RogueLeader

CaptainFaraday said:

Lemme first just say how legit insightful and extremely useful everything you’ve written is, and it’s very helpful to me going forward.

Hey, I am glad to hear that! I try to not let my suggestions stray too far from what your objectives are for this project. At the very least it helps solidify you’re reasoning for some of the changes you want to make.

I avoided all leaks before I saw the film, and once I’d seen it, it never occurred to me to go back and read any of them. So that’s new information to me, and really interesting that by trying to unpick the tangle I wound up back at that same earlier point. That’s gotta be a good sign! Is it worth me seeking the leaks out and reading them, like the DOTF screenplay, do you reckon?

Oh, you definitely should! The leaks just summarize what the edit was shaping up to be before rewrites and reshoots, and his later update explains some of the changes that were made. So you won’t be able to pull lines verbatim like you can with the DOTF scripts, but it could give you an outline that you could potentially follow. In a way, your book edit could essentially follow what was, at one point, an earlier version of the film. As if Rae Carson had just written her novel based on the original script, and not the final cut. I personally prefer the leaks’ depiction of the Palpatine plot and the Dyad stuff. It felt more like the manipulative Palpatine we saw in the prequels, trying to groom our protagonist(s) and appearing weaker than he actually is to gain sympathy and catch his enemies off guard.

Here is all of JediPaxis’ posts collected. The tab on the left shows the different posts he made.

I personally prefer the Dyad to be part of the big reveal at the nadir of Rey’s arc; Kylo knowing something about her that she doesn’t is important, I think, especially something that connects the two of them. It gives her a more personal reason to believe maybe she’ll join him, and it also means the two options Kylo presents for her are “you turn to the Dark Side and become more evil than Palpatine, or, you turn to the Dark Side but you do it with me, someone who you already have a personal connection with,” which makes his preferred choice a lot more palatable to her. I think it should also be a reveal to the reader, since we’ve already seen all the evidence of the two being uniquely connected (Force Skyping etc), and now we finally get an explanation which we didn’t expect but makes sense in retrospect.

Yeah, I’m thinking a lot on the same lines as you. Maybe the book depicts it better, but I worry about the audience really believing that Rey could become more evil than Palpatine. It’s not like when she shoots lightning she actually enjoys the power she feels. She’s terrified of it. The movie shows that the dark side is in her, but not that she really is seduced by its power at all.

And I understand wanting the Dyad stuff to be a part of the reveal to Rey. I still think it would be nice to hint at how Kylo found out what a Dyad even is, though.

I want to avoid the stuff about killing him = he can possess you, since I don’t really see the logical connection between the two things. It’s something I found distracting when I watched the movie for the first time - it feels like a pair of unconnected events.

I’m not sure if I understand. So how are you planning to do the climax when Rey confronts Palpatine?

Really clever ideas. I really like the idea of a “clone individuality” standalone episode, and we’ll be interested to see how that turns out. Your ideas for ‘Return to Christophsis’ is really smart, too, but I understand why you would consider it for a Complete Cut rather than Quality. I’m assuming the Clone standalone will be qualitity, right? I know they might be standalone stories, but I do see how it would contribute to the characterization of the clones in general.

Wow, that’s great. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.

I think this is definitely along the right line.

This isn’t an issue with you’re writing, just the story in general, but I’m curious about something. What is Kylo thinking Palpatine’s endgame is? Okay, so Palpatine wants Kylo kill Rey for whatever reason. Okay, let’s say he does, but then what? Kylo gets the fleet, but then what happens to Palpatine? He’s just gonna chill out on Exegol while Kylo rules the galaxy with his fleet that he’s spent the last three decades building? I mean, Kylo asks him “What could you give me?” but he doesn’t even bother to ask him, “What’s in it for you?”

That’s something I liked about JediPaxis’ early TROS leaks. Supposedly in an earlier version of the film, Palpatine told Kylo that he was dying for good, and he wanted Kylo (and Rey) to be his successors:

According to the leak:

After obtaining Vader’s device Kylo travels to the place specified by the wayfinder. It takes him to the Unknown Regions and a dead planet of flat, black rock. I previously reported that the planet where Kylo finds Vader’s wayfinder was called Exogol. Since then my understanding has evolved and I’ve been told that this planet actually bears that name. Kylo lands outside a giant cube, floating just above the ground and begins walking toward it. Kylo walks between the cube and the ground and once he reaches the center he discovers an elevator leading down below the planet’s surface. He follows teh lift down and finds an old man, near death and lying in bed and being tended to by cloaked aids. My source believes these aids to be referred to as Sith Loyalists. The old man identifies himself as Darth Sideous. Kylo initially dismisses the old man, knowing that the Emperor had died over 30 years prior over the forest moon of Endor. Feeling that this must be a trick, Kylo claims that there must be some other explanation, such as this man being a clone. My sources specifically tell me that the Palpatine refutes the idea of him being a clone and affirms that he survived his fall. After his defeat at Endor, he left the known galaxy and traveled to the Unknown Regions to rebuild his Empire. Despite his skepticism, Palpatine begins to reel Kylo in and subsequently tells him of something known as a “Force Dyad”. The Force produces two incredibly strong users and when they unite together, both become stronger than either one could be on their own. Palpatine believes Kylo Ren and Rey to be the two halves of this dyad and shares this knowledge with Rey. (Note: I previously wrote that Palpatine wanted them to become “master and apprentice” since then this has been clarified to me as Palpatine seeking the two members of the Dyad) Palpatine claims that he seeks the Dyad because he is weak and dying and he wants the Dyad to rule together once he’s gone. Palpatine orders Kylo to bring Rey to him and turn her so that the Dyad will be a strong, unified force of darkness. Palpatine also reveals that he has been amassing an armada of Star Destroyers equipped with Death Star tech, each one capable of destroying a planet on its own. Generals Hux and Pryde are tasked with rounding up children in large numbers to train and staff his armada.

In this apparent earlier cut, Palpatine’s trick was very similar to what you’re proposing. Once Rey and Kylo are both there, he reveals that he didn’t want them to succeed him, and instead uses their Dyad bond to rejuvenate himself. So, like your version, Palpatine knew of the Dyad from the beginning, and it was always his plan to take their life Force.

Seeing Ben arrive pleases Sideous. He then uses his power to bond them together and begins to syphon power from that bond and direct it into himself. As the power flows into him, the once silky and decrepit Palpatine stands tall and strong once again, restoring himself to a much younger, healthier state.

I think you run into some logical issues with the way it is now. I mean, what is stopping Kylo from just killing Palpatine and taking the fleet from him? It’s not like his cult could really oppose him. And if they could, why would Palpatine even need Kylo to kill Rey? If you don’t mind, I would like to suggest some different options.

First, I think either Palpatine or the Oracle should tell Kylo about the Dyad. As the story is right now, Kylo brings up the Dyad out of nowhere halfway through the movie. This is important information that I believe should be revealed earlier in the movie. And I think the Oracle would be the perfect person to reveal this info to Kylo. He is called an “oracle” after all, and this is apparently concerning another prophecy. Kylo would think he knows something that Palpatine doesn’t, but then Palpatine could even later reveal that the Oracle was a part of the plan. He wanted Kylo to think he had the upper hand.

On the other hand, if Palpatine wants Rey dead, I think Palpatine should stress to Kylo that he is dying and wants Kylo to be his successor, because he has watched Kylo from the beginning and is everything he hoped he would be. But to prove to Palpatine that he really has become what Vader could not, he must kill Rey before him. She is a threat to his rule… but not in the way he thinks… Then the twist could be, like you said, she’s not going to destroy the Sith, she will become one. Maybe Kylo could say that she will even kill him in order to take the throne. Then when she almost kills Kylo on the Death Star, it freaks her out because it means the vision might be becoming true.

I actually think there is merit in the idea of Palpatine wanting Kylo to just bring Rey to him, too, and not to kill her. First of all, since Snoke wanted Rey dead and that got him killed, I feel like it would make sense that Palpatine would try a different approach. Maybe you could go with the early TROS idea, where he wants them to begin a new Sith dynasty to take his place, but Kylo will need Palpatine’s help to turn her, since he failed to do so himself in TLJ. But that is pretty similar to the set up of the showdown in ROTJ…

But here is an alternate set up. When they first meet, instead of Palpatine repeating the “The dark side is a pathway to many abilities…” line, they could have this interaction.

Kylo: You’ll die first.

Palpatine: I have died before. Kill me, and my spirit will pass into you, as all the Sith live in me.

This gives Kylo a clear reason why he simply can’t kill Palpatine right now. And then, Palpatine could offer Kylo what he really wants.

Kylo: What could you give me?

Palpatine: Everything. A new Empire. The might of the Final Order will soon be ready. Become what your grandfather Vader could not. You shall rule all the galaxy as the new Emperor… and Empress. She will be yours, if you do as I ask…

Kylo lowers his saber, and Palpatine gives a menacing smile.

This leaves us with a little mystery. What does Palpatine want Kylo to do? Then, in the hangar scene, Kylo could reveal that if she strikes Palpatine down in anger, he will possess her and become the new vessel for the Sith. This is when Kylo tries to offer her an alternative. They’re a Dyad in the Force, and together they can use their powers to find another way to destroy Palpatine for good. I think this would create an interesting and shocking dilemma for Rey. She wants to kill Palpatine, but now if she tries to, she might become seduced by the dark side and become the next Sith. At this point she knows she has darkness in her, so she doesn’t know if she will be strong enough to resist the power of the dark side. And this would be even more of a reason why she would go into exile rather than face Palpatine. And I think it makes Rey appear even braver when she chooses to face Palpatine knowing that he could possess her. She doesn’t know if her willpower is strong enough to resist it. I also think it makes Kylo a little sympathetic, because going against Palpatine’s plan shows he cares about who Rey is as a person, and he doesn’t just want her as a possession by any means necessary.

I think this would work well for Palpatine’s Dyad plan too, because Kylo would think he knows Palpatine’s plan (to possess Rey), but in reality Palpatine knew all along about their bond, and wanted to exploit it. Maybe this would make things complicated, but I think it leaves less logical gaps, and it makes each character appear smarter than they currently do in the film.

Anyway, some food for thought. Sorry for rambling.

I personally interpreted it as Luke being afraid that he would just make things worse if he were to get back involved.

When I was really depressed in the past, I would sometimes feel that the world would be a better place without me if I just didn’t exist. That’s why I really sympathized with Luke in TLJ. He was so guilt-ridden that I like to think he had a similar mindset that I’ve had before, and he extended that belief not only to himself, but the Jedi as a whole. He made such a terrible mistake that he wanted to close himself off from the world, because he didn’t want make more mistakes and hurt more people.

So I personally think the lines works. I just see it as, “It was fear that kept me here. Fear that I would just make things worse.”

And I kind of think Rey fears the same thing. She fears that she will just make things worse in the end. But she, like Luke, has to confront that fear of failure in order to help those who need it.

EDIT: Another thought. While it was a little flimsy, the idea that Leia abandoned her training because of fear (of the death of her son) ties into that theme in a way. Perhaps you could say Palpatine was responsible for the dark visions that Luke, Leia and Rey all have that led them to wanting to abandon the Jedi path. Because Palpatine is the physical manifestation of fear, and Rey defeating him is symbolic of Rey overcoming her own fear of failure. I think it fits Rey’s whole identity crisis pretty well, too. She starts doubting her own ability to become a Jedi, because she fears that she will fail, make mistakes and ultimately hurt people. But in the end, she learns from Luke and Leia’s failures and perseveres through her own insecurities to become a strong adult, ready to take on the world.

That is a very generous reading of the Sequel Trilogy, at least.

Totally forgot about that one!

Hmm, I’m not really sure if that forward-reversal thing is really gonna sell it. It seems like you’re trying to imply she is trying to shake it back on, like a malfunctioning flashlight. I wonder if it would look better if it was just flickering on its own, without her really moving.

I think the trouble is trying to determine what a malfunctioning saber looks like, since there aren’t many examples of that. With that shot, you have the benefit of a clean background, so you could rotoscope a new saber blade that could flicker on and off.

I think for the other shots that were mentioned in the Ascendant thread, I wonder if you could just add some distortion to the blade, or maybe the cracking gets worse. Like, you make the crackling effect could have some hiccups of even higher intensity when she looks at the blade and sort of shakes her free hand. That way you don’t have to paint out the saber blade which would be a pain.

But, it would be cool if you could do that in the wide shot when Kylo raises his own saber to strike her. Or perhaps the cradling could just be too intense for her to use.

Anyway, you’re doing cool work! A lot of your tests have been looking good.

NOT OCHI’S SHIP

You could recolor the engine glow to help separate the two ships. Also, I would just suggest removing the ship from her vision from TFA if you were doing an edit of the whole trilogy.

Also, you could argue that since it was seen in a vision of past and future events, she was actually seeing Ochi’s ship in the future, flying away with her newfound family rather than her old one like we thought. Not everything in her vision was accurate to how things happened in real life.

dgraham414 said:

With the footage we have available to us what does Rey emotionally have to contend with? Why would she reach such a point of anger to strike down Kylo the way she did? What does is the reason she is so upset at Kylo during the Skype fight?

I think her anger towards Kylo comes from two places: 1) He is her primary obstacle between her and the wayfinder, which she needs in order to kill Palpatine and save her friends. 2) Kylo keeps sewing doubt in her own moral fortitude. He manifests her insecurities. So if she gets rid of him, she can erase those insecurities in a roundabout way.

Thanks jarbear! I think the main hurdle is just figuring out the new dialogue for Kylo from what we have to work with.

I think Dom’s basically goes into as little detail as possible regarding her parents. Basically Ochi captured her parents, couldn’t get an answer out of them (maybe they were too drunk? Lol), and he killed them because he felt they were useless. At least that implication is left up to the audience. It isn’t spelled out either way.

It would require more changes, but I would personally want to cut out any mention of her parents completely (besides when Kylo mentions them in their first force bond). You then could change Rey’s vision earlier in the film to be about the future, and the battle at Exegol. She sees her friends in danger/dying, and she sees herself on a throne. Keep this vision separate from Kylo, they don’t share this vision together.

Then during their force bond duel, Kylo can say he also knows about the vision, because Palpatine saw it too. You replace the moment of Rey remembering her parents dying with seeing Finn/Poe dying/in danger again. Kylo tells her that she needs more power. So she gets angry about it and swings at Kylo some more. Then, in the hangar, he tells Rey that Palpatine saw what she would become. She will Palpatine and take the throne. This confirms to Rey that what she saw might actually come true.

Want benefit to this is it keeps Rey’s motivation to want to kill Palpatine. If she doesn’t, her new family dies. But the only way to save them is if she takes the throne.

I think having this dilemma haunt Rey helps lean into the question of having to sacrifice your morality to save the people you love. Palpatine presents her with one dark path, and Kylo presents her with another dark path. In the end, though, she finds that alternate path where she maintains her identity as a Jedi.

I say slap a green check mark on this sequence!

If you were going to imply this was her third lesson, I think you also could word it like, “Lesson Three: Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. Your destiny…” But that makes sense too, like he is beginning her third lesson.

poppasketti said:

snooker said:

I’ll try to work on the puppet show, I have some ideas >:)

Edit: and I mean no disrespect for the incredible RogueLeader, I just didn’t realize snooker was still around!

None taken! I love snooker’s creativity, so I really want to see what she comes up with!

Hmm, what if Finn recognized the patrolling stormtrooper that Lando shoots? The scene could play out slightly different so they could have a longer interaction. Then, while they’re on their way to Kijimi, Finn and Rey could be exploring/repairing Ochi’s ship when he has that brief PTSD moment.

This may too radical of changes, but I just wanted to throw these ideas out. If you were to go with the idea of Finn starting a revolt on the Star Destroyer, I also think it would be interesting if you had some scenes play out differently to where Hux survived until the final battle.

• First of all, I would remove the idea that Palpatine has his own soldiers. All he has are his Sith cultists/loyalists, and his large leftover fleet from the days of the Empire. They need the First Order’s army to man it. I would also change the red Sith Troopers into “Royal Troopers”, a legion of First Order stormtroopers that are meant to defend the Supreme Leader, whoever it may be.
• Pryde could be present at Poe and Finn’s execution, and Hux takes this opportunity to save them, as well as killing Pryde.
• The scene between Palpatine and Pryde will now be between Palpatine and Hux, and he orders Hux to come to Exegol to use his army to man the fleet. He also could call Hux, “Supreme Leader”. Plotting a coup seemed like an obvious direction after the way Hux looked at Kylo at the end of TLJ, so I think it would be more satisfying to pay his story off.
• You give Pryde’s role in the final battle to the newly named Supreme Leader Hux.
• While Finn and Jannah are on their way to destroy the signal tower on the destroyer, Finn gets the idea to instead hack into the signal tower and transmit a call of rebellion to the stormtroopers on all of the Star Destroyers.
• This would be a brand new scene, but you could write a quick montage of troopers taking their helmets off on various destroyers and turning on the officers, including Hux’s destroyer.
• Hux could hear over the comms, or see on the ship’s surface, that troopers are rebelling, so Hux’s orders the ship to self destruct before the bridge is overrun and Hux is killed by his own men. I just think if you’re going to have stormtroopers rebel, it would be much more satisfying if Hux was the one reaping what he sowed. ( This whole change also allows you to change the awkward interaction between Finn and Rose where he basically tells her he’s gonna sacrifice himself, which totally goes against her message to Finn in TLJ.)
• Transports full of troopers could be described escaping the destroyers during the resolution of the battle.
• During the celebration montage at the Resistance base, you could replace the awkward Lando/Jannah interaction with Jannah greeting the newly defected troopers. You could have an interaction like this:

Jannah: I’m Jannah. What’s your name?

Stormtrooper: TZ-359

Jannah: No, your real name.

Stormtrooper: I don’t know…

Jannah: Well, let’s find out.

While there definitely would be some brand new tidbits with the stormtrooper rebellion stuff, I feel like a lot of this would allow you to keep the same scenes, technically, but you’re just swapping out characters and dialogue.

While obviously events would have played out differently, I love the idea of Maul surviving being cut in half only to eventually die by being cut in half again.

Faraday, could you share the excerpt you are referring to from the DOTF script?

Perhaps the log scene could be darkened, but I feel like it works for me pretty well. I feel like if the colors were like this in the film, I would understand that dawn was approaching.

I actually almost shared that too! I know people over on the preservation threads are working on prequel film preservations, or filmized versions of the prequels. I could see how one could use those as a base for a potential fan edit.

This might not be the right place for this, but I wanted to have a discussion with you guys regarding some thoughts I’ve had that could potentially be used for fan edits.

Something I love about the OT films, especially the very first Star Wars film, is the texture you get from 35mm film and analog music recording from that era that no longer see very much in modern cinema. With Star Wars being a used, lived-in universe, I think the imperfections of film grain and analog saturation really added to that aesthetic. When you go back and watch the films, especially the Project 4K or Puggo Grande versions, it makes the films feel almost like an artifact or a treasure from some bygone era.

It probably makes more sense to simply modernize the OT to fit a more contemporary level of quality, but I think there is something special to that old school look that I think would help make the newer films feel more like Star Wars, strangely enough.

I would really love to explore ways to “age” the other Star Wars films to be more in-line with the Original Trilogy. I could see how a film like Rogue One could benefit from this treatment, with it’s narrative proximity to Star Wars 77. But I’d also be interested in seeing how this would work with the other Saga films.

I believe Nev has made some LUTs that has some film grained added. I might be wrong. I also know snooker had made some tests with some of her prequel trilogy edits that gave them a more grainy film look, plus remixing the audio to sound more analog. She even redid some effects shots to feel more in-line FX wise with the OT. It’s kind of ironic, but I find an appeal to actually making some of the effects worse. Perhaps trying to “age” the newer films would feel inauthentic, but on the other hand, it could be a clever way to make all the films, new and old, feel more cohesive. Would love to get some thoughts on this.

I do think that works.

I do like the new colors of this scene, especially while they’re inside the hut. The darkness, plus the warm hues, makes it feel cozy.

I know you said it wouldn’t work, but in my mind, I do like the idea of starting off with a night establishing shot (maybe you could brighten it slightly to make it feel almost like a morning twilight, or just leave it dark). The scene of her throwing wood at the TIE fighter only shows the sky in one or two shots just in the corner, so perhaps they could be recolored or replaced.

I guess, in general, it would require more work to make it seem like all of the light is mostly coming from the fire, but I feel like the best way to make it feel like time has passed would be between the two island establishing shots. The first being night, or a dark morning twilight. The second one at dawn, and then we finally see the sunrise as Luke is lifting the X-Wing. I would probably try to make their sitting conversation outside a little darker too, to better match how dark it looks from inside the hut. But I guess you could argue that is just an exposure discrepancy. And going from darkness to dawn feels like it would fit well, thematically. Rey starts off in a dark place, but as she talks to Luke, the light appears.

But it might be too much work for little purpose, so I understand why you wouldn’t pursue this.

Regarding the grammar of the opening crawl for A Strike At the Heart Part 2, I think how you have it is correct. You’re referring to the actions of the enemy (which can be both a countable or a collective noun), and the intentions (which can be countable or uncountable) of the Sith Lord. So both enemy and Sith Lord would appear singular and use the possessive form.

Went back thinking about this for some reason.

I remember how we went through so many versions of Vader saying “Your mother once thought as you do”, and while we got close, none of them sounded perfect.

I know people suggested this, and while I wasn’t crazy about it at the time, I think playing with “Padmé once thought as you do” I wouldn’t be so bad if it sounded right. I mean, Luke name drops Anakin Skywalker in this scene, why couldn’t Vader mention the mother’s name? You could potentially have Luke say, “My mother” offscreen, and Vader could even say “Yes” or “That is correct” in response.

Huh, that is pretty impressive. I knew content-aware fill would be pretty useful for fan-editors.

From what little I’ve used of it, I’ve found it pretty hard to tweak the settings very much to get drastically better results, but I’m sure someone else has more knowledge about it than I do.