Damn, the Emperor line with the added reverb is excellent. I think if a little more work was done to make it match to his existing dialogue as close as possible, it could totally work.
But depending on how you frame it, that could be the point. TFA and TLJ definitely play into the idea of the cycle of good and evil, and even though you can’t destroy evil forever, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth fighting against it.
So it actually might make more sense that there’s always a chance that Palpatine, who is basically the personification of evil in Star Wars, could always return.
I recall Dom having an idea of changing his last line to something like, “I have died before” and Rey saying, “I’ll be waiting.” (Or have them say nothing at all). Basically playing into that idea of people needing to be ever vigilant against the rise of evil.
BUT, if you did want to make it clear that he’s dead for good, I do think the Force ghosts playing some part in it, figuratively dragging him to hell, could help make his demise feel more absolute.
Interesting find! It might be difficult to clean the audio, but it would be nice little tidbit to have if someone were able to work some magic on it.
Honestly I was a bit iffy about Palpatine being a clone, but in retrospect having Kylo see clones of Palpatine would be the clearest way to explain to the audience how he is back. Seeing clones of Palpatine would serve a greater purpose for the story TROS than seeing clones of Snoke, who plays no role in this film. Seeing clones of Snoke doesn’t make it any clearer as to who he was, or who the original Snoke was, if there even was one. You could even keep Palpatine’s dialogue regarding him if you wanted to keep that connection.
I’m not really saying clone Palpatine is a better idea than Frankenstein Palpatine, but we don’t see or get a clear explanation in the film that Sith Cultists recovered Palpatine’s body from the wreckage of the Death Star, and put it back together again like some demonic Humpty Dumpty. At least with the pickled Palpatines idea, the movie would actually show us how he survived, rather than just leaving us with “dark science, cloning, secrets only the Sith knew”.
But I do agree with Ash that there has to be a more effective way to show that Palpatine is definitively dead. I really think the Force ghosts need to manifest in some way, and basically use Rey as a conduit to destroy Palpatine’s malevolent spirit once and for all. I think ways to actually portray this would be really worth brainstorming.
Yeah it’s palatines voice inside kylo head, the dialogue goes something like this :
Palps -“the jedi apprentice lives, I hope you’re not trying to decieve me, dont make me turn my fleet against yours”
Kylo -“I know where she is going”
Palps -“good, kill her!”
So it isn’t a hologram, but it serves the same purpose. The dialogue definitely makes it look like Kylo is just following his orders. Sure, he has other plans, but functionally he is just doing what he wants. Kylo should be doing the opposite, if we want him to have any agency in this film.
Yes! That’s what it was. Wasn’t Kylo just in a random hallway?
I recall that, so there wasn’t another hologram scene between Kylo and Palpatine? I feel like someone mentioned that, but I actually don’t remember it.
Unfortunately I don’t even think it really gave Kylo that much more agency. Kylo reprimands an officer who is skeptical of Palpatine and the Final Order, and there is a scene where Kylo communicates with Palpatine over hologram like he is his lackey, just like Vader was.
One thing to add that I think could be a nice touch is when Kylo says to Palpatine he should just kill him now, Palpatine should tell him to do it. “Do it. I have died before.”
I think Palpatine’s goal should be to take either Kylo or Rey as a new vessel. I feel like he has been grooming Kylo since birth to be his new vessel, so it is weird that he seems to throw him away so quickly for Rey. So if Kylo kills him then and there, fine. He has a new body.
When Kylo doesn’t immediately kill him, I think Palpatine should tell Kylo to just bring her to him. He has probably sensed her growing power and draw to the dark side, and he already knows Kylo doesn’t want to kill her. So his hope might be that that she will “kill” him instead and be an equally worthy vessel.
But Kylo knows he is up to something, so his goal should be the opposite of what Palpatine wants. So it should be clear that his goal is to prevent Rey from reaching Exegol and confronting Palpatine. Maybe Kylo is still unsure about how he should deal with Palpatine, but he knows he can’t give Palpatine what he wants.
This kind of bleeds into my complaints with Rey and Kylo’s interactions. It feels like TROS takes their whole “Join me.” conversation from TLJ and stretches it out across the whole movie. Their conversations certainly weren’t as engaging as their TLJ interactions, and I wish there was a way to make them more interesting.
Snooker, that looks great! It totally looks like it could be a real still from the movie.
Yeah, like I said, that would be a major downside of it, just lower the stakes a bit.
Could you elaborate on what you said?
Hahaha, I was literally just reading those.
I still haven’t thought of a satisfying way to handle Palpatine. On one hand, you could replace the Pickled Snokes with Pickled Palpatines to make him being a clone very obvious. In the film itself, I was under the impression that the Sith cult recovered his “broken body” from the wreckage of the Death Star, and frankenstein’d it back together.
I think either way, the implication is that his spirit is basically latched onto the body, clone or otherwise, until he finds a more sustainable vessel.
Honestly I don’t know which I prefer. I wish there was a way to make the idea of his spirit being just latched to his body a bit clearer.
I also wish there was some way to depict Palpatine’s spirit being destroyed by the Force ghosts after Rey destroys his body.
EDIT: I definitely think the film implies that Palpatine did die, and that he was either resurrected or his spirit is merely latched onto his body, but I could see the option of somehow implying his survival has something to do with the World Between Worlds. That maybe Snoke, or other Sith Cultists, saved Palpatine from dying on the Death Star by pulling him through as he fell. When Kylo touches Vader’s helmet, maybe Kylo could see a brief glimpse of a World Between Worlds portal or something.
Thanks! And yeah, getting down to the nitty gritty of the dialogue will be the most challenging part, since there isn’t a line from Poe that goes like, “Lando, go rendezvous with the Republic!” I think you could simply omit lines that contradict the main idea, then insert offscreen dialogue that supports it. So when we see the massive fleet, we could get a line from a off-screen character that says something like, “It’s the Republic!”
Also, since we have never seen the Republic fleet, we really don’t know what it might look like. Instead of having a Grand Army like the Galactic Republic, the defense fleets of dozens of member worlds might join together when facing a larger threat, so a “New Republic Fleet” might look a bit more scrappy than the very uniform Empire.
I had a few thoughts about reframing the political situation in the Sequel Trilogy.
In TFA, the opening crawl could say that the galaxy is pretty much divided between the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant/First Order, and there is a fragile peace between them. The Resistance is an independent movement, led by Leia, that operates within First Order space (the Resistance name makes more sense in this context as well).
Starkiller Base will not be a super weapon. Instead, Act 3 will be focused on rescuing Rey, and also getting the other half of the map to Skywalker (the oscillator will instead be a planetary tractor beam that must be destroyed for them to escape.) The New Republic will not be attacked or destroyed by the First Order at all. Their goal right now is 1) maintain control over their territory, and 2) destroy Luke Skywalker.
TLJ would continue the story by showing the First Order trying to destroy the Resistance before they can get Skywalker. The New Republic cannot intervene because it would break their treaty, and this could possibly be mentioned in the crawl. Rey mentioning the First Order taking control of all major systems within weeks would be removed, as well as other lines that contradict this new idea.
In TROS, the return of Palpatine and the massive Sith Fleet is what prompts the New Republic to finally join the fight in the climax of the film. Other small adjustments would be made throughout to work along with this idea.
The major con of this idea is that the New Republic still existing offscreen throughout the films might lower the stakes of the trilogy. The First Order taking over the galaxy is a big deal and the last good guys being a small group of people makes their struggle more of a challenge. On the other hand, having the New Republic exist offscreen would allow the Sequel Trilogy to not undo the victory of the Original Trilogy heroes, as some feel it has. Basically, the threat of the New Republic being destroyed would be moved to the last film by introducing the Sith Fleet. Kylo Ren and the First Order want this fleet in order to take over the rest of the galaxy.
I also think the idea of the Galactic Civil War ending in a truce or stalemate makes a lot of sense. The idea of the Rebellion, which still seemed small in ROTJ, was able to defeat the entire Empire in one year feels somewhat convenient, even if the Emperor did die. They would still have so many more resources at their disposal, but I could see the power vacuum and subsequent infighting would’ve allowed the Rebellion to liberate hundreds or thousands of systems and then to negotiate with the Remnant once they finally coalesced. The First Order is the remaining territory of that Remnant, so the story becomes more about finishing what the Rebels started in the Original Trilogy, rather than moving everything back to square one.
chef’s kiss
“Perfecto!”
Yeah I agree but to be fair, I don’t think they’ve totally stayed faithful to Lucas’ wishes. I personally don’t mind the idea that a vibroblade could at least take a few lightsaber hits before breaking or melting all the way through.
If someone were to go through the effort of giving a few of them lightsabers, I think it would be cool if they all had some variation rather than them all being red. Red, purple, orange, maybe one has a/the dark saber too. If they’re Luke’s students, maybe some are using their old sabers, or they’re using lightsaber they have collected over the years.
You’re right, they do. I think they’re meant to be vibroblade weapons, which can make contact with lightsabers. I’m not opposed to the idea of the KoR using lightsabers, but I think the exotic shapes of the weapons would make the masking and rotoscoping process a bit of a pain. And like I said, I’m pretty sure they beat the crap out of Ben with their weapons, so you would have to cut that out or something if you were to go that route.
After I typed that comment I thought to myself, “Man, this is so nitpicky…” I cant believe you actually did it! Yeah, it is probably a detail 90% of viewers wouldn’t even notice, but continuity is important to an editor, if you can help it. Thanks for actually doing it! Poppa, you’re a wonderful human being!
Wow, that was fast poppa! The error never really bothered me much but I guess it is a straightforward fix.
It would be cool to see the guard fighting Rey lose that blade in the previous shot of them fighting in the distant background. There’s a point where there is a big flash of light where they hit blades, and I feel like it could be removed at that point to imply that Rey cut it, explaining why the other blade is gone in the next shot of them. But Rey could’ve broke it offscreen too. Again, it’s a nice little fix but not a big deal.
Anyway, good job!
When I read your idea about Kylo losing his connection with the Force, I thought that was a pretty clever way to have Kylo atone as well as not making the hero team to overpowered by having the last two force users on the same team. But I had not even considered how that would effect his force bond with Rey, and if it would effect her abilities. At first I thought it might enhance Rey’s abilities to the point where she can barely control it, but I also like the idea that they both have lost their connection to the Force. The backstory in the Jedi Texts is pretty interesting, and it sets up an interesting dilemma for both Rey and Ben now that they must try to work together to reestablish that connection, possibly.
PRAETORIAN GUARD FIGHT CONTINUITY ERROR
This is just one of those things that doesn’t really bother me, and without an easy solution, is not worth fixing. However, looking at Jar Jar Bricks’ edit, it does seem like a pretty clean and simple edit! I also like the masking idea which would maintain the pacing, and if someone has done that already I’d love to see it.
It was Immersion VFX on YouTube. They did an edit where they turned all of the Praetorian weapons into lightsabers, and they also fixed that continuity error, which you can check out here. Maybe we could get in touch with him through Instagram or Twitter and see if they would be willing to share that shot with us, minus the additional saber effect. I know DigitalModification was also working on this, but I can’t recall if he finished working on it or not.
Honestly feel dumb for not even considering the idea of cutting early to remove the issue. If I recall, I also believe someone already fixed this issue by masking out the blade from the entire shot. Maybe it was DigitalMod.
It looks good!
Ooo, is this a part of Anakin’s vision?
The way I’m seeing some people talk about this online has me worried a little. Despite Lucasfilm trying to do something brand new, people are already comparing it to the Old Republic, and saying how they would’ve preferred that.
Guys, give it a chance. People want new things, and you give it to them and then they complain that it’s not the old thing. I’m sure they will do Old Republic content eventually, but maybe they’re saving it for movies or tv. Maybe they’re just working their way back through the timeline.
I’m also seeing people complain that it is only 200 years before the prequel trilogy rather than 400 as it was reported. The entirety of the Skywalker Saga was what, 70 years? I don’t see how the 200 year difference is a detriment.
If I recall the Knights beat the shit out of Kylo with their blunt weapons before he gets the saber, and two of them just use blasters, so I don’t think you could give them all lightsabers, if any.