Can’t believe no one replied to this. It all sounds good, though there’s certainly potential for some rearrangement in the late middle ‘seasons’. I’m sure the thread will be gloriously revived once the weekly episode watching commences.
The prequels were Lucas’s child, the sequels are just a (lacklustre) product.
This is one of the things I appreciate about TLJ - it’s very clearly Rian Johnson’s film; written and directed. You watch that movie and you get an insight into what RJ thinks about Star Wars; like how KOTOR 2 gives you a big fat injection of Chris Avellone’s take on Star Wars. JJ, on the other hand, had co-writers for both of his movies, doesn’t answer questions on Twitter, is much more of a director than a writer etc. and consequently his two sequel movies don’t feel like they have a clear idea of what they’re trying to convey to the audience. I don’t think they were “made by committee” but they certainly give the impression of being far from the work of a single auteur.
Jonh, I wouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Your version of the scene is less dramatic than that, but it’s subtlety makes it essentially seamless - it enhances what the movie already implies. On the other hand. while the animation of the hand, face, and camera movement in their shot of Obi-Wan are neat, their Anakin looks a little like an adult’s head on a child’s body.
The only thing that Rey does that’s ever really troubled me is the TFA mind trick, because it feels like JJ Abrams nodding at the audience and saying “Remember that time Ben Kenobi mind tricked that stormtrooper about the droids? This movie is like that movie!” - it doesn’t strike me as an organic thing for Rey to just discover like that. Other than that, Rey’s Force and lightsaber usage comes across to me as appropriately sloppy, uncontrolled and untrained most of the time, not like a precise and trained prequel/TCW-esque Jedi (even in TROS, despite having received just as much training from Leia at that point as Luke ever did from Yoda). And we see that that is dangerous, since she almost blows up Chewie by accident in TROS; hacks away at Kylo like a woman possessed in TFA; breaks Luke’s saber in TLJ; goes straight into the dark side cave; etc. Yoda makes it fairly apparent in ESB that tapping into the Force is mostly about self-belief, not like, progressive overload weight training. It’s clear that Lucasfilm wanted to cut to the chase with making one of the protagonists a Jedi so that they could have some Force usage from the heroes in VII, and it certainly could’ve been executed worse.
Also idir_hh, if you’re going to insist on endlessly moaning about movies that most people here already aren’t that fond of anyway, at least come up with actual criticisms rather than “they don’t have a story”. Events occur in the course of the plot of the trilogy. That’s a story. Is it a good story? A thematically-rich story? A story that builds on the previous stories told in this universe? Perhaps not; those are all up for debate, but it certainly exists.
It did amuse me how it was exactly the same Luke design as ROTJ - complete with the single glove and everything. Hadn’t it occurred to him to mix his outfit up in the ~five years since?
People forget just how recent the turnaround in popular opinion of the prequels is. I think the large subreddit /r/prequelmemes has had a hand in the shifting of popular opinion, and that wasn’t even created until late 2016.
Sometimes I like to amuse myself by going back to read old comments on The Force Awakens trailers. There were a lot of people talking about how great it is to see X-Wings and Stormtroopers and the OT “lived-in” aesthetic again, and being very scathing towards the prequels (there’s also people guessing that Luke was disillusioned by Ben’s turn as early as the second TFA trailer, even though these days everyone seems to blame Rian Johnson for “subverting their expectations” with that story development…). That’s why TFA has lines like “This will begin to make things right!” and blows up a Coruscant substitute, and why Battlefront 1 and launch Battlefront 2 had characters like Greedo and Bossk but not Obi-Wan. But Disney have observed the shifting of the tides and have been bringing us content like TCW Season 7, all the post-launch Battlefront 2 heroes and maps, prequel references in Mando, etc.
With Filoni and Favreau I wouldn’t put it past them to create an alternate timeline using Ashoka and the world between worlds.
They seem to be hinting at it with the Ashoka series cover.That way you have a clean slate post ROTJ, while keeping The ST confined to it’s own timeline.
Have your cake, and eat it too.
I will eat an Ahsoka action figure if this ever happens. I see so many crackpot theories about how the Sequel Trilogy is going to get decanonised - I would’ve thought that people would’ve moved past the denial stage by now (or is this bargaining?). Disney wouldn’t do that to the movies they just spent millions on, and which have been seen by so many people.
The worst that’ll happen to the ST is they’ll be slowly eroded away at through the power of recontextualisation, much as about half of the dialogue in Star Wars 1977 now has to be explained as “Obi-Wan was lying!” or “Obi-Wan was just calling him Darth to tease him!” etc. It sounds like the upcoming Obi-Wan series will prompt another few lines in the OT to suddenly need to have their commonly understood meanings adjusted.
New stories always find their way into the gaps and create new interpretations of events. Back in 2005, Anakin didn’t resent the council for accusing his Padawan of being a terrorist, and the Clones didn’t have biochips in their heads. In 1983, Vader wasn’t the prophesied Chosen One bringing balance to the Force, he was just a protective Dad. This website understands this better than most Star Wars communities.
That, and the current canon for Luke’s temple is, I believe, that Ben accidentally blows it up with a big force lightning storm generated by his negative emotions (or Palpatine/Snoke generated a big force lightning storm to blow it up, but making Ben think he did it). It’s not until a little while later that Ben kills his first Jedi intentionally. My point being: it’s not hard to retcon in some survivors, especially compared to Order 66, which was much more well-organised, sudden and widespread.
But damn I got serious rogue one vibes out of that Hallway scene.
Like father, like son. Ey? 😉
This concerned me a little bit - Luke goes through a fair amount of character growth in ROTJ learning not to become his father. I mean, they’re all droids here so it’s fine, but going forwards I don’t really want to see Luke acting like TCW/ROTS Anakin. I never delved too deeply into the old EU/Legends so I’m not attached to that version of Luke like many are; instead I always imagined he’d be quite diplomatic and spiritual, much like Qui-Gon, rather than just being another prequel-era Jedi General. That’s why I love the force projection in TLJ.
Hmm, so far no streaming service has managed to stop piracy. It doesn’t necessarily matter how difficult they make it for an individual to rip content, since as long as there’s some scene group somewhere who successfully works around their protection, the resulting files get shared just as readily as they would have if they had come from a traditional physical source. It’s those piracy “end-users” I was referring to as getting the better deal - as it currently stands, they can just visit some site and get a permanent .mkv of the latest Mando episode within hours of airing. Meanwhile here in the UK we didn’t even start to get the first season of Mando until after the entire season finished in the US, which I’m still salty about…
If they do eventually start hiding some kind of unremovable trace of the identity of the user who rips the episode, it just begins an endless whack-a-mole for them.
There’s also the fanediting angle. I know Fanedit.org refuses to allow fanedits for anything without a physical release, but elsewhere there’s a lot of ROTS x TCW Siege of Mandalore edits, even though the Siege of Mandalore doesn’t have a physical release yet. Those faneditors could be buying and ripping their own discs if Disney would make that an option.
Yeah, it’s EBSynth to generate the black outfit frames and then some AE masking to comp just the edited outfit in on top of the original footage, so it’s fairly accessible but time consuming. Scenes on Kef Bir or Exegol, or with lots of movement in general, would probably be a lot trickier though.
Though I enjoy the look, I’m not sure it would really add much to the movie besides being a ROTJ/ROTS callback (and, as with Luke and Anakin in those movies, playing on the audience’s fear of the main character’s changing relationship with the dark side).
Disney+ piracy is already rampant without physical media. And if anything, the pirates get the better deal, because they actually get real, offline media files. I think it’s a shame we’ll never get to see this stuff at a higher bitrate.
EddieDean said:
Cad Babe
Damn right. I hope he shows up in Bad Batch.
That series of episodes looks good to me, but obviously it’s hard to get a feel for any of it (especially as I haven’t seen the show in a while) until the weekly episode watchings actually begin, at which point it will become very apparent when something kills the pacing.
Moving the Mandalore Plot up front is definitely a good idea. Having Nightsisters so early might make it seem like Ventress barely spent any time as Dooku’s assassin, but I understand that’s a necessary move to get Maul rolling sooner. There’s a few episodes in there which seem like they’d be noticeable dips in pace (e.g. Lightsaber Lost) compared to what comes next (Boba Fett, Maul) but it is good for us to spend as much - actually valuable - time with Ahsoka as possible, to solidify her as that primary PoV character and to give her development the space and focus it needs. Having the Second Battle of Geonosis arc spread over three episodes while other arcs like Slaves of Kadavo get compressed down to one seems a little odd (unless that’s just an inconsistency in how you’ve listed them) but I trust that you’ll find the right length for things when you come to edit.
It’s unfortunate that Maul literally only appears in 6 episodes (of the original show) prior to Season 7, because just looking at the episode list it concerns me that he may wind up spread a little thin. Obviously it’ll be easier to judge that when we view the series. This is especially apparent since you have just one episode separating each of The Lawless, Son of Dathomir, and the Siege of Mandalore - seems a little bit like getting a super-strength dose of Maul right at the end there, but I suppose that’s the point. It’s definitely preferable to the original show where he has zero presence from S05E17-S07E07. I imagine you’ll be bulking that bit more in the ‘Quality’ cut, with the Biochip Conspiracy, Yoda’s Journey etc. right?
Edit: Oh, and one other thought. Have you considered a Mando Season 2 style tick-tock of filler/not filler? Obvious what is “filler” is up for a lot of debate, so perhaps a better way to put it would be alternating between slower, character focused episodes (like Chapter 15 of Mando and Lightsaber Lost) and episodes where the main plot - or in this case, one of the various main plots - gets meaningfully advanced (like, presumably, Chapter 16 of Mando, and something like The Lawless). Nevermind, I just realised this actually breaks around halfway through Mando Season 2. Still, I felt Chapters 9, 11, and 13 of Mando were less fillery than Chapters 10 and 12.
I’d love a PM too. Lots of well thought-out tweaks here, it sounds like. I’m curious to see how well the Samuel Kim music works, also - it was often suggested and dismissed in previous discussions due to being synthesised and not really in Williams’ style, but this is a very stupid movie so I can see it benefitting from some really bombastic music.
There’s bits and pieces in The Art of the Rise of Skywalker from a meeting Lucasfilm had in ~2014, after the first draft of TFA was written, in order to decide what to do in VIII and IX. It included Filoni, Pablo Hidalgo, Dave Chiang, John Knoll etc. It was actually Filoni’s idea to have Leia train Rey after Luke fails to do so (he goes as far as to say Leia could become the “Obi-Wan” of the Sequel Trilogy) and that Leia should be the one responsible for Ben’s redemption, both ideas we see come about in TROS. Of course, that was before Carrie passed away or TLJ was written, so the wisdom of choosing to still use those ideas for IX anyway is questionable - but it’s clear evidence that Filoni was a creative influence on the sequels.
I think people underestimate his role at Lucasfilm - Kennedy isn’t stupid; she’s as aware as anyone that Lucas spent years teaching Filoni while they were making The Clone Wars. But Filoni isn’t a producer, and, as we see in the Mandalorian, he’s still only beginning to get his legs as a live-action director. Kennedy gets a bad rap because of the bumpy production of the sequels, but a lot of that comes down to Iger wanting to rush TFA out ASAP to recoup the costs of buying Lucasfilm, and then only giving each subsequent movie ~2 years rather than the 3 that the previous trilogies had.
Yeah, it still fits with every other appearance of Trench, so it’s not an actual problem. Since I’ve seen the series before, I’d err on the side of going with the more interesting and radical option, since it would better serve the purpose of making the earlier seasons more fun to rewatch.
I like the idea and it sounds like a great way to combine the best bits of those two stories, but it’d very much be a “new” story, right? Obviously fanedits are inherently unfaithful, revisionist etc, but it seems to me that this goes a little further than just intercutting two arcs - which still depicts ultimately the same events - or cutting material out of an arc to streamline it while telling the same story. This would be showing objectively different events, and I don’t think I’d personally recommend someone’s first experience with TCW be one that involves non-canonical stories being told using completely recontextualised footage. Don’t get me wrong, it sounds like something I’d enjoy watching, I just question whether breaking canon to this extent is entirely in line with the project’s goals.
My only issue with her is that it, like with other aspects of TCW, feels incongruous with ROTS.
At this point my issue is that ROTS feels incongruous with TCW, the superior prequel series.
It tickles me slightly to imagine that they build up all this hype for Hayden, but then he’s nowhere to be seen or heard in the actual series, and it’s revealed he was in the suit but got dubbed over by James Earl Jones. Brought back just to get Prowse’d.
Awesome - prioritising the quality cut is definitely the best call. I enjoy how systematic you’re being about everything.
I’m certain that the Jar Jar/Ackbar relationship will be at the core of the Obi-Wan series. What else would it be about? Moisture farming? Jar Jar’s the key to all this.
Have yesterday’s Lucasfilm announcements affected your plans for the “Mandalorian” cut at all? To me it seems a little specific now that we know that, within a few years, Mando will be just one series alongside Bad Batch, Ahsoka, Rangers of the New Republic, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Andor (to name a few), which will all probably also wind up leaning on TCW material, since it’s pretty much as foundational to the new canon as the movies are.
This sounds as George Lucasy as hell. I do love his crazy ideas, but this would’ve made a really bizarre movie trilogy. Bringing Maul back as a crime lord works well in TCW, because it makes sense as a side threat in that era, but it would’ve been a really weird move for the sequel trilogy. I know everyone mocks the ‘rhyming’ thing, but even the ST we got ‘rhymes’ more with the OT and ST than Leia the politician vs. Maul the crimelord (and his EU-cribbed apprentice) would’ve. The only reason I possibly can think of that I would’ve preferred seeing these movies over the VII-IX that Lucasfilm did make is that Lucas would’ve used it as an opportunity to push the boundaries of modern digital filmmaking, since that was always his passion. Maybe we’d have seen something like The Volume years earlier. I wouldn’t mind seeing some of these ideas repurposed though.
Elated to hear these will be in 1080p going forwards. That makes them absolutely the definitive versions, rather than having that resolution caveat. Keep up the fantastic work!
Just stumbled across this thread. It always amazes me how RogueLeader spots ways to improve these stories, and then saddens me that many of them are just out of the reach of what fanediting can do. “If only RogueLeader had been in that room with JJ and Terrio!” I think to myself…
Anyway, my idea is that the movie should’ve cribbed its ending from Avatar The Last Airbender.
Considering the lengths at which ROTJ goes to not have Luke just kill Palpatine - and how this movie makes a big deal about Rey not wanting to hate him - just having him die in a gruesome explosion feels pretty empty (and yes, I know, he technically blew himself up so it’s not really Rey killing him). It’s a stark contrast to Aang doing everything he can to avoid killing Ozai in ATLA, which made me think of this.
I propose that, as Rey approaches Palpatine through his lightning beam, sabers crossed, she throws her arms apart, deflecting the lightning away with a force shockwave that knocks Palpatine off balance. Throw in the force ghosts in the background “helping” Rey with this, a la JonH’s edit. Before he can recover, she drops both of her sabers and in some way firmly grabs him (I would suggest a forehead hold, but that might be a little too blatant). As he’s frozen in place, we see the orange glow fade from his eyes and his corrupted grey skin begin to return to a healthier pink, until he’s just bog-standard Ian McDiarmid (but aged up considerably to suggest he’s already long past his natural lifespan, perhaps taking cues from his look in Utopia or in AOTC). Rey lets go, and he scrambles away pathetically, reminiscent of Revenge of the Sith, but this time he isn’t pretending. She just stands there and watches with pity as he crawls away on his back yelping, with his hood slipping down and his hands making desperate but now utterly impotent gestures. She’s disconnected him from the Force - Darth Sidious, the “One True Emperor”, is now just elderly Sheev Palpatine of Naboo. He gives up and cries, and Rey briefly silently comforts her grandfather as he succumbs to his age. He doesn’t fade away and join the force; he just leaves a cold, flesh and blood corpse.