That’s an interesting idea! It would be a good way to reuse that footage without having to look at the strange-looking analysis droids.
I actually recall that after the first trailer, people were comparing screenshots to prove that it was Endor! 😂
Best friends.
True. That’s generally something I try to keep in mind when I think of ideas. Your idea might be really creative, but you have to ask yourself, “Would a first-time viewer pick up on the idea I’m trying to convey?”
For example, I like the idea of the Emperor being some kind of Sith-collective conscious, but what ways can you convey that idea in the film? You definitely could imply it, the implication is there in the theatrical, but could you make it overt and obvious to the audience?
It is easy for us to get very ambitious ideas when it comes to editing these movies, but a lot of times I’ve noticed the simplest changes tend to be the most effective. Find the path of least resistance, basically.
Maybe the reason the other Force ghosts haven’t chimed in throughout the saga when it would’ve been convenient is because Anakin and the other Force ghosts have been helping long dead Jedi regain consciousness within the netherworld of the Force.
I don’t think it is a stretch for people to believe a temperate moon like Endor has grasslands across the coastlines. Naboo has swamps and pastures, it isn’t a completely homogenous climate. I also figured most people assumed that as soon as we saw the Death Star wreckage in the trailer, that it was Endor. I think having a transition shot like that is enough to show the audience that it’s Endor.
Speaking of the Force ghost sequence, I had been thinking a little more about earlier conversations about potentially adjusting it to focus on Rey hearing/thinking about her friends, but I’ve thought of something else.
When Palpatine starts zapping the fleet, it shows various shots of ships falling and ships exploding, and then we see that Rey is watching what is happening before her focus zooms last them into space. I was thinking that this moment could be altered a bit more to show that Rey is sensing her friends in peril, specifically Poe, Finn, and maybe others, rather than random ships, and this is what encourages her to try to reach out and connect with the Force ghosts. It would be nice to further adjust this to make it where Finn speaks to her through the Force, and this is what encourages her to connect with the Force ghosts. As it is in the theatrical, it just feels like she does it on a whim, so this could be a nice touch if we could figure out how to do something like that, and it would pay off Finn’s “I have to tell you something Rey” moments.
Yeah, I think people had the idea to close it that way even before the Sequel Trilogy was a thing.
I know some people have already made this suggestion, but I wanted to elaborate a little on why I think it could be a good idea, as well as share specific ideas I had about it.
The only thing I worry about is it being able to fit together well.
After recent conversations and a little brainstorming, I had some thoughts to share about recontextualizing the political situation in the Sequel Trilogy as a whole, as well as specific thoughts regarding the ending for TROS.
First of all, these ideas could be used for separate edits, but I think they would work best within the context of a collection of edits for the entire saga. Before getting into the Sequel Trilogy, I want to briefly touch on ROTJ’s ending.
For an ROTJ edit that works well within a saga edit, I think two changes could be made that could help set up the ST. First, after/when the Death Star is destroyed, I think it would be great if a shot could be created of Star Destroyers jumping to hyperspace in various directions, fleeing the battle. This seeds the idea that the entire Empire just wasn’t destroyed at the Battle of Endor, but fled to lick their wounds. Secondly, I think it would be better if the film didn’t end with the celebration montage. The montage makes it seems like the Empire has immediately collapsed across the galaxy, but then when we see a new Imperial faction in the opening shot of the next film, it makes the two movies feels somewhat contradictory. So instead, the ending could revert to the original version of the ending, which is a plus, imo, or something like BedeHistory’s mock-up:
This is my attempt to redo ROTJ’s ending with a non-diegetic piece from the 1983 soundtrack (namely, “Luke and Leia”). A bunch of other fanedits have done this (e.g., the Dan Edit), but I wanted to demonstrate it with the 1983 cut of the ending. I sped up the music a little, for better sync.
Here’s the vimeo link.
Password: fanedit
This also would help keep the ending of ROTJ more personal, focused on Luke and our other heroes on Endor.
With that in mind, I think it would be better to rethink the Battle of Endor as when the Rebellion became the New Republic, and after the events of the movie, will take back entire swathes of the galaxy, but not all of it. So this would be much more similar to the way Legends depicted the post-ROTJ era. And practically speaking, this result makes more sense than what we got in canon. The entirety of the Rebel fleet was apparently at Endor, but we know the Empire had resources and personnel all across the galaxy. They wouldn’t have been able to retake the entire galaxy in just a year. The remnants of the Empire would persist on the edges of the galaxy, but the Rebellion would retake control of major portions of the galaxy. So when we’re introduced to the First Order in TFA, they shouldn’t be described as a mysterious force emerging from the shadows.
Since TROS introduces a hidden Imperial remnant out in the Unknown Regions, I think it would be better if the First Order was clearly differentiated from the “Final Order” or Sith Fleet. In TFA, the crawl could describe how the galaxy is divided between the New Republic and the First Order, which could be the result of the remaining Imperial remnants uniting together after Luke’s disappearance. These two factions have a very fragile peace, or maybe they’re in a cold war, but despite that political tension Leia operates her Resistance within First Order space because she refuses to end the fight until the entire galaxy is liberated from tyranny.
This might not be a popular idea, but when we get to the ending of TROS, I think it would make the ending more effective to combine the Victory Celebration montage from ROTJ with the victory montage from TROS to create one extended victory montage. The fleet of “just people” at the climax of the film plays into the idea of this war being a people’s revolution, so I think seeing the people actually celebrate across the galaxy would play really well with that theme. This is how I’m picturing it:
To justify some of these choices, I swapped out Jakku and Endor with Coruscant and Canto Bight for two reasons. One, I think it makes more sense to see these Star Destroyers be brought down above populated worlds, rather than planets that are relatively insignificant outside of our nostalgia. This montage is meant to depict the people revolting against the First Order, so it makes more sense for this to happen at planets where there are actually people. (Also showing Canto Bight/Broom Boy again is a small, but I think nice, pay off to the Canto Bight subplot and the TLJ ending scene with Broom Boy, implying that justice/freedom is coming to those people).
Second, snooker has created new/and alternate shots related to Coruscant and Endor. We’ve had this idea of having the First Order briefing scene take place on a Star Destroyer above Coruscant, so the Star Destroyer crashing near the Jedi Temple could be this same Destroyer. This is the shot Snooker created as a proof of concept for that idea.
We’ve also talked about using those Endor shots to make it seem like the Death Star ruins are on Endor rather than Kef Bir, so snooker created this shot to imply that.
If we are going to treat TROS as the ending of a nine part saga, then it makes more sense to make the ending feel like an ultimate victory, with people celebrating all over the galaxy as the last vestiges of the Empire finally collapse. If you watch a Star Wars marathon in the future, the current TROS victory montage will feel like a cheap knock-off in comparison to ROTJ’s victory celebration, so it would be better to just combine them into one big victory montage at the end of this very long story.
Agreed, I could definitely see someone watch this and not immediately notice this was edited.
So you did alter the music slightly? It sounds better than the last version from what I remember, but I am not wearing my headphones. Either way, I think it sounds good, and it looks great too. I think this should be the last one for V3, for sure.
Your vfx skills are very impressive, you must be very proud.
Great!
Maybe the star destroyer kamikaze from that shot could be reused with a Coruscant matte, if one wanted to keep the ending montage. Then, you would have one PT planet (Coruscant), one OT planet (Bespin), and one ST planet (Jakku).
Maybe the Alien guy could be redubbed to add some extra exposition too.
Rose could say after Poe’s first line, “Wait, do we actually believe this?”
And then the alien guy could say something about it being a secret/lost fleet of the Empire, or the Emperor’s contingency. Something brief to justify its existence.
So cool! Would love to see an animated version of that once the blu ray drops.
I like this for a few reasons, but 1) it clearly establishes the Death Star wreckage planet as Endor, since we associate the Ewoks with Endor. And 2) When Jannah tells Finn the story of how her battalion of stormtroopers refused to kill the planet’s natives, it creates the implication that those natives are the Ewoks. And it creates this whole story in your head that the First Order came back to Endor to get revenge on the natives that helped topple their Empire, but the stormtroopers couldn’t kill those cute little teddy bears.
Speaking of Jannah, one little change I would like to see would be to give Finn one off screen line to Jannah about joining the Resistance. The film doesn’t really address if Jannah and the other troopers are actively fighting against the First Order, or if they’re just laying low. But if we could squeeze in one line where it seems like Finn is trying to get them to not hide, but fight, it would be a small, but tiny way to bring Finn’s arc full circle.
Right now, I’m thinking that during their conversation on the Falcon, Finn could say, “We have to fight.” (Taken from TLJ, when he says it to Poe on Crait), or use a similar line, and it could be during a shot where Jannah is just looking at him. The scene moves pretty fast though, so I don’t even know if there is a long enough reaction shot that can be used.
If there isn’t enough buffer to fit in a line like that, I wonder if we could insert BB-8 into the scene, and we could reuse BB-8 reaction shots from TFA, when Rey is trying to fix the Falcon, to sort of extend that scene between Jannah and Finn. And we could hear Finn say that to Jannah over a reaction shot of BB-8. It would also be a nice parallel, since the last time BB-8 and Finn were in this spot, he was trying to make a deal with BB-8 so he could get away from the war. Now he is recruiting someone else to join it.
@jarbear No you are fine! Honestly I think the bigger picture thoughts have to be worked out to determining which directions are worth going in, you know?
Maybe the personal aspect could be more about who/what Rey is defending rather than attacking. That is why I have suggested in the past that the Force vision moment could be substituted with something that carries more emotional weight, like something that reminds us of what she is fighting for, like her friends and newfound family.
Luke didn’t have any personal connection to Palpatine in ROTJ either, so I think it is fine that Rey has no emotional connection with Palpatine either.
It might be better not to address the balance thing at all, and let people fill in the gaps themselves!
Well, if you wanted to keep the Chosen One/balance stuff, maybe the Force has been out of balance because this malevolent spirit has been leeching off the Force for the past 1000 years, like a cancer. So destroying that entity is how balance is restored.
Instead of having a whole bunch of Force ghosts, it could just be Anakin that appears. You could superimpose brief glimpses of Anakin’s spirit onto Rey as she is deflecting the lightning, and then when she starts deflecting it back at Palpatine, that spirit becomes more solid, and finally his spirit could fly toward Palpatine, and that collision causes the explosion. So basically, its like Anakin’s spirit is dragging the Sith entity into the netherworld for good. It would be an interesting dichotomy, where you momentarily have these two avatars of the Sith and the Jedi having one final confrontation.
You are probably right though, it would probably be less work to just remove the Chosen One stuff from the prequels, and infer that balance is just a thing that has to be maintained constantly, rather than some prophesied being bringing some ultimate form of balance.
Also, when thinking about how to improve the climax of the film, I can’t help but think back to ROTJ. To me what made that climax so great was the emotion of those final moments between a conflicted father and a selfless son. Will Luke give into his anger? Will Vader save his son? Suddenly the epic battle between the Rebellion and the Empire became a very personal conflict.
A lot of the emotion that I think exists in the IX climax is the interaction between Ben and Rey, and between Rey and her friends. Rey really has no actual personal connection with Palpatine or the Force ghosts. While I think having a part of that ethereal battle between the forces of the light and the dark side is cool, I also thinking finding ways to make the final battle feel more personal would make it generally more satisfying. Does that mean replacing the Force ghost talk with something else, or pairing it with something else? What else can be done to heighten the emotion of the climax? I think that is something to think about.
EDIT: Cool thoughts Starkiller! I think having Kylo’s search be for the fleet would be a good alternate. Do you think you could transcribe Poe’s exposition about the fleet and “Somehow, Palpatine returned.” To see how if excising any mention from that scene is possible?
Had two thoughts regarding Palpatine.
There was this weird implication in the film that I feel like hasn’t gotten a lot of discussion. When Palpatine exposits his evil plan to Rey, for some reason, that his spirit will possess her body once she kills him, and when he declares, “I am all the Sith”, when I first saw the movie it gave me the impression that Palpatine was basically saying every Sith in the Rule of Two, since Bane, has possessed their apprentice and formed some kind of collective consciousness over the past millennia. But, like most things related to Palpatine, it is left rather vague.
A part of me thinks it would be interesting to lean into that angle more, in order to differentiate ST Palpatine even more from OT Palpatine. I kind of think that the vessel isn’t consciously aware that their master would possess them when they killed them. Their identity is retained, but the spirit is passively controlling them. But maybe after Palpatine’s “death” that consciousness has come to the surface.
A cool way to get this idea across would be to layer Palpatine’s dialogue with multiple voices, to imply that that there is something more sinister deep within the withering husk of Palpatine. I also think leaning in this direction makes the summary of Episode IX be more than just, “Somehow, Palpatine returned.”
The final antagonist isn’t simply just Palpatine again, but the Sith incarnate.
Another though regarding the climax, I have been trying brainstorm ways to make the final destruction of Palpatine/the Sith more interesting than just Rey deflecting lightning back at him. Since Palpatine’s face melting is so reminiscent to how the Nazi’s are killed by the Ark of the Covenant, I wonder if we could see that after Rey stands back up, we could have the Force ghosts standing behind Rey. And to make their involvement rather simple, after Rey declares that she is all the Jedi (or however you replace/remove it), the Force ghosts simply turn into blinding light, and that light contributes to the disintegration, and final destruction, of Palpatine/the Sith.
Interesting idea. You would have to isolate Palpatine’s dialogue somehow.
Just wanted to chime in and say this is a very fun discussion to read. I’ve said this before but I think the ambiguity of the Force really adds to its mystique. I suppose out of universe George or JJ or Rian can say how they interpret the Force, but I think it would be to its detriment to ever definitively explain its function.
I think it would be cool to get an Old Republic story where we see opposing Jedi philosophies come to a head, not in a violent way, but where we see Jedi debate on the nature of the Force and the dark side. Maybe some Jedi see the dark side as an evil that needs to be purged, where others see it as an aspect of all life that needs to be understood.
A little audio thing I wanted to mention.
I love the music for when the laser cannon blows up the door. I think it sounds strange how the light, gentle strings fade back in on the following bright shot of Kylo watching the explosion. I wonder if the music fading back in could be pushed back a little more, possibly not until the following shot. I guess it just stands out to me because it is the same strings you hear when Finn fails and Poe lands in the trench. Just feels like it would flow better if you didn’t hear it again. I also think the extended silence could help emphasize the seriousness of the moment.
I know we’re beating a dead fathier, poppa. I’m sure you’re ready to never have to watch this scene again (outside of actually watching the movie).
Really subtle adjustment, nice!
This might not be an issue for anyone else, but it sort of feels noticeable to me now how in the wide shot, the walker gets in a wide, firing stance, but in the very next shot its legs are in the standard position. It would be a pain in the ass to adjust that shot too, so I’d either say leave it as is, or rearrange shots so that following cockpit shot precedes the wide shot you adjusted.
Jenny Nicholson had a similar idea, where she hears the voices of her friends rather than the Jedi. It might be hard to pull of the Finn connecting with Rey, thing, because there might not be an appropriate shot of Finn that we could into that. But considering that whole sequence is basically all voiceover, it leaves a lot of room to play around with, whether you keep the Jedi voices but alter them slightly, or do something entirely different.
Regarding the spice runner stuff, I’ve really only had two ideas about how to improve it without removing it. Maybe Zori could say, that he was a spice runner “before he left to join the Republic” rather than “Resistance”, since the canon made it clear Poe was a Republic pilot before he joined the Resistance. This could help make it seem like this is something he did in his late teens or early twenties. A long time ago basically.
Or, either Zori or Poe could say that he was simply undercover, working for the Republic. This would help explain why Zori is so hostile and wants to kill him so bad. The tricky part would be finding Oscar or Kerri lines that would fit.
Thanks! Or simply, “Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. Your destiny. If you don’t, it will mean the end of the Jedi, and the war will be lost.”
Wouldn’t say it is negative, but I get what you’re saying. And you would basically be trading one pay off for another. A part of me wishes the Force ghosts played a bigger role in the end than they do.
It is just too bad there isn’t any pay off to the Force sensitive Finn stuff. If you cut out those references, and Poe being a spice runner (can’t recall if Dom is doing this), it ends up cutting quite a bit of Finn, Poe and Rey’s interactions.
