RogueLeader

According the leaker JediPaxis, there were at least 3 different ways the film opened at one point or another.

The first opening I recall was what you described, it would start with an extended flashback of Luke and Leia training, then it would flash forward to present day, with Leia training Rey in the same place.

The second opening he described started on Exegol, where we would see the communication tower activate, and the Star Destroyers rise out of the ice. Basically this change was made because they felt the stakes needed to be introduced at the beginning of the film. I imagine this could’ve been just propelled by music, but I also could picture Palpatine’s broadcast being heard at this point too.

Then the third is what we got, which starts with Kylo on Mustafar.

Hal 9000 said:

No, a version where the physical him sees ghost him.

Joke fail, I was just kidding.

Haha, I was picturing him there, not transparent, but he still has that Force ghost glow. But I guess that would sorta look like TLJ Yoda!

DominicCobb said:

I like this idea. Could you do me a favor and scale up the rainbows then drop the opacity way way down? Curious what that’d look like.

Something like this or even more subtle?

You mean one version where he is there physically, and another where he is a ghost?

Huh, I never noticed that before!

I just googled that question and found this. Basically you get two off-center rainbows. But since it is normal for us to also see double rainbows, you could end up with quadruple rainbows.

But since that is too busy, you could just do two off-center rainbows. And you probably could make them skinnier than I’m making them.

It would still end on a binary sunset, but maybe you could see a subtle rainbow in this one shot.

It was just natural weather on location.

This might not be for everyone, but the in the BTS, when they filmed the homestead scene, there was this rainbow in the background.

Something about the rainbow, which has often been a symbol for rain and life, being above this place that we have always considered to be a dry and barren place, really struck me. I like the idea of actually seeing this in the film, but maybe done more subtly than this!

It seems like it was included with the deleted scenes based off the time code. It’s been awhile since I looked through all of the deleted scenes. I think it is a part of the scene where Finn, Rose and DJ are sneaking through the destroyer.

DominicCobb said:

That’s a good idea. That one in particular really sticks out. She says “No” and then Rey has a whole conversation by herself. If there’s a fix I’d love to see it. Something short and simple like “It’s too dangerous” or “You’re not ready.”

Maybe we can find some clean Leia dialogue from the Lego TFA game. Does anyone have those files?

I like it. Personally, I think “your family’s saber” would be more fitting and more meaningful, if possible.

Ahhh, that would be good. And she says family a few times throughout the movies, so you probably find a good sound sample to use.

NeverarGreat said:

My attempt at reducing the color cast (more screencaps in each comparison):

These look good Nev! The Rey screenshot looks a little reddish, but that may just be me.

I’m trying to get my hands on a high quality version of the TLJ deleted shots of Kylo Ren standing on the bridge of a destroyer. If anyone has that, a PM would be appreciated!

It’s so metaphorical!

Honestly, I would keep the officer that questions the Sith cult. Imo, these are the kind of things Kylo is probably wondering himself. He knows Palpatine must be wanting something in return, but he is still trying to figure that out. Really this officer is just expressing his own thoughts. Which makes it weird that Kylo then smashes him into the ceiling. I actually think it would be better to cut him doing that, and leave Kylo actually lingering on the officer’s thoughts.

Some additional random thoughts about some of Leia’s scenes:

I think if we add some extra off-screen dialogue here and there for Leia, it might help make the interactions feel a little more natural and have a better flow. Sometimes it feels like people, specifically Rey, talks to Leia while she just stands there.

One example I thought of would be when Rey is telling her about the Wayfinders. Rey says she has to go, then Leia just says, “No.” I was thinking after Leia says no and it cuts back to Rey, Leia could start saying something else, like a reason why she disagrees, and Rey interrupts her. I think it would help it feel more like a real conversation.

Also, when Rey hands Leia the saber, she says, “I will earn your brother’s saber. One day.” I think this could be changed to “I will earn your father’s saber. One day.” “father” could be taken from her line, “He killed my mother, and my father” from later on in the film. Later, when Leia hands it back, I think it would be great if we gave her a line like, “It’s yours.”

Random thought, I wonder if we could frame Snoke as Palpatine’s apprentice, basically like the Sequel Trilogy’s Dooku, rather than him being a literal puppet Palpatine controlled. Either the crawl could mention Kylo searching for Snoke’s master, or you could change the dialogue to something like this:

Palpatine: At last… Snoke trained you well.
Kylo: I killed Snoke. I’ll kill you.
Palptine: My boy… My apprentice was weak… But I have been every Sith.
Then Kylo walks past the cloning pods, which are filled with young Palpatine clones rather than Snoke.

We could also start playing up Palpatine as a Sith collective-consciousness earlier on. Since Snoke was old and malformed, Palpatine never saw him as a suitable candidate for possession (this would give Snoke’s physical characteristics a purpose in the story). Snoke presumably learned his powers from Palpatine and did his bidding, which would involve seducing Ben Solo to the dark side, taking control of the First Order, destroying the New Republic, and killing the Jedi. All in preparation for his master’s return, or to usurp him.

Really, such a change would give more agency to both Snoke as a character as well as Kylo Ren. Because if Palpatine was Snoke, does that mean he foresaw Kylo killing him? And if he did, like if it was a test or something, doesn’t that take away a bit from Kylo’s big moment?

To be honest, I’m okay with puppet Snoke, but I do think it is still not 100% clear. If you asked different people on this forum to explain the Palpatine-Snoke relationship, they would probably have varying interpretations: Snoke was a mindless puppet, Snoke had his own mind but was influenced by Palpatine, Snoke was a clone of Plagueis or another Force-user, Snoke was a homunculus fabricated by Palpatine, etc. etc.

I think the idea of Snoke being his own person, and being the apprentice of Palpatine, might just be a cleaner alternative. It leaves less room for confusion, I think.

Agreed about your opening thoughts. I almost feel we’re misdiagnosing the problem with the opening. It moved so fast it felt like whiplash, so we feel it needs to be improved by extending it. Yes, having Mustafar deleted scenes would have helped, but since we don’t have any I think keeping that Mustafar opening is just a detriment to the film. I think it feels like whiplash because we get an information overload within a short period of time. Palpatine is revealed to be back in the opening crawl, with no build up whatsoever. Then we pan down to a planet, then immediately jump to the surface, no ship transition, which is normal for literally every other Star Wars movie. We are there for 30 seconds, then we transition back to space. It’s just a lot.

I agree that starting with Kylo already in possession of the wayfinder would probably work better. Either with him flying into frame from left to right, heading toward the nebula as he starts his journey through it, or pan down to that nebula with Kylo jumping out of hyperspace. The crawl could set up a little mystery, maybe that the Wayfinder belonged to Snoke (which makes much more sense that Vader having it).

I sympathize with wanting to delay Palpatine’s reveal a little, but it seems the filmmakers decided to push it forward because they felt that the stakes needed to be introduced early on in the film. With no deleted material to play around with, I think it would be better to stick with that approach.

I think Hal will keep Rey Palpatine in his edit, so there still will be versions with it. Many people also want to see a version without it, regardless if it’s canon or not.

I keep reading “communication” in Nute Gunray’s voice.

This sounds good. I think you could at least play around with starting the film with Kylo already on his way to Exegol. Either starting with the shot of Kylo’s ship flying to the edge of the nebula, or pan down to the nebula as Kylo jumps out of it and flies towards the surface of Exegol.

The fact that we don’t have any extra deleted scenes of Mustafar, or the fact it doesn’t even look like Mustafar, makes me lean toward just removing it and allows the film to not start on an action scene for a change.

According to the person who posted this version, this is an alternate take. Apparently this is the first recording, which is less refined than the OST version. Appeared in some of the TPM era video games, like Jedi Power Battles.

StarkillerAG said:

Those regraded colors look pretty good though. Hopefully our combined efforts can salvage something decent out of this mess.

Maybe I’m being overoptimistic but I’m feeling better about it by the day!

If you removed the ash forest sequence from the beginning, but still wanted to include Mustafar in the film, you could reuse a shot from Rogue One to create a new establishing shot of Vader’s castle for the scene where Kylo has his mask reforged.

Also, does it really make sense that Vader would have the wayfinder? I feel like Exegol would’ve been a secret Palpatine kept from Vader.

Everybody get up, it’s time to slam now

I think it helps that most people who watch fan edits are likely to also watch theatrical/despecialized versions of the OT instead, but of course that is just an assumption.

Well if anything, it helps clear up that the planet that was blown up wasn’t actually Coruscant. Plus, Coruscant didn’t have other planets/moons around it like Hosnian Prime did. It would be nice if Hosnian was somehow named in TFA:R though.

I would love to see Dr. Dre, Nev, or someone else to make a nice LUT for this movie.