SparkySywer

JakeRyan17 said:

Or it’s just looking at basic storytelling. Things get set up, then paid off. If something is established one way for 8/9 films, a sudden change at the end of the last film will make people question it.

When it comes to powers, especially in a scene where under-developed powers are are already a major focus, adding another new and unestablished element will distract away from what’s going on. If sucking that much life out of them gave him so much more power that things have changed, why does he need them to kill him to get a new body? He’s beyond rejuvenated, what’s the point? This type of change gets in the way of storytelling.

And we can play the ageist game of “back in my day…” or whatever. That’s irrelevant. The purpose of the scene is that Palpatine gets rejuvenated. If he goes beyond rejuvenation to more powerful than before, his motives for the rest of the film no longer make sense. It’s always been implied Palpatine was stronger than he let on in other films, and he didn’t do the crazy antics like he does with the fleet, because he never needed to and it would go against his goals in those films.

I didn’t intend for my comment to be a “kids these days” comment, but even typing it I saw the similarities. And trust me, I was revolted at making an almost “kids these days” comment. Juvenoia sucks.

But I genuinely think moviemaking in the 2010s has changed, especially with fantasy stories, to appeal to this new audience of people who need to be spoon-fed every piece of information. And I genuinely think there’s been a transformation here because there’s tons of stuff that just goes unexplained in older movies that would never fly in today’s film industry. Hell, Force Lightning itself fits your definition of a new, unexplained element that changes the motivations of the villain in the third act of (what was meant to be) the final film. But audiences in 1983 used their brains and figured out what Palpatine was doing (summoning lightning) and why he was doing it (his goal isn’t just to kill Luke, but to make it hurt, although according to everything that’s come out after RotJ it might as well be his signature move or his stand or whatever).

I can easily imagine today’s audiences seeing this for the first time and saying something like “Oh, they just pulled a new superpower out of their asses as an excuse to give Vader the chance to kill Palpatine.” Hell, I’ve run into zoomers who say Empire is the most boringest one saying this about a bunch of stuff in the OT.

“They just invented the Force as a reason why Luke could blow up the Death Star!” (no seriously, someone said this to me and they weren’t joking)

I partially also blame the prequels and EU for ruining people’s perception of what the Force is. It’s not some hard magic like Harry Potter or Dragonball Z. When a character has a new “Force ability”, it’s not like they’re pulling some new power out of their ass. I’d really love to elaborate and go on a rant, seriously I’d love to, but it’s not that relevant.

I don’t mean to direct any of this at you. I’m not accusing you of any of this.

More relevant to your problems with it being unclear in particular, I don’t think it’s unclear. Red = danger, red lightning = more dangerous, or more powerful lightning.

Like I said before, you don’t need more of a reason to do it than it looking pretty, but it also reinforces the scene. We have supercharged Palpatine, and his lightning being red is supercharged lightning. Hammers it home.

thebluefrog said:

Brewzter said:

It’s instant-gratification social media in general. People have self-inflicted ADD and do not have the time to actually digest the latest media, they just want quick explanations and then forget about it 48 hours later. It’s why READING is becoming a problem in society as people can barely focus on a book, much less an article–notice how articles come with “5 min read / 10 min read” at the top nowadays?

Absolutely, people are completely losing any attention span. I’ve shown two different friends the saga for the first time recently and both of them couldn’t watch the movies for more than a couple minutes max without looking at their phones constantly.

They also don’t WANT to find details. Like, they’ll miss things and be confused, but can just ask someone to explain and boom, they’ve got their answer and lost interest.

Caring about the details is becoming a lost part of the artform.

Sometimes they’ll just fall asleep in the movie theater and then complain about something that was literally explained in the movie. Half the time they might as well have been looking right at the camera explaining it. You see this a lot in modern movie criticisms.

JakeRyan17 said:

I’m just saying that if the movie came out in theatres that way, it would be confusing. It’s something new and different, with no introduction or setup, being introduced at the last possible moment.

Personally not a fan because of that. I guess the approach I try to make with any edit, fan or for work, is thinking story first, then cool looks. Doing something because it looks cool, even though it makes no sense, is kinda what gave us the mess that is Rise of Skywalker to begin with.

I have no comment on whether today’s audiences would understand it. But I definitely think audiences of the 1980s would understand it. I think it’s kind of a shame that theaters today are so full with armchair critics who can’t think for themselves that audiences being confused at the lightning being red is a genuine possibility. It’s lightning, that’s red. Not that hard.

I feel like I’m coming off like an asshole here, and I don’t mean to direct this at you, but I really hate that discourse around movies is so dominated by stuff like this. Oh, XYZ wasn’t explained, oh ABC isn’t set up properly, oh LMNOP is unrealistic, when all of this stuff makes sense if people one, stayed awake for the entire duration of the movie, and two, turned on the shriveled husk of meat inside their skulls they call their “brain”.

I blame pop critics like Cracked and CinemaSins.

I was gonna say. Really it doesn’t have to be deeper than pretty colors.

Not dissing it, it sounds great. Just funny.

Rodney-2187 said:

NeverarGreat said:

Sure the movies all have flaws, but there’s gotta be a bounds of reason here, right? Why even have a discussion if AOTC or the 2003 Clone Wars movie is on the same level as SW or ESB?

StarkillerAG said:

Hey, the 2003 Clone Wars movie was great! 😉

But I agree that there are bounds of reason. The idea that all Star Wars movies are the same level of quality just doesn’t make any sense to me.

people are more forgiving of flaws in the movies they like, for whatever reason, but more critical of similar flaws in another they may not be a fan of, for whatever reason.

Everyone’s opinions on media are valid, but I fully believe that the reasons people give for it are usually dumb, and often not the real reason someone likes or dislikes something.

Like, for example, 90% of all plot holes that people talk about aren’t real. They’re often just something people bring up to make a critique of some media deeper than it otherwise would be.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Broom Kid said:

Don’t underestimate how many people loathed the direction that TLJ was going in

I’m sure it’s in the thousands, sure. Thousands can seem like a lot of people if you’re packed into a convention hall, or watching a minor league sporting event. But when you’re dealing with tens of MILLIONS of tickets sold, blu-rays bought, and streams counted, thousands aren’t a whole hell of a lot.

I have the impression the haters are something like a third of people. Just speaking anecdotally from conversations IRL, that seems about right.

I think 40% of Star Wars fans like all 9 episodes, 30% like the OT & PT (or, they may not like the prequels, but they much prefer the prequels to the sequels), and 30% like the OT and ST (or, they may not like the sequels, but they much prefer them to the prequels, although this group also tends not to like TRoS).

StarkillerAG said:

Hadrian sunrider said:

https://www.jeditemplearchives.com/2020-04-22-diamond-select-toys-sees-little-demand-for-sequel-trilogy-merchandise/

The toys have nothing to do with any of this. ALL toys have been seeing a decline in interest recently, not just Star Wars sequel-themed toys. The sequel haters who use toy sales to say “Kathleen is ruining Star Wars, get woke go broke” are clearly just grabbing at straws, especially when the movies themselves made so much money.

No you see, something something Walmart something something Legos screw you go woke go broke

There aren’t even toy sections in stores I go to anymore. Mobile gaming has totally replaced toys for kids these days, for better or for worse.

Anakin Starkiller said:

What about Centralists? Is that better?

Yes.

thebluefrog said:

General reminder that Mandolorian season 2 is coming out in one month and will have a whole new host of continuity changes.

It would, and in some fanedit that involves these recontextualization would be nice to also include a change to Mando S2.

Knight of Kalee said:

I don’t know what were they thinking when they went with “centrists” which is a different kind of political posture IRL.

Maybe they thought that since this is an entirely different universe, the terminology could be justified in being completely different? Even so, it clearly didn’t work.

For any version that keeps Starkiller Base, it should be stated that the First Order has fully seceded from the New Republic, becoming an independent state (because it could feel strange having the FO going from wanting to control the Republic to just go and destroy the Republic).

It could be a Taiwan/China situation. The civil war has kinda cooled down, and both sides sort of operate as separate entities despite claiming to be the only true government in control of the galaxy., with one entity having the Trump card of controlling Coruscant/Hosnian/whatever, that obviously being Leia’s faction, now becoming the Resistance. They make a ballsy power play and destroy the only thing the Resistance has going for them.

I don’t think it makes a ton of sense for the more pro-Republic faction to be the one seceding, though.

DZ-330 said:

Armed with Imperial assets, the militaristic
FIRST ORDER is tightening its grip on
the galaxy in the name of security.

I’m a fan of them re-appropriating Imperial assets.

Knight of Kalee said:

SparkySywer said:

At work a few weeks ago I had an idea for a recontextualizing of TFA’s backstory that might be doable in a fanedit?

Not sure if you’re into the expanded universe but the official canon portrays a very similar scenario. The New Republic was split in two parties: there were those who appreciated the old regime and wanted a centralised government and more powerful military, and there was the faction led by Leia that favored liberty and autonomy of individual planets. Some of Leia’s political allies backed the Resistance, while many opposing Senators eventually defected to the First Order.

Although I try to ignore EU materials, I am aware of it, and it was something I had in mind. But it’s different in that the First Order is explicitly from the not-Leia faction, instead of the not-Leia faction just sort of being sympathetic to the First Order. Well, sorta. I haven’t read much of the New EU, but it seems pretty self-contradictory on the origins of the First Order.

I always got the implication from the sequel trilogy, Mandalorian, and the stuff I have read that it was a minor terrorist organization that broke out and got big in the events of the ST, which the Centrists (god awful name wtf Lucasfilm) were weakly opposed to at best, but more realistically secretly in favor of. But according to Wikipedia the First Order are Centrists who seceded from the New Republic? I don’t know. They seem more like a military junta than an actually sophisticated political order, like what a bunch of ex-Senators might establish.

Plus, the connection between Mon Mothma’s faction and restoring the Old Republic isn’t something that’s there with the Centrists in the New EU, especially considering the full name of the Rebel Alliance is the “Alliance to Restore the Republic” and everyone is just down with that.

Which is also a big plus in doing this for me is in doing away with that. The Republic is depicted as incredibly corrupt system and it’s no shock the Empire rose out of it. You shouldn’t be shocked that the Empire comes back after trying to restore it. Even if you ignore the prequels, something had to have gone very, very wrong for the Empire to come about, even if you imagine some outlandish backstory completely foreign to the one George Lucas’s prequel trilogy gave us.

Weimar Germany didn’t fall to the Nazis out of nowhere, the Roman Republic didn’t fall to the Roman Principate out of nowhere, Napoleon didn’t come out of nowhere, and should the United States become a fascist dictatorship (not quite there yet), it’s not going to come out of nowhere. And it’s not as simple as the people handing over power to a huckster, all these things were the culminations of many centuries of deep-seeded problems. Hitler, Caesar, Napoleon, etc, just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

It’s something I wished Episode 9 would address, instead of failing to learn their lesson a second time, setting up a Third Republic to inevitably fall to fascism a third time. But the cynic in me thinks that a movie saying that liberal democracy is predisposed to fascism might raise a few eyebrows at Disney and with the higher-ups in Lucasfilm, especially in the current political climate. Despite what alt-right weirdos on Youtube say, Disney and Lucasfilm, and Hollywood at large, are very averse to putting anything too political in movies these days, especially something that might hit that close to home.

Anakin Starkiller said:

yotsuya said:

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Mocata said:

It wasn’t very consistent before though, it’s much more pale in SW compared to ESB. Probably because of the visual effects change. Then the prequels that feature it are different again.

Yeah… I remember seeing the first previews for TLJ and thinking Rian must’ve like the 1977 effect.

Personally the SW/TLJ is my favorite. I thought it was over saturated in TFA.

TFA is over saturated, the whole movie.

I love high saturation! I think TFA looks great because of it.

At work a few weeks ago I had an idea for a recontextualizing of TFA’s backstory that might be doable in a fanedit?

While the Empire was still around, there were two factions in the Rebellion:

Mon Mothma’s faction was made up mainly of Old Republic bureaucrats and Senators who didn’t end up in the in-group when the Empire took over, who wanted a return to the old regime and a full restoration to the Old Republic as if the Empire never happened.

Leia’s faction was made up mainly of Outer Rim people who really felt the brunt of the Empire, and want an entirely new, third system, their biggest argument being that the Empire didn’t come out of nowhere, it exploited the flaws and weaknesses of the Old Republic. In their view, the Republican governmental system inevitably leads to the Empire.

After the Battle of Jakku, where the last of the Imperial Remnant was finally defeated and the New Republic took complete control over the galaxy (which I’d push later into the timeline, well after the Mandalorian*), the tensions between these two factions in grow in the New Republic, now that the common enemy is gone for good.

Mon Mothma dies eventually, and a fresh young Senator (Hux) takes over her faction. Hux looks like he could be her son, but I don’t think that could be pulled off in a fanedit. Maybe I’m wrong, though.

Civil war eventually breaks out, Leia’s faction becoming the Resistance, and Hux’s faction becoming the First Order. The First Order’s Imperial appearance would not be addressed at all, letting the audience fill in the blanks on the implication that the Old Republic aligned faction, and the Old Republic itself, was always inherently fascistic.

The Rebels v Empire aesthetic of the ST would be justified with the theme that the Old Republic was the true problem all along, and

Before the war, though, Hux begins to fall for the spell of a Rasputin-like figure, aka Snoke. Not entirely certain in all that, but this backstory seems to imply that Hux would be the head honcho, leaving no room for Snoke or Kylo. Rasputin Snoke is the best way to fit him (and his adherent Kylo, who Hux views as having no purpose in the First Order) into this backstory.

Snoke could also be involved somehow else, or Hux could be involved somehow else, although Senator Hux is much more believable to me than Senator Snoke.

I’d also like to somehow cut out Starkiller Base, although that’s moreso because I don’t like a Death Star III. If that didn’t work (or if I never end up doing this and someone else wants to take a crack at it, but does like Starkiller Base), this isn’t really central to the idea. I can see how Starkiller Base could be worked into the backstory.

The Last Jedi would be changed minimally, only to fit in with the new backstory. I’d personally like to cut out TRoS entirely, or at least reduce it significantly, but that has nothing to do with the backstory.

*In the New EU, the Battle of Jakku takes place a year after RotJ (5 ABY) but the Imperial Remnant is still kicking around in the Mandalorian (9 ABY). It’s not completely insignificant politically in-universe, but from a storytelling standpoint, it’s robbed of significance.

I’d push it to maybe 15 ABY (or maybe not since that’s the year Rey’s born, and I have no way to make that relevant) and have it be when the New Republic finally sweeps away the last remnant.

NFBisms said:

Look, I love her, I really do - but she really needs to go away.

She’s fine in the Clone Wars show. Dave Filoni sticking his OC absolutely everywhere is obnoxious, especially when it goes so far from where her character has any right to be. If she is in the Mandalorian (some people still say it’s just a rumor? I don’t know), I have no idea what purpose she’ll have.

Me and the lady made dinner tonight. Not pictured: A big sack of peas. She mixed the peas into the pasta, I ate them separately.

We didn’t watch Star Wars, though. We watched Fargo.

SparkySywer said:

1 - Cajun Chicken Pasta

2 - Cajun Chicken Pasta

3 - Cajun Chicken Pasta

4 - Cajun Chicken Pasta

5 - Cajun Chicken Pasta

6 - Cajun Chicken Pasta

7 - Cajun Chicken Pasta

8 - Cajun Chicken Pasta

9 - Cajun Chicken Pasta

R1 - Cajun Chicken Pasta

Solo - Cajun Chicken Pasta

Revisiting this thread has shown me what I’m making for dinner tomorrow!

It’s really just the color correction of the movies, I don’t think it was a conscious choice to make them different, like in something like an animation.

OutboundFlight said:

To be fair… enthusiasm for Star Wars was at an all-time low

Lower than from 2006-2012?

IMO, they needed an Episode 10. Frankly I’m unsure how to change TRoS to make it better without changing TFA and TLJ, but I can easily tell you how I’d do a two-movie follow-up to them.

The trilogy format is something that was entirely coincidental for the original movies, and a consequence of another entirely coincidental factor for the prequels. There’s no reason the sequels should have been beholden to it. A sequel quadrilogy (or two sequel duologies?) would have been better.

Dek Rollins said:

Handman said:

Phantom Menace is the best prequel. It’s the closest to an actual movie.

This.

And ROTS is the absolute worst of the prequels.

TPM is the prequel movie that they put any effort into. I have a lot of respect for it because of that.

It’s the least offensively awful of the prequels, but it’s still a prequel.

It’s unfortunately BS

Artan42 said:

TheAlaskanSandman said:

Skybatman said:

New scene from Anakin looking at the sunset.
A younger Count Dooku in TPM.
Is this … the ultimate version of the prequels?

Another dreaded “Special Edition” lol Gotta include some random creatures walking past the screen and blocking out everything

Make sure you edit the Trade Federation doors to be three times larger on the outside than they are on the inside as well then.

Replace Palpatine’s “I am the Senate” with “I personally see myself as the embodiment of the authority of the Senate.”

“I don’t think he exists anymore. He died about the same time as your father.”

However, I am looking for ways to remedy this problem. I’m curious about buying 4K downloads of the prequels (or 1080p, at least)

I recommend you use Schormann’s preservation of TPM as a base for your edit. It’s in 1080p, it’s equivalent to the DVDs changes-wise, and looks way better than either the 2011 HD Blu Ray or the 2020 4K Blu Ray.

Skybatman said:

Where you will launch these edits ?

Theaters near you!

StarkillerAG said:

I personally felt like Rey was very much tempted by darkness during TLJ.

Less than relevant anecdote but I saw TLJ twice in movie theaters and the second time I remember it feeling kinda jarring seeing Rey be all good and innocent at the beginning of the movie, after having her at best push at her boundaries over the course of the movie.

adobewan said:

Any thoughts on an edit of the sequel trilogy that finishes off the story with The Force Awakens/the battle of Stakiller base? I figure Snoke would likely need to be removed and Kylo could be implied to die when Rey slashes him in their fight. I’m still considering how to wrap up the Luke cliffhanger in a satisfying way. Maybe it could a short training montage and then credits after Rey slashes that rock in half.

Kill off Luke? Instead of having him go missing and the First Order rises in his absence, he dies and the First Order rises in his absense.

I don’t know how well it would work but that’s the only solution to the Luke cliffhanger I can think of.