sherlockpotter

Hal 9000 said:

I wouldn’t want to remove the “all the Sith” line without reason, although I wouldn’t say I’m crazy about any of this dialogue. lol

If you say the words out loud, “I am all the Jedi” and “I am a Jedi” you’ll notice the second has a more pronounced gap between the last two words. I know it’s probably super tricky, but I need to push you on it, y’know?

Yo, Hal, don’t you go disrespecting the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Batman v Superman and Justice League. Man’s a genius.

In my mind, I’m picturing it spun out of the original line delivery - “I…am all the Jedi.” So gap between “I” and “am” - “I…am a Jedi.” Are you thinking it should be more like “I am…a Jedi”?

EDIT:

Hal 9000 said:

Nah, I don’t think that’d track.

I think retaining “And I…” would alleviate the feeling that something’s off. Maybe it’s from watching the scene a million times due to jonh’s work, but keeping that as well as Rey’s grunt as she contends with the lightning helps it feel complete.

I don’t know…I don’t think the conversation would flow naturally if “and” is included. “A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me!” “AND I…am a Jedi.” Agreed that we definitely need some line here though.

Hal 9000 said:

Wow, Sherlock, that really works pretty damn well! I read about it and the discussion before being able to actually plug in earphones and listen to it.

But you know how this stuff always goes: it needs some improvement yet. I think Rey’s “[and] I” sounded just a little abrupt. Is there another instance of her starting a sentence with “I” in a similar voice that could be blended into it?

Thanks, Hal! Like I said, I tried to paper over the gap with an added sound of her panting (maybe that made it worse, I dunno), but… hmm, I can think of one other line in the movie where her tone of voice might work. I’ll try that out later tonight.

Her “I am a Jedi” seemed just a little quick. Could it be stretched out a little bit more?

This one was tricky. I listened to a quite a few different instances of Rey saying “a,” but they were usually so quick that they’d blend into the surrounding words, and I couldn’t get any usable clips from them. (As it is, I basically removed the “th” sound from “the.”) Maybe I could restore some of the cut footage, and try to pad it out that way? There was some concern about the lip sync issue, but maybe it will be better if I tweak the line a little more?

How do you feel about the “All the Sith” line though? For some reason, I thought you weren’t crazy about it.

hinventon said:

Maybe because I’ve heard the original a thousand times but it feels a little weird going from you are nothing to the sith line, it might be worth it to put You are nothing at the end so Rey is directly responding to that. But that version is great too.

So: “A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me. I am all the Sith. You are nothing.”

“I’m a Jedi, bitch!”

I could see that working too.

Or: “I am all the Sith. A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me. You are nothing.” Although, I think I’d still prefer to end on the scavenger line, myself.

sade1212 said:

The problem with leaving in “I am all the Sith!” is that Rey’s new “I’m a Jedi!” response has to specifically be to Sheevie’s “a SCAVENGER GIRL is no match for the power in me!” statement, right? (edit: just as the poster above said!) Perhaps swapping Palpatine’s lines would work. Here’s a crude mockup of that idea (forgive the unpolished audio and lack of ghosts).

Edit: Does Rey ever refer to herself as a Jedi before this? I know Luke does, but I think that’s alright. It’s just that for this to land well, I think it has to be a ‘breakthrough’ in her confidence in herself, overcoming that self-doubt (which would be undermined if she’d previously considered herself a Jedi).

That was my thought exactly. It’s the contrast between “You’re just a scavenger,” “No, I’m a Jedi” that makes it work, imo. Sort of culminates her arc across the trilogy; and it’s much more personal now too. And you know what? I don’t think she does ever call herself a Jedi specifically - but it does tie back in to what Luke says in TLJ: “I will not be the last Jedi.”

You did a good job with swapping those two lines around! We could definitely go with that if Hal wants; but I thought he expressed some distaste for the “I am all the Sith” line in theatres. What say you, Hal?

Alright, this may be stupid, but something is still nagging me about “We’ll kill him together.” It’s a tiny nag, admittedly - I think it’s because “We WILL kill him” comes across less like Kylo is imploring her to help him end the Sith, and more like, “Oh boy, here we go killing again!” It’s like Kylo cares more about killing this guy than he does about stopping the Sith. Maybe it’s just the way Adam Driver delivers the line? (Emphasis on “Kill” instead of “We’ll”?) I know, I know, it’s a subtle connotative difference; but it’s gnawing at me.

Plus, “We WILL do this” doesn’t really leave open any other choices for Rey, which - to me - deflates the tension of the moment considerably. “Of course Kylo’s wrong. She’s not going to start murdering people with him!” Rather than, “Oh gosh, Kylo has a point. What’s Rey going to do?”

So I made a quick mockup. Is it worth trying to iron out the new line? https://streamable.com/4tms6i

(Between this, “Become a Dyad,” and the eventual Rey Nobody replacement, we’re just going to change all of Kylo’s dialogue in this scene, aren’t we? Lol.)

EDIT: I also did a bit more work on this thingy: https://streamable.com/ffimpr

Blended out Palp’s Theme (I hope) a little bit better, cleaned up the word “a”, added a clip of Rey panting to cover up the omission of “and,” and also trimmed down the dramatic pause before she finishes her line (to help fudge the lip sync). Any better? The video cut on Rey’s line could be a little tighter and overlap the line on her catching the second saber more; I’m just worried about carving too deeply into the closeup shot.

sade1212 said:

I really like the idea but in that mockup I can’t not hear/semi-lipread it as “I… all the Jedi.”, for some reason. Is it possible to cut to Rey’s face later, or would we need to bust out some AI lip changing tech for this one?

I was concerned about that too. I would personally be iffy about cutting to Rey’s face later - you’d have to start the line when the camera is still focusing on the lightsaber, and I feel like it would lose something as a result. And anything that involves fancy CGI tricks is going to be outside of my wheelhouse, I’m afraid. (But hey, if someone else knows how…)

Maybe we could try to fudge it with a quick cross dissolve?

https://streamable.com/5ghc2q

I’d like the new line to work, of course. But if it doesn’t, then oh well.

sherlockpotter said:

I was playing around with tweaking the exchange a little bit for my version. So instead of “A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me. I am ALL THE SITH!!” “And I…am all the Jedi.” I’d like it to go, “A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me.” “And I…am [a] Jedi.” Suddenly it goes from a stupid game of one-upmanship (“I’m more powerful!” “No, I’m more powerful!”) to something that culminates Rey’s arc - both in terms of this movie (“rising” to become a Jedi, like Luke before her, rather than falling to the Dark Side as has been her fear), and also her arc across the trilogy, going from a poor scavenger to a powerful Jedi.

I mean, I guess you could argue that she’s accepting her responsibility of “a thousand generations live in [her] now”; but that seems less important to me than what she’s personally been struggling with this whole time. “I am all the Jedi” is the culmination of her arc of…trying one time to “hear the voices of the Jedi who came before,” and then suddenly being able to do it when the plot requires. Powerful stuff.

I’m just not sure how badly removing the word “all” will throw off the lip sync.

EDIT: Maybe I’ll mock something up tonight, if anyone is interested.

Alright, here’s a quick test of the idea. I’d probably want to smooth out some of the audio cuts a little more, but what do we think of it conceptually? Do the (potential) advantages to tone and theme outweigh the quick lip de-sync? How noticeable do you think it would be if people aren’t looking for it?

https://streamable.com/s3wyn6

I was playing around with tweaking the exchange a little bit for my version. So instead of “A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me. I am ALL THE SITH!!” “And I…am all the Jedi.” I’d like it to go, “A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me.” “And I…am [a] Jedi.” Suddenly it goes from a stupid game of one-upmanship (“I’m more powerful!” “No, I’m more powerful!”) to something that culminates Rey’s arc - both in terms of this movie (“rising” to become a Jedi, like Luke before her, rather than falling to the Dark Side as has been her fear), and also her arc across the trilogy, going from a poor scavenger to a powerful Jedi.

I mean, I guess you could argue that she’s accepting her responsibility of “a thousand generations live in [her] now”; but that seems less important to me than what she’s personally been struggling with this whole time. “I am all the Jedi” is the culmination of her arc of…trying one time to “hear the voices of the Jedi who came before,” and then suddenly being able to do it when the plot requires. Powerful stuff.

I’m just not sure how badly removing the word “all” will throw off the lip sync.

EDIT: Maybe I’ll mock something up tonight, if anyone is interested.

Dat_SW_Guy said:

I might extend the final shot down to two shots: The Falcon flying off from the homestead, and another showing it flying away from the planet itself into hyperspace, for more adventures to come.

This might give extra room for the score and to keep the pace relatively smoother and not make it feel too much of a rushed ending.

(I might need help finding some footage of dusk sunsets on a pretty flat-looking desert)

Also, I’m pretty sure the Tatooine suns would be in the horizon of the homestead during sunset as shown in ANH.

Oh that would be cool…kind of a reverse of the Falcon at the beginning of the movie, then? Where it went from hyperspace, panned right to left across the screen, and went towards a planet; but now it would go from Tatooine, pan left to right across the screen, and then blast into hyperspace? Yeah, that would be awesome!

Jar Jar Bricks said:

sherlockpotter said:

Here’s an idea - instead of Kylo being all like “Grrr…I’m a bad guy! I want to kill Palpatine and claim his power! Grrr!” What if we could make him into a kind of anti-hero?

For some reason this is always how I saw his character. I never thought he was teaming up with Palpy/Sith for anything. It confused me when people interpreted it that way. Which is why I hate the line “…and take the throne.” He clearly only cares about the fleet in the context of the rest of the movie.

Also, side note, but just about everything you described about Kylo is how I handled things in my novelization.

Hey, nice! Yeah, it’s weird - those four words kind of refocus Kylo’s entire motivation more than anything else he says in the film. They could have built from evil guy, to anti-hero, to reformed hero across the three films; but they just made him power-hungry in this one again, and then rushed his actual redemption.

Thanks for those Hux clips, Jar Jar! I can’t wait to start looking through them.

RogueLeader said:

I think this is something I’ve talked about way back in this thread.

It would take a bit of FX work, but if you wanted to have Hux live until the end, these are a few changes I think you could make:

1. Cut his death scene.

2. Replace Pryde with Hux when he speaks to Palpatine’s hologram.

3. Use footage from TLJ to have Hux be on the bridge of the Star Destroyer during the final battle, and have Hux be the one that dies looking out the bridge while it blows up.

RogueLeader, are you secretly a Hollywood script doctor or something? That’s a great angle too. I wonder if you even need to VFX the hologram scene. Just make it into a audio recording over some shot of Hux brooding, ideally a clip of him saying “Yes, Supreme Leader”; and then maybe some careful cuts could convey that Hux is on the ship on Exegol.

Here’s an idea - instead of Kylo being all like “Grrr…I’m a bad guy! I want to kill Palpatine and claim his power! Grrr!” What if we could make him into a kind of anti-hero?

Ideally, Sir Ridley could tweak the title crawl a little bit:

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren has traveled to Mustafar, chasing whispers of a hidden power that [has been rising in the shadows]…

(So it’s kind of ambiguous to the audience whether he wants to claim that power for himself, or to stop it.)

He finds Palpatine, and he thinks about killing him; but then Palps tells him, “Kill me, and my spirit will pass into you…” So Kylo is like, “Shoot, I can’t kill him yet. I’ll have to play along.” (No matter what, I personally still want to axe the “pathway to many abilities” line. It feels like the Chewie medal - shoehorned into the movie because it’s a meme.)

Later, in the hangar, he confronts Rey: “What Palpatine doesn’t know is we’ve become a dyad in the Force, Rey. Two that are one. We [can defeat] him together, and [stop] the throne fleet.” (So his priority would be stopping Palpatine, rather than ruling in his stead. This also feels like it’s less of a backtrack from TLJ - He goes from a morally grey character who wants “The Sith, the Jedi…Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to,” to someone who teams up with the Sith and plans on ruling the Sith Throne; instead, he would stay as someone who’s just trying to make the galaxy better in his own twisted way, by still trying to progress things forward.) Basically, he thinks that they can contain his spirit if they work together.

By changing it from “We will kill him together” to “We can kill him together,” I think there might be enough nuance to explain why he’s trying to enlist Rey’s help, and why they’d have better odds of being successful if they work together, even if (and likely because) he knows about the possession gobbledygook. Plus, Kylo becomes more multi-faceted as a character, and Rey’s moral conundrum is heightened because, “Well crap, is Kylo Ren actually right?”

Rey doesn’t trust him for shit, of course; so when she goes to Exegol alone - I agree with RogueLeader here - "Kill me, and my [power] will pass into you… You will be Empress, we will be one.” And later “You’re too weak. Only I have the power to save them.”

Oh, and if we really want to focus on Palpatine’s spirit, instead of “all of the Sith Spirits,” could that last line be, “A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me!” “I…am a Jedi”?

I’m still trying to find the best way to handle Hux, because the spy stuff doesn’t make any sense to me. In my edit, I’m planning on just cutting mentions of the spy and probably removing his death scene entirely, and that should be doable; but I was wondering if there’s any way to take it more in the direction that TLJ was hinting, namely having Hux try to overthrow Kylo? I was thinking, in the scene where Hux is like “The Knights of Ren screwed the pooch on Pasaana!”, would there be any way of inserting a new line? Something to the effect of: “Under the command of [Kylo] Ren, we suffered losses. A transport was destroyed. [We need new leadership.]” *Musical sting as we push in on Pryde* *wipe*

And then, when Hux is killed, ideally I’d want to overdub that scene so that Hux says something like “Well Pryde? Can I count on you?” *gets shot* And then Pryde says something like “Prepare the fleet to leave.”

Any ideas where that audio could come from though?

Oh man, I absolutely love all of this discussion. 😄

Burbin said:

I’d say the central theme of the film is fighting alone vs standing together:

That’s a really nice way of looking at the film; and that also ties in really well with Ascendant, where we actually see the past Jedi standing with Rey. I’ll be honest, I still see Rey’s struggle as more insulated, with her feeling “separate” from her friends, rather than trying to shield them; which is probably why that line in the finale strikes me as so weird. But yeah, for Finn and Poe, that’s a great way to look at the film. (And that’s something that the new “Galaxy rising up” sequences will also help with here.)

Jar Jar Bricks said:

KumoNin said:

ThisIsCreation said:

I think this is a non issue. It doesn’t change the movie and alot of people wouldn’t give it a second thought

It caught me completely off guard and took me out of it, honestly. To be clear, I think this change is not a bad idea, and I think the soul possession should remain, it’s just that the hangar scene should be modified so that this makes more sense. (If that line is not in the nobody version I don’t care as much tho 😄)

Alright, I may have discovered a line that could replace Kylo’s contradictory line here. Not only is Kylo clearly not interested in becoming a Sith (see TLJ), but he also already knows that killing Palpatine with the dark side is no bueno. So the line “We’ll kill him and take the [Sith] throne” makes absolutely no sense from two different angles.

So here is what I propose: https://youtu.be/rRI1ctiFPh8 (audio WIP)

And here it is in text form: “You don’t need to say anything. You know what you need to do. You know.” offers hand

You know, when you first brought up changing this line, Jar Jar, I said that I couldn’t think of a way they could team up to kill Palpatine, have Kylo know about the possession, and make it all make sense. That seems to have been a lack of imagination on my part. I like the direction you’re taking the line; I like it a lot. On paper, it’s almost like he’s comforting Rey a little there. I do agree that the inflection doesn’t quite match - he sounds a bit like he’s jeering at her - but I’ll be interested to see where you take the line from here!

RogueLeader said:

It would be interesting if you could change some of Palpatine’s lines to make it sound like if Rey kills Palpatine, she will simply take his power. Power she needs to save her friends. (But in reality, Palpatine will just use her as his new host). So, for example, you could give Palpatine new lines like this.

Palpatine: You’re too weak. Only I have the power to save them.

Then later after she agrees, instead of saying “She will take her revenge”, Palpatine could say, “She will take my power”.

Ugh, yes to all of this! RogueLeader, can we just give you a screenwriter credit at this point? That all sounds really great conceptually - it’s basically a more feasible example of what I was looking to do originally: “You don’t have the power to save them. The Light is weak. Darkness will rise.” (And I 100% want to use your Rey Nobody stuff too!)

And Hal, I appreciate your blessing! I hope my edit won’t disappoint when I eventually make it!

Like I’ve been saying, man - Yours would be a perfectly fine direction to take a story; I just don’t see evidence of it in this story. I’m not trying to claim my interpretation as definitive either, but I’ve tried to back it up with supportive evidence. It’s not a personal attack against you or your opinions; it’s just discourse. You can have any interpretation of a story that you want, provided that you can support it with evidence from the text. (In this case, “the text” being the script and the direction, not the novel.)

But really, I suggested removing and/or changing…one line of dialogue? I’d hardly call that “a radical path,” or “removing tons of different portions of the film.” It’s a change that would benefit the direction that we’ve already been taking the movie, so it’s not like I’m trying to rock the boat here with some wacky new angle that I think we should all adopt. I’m arguing for thematic clarity, as themes are important parts of storytelling. And I figure, yeah, I could remove that line; but maybe other people would want it changed too. I didn’t realize that removing this one line was crossing a line, after 100+ other changes have already been made.

Honestly, this just turned into a repeat of the “Leia sent me a transmission” debacle, where I suggested removing one (different) line of dialogue, and it turned into a four page comment battle about people’s headcanons. It’s one line, and it’s just a suggestion. An important suggestion, I think, when discussing themes; but a suggestion nonetheless.

But…this is the film, not the novel. We have to go by what’s expressed in the film. Again, it would have made sense, but it’s not what comes across at all.

If she was facing Kylo on Pasaana so her friends could escape, why didn’t she tell them to leave? In fact, they would have been able to escape if they weren’t waiting around for her to come back, nor would Chewie have been captured when he was sent out to tell her to stop playing around.

She doesn’t go after the Dagger because “Kylo can use it to track us!” (Can Kylo even read Sith? Eh, sure, why not. Who cares?) She goes after it because of “a feeling.”

There’s no evidence to suggest that she’s worried about being abandoned by her friends. She says it’s because of something else entirely, and the film doesn’t explore it at all visually. (And I’ve already commented before why I don’t believe for one second in “Rey’s inherent belief in her own self-worthlessness,” so I won’t get into that here.) It’s like…you know in Avengers 2, when Tony Stark has the vision of all of his friends dying? That’s what this angle would have needed. Instead, Rey has a vision of a chair. A f*cking chair. “Ooh, if she sits there, it will mean she’ll have lost all of her friends!” Seriously?

Again, it doesn’t matter what you (or I) think Rey should be feeling; it doesn’t matter what the novel retcons her into thinking. Look at what the film itself is presenting to you.

“Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi.” And her fear, as very clearly stated in the film, is that she will fall to the Dark Side; not that she will fail to save her friends.

Jar Jar, I don’t disagree that “wanting to protect her friends” could have been a good angle to take the film - in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the “Control the Fleet to save your friends” concept was taken from an earlier draft of the script with this in mind - but in the final version, it wasn’t developed at all. It’s like Finn’s “Rey, I never told you” bit…it’s part of a story element that didn’t make it into the final cut.

In my read of the film, I see a constant thread of Rey sort of “standing apart” from her friends. Not in the sense that it’s a deliberate choice on her part to protect them, but rather because she’s growing more distant. More isolated, more insular. The opening features Finn and Poe on their own mission, while Rey is focusing on her own training, which establishes the dynamic. You have the moment on Pasaana, when they start looking around together, and then Rey wanders off to take her Skype call with Kylo. The moment where she veers off course, without telling anyone where she’s going, because she senses Kylo approaching. When she’s standing in the corner of the ship after casting lightning, zoned out, until Finn comes to check on her. When she breaks away from rescuing Chewie to get the Dagger back. When she leaves them on the shore and takes the skimmer, recklessly ignoring Jannah’s warnings. Fleeing to Ahch-To without saying anything else to her friends. The entire finale has Rey in one spot, and Finn and Poe in another. There’s a motif in all of this; it happens in pretty much every scene.

The thing is, none of that is done to protect her friends, as you claim. On Pasaana, why didn’t she tell them, “We have to leave, now! Kylo is coming!” She just…wandered 100 feet away, as if that would hide them from Kylo? On Endor, she had no clue that Kylo would show up; “they didn’t have time to wait” because the film gave them an arbitrary 16 hour deadline until Doomsday. And on Ahch-To, she doesn’t mention her friends even once. She just said “I saw myself on the Sith Throne. I’m scared of my own powers. I’m going to hide here so that I can’t fall prey to the Dark Side.” She goes to Exegol to face Palpatine, not to protect her friends. (If she’s trying to keep them out of harm’s way, why does she provide them directions to get to the battle?) If you want to make an argument that she’s trying to protect her friends, you can; but there’s no evidence in the film that supports that beyond speculation and wild (re)interpretation.

Again, it’s a fine angle for a story, there’s just no buildup to it in this one. There is, however, buildup to her giving in to the Dark Side out of her own intrinsic, personal failings. My original point here was to point out how weird it is that the film spends so much time building up this “inner darkness” angle, only to swap over to a “protect my friends” direction at the eleventh hour. That’s just sloppy writing.

Of course, criticizing TROS for sloppy writing is like criticizing Star Trek for using too much techno-babble…

NeverarGreat said:

sherlockpotter said:

But again, in regards to saving her friends, none of this has any relevance to the themes of the film. This is when those themes are supposed to come to their conclusion; but instead of talking about Rey’s anger, or her heritage, or anything like that, J.J. and Chris are just like, “Meh, you better kill him Rey, or else all of your friends are gonna die,” as they flap their hands about. How has the film built towards this at all? What is the film trying to say by forcing this (external) conflict on Rey? How is this final dilemma (of the entire Star Wars saga) in any way satisfying?

How is it satisfying?

It’s not.

The writers wrote themselves into a very simple conflict with Palpy returning: Have Rey kill him or have her not. Based on the themes and her actions over the prior two films, there’s absolutely no drama with killing Palpy since she actively tried to kill Snoke and he called her a True Jedi for doing so, with absolutely no subtext as to any darkness associated with this action. The only drama would then come from her not killing Palpy, but there’s no reason for her to choose this so the final film had to manufacture a reason for her to not kill the most evil guy in the galaxy by making him her caring grandfather. This might almost work since it plays into the thematic line of her constantly wanting a place in the story, but the writers then decided that Rey should actually want to kill Palpy in anger due to the spirit transfer plot device, and so wrote Palpatine back into being Mr Evil by ordering the hit on her parents.

Now Rey’s back to the uninteresting place of wanting to kill Mr Evil, with practically no continuation of the theme of Rey’s belonging. The spirit transfer plot device and resulting revenge subplot effectively kills the theme of the films. Bringing Rey’s friends into this contrived mess of a conclusion merely serves as a distraction.

God, my brain hurts lol.

Like, yeah, there shouldn’t be any chance of her joining the Dark Side (and there effectively isn’t, no matter what we do), but with some of our changes here, we’re playing up the idea that Rey is already tapping into the Dark Side more and more during the course of the film. So my point is, I think we should try to carry that theme into the finale, and make Rey’s final choice be whether or not she will give in to her anger and succumb to the allure of the Dark Side. Rather than the scripted, “Have Rey kill Palpatine because it will inexplicably save her friends!”

In other words, make the climax of the film be an internal character struggle with a foundation on previous established themes, rather than an external blackmail…thing.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

sherlockpotter said:

But she’s never scared of losing her friends. She even abandons them at like three different occasions in the movie without a second thought. I don’t buy it.

Bruh. What? She abandons them precisely because she doesn’t want to put them in danger.

1. She doesn’t want them to come along on her adventure because “It’s too dangerous”
2. She doesn’t want Finn following her into the desert when she confronts Kylo for the same reason
3. Yet again on Endor, does the same thing.

She is afraid of herself because she is worried about hurting her friends.

Crap, I forgot about Endor. That’s another one!

1. Walking away as they’re entering Ochi’s ship for no reason. (She just had a feeling.)
2. Leaving the Chewie Rescue Op to get the Dagger (because she had a feeling).
3. Leaving them on the shore of Endor and taking the skimmer at high-tide (because she was impatient)
4. Running away to Ahch-To (because, as she explicitly explains to Luke, she was scared of herself taking the Sith Throne, not because she wanted to protect her friends)

Jar Jar Bricks said:

sherlockpotter said:

But again, in regards to saving her friends, none of this has any relevance to the themes of the film. This is when those themes are supposed to come to their conclusion; but instead of talking about Rey’s anger, or her heritage, or anything like that, J.J. and Chris are just like, “Meh, you better kill him Rey, or else all of your friends are gonna die.”

I would say one of the themes of the film is confronting fear. In this moment, Rey is presented with two options: kill Palpatine to possibly save her friends, or deny him and risk losing her friends. I would say that thematically it does make sense. It’s about the fear of loss, and learning to let others have some control, because the civilian fleet shows up to save the day without Rey’s help.

Isn’t that backwards though? Because if the thing she fears is losing her friends, wouldn’t her courage fail her by killing Palpatine to save them? (And again, I have no idea if the filmmakers even consider that a good or a bad decision from a morality standpoint, because it’s all so nonsensical and poorly laid out.) She’s still running from her fears, until a big strong man comes to save her. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

But it’s all a moot point, because Rey was never afraid of losing her friends:

REY: I saw myself on the dark throne. I won’t let it happen. I’m never leaving this place. I’m doing what you did.

LUKE: I was wrong. It was fear that kept me here. What are you most afraid of?

REY: Myself.

LUKE: Because you’re a Palpatine.

The film (I think) is trying to be about Rey’s fear of her own inner darkness. Or fear of her chromosomes, whatever. But she’s never scared of losing her friends. She even abandons them at like three different occasions in the movie without a second thought. I don’t buy it.

If you take her inner struggles throughout the film, and then throw all of that away for a last minute, “Do this, or your friends die,” you undermine and invalidate her entire character arc for the rest of the film. She should be tempted onto the Sith Throne, not blackmailed into it.

EDIT:

Jar Jar Bricks said:

It’s about the fear of loss, and learning to let others have some control, because the civilian fleet does show up to save the day without Rey’s help.

When does the film explore that in any way? And what does the Civilian Fleet have to do with Rey’s arc? “Letting others have some control,” that was Poe’s arc in TLJ.

And even if the film was about “letting others have some control,” do we really want that other person to be Emperor “Darth Sidious” Sheev Palpatine, the conglomeration of all Sith past and present, and Lord of all Evil?? Just as long as he doesn’t invade Poland, amiright?

In the original script at least, Palpatine tells her: “You want to kill me? That is what I want. Kill me and my spirit will pass into you, as all the Sith live in me… You will be Empress… We will be one.” And then later: “Strike me down. Take the throne. Reign over a new Empire… and the fleet will be yours. Only you have the power to save [your friends].”

Which…definitely sounds like he’s going to possess her. And once he does, she’ll have command over the fleet. And even if Palpy doesn’t outright control her, why would any of the Sith fleet/army obey her commands? “Yeah, Palpatine is totally sharing my body right now. Definitely. You can trust me, right? Anyway, ‘Palpatine’ says that we’re aborting the mission, okie doke? Let’s shut it down!” So that’s dumb.

And even though he literally never says that he has to be killed “in anger” for the possession to take hold (he mentions that “she wants to kill him,” and that “killing him will allow the transfer,” but there’s no direct correlation between those two statements), I’m begrudgingly okay with hand-waving that aspect. But again, in regards to saving her friends, none of this has any relevance to the themes of the film. This is when those themes are supposed to come to their conclusion; but instead of talking about Rey’s anger, or her heritage, or anything like that, J.J. and Chris are just like, “Meh, you better kill him Rey, or else all of your friends are gonna die,” as they flap their hands about. How has the film built towards this at all? What is the film trying to say by forcing this (external) conflict on Rey? How is this final dilemma (of the entire Star Wars saga) in any way satisfying?

On the topic of emphasizing Rey’s inner conflict, there’s something in particular about the finale that’s been nagging at me. (I mean, heck, there’s way more than one thing, but…)

You know the part where Sheev opens the skylight and is like “Kill me and you can save your friends”? Ignoring the fact that that makes absolutely no logical sense (why would Rey be able to control Palpatine ('s fleet) if she allows Palpatine to take over control of her?), it also completely muddles any sort of theme the film may be trying to explore.

• Tapping into Rey’s personal darkness - she wouldn’t be killing Palps for selfish or evil reasons, she’d be killing him to save her friends, despite the cost to herself. That’s, like, prime Jedi material, right there. At that point, for those reasons, it’s selfish if she doesn’t immediately decapitate him.
• “The Dark Side is in Rey’s blood because Sheev DNA” - What does saving Rey’s friends have to do with a Sith family legacy?
• “Avenging her parents” - Her parents are mentioned in, like, two throwaway lines in this whole finale, so they clearly don’t matter for anything.

Seriously, I feel like my brain is melting whenever I think about this. Is saving her friends a bad thing all of a sudden? What exactly were the filmmakers trying to convey with this curveball?

So, to that end - and given our angle in Ascendant of highlighting Rey’s leanings into the Dark Side - I think the finale could make…not “sense,” but at least “more sense,” if we could replace some of the dialogue to something like:

“They don’t have long. No one is coming to save them, and you are the one who led them here. Your new family [will die, and you don’t] have the power to save them.”
“[The Light is weak. Darkness will rise.] Strike me down, take the thrones. [Do it!]”

Does anyone have any suggestions of Palpatine lines to that effect that could be used instead? Otherwise, maybe even just remove Palp’s voiceover on that section entirely, and just have Rey “see” her friends dying in silent contemplation? At least that would emphasize everyone’s hopelessness, rather than hinting at a way to save them.

Movies Remastered said:

I’m gonna attempt to have her wear a very dark grey or black after I’ve finished all these other scenes. Hopefully doing them on an adjustment layer so I’ll be able to change to which every colour we suit.

Nice, man! I hear chartreuse is lovely this time of year.

RogueLeader said:

I wonder if you could get away with Ben still wearing his “Kylo Ren” robes, but you make them gray instead of black. I feel like you could accomplish that with some color grading and masking.

Speaking of, wasn’t there some discussion of getting Rey into grey robes for the original finale? That would be cool to see, if someone is able to mask it successfully.

Dat_SW_Guy said:

sherlockpotter said:

Yeah, I think Streamable just uses some pretty hefty compression. It’s great for showing off tests and mockups, but less so for sharing something in high quality. (I’ve been uploading my finished clips to Google Drive instead.)

Ooh, hmm, I don’t know! My gut was telling me that the lightning should be fairly big and bold and dramatic at this point - and I adore how it looks right now - but I’d definitely be interested in seeing a slightly more subtle approach that Rey would barely notice.

Seriously loving it though, Dat_SW_Guy. Thanks so much for helping out with this shot!

(Depending on what sort of sound effect people want, I can certainly add mine to the finished VFX shot. I can also try a version with Snoke’s sound effect, just so we have a fair comparison and can all decide what works best!)

Yea, are you able to re-do the effects to add a more subtler sound? I’m afraid I’m not that good with audio design haha

I certainly don’t claim to be an expert audio mixer myself, but I can definitely help with it!

“It’s a power only one has achieved. But if we work together, I know we can discover the secret.”

Yeah, I think Streamable just uses some pretty hefty compression. It’s great for showing off tests and mockups, but less so for sharing something in high quality. (I’ve been uploading my finished clips to Google Drive instead.)

Ooh, hmm, I don’t know! My gut was telling me that the lightning should be fairly big and bold and dramatic at this point - and I adore how it looks right now - but I’d definitely be interested in seeing a slightly more subtle approach that Rey would barely notice.

Seriously loving it though, Dat_SW_Guy. Thanks so much for helping out with this shot!

(Depending on what sort of sound effect people want, I can certainly add mine to the finished VFX shot. I can also try a version with Snoke’s sound effect, just so we have a fair comparison and can all decide what works best!)