In TROS, change C-3PO being unable to translate from Sith to C-3PO being unable to translate from French.
Poe brings them to Kijimi because Zorii speaks French; this can be dubbed over easily due to her helmet. Babu Frik can be cut from the film entirely, or alternately, they can go to him first but he is unable to help because he only speaks German.
Continue the scene from TROS where Rey bemoans that the wayfinder got destroyed, where Luke reveals that he used his powers as a Force Ghost to shield Kylo’s wayfinder from harm when Rey set fire to his fighter. He explains that this is why he was in the right place at the right time to catch the saber she threw at him.
I absolutely love this one as a Bad Edit Idea because it’s the exact sort of thing I could see somebody very earnestly trying to implement unironically.
Phoneme-splice the medical droid in ROTS that says “ooh-bah” so it says “boob-ah,” and give it the Pepe “booba” meme eyes whenever it looks in Padme’s direction.
Faraday, could you share the excerpt you are referring to from the DOTF script?
Here it is. It’s not long, but I think it’s such an important moment:
Finn tightens a bolt on the grappling cannon. A loud CLANK startles him. He closes his eyes, left hand shaking.
ROSE
Hey. It’s okay.Finn’s past has followed him for years. Memories of friends kidnapped and conditioned to serve.
FINN
One of the Stormtroopers on Kuat. I knew him. We trained together, when we were kids. He looked so scared. I remember that feeling.ROSE
I don’t think that feeling ever goes away.FINN
I can’t let more of them end up like me. It has to stop.Rose puts a calming hand on his. He breathes easier.
ROSE
That’s what we’re fighting for.
One thing from DOTF that is sorely missing from TROS is a real stormtrooper uprising. Sure, you have Finn and some other ex-stormtroopers riding space horses on a Star Destroyer’s surface - but that’s literally it.
What I think would be great is if when the navigation tower is changed to the lead Star Destroyer, Finn tells everyone that it is carrying the signal (by using the force), but then still has some people do the ground assault. Why you may ask? Because he has the bright idea that he can broadcast his own signal from the tower: an inspirational speech to get any First Order stormtroopers that were assigned with Pryde on Exegol to turn against the Sith Troopers.
It would have been so cool to see white stormtroopers battling side by side with Resistance members against red ones.
The red ones, in case you didn’t know, were born and raised on Exegol and brainwashed. The troops like Finn have hope because they were taken as children.
Those First Order stormtroopers would most likely be present on Pryde’s ship - which is carrying the signal. All the more reason why Finn doing that would be super helpful.
That’s a good idea and a really good way of incorporating it. I’ll go over the DOTF screenplay again (I skimmed most of it) and see if I can poach sections to avoid writing new content wholesale. Not every single stormtrooper needs to change sides, but maybe the ones that do remove their helmets so they can be identified - which has the thematic connotation of exchanging their faceless skeletal masks for actual human faces.
The other thing I want to get people’s ideas on is an excerpt from the DOTF screenplay that I really want to incorporate, where Finn shows PTSD symptoms after recognising a stormtrooper that he’s just killed in battle. Originally the conversation is with Rose, but it will translate fine to being a conversation with Rey - which I actually like, since then we get a reciprocation to Finn offering Rey council about her own problems.
The problem is there’s nowhere easy to insert the conversation. The logical place is somewhere towards the start of the novel - it nicely sets things up for Finn’s eventual interactions with Jannah and the other stormtrooper deserters - but they don’t actually fight directly with stormtroopers until uselessly far into the story. Their first action scene is in the Falcon fighting TIEs, and the second is on skimmers fighting the treadbikes.
I could add something on Kijimi before they reach Babu Frik’s workshop, but even that is around the half way mark, which is a bit too late to start introducing stuff that should have been introduced in the first act. Do I somehow add some one-on-one fighting in one of the earlier scenes? I’d have to create a lot out of whole cloth, and I feel like it would drag the pace unnecessarily unless I cut an existing action scene, which feels like it ventures too far outside my scope and into fanfiction territory.
Replace all footage of Darth Vader with YouTube videos of cute adorable bunny rabbits.
Don’t replace the entire shot; just motion track the YouTube video over the top of the space Vader occupies in frame.
I foresee arguments arising about which moment exactly to start adding the adorable bunny rabbits when editing ROTS.
Seeing as Vader was only in that movie for 5 minutes, it only makes sense to add them in after we’ve seen Anakin get burned to a crisp and writhing in agony while the medical droids fix him up.
So, the logical conclusion is that we add the bunny rabbits the moment Anakin gets his helmet.
I contend that Anakin becomes Vader when he’s given the title by Palpatine, after cutting Mace Windu’s hand off and pledging himself to Palpatine’s teachings. So the bunny rabbits cut in mid-shot as Palpatine begins the word “Vader.”
I mentioned on Hal’s thread at one point that this is absolutely what would have made Palpatine’s plan 100 percent better imo. Funnily enough, early in the film’s production it actually was I’m pretty sure. The reason they got rid of it I think is because otherwise it makes the character’s heroic actions all for nothing in the end. Personally, I’m fine with that. Sometimes, even though we give things our best, they don’t work out.
As for Rey not being a Palpatine, it also removes some of the complicatedness of her backstory. I’ll always prefer to adhere to canon in this regard, but I’m interested to see what you will cook up.
I think if I was editing the novel I would make all references to her as his granddaughter changed to just “daughter”. This would force the reader to understand that Rey’s father was a clone, so biologically she is just his daughter. It might muck up some of the mirroring in their dyad, but oh well.
If I was going to go with Rey Palpatine then I agree; just referring to her as his daughter would actually be a lot better. I’m surprised I haven’t seen this in any fanedits of the movie, actually. I guess it would be potentially confusing without further clarification.
I also think something along these lines was probably the original idea for Palpatine’s plan; Rey Palpatine apparently wasn’t written in until after shooting had begun, and we know from behind-the-scenes stuff that a lot of the film was still being rewritten wholesale as it was being shot (and simultaneously edited; what a pressure cooker of an environment to be trying to direct a movie in).
Palpatine changed his mind about using Rey for the Sith ritual because her parents abandoned her as if she was worthless because of her lineage/hid her away (yeah, you can still make Rey’s parents “bad” people, which would preserve Rey’s TLJ arc of learning to stop caring about her parents because they thought she was worthless) and he didn’t know she was on Jakku. Then Palpatine decides to go after Ben, the descendant of the Skywalkers. He demanded Ben kill Rey since he no longer has any use for her. When Ben redeems himself, this fucked up Palpatine’s plans to possess a healthy, non-clone body, so he goes after his own granddaughter again.
But Kylo was on Exegol previously; there was no reason Palpatine couldn’t have done it when Kylo first arrived, if Rey wasn’t needed for the ritual. I also don’t follow why Rey’s parents abandoning her would affect Palpatine’s plan (I agree it would be better if TROS stuck to TLJ’s arc of Rey-being-her-own-true-parent), nor Ben’s redemption, actually.
I couldn’t follow that final scene in the cinema and even now it’s a rubick’s cube to try and figure out in retrospect.
I think the porg shot is fine, personally.
Replace all footage of Darth Vader with YouTube videos of cute adorable bunny rabbits.
Don’t replace the entire shot; just motion track the YouTube video over the top of the space Vader occupies in frame.
I foresee arguments arising about which moment exactly to start adding the adorable bunny rabbits when editing ROTS.
To show how much I love y’all:
Password: fanedit
No sound, for even my love has limits. And I don’t have a good source 😉
Anyway, there’s no second establishing shot since I’m not sure if it can be made dark enough for these scenes.
The fireside chat is just about as dark as it will get, methinks, and the light entering the hut is slightly brighter to give more of a gradient into morning.
Daammmnnn Neverar, those early shots look fantastic. I was actually playing around with it myself, to see if I could make the scene any more “Night-y”; but you managed the orange mask on Rey way better than I did.
There were still a couple of things that I wanted to try though. I used Neverar’s edit as the base, and left their early bonfire shots as is. Additionally:
- Tried to make the original establishing shot match the nighttime tone. (Moved Neverar’s new establishing shot back to its original spot.)
- The Fireside Chat still seemed too bright to me, especially since the Hut Scene seemed darker in comparison. I’ve tried to go through and darken it up a bit.
- After darkening, I tracked a light mask around Luke in all of his shots. It just felt like, against the darkness, his Force Ghost-ness should shine extra bright to me.
- Also increased the relative brightness around the fire during their chat.
- Finally, I experimented with a purple hue during sunrise, to symbolize Leia('s (new) lightsaber). Thus, Rey “feels” both of her masters supporting her. Also, as the X-Wing rises, the sky starts adding pinks and oranges into the mix. The coloring would have to be cleaned up more though before release.
During the flashback, I also replaced the Blue Leia lightsaber with the Ascendant Purple Leia lightsaber, without further color corrections. I like the purple; what can I say?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RlWcPXdX0IRIxwlAXvZOYx2Zg4lLr7lu/view?usp=sharing
That looks incredible. My only criticism is that Luke is a bit too bright during the nighttime scenes - I can understand the thematic reasons for doing it, but Obi-Wan in ESB didn’t seem to provide illumination or glow brightly. Maybe it’s just me, but it makes him stand out slightly too much from the surrounding scene.
The colour grading on the sunrise is absolutely exquisite.
Let’s talk about Palpatine’s plan (and how Kylo interacts with it), so I’ve got it completely clear long before we get up to Palpatine explaining it.
In this version:
I also want him to know about the Force Dyad from the start, and have it be his ultimate plan all along. I find it accidentally comical otherwise in the original - he’s spent decades meticulously planning everything, then right before the climax of the movie he’s like “oh, wait, this other thing randomly popped up, that’s much better.”
The other issue I have is that Palpatine tells Kylo he wants Rey dead. That doesn’t make sense in this version, or the original - in the original, he wanted Rey to become the new Sith Empress, or at least he wanted to take over her body with Spirit Transfer, which he can’t do if Kylo has killed her. My plan for that is, Palpatine makes it clear he wants Kylo to bring Rey before him and then kill her in front of him (which in this version, of course, is a lie).
So, unless I’m forgetting something:
That way, when Palpatine waffles on to Rey when she arrives at Exegol, he’s actually just stalling time until Kylo gets there as well. It also means Kylo thinks he has a secret advantage over Palpatine - the Dyad - when he actually doesn’t, which I think is more interesting.
It also means Rey is trying to get to Exegol under her own steam, thinking Kylo is trying to stop her getting to Exegol, when in fact Kylo wants her to get to Exegol - but with him, oh his own terms. I think this also makes the story more interesting - they want the same thing, but they want it in incompatible ways, which highlight their desires and motivations.
Opening crawl translated to Aurebesh for added verisimilitude.
“Were you an orphan?” Poe roasted.
I jest, of course.
How about, “Were you a scrap hoarder?” It’s synonymous with scavenger while still suggesting a slight amount of being immoral - as in, she went out of her way to make sure she got the most portions from turning in scrap at the end of the day while everyone else starved.
That’s the best I’ve got.
EDIT: You could shorten it to just “hoarder” as well if you want.
“Scrap hoarder” is perfect, because it implies a moral judgment, and in particular one that’s kind of unfair. Which is exactly the way Poe feels about being known as a spice runner. Thank you!
I believe Poe is talking about the lowly status of being a scavenger in that case, not suggesting that it is a bad thing. Stormtroopers are grunts, and being a spice runner suggests that the person is in a pretty destitute situation.
I agree that there really isn’t anything you can replace it with, although if I think of something I’ll let you know!
Being a spice runner isn’t exactly grunt work, though; I get where you’re coming from, but I personally find it hard to read the scene that way, considering Poe seems embarrassed about having a shady past contrasted to his squeaky clean Resistance Leader image.
I could always cut his line to Rey, but I really like how smoothly it rolls into Zorii’s retort and keeps the scene moving. I’ll just leave it in square brackets for now and come back to it if either of us think of anything.
(I should explain - anything I write which I know is just placeholder text, I put in square brackets, so it’s easy to search the document later and find it. My own novels’ early drafts have a lot of “[one-liner]”, or “[smth adj]” when I can’t think of the right adjective.)
I want to replace “scavenger” with something in this exchange, but I can’t really think of anything that makes sense (clearly, neither could the screenwriters, to be fair to myself). “Stormtrooper” works as a retort to “spice runner”, because they’re both ethically dubious things - it makes the point that people can be doing something bad, and make a choice to stop and leave it behind. But being a scavenger isn’t anything bad, and I can’t think of anything Rey’s done in the past which is.
“Funny he never mentioned it,” Zorii said. “Your friend’s old job was running spice.”
Poe’s shoulders deflated. There it was. Now there’d be no end to it.
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Finn on cue. “Were you a spice runner?”
“Were you a stormtrooper!?” Poe retorted.
“Were you a spice runner?” Rey prodded.
“Were you a [scavenger]? We could do this all night…”
Two figures materialized out of the darkness, tall, armed beings, one from each direction, blocking their exits. Zorii shifted her blaster to Poe’s neck.
“You don’t have all night,” Zorii spat at him. “You don’t even have now."
Also, for all you tree lovers out there from the Mustafar Minute discussions, you’ll be overjoyed to see the latest bullet point in my changelog:
Sounds great!
Thank you!
I had to change the topic of Rey and Finn’s conversation on the Bestoon Legacy, since originally they discuss her Force Vision from the beginning, which I’ve removed. So I poached a conversation they had from the DOTF script and adapted it. It’s not perfect and could use some work in places:
She nodded wordlessly and headed through the central hold, found a little nook near the engines, and plunked down.
Fear had led to the Dark Side after all. She’d been fine so long as her fear was tempered by peace and control. But the moment she gave in to rage and hatred… Chewbacca was gone. The Millennium Falcon was gone. The Sith Dagger, their only clue to stopping the First Order, was gone. All because of her moment of rage.
Tears were pouring down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them. Chewie had done so much for her. The Falcon was arguably his by right, but after Han died, Chewie had offered the pilot’s seat to her. And she had repaid this act of enormous generosity and respect by killing him.
As if reading her thoughts, BB-8 gave a long, mournful beep.
C-3PO patted the little droid on the head and said, “Poor, poor Chewbacca.”
Finn squeezed his way into the nook and lowered himself down next to her. His face was stricken.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said.
“It was,” Rey said, unable to look at him. “I lost control.”
“No, it was Ren. If he hadn’t –”
Rey shook her head. “You saw what happened. That power came from me. Finn, there are things you don’t know about.”
“Then tell me.” He gazed at her, waiting patiently, no trace of judgment on his face.
“I failed,” she said, Leia’s many lectures about calmness and peace competing for space in her head. “I failed to… and now…”
She found herself unable to mention the Dark Side, or to even say Chewbacca’s name.
Finn sighed a tired, weary sigh.
“We’ve been fighting this war for too long,” he said eventually.
He seemed to stare beyond the hull of the ship as he spoke. Then he pressed on, sounding more like his usual self:
“But those people, those children. I saw hope in their eyes. They believe in you. We all do. Nothing can change that.”
Rey knew he meant it as a comfort, but his words added more weight to her already heavy shoulders.
“I can’t be who they need me to be,” she said. “I…”
The afterimage of electricity crackling from her hands seemed to dance in front of her eyes even now.
She didn’t know how she could say it. And then briefly, she felt as though she didn’t have to. As though Finn understood without speaking. She looked up at him, wiping her eyes.
“You’re scared of the Dark Side of the Force,” he said, stating a fact, and then slightly less sure: “You’re scared of him.”
“Not him,” Rey whispered in a very small voice.
She couldn’t finish the thought. Finn took a moment to absorb this.
“Nobody’s path is set if they make the right choices,” he said, and then he gave her his best attempt at a grin. “I should know better than anyone, right?”
She smiled back as best she could; Finn stood and squeezed his way back out of the engine nook. Rey followed him a moment later.
You could replace R2 with BB-8 perhaps! I do feel like not having 3PO fire it is a bit of a missed opportunity.
Too bad it isn’t R2, though. Maybe you could’ve made an aggressive negotiations joke. I like the idea of 3PO trying to follow his baseline programming, and perhaps try and negotiate for Chewbacca’s release or something.
Yeah, BB-8 works too - although I’d have to figure out a quick-to-describe way for him to shove C-3PO’s elbow, since he’s too short compared to R2. And honestly, having C-3PO laden down with weapons, and still trying to politely negotiate his way out of trouble, almost works better for this new, even more naive C-3PO.
I wrote this snippet way back when I first thought of this project. I really wanted an actual payoff to the heavily-marketed image of C-3PO toting Chewbacca’s bandolier and bowcaster. However, I hadn’t seen TROS in a while when I wrote it, and I’d forgotten two key things: first, that C-3PO’s memory is wiped at the time, and second, that R2D2 is back at the Resistance base. So I probably won’t be able to insert this anywhere, sadly. Regardless, please enjoy:
R2D2 beeped emphatically.
“What do you mean, ‘open fire’!?” C-3PO wailed. “Artoo, I could never - !”
R2D2 swung his chassis forwards and headbutted his friend’s elbow. The bowcaster went off, and sent three stormtroopers flying into the air.
“Oh my goodness!” screamed a startled C-3PO.
I figure he realises this is an entity that he doesn’t fully understand. And the easiest way to solve something you don’t understand is to get rid of it. Then he can take its words at face value to mean what he wants them to mean.
Yeah, I forgot that your edit is regarding just the novelization and not the actual film; novelizations tend to use the surface of the plot of films and, as far as I’m concerned(?), tend to avoid using inferences for specific details from the actual film. For example, I believe the TRoS novel ignores the whole “Rey has low self-esteem” thing, whereas the arc is inferable from the actual film itself.
The subtext of a film is very open to interpretation; you can apply any kind of analytical framework to a movie and come away with interesting results. The Star Wars novelisations, at least to my experience, tend to spell out their themes and subtext a lot more explicitly - so the novelisation ends up being Rae Carson’s interpretation of the film’s subtext. That’s not always going to be the same as my interpretation, or yours, or someone else’s. And that’s fine! That’s what’s interesting about analysing fiction.
That said, however, I do think there are more accurate and less accurate interpretations of what subtext the filmmakers were intending to convey. That’s why analytical essays search through texts for explicit evidence that supports their interpretations and assertions. I’m trying not to stray too far from what I believe are Carson’s intended themes and subtext, unless I think it could be changed to something that’s better supported by the text.
TROS is a bit scattershot (which is understandable, given its writing and production process), and Carson has done her best to bring all of the bits in line with the ST’s overall thematic trajectory. I’m just trying to strengthen those attempts, basically.
That’s great! Definitely an improvement, I’ll add it in if that’s alright. I was worried that it would overcomplicate the core idea being conveyed, but it just strengthens it. And that final line is fantastic as a result; the final line I’d written was the part I was least happy with, too.