joshuabri

Being of the opinion that having Palpatine survive Return of the Jedi is one of the worst things that could be done in Star Wars, I set out to make a Palpatine-less version of the The Rise of Skywalker. This version has Kylo Ren finding a lost Imperial/Sith fleet from the Empire to cement First Order rule and Rey dealing with her fear and inner Dark Side.

Change list
• New title and crawl (courtesy of Adobewan) explaining that Luke’s actions in The Last Jedi have led to resistance to First Order rule to set up 8 bajillion ships showing up when zero showed up a year before and explaining that in order to control the uprising, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren is searching for a rumored lost fleet built in secret just before the fall of the Empire.

Episode IX
DUEL OF THE FATES

The spark of hope has
been restored to the
galaxy. Inspired by the
heroic sacrifice of Jedi
Master Luke Skywalker,
the galaxy is resisting the
diabolical FIRST ORDER.

REY, the last hope of the
Jedi, continues her
training under GENERAL
LEIA ORGANA, leader of
the Resistance, in hopes
of contacting Luke’s spirit
to quiet her growing fear.

Meanwhile, Supreme
Leader KYLO REN,
desperate to crush the
insurgency, searches for a
lost Imperial fleet,
rumored to have been
constructed in secret
before the fall of the
Empire…

Throughout
• Removed all appearances and references to Palpatine including any connection to Rey.
• Color corrected to remove green tint.
• Removed mentions of the Final Order

Mustafar/Exegol opening
• Removed Mustafar opening to try to reduce the hectic pacing at the beginning of the film. One less planet being visited in the first ten minutes.
• Reused (recolored) Mustafar shots of Kylo opening Wayfinder box and picking up the Wayfinder as Kylo finding the “key” to the Sith fleet during the Exegol opening.
• Added Kylo vs Vader duel from Force of Darkness fan-film to Exegol opening.

Spaceberg
• Repurposed most of chess scene for Tattooine ending.
• Removed Klaud. (Klaud digitally removed from some shots courtesy of pappsketti.)
• Removed lightspeed skipping.

Ajan Kloss
• Trimmed and slightly rearranged Rey/Leia training scene to make Rey less patronizing. Heavily indebted to MoviesRemastered for this edit.
• In Rey’s vision, replaced Rey’s parents with shots of Kylo’s rampage on Mustafar.
• Eliminated lightsaber continuity error.
• Removed Falcon’s arrival to get rid of lightspeed skipping references and annoying Rey/Poe dialogue.
• Trimmed Resistance briefing to remove mention of Palpatine.
• Cut Leia telling Rey “No” and Rey saying she’s going anyway.
• Repurposed group cockpit shot for Tattooine ending.

First Order Briefing
• Removed Stormtroopers name-dropping the Knights of Ren.
• Trimmed First Order briefing to remove mention of Palpatine and Kylo Ren’s helmet.

Passana
• Trimmed Rey/Kylo Force Skype to remove mention of Palpatine.
• Removed “They fly now” as there have been flying troopers since the Clone Wars.
• Removed Rey recognizing Ochi’s ship.
• Trimmed balloon stormtrooper shot.
• Removed Finn’s “Rey, I never told you…” This never goes anywhere.
• Removed Snap’s silly “optimistic” dialogue with Leia and Rose.
• Removed Rey asking what Finn wanted to say earlier.
• Cut Kylo Ren’s TIE exploding in a giant fireball.
• Removed Chewie’s reveal on Ren’s destroyer.
• Trimmed the end of Poe’s “If this fails, it’s all been for nothing…” speech so C-3PO’s speech is expanding on it later rather than parroting it back word for word to give C-3PO a little more self autonomy.

Kijimi
• Cut references to Poe having Han Solo’s exact backstory.
• Removed reference to R2 backing up 3PO’s memory.
• Removed the end of Poe/Zorii conversation that implies the galaxy has given up.
• Added squeaky wheel footage from behind-the-scenes documentary.
• Removed further references to Rey recognizing Ochi’s ship.
• Removed “Can I kiss you?”
• Slightly trimmed Rey using Force Persuasion on the stormtroopers.
• Trimmed Rey/Kylo Force Skype to remove mention of Palpatine and Rey’s parents.
• Added Kylo saying he senses Rey’s dark side.
• Removed Poe asking what Finn wanted to say to Rey.
• Trimmed hangar conversation to remove mention of Palpatine and Rey’s parents. Added more dialogue about the darkness in Rey.
• Added hangar reveal that Rey killed her parents (thanks to krausfadr’s edit).
• Removed Poe saying he doesn’t know why they’re not tracking them.
• Removed Rey telling Finn Palpatine had her parents killed.

Kef Bir
• Added Kylo saying “Mother” in the hallway with a wipe transition to Leia dropping the headphones.
• Moved scenes of Leia going off to lie down to before Kef Bir.
• Added Leia saying “Find Poe” as Connix leads her to lie down.
• Removed Maz Kanata’s overly expository dialogue.
• Removed Goonies dagger bit.
• Cut directly from Poe’s “What do you mean you haven’t seen her?” to Rey on the water.
• Cut end of Finn and Poe’s argument after Rey leaves. Poe says, “And you do?” and Finn just looks at him.
• Added Poe saying “We have to go. It’s Leia.” off-screen while Finn looks at Rey through the binoculars.
• Removed Finn and Jannah following Rey to the Death Star wreckage.
• Moved everyone looking at Leia to after the Falcon returns.
• Removed 3PO’s memory restoration.
• Removed Finn saying he doesn’t know where Rey is.
• Removed Poe’s response of “Yeah, except how to get there” when Finn tells him D-O has everything they need for an air strike on Exegol. D-O now provides the Resistance with the map to Exegol.
• Removed references to Rey showing the way.
• Removed Beaumont Kin’s reference to Holdo maneuvers.
• Removed Kijimi’s destruction. No Death Star Mark IVs here.
• Moved Rey’s exploration of the Death Star II wreckage to before and after the final Resistance briefing.
• Cut the door closing behind Rey since it is open moments later when she stumbles backwards through it.
• Added a Dark Side vision during Rey and Dark Rey duel showing Rey on the throne shooting Force lightning destroying the Sith fleet.
• Moved Rey’s encounter with Kylo Ren on the DSII wreckage to after the Resistance has engaged the Sith fleet. Added “Duel of the Fates” to the lightsaber duel.
• Altered Kylo and Rey’s DSII confrontation to have Kylo say “You wanted to prove to my mother that you were a Jedi but she’s gone.”
• Removed Rey’s second “Give it to me.”
• Removed shot of Leia’s hand falling.
• Reused reversed shot of Leia (zooms in instead of pulls back) from just before Poe/Lando for Rey’s acknowledgement of Leia’s state.
• Rey confesses she wanted to take Ben’s hand before healing him.
• Moved Kylo redemption scene after the celebration.
• Removed Kylo saying “I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” When I watched this movie in the theater, this scene felt like it aped The Force Awakens’ catwalk scene too much. I hate J.J. Abrams’ tendency to duplicate other scenes. I was incensed when I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness redo The Wrath of Khan’s death scene word for word. This line in particular I think was responsible for that for me here.
• Leia fades away after Kylo throws his lightsaber.

Exegol
• Removed all scenes of Rey on Exegol.
• Moved the despairing battle footage from Palpatine’s monologue to after Snap’s death, trimming shots that contradicted this point in the battle.
• Removed Zorii and Babu Frik from Exegol battle. She gave up her only means off the planet like two hours before. In actuality she gave up her passage through restricted hyperspace lanes to get to the colonies, not her means off planet, but the film muddles it by treating it as if it were her only means off that god-forsaken planet, so I cut it to maintain clarity.
• Removed Wedge Antilles from Exegol battle. If he had more than a single shot and wasn’t painfully obvious fan service for the sake of fan service, I’d have probably kept it.
• Removed Poe’s line of every cannon is a world saved.

Celebration
• Replaced Endor with Coruscant for one planet from each trilogy (courtesy of pappasketti).
• Removed Zorii from celebration scene.
• Recut celebration scene to suggest bromance between Poe and Finn.
• Cut the Chewie medal scene. It wasn’t clear to me this was Han’s medal. It felt like they were saying “here’s the medal we forgot to give you 40 years ago.”
• Cut Lando and Jannah.

Ahch-To
• Trimmed references to Palpatine from Ahch-To scenes.
• Purple lightsaber for Leia in respect to Carrie Fisher’s wishes (courtesy of skenera).

Tattooine
• Added chess scene from beginning so show that Rey isn’t alone.
• Recolored Rey’s lightsaber purple to match Leia’s signifying that Rey used Leia’s crystal in her own saber.
• Cut the old woman. After admiring her lightsaber, Rey sees Luke’s and Leia’s Force ghosts, then leaves on the Falcon.
• Replaced final shot with Falcon taking off and “family” shot in the Falcon’s cockpit to end on a family shot like the George Lucas films.

Running time: 1 hr 52 min
Sourced from The Skywalker Saga box set 1080p Blu-Ray disc.

Perhaps one of you very creative fans could help me. I’m nearing completion of my rough cut of a more radical edit that removes Palpatine entirely. I feel that having Palps survive RotJ is on the worst things you can do in Star Wars. Kylo is searching for a lost Imperial/Sith fleet. The duel on the Death Star remains now occurs simultaneously with the fleet battle at Exegol.

The two main problems are 1) Finn and Poe basically abandon Rey on Kef Bir once she takes the skimmer in order to get them back to Ajan Kloss for the Exegol battle. 2) Rey is still looking for the wayfinder among the DS ruins after the fleet has already made it to Exegol. If anyone has any creative fixes, I’d love to hear them. Otherwise I think this version is working well, although it’s cut down to about ninety minutes.

I was able to convert Cloak of Deception to Blu-ray ISO without issue. I did this last week, so I don’t remember if I set the “Do Not Insert VUI/SEI Data” option or not. I have not yet burned it to disc, as I am still waiting for my BD-50s to arrive from Amazon, but I did watch the ISO file with my computer’s Blu-ray software. However, my 15-year-old computer does not play GB-sized files smoothly, so I cannot say if it is completely without issues. Beyond that I don’t know what else I might have done differently. I’ve downloaded Eps 2 & 3, but am not planning to mux them until I get the BD-50s and burn Ep 1. Also I see Hal posted today there is an issue with Ep 2 and will be reposting that one in a few days.

I’d love to see a movie about the Mandalorians at the height of their glory of battle era, or maybe about the transition to the peace-loving people we saw in the Clone Wars series.

rodneyfaile said:

Digital release on 3/13, blu-ray on 3/27. There is a feature length documentary in the special features that I am very much looking forward to. Supposedly lots of other content as well.

As one who really liked TLJ, I am excited to see what bonus features are included.

oojason said:

There you go lads & ladesses - $100k is the goal. Good luck.

As soon as I win $100 million on the lottery, that’s as good as yours.

Excellent! Thank you. I think I came across that link in my search, but made the assumption is was only the cover for Episode IV since IV was the thread topic. I appreciate the help.

Does anyone have working links to Harmy’s Blu-ray covers? The links on the first page aren’t working for me. The only one I can find with a Google image search is Episode IV.