Yeah, that looks so damn good. I really think it makes Leia’s lightsaber have a lot more identity. And it gives Exegol a nice little pop of some much needed color.
I think I have to agree that showing an amalgamation would only be confusing if we have never seen him that way.
I think if you were to age Hayden up, I would only age him up to his current age in real life. As if they had filmed new footage with 2019 Hayden Christensen.
Otherwise, I would just straight up use Shaw. But, when we actually hear the Force ghosts, we hear a young Hayden, not an old Shaw. (Then again, we do hear both a young and old Obi-Wan.)
Alternatively, if you tried to depict a Hayden-Shaw amalgamation, or a very old Hayden, I think it would work better to change Shaw’s appearance in ROTJ to establish that look and for it to be not be confusing.
Damn. It’s subtle, but just enough to make it feel alive. That is the best one so far, I think.
Awesome! This has definitely got me thinking about playing around with an alternate version of Return of the Jedi that acts as a definitive end to the story. Maybe it is time to resurrect Revenge of the Jedi. 😉
Hahaha, we have watched these movies so many times that each shot is almost burned into our memory! But to me, I think the potential that someone might recognize that shot is better than the it feeling like a still image of Obi-Wan. At least we see his head move, and it doesn’t feel like the ghost of a cardboard cutout.
Believe me, I am not criticizing your work, I think it is fantastic so far. But I would rather pick at it in order to perfect it, because it has so much potential. I do think version 3 might be the best of both worlds, though. I think his head in version 3 is a little big compared to his head in version 2, so I wonder how it would look if it his head was slightly smaller. I do think the slight motion you added to him definitely helps make it feel more real.
You think so? It doesn’t feel obvious to me at all. I mean, his ghost is barely visible as it is.
It might be obvious to us as fan editors, but do you think it would have been obvious to general audiences? Or friends/family members who we might show this fan edit to?
From a practical perspective, I could easily see how having Luke find a crystal floating in space could be cobbled together in a simple way, rather than needing to create a new sequence of Luke going on a ground mission.
You could reuse various shots of Luke in his X-Wing that you can intercut with. You could take one of the shots of R2 in the X-Wing, and add a claw element that can grab onto the crystal. Maybe someone could do this with CG elements, but I also could see someone using blue screen to film the claw grabbing the crystal (crystal on a string, maybe?), then adding it into the shot.
The biggest thing would be creating the “Death Star debris” elements. This is something else you could possibly achieve by filming “debris” elements behind blue screen, using similar techniques that they used to create the asteroid sequence in Empire. If it were me, I think I might take pieces of styrofoam and repaint them to look like chunks of metal, then film them in front of a blue screen with my camera on a track.
I think if you did this, you would also need to establish that there is a giant crystal in the Death Star in the first place. Maybe you could take the reactor shot from ROTJ, and add it into ANH, but with a giant green crystal in the middle. You could also perhaps add a giant crystal into the Death Star II as well. Or, maybe the Death Star plans animation could have a green diamond shape in the center of the Death Star to indicate that it is the power source in the middle of the Death Star that the proton torpedo overloads.
Although I don’t necessarily think this is a essential idea, recently I thought it would be interesting to explore reediting Return of the Jedi so it is in a chiasmus structure with A New Hope. Basically, Return of the Jedi would have story beats that parallel A New Hope, but in reverse order. So, for example, the first scene of Return of the Jedi would parallel the last scene of A New Hope. So maybe you could parallel the Throne Room ceremony in ANH by placing the Emperor’s arrival at the beginning of ROTJ. Then you could create a new final shot of ROTJ, a blockade runner flying overhead, that could reflect the opening shot of ANH. Basically, the imagery and narrative beats would come full circle.
Bingo’s idea of Luke returning to the site of the Battle of Yavin would fit rather well with this idea. If it presumably came after the first scene (whether it be Vader or the Emperor arriving at the Death Star), Luke flying through the Death Star debris would reflect the second-to-last sequence in ANH, the Battle of Yavin.
I would be interested in exploring this idea of making Return of the Jedi reflect the narrative beats and imagery of A New Hope further if anyone else is interested. If anyone else is curious about the chiasmus idea, Robert Lockard did some articles about it a long time ago. Here is his article about Empire Strikes Back and how it has symmetrical story beats from beginning to end. He also did an article on the Back to the Future trilogy, and how the whole trilogy has this narrative reflection as well. Interestingly, the middle film, in both the case of Back to the Future Part 2 and ESB, ends up reflecting itself once it reaches the midpoint (both of that single film, and the trilogy as the whole). In Back to the Future’s case, Part III ended up reflecting Part I. In other words, the end of the story reflects the beginning. So it would be interesting to approach a potential ROTJ edit with this in mind, and how it might be possible to have the end (ROTJ) reflect the beginning (ANH).
I’m surprised you guys like 1 over the others. He seems really hunched over. The proportions for 2 feel like the best, to me. And it feels less like a still image than the others.
Sounds good. Yeah, I think the TFA and TLJ openings are the same track, which seems weird because I’m sure they would’ve done the opening again when they recorded the TLJ score.
Thanks for sharing that, sade! It seems like Hal has a big interest in an older Anakin, or a Hayden/Shaw fusion. This might be something that would interest him to see.
Yeah, I agree A. Starkiller. I think now that the Saga is complete, it might be worth reflecting on the OT and see if there are any new ideas for changes that could be made to the original films.
On a serious note, this would be kinda cool, I feel like most fictional universes don’t pay attention to the evolution of language in their worlds. But I would be surprised if they actually made the effort to have everyone speak in the old republic like Yoda.
What’s more likely, in my mind, is the culture/language of Yoda’s species follows that pattern, but if baby is raised by Mando, or other Basic speakers, then he will speak normal. But who knows anymore, haha.
Yeah, fam. Go for it! I like your miniseries idea the best. Keeping it simple.
This might’ve been too much like the Dagobah Cave vision, but this would’ve been a cool visual to see during the dark Rey vision. I felt like the vision needed some kind of angle. When Luke fought Vader in his vision and it revealed his own face, it hinted both at the darkness within himself, but also foreshadow Luke and Vader’s connection.
Rey’s vision, on the other hand, doesn’t feel like it has any subtext beyond her confronting her inner dark side.
EDIT: To add onto this idea, maybe when Dark Rey’s fangs come out, you could an additional effect to help foreshadow Palpatine possessing Rey. For example, maybe Rey’s eyes could simply go completely white, or yellow, like Palpatine’s. Even further, it would be interesting if Rey’s face could morph into Palpatine’s at the last minute. It would almost be like a reversal of the Dagobah cave. Vader becomes Luke. Rey becomes Palpatine.
“En-“, like “in”side.
“-fys” like “fis”t.
Nest like a bird nest.
That’s a good point.
I recall a story about a dad who introduced Star Wars to his two young sons by first showing them the Clone Wars. What was great about it was how they came to love Anakin and Obi-Wan as these great war heroes. Then, when he showed them A New Hope, they were surprised to see Obi-Wan as this hermit, Luke’s son brings simple farm boy, and shocked to learn Anakin was murdered by Darth Vader. They hated Vader, just like Luke did.
So, you can imagine how shocking Empire Strikes Back was for them.
But to be fair, the Mortis arc already made it pretty obvious too, and that was from season 3, right?
For real… It doesn’t bother me on TV, but when I saw it in theaters I felt like I was going to be sick.
I think this would be the perfect colour for Exogol.
https://i.redd.it/5j29uw46xeu41.jpg
What is that photo from?
It’s a cool fan film, but I think including fan film stuff into a fan edit breaks any illusion of authenticity that your fan edit might have, if that’s what you’re going for.
Since smudger discontinued his TV-to-movie projects (as far as I’m aware), this would be a cool project to pursue. Basically, turning the whole show into a miniseries, with around 60-90 minute episodes, that boils the show down to its most essential arcs. I think it would be cool if you continued this further with Rebels, as well, since many of those characters arcs, like Maul and Ahsoka, continue into it.
^I agree.
Ugh, I totally agree. I really really wish they would’ve given us some deleted scenes. The Chewie interrogation is really the moment he needed in this film. He needed a special moment. Play his part in bringing Ben back to the light.
What hurts even more is that they filmed it! We know they have it, but they chose not to release it. It kills me…
I don’t think any of that is in the final, film, though. We barely ever see Leia holding the medal, and it’s doubtful most people noticed what she was holding. I don’t think there is any indication that Leia is responsible for the vision of Han in the film. Even Adam Driver in the BTS seems to imply it is mostly in his head, and not Leia projecting his image to him.
You could have Leia say something else more than just “Ben” as she’s dying. Like, “Come home.” This way, Leia, Luke and Han all play a part in saving Ben.
And, for edits that might have Ben live in the end, I imagine that many versions will have Leia play a part in saving his life.
That’s not a bad idea either!
Does Luke ever say “Hey” in TLJ?
Thanks for sharing those!
I know some people were hoping to see Luke’s spirit in contact with, or haunting, Kylo in the film, since TLJ sort of hints at it. It’s possible we could have Kylo hear Luke’s voice, maybe, but it would be hard to create a scene where he actually sees him. But, I did have another potential idea for it.
What if we added a hint or two that hints at Luke being responsible for the vision Kylo has of Han? I wouldn’t want it to be super obvious, because I like the ambiguity of whether it is a vision or just in Kylo’s head, but I think it would actually work as a good pay off.
One of the last things Luke says to Kylo is, “Strike me down and I’ll always be with you, just like your father.” And then, his line, “See you around, kid.” Definitely harkens to Han, since he called both Luke and Ben “kid”. So even then Luke knew how much even referring to Han would influence Ben.
When Ben first hears Han say, “Hey, kid”, maybe you could overlay it with Luke saying, “Hey, kid”. Or the line could transition to Luke’s voice to Han’s. And maybe at the end, after Ben’s throws his saber away, when he turns back around, maybe he could hear Luke’s voice say something very quickly, or we could see a very faint glimmer of Luke’s force ghost disappearing just as he turns around. Like I said, I don’t think it necessarily should be super obvious, so you could just run with a few of these ideas, and not all of them perhaps. But I think this would be a good way for Luke to help Ben in his time of need.
Another cool thought about it is that if you did this, Luke would be helping Ben and Rey simultaneously, giving his guidance to both of them. And even though the scene is about Ben forgiving himself, I think if Luke was implied to be behind the apparition, then in a way Ben would be making amends with Luke, Han and Leia through this single conversation.
Jonh, seriously props to you for being so optimistic and generous with the feedback we’ve been giving you. I think this was something most people were hoping to see (I remember reading how many people online were hoping to see Anakin). I think if we can get a few solid versions of this, plus a few other major changes from some other editors around here, I think we can create a surprisingly different version of The Rise of Skywalker.
EDIT: If I had to nominate an extra Jedi to add, I wouldn’t say Leia since, like Hal said, her body is still on “Jungleworld” at this point. I would argue that you could put Qui-Gon on the far left, next to Anakin, though. I mean, he’s basically the reason all of them are even able to be force ghosts. Plus, we literally here Qui-Gon say “We stand behind you, Rey.”
Hell, if Rosario Dawson does end up showing up as Ahsoka in the Mandalorian, as rumors have been suggesting, I could see a future version of this with her standing there. That way you could have at least one female Jedi behind her.
