RogueLeader

STC.

Yes, seriously, please don’t share anything from there.

This isn’t real. Whoever posted this just reversed the shot.

NeverarGreat said:

It’s very cool!

One thing I wonder though, since Rey’s saber is yellow at the end, whether it might be more fitting to have Leia’s be yellow as well. It would be an illustration of Rey carrying on Leia’s legacy even if we lose the ‘Rey Skywalker’ moment, and actually might be more powerful as just the color callback than anything she could say.

I think the emotional connection is a strong argument for that, and plus you’d actually get to see a yellow saber in action a little. I feel like if they made a better connection to the yellow saber and the rising yellow sun, it would make a better connection to: yellow, yellow sun, hope is like the sun, rays of light, Rey.

I do have a few reasons why I like purple. The biggest reason, Carrie seemed she might’ve picked purple if she had a choice, and if Sam Jackson got to pick I think the Princess certainly should’ve. Also, by having her saber be purple, you’d get every lightsaber color seen in film all appear in the final movie.

Another, more “out there“ reason I like it is that the purple-almost pink, hue of the saber, when paired with the blue Skywalker saber in the climax of the film, could be symbolic of the anima and animus coming together, represented by Rey and Ben. Lucas was really into Campbell and Jung, and the dark side is basically symbolic of the Shadow, so I think it might be interesting to lean into that symbolism of the merging of the masculine and feminine.

But once the effects are applied, it shouldn’t be too complicated to play with the colors and also see how yellow looks in motion.

A quick and dirty test of something else I would like to see. (Click image to see test video)

Well, I already do know some of those things don’t have to be totally excised to work. Also, you came up with that clever way to cut the Rey/Luke conversation without mentioning Palpatine, I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up being the one to figure out how to make some of these other changes work!

But despite all of my saying this, I think Dom has a clear idea how to cut it, and should definitely stick with what he has in mind.

I think you would have to cut less than you think. If you never saw the movie before, you probably wouldn’t even notice the difference, pacing-wise. At the very least, you might want to insert dialogue here and there to replace some of the dialogue you remove.

But any explanation that tries to fit her parents into the narrative just feels a little convoluted. I think TROS, and Rey’s story, would honestly benefit from a straight-forward conflict of dealing with the potential darkness within her, the same darkness that exists in everybody. Not just the grandchildren of Sith Lords.

At least I think it would be worth trying to edit it that way first. I genuinely think it would be less of a headache than to try and get the parent narrative to work and not feel complicated. Maybe I’m wrong though!

EDIT: Totally just my opinion though. Maybe it could work.

I honestly think you could get away with not having her parents involved in the story at all.

Good point. I do think the line NFB added would be enough to make it clear that they’re an old fleet rather than newly constructed.

Maybe the crawl could refer to an ambiguous “Imperial contingency”. Basically, Kylo and the First Order are looking for a contingency the Empire left in case of their defeat. They don’t know what it is exactly, but they know it could help them.

NFBisms said:

poppasketti said:

NFBisms said:

Ok, here’s a quick mockup: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dWl61mMYFgDO3DAVQO-K_1UNZejk5CPC/view?usp=sharing

That’s pretty cool. I think for it to work you’d need to pitch-shift it up just a little, and then extend the shots before and after to give it a little breathing room. That should give it enough to blend and feel like something he’s saying just a little under his breath.

I agree. Something more like this?

Yeah, that blends in really really well. I still don’t like the term “Final Order” but I think the “bygone” line totally works.

Starkiller, thanks for sharing that. So yeah, you could make it where Kylo is looking for the fleet, and discovering that Palpatine is alive could be more of a surprise. You could set up in the crawl that the First Order needs something that will help solidify their rule. The fact that it is a lost Imperial fleet could be made clear in the crawl itself.

I guess the biggest issue is that they all have the big laser cannons on the bottom, but I’d be more willing to believe that the Sith Cult modified pre-existing Destroyers rather than build them all from scratch, don’t you think?

Are you talking about Star Wars: Resistance?

Hal 9000 said:

NFB, if you could find those that’d be very helpful. I’d love to be able to spin it in that direction. The official explanation is just so farfetched. Smuggling spare junk doesn’t lead to the largest fleet in history that exactly replicates an old Star Destroyer model.

Agreed. This is also one the biggest things I would like to change. Sith Fleet, Sith Eternal, Final Order. There’s way too much verbiage regarding it.

During Poe’s first mission briefing, there are tons of Resistance reaction shots that can be used to alter his dialogue. I was thinking you could change a part of his dialogue to something like this:

The Emperor has been planning his revenge for years. He and his followers have been hiding in the Unknown Regions, with the largest fleet the galaxy has ever known. Relics from a bygone era.

Hal 9000 said:

Not really needed, but I think it’d be cool to change 3PO’s interaction with the troopers. (“That’s not even a language!”) He should just haplessly be trying to find protocol to attend to, not necessarily aware that the troopers are hostile.

Is it possible isolate the dialogue from any the Clone Wars episodes? There is this scene from The Clone Wars where 3PO is trying to bargain for some fruit. You could dialogue like:

“Excuse me, fine sir, but do you by any chance have Chewie?”

“How much would Chewie cost?”

“May I please purchase Chewie?”

“Very well, 32, but not one credit more!”

I also wonder if he should be so eager to be in a laser battle? He’s not programmed for battle, so it might make more sense for him to be a little uncomfortable with the action.

It’s kinda like what Pearce said on your TFA thread. “Think smarter, not harder”.

After I first saw the movie, I felt like radical edits we’re necessary in order to make some of the changes I felt this film needed. I was even suggesting filming new scenes. But after looking through the film, and seeing what others have accomplished just with quick and dirty edits, I realized a lot of the changes I wanted to see we’re actually more tangible than I thought.

If it came from there then I apologize, I thought it was from one of the Paxis leaks.

I think the member that is working on it might want to see if the changes work before they share anything on one of the main threads.

EDIT: I also apologize for being cryptic. A few weeks ago I felt really pessimistic about fixing the problems I had with the film, but after rewatching the movie and sharing some ideas and tests with different members, I feel a lot more confident that fixing some of the major issues with the movie is actually doable. I know I talk a lot about ideas I have on here, but just speaking for myself, I think it might be fun if I wait until I have something to show for them! I’d rather give y’all pleasant surprises than false expectations.

NFBisms said:

what about a tank of Reys

Lol. Didn’t see this until now. Brilliant.

Hal 9000 said:

Eh… I don’t really imagine removing it. It’s… fine. I buy JJ intended that to be gently hinted at in TFA, but TLJ dropped it without a trace. So… this might be a reasonable split of the difference. I’m glad they didn’t have him using telekinetic powers or anything, though. Just… feelings.

Apparently he originally was going to use the Force to help open that hatch on the Star Destroyer, but that was changed.

nl0428 said:

RogueLeader said:

nl0428 said:

I think it’d also be best if we remove Finn trying to tell Rey that secret of his, that being his Force abilities. It’s never resolved/answered at all.

Might not be right for Ascendant, but another member is working on a clever way to reuse those scenes for a different context. Maybe they will share it soon! Hopefully it will work.

Not sure what the new context would be. Making it seem that he’s into her seems wrong seeing where their story lines went.

It’s not that!

Hal 9000 said:

It’s present in my ProRes master file. So, rather than going through several hoops to get the source fresh, I just did a crappy shape mask to copy a different portion of the frame. Looks seamless, and took hardly any time at all.

I like to call this laziness efficiency.

nl0428 said:

I think it’d also be best if we remove Finn trying to tell Rey that secret of his, that being his Force abilities. It’s never resolved/answered at all.

Might not be right for Ascendant, but another member is working on a clever way to reuse those scenes for a different context. Maybe they will share it soon! Hopefully it will work.

Also, I think there is a structural necessity in having Finn be there to see Rey leave, so they know she actually left the planet. Though as long as they see her leave that is okay. But Rey pushing Finn arguably contributes to her fear of hurting the people she cares about, like Chewie and BB-8.

NeverarGreat said:

Since it was Snoke who turned Kylo evil (presumably through voices in his head) and since Sheev says that he’s been every voice in Kylo’s head, I assumed that they were trying to have Sheev be responsible for turning Kylo. Whether or not Sheev is directly controlling Snoke or in spiritual possession of an otherwise lifeless meat puppet, the point is that Sheev is Snoke in every way that matters.

Very true. If Palpatine was directly linked to Snoke, whether he be his master or he literally controlled Snoke, I still think you could conclude that Palpatine was responsible for having Snoke turn Ben. I guess the most direct way to do that is by having Palpatine literally control Snoke, or create him for that very purpose.

DominicCobb said:

I think Palpatine clones would be fun, although it might raise questions in regards to Palpatine’s appearance. I think RL probably presents the absolute simplest solution to get rid the Snoke puppet idea - just cut out “you have ever heard.”

This was something I was thinking about too. Visually, it looks like it is Palpatine’s undead body. Although, Ian doesn’t really put the make up on until he drains Rey and Ben’s life force…
this is one of those things that I think people would assume, based off looking at him, that he’s just inhabiting his undead corpse.
Maybe if you created that shot of the Palpatine clones, you could insert that “More than a clone, less than a man” line over it. If the clones were in different states of decay, maybe it could help imply the clones decay rapidly.

I guess I prefer the cloning option because I don’t like the idea that they somehow recovered his body from the Death Star! On the other hand, if they had to recover his charred corpse from the wreckage of the Death Star in order to bring him back to life, then seeing his body explode at the end of the film might feel more like a definitive death for Palpatine.
Still think I prefer the cloning idea though.

EDIT: The cloning pods could contain random body parts, to imply they basically Frankenstein’d what was left of his dead body.

DOUBLE EDIT: Actually, the “more of a clone, less than a man” line would fit really well with that idea. He’s more than a clone, because there’s still parts of him that are his original body, but he’s less than a man because so much of him are cloned parts held together by technology.

It’s the voice line that makes it seem that way to me, more so than the “I made Snoke” line. I would agree with your impression just based off that, but the fact he says he was every voice in his head, including Snoke, makes me thing that Snoke was only a vessel that Palpatine spoke through.

But I guess that is what bugs me about the movie/novelization. It doesn’t really make anything clear. Palpatine made Snoke, but was he his puppet or his servant? Did Snoke know he was serving Palpatine? Was Palpatine a corpse or a clone? Did Palpatine FUCK, or was his son a test tube baby? It feels afraid to give a concise answer, so it leaves everything ambiguous.

I guess that is why I like the idea of Palpatine clones in the vats instead of Snoke, because it gives you a visual answer as to how he is back. Not just a Dominic spitballing ideas to the audience. I guess I like that in the same way I like Snoke being trained by Palpatine. It lets Snoke keep his agency, but still makes him a pawn of Palpatine. So, you could make that voice line just be, “[Palpatine voice] I have been every voice [Vader voice] inside your head.”

You could leave it as-is, too. But like I said, Snoke being his own character with his own goals makes Kylo killing him in TLJ more satisfying, IMO. It doesn’t have to be that way though of course.