RogueLeader

This is very interesting! What surprises me about some of things you have noticed is how a lot of the errors that were made seem so lazy. Perhaps there was a lot of work to be done, and some errors unintentionally fell through the cracks. It just surprises me how even the newest official release suffers from these kind of flaws. You would think they would put in the appropriate time and effort to do these films justice.

Well, at least it is just one shot that may need frame-by-frame masking.

Hmm, I wonder if the Content Aware Fill tool in After Effects could be used to remove the watermark.

I actually like this a lot ziggy! I distinctly remember the abrupt pace of this sequence was very noticeable to me during my first viewing. Even if Hal decides not to use this for Ascendant, I would definitely like to use this in a future Rey Nobody edit.

I totally agree, I’ve thought of ways to try and do that, but how to actually add those things would be rather difficult. It’s not like we can film new material with ease, you know?

I mean, if you think about it, what does them being child soldiers add to the narrative (not what they hypothetically add, but actually add to the story), that them being regular recruits doesn’t? It was an interesting idea, but they never actually explore it, so much so that you could likely remove it and lose very little to their story.

Again, if anything, it would add more nuance to the story, because it gives Finn and Jannah more agency. They chose to leave the First Order, but only after choosing to join it. Their shame of being stormtroopers is even more justified, in this instance, because they have to accept they made a mistake.

This is an idea that will probably require some clever editing, but I’ve been thinking about what the benefits could be to not making the First Order stormtroopers be kidnapped children.

For one, I feel like there really isn’t a proper resolution to this plot point in TROS. Finn and the good guys seem to lack any self-awareness or concern that they’re killing what are basically child soldiers. Making this change would make the lack of resolution in TROS not feel as disappointing, because I think the writer’s desire to make Finn and Jannah as innocent as possible came back to haunt them in a way.

The movies really bend over backward to absolve Finn (and Jannah) of any responsibility for being one of the bad guys. They were kidnapped as children, indoctrinated their entire lives, and in Finn’s case, he never even really killed anyone before he went AWOL (the same may be true for Jannah).

Yes, Finn is a stormtrooper, but in actuality he barely was a stormtrooper. In fact, he barely even acts like someone who was indoctrinated their entire life. We never even see Finn have to unlearn the propaganda that has probably been hammered into him over the years.

The stormtroopers not being child soldiers also makes our heroes killing them without remorse a little less questionable, especially in Finn’s case. Plus, I feel like if Finn and Jannah joined the First Order voluntarily, and then realized it was a mistake, it is a much more nuanced way to portray them as stormtroopers-turned-rebels. This touches on a larger subject I want to eventually explore in a discussion thread, but I like the idea of our heroes all having made mistakes in the past, or even have blood on their hands, but them accepting that their mistakes don’t dictate their future and who they are. And I think having them not be stormtroopers by choice takes away from the decision to make them stormtroopers in the first place. Redemption, forgiveness, and second chances should have been central to this trilogy, and unfortunately they didn’t fully commit to these themes.

Again, this will require a number of clever changes, but I wonder how differently our perspectives would change on the trilogy with this change implemented.

Hal 9000 said:

It seems that in any event her parents are redeemed as good and noble, unfortunately.

I disagree, not making her parents be good people is definitely doable.

That is so interesting! I’m definitely gonna have to email you, I loved this micro-series growing up, so I would love to have this in a higher quality.

I would be interested in seeing this applied to some of the movie deleted scenes, or even the animated segment of the holiday special.

Wow, this is pretty interesting! What was your process for upscaling the cartoon?

I have to say I like it too in the sense of it not trying to be as emotionally manipulative. I didn’t necessarily mind the use of the Star Wars theme, but I feel like that rendition feels generic and not as powerful as the renditions from the original trilogy.

I would honestly like to see what the scene feels like if we just try and used a version of the track from the original trilogy (or prequel trilogy credits) as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. I just don’t think the music in the ST is performed, or maybe mixed, as well as the music from the other trilogies. So perhaps the scene would work better if we just used a different version of that theme.

On another topic, could someone go back and find the versions of Force ghost Ben that people played around with for the ending? I’m also curious on which “look” for that shot people had agreed on.

EC Henry made another fun video making up an original TIE fighter design based off a slightly different, and obscure, model used in ROTJ. It could be nice to make an alternate version of the TIE/X-Wing shot with this design. This way you could keep the imagery, but the TIE doesn’t look exactly like the typical TIE fighter, leaving the possibility open that this fighter could have light speed capabilities. I like the shuttle version too, of course.

It would be nice to throw it into a ROTJ edit to set it up and add another interesting ship to the movie, but that’s a story for another thread.

Also, if Palpatine’s spirit was in Snoke, why didn’t his spirit pass into Kylo Ren when he killed him?

Damn. I’m sure it would be a pain in the ass to apply that to an entire movie, but I could see how you can potentially transform a film into an entirely new experience.

The way I see it, Kylo doesn’t want to be possessed. He wants power, but not at the cost of his own agency and identity.

Yes! I really like that addition. I also like it as a musical parallel between Anakin leaving his mother physically, and Ben returning to his mother spiritually (at the very least, Ben realigning himself with his mother’s ideals).

The dubbing is pretty cringey but it’s a good attempt. I also hate their channel name, but whatever.

The dialogue feels so crammed in. I think if editors don’t stick to the original pacing of the dialogue, it will feel off.

Regarding Snoke/Palpatine, we actually get Palpatine’s motif when Snoke is torturing Rey in TLJ. While Williams probably just threw it in there, it at least makes it somewhat of a hint in retrospect. Perhaps Palpatine’s motif could appear in TFA as well in one of Snoke’s scenes.

Although I understand why they reused Yoda’s theme when Luke lifted the X-Wing, apparently John Williams was not originally planning to reuse this theme for the scene. With that in mind, I would be curious to explore any other musical choices that would be appropriate for that scene. I personally don’t really have any clear ideas at the moment though.

I guess you could argue that the music brings Rey’s Jedi journey full circle, from catching one saber to then catching another.

I feel like someone has tried using Williams’ original cue from “Ways of the Force” from TFA before they replaced it with Burning Homestead in the final film, correct? If it fit, it could be a nice way to use an unused rendition of the Force theme, which feels appropriate to use with the appearance of all the Jedi. Maybe it didn’t fit and that’s why it’s not being considered?

Palpatine says, “Snoke trained you well” right before that line.

Alternatively, I would like to see if you could have Palpatine in TROS, “My boy, I trained Snoke.”

The idea that Snoke was just another apprentice of Palpatine, like Maul, Dooku or Vader before him would make the Snoke-Palpatine connection a lot simpler than Palpatine saying he made him. Him making Snoke still leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions. Who is Snoke a clone of? Why did he have multiple clones of him? Why did Palpatine puppeteer him in particular? Etc, etc. Did Snoke know he was being controlled by Palpatine, or did Palpatine control him completely?

I also think Snoke having his own agency keeps Kylo killing him feel like a big accomplishment rather than just another test by Palpatine.

So instead of doing more important things, I wanted to take a crack at playing around with the Hangar Scene for a Rey Nobody edit. I like the potential of a “Rey killed her parents” version, but I wanted to try something more straightforward. It’s not as compelling, perhaps, but it is still less offensive than Rey Palpatine.

In this version of the film, I would remove any reference to Rey recognizing Ochi’s ship, or Rey seeing her parents in any vision. I may try to tackle the Force bond duel at some point, but in this version I would probably shorten the scene, and replace a lot of the dialogue with more generic taunts about Kylo sensing the darkness within her.

This version of the hangar scene just has Kylo Ren confirm Rey’s fears about the vision she saw earlier in the film. Rey’s reaction to info she already has might seem a little dramatic, but in my mind, I interpret Rey’s reaction as her starting to feel that her future is fated and inescapable. But a part of her is still in denial, convincing herself that Kylo Ren is lying in order to manipulate her.

Here’s a rough test for their hangar interaction: https://vimeo.com/447063673

And here’s an alternate line read for Kylo near the end of the scene, keeping closer to the original line: https://vimeo.com/447069546