I finished reading this when you posted the last part of the story, but I’ve been putting off my reply because there is so much to talk about! Wasn’t sure where to even start.
How do you feel about getting it all out? I know this has been bouncing around in your head for sometime.
Or the rise of the Skywalker legend, spreading hope across the galaxy. Or the rebirth and rise of Ben Solo, the last Skywalker.
I don’t think the film really needs a title change even if you cut Rey Skywalker. It’s not a title with just one meaning.
Very cool, poppa!
Maybe the Falcon could be darker, or more of a silhouette since it is in front of the sun. Obscuring it might help sell the effect more.
JEDIT: Now I almost want to do a mockup of the shot. Curse you, RL!
Do it! Make the sacrifice!
Also, the first shot in the scene of Rey climbing up the Death Star ruins, there’s an old, rusty Imperial Shuttle amongst the wreckage, almost in center frame. So you could actually set up how Ben gets there visually if you match both the shuttle in the wreckage and the shuttle he flies in.
I think they wanted that visual of a TIE Fighter and X-Wing side-by-side. I mean, it’s definitely a nerdy thing to nitpick, but I guess they could say there were some TIEs that had hyperdrives by the Battle of Endor.
Nev, if you could change that shot what kind of ship would you change his to?
I think the track is “Train Heist”, I believe it is the music from the campfire conversation the night before the heist.
Since the Dyad is mentioned maybe it could tie into that. I think it would be interesting if the Dyad was somehow related to Mortis. Like the Dyad, Ben and Rey, have taken the place of the Son and Daughter.
EDIT: Also, I’ll make an updated version taking all of your comments into account!
Idir, that video you shared regarding the score made me want to play around with some rescoring.
I wanted to play around with adding Chewie’s Theme from Solo to when Rey realizes he’s still alive. I also feel like this restore add a sense of relief for Rey, relief that she didn’t kill him.
I did three versions, back to back, and I didn’t remove the original score so you might still hear bits of it. Just a rough idea. Let me know if you guys like any or prefer a certain version.
Hal, when I tried to download the clips, I got this message:
Sorry, you can’t view or download this file at this time.
Too many users have viewed or downloaded this file recently. Please try accessing the file again later. If the file you are trying to access is particularly large or is shared with many people, it may take up to 24 hours to be able to view or download the file. If you still can’t access a file after 24 hours, contact your domain administrator.
Sorry to change the subject, but I was thinking more about changing more of 3PO’s dialogue after he gets his mind wiped.
Please let me know who you are, you clever bastard, but someone came up with that line to replace “Whoever this Chewie person is, this is madness!” with “And I will be your protocol droid!” I’m not sure if this has been officially included yet.
I had two other ideas for later dialogue:
When we catch back up with 3PO speaking to the stormtrooper, we could hear 3PO rambling on about himself, something like, “I am fluent in over 6 million forms of communication!”
Meanwhile, the stormtrooper is trying to interrupt him. “Please, stop talking.” 3PO rambles on. Then he says, “Ugh, kill me now.” Then Rey shoots him.
3PO naturally freaks out. Maybe we can take some 3PO screams from the other movies.
You could replace the line, “Oh my, my first laser battle” with “This is madness!”, which fits better here, and/or random screams each time she kills another person, and then maybe have 3PO stutter his response to Rey. “They- they haven’t come back. Oh my…”
Alternatively, it could be funny to reuse the line, “I was programmed for etiquette, not destruction!” But it might not fit (or be isolated enough to use)
@nl0428 Palpatine didn’t really want Rey to take over the Empire for him, he wanted her to kill him in order for his spirit to possess her body.
Yeah, how does that explain how Plutt ended up with Rey?
I was worried about the same thing, but after seeing some test clips from a few people, I actually think it is doable. Once people start sharing more of what they’ve worked on, I think we’ll actually be surprised by how easy it is to make the movie work without it.
I guess we’ll see though!
The hard thing about Rey realizing she is a nobody in TLJ, and that her parents had no special reason for leaving her, was that she had no purpose or destiny to follow. She is looking for her place in this universe, this story, and having a “special backstory” would’ve given her that. So in IX, Rey needs to forge her own destiny. Choose who she is going to be. Will she become a Sith? Become a Jedi? Begin a new order with Kylo Ren?
In a way that was probably 100% unintentional, Rey’s white outfit represents this tabula rasa aspect of her character. She’s a blank slate, but she’s weighed down by the burden of choice. She’s faced with her inner darkness and inner light, and she’s trying to find that balance within her, and I think that is empowering for people that are also having to go on these journeys of self-discovery in their own lives. Rey being a Palpatine is totally unnecessary to tell that story. If anything, it makes things easier for her because the evil lineage storyline has already been told with Luke and Vader. Plus, it’s more repetitive for us as an audience.
Good idea cutting the “You’re a Palpatine” line.
I’d also suggest cutting the “my parents were strong” bull if you do Rey Palpatine. Do her parents really have to be noble and sacrifice themselves for her?
I guess if you kept the parents flashback stuff you have to show them embracing Rey with sad expressions and tearful eyes, telling her she’ll be safe in indentured servitude to a talking blobfish.
Re: yellow lightning. The idea is to deplete that moment of its original meaning of tying her to Palpatine. Since the lightning represents the inner darkness she fears, building a saber with a yellow blade at the end could be seen as her having accepted and integrated this into herself, reaching a sense of balance.
Wow, I didn’t think I would be convinced of this idea so quickly. If no one tries to make this change I’ll try to help out with it.
Re: clones. Ideally somebody, anybody’s face could be shown on a small group of people in like one shot aboard the Sith Fleet ships. Obviously with what we have to work with having Temuera Morrison’s voice is about the only viable shorthand with which we can telegraph that these are clones, but it raises questions. Moreso if one is into the EU, as clones had to be phased out over time.
I think it depends on what angle you want to approach the Final Order. Are you gonna keep the Final Order as its own thing, or does the First Order just assimilate the resources of the Sith Eternal.
If the Final Order is meant to be a fully-functional military, then I think the Sith Troopers being clones would be a fun Easter egg and a simple explanation for how they built an army in secret.
As for “you weren’t there”, I think it is a much better line than “don’t lecture me Obi-wan” and given the context of TCW Anakin, it does flow seamlessly, the theatrical line is bad and feels out of place.
To me, it’s not the content of the line, it’s the fact that the audio and sound of the delivery does not fit with scene or Anakin’s other dialogue. Not fit in the story sense, but in the technical sense.
Sure, it makes sense for him to say that in the new context NFB has created, but I don’t think it holds up technically.
What’s the motivation for making Rey’s lightning yellow?
Could you post this clip I keep hearing about with talk of Anakin’s child being given a lightsaber?
It’s this clip, after the Kashyyyk scene.
Second Act Kashyyk Kickoff + Luke’s Father Wanted Him To Have This, When He Was Old Enough
I was going to mention that but I’m glad you noticed!
If you don’t mind, I’d like to make too small suggestions. In the second paragraph of the crawl, you mention “underworld organisations”. Do you think you could possibly change “organisations” to a different word? Americans spell it like, “organizations”, so it might stick out and feel odd for the some viewers across the pond. Maybe you could go with “underworld syndicates”?
Also, if you don’t mind me throwing out an alternate episode title, I wonder if something like Ashes of the Empire might be more appropriate for the overall feel of this first story. Yes, the Child definitely seems like a Vergence in the Force, but I don’t think anyone even uses the word “Force” in the show, and the story so far has less to do with the Force, and more to do with these various people surviving in the aftermath of the Empire’s collapse. The Vergence title might be more appropriate if the show gets into more Force lore in the next season or two, and our heroes actually get introduced to the concept of the Force. Supposedly the original title for Episode 7 was actually Shadow of the Empire, so that could work too.
If someone could even just remove BB8 and nothing more I think it’d be a big improvement as I did find this genuinely distracting in this scene.
I’ll try to do this as well.
I like it, poppa!
Rewatching the ending I’m like, “Where did the lady go in the wide shot?” It’s like she disappeared. Did she just mozy on without a reply after Rey answered “Rey Skywalker?” Maybe she saw her stare off at the vast nothingness for 15 seconds, smiling at no one, and realized something’s probably wrong with her and decided to get out of there. Maybe she was already gone by the time Rey turned back around, but Rey was already committed to the moment.
One thing I really liked from Duel of the Fates that I knew someone as derivative as Abrams would never do was give the other Knights of Ren lightsabers. I think they should all have lightsaber. Red and crackly, but no crossguard. They’re knights, ffs. This should be trivial for an FX expert to accomplish in their battle with Ben using a little rotoscoping. As a bonus, having more than three lightsaber wielders takes us one step further from the ST being an OT ripoff, which is always good.
I think only one other Knight had a lightsaber, which was the actual darksaber from what I remember. But I do agree with the sentiment. I think they would be more visually distinct from one another, and their fight with Kylo would be cooler, if they had lightsabers, but I definitely don’t think the FX work would be “trivial” without making the effect look really amateur.
First of all, the Knights carry their weapons around with them everywhere, so if you applied a saber effect to their weapons, they would have their “lightsabers” activated even while not in combat: watching Kylo’s helmet get repaired, walking around Star Destroyer corridors, standing around in the desert, sneaking around Kijimi, etc.
Second, none of them have traditional bladed weapons, so you would either have to come up with clever saber designs, or mask out bits of the weapon that stuck out and force it into the shape of your typical lightsaber before rotoscoping it. One has a mace (that he hits Kylo in the face with twice), one has a long axe, one has a cleaver that he rests on his shoulder a few times, and another has a curved sword. So not exactly the easiest weapons to translate to lightsabers.
But, I do like the idea too. Maybe you could turn the cleaver, axe, and curved sword into unique types of lightsabers, then you could give the mace head an electric effect like the magnaguard’s electrostaff, and the other two guys with blasters can remain as-is. But you still run into the issues I mentioned before.
I can’t think of anything else I’d want to take from Duel of the Fates. That Rey/Poe romance definitely belongs in the grave (casual reminder to all editors to remove their introduction to each other from TLJ since their romance was removed and this was Trevorrow requested seen to set up just that).
I interpreted this as Rey dealing with being a “nobody” the entire movie, and then finally being acknowledged as “somebody” that people know. Other people could take it out but I don’t think it is necessary.
Wow, it is nice to see you working on a new project! And it seems like you have inspired others to make a complete Clone Wars TV-to-movie series, so I’m glad you’re trying something new!
It seems like it has already been blocked, unfortunately. Perhaps you could post it on google drive or vimeo?
How are you going to title your Episode VII version of the crawl? Still just The Mandalorian?
I made some notes for your clips, hope they aren’t too long-winded!
General Skywalker
All of these are great! Not much to add.
Anakin & Obi-Wan Relationship
I think for any lines we hear when the camera isn’t next to the person speaking needs to have comm distortion. I noticed you did for some lines but not all of them.
I’m not sure if every additional line works, some things feel pretty squeezed in, but I like that you’re trying a lot of different stuff! I like quite a bit of it!
Kashyyyk + Balcony Scene
Dude, the lightsaber banter with Padmé, I never imagined it would be possible to make that ANH line relevant in ROTS, but someone finally figured something out.
I think I would suggest cutting out the end of the line, “-and not be pushed around.” That part of the line feels like it has an accent that Anakin doesn’t have. I also wonder if you could pitch it up very slightly, since it sound a little deeper than Hayden’s voice in ROTS. Maybe I’m wrong though.
I also would cut “I know you do”, it feels squeezed in an I think it takes focus off Padmé’s monologue a little.
Also, the Kashyyyk scene feels really loud, and then the balcony scene is really quite in comparison. I had to turn it up to hear what they were saying, and I went back 15 seconds and the explosions almost blew my ears out haha. I wonder if you turn up the dialogue more or the battle audio down a little.
Regarding the Kashyyyk scene, basically the Republic already has some troops there, but later they decide to send Yoda and another battalion to reinforce them, right? If you keep this, I would recommend removing the Wookiee subtitles. I feel like it is an unspoken rule that Wookiee’s are never subtitled (besides Han speaking their language in Solo.) Just feels weird to me, but that might just be me! I wonder if you could try a right to left wipe for the initial scene transition. Since that shot already has right to left movement, the transition might feel more natural.
Anakin’s Appointment
The lines/shots in the council scene work pretty good! Now Anakin listens to Obi-Wan and doesn’t blow up, definitely a little thing that adds to their friendship.
Sounding Like A Separatist Scene
I think it ends too quickly. I honestly would keep the rest of the scene, just so the transition doesn’t feel so abrupt. But I do like how Anakin just let out a big sigh. I felt that on a spiritual level. Haha.
Also, I wonder if you could very slightly pitch up “what’s the matter?” A lot of these outside lines sound a little deeper than Anakin’s typical voice.
Not from a Jedi
The line, “Is that bad?” I would suggest making Anakin reply more quickly, when we can’t see his mouth, and cut away before we see him start talking. It just doesn’t line up with his mouth movements enough and it is noticeable, and I think the line works better if it is a quick reply, rather than something Anakin thinks a lot about saying.
Obi-Wan’s Reaction to Vader
Did you add blood-curdling screams to the Vader hologram? I think that is too much, honestly. Maybe you could add the occasional death scream when Anakin kills a Jedi, but the screams are a too little freaky, in my opinion.
Mandalore Tie-Ins and Palpatine Reveal
Why the extra lines between Mace and Anakin? To create more tension between them? I do like it.
I don’t think cutting the conversation scene is the right move. People like how we can see the same conversation from two perspectives, and if you remove one perspective then you remove why people like it.
I think you could simply cut the conversation between Yoda, Obi-Wan and Mace so you don’t repeat lines. I wonder if you could just use the scene as how it is cut here minus Yoda’s last line like you already did (and swap the Mace CUs so he still nods in reply to Obi-Wan). I don’t think Mace and Ki-Adi both saying “He should be removed from office” feels like a repeat of the same line in this instance, especially with the first half added just to Ki-Adi’s line. It almost feels like during their first conversation, it is more political, but by the second conversation Mace is starting to suspect there might be something more sinister going on than just a corrupt politician trying to hold onto power.
In the next scene, I would cut the line, “I’m not the Jedi I should be.” You can see Anakin’s not spreading at that moment. I don’t think the line is necessary at this point anyway. I do like the new music, I think it helps remind us of how Anakin views Palpatine, as a wise, trusted mentor.
Mustafar
I know we’ve talked a lot about this before already, I’m sure you’re tired of it but I do share some more thoughts about it! 😅
Because a lot of talk about killing Anakin has been cut, and Obi-Wan not telling Padmé that Anakin has killed younglings, it feels a little out of left field for Padmé to suddenly lie about coming there to kill him for what he’s done. Yeah, Padmé probably can put two-and-two together about his crimes, but now Obi-Wan hasn’t even suggested killing Anakin to Padmé.
I wonder if you could have Obi-Wan say he saw a hologram of him “killing Jedi”. I did attempt this, but maybe someone can make it sound better than I did.
Here’s another idea: in the shot of Padmé slowly backing away, I wonder how it would look if you added a slight digital zoom, so the realization that is dawning on Padmé hits harder. By the end of that shot, and totally in the next shot of Padmé, Anakin is no longer in the frame with her. That physical separation can represent that emotional separation, which leads to Padmé making that claim.
The new line you added after Padmé falls doesn’t seem to fit. The “You weren’t there line” is still noticeable to me as well.
Other Thoughts
As far as the “What have I done?” line, if you’re going for the angle that this edit is meant to better line up with The Clone Wars, then I would say it should be kept.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. It’s looking great!
Yeah I know, that’s what I’m saying. There was another version that I recall someone making before, like Nev said.
You’re probably thinking about Darthrush’s planned edit:
Yeah, this is what I was thinking of! Whew, thanks AG, that was gonna bug me all day.