RogueLeader

Hal, or someone else, what needs to be done with the squeaky wheel scene?

If they jump to light speed, are we assuming the Knights of Ren tracked them through light speed when we see them hiding in the asteroid field with them?

Interesting. I like the idea of the whispers slowly getting louder as she gets closer to the location of the wayfinder. It would be interesting if she heard whispers each time she picked it up, starting from the cave, then in Kylo’s chambers. That way the whispers are a mystery at first, then their purpose becomes more apparent once they arrive there. But at those points, and on the cliff side, it’s extremely subtle. And like jarbear said, as she is making her way through the wreckage, the whispers become louder.

It would be interesting if you got rid of the music that plays when she enters the Emperor’s throne room, and let the scene be propelled just by the whispers. Maybe they could become almost overwhelming until the point she touches it, and they suddenly stop. You have a beat of silence, and then Dark Rey surprises her.

Might be too much, but I definitely like the idea of the whispers become stronger/clearer as she gets closer to the wayfinder.

Even with what is included now, I think this version is a great jumping off point for other editors to make their own versions of TROS. Great job, Hal and company!

I’m honestly not coming from a perspective of desperately wanting the two characters to be together, but it bothers me how the “Finn’s Secret” subplot is introduced but never addressed. Finn being Force sensitive is a paper thin revelation, and Rey, the person he wanted to tell, never even learns about it on-screen. Most people only realized what that was all about from post-release interviews or tweets. So I personally think the Finn’s Secret subplot should either be removed completely, or utilized for a different purpose, which is why I’m in favor of this idea. Sure, it’s not perfect (like nothing in this movie), but it could at least provide a subtle resolution to that subplot, rather than no resolution.

Hal 9000 said:

What, like he was gonna say, “OMG we’re gonna die in sand, omg real quick, Rey, I’M GAY! hhurvvvldlejerjj” dies ?

Seems disjointed and extremely on the nose. I wouldn’t have cared if they took Finn and Poe in that direction but it’s hard to imagine a fan edit pulling it off without feeling fan-fic-y.

No, I meant change that moment so Finn’s trying to tell Poe something, not Rey.

Here’s Snooker’s tests for this idea.

https://streamable.com/603yi

The first one:
Finn calls out to Poe and Poe yells out Finn’s name as his (potentially) final word.

The second one:
In the original, Poe said “Rey! Finn!”. Now he calls out for Finn first

The third:
Rey asks what Finn was gonna tell ‘him’ rather than ‘me’.

Beyond the sake of “shipping”, I think playing up the potential Finn/Poe chemistry would be a good way to recontextualize Finn’s “I never told you” subplot that is never really resolved.

• Have Finn call out to Poe instead of Rey in the sinking fields. “Poe, I never told you!”
• Rey asks Finn what he was going to tell him instead of her.
• When Finn and Poe are about to be executed, Poe asks, "So what were you going to tell me?"
• At the end, Poe gives Finn the flirty look instead of Zorri.

I’m sure more little hints could be added beyond these. And although we don’t get a kiss, and I think there is enough there for adults to understand, at least. Since we never see on screen Rey learning about Finn’s force sensitivity, I think implying instead that Finn has feelings for Poe could work as an interesting alternative that could actually have some semblance of a payoff.

Hal 9000 said:

Here’s that clip for you: https://vimeo.com/429010558

The shot of Rey after the saber insert cuts away too quickly. I think you would be better off cutting that quick shot of Rey altogether.

All the work being done here is crazy. Impressive work.

adywan said:

But there is already a 4 hour cut of ROTS which greatly improves on the theatrical version

https://youtu.be/a7x8h2YMmQQ

A true tour de farce

Maybe so. I was thinking more along the lines of how he sounds during Anakin’s “coronation” in ROTS. I always felt he sounded completely different in that scene than how he sounds in the rest of the saga. But I liked the creepiness of it.

@DarthYcey, those tests you did were really cool! I especially like the way he says, “I am Snoke.” Idk, it just sounds a lot cooler than just “I made Snoke.”

Wow, those work better than I expected!

It would be cool if we added some voice effect to the line, “We will be one” as if we’re hearing voices of the past Sith collectively speaking through him. Same for when he says, “as all the Sith live in me.” And maybe that could continue once he drains their energy and reforms.

Random idea regarding Palpatine:

One gripe I’ve heard people bring up before is Palpatine committing the “Evil Gloating” trope when he tells Rey that if she kills him, his spirit will pass into her.

Palpatine: You want to kill me. That is what I want. Kill me, and my spirit will pass into you, as all the Sith live in me.

This may have been suggested before, but I was thinking this line could be moved to Kylo’s first scene with Palpatine, replacing Palpatine response after one of these two lines:

Kylo: I killed Snoke. I’ll kill you.

or

Kylo: You’ll die first.

I personally think it would fit better to replace Palpatine repeating the “to cheat death” line that doesn’t do anything beyond being a callback. Either way, I think this change would accomplish a few things. First, we get a stronger explanation and understanding of Palpatine’s true nature and means of survival at the beginning of the film rather than the end. Second, it provides a good reason for why Kylo didn’t just immediately kill him. And third, it creates dramatic irony during the climax, because we know what is at stake if Rey kills Palpatine, but she doesn’t. So hopefully the audience would react by thinking, “No no no, Rey, don’t do it he’ll possess you!”

DominicCobb said:

Personally I’d like to see the first RO one (coming in through the clouds) with the TIEs. I like what poppa did with the Swedish forest footage but I dunno to me the shot still doesn’t quite match either the Mustafar we know or the one we see in TROS.

This is a good idea too!

I like the shuttle, because we actually see a rusty shuttle in the first shot when Rey is inside the ruins of the Death Star. So Ben could‘be presumably taken that one.

The visual of panning down (or up, like Hal suggested) to the red nebula is cool, and with some quiet, spooky music, it could perhaps make the film start a little slower and more mysterious. I personally like the idea of the film not having a bombastic opening, but something darker and quieter.

But I do agree with Hal that his edits typically don’t stray too radically from the source material. If you keep the Mustafar opening, I honestly think the establishing shot poppa made with the TIEs flying over the forest would be enough to help smooth out the transition from space to the planet surface. Any other shots would be too much. It’s cool to see all of these options, but one shot is enough.

If people wanted to see Vader’s castle, maybe we could use it as an establishing shot for when Kylo rebuilds his helmet. I wouldn’t use it at the beginning of the film though.

I might have a go at some of those vfx ideas that haven’t been played with it. There’s still so much beyond the opening that I think needs to be touched on, too.

Chase, I think if you just remove the whole scene and it still works without it.

TK-422 said:

One suggestion I was thinking of, since Mustafar seems to be a point of discussion: how about making Rey’s vision during her training sequence intercut with Kylo’s scene where he’s killing all of those people.

I don’t know if anyone has tried this yet, but this is what I have been experimenting with off and on for these past few busy days.

This is sort of ties in with the discussion over on the Ascendant thread, but at the moment I was playing around with this scene order:

• Pan down on Mustafar
• Kylo communes with the Helmet
• Rey Meditating
• Intercut Rey training and Kylo fighting (maybe cut the first “face reveal” shot)
• Rey and Kylo share a Wayfinder-induced vision.
• Rey speaks with Leia.
• Kylo travels to Exegol.

Nice post. Wasn’t expecting to for things to get deep.

poppasketti said:

“It’s a completely different outfit.”

(Airplane, anyone?)

I literally watched this yesterday. I laughed way too much at this.

Since the shots of Kylo on the planet surface seem to have pink skies, I wonder if that look could be applied with these Rogue One shots. Right now I still wouldn’t say TROS Mustafar and RO Mustafar look like the same place.

^Our resident italiano.

I had the same idea about the opening, Nev. I’ll try to post a test later.

I do like the long streak of C, but I think I like A overall.

D really makes me want to see a Frink-version of this movie.

Interesting. I like where you’re going with the Finn idea. Imagine if when the communication tower switched signals, instead of Finn just getting a “feeling” about where the new signal is being broadcast, Finn gets the idea to use the communication tower instead of blasting it. They land, infiltrate the tower, and he broadcasts a message to all the the Star Destroyers, telling all the stormtroopers to stand up and fight. Perhaps Finn’s earlier conversation with Jannah could foreshadow this idea, maybe when Jannah explains why they laid their weapons down.

Then we cut to the all the troopers in the destroyers, listening, and eventually rebelling.

Glad you like it krausfadr! And thanks for the positivity.

I think they could have depicted the fall of the temple in a way that was still sympathetic toward Ben, but didn’t involve a Force storm blowing up the temple.

Back when I thought the Knights of Ren were some of Luke’s students, I pictured a scenario where the commotion at Ben’s hut led to a scene around the debris, where the other students would gather around to see what happened. Ben would come out in a daze saying Luke tried to kill him. Many of the students wouldn’t believe him, and they would accuse him of killing Luke. Some of Ben’s friends would take his side, and this argument would culminate into a fight, where one student kills another. Suddenly, it would turn into an all out brawl, student fighting student. Before Ben even has a chance to recompose himself, he has his lightsaber drawn again, defending himself from attacks, and eventually being the one to strike back in rage and anger. After Luke is KO, it basically turns into Lord of the Flies with lightsabers, but things devolve in a matter of minutes rather than days, because everyone thinks Ben killed Luke. Ben catches the Temple on fire, and once everyone is dead except Ben and his surviving allies, they leave to go seek sanctuary with the only person Ben thinks won’t judge them: Snoke.

So when Luke wakes up, this is why he finds the bodies of many of his students strewn across the field (something the comic doesn’t account for), with his temple burning in the distance. As Luke collects the bodies, he probably notes that the bodies of Ben’s closest friends were unaccounted for, deducing that they likely joined him in the slaughter.