RogueLeader

That might be a good idea.

Nev, if you go with Finn killing the villager, I wonder if it would be easier fx-wise to have Finn turn the corner, shoot the villager, but maybe cut on the impact to the shot of Finn. Then you could add foley of someone falling to the ground in pain, while Finn lowers his blaster realizing what he has done.

Because as it is now, it feels like it would be hard to make it seem like she has actually been shot, based on her reaction.

Also, how would we know it was Finn that killed her if he doesn’t have his blood marks?

Peter Pan said:

Looking at how Rose character was handled in TROS to please those people that hated on her, including these that sent Kelly Marie Tran death threats I was thinking about offending those f*ckers a stitch more:
Why not cut the Fin Rose romance from 8 and retcon Paige from being Rose sister to being her wife and turn their amulet into some sort of wedding ring.

Yeah, unless we get some deleted Rose scenes I do think the kiss probably needs to be cut unfortunately. I feel like changing ‘sister’ to ‘wife’ might be challenging, though, especially if we don’t have an instance of KMT saying wife.

DominicCobb said:

Here’s a very quick and dirty opening crawl that puts off the Palpatine reveal:

The galaxy is in despair. Under Supreme Leader KYLO REN, the First Order has taken control of all the major planetary systems.

But the spark of hope is spreading under the leadership of GENERAL LEIA ORGANA, who trains REY to restore the legacy of the Jedi.

Meanwhile, Kylo Ren searches the Unknown Regions for the source of his former master’s dark power, determined to quell the RESISTANCE once and for all . . . .

This is real goooOOOoood.

That is a good point. I do appreciate that you’re putting some thought into setting up more with Finn’s story from the beginning. Now we have the full trilogy, it’d be nice to see how we can set up in things in TFA that can pay off in TROS.

This is interesting! I actually had a similar idea of using that scene awhile back, but for a different purpose.

https://vimeo.com/354559668

I had this idea that maybe the bundle that woman is carrying is actually a baby, and you could add baby crying sound effects to that scene. The next time we see Finn, when the officer puts him in formation, you could alter his line to say, “The children are on board, now stay here.”

I like the idea of Finn realizing he is perpetuating the cycle. He was kidnapped as a child, and now he is kidnapping more children. Finn and Rose help give the children of Canto Bight hope for a better future in TLJ, and we get some mentions of more children harvesting in TROS, so it’d be interesting if somehow that arc came full circle by the end of the trilogy.

regularjoe said:

NeverarGreat said:

I liked the dagger bullshit in so far as it felt like a bit from Indiana Jones.

This movie is the “Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom” of the Star Wars franchise.

I wish they would’ve ended Finn’s story like Temple of Doom ended too!

Luke’s importance is less about his powers and more about what Luke means to people. The hope he inspires. Leia inspires hope but not in the same way as the last Jedi does.

I had a feeling this was going to be a Thor Skywalker video before I even opened it.

RogueLeader said:

snooker said:

-Slow down the pacing using subtle digital slow motion (to hold on shots for longer) and deleted scenes.

You know, I had a similar thought but I have never tried this before. I’d be curious to see how effective this technique could be to let this film breathe a little.

NeverarGreat said:

I liked the dagger bullshit in so far as it felt like a bit from Indiana Jones.

And yeah, the Dagger stuff definitely felt like a Staff of Ra or Goonies dagger moment, and I guess we shouldn’t question the logic of it too much.

Hal 9000 said:

Isn’t the reason Rey snoops around Kylo’s quarters in the first place because she’s looking for the dagger? If she never ends up needing it, that might not be good to remove.

This being another reason to just accept it!

snooker said:

-Slow down the pacing using subtle digital slow motion (to hold on shots for longer) and deleted scenes.

You know, I had a similar thought but I have never tried this before. I’d be curious to see how effective this technique could be to let this film breathe a little.

NeverarGreat said:

I liked the dagger bullshit in so far as it felt like a bit from Indiana Jones.

And yeah, the Dagger stuff definitely felt like a Staff of Ra or Goonies dagger moment, and I guess we shouldn’t question the logic of it too much.

joefavs said:

RogueLeader said:

To be honest, despite my criticisms of certain story decisions, I also felt the movie was better on my second viewing. It is still fast but not as jarringly fast as it felt the first time around.

I know what you mean. I found it was a lot less frenetic when I knew where it was going. I also picked up on dialogue that justified a couple things that felt like they came out of nowhere the first time.

Yeah, exactly. One example of this I recall is how in one scene Kylo tells some officers to alert local troops near Pasana to look for the gang, then it immediately cuts to a Stormtrooper telling the gang to freeze. But in an earlier scene Poe tells everyone to keep their head down because big gatherings tend to have First Order patrols. First viewing it felt like whiplash, and I can it is, but it didn’t feel as jarring the second time around partly because I picked up on that line.

DominicCobb said:

RogueLeader said:

DominicCobb said:

snooker said:

I just don’t know how possible it is to remove Rey’s parents from the movie? If its possible i would do it, but Ochi’s ship design is very explicitly from Force Awakens so it might be odd to have the same ship without the backstory?

It would be difficult for a number of reasons, that, but also quite a bit of dialogue is had talking about the fact that Palpatine had her parents killed, from Kylo but then later from Rey to Finn. In my mind, leaving it in is the much cleaner solution. Palpatine sensed her power early and wanted her dead, and ended up killing her parents looking for her. This fuels Rey’s anger and spurns her to search for Palpatine and kill him (as she states in the film). Removing that entirely would create a lot of problems.

The first Rey and Palpatine scene will already be a nightmare ‘My granddaughter…’ ‘Empress Palpatine’ etc.

Arguably, you could keep “Empress Palpatine,” because Palpatine will be taking over her body, right? Might actually make an interesting parallel to the last scene, here Palpatine is goading her to adopt his name, essentially.

I do agree it would be more difficult, but I do think removing that aspect would be worth exploring. I think Rey’s parents not caring about her makes her character more interesting, but if someone threatened her parents’ lives to know her location, if they didn’t care then they would’ve just told him. So it turns out her parents did care about her, and even died for her, which just makes her story a lot less interesting imo.

I don’t disagree at all. Just feel like it’s a house of cards, and taking out Rey Palpatine could already be enough to knock it all down. The solution I have at least keeps some of the structural integrity of the film as is (even if it reduces some of the meaning as a compromise). There is apparently a deleted scene where Ben tells Rey not to give into her hate and cut down Palpatine that would work well with the ‘Rey wants revenge’ angle as well.

I hope we actually get that scene. At what point would he actually say that to Rey? I guess as he is running to come find her on Exogol? That would be nice, so his last word in the film literally isn’t “Ow.”

DominicCobb said:

snooker said:

I just don’t know how possible it is to remove Rey’s parents from the movie? If its possible i would do it, but Ochi’s ship design is very explicitly from Force Awakens so it might be odd to have the same ship without the backstory?

It would be difficult for a number of reasons, that, but also quite a bit of dialogue is had talking about the fact that Palpatine had her parents killed, from Kylo but then later from Rey to Finn. In my mind, leaving it in is the much cleaner solution. Palpatine sensed her power early and wanted her dead, and ended up killing her parents looking for her. This fuels Rey’s anger and spurns her to search for Palpatine and kill him (as she states in the film). Removing that entirely would create a lot of problems.

The first Rey and Palpatine scene will already be a nightmare ‘My granddaughter…’ ‘Empress Palpatine’ etc.

Arguably, you could keep “Empress Palpatine,” because Palpatine will be taking over her body, right? Might actually make an interesting parallel to the last scene, here Palpatine is goading her to adopt his name, essentially.

I do agree it would be more difficult, but I do think removing that aspect would be worth exploring. I think Rey’s parents not caring about her makes her character more interesting, but if someone threatened her parents’ lives to know her location, if they didn’t care then they would’ve just told him. So it turns out her parents did care about her, and even died for her, which just makes her story a lot less interesting imo.

I guess you couldn’t if you kept TFA intact as-is.

So, if you edit just TROS to make her Rey Nobody, you keep Ochi killing her parents but make it to where Palpatine just foresaw the threat she could pose.

But, if you’re TFA and TROS, you could just cut that shot of Ochi’s ship from TFA, if you can seamlessly remove Rey’s parents being murdered.

To be honest, despite my criticisms of certain story decisions, I also felt the movie was better on my second viewing. It is still fast but not as jarringly fast as it felt the first time around.

I wonder if you could remove Ochi killing Rey’s parents? If you go with the Rey Nobody angle I feel like it would be better to not give her the “parents tragically murdered” backstory.

Also, I was wondering if there was a way the McGuffin quest could be tightened at all. I think it would be good to remove the dagger line up with the outline of the Death Star wreckage. It just seems like the dagger looks ancient, but then it has the coordinates of something that crashed into the sea 30 years ago.

OutboundFlight said:

RogueLeader said:

While I get it, I do feel like it was the easy and safe choice. Just Vader 2.0. Imagine if Ben has to actually right his wrongs rather than pay for his crimes with death. I mean, Darth Revan basically committed the same type of crimes but ended up being considered a hero. I like the idea that rehabilitation can be greater than punishment.

Oh I agree. It was definitely a pull at our emotions, I’d like to see a fanedit where Ben survives. I’m just saying in-lore, saving Rey wasn’t a selfish act.

I agree! I do like the selfless vs selfish aspect of his sacrifice at least.

Does her being Rey Palpatine really bring that much to the table? Even if she is blood-related to him, it doesn’t change the fact she wants to kill him.

Again, it was just the safe choice. Luke has to question his dark nature when he discovered who his father was, now we basically got the same moral conundrum but worse and less interesting.

While I get it, I do feel like it was the easy and safe choice. Just Vader 2.0. Imagine if Ben has to actually right his wrongs rather than pay for his crimes with death. I mean, Darth Revan basically committed the same type of crimes but ended up being considered a hero. I like the idea that rehabilitation can be greater than punishment.

My guess is that they didn’t know until Luke became one with the Force, and then he told Leia.

Or maybe we’ll find out in some books that Leia and Luke knew Rey’s parents, and they put two and two together.

FreezingTNT2 said:

RogueLeader said:

I was thinking about what changes needed to be made to the other films to remove Rey Palpatine, and I think one of the biggest things would be to cut Ochi’s ship flying away from Jakku in the TFA flashback.

I remember awhile back I had this idea of creating a new shot to replace that one in TFA, instead we’d see two people disappearing over the top of a sand dune, with the sun in front of them (making them dark silhouettes).

This could parallel beautifully with the end of TROS if you had Ben Solo live and meet Rey on Tattooine. We could see his silhouette coming towards her over the horizon, with the twin suns rising behind him. Not only would you get a reversal of that classic “cowboy riding off into the sunset” cliché (which Gary Kurtz wanted for Luke in ROTJ), but these two parallel shots would also be a nice callback to this line in TFA:

Whoever you’re waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back. But, there’s someone who still could.

Why can’t we just assume it’s Rey’s parents abandoning her?

That’s what I’m saying. You can’t remove Ochi’s ship from IX, but if you wanted to remove Rey Palpatine from the story, you would have to cut Rey seeing that same ship from her TFA forceback.

You can keep the ship and Ochi in IX, but you’d have to nix that connection to 7 so it’d just be a random ship and not one that Rey remembers. So my idea is to have Rey still see her parents leaving her, but not leaving on the same ship we see in IX.

If you hypothetically had Ben Solo live, how could you do it? A part of me does like how Ben realized he would need to give his life to save hers, and the rules of Force healing are clearly established in the film. But I would like to figure out how to have him survive appropriately for the sake of a potential fan edit. I was thinking maybe in a close-up of Ben’s hand on Rey, we could see the hand of a Force ghost also lay their hand on top of Ben’s. Maybe Leia or Anakin? Basically she or he helps him in order for them both to live. Wanted to get some thoughts on this.

Maybe the idea would be that Force healing is a power Jedi can have. But reversing death, once a living thing dies, is a power beyond any mortal. So when Obi-Wan says, “I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine” in ANH, we see that power can also be resurrection. And I can see the poetry of it being Anakin at the end. He desperately sought that power to save Padmé from a death that he foresaw. He sold his soul for that power and fell to the dark side. But since he turned back to the light and became one with the Force, he finally understands what that power means, and he uses that power to help Ben save the woman he loves.

This would sort of retcon ROTJ in a way. If Ben and Rey represent the new balance of the Force, saving Rey from death would be the way Anakin actually brings balance to the Force. Not by throwing Palpatine over the ledge, but by healing Rey. Anakin would fulfill his destiny as Chosen One not by killing the last Sith, but by saving the last Jedi. An act of love over an act of violence.

You could argue that basically what he does with Luke in ROTJ, but he saves Luke through an act of violence. With this idea, his way of restoring balance would be a purely non-violent act.

I was thinking about what changes needed to be made to the other films to remove Rey Palpatine, and I think one of the biggest things would be to cut Ochi’s ship flying away from Jakku in the TFA flashback.

I remember awhile back I had this idea of creating a new shot to replace that one in TFA, instead we’d see two people disappearing over the top of a sand dune, with the sun in front of them (making them dark silhouettes).

This could parallel beautifully with the end of TROS if you had Ben Solo live and meet Rey on Tattooine. We could see his silhouette coming towards her over the horizon, with the twin suns rising behind him. Not only would you get a reversal of that classic “cowboy riding off into the sunset” cliché (which Gary Kurtz wanted for Luke in ROTJ), but these two parallel shots would also be a nice callback to this line in TFA:

Whoever you’re waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back. But, there’s someone who still could.

I agree with you, Pan that it would be cool to emphasize the way this war is finally resolved would be through an act of non-violence.

If you think about it, though, technically the moment Palpatine dies, Rey is actually defending herself and Palpatine destroys himself with his own power.

I think I would have preferred something more nuanced, but I think it would be difficult to re-edit it too radically.

@Dom

Yeah, Finn’s story arc is a bit of a shame, and I don’t really know how you could improve it without shooting new material. I wish that moment with Jannah and Finn in the Falcon would have been him convincing her why she needed to fight the First Order rather than staying in hiding. It would have been like the new Finn talking to the old Finn that wanted to run and hide.

A reddit comment from u/Fainleogs regarding Rey:

It’s not that Rey Palpatine is inherently bad but they seem to have forgotten the lessons not just of the OT and TLJ but of JJ’s own film in The Force Awakens. In TFA they specifically avoided drawing out the “Kylo is Han and Leia’s son” reveal to avoid it being hackneyed. They just gave it to us pretty up front Then they give us emotional pay off via Han and Leia and Han and Kylo. In this film they labour endlessly over the reveal but do nothing with the emotional fall out

And while the conversation always comes back to Nobody/not nobody, the Palpatine reveal completely invalidates the mot important part of that story for Rey. She devoted her life to staying on Jakku waiting for family to return and it turns out her family weren’t coming back because her family didn’t love her. Now it turns out her parents were deeply good people who loved her dearly and gave up everything for her. Finding them has been her motivation her whole life, she’s mad about it for half an interstitial scene, then she forgets about them and declares Luke and Leia her substitute parents.

I mean, Rey, track down your mother’s maiden name and take hers. Your parents died to save you and you knew them a lot longer than Harry Potter did.