SpenceEdit

fidodido said:

Alright: In my eyes, the scene on Ahch-To is a key sequence of the film: instead of exiling herself, Rey (guided by Luke) realizes that she must fight for what she stands for. Now, if one simply strips away any reference to her origins, very little remains of the scene.

I wasted hours and days trying to somehow change the message of the scene, inserting lines from other Mark Hamill films and even interviews. Nothing was remotely satisfactory.

I’ve recently tried something different: Luke challenges Rey to reflect on herself again (“I’m scared of myself” “OK, but who exactly are YOU?”). She realizes that she is not only much more than her dark visions, but above all that she can choose who she wants to be (“This is your journey”).

So here is my attempt at the scene:
https://vimeo.com/689951972
PW: fanedit

It’s certainly not good and I’m a complete newbie to editing, but maybe it’ll at least serve as an inspiration for you pros.
(I especially want to expand her thoughts/memories of her “good” side in contrast to her dark visions. Oh, and my edit is centered around the theme of “Balance”, hence the the line by Luke)

That’s very cool!

I don’t know that you need the last bit of new dialogue from Luke. You could leave it with the original “confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi” because the vision gets the point across fine on its own.

I’ve been struggling with this scene in my edit, so I might play around with this idea. Cool stuff!

BrotherOfSasquatch said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

Rey cannot, at every turn, be assisted by other Star Wars characters. She defeats Kylo because Leia intervened. She defeats Palpatine because the spirits of the past Jedi intervened. She’s the hero. She needs to do it herself.

I find this absolutely hilarious given how one of the most common complaints haters never shut up about is Rey being too competent.

I mean, I feel like that’s exactly why JJ and Company did that exact thing in The Rise of Backpedaling: Fanboys got upset about her being too OP and not having any sort of familial connections to explain her “power levels”. Then BOOM! She’s a Palpatine and The Ghosts of Jedi Past help her in the end.

This is exactly the kind of thing I’m trying to remedy.

I’ve had some absolutely fantastic feedback from the workprint, and I’m making some major changes based on the ideas that were shared. It’s really starting to come together.

I have put together a workprint of this that I wouldn’t mind getting some eyes on.

Some further info:
-This is absolutely nowhere near final, but I’ve got it in a functional place where you can see how it plays out from start to finish. Most of the visual editing is fine, but audio is going to require a lot more work.

• I have yet to replace the opening crawl, because I’m going to end up having someone make it for me as I’m a bit special effects challenged. I want to make sure I get the wording right so I don’t have to ask that person to make a new one multiple times. It will mention that Leia is “ailing” or “struggling with her injuries” in some way to set up her early death scene.

• A few minor special effects shots need to be inserted or improved. The blue crackly lightsaber disappears a few times. Some of the transitions and slow motion need to be iterated on. It’s not major stuff, but it is there and noticeable if you’re looking for it.

• This is heavily based on Ascendent by HAL9000, and the majority of the changes that aren’t specific to Rey Nobody/Leia come from that. Credit is provided to all who worked on that edit via a title card at the end of the credits. There are some small changes that don’t relate to Ascension or Rey Nobody that just fit my preference as an editor, usually regarding pacing or joke placement.

If you’re curious to see it, please reach out to me via DM. I would only ask that if you’re going to watch it, I really would like feedback on how it plays. If you don’t intend to leave feedback, please wait until this is officially done and released to watch it so you can see it the best possible way.

I think the idea of keeping Palpatine in the shadows could work if the heroes didn’t know it was Palpatine that was the main bad guy in charge. For that to be a reveal later in the film. Though I’m not sure that would be possible with the given material.

STF78 said:

fidodido said:

SpenceEdit said:

This is my attempt at it so far, if you care to take a look. I included the surrounding scenes because the Leia stuff doesn’t happen here now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xyqd6_NTFkYfmhuFUgBT_w64YZTk4UdL/view?usp=sharing

Yeah, that works.
I would have loved it if this scene has had some more weight to it, like being the third lesson Luke was owing Rey from VIII. But there is just not much to work with.

Under those circumstances, your take seems to be the most solid one.

Definitely agree, given the available material you’ve done a really nice job.

It’s one of the few parts of it that I’m not happy with how it’s turning out, but there just isn’t really the material to improve it. I really only cut like 3 lines of dialogue, there just isn’t much there to work with to begin with.

The other struggle with this edit is the pacing. By cutting Leia out of the movie, there’s not much to cut away to during the Pasaana/Kajimi stuff. So we essentially stay with the main trio almost in real time until after the fight on the death star.

It’s not necessarily a negative, but it does make for a breathless pace. Considering how fast paced the original is, it almost works better this way because it’s at least focused. We aren’t jumping around as much.

Here’s my version of Ach-To, removing reference to Rey being a Palpatine. I posted this in my edit thread but though it may be of interest here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xyqd6_NTFkYfmhuFUgBT_w64YZTk4UdL/view?usp=sharing

fidodido said:

I’ve tried roughly the same thing. But somehow it feels so… unsatisfactory. Does what’s shown that way sufficiently justify Rey’s change of heart?

This is my attempt at it so far, if you care to take a look. I included the surrounding scenes because the Leia stuff doesn’t happen here now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xyqd6_NTFkYfmhuFUgBT_w64YZTk4UdL/view?usp=sharing

I mean I’m not 100% happy with it, but that scene is horrendous in the original version anyway, so I don’t know that there’s all that much to be done with it.

fidodido said:

Since you intend to both limit Leia’s role (accordingly, she doesn’t train Rey early in the film) while also eliminating the Palpatine lineage, what’s your plan for the sequence on Ahch-To?

If you just cut out everything about Rey Palpatine here, as well as the part about Leia, there’s not much left of the scene.
In my eyes, however, this is a key sequence of the film: After she has striked Kylo down in her anger, she is so afraid of her feelings that she wants to exile herself. Luke motivates her to accept those feelings, confront them and keep fighting.But if that only lasts a minute, it loses credibility.

I’m curious what your idea is!

So. This sequence is tricky and I’m still playing with it. But basically there’s no mention of Palpatine. Rey’s fear is now that she will turn to the dark side and take the throne. She sees visions of that, Palpatine sees visions of that, so it’s all set up.

Luke: It was fear that kept me here. What are you most afraid of?

Rey: Myself.

Luke: Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. If you don’t face Palpatine, it will mean the end of the Jedi. And the war will be lost.

Then the scene progresses as normal with the Leia flashback.

It’s worth noting I removed the “weapon of a Jedi deserves more respect!” “I was wrong” and the goofy shoulder shrug when Luke lifts the X-Wing, just so he’s not clowning around as much and we aren’t dragging on The Last Jedi.

Here’s another try at the Force Bond scene. I’ve moved the scene with General Pryde to before Rey enters Kylo’s chambers, so the fight is uninterrupted and has a better flow. I used some dialogue from Battlefront II, but it’ll need to be tweaked further to better match (audio stuff like that isn’t my strong suit).

https://vimeo.com/686480950

I tinkered around with using some of the LEGO Star Wars dialogue for this scene. It was from when he’s unmasked, so I put a bit of a filter on it just to see what if it worked. I’m sure a better filter could be done to match it better. Maybe something like this could work? (sorry, I’m out of vimeo space)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17ZgP-8x5KyLUtGNwCxEG26L0ktdAyKjU/view?usp=sharing

Octorox said:

SpenceEdit said:

RogueLeader said:

Honestly at this point, all I need to see is a version of the force bond duel in Kylo’s quarters that feels seamlessly edited, and I’ll be convinced that a Rey Nobody edit (that removes any connection b/w Palpatine and her parents) can be done that doesn’t feel like a fan edit. There are some solid attempts already, but you can still see the seams here and there in the versions that I’ve seen.

Here’s what I came up with for that scene. Not a lot of meat on the bones, but it works as a little pop of action and showing Rey giving in to her anger a little bit.

Because I put Leia’s death where the “dark rey” vision originally occurred, I’ve tied her visions to the dagger. So she gets one when she picks it up in the desert, and then another one here. A few minutes later, I’m using a version of the “You will kill Palpatine and take the throne” edit that’s further up the thread. So we get a little reminder of that here too.

https://vimeo.com/685575722

Interesting idea to just cut it to the bone, but I think having it cut so short makes the fact that we exit the scene to check in with Finn and Poe, and then come right back, all the more jarring. I also think the sith voices need to be mixed differently. Right now they stand out to me in an odd way.

Definitely nowhere near 100% done with the sound mix. I’m still playing around with it for sure.

I am toying with either combining the scene with Pryde with the previous Finn/Poe scene, or just eliminating it altogether.

I’m finding that LEGO Star Wars audio rip really useful for this sort of stuff.

I’d like to be able to preserve those sort of “howling” saber clashes that are just in this scene. They’re very cool.

CaptainFaraday said:

I think no music could work really well - as RL said, like a samurai movie.

I was starting to think that a seamless, theatrical release quality Rey Nobody was probably impossible, but after seeing this new stuff, to quote the disembodied floating CGI head of Carrie Fisher, “nothing’s impossible.”

It’s possible! I’m tinkering away at it. Mine is a little different because I’m also cutting Leia out, but I’m sure a lot of the concepts I’m working on could fit a simpler Rey Nobody edit. A lot of the stuff I’m trying to do is from this thread anyway. In fact, the hardest parts of my edit so far have been related to removing Leia. If it was a straight “Rey Nobody” thing I’d probably nearly be done with it!

I think no sound could be really cool for that scene, but the problem is you have the Finn/Poe stuff stuck in the middle of it. You’d have to find a way to move that around to either before or after that whole sequence. Which, again, could work, but it means stitching together the two sections of the fight, which is tricky.

RogueLeader said:

You got it, Spence!

But yeah, I could see a benefit of finding a balance between making it purely just fighting, but maybe having just a bit of dialogue retained to help with tension. Or maybe you could keep more of the dialogue shots if Kylo isn’t obviously talking (like his helmet isn’t bobbing from his mouth/jaw movement). They could just be staring down each other, like one does in a good samurai duel, rather than Kylo talking at every opportunity. Maybe the audio could be rebuilt to make it more of a scoreless duel. Not really fond of the music hear anyway, it’s pretty erratic (or maybe I’ve just listened to it too many times…)

I also still think there is an opportunity to use this scene to solidify Rey’s motivation for wanting to harness her power. Giving Kylo lines like this:

“You need it/power, to keep them safe.”

“Rey, I know what happens to them.”

“Tell me where you are. I know the whole story.”

“The battle is lost. The Resistance, they will not succeed… you’ve seen it.”

And then replacing the parent visions with shots of the battle and her friends in danger. Maybe I’ll have some time next time to attempt this, but this is sort of my ideal change to this scene. It’s just hard to change Kylo’s dialogue because of how his lines echo into the other channels.

EDIT: Found the test clip with some added Kylo dialogue. I like the flow of it better without it, but I’m all about action pacing. It may work better with a slower moment.

The voice actor for Kylo in BF2 is slightly off, I think maybe it needs to be made deeper.

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/685637105

fidodido said:
Yes, why not… that actually works quite well imo! Currently I’m losing my mind over changing the dialogue, but simply triming it like you did seems to be a good option.
Spence, What is your approach for the hangar scene?

I’m stealing RogueLeader’s idea (with permission)

RogueLeader said:

Honestly at this point, all I need to see is a version of the force bond duel in Kylo’s quarters that feels seamlessly edited, and I’ll be convinced that a Rey Nobody edit (that removes any connection b/w Palpatine and her parents) can be done that doesn’t feel like a fan edit. There are some solid attempts already, but you can still see the seams here and there in the versions that I’ve seen.

Here’s what I came up with for that scene. Not a lot of meat on the bones, but it works as a little pop of action and showing Rey giving in to her anger a little bit.

Because I put Leia’s death where the “dark rey” vision originally occurred, I’ve tied her visions to the dagger. So she gets one when she picks it up in the desert, and then another one here. A few minutes later, I’m using a version of the “You will kill Palpatine and take the throne” edit that’s further up the thread. So we get a little reminder of that here too.

https://vimeo.com/685575722

RogueLeader said:

I think it could work. I actually think you should just keep Kylo’s mention of her parents closer to the beginning of the film.

“Do you still count the days since your parents left? Such pain in you. Such anger.”

Because I think that line, and Rey’s line about Kylo not being able to stop seeing what he did to his father, are nice reminders of what these characters struggled with in the past films. Especially since that line kind of pays off later when Ben sees his father again.

And I think having Palpatine’s line about her parents helps with the flow of that scene better.

Palpatine: Weak. Like your parents.

Rey looks back, not saying anything (hopefully the cut back to Palpatine wouldn’t fee to quick).

Palpatine: Luke Skywalker was saved by his father. The only family you have here… [Palpatine looks up toward the battle].

It segues into that second line better. It reminds Rey of that the family she waited so long for, which solidifies her desire to protect the family she has now.

People might ask how Palpatine knows this bit of information, but I think there are plenty of explanations you can come with that I don’t feel like typing out. Haha.

I like this idea, so I gave it a try to see how it looked.

https://vimeo.com/685441015

Overall, I’d say it works pretty well!

Anakin Starkiller said:

The whole idea behind ending with quiet music is that it’s shocking because it’s different. I’m of the mind that the end music for the last entry in series should blow you away in some way or just generally itself apart, but I realize that sentiment is not universal.

I’m glad you enjoyed the experiment! It’s probably better with the ghosts anyway.

I could definitely get behind that idea, I think it would depend on the tone of the rest of the edit as to whether it would work.

Anakin Starkiller said:

You left the bombastic music in! I was saying you could just go straight from A New Home to a quieter end credits theme, sorta like I did here but without Binary Sunset. But whatever, it’s not my call to make how you make your edits.

Personally, I don’t think you can end the last movie in a 50 year saga without it’s iconic music. Plus, I played around with some options and couldn’t find one I really like.

For my edit, I’m going to keep the ghosts, but it was an interesting experiment!

Anakin Starkiller said:

SpenceEdit said:

I’ve been playing around with the ending for my personal edit, which is a Rey Nobody edit, and I think I’m onto something that could be useful to others:

https://vimeo.com/681559817

Basically, I used footage from HAL’s version and the theatrical to eliminate the old lady and the “I’m Rey” business, so we can end on a more emotional note.

Damn, since when do we have such a high quality Ben ghost?

Honestly, I’d be kinda down to just skip the ghosts entirely if you skip the Rey Skywalker exchange. Just end it there quietly, no Binary Sunset music.

The Ben ghost is from HAL9000’s edit. It’s very good!

I was curious what the ending would look like without the ghosts after reading your comment, so I tried it out. I… kind of like it better maybe?

https://vimeo.com/683536555

Darth Raditz said:

I like the ending, feels very organic & has a big BttF Part three vibe to it (“Your future isn’t written yet, so make it a good one”).

From a technical standpoint, Rey vs. Palpatine is also well-done, but I’m curious about the context in the film itself. I appreciate wanting Rey to be a stronger character & not needing help from anyone, but against Palpatine, I worry that that goal would make her triumph feel unearned. If anything, the lack of Jedi just heightens the feeling of “how do we know Palpatine won’t just come back a third time” that was present in the theatrical cut.

I don’t know that the plot point about Palpatine really can be resolved, as it’s so half baked and the material isn’t there to fix it.

In this version, Rey doesn’t do all the “be with me” stuff. It’s about the power she has an how she will use it. She isn’t encouraged by the Jedi past, she’s encouraged to stand up because of the people she cares about.

By losing the Palpatine connection, I lose the justification of why she’s so strong in the Force, but I can live with that. I’m more interested in the emotions of it, the decision she makes to use her power to defeat Palps.

Here is my first attempt at the Rey Vs. Palpatine

https://vimeo.com/682238230

GMatias said:

Really looking forward to this project; I’m a huge fan of your ROTJ edit!

I personally think ending on Rey & BB8 in front of the twin suns is the stronger of the two sun visuals, so I would drop the Falcon shot and move the silhouette shot to the end.

JEDIT: Watched it again.

Not sure how to describe it, but I keep feeling a bit of a disconnect between Rey after she sees the Force ghosts and the Falcon shot. It’s like she has three emotional beats in this sequence but we’re only getting closure for two of them:

1: Lighting the saber
2: Seeing the Skywalkers
3: Seeing the binary suns

Yeah we know she’s in the Falcon, but I don’t think we make the same emotional connection to it as we do when we see her silhouette in front of the suns.

Plus it mirrors the original Binary Sun beat closer without the Falcon.

I think you’re right. I love that Falcon shot form HAL’s edit, but it may not be fitting here particularly well.

I just updated it to make that change. It definitely works better. Eliminating the Falcon stuff make it a more powerful ending.

https://vimeo.com/681559817

Tried something different with the ending, I think this works better:

https://vimeo.com/681559817