daveybjones999

Dagenspear said:

daveybjones999 said:

but even if you agree that Last Jedi did abandon what was setup by Force Awakens, at least most of the runtime of the 8th movie isn’t devoted to undoing what the previous movie did. There’s also a lot of things that aren’t properly setup that just happened hear, the film feels more like a series of video game fetch quests instead of a cohesive narrative, and it lazily brings back Palpatine. I actually used to like the movie but the more I rewatched it the more I grew to hate the movie.

I’d disagree, as I think reylo being a romance existing in TLJ alone undoes TFA, which I think set up a straightforward antagonistic relationship and I think TLJ undoes that and undoes the potential relationship dynamic between Finn and Rey in pursuit of it, which was a lot of TFA. I think reylo is a solid amount of that movie. That, plus, just shrugging and going the first order rules the galaxy now. While TFA was open ended on the galaxy, I find it out of nowhere that the first order rule the galaxy.

As far as bringing back Palpatine, well, I think that’s poor writing construction, but also Kylo is a complete black hole of a character and a villain (anything you could do is basically soft rebooting him, which I think both DOTF, if it’s legit, and TROS both do, in different ways), so I don’t care enough. I think Kylo has basically nothing to offer. At least Palpatine is entertaining to me. I’ve had a stance for some time that I’d have preferred if Kylo had just been killed by Snoke. They’re already wrecking the whole family of Skywalkers/Solos, so who cares if that garbage pail of a character Kylo survives. That’d have been actually surprising to me. At least Snoke has gravitas to me.

Except that while yes in The Last Jedi there’s an emotional connection between them that you could read as being romantic, but the film ends with Rey literally rejecting him she actually rejects him twice. The last scene of Kylo Ren in the movie is him looking up and seeing Rey in one of their force connection moments, while she stares at him and closes the door. She literally closing the door on there even being a romance between them. It’s Rise of Skywalker that decides, actually no there is romantic connection between them, not Last Jedi. Sure you could argue that Last Jedi is undoing the potential romance between Rey and Finn, but it’s not undoing the antagonistic relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren. The start the movie as foes and end the movie as foes. Sure they make their relationship more complex and hint that there could be something between them, but Rey rejects it and they and the movie as foes.

As far as Kylo goes, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Snoke is an incredibly boring and dull villain with literally nothing to him. Ren is way more interesting of a character given his past and his character motivations. Sure a complex character isn’t necessarily better than a simple character but I think Kylo Ren is the best thing about the entire trilogy and one of only things that’s consistently good through all 3 movies.

Just saw this thread get pushed up again and I’ve had a lot of time to reminisce about the Sequel Trilogy and my thoughts on the movie have completely solidified since then. I like Force Awakens but most of the problems with the sequel trilogy stem from the construction of this film. By essentially telling mostly the same story as A New Hope, it makes a lot of mistakes that make the world building of the trilogy not work. Because we’re setting things back to having an evil empire and Darth Vader like character in Kylo Ren, the movie essentially has to explain why these things are coming back after seemingly being defeated in Return of the Jedi, yet the films world building fails at doing this. We know that the First Order are made up of Imperial Remnants and that they’ve risen to power, but we don’t know how because the movie isn’t really at all interested in setting that up, it just wants to bring things back to what people liked about the original trilogy by resetting it to the status quo at the beginning of the original trilogy and going on to retell a similar story. It was so unexplored or explained in the movie that the Disney post Original Trilogy era TV projects are still trying to this very day explain how this actually happened. The creatives in charge of Force Awakens clearly weren’t at all interested in the specifics of how this happened as it’s clear they just wanted to bring things back to how things were in the original trilogy, partially because of how disappointed they were in the prequels and wanted to bring things back to basic. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if you were making an original film, but putting this at the end of an existing storyline without actually explaining how set the entire trilogy on a bad foot and it also kind of invalidates what the cast of the original trilogy went through. This reason and the wiping out of the old EU, is the biggest mistake that’s given Disney’s Star Wars its biggest problem because when your story is setup on a shaky foundation, there’s only so far you can go until the entire construction falls down.

The other problem, and the biggest issue that the trilogy suffers from, is JJ Abrams Mystery Box style of storytelling is actually really bad. I won’t go so far as other people and say that Abrams is a complete hack, but his storytelling style is pretty much a failure because most of his works are way more interested in setting up mysteries to engage the audience rather than actually answering them so the answers are never satisfying. This really poisons the entire trilogy, because now the other directors have to either resolve mysteries that were setup with no real answers in mind, at least no real answers that he was actually intending to resolve, or ignore them and piss off the people invested in those mysteries even though they were never going to have satisfying answers because JJ Abrams throughout his entire career has almost never been able to do that.

However that being said I actually don’t think those issues really negatively affect The Force Awakens all that much. I just think it’s a pretty good movie. It does a great job of introducing the main characters and giving them not only good personalities but setting up the character arcs for the film, the narrative, while too similar to New Hope does a successful job of having enough original elements that I can overlook that. The emotional beats work, the pacing is nice and breezy and it’s just a really fun time to watch.

I always hesitate when it comes to talking about The Last Jedi due to how toxic it still sometimes is to discuss the movie. It’s just amazing how divisive that movie was as people had the exact opposite reactions to the film. When I saw the movie I absolutely loved it, it instantly became one of my favorite Star Wars movies and I thought it was the second best one behind only Empire Strikes Back, so imagine my shock when I went to go online and see what people were saying about the movie, only to find out that a lot of people, not only didn’t like the movie, but thought it was one of the worst movies ever made that completely ruined the entire Star Wars franchise to them. I also imagine it must’ve also been incredibly jarring to the people who hated it that much, that others felt exactly the opposite of them and thought it was one of the best Star Wars movies ever. It’s still to this day one of the worst discourses I’ve ever seen over a movie.

I was lucky enough that I happened to follow one or two Youtube Reviewers who didn’t like the movie, and gave valid explanations as to why, because if not I 100% would’ve been in the camp that thought that everyone who hated it was just racist and sexist. A lot of hate was coming from racist and sexist idiots, who probably weren’t even fans of Star Wars to begin with, who essentially used it as an excuse to go and bully all of the non-white, non-male, actors off of twitter with Death Threats for daring to be in Star Wars. Almost all of the complaints I saw in the first week or two of the movies release were those types of complaints, which made lots of people wrongly believe that everyone who hated it were those people. They were by far the loudest and most visible complaints about the movie online, especially on twitter, and they essentially buried all of the valid complaints under a deluge of racism and sexism. And because those opinions were so extreme a lot of people who liked the movie only ever saw those opinions started to think that only sexists and racists hated the movie. Even when people weren’t being racist or sexist there was still a lot of bull with people who hated the movie doing nothing but accusing people who liked it to not be true Star Wars fans and of being Disney Shills paid to say the movie was good, and people who liked the movie that were completely overzealous in defending the movie accusing anyone who didn’t like it of being idiots who weren’t smart enough to understand the movie. So why this movie? It’s well acted, looks good for the most part, and is for the most part well directed. Well it’s all because of issues that started with The Force Awakens.

JJ Abrams mystery box style of storytelling focuses a lot on setting up mysteries to engage the audience, but very little in actually answering those questions. So a lot of the time the answers are incredibly unsatisfying because they writer was never really interested in what the answers were, but the audience got invested in those questions by design so when they have disappointing answers it ruins the story. A lot of people hate The Last Jedi because they see it as either ignoring, or abandoning what was setup in the previous movie I’m in two minds on this. While there are definitely mystery box setups that are ignored, a lot of them do get answers but people just disliked what the answers were, which is not the same as abandoning what the previous movie setup. Really the only setup that Last Jedi abandons is that Snoke wants to continue Kylo Ren’s training.

There are other issues in the film such as the film doing too good of a job making people hate Holdo so when we get the reveal she’s a good guy people refused to accept it, the Canto Bight storyline is rather poorly paced and feels like it sidelines Finn’s character, also the humor doesn’t work for a lot of people. However the biggest issue is what I described earlier with the mystery boxes, and fans understandably being upset by the reason for Luke being on the planet and how the story handles his character arc. When you’re going to bring back a legacy character, especially one so beloved, you need to be very careful with what you do with them lest the fanbase hate it, and you by extension, from ruining their favorite character which is exactly what happened. However this is still a problem that he inherited from Force Awakens.

A lot of people don’t really like that The Last Jedi is a subversion of Star Wars, but here’s the thing, it’s not. It is a subversion, but it’s actually not a subversion of Star Wars, but a subversion of subversion movies. It’s pretty much doing what his later film Knives Out does, but not as well. Spoilers for Knives Out by the way. Knives Out is a whodunnit murder mystery, but early on in the runtime it completely subverts expectations, by seemingly revealing the culprit is the main protagonist, early on and the rest of the movie is her trying to get away with it. However at the end of the film we get the twist that, actually she didn’t kill him and that there is a real killer and was being set up by them to take the fall. Obviously there’s way more to the story than that but this is about Star Wars. Last Jedi does the same thing in making you think it’s going to subvert Star Wars by Kelo saying they need to let the past die and have Rey join Kylo Ren, but they don’t do that and she rejects him, and therefore the idea that you need to let the past die, before bringing it back in line with the main thematic heart of the franchise. At the end of the day the film still concludes with Luke facing down the entire First Order giving time for the resistance to escape and bringing hope back into the galaxy.

However a lot of people don’t see this because they dislike the Holdo storyline, the Canto Bight stuff and what they did with Luke that they don’t notice and fall into the trap of thinking that Kylo Ren is right, when he’s not. The film is thematically rich and has a good message, but does any of that matter when the narrative plotting and character work and pacing doesn’t work? I personally like all 3 of those storylines that others hate, the Luke stuff works for me, I really like the Holdo storyline, and despite Canto Bight being a bit to slowly paced I like most of the stuff there as well, but if you don’t like those things, you’re not really going to by paying attention to what the film is trying to actually say. Which is why I can sympathize with people disliking the movie while still being annoyed that so many people completely miss the point of what the movie is actually saying. I’ve slowly over the years started to realize and understand why people hated the movie so much, where I’ve finally come to the conclusion that The Last Jedi has legitimate problems with portraying what it wanted to say, that to this day so many people still think it’s saying the exact opposite of what it really is. It’s still my second favorite Star Wars movie though.

I really don’t want to talk about Rise of Skywalker, but this is what actually ruins the trilogy. Rise of Skywalker does to The Last Jedi, what many fans thought The Last Jedi did to Force Awakens, and pretty much ignores everything the previous movie setup. Now this isn’t 100% true there are some things that Last Jedi setup that Rise attempts to conclude, but even if you agree that Last Jedi did abandon what was setup by Force Awakens, at least most of the runtime of the 8th movie isn’t devoted to undoing what the previous movie did. There’s also a lot of things that aren’t properly setup that just happened hear, the film feels more like a series of video game fetch quests instead of a cohesive narrative, and it lazily brings back Palpatine. I actually used to like the movie but the more I rewatched it the more I grew to hate the movie.

While it would be easy to lie all of the blame on Abrams and crap on him for ruining the final movie of the trilogy, but honestly I don’t completely blame JJ Abrams for this, although don’t get me wrong a lot of the problems are his fault. Most of the problems are more because of Disney because clearly Abrams wasn’t really given enough time to make a story for the film. He wasn’t even originally going to direct the movie it was going to be Colin Trevorrow, but because of creative differences he left the project. I’m not going to speculate too much as to why, but after that decision was made they pretty much and threw out his script, and despite delaying the movie 7 months, they now had to write a conclusion to the trilogy. I think that Abrams probably just defaulted to some of the ideas he had when setting up Force Awakens, because he didn’t have enough time, or creativity, to wrap up what was setup by Last Jedi. If Rise of Skywalker had been a good movie or we had gotten Duel of the Fates, don’t get I have huge problems with that script and it would’ve needed to be rewritten anyway after Carrie Fisher’s tragic death, I think the sequel trilogy would be thought of much more fondly by the fandom. Still I think some fan edits have managed to salvage Rise of Skywalker so I can say that I like the entire sequel trilogy, even if I only like one of them due to a fan edit.

Dune Complete
I really loved both Dune films and wasn’t planning on making an edit, but when I saw the final scene from Dune Part 2, I knew I needed to create one to turn it into 1 long epic movie. I’m not going to be simply stitching the 2 parts together I’ll be cutting some scenes out to make the movie flow a bit better and to cut down on runtime, as well as some slight restructuring of the film. I’m moving the intro to part 2 until after Lady Jessica looks over the burning of the city, before continuing onto Duke Leto’s death. I’ve shortened the movie from around 5 and a half hours to around 4 and a half hours, still lengthy but way more manageable

The Edit is complete so send me a PM if interested, The file is around 9.5 Gigs. I’ve included my cut list below.

Edited Part 1 out of the title card
3:52-5:43 Removed breakfast scene between Paul and Jessica. It introduces the voice and the Bene Gesserict, but these are better introduced later on.
7:45-9:13 Removed dialogue between Leto, Gurney and Thurfit, to improve pacing and also remove the call and response between the Emperor’s announcer and Duke Leto
12:54-16:18 Removed conversation between Paul and Leto, it’s a good bonding moment between them, but I really want to get to the Gom Jobbar scene within the first 20 minutes
17:21-17:55 & 18:12-18:15 Trimmed training fight between Paul and Gurney
19:05-20:47 Removed first scene on Ghedi Prime
26:00-26:08 & 26:21-26:26 Edited out some of Jessica’s crying during the scene to make the character appear stronger. It’s still clear she’s scared for Paul, but she maintains more of her inner strength
42:58-44:38 Removed tree scene, it does have some world building in it, but it slows down the pacing too much
55:25-56:14 Removed conversation between Paul, Duncan, and Gurney, doesn’t really add anything we already know how great their bond is.
73:38-73:56 Removed lady Jessica walking down a hallway and crying
Moved scene of them finding Baron Harkonnen to before Duncan meets with Kynes
97:32 Add Prologue to Dune Part II

Some more edits to improve the flow of the action
106:36-107
119:06-112:11
145:54-155:17 Removed final scene to improve pacing into part 2

Part 2
0-:52 Remove Studio titles
2:29-2:43 Removed Title Card
3:03-11:41 Removed fight between the Fremen and the Sadukhar
16:11-16:29 Removed council mocking Stilgar
21:11-21:27 Removed Jessica asking what would happen if she refuses to become the Reverend Mother
21:29-21:39 Removed some dialogue to improve pacing
32:49-33:05 Removed Paul questioning Chain’s sand walking technique
59:15-60.27 Removed Paul and Chani scene after he rides the sandworm
63:39-69:49 Removed Raban trying to fight the Fremen and losing, and also the scene between Shadam, Irulan and the Reverand Mother right afterwards
109:28-110:42 Removed scene of Chani’s friends death

I’ve Cut out around 40 minutes from both films with 22:54 minutes cut from Part 1, and 17:12 From Part 2
The film is now 4h 29m 12s w/o credits and 4h 37m 19s w/ credits

Again the Edit is complete so send me a PM if you want to check it out. The file is around 9.5 Gigs

I’m so excited this was far and away my favorite short of Volume One, and even though Screacher’s Reach from Volume 2 gives it a good run for its money, it’s still my favorite one. It also makes a lot of sense that of all of the shorts this is the one to get a full limited series as it didn’t feel like a short it felt like an episode 1 for a full length show, and the short was the length of a standard 30 minute episode of TV. I’m assuming it’ll be a full 12-13 episode season, but it could be just 6-8 given Disney+'s propensity for only doing that many episodes.

Not only is the short from Volume One, The Ninth Jedi, getting a follow-up in Volume 3 it’s also getting a limited series as well. That was my favorite short of Volume One so I’m very happy with this news.
https://www.starwars.com/news/visions-presents-the-ninth-jedi

Even though I do like the sequel trilogy, well 2/3 of it, I completely agree that Cobra Kai does the legacy sequel thing way better because it remembers to ensure that both the old characters and the new characters get somewhat equal focus and allow both to have character arcs and progress. Also, I think the writing is way better in Cobra Kai because I think only 1 of movies in the sequel trilogy, The Last Jedi, was actually well written. Force Awakens was fine but focused too much on setting up mystery boxes that they had no idea what the answers that were within them would be. Much of the film was also was derivative of A New Hope because they were terrified that the Star Wars fanbase would hate it like the prequels and decided not to write something new and original. Rise of Skywalker is a complete trainwreck from a writing level. The Last Jedi is the only one of the sequel trilogy that even attempts to do something similar to what Cobra Kai did, in that every single character in that film goes through a character arc and tries to give everyone some character development, even if a lot of people dislike what they specifically did with those character arcs. Cobra Kai does all of this, and more, successfully enough to where I consider the show better than the originals.

This sounds exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’ve always suspected that this would be a fantastic way to watch the series, and that the prequels would be especially well served by something like this, so I’d definitely love to see this when you complete it.

THe reason why lots of people haven’t been watching or talking about this show is because Star Wats has eroded pretty much all of the trust people had in it due to everything since Mandalorian Season 2. Fett got good ratings, but nobody liked it, Obi Wan got a similar treatment with Decent ratings but nobody loving the show, Andor was incredibly well received, but had the worst viewership numbers for a Live Action show at least until Acolyte came out, The Mandalorian season 3 had great viewership numbers but disappointed most everybody, Ahsoka also got decent ratings, but people mostly seem to think it was just OK, and then the Acolyte happened and almost everyone seemed to hate it. All of those series have trained people interested in Star Wars to not bother with a new show, at least not until it’s over, also Skeleton Crew is very much a kids show and for some reason, a lot of people seem to have no interest in those. That’s likely why not that many people are watching or talking about the show even though most of those who have watched it seem to enjoy the show. I also think a lot of people might’ve been waiting for the show to end and see what the consensus on the series was before hopping onto it. I know that, despite overall liking Ahsoka and The Acolyte, I was still disappointed enough in both of those shows that I decided to wait until it was finished to see if it was worth my time and now that it has, I’ll be watching it over the weekend.

They also had to stop and restart production for both the WGA and SAG strikes as well which also probably led to its budget ballooning so high as well. Still over 291 Mil for one season, and over 645 Mil for two seasons is still way too much money.

SparkySywer said:

JadedSkywalker said:

Can someone explain why everyone thinks Mace is this badass lightsaber duelist. He went out in a very weak way. Blown out a window due to unlimited power. After Anakin chopped his hand off.

To be fair the power was unlimited

Speaking of which someone should do a Wicked Star Wars edit where instead of Palpatine shouting, Unlimited Power, he starts singing Unlimited from Wicked’s Defying Gravity instead. Or am I the only one who’d find this funny?

I’ve got 2 off the top of my head

The Acolyte
Episode 5 Night. This is an absolutely fantastic episode, in a mostly disappointing series. The action is fantastically directed, and the episode is incredibly well-paced and tense. Jecki’s death and the Qimir reveal, up to Yorde’s death is the standout in a fantastic episode.

Star Wars Rebel.
Season 4 Episode 10 Jedi Night. Kanan’s sacrifice and death was one of the highlights of a great series. Kanan was a great character and seeing his arc come to a conclusion and sacrifice himself was very poignant…

Finally, a new Star Wars project that not only am I excited for, but am not worried about it turning out poorly. I really enjoyed both previous volumes of Vision, and it looks like they’re returning to it all being anime, like season 1.

They have no idea what they’re doing anymore, it’s really sad.

I’d love a link. I never finished the season, or series despite buying all 3 seasons on Blu Ray and trying to get through it multiple times. This edit seems like a much better length.

Another new Star Wars project that will likely never see the light of day. He has some Star Wars experience, having written some episodes of Rebels, but his other works have been really hit or miss so if it does actually come out it’ll likely be a coin flip whether it’s any good or not.

I think this is nearly perfect. The reveal works so well and it’s executed fantastically. I only had 2 minor issues, first off it’s very unclear what Rey says right before she picks up the dagger. Not sure if the line is AI or not, but it needs more work to be intelligible. I only have one other really minor nitpick, I don’t like the shot of Palatine’s chair spinning to face the audience from Return of the Jedi. It feels like it slows down the vision a little bit, but it isn’t a huge issue. Also, the Sith eye effect is perfect it feels like it was meant to be there the entire time.

When the new Halloween came out in 2018 I absolutely adored the movie, however after the made the full trilogy it became apparent that they had no idea what to do past the 2018 movie as the trilogy doesn’t work at all. Kills was fairly disappointing and its attempt at social commentary was hackneyed and cringey, and while I really enjoyed Ends as a finale to a trilogy it was a complete failure focusing on an entirely new character and barely featuring Michael Meyers. However there are still lots of things I did like about the 2 sequels, so I’ve decided to edit all three of them down into a single long movie. Most of the edit is going to be focused on 2018 and Kills, with a heavily truncated Corey free version of Ends as the third act.

I cut out a bunch of dumb jokes from 2018, such as making Alison’s dad way less of a joke, and removing the dumb cops and there sandwich discussion
I started with a trimmed flashback sequence from Kills, before transitioning into the Halloween 2018 title sequence, and opening on the extended scene of Laurie in the shooting range removing the asylum sequence and the podcasters driving up to Lauries house.
I cut out the Dinner Scene and the Bus Escape scene. I really like both of these, but the dinner scene is just reinforcing what’s already been established about the family’s relationships, and we also have a scene of officer Hawkins arriving at the aftermath of the bus scene as well.
Cut Podcasters at Judith Meyer’s grave and of Hawkins at Hospital with Sartain
I added the deleted scene of Allison jogging and seeing the dead dog.
After Alison is found after Oscar’s death I cut to a condensed version of the bar scene from Kills to reintroduce the characters from the original film
After Sartain drives off with Alison and Michael I cut to the Cameron finding Hawkins and calling the ambulance
Rest of 2018 plays without much editing just some minor trims here and there
Kills edits
Cut Karen in the Morgue
Slightly trimmed Sandra’s husband’s death scene
Cut out Alison and Karen’s questioning, as well as implication Michael isn’t after Laurie.
I cut out the entire subplot with the escaped mental patient and the hospital
Little John, Big John and their deaths have been removed.
Cut out the Marian, doctor, and nurse kills, leave in them finding their bodies
After Karen’s death I cut to the first scene after the credits in Ends, Then after Laurie washes out the burnt pie we cut to the grocery store scene.
After the grocery store we cut to the end of the movie where Laurie makes it look like she’s going to commit suicide.
It really is Michael that Laurie shoots down the stairs.
I cut immediately to Alison stopping her car to hear about Laurie’s supposed suicide and then play out the Ends till it’s over, removing all references to Corey.
The edit is a bit longer than I would’ve liked at 2 hours and 43 minutes with credits.

If you’d like to check out the edit leave me a PM.

I enjoyed The Acolyte, but like every single release since The Mandalorian Season 2, with the exception of Andor, the show really needs a movie edit so I’m throwing my hat into the ring to create one. It’s taken me a while to finish this edit, way longer than I expected. I pretty much got to the point where I didn’t know if I wanted to make a 2 film edit or remove the flashback episode from the series, but I eventually decided on a 1 movie edit with a significantly shorter flashback inserted after the events of episode 5.

Also since The Acolyte is not getting renewed for a season 2 I was able to cut all of the sequel teasing at the end, and I also completely removed the Vernestra Rwoh stuff from the later half of the season. I’m also changing the ending of the series so that we don’t continue after Osha kills Sol and bleeds her lightsaber. While creating the edit that seemed like a much stronger ending, but since there was still some stuff that needed to be resolved, I ended it where the show did, but now that there is no sequel I think I can end the series there and have a much stronger edit. This edit runs for around 2 hours and 42 minutes with credits.

I’ve also created an alternate version of the combined flashback episodes called Tragedy on Brendok which is 46 minutes long, but I don’t have a cutlist for it.

PM me if you want a copy.

My cultist from the series is below, note minor dialogue trims and removal of recaps and the title card are not noted below. Some cuts for each have timestamps, but most do not.

Episode 1
Remove the space walk scene for timing purposes and edited the confrontation between Osha and Yorde to remove exposition. I also removed the scene of the bar owner confronting Osha.
Heavily trimmed Osha’s dream sequence. Cut right from Vernestra over to Osha in her flashback vision, for timing purposes
28.08-29.08 Cut out the short scene of Jecki Sol and Yord leaving to get Osha
36.17-End Cut final scene of Mae meeting with her master as it doesn’t really work as anything other than an end of episode cliffhanger.

Episode 2
Cut out first confrontation between Mae and Torbin
Remove Osha’s first conversation with Jecki
Removed Yorde asking Sol if he believes Osha’s story
Removed conversation between Osha and Sol on the ship
Cut out Jecki’s explanation of her plan, it’s pretty self explanatory and doesn’t need elaboration
Slightly trimmed cutting from the fight between Sol and Mae
Removed Mae and QImir reuniting.

Episode 4
2.33-4.27 Removed goodbye scene between Jecki and Osha, the dialogue just isn’t good and I’ve decided to remove the whole, Osha doesn’t want to go apprehend her sister plot. In this edit she’s determined to stick around for the whole thing.
Removed the meeting with the other Jedi and cut right to Sol and Vernestra’s conversation afterwards. The meeting refers to and sets up a minor subplot that won’t get resolved in this edit.
10.31-13.07 Removed scene of Sol convincing Osha to come with them for the reason I stated in the last change. Removed the scene on the ship Even though I like it cause it doesn’t really add anything to the story and I need the runtime for later on.
13.42-14.00 Cut out Yorde ordering Osha to give back the weapon it’s contradictory to a later scene of his.
Removed scene of Mae trapping Qimir and deciding to turn herself into the Jedi
Cut out Osha and Jecki’s conversation about the dead bug to save time
Removed the Jedi losing Basil and Sol telling Osha he’ll explain everything later on the ship

Episode 5
2.06-2.32 trimmed some of the opening to get to the battle a bit quicker
5.19-6.18 Removed first scene of Osha and Yorde running away

Episode 6
Cut out all scenes with Vernestra
15.26-17.01 removed Mae finding and resetting Pip as well as all shots of Basil as possible
Cut out conversation between Mae and Sol where Sol realizes Mae isn’t Osha

Episode 8
Removed all scenes of Vernestra and the other Jedi
Removed scene of Qimir and Osha leaving the planet and the Darth Plagues Cameo
Heavily edited Mae and Sol chase sequence to remove Basil
Movie ends with Osha turning Sol’s lightsaber Red.

PM me if you want a copy

One more post about The Acolyte, because I’m still thinking of the show, honestly it shouldn’t have been an 8 episode show. I gave my thoughts about this after the show ended, but it should’ve been a 6 episode show. I’d keep episodes 1 and 2 the same, but then I’d push back the flashback another episode. Then I’d have episode 3 be a combined version of Day and Night with the first half cut down a bit. That way the story momentum continues a little longer and ends on most of the main cast dead and Osha and Mae switching places. Then you combine the 2 flashback episodes into one focusing more on the Jedi side of the story, with key scenes from Osha’s side of the story to show that the coven really do care for the girls. That way episode 6 becomes the new episode 5, and when we start it we know what’s going on and that allows the momentum to continue from episode 5 into the final episode.

Structurally the season is a complete mess. After a solid first 2 episodes that set the stage decently well, we go into a flashback that doesn’t really reveal what happened. That completely took the wind out of the shows sails and killed the momentum of the story so that now the story has to build up again and right where it starts getting good, the episode ends making everyone wait a week for the best episode of the show. Then after Night airs the story slows down a bit and we have to build momentum again, and right as the momentum is building we get the second flashback episode, but because the show dragged out the reveal of what happened for far too long the answer ends up feeling really unsatisfying and also kills the momentum of the story again right as it’s gearing up for the climax.

Now with the new 6 episode structure, it allows the pacing to build more naturally and the flashbacks don’t kill the momentum of the story as much. The show naturally builds from episodes 1-3 where almost everyone dies and we get a big change in the focus of the story, and then we go into the flashback episode which now doesn’t kill the momentum as much. Then episodes 5 and 6 build nicely into each other and the climax is able to build up to its conclusion better. Now this wouldn’t fix all of the problems with the show, the reveal still would’ve been disappointing to a lot of people for one thing, and there are still issues with the script and acting, but it might’ve done a bit better for viewership.

With editing the show from 8 episodes down to 6 and restructuring the entire story to keep plot momentum building it might’ve stayed on the charts longer. Episodes 1-3 all charted, really low but still they were on there, but then it dropped from the charts until the finale partially because episode 3 was very widely disliked. But now with Day/Night as episode 3 there would’ve been a much higher chance it would’ve stayed on the charts longer because now episode 3 is both a long enough episode for streaming, but also ends on a real high note, rather than that high note being episode 5 after it lost a large chunk of the audience. This way audiences likely would’ve stuck around for episode 4, and maybe they still drop it after the flashback episode, but as we saw it came back onto the charts for its final episode and that would’ve likely made it look better to Disney. A 6 episode show where the first 4 episodes chart, the 5th episode drops off, but then audiences come back for the final episode, looks way better than an 8 episode show where only the first 3 episodes chart, episodes 4-7 are off the charts, and then people come back for episode 8 before interest dies again. That being said personally I still don’t think the show would’ve done that well even with these structural changes but it’s interesting, for me at least, to think about

Vladius said:

daveybjones999 said:

MORC said:

I believe a cartoon set in-between OT movies is a better move than a post RotJ one. TCW fleshes out the period very nicely, yet we have virtually nothing between 4-5-6 despite those being the most well regarded movies.

Honestly, that’s kind of why I don’t want them to do that. The original trilogy is great, and a series set between them focusing on the Rebels during that time period could be a great show, but 1, Star Wars Rebels already exists, and 2, people are already still annoyed at Disney for de-canonizing the old EU so just imagine the outrage a series set between the original series would cause, especially if it isn’t good. I’d much rather them do something like that for the sequels and set it between episodes 8 and 9. The Clone Wars already went a long way towards redeeming the prequels for lots of people, even though the quality of the movies didn’t actually change people’s perceptions of them did, so I’d much rather them put the energy towards doing that for the sequels and trying to mend something that actually needs fixing, instead of adding things in between movies that don’t need them. I’d definitely be interested in them finding some way to appeal to original trilogy fans but I’m 100% certain in the inevitability that if they try everyone’s just going to hate it because even if I do like, or at least tolerate, a lot of the recent Star Wars Disney+ offerings I have 0 faith in Disney to do something like that for the original trilogy and have it be any good.

Why do you care whether or not people think the sequels (or prequels) are “redeemed?”

Personally, I don’t really care I’m fine with liking them and don’t really care that much anymore about what the fanbase as a whole thinks about it. I was just saying that while there’s potential in doing another series around the original trilogy with the original characters there are already tons of stories from that era with those characters. Also like I said Disney can’t really afford many more misses and I think they have a greater chance of missing with the original trilogy characters. I mean what’s the worst that can happen with them trying to do a series with the sequel characters if it’s bad? People will just talk about how awful the sequels are and they’re already doing that, but if they try to do something with the original trilogy cast and mess it up (again in some people’s eyes) fans will be even more annoyed with Disney than they already are.

MORC said:

I believe a cartoon set in-between OT movies is a better move than a post RotJ one. TCW fleshes out the period very nicely, yet we have virtually nothing between 4-5-6 despite those being the most well regarded movies.

Honestly, that’s kind of why I don’t want them to do that. The original trilogy is great, and a series set between them focusing on the Rebels during that time period could be a great show, but 1, Star Wars Rebels already exists, and 2, people are already still annoyed at Disney for de-canonizing the old EU so just imagine the outrage a series set between the original series would cause, especially if it isn’t good. I’d much rather them do something like that for the sequels and set it between episodes 8 and 9. The Clone Wars already went a long way towards redeeming the prequels for lots of people, even though the quality of the movies didn’t actually change people’s perceptions of them did, so I’d much rather them put the energy towards doing that for the sequels and trying to mend something that actually needs fixing, instead of adding things in between movies that don’t need them. I’d definitely be interested in them finding some way to appeal to original trilogy fans but I’m 100% certain in the inevitability that if they try everyone’s just going to hate it because even if I do like, or at least tolerate, a lot of the recent Star Wars Disney+ offerings I have 0 faith in Disney to do something like that for the original trilogy and have it be any good.

Honestly, I’m not surprised. While I did like it, the show had lots of issues, especially structurally, and the viewership numbers were awful.

There have only been 3 bad/awful Star Wars movies or shows, The Clone Wars 2008 movie, Rise of Skywalker, and Book of Bobba Fett. Obi Wan, Mandalorain Season 3, Ahsoka, and The Acolyte are all very middling shows but I wouldn’t label any of them as being bad. All 4 of these shows have enough legitimately great things about them that I consider myself glad to have watched them, but they all have huge problems that stop them from actually being good as a whole.

Vladius said:

Kellythatsit said:

rocknroll41 said:

Great write-up Acbagel!

Unfortunately I don’t think simply making “a little something for everyone” (i.e. different things for different people) is enough to unite the fandom, as each group generally seems to think Star Wars should only be made for their tastes specifically (even if not everyone admits it). Doesn’t help also that a ton of YouTubers nowadays make an entire living from hating Star Wars, no matter what it does.

Of all the groups you mentioned, I’m in the one that you described as “not very protective, fine with whatever direction Disney takes.” I honestly think at this point they should just keep doing whatever they’re doing, cause people will get mad no matter what. There was a time when even ESB was divisive, ffs!

Yeah I agree with this also. But Lucasfilm/Disney also need to have the balls to stick with projects or story direction. Don’t crib notes from fans. Sure learn from mistakes but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Key example: Solo.
The movie was perfectly fine. Did it set the world on fire? No. Were there other key issues that also effected it’s performance? Absolutely. But don’t set up an ongoing story and then abandon it because “shit happens”. Learn the right lessons and fix the errors. Make the next one a banger. Ensure the next in the Solo series is unmissable.

It’s the same now with the Acolyte. It was a bit hit/miss but there’s more story to be told. Learn the right lessons. Fix the main issues. Whether it’s pacing, character development, production quality, whatever. But back in your story. At the end of the day we just want good, well told stories that we can reflect on with satisfaction.

It was way more than “a bit” hit or miss, and the story literally can’t go anywhere because it will always result in the prequels happening. All it does is bash on the Jedi more in dumber and dumber ways.

They are cribbing notes from fans, the large group of prequel/Filoni fans who like anything that has prequel/Clone Wars/Rebels characters in it.

I think you’re forgetting that tons of people love the prequels and would love to see a well-told story of how the Jedi got to the point that they’re at during them. Just because some people don’t like them or how the Jedi are portrayed during the prequels doesn’t change that. There’s a whole lot of good storyline potential to exploring that shift regardless of whether or not some people want Star Wars to tackle that or not. What Disney Star Wars needs to do is appeal to fans of all 3 trilogies, but they really seem to only be catering to Prequel fans which is the main issue. Other than Andor there’s no Star Wars project attempting to appeal to fans of the original trilogy, and there are also no projects currently out trying to appeal to fans of the sequel trilogy. The only thing even attempting to target those fans is the currently in production Rey movie. They need to appeal to fans of all 3 and to do that they need to greenlight projects targeting each of these 3 eras.

I think what they need to do is very simple, but also kind of difficult to do. Focus on creating high quality films and series and not just producing a glut of content to drive subscribers to Disney+ like they’ve been doing since Mandalorian Season 2. Of all of the Star Wars streaming shows the only ones to have actually been produced and paced like actual TV shows have been Andor, The Mandalorian, and The Bad Batch. Literally everything else has felt like a movie idea that got suddenly stretched out into a 6-8 episode streaming series for no reason other than to get people to stay on Disney+ longer. If they’re going to make a TV miniseries or show, then make a miniseries or show, and not an extended 6 hour movie padded with filler to extend the runtime.