I explained myself here about how I see Rey as the personification of the balance in the force. Therefore I’m fine with her not dying (well, or dying and then getting revived as something else), but I would be ok with it. I like her character, sure, but I also like a purposeful death to the hero.
Meaningful deaths, Minimal McGuffins, Rey is not invincible, Not everyone can be redeemed, Rey is nobody, Redeeming luke, etc.
These thoughts are beautiful! Love it! Reys dead is sure radical, but reasonable
I would like to remove Palpatine and Exegol. My version would focus on the way-finders which Palpatine used to search for the origin of the dark side. During the fight in the Deathstar the FO would attack the Rebellion and the civil fleet would join them. After Bens defeat Rey would transmit the code to surrender from Bens tie-fighter to the FO. The movie would end after Ben and Rey destroyed both way-finders and their weapons.
Yeah, I was thinking about something like this, too! I’m currently trying to work this out, but basically I had the same idea like you.
Hopefully there will be a lot of cut scenes to add once the movie gets released, or maybe one could add some unused material from elsewere.
I´m 100% with you. Aside from the well-known-but-mostly-successful-edited flaws of VII and VIII I really enjoyed the Sequels to that point. There was potential, but with TROS as it is it all feels so meaningless (if not insulting). I would love to leave VII and VIII as they are and conclude them with a meaningful Episode IX, but I just don’t know if there is enough flesh to work with in TROS…
I would be totally fine with any sort of duology rather than a trilogy as long as it serves its purpose instead of diminish everything that was before.
That said, I would think of it more as an epilogue to a saga that imo was concluded satisfactory. Some kind of a reminder that balance is nothing permanent and you (as an anybody -> nobody) have to fight for it. It was mentioned here before, but a title like “Shadows Of The Empire” or “Shadows Of The Dark Side” would actually be quite fitting.
Did anybody ever thought about getting rid of Palpatine entirely? Since his appearance really is an offense to the OT, if not the entire saga… (I think this is definite a step in the right direction).
Also, what is your opinion on the posibility of going even a step further and also removing Snoke from the ST, making Kylo the lone antagonist of the trilogy?
Me too, please! Sounds promising!
Just to add some more thoughts, maybe somebody can feel me on this:
To me, the main theme of the whole ST is Balance. While I honestly do think that the sequels are telling a story not worth telling, the lone justification for them (at least in my grown-up-with-the-prequels-eyes) might be that the “balance” of the force (between light and dark, good and evil, etc.) was not restored when Luke (a jedi) “killed” Palpatine (a sith), because that way the balance would be outweighed by the jedi again.
That is, of course, because “That Force does not belong to the Jedi”: Both Jedi and Sith are nothing but religions, with all their dogmatic rules and prophecies and you name it, while the force is something bigger (and I’m not saying midichlorians! After all, Star Wars is a mythological space-opera, which is why a metaphysical force-power is perfectly ok).
I don’t really think this is feasible, but I feel like the movie would’ve had better momentum if Rey didn’t stop and get a pep talk from Luke before going to Exegol. If Rey had her vision in the Death Star, almost killed Kylo and pushed Finn, then took Kylo’s ship and went straight to Exegol alone, I feel like the tension would be a lot higher. Rey throughout the whole film has slowly been tapping into that dark side more and more, so what if the Rey vs Kylo battle on the Death Star had been like a turning point where Kylo started on the path toward the light, and Rey started descending into darkness. Rey has slowly became more isolated and hopeless, and she feels like all is lost until she realizes Ben came for her on Exegol.
Obviously this would create some issues, like losing the only scene with Luke, creating a continuity issue with Rey flying a different ship to and from Exegol, as well as having no explanation for where Leia’s saber came from. I obviously like the message of the Luke scene, but I feel like we would’ve been more worried for Rey if she had went straight to Palpatine instead.
That said, I really like your idea there, RogueLeader, as it adds to the feeling that the tandem of Rey and Kylo kind of mirroring each other in their search for purpose as well as all the doubts that come along with that. Both of them are somehow bound to an illusion of good/evil, almost caricatured trying to fit in those predetermined jedi-/sith-roles (i.e. Kylos “MOOORE”-moment on Crait). Then again, they’re having feelings that are just not fitting in (or accidentally (not-)killing Chewie with darkside-forcepowers).
The balance lies in between all of that, with both characters representing the opposite side of an imaginary scale during most of the trilogy, going back and forth and then ultimately meet each other in the middle, in balance: Palpatine gets destroyed, bringing an (hopefully glancing at Disney) definite end to the sith-order, while Rey, choosing and understands to be a jedi in that very moment, is dying in doing so. The sith end. The jedi end. The force outlives both of them, as it always was there and always will be there. It belongs to no one and lives in every one.
Then, Kylo (redeemed from the dark, but tainted) brings his final sacrifice by saving Rey, who gets reborn as something new, the personification of balance (in that point, I really like her new yellow lightsaber, as it is something new, never seen before (outside the old EU). Plus, if you mix red (sith) and green (jedi), you get yellow. Of course, red and blue would be more picturesque, but that would give you: purple. Damn you, Samuel L. Jackson!). That’s also why I like the fact that Kylo dies: he continues to live in and through Rey: the duality of good and bad in one person
As one might already assumed, I am a rather big fan of TLJ (except stuff like spacewalk-Leia, which, eventually, got me into this forum (and edits in general) in the first place). I also (mostly) like Lukes new role there, because he seemed to grew out of that religion-thing and got the whole picture of the indifferent force now (his only mistake (and he makes up for it) was to think that just because you don’t believe in a certain moral system anymore, you don’t have to or should fight for what is right in your mind anymore).
He teaches Rey that the jedi must end (as stated above) in two lessons in TLJ (before getting teached himself by Yoda). The third lesson is never mentioned, though, and many theories about it have occurred since. I see the possibility of fixing that error by using the Luke-Rey-exchange on Ahch To in TROS: Luke says something like “if you don’t face Palpatine, the jedi will die and the war will end”. At first glance, it seems like a warning, similar to what Yoda says to Luke before his rescue-mission to Bespin. Something bad will happen. But what if we just somehow get rid of that “don’t”: “if you face Palpatine, the jedi will die and the war will end”. That way (admittedly with some interpretation) he kind of hints at her what has to be done: Face Palpatine, destroy him and the jedi all the same, and the ongoing war will finally be over, as balance is established.
Oh boy, I’m afraid that this whole thing is getting out of (my) hands. There are still so many question marks. Actually, I’m more the gentle-edit-kind-of-guy. But this movie is just so unbelievable disappointing and needs some serious work.
Really interesting approach!
[I’m not a native speaker, but I hope all this still makes sense (well, at least language-wise)]
I rewatched the movie yesterday for a third time (along with my notebook, btw) and came to the conclusion that it should not just be rather uncomplicated (technically as well as story-wise) to remove the whole “Rey Palpatine”-nonsense, but also the force dyad, as to me it raises more questions than it solves problems.
I counted six scenes with explicit mentions of Reys Palpatine-heritage (including the one big, fat first encounter between her and Palpatine on Exegol) and three or four scenes in which it somehow is implied (but probably could be worked around). If one would more or less just cut them out or somehow alter them, the plot would not just still makes sense, but actually would even make more sense, especially from a philosophical point of view (because, you know, Rey Nobody…).
The Dyad is only mentioned twice (again on a rather larger scale during the grand finale on Exegol). As far as I recall, there is no word on it in the previous two movies. Until yesterday I honestly didn’t had a problem with it, but the (undeniable) special connection between Rey and Kylo could be explained differently and better, although I’m not yet sure how this could be done satisfactorily. My best idea is that Rey created that connection somehow by pushing back into Kylos mind while he force-interrogates Rey in Ep7. Also, of course, Snoke declared that he created that connection (but wouldn’t that mean that Palpatine did this through Snoke?).
All in all, I too think (as it has been suspected in this forum before) that the initial plan was to keep going with Rey Nobody and then changed probably with the reshoots, as (at least) the Palpatine-bloodline seems just so clumsy added (so might be the force dyad).
Could I have a link too, please?
Hey there! After everything I’ve read about your edit I’ve got to see it! Seems to be pretty much on point! Do you mind sending me a PM?