you have a version of the hangar/duel convo where Kylo basically says something like, “You need Palpatine’s power to save your friends, so you will kill him and take his power.” Finn gets bad vibes from Rey saying she’s gonna destroy Palpatine, so maybe Rey’s starting to accept the temptation at this point, as Kylo is on the flip side of things.

Sorry in advance but I just buzzed through the comments to chime in on my initial thoughts after watching some of the preview.

My immediately thought was also to have Han from TFA yelling “Ben!”. A part of me always like the idea of Ben stopping himself from killing Rey, rather than Leia kind of interrupting him. Yeah, in this case Han is interrupting him, but it isn’t actually Han: It’s Ben. Ben’s conscience. And like JarJar mentioned, it’s his conscious being like, “Don’t make the same mistake.”

Also, I feel like there needs to be a shot between Ben stopping himself, and when he turns around. It just feels off continuity-wise putting those two shots back to back. I wonder if you could potentially add his saber to the shot where it should be, and continue him lowering it down as it is in the first shot. Or, show/hear it deactivate, since the next time we see his saber, it is deactivated.

My initial thought was to cut to just one shot from TFA, like a shot of Han on the catwalk, OR, the shot of Kylo walking on the catwalk and hear Han’s voice and suddenly stops (as if he is mentally in that moment again). OR, the shot of Han gently brushing his cheek after he stabs him. I know it isn’t typical filmmaking language for Star Wars to do that, just flashing back to a memory. But, TLJ does it, and the Han/Ben scene in TROS is also atypical for Star Wars visual language. So these aren’t hard or fast rules.

Alternatively, perhaps you could reuse that shot of Kylo emerging from that giant wave. But slow it down to match the speed of Kylo’s head turn shot, and adjust it so you don’t see Kylo or his saber emerging from the shot, just hint of a shadow perhaps. Just feels like there needs to be a shot between those two shots of Kylo.

My initial thought for the Maz line was in agreement with you, “To save her son-“, feels clear but also not too exposition-y.

It seems like you guys arrived at the same conclusion, but I was also going to say that we could cut to that silhouette shot of Leia to give her a new line to say to Rey.

I don’t know if you have looked on sherlockpotter’s page at all for his TROS: Untold edit, but he reached a similar conclusion with Leia channeling her life Force through Rey to save Ben. I thought his line choices for Leia sounded good, but I feel like you’ve come to a happy medium between Leia intervening, but not being the factor that interrupts him.

After initially watching your first test, I kind of imagined the line being something simple, like, “Help me, Rey.” (ala, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi”). For his version, Sherlock used the line, “We can still save him” which I thought was a natural way to imply what is happening. Feels right, not fan-edity. The only other line I could imagine you could use make it even clearer would be something like, “Let it flow through you”, or, “Let it flow. From me. To you.” Or even something like, “We can still save him. From me. To you.” Idk, some different ideas. There is definitely a risk of saying too much, but I think you can stroke a fine balance. I think you could still utilize all of the Leia shots (maybe not the medallion one? Feels like it implies she was behind the Han vision almost). Show her laying down, maybe as the “healing” is occurring. I also don’t think you need any glowing effect happening at the wound. Less might be more here.

Anyway, I really dig this. It just makes more sense that Kylo getting stabbed is the thing that Leia senses, even if you argue that she is sensing it is about to happen which is fine too or whatever I guess. Just think it hits better when it is: Stab. Leia stunned. Speaking of which, it would be a nice touch if we could hear Leia gasp, or hear her breath get heavy in the moment she senses it. A moment of breathtaking shock.

And I also love how this allows the factor stopping Kylo from killing Rey being his own conscience, rather than Leia stopping him.

I’ll get on those audio files when I can JarJar. Also if anyone hasn’t checked out SherlockPotter’s edit thread go check it out!

I do remember awhile back going on a few different forums on various sites to see what people were saying about Ascendent, and I do recall the Force ghosts being brought up a little. I think I even remember one specific comment saying it would’ve been perfect if the ghosts appeared, but didn’t raise their hands and actually “helped” Rey in the physical fight. Just that they were there for moral/spiritual support. To be fair, we don’t know if that is actually all they’re doing anyway, but the raised hands do imply they are passing some kind of energy to her I guess. Then again, some people complained that Rey managed to kill Palpatine WITHOUT any help, so it’s to each their own after a certain point.

I think it makes sense that Luke could’ve told Leia after he became a ghost since passing knowledge was established in the OT.

Nev, I’m commenting on that in the other thread.

I don’t think there needs to be a ton of new lines setting up characters/plot points in TLJ. This might be a better convo for the General edit ideas thread instead of here, but I personally think the Max union dispute business, for example, should be cut from TLJ, and make it so she is just fighting the First Order on a different front. She goes on and on about how they needed to fight the First Order in TFA, but then she just settling a union dispute in the next movie? I think it makes a lot more sense if she is just busy fighting the First Order somewhere else. It seems like a part of the reason no one is helping the Resistance is because their allies have either surrendered or are already busy repelling the First Order blitzkrieg on other fronts. So I think the less we set up certain things the more modular this edit can be with other edits. It just depends.

Made some notes I took after watching your edits a few times. Hope you don’t mind me sharing here!

• Overall, I don’t think I noticed any technical issues at all.
• I did notice a little bit of the original music bleeding through at the beginning of episode 2, when Cassian has the headphones on and is heading the rebel chatter inside the U-Wing. May be unnoticeable to most, I’ve just watched this scene a lot and recognize the music.
• When I rewatched episode 1 on my phone at max volume, I noticed the sound of bats chirping a lot during in the scenes at Saw’s base. Sort of noticeable/distracting but not terrible.
• I feel like the added shots during the rebel briefing do stick out a little.
• I am overall impressed by your music choices. I thought the music choice when Jyn and Cassian arrived to Jedha was pretty inspired, since the music has a slight “Arabia” vibe, which is appropriate considered Jedha was filmed in Wadi Rum. I also really loved the music choices for Galen’s death, and Cassian’s speech till the end of that episode. Really great.
• I don’t know if Mon Mothma really has a “theme” in the Season 1 Soundtrack, but I think having a track like that play when Bail and Mon speak would be an appropriate place to have it play. The scene feels a little incomplete with no music at all.
• I think you’ve done an impressive job emulating the original score with Brittell’s work at times, and overall giving it the Andor vibe. I will say that I initially felt some of the music choices didn’t have the same “emotional weight” as the original tracks, like Your Father Would be Proud. I have rewatched bits and pieces of the episodes on my phone during and those moments that initially had less impact than the theatrical have grown on me more.
• I do believe it might be better if this edit was “final” until after Andor Season 2, in case more favorable music options become available, or other plot details arise that may need to be straightened in the off chance there are any discrepancies.
• It did seem like the new SFX when Jyn turns her head back and forth while walking away from Chirrut the first time they meet seemed a little loud.
• I may be wrong but I think I noticed you re-inserted Chirrut’s line, “Is your foot alright?” between V1 and V2. I don’t have strong feelings either way about it but I’m curious why you decided to add it back in.
• Also, I wonder if Chirrut’s staff hitting the troopers could be given a little more umph here and there. Sometimes it sounds like he is tapping them pretty lightly instead of hitting them so hard he is knocking them out.
• Not necessary, but since we see a crashed X-Wing in the city but no context for it, maybe you could add some subtle X-Wing and TIE Fighter sounds during the street skirmish to at least set it up subtly.
• You may interested, but I know there is an unused shot of the little girl Jyn saved looking up in the sky when the Star Destroyer is leaving that you could re-add to this version of the film if you wanted. There are a few other unused shots that could be useful here and there as well.
• An opportunity for this edit: In the Partisan prison cell, Cassian says, “This is the first for me” in regards to being “worst cages than this”. This feels a little contradictory knowing that he has been in some pretty bad cages. You could argue he is being deceptive about his past, or being sarcastic, but I feel like with the added context of Andor, it would be better to alter this line to, “This isn’t the first for me” if possible.
• I think if this was a movie edit, I would suggest removing all Bodhi scenes before Cassian finds him (and you removed all but one already), but with this episode format I wonder how it would feel if the following Bodhi scene when he meets Saw was back-to-back with his first scene. You could still cut the Bor Gullet scene, but maybe you could subtitle Saw when he says Bor Gullet, and it could mean, “Torture him.” Or something like that, to explain why Bodhi is in a daze when Cassian finds him.

Anyway, excellent work. This is like a dream come true honestly. I’m so happy you put in all of this effort to make this.

If you’re interested, here is a brief bullet point synopsis of the story changes I was planning to make:

• Jyn wasn’t abandoned by Saw. She abandoned him (and the Rebellion). This creates a stronger juxtaposition between Jyn and Cassian’s characters.
• The Rebels don’t know Bodhi was sent by Galen. They know about Galen’s involvement with the Death Star project, but all they know about the pilot is that he is a whistleblower that might have evidence of the project. Jyn’s initial mission is just to rescue the pilot, not find her father.
• The Rebels offer Jyn a brand new identity so she can restart her life with a clean slate if she agrees to the mission.
• A new dream sequence during the trip to Jedha showing flashes of Jyn’s time with Saw’s rebels establishing their questionable methods.
• Chirrut “senses” Jyn rescuing the local girl during the Jedha City skirmish, establishing a clearer reason why Chirrut chooses to save them a few scenes later.
• Jyn reveals that the last time Saw saw her was when he gave her orders to kill an Imperial officer’s family.
• Galen’s message is now a “reveal” because we didn’t know he had sent the pilot.
• At the end of the message, the hologram starts to become distorted and we don’t hear the name of the planet the Death Star plans are on.
• When they’re rushing to leave Saw’s base, Cassian tells Baze/Chirrut they can come with them if they get the pilot while he finds Jyn.
• On the U-Wing, we get a brief off-screen line or two from Bodhi and Baze establishing their motivations for joining the cause.
• The crew is initially heading back to Yavin IV, but it is Jyn’s idea to find her father so they can find out where the Death Star plans are.
• General Draven allows the change of plans, but now that they know the weapon works, he doesn’t trust Galen and orders Cassian to kill him.
• Before he dies, Galen tells Jyn the plans are on Scarif.
• On their approach to Yavin IV, repurpose Jyn holding her mother’s necklace on the stolen shuttle into a new sequence where Jyn remembers her mother and father (taken from Jyn’s original dream sequence from earlier), with some new elements to help establish her motivation for delivering her heartfelt speech to the Rebel Council in the following scene.
• Potentially use cut shots of Cassian to establish him in the room listening while Jyn is speaking to the council.
• During the Scarif battle, the only thing I would change would be that the Rogue One crew needs to tell the rebel fleet that they need to take down the shield gate AND lower their own shields in order to receive the transmission. Passing through energy shields would corrupt the data files. This makes all of the effort the crew makes into getting a signal to the fleet less redundant, since the fleet was already trying to take out the shield gate.
• Make 2 endings: First, mostly the same but where we don’t see Darth Vader at all until the hallway scene. Second, no Vader hallway scene but we get one glimpse of his back. It also establishes that the disabled flagship is sending a transmission to another system and they’re tracking its trajectory. Movie ends where A New Hope begins.

I have mapped out already how I would make these changes work (with new lines, for example, some would be AI generated while others would be unused lines or frankenbites). I also have some ideas of useful alternative shots that could be used throughout the film. I can totally understand if you want keep this edit pretty similar to the original film beyond a few trims, but I’d love get a version of this with the music separate if you wouldn’t mind sharing.

Regardless, thanks for all of your hard work and sharing with us!

I was curious how much you were able to achieve with just score isolation and how much re-foleying you’ve had to do. Has it been a lot or mostly touches here and there?

And sure! I can share some ideas I’ve written down. I actually made a rough edit years ago with some of those ideas, but a lot of my ideas have changed overtime. I can post some of those ideas later. But the gist of the first act changes were to improve the pacing and characterization. For example, I try to make Jyn a more active protagonist throughout the film, and I also try make the other character’s motivations for joining the team clearer.

Anyway, I’ll post some things later. You can take them or leave them, but I’d be happy to help implement any ideas you might be interested in.

Damn, you beat me to it!

This is great. This is exactly what I was wanting to do, just putting it off until season 2 released.

I really enjoy your taste/sensibilities, so I was really excited to see that you were the one to share this project. I was curious how a total rescore would sound and I’m happy to see the samples! I do love the original music too, really appreciate Giacchino’s work, but it is a cool alternative to have! And I agree that it does bring the movie closer to that Andor feel.

I think I had in mind was going to make bigger story/characterization changes, to address some of the issues people had with the original movie, but I think your approach of just pushing through with something more conservative was a smart idea. I know a common complaint of the first act is the constant cutting from character to character, with many people removing the Bodhi scenes up until Cassian finds him. I’m assuming you keep these scenes though? I imagine it doesn’t have the same jarring feeling that the original movie did consider the overall rescore and new episodic format.

Anyway, would love to check this out!

I haven’t been on the forums much lately due to work/life, but Dom and I had a lot of discussions about potential dialogue restructuring. I think we both agreed that we wanted to come up with a version that didn’t necessarily add anything extra, just focusing more on the dark visions, but we also talked about how a Rey killed her parents version would be interesting to see and I did some rewrites that included that premise.

A big reason it never went anywhere, at least in my case, is the weight of endless possibility. The dialogue could be anything now, and I feel like it is challenging to get new dialogue written that feels appropriate to the movie. I haven’t landed on anything that I just loved.

Maybe I could go back and find the scenes I’ve made rewrites for and post it here. I feel like it could help to have an open discussion to try to figure something out. I end up just writing a little bit, not being happy with it, losing interest and then revisiting months later. If there was a discussion here sort of like the discussion over Nev’s TFA Starlight crawl maybe we could finally figure something out, or just end up with an endless adjustments. 😂

Lol, YES. The titling of the shows has been a big gripe for me. It almost feels like they have a mandate that these shows have to have the simplest titles so it is easy for people to find and identify them. Oh! This show is about Obi-Wan Kenobi! Or Boba Fett! Or Ahsoka! The Bad Batch!

Ironically I feel like it works for Andor. Because most audiences are probably like, “Andor who??” I kind of believe Andor may be a play on the Greek “andros”, meaning “man”. Cassian is just one man. But it plays into that idea that one small person, one man, can make a a big impact on the universe. One person’s choices can ripple into a wave of change.

Even the upcoming show “The Acolyte” and “Skeleton Crew” plays into this (if the crew is called the Skeleton Crew at least). The only thing that hasn’t played into this is Tales of the Jedi.

On another note, I saw this comment on Reddit and I agreed with it. This was in regards to why they didn’t show Ezrea hug Hera, and cut away before they could really even interact.

u/joshuaizzo:
Something about this show that stood out to me is that Filoni - for some reason - is afraid of BIG emotion. Ezra and Sabine’s reunion should have been tears and crying and hugging and sobbing. They were both like, ‘Sup.
Same here. Big emotion. Run to one another. Embrace and cry. Revel in the fact you’re back together again. It was an emotional miss to me.

This is headcanon, but I like to think both are Jedi outfits, but are from different sects/periods of Jedi history.

If you look at Count Dooku, his outfit is pretty similar to Luke’s ROTJ. They probably simply referred to Luke’s outfit from a production standpoint, but from an in-universe perspective, perhaps the black uniform was used by Jedi in the Old Republic that were more “Knight” than “Monk”. They may have been more intertwined with the government they represented than later Jedi, who chose to be somewhat separate to the government they served. These Jedi may have answered directly to a government leader rather than a Jedi Council, or may have been government themselves. In Dooku’s case, he was the Count of his homeworld, and leader of the Separatist movement. In Luke’s case, he may have simply found the outfit or doesn’t know the full history behind it beyond it being a Jedi uniform. Or maybe it could be intentional, since he is a military leader within the Alliance to Restore the Republic. At this time, Luke may have saw himself more as a warrior than as a monk. Maybe this look predates the reformation of the Jedi order and the Republic.

As time went on, perhaps the sects of Jedi who adopted the more religious trappings gained more influence in the Jedi Order as a whole, leading to the more monk-like, samurai look. In the High Republic, the Jedi had essentially beat the Sith, achieving a moral/cultural victory. Because of this, they wore more opulent robes of white and gold, conjuring the image of Catholic priests. But overtime, problems grew within the Republic and the Order. Maybe the Jedi saw their opulence as representative of their pride, so their uniforms became less flashy as they emphasized more of their Buddhist monk mentalities.

Obviously in real life they just made it up as they went, but it is fun to think about.

That is interesting, have not heard that before.

There is also this quote in In Making of ROTJ, page 119.

Wednesday, January 6, was a big makeup and costume fitting day. “In a way, the first two films were an elaborate setup for Jedi,” says Hamill. “I think people really sense that this is the final chapter in the story–so far–and not a cliffhanger. It’s the big finish–all stops out, all systems go. My costume reflects that. During Star Wars, I was in a floppy, white rag-doll-type outfit. For Empire, I was in a militaristic-looking khaki costume. Now I wear the black uniform of a trained Jedi Knight. But the question is: What kind of Jedi? A wizard, a religious figure, or just a glutton for punishment?”
“Luke’s outfit went through incredible changes,” says Marquand. “We just worked and worked and worked. George really wanted Luke to wear black.”
“That was completely George,” says [costume designer Aggie Guerard] Rodgers. “He told me, 'That’s what it is–just copy the white one from Star Wars in black.”
“George was a little worried about my costume, that I would come off as a Hitler Youth or something a little too stark,” Hamill adds.

I believe there are other references to this idea, whether it is from Lucas direct or artists/designers.

I think the rationale here was that Lucas wanted Luke in black for dramatic effect and to make the audience question if he will turn or not. At the time it being a Jedi uniform was the justification for why he would choose to wear black. But then when making the prequels, Lucas returned to the idea of the Tatooine robes being more like the Jedi uniform because 1) audiences already identified the look with Obi-Wan, the most easily recognized Jedi in pop culture (a lot like how Gandalf sort of became the template of the ‘wizard’ look), and 2) the lighter, earthy tones of the Jedi robes made them more easily recognizable as the good guys.

Basically, costumes are an easy way to tell audiences who the good guys and bad guys are. For ROTJ he wanted the audience to wonder if Luke would be bad, but for the prequels he wanted the audience to immediately recognize the Jedi as good. In universe, I think the argument for the Tatooine robes is that they are reminiscent to clothes of the impoverished, simply-dressed citizens of the galaxy. And the prequel Jedi harken to the concept mendicant, ascetic monks, and the simple robes play to that idea.

You are right. I think The Secret History of Star Wars goes into it, but the change seemed to have occurred during pre-pro of Phantom Menace.

I like 2 and 3.

Also, I think you’ve been doing a great job producing and sifting through these generations. I think the quality we’ve been able to achieve with the other voices just has made me set a higher bar that I think we have struggled to reach with the Poe voice clone (and that isn’t a jab at your skill, because I think your generations have been better than mine). I think it is just an inherent issue with Poe’s voice more than anything else. Just harder to make it a 1:1 match, due to Oscar’s natural delivery, the digital cruft of his clone, etc. But I think any of these would go unnoticed as a voice clone by your average viewer. And like you said, it’d probably hard for even me to notice if I was watching it on my tv or my phone without headphones.