sherlockpotter

TestingOutTheTest said:

I also feel like you’ve missed the point of Rey’s arc in TLJ, it isn’t about finding her place in all this or being important in general

Literal quote from Rey in TLJ: "The galaxy may need a legend. I need someone to show me my place in all of this." I really don’t see anything in the first two movies that implies she hates herself. She just seems overly dependent on people. She stays on Jakku because she wants her family to return, not because she thinks she’s unworthy of their love. She runs from Luke’s lightsaber because she doesn’t want that responsibility. She thinks Luke is the only hope for the galaxy; then, when he refuses, she says “[Ben] is our last hope.” She goes to Kylo because she thinks he’ll help them. (“This could be how we win.”) And honestly, what’s she done so far for herself? Known how to fly a ship? Anyone can do that. She was captured by the First Order. Fought off Kylo out of desperation, not by choice. Messed up big time by turning herself in to Snoke. And then she moved some rocks. Mary Sue, baby.

By that logical progression, TROS should have been about her overcoming that dependency, and learning to embrace being a hero in her own right. She’s kind of the opposite of Kylo, who spends his whole time trying to break out from underneath people. Luke, Han, Snoke…of course then he just happily joins forces with Palpy and that ruins his whole character journey but whatever. It’s two movies at least of solid character work.

The other big thing is, for all of this talk of “Rey’s arc is about heritage not defining you”… like, that’s Kylo’s whole deal, isn’t it? “Grandfather killed a bunch of people and cast the galaxy into darkness. Do you embrace that legacy or do you strike out on your own path?” Kylo’s already got that angle covered; what does it add to duplicate the whole arc with Rey?

On the other hand, if Rey comes from nothing, that’s a new twist. When you don’t have any legacy to which you are beholden, what do you do? It’s the opposite arc of Kylo’s, and you can do a lot of interesting stuff with that narratively and thematically.

It’s honestly kind of beautiful when you look at the Episodes VII and VIII without IX:

• Rey: The scavenger who has no family, no legacy. She has to overcome her dependence on others and become her own hero.
• Kylo: The child prodigy, born into the most famous family of all time. Does he follow his grandfather’s path, or his uncle’s, or his mother’s? Instead, he tries to break out and take control of his destiny, only to learn that he actually needed to embrace those around him (such as with him not killing Leia in TLJ).

Jar Jar Bricks said:

RogueLeader said:

SparkySywer said:

RogueLeader said:

For fan editing’s sake, I think it is interesting to think about possible alternative to TROS’ ending.

One option is to have both Rey and Ben live. I can see how this would be an issue for some, because it might not feel right if Ben could literally resurrect Rey without sacrificing his own life. If things were to play out the same way up to this point, I kinda of agree with the sentiment.

Honestly, Rey’s death kind of comes out of absolutely nowhere. I bet it would be easy to justify her just kind of not dying.

That is true. Perhaps one can edit it to where she isn’t dead, or at the very least, on the verge of death. I could see a version of the sequence that plays out really similarly to what we got, but maybe we can hear Rey’s faint heartbeat during the sequence. Ben heals her like she did him, her heartbeat goes back to normal, and she wakes up.

Thanks for the idea! Definitely using this in my novelization. Otherwise there would be too many questions as to how exactly Ben could resurrect someone from the dead without dying himself.

And Sherlock, I was never denying that new ideas can’t be implemented. I think they are what make the prequels and TLJ stand out for the better. But I was talking about the overall themes when I said those things.

That’s why I wish TROS ended differently than ROTJ, wherein the redeemed villain survives to help the hero lead a new generation of Jedi. It would have been the same themes, but a unique spin on things.

Fair point. I guess I just don’t like dredging back Palps lol. That still feels like too much to me. Be more creative, darn it! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

RogueLeader said:

I agree that IX would’ve been more interesting to focus solely on Kylo trying to be the big bad as everything fell apart around him. I feel like this could still be accomplished somewhat in a “Palpatine-less” edit, like joshuabri’s edit. I think simply removing Palpatine’s influence naturally gives Kylo a lot more agency in the film. Hopefully joshuabri’s work can lead to more edits that are even more polished.

Oh man, really? I had no idea there was a Palpatine-less edit out there. (I didn’t even think it was possible, to be honest.) I definitely have to check that out now; thanks for the tip!

I don’t see any way Leia could live though, unless someone wanted to roto a lot more footage of her for the rest of the movie. I was mainly just saying, “In a perfect world, this is what I wish the movie had been.” I don’t fault J.J. for offing her, given the circumstances.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

I think both of you are forgetting that at its core Star Wars is a fairy tale. It’s for 12 year olds. Nev, your argument for how it should have been about the systems that subvert democracy would definitely work in a political drama or some movie that is for a much older audience. It definitely works as an underlying message in the prequels or TLJ, but I don’t believe it should be the overall message of the saga.

It’s fine that you prefer the fairy tale aspect, Jar Jar. But isn’t it rather reductive to say that Star Wars “has to be” a kiddie story at heart? Clone Wars isn’t a fairy tale, neither is The Mandalorian, Rogue One, the Prequel Trilogy… Star Wars has already been growing and changing, whether or not you like those changes (and as the Prequels have shown, not everyone does). The thing is, it has to find ways to evolve if it’s going to grow and thrive. Star Wars is almost 50 years old at this point; if it has to just repeat the same stories and themes after all this time, doesn’t that make everything in this galaxy very small and reductive? Does Star Wars have to be made “for 12 year olds”? Can’t different stories in that universe be made for different people, looking for different things?

Like, god, imagine if the last 12 films, over 40-odd years, were all telling essentially the same story, with the same tone and the same ideas. Wouldn’t people get sick of that?

And Burbin, I really enjoyed your thoughts on TLJ. Very well said, I heartily agree!

Hang in there, MR. Take all the time you need.

Regarding the “Leia sensed the death/birth of her son” line, if we can’t find a usable source for the word “birth,” could we just cut it to “Leia sensed her son at the end of her Jedi path”? We’d still get a double meaning kind of thing - Leia originally takes it to mean “I have a son now, so I can’t continue training as a Jedi”; but the true meaning would be that, when Leia dies and becomes one with the Force, her son will be there waiting for her (hence why they vanish together). I’m open to other suggestions though.

I think the biggest failing of TROS was bringing back Palpatine. Kylo was set up in TLJ to be the ultimate villain, and then he was just sidelined in favor of “rotting grandpa GLaDOS.”

I don’t think it’s wrong for Kylo to be redeemed, so I disagree with Dual of the Fates; but I also think he has to more than just redeem himself - he has to fail before he can be saved. TROS should have been the culmination of a really interesting negative character arc; and instead, he just spends the entire movie chasing after Rey. Then his mom dies, and he just…snaps out of it, I guess?

If I were writing the script, it would have focused on Kylo trying to be the Big, Bad, Supreme Leader, but failing at it. The galaxy, inspired by Luke, is revolting everywhere he looks, and the First Order is spread way too thin. The First Order Generals and Admirals are all starting to question his abilities to lead; Hux is planning a coup, and is waiting for the right time to strike. Kylo is stressing out. He was already somewhat unstable (as seen in TFA), but now he’s just going crazy. Any time someone questions his orders, he cuts them down. And the more he loses control, the more the First Order splinters, the stronger the Resistance grows. He’s the maker of his own downfall.

Because he was wrong to pursue this path. He was wrong to join the First Order. He was wrong to seek this power, power that he’s not equipped to wield. And, try as he might to ignore that fact, over the course of the film, he has to finally come to terms with it.

When he finally turns back to the light, he does it in order to save his mother (building off of that moment in TLJ). And then, he sacrifices himself not just to save one person, but to undo all of the damage that he’s done to the galaxy, to atone for his sins. His final act is to destroy what remains of the First Order at the cost of his own life. Leia survives, and goes on to rebuild the Republic (correctly, this time); and Ben is able to visit her as a Ghost.

I really don’t have any major issues with VII or VIII overall (even if they could be improved upon); but IX was the only film in the bunch to truly fail for me.

Yeah, honestly I’m planning on cutting most of the Hux=Spy stuff - it feels very opposed to everything we know about the character, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of logistical sense as its own story thread. Most of that seems pretty doable I think; but I was trying to find some way of giving Hux’s character some degree of closure. Otherwise he just ends up fading away out of the script.

Poor, poor Domhnall Gleeson.

I wonder if it would be possible to have Pryde kill Hux on Palpatine’s orders? Like, Hux wants to keep the First Order and Final Order separate; but Pryde, acting on Palpy’s orders to “Come to me on Exegol,” stages a coup, kills Hux, and seizes control of the fleet.

It would help to distinguish the First Order and Final Order more for the audience, as they basically become one and the same by this point in the movie anyway; and it would also explain why Pryde doesn’t care about arresting or interrogating the traitor who leaked huge, classified information to their enemy. What did he tell them? Are they compromised? It’s not the biggest issue in the film, but it would help to alleviate Dumb Thing #55,602 in the script.

I’m just tossing out an idea; I can’t see a way it would be possible to do this without noticeably overdubbing lines and throwing off the lip sync.

Hal 9000 said:

I’m getting a small business off the ground and so there will be times where I may not be all that active for a while. BUT, things are obviously still in motion and it will all come together. The Rey Nobody version is not pushed back by the default version taking a while, as development of that aspect is in the Rey Nobody thread.

“We’re taking this baby to the mooooooon!”

I hope it’s a video editing business, Hal. haha

Congrats! Best of luck with the new business!

Burbin has been trying to convince me all weekend that the Exegol battle makes sense, Hal. Truthfully - again, no disrespect to him - I’ve yet to be convinced that “there’s decent argument to be made for the way it plays on in the theatrical.”

• Why does Finn start to leave if he doesn’t think the Nav Tower is destroyed?
• Why does he go back to re-destroy it if that wasn’t the plan?
• Why does Poe think that the Nav Tower is destroyed “but not for long!!” if he just saw it blow up from the inside?
• Why would Finn only care about stopping the nav signal “till help arrives”? Does it not matter if any Sith Ships slip out after Lando shows up?
• If Poe knows that it’s their “last chance” to destroy the Sith fleet before they escape, why is Finn the only one who, on a whim, thought to completely cut off the navigation signal? That should be the priority target, right? But if that’s already the plan in the first place, that makes more sense.

And again, just the general idiocy of “only trying to trap them temporarily, and then pray to god that Lando can gather enough ships and they all make it to Exegol in time” being the entire plan on which they hang the fate of the galaxy. You have a means of crippling the entire, infinitely large fleet, and you’re not going to take it? Are they that dumb, or are they just incompetent?

I know the whole script is a jumbled mess of stupidity, but this seems like a really easy way to correct a lot of stupidity all at once. God, this movie…

DominicCobb said:

Alright, wanted to whip this up earlier but have been busy. Here’s my slight tweaks to the “pre-dawn Ahch-to” sequence. Keep in mind this is a very quick and dirty pass purely to have a visual reference for my thoughts here.

• Basically, to my eye the correction seems about 90% of the way there. The big sticking point for me is the dark grey look of the sky and the frame in general. Dark grey sky reads to me as either overcast or, unfortunately, artificially darkened - not dawn or pre-dawn. To me, before a sunrise, sky and the ambient light tends to be primarily blue (check the final scene of the film as an example). Especially in a movie that trends towards blue in its coloring, it feels very off to me that we’re not really seeing that here. So I wanted to show what things might look like if you introduced that hue.
• I think as well we’re giving the TIE fire too much credit for the ambient light in the first couple scenes, so I wanted to try to tone that down, and try to restrict it a bit (so, when Rey is sitting down talking to Luke, we mainly see it on the left side of her face, not the right where it wouldn’t reach).

https://vimeo.com/527188969
pw: fanedit

Again this is very very rough (yes the masking is slapdash. is it too blue? too dark? maybe!). I’ve only done the first couple scenes here to give an idea.

Personally, I don’t really have the time to do this work, as it’s very tricky to do all these masks on top of all these other masks that Nev did (you’ll notice the final shot in that clip is particularly tricky and I did a very quick and rough job of it). If someone else here thinks it’s a good idea it’s all yours. I do think if Nev was interested these changes might be easier implemented on his end (or if somehow he was willing to share project files or plugins containing the exact effects and parameters - presuming we’re on the same program). But of course no harm no foul if this doesn’t tickle the fancy, it’s just my two cents (and I’m sure Nev’s time is just as full as anyone else’s).

I see what you’re going for, I think it might be a little too blue though; and I think that the current brightness levels don’t quite work with the blue - it kind of looks closer to daylight again to me. I personally was thinking of trying to darken the “fireside chat” portion of the scene a little more - basically make it the same darkness levels as the “burning” section at the beginning of Rey’s and Luke’s chat, and have it be brighter by the time Luke stands up and takes her to the hut; but that’s all subjective.

I think if that was darkened a bit more, it might look really nice with a bluish tint; but ultimately I defer to Nev. He’s the expert on what works and what doesn’t in this sequence.

To explain Exegol another way: Say you’ve trapped me in a room and locked the door. I have the key to escape in the room with me. If you want to stop me from ever escaping, does it make more sense to destroy the key; or does it make more sense to take the key for five minutes and then give it back to me?

That’s my point. It makes more sense if their goal is to just prevent the means of escape completely, rather than “temporarily stall them, and then hope that the miraculous civilian fleet that may-or-may-not-come-at-all will show up in the nick of time.” (“You’ve pinned the survival of the Resistance on bad odds and put us all at risk!”) The film is already halfway there, between the general concept of the Nav Signal, and everything Finn does in the battle. And we can close the remaining gap very, very easily.

As a proof of concept, here is the entire Exegol battle, with just the following bits removed:

• Cut Poe saying “for just minutes.”
• Cut Finn saying that the Fleet only has to stay stuck on Exegol “Till help arrives.”
• Cut Poe’s “but not for long.”
• Cut Poe’s “last chance.” (This one could be smoothed out more.)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IvEYXkpJTBAmGfirQm_okIxn6YpD8dyg/view?usp=sharing

That’s it. That’s all of the changes it took. Now the Resistance wants to permanently destroy the nav signal, and thereby trap the First/Final Order on Exegol. That’s the goal. Makes perfect sense to me. I can’t understand how anyone would come up with the other plan as a logical course of action, and I’ve basically changed it around from that just by cutting out some of the semantics.

Heck, if you’re really worried, we could even swap around one of Poe’s lines a smidge to clarify the point even further:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e0ScWl8ezruHbNJV4dpMNRDjrFiSgIrt/view?usp=sharing

DominicCobb said:

NeverarGreat said:

https://mega.nz/folder/GBljAIbZ#l-NefINPNwTPHqUJsNkp-A

There’s the baseline cleaned Mustafar shot plus one with rudimentary grain. If anyone has a better grain overlay, feel free to use that. 😃

Fantastic work. Smoke looks compressed, but I guess that’s what’ll happen with Youtube.

Apparently the Blu-Ray comes out on March 30th. Maybe Nev could apply the effects to the Blu-Ray source once that’s out?

Could the shot be slotted into the sequence like “Lava -> Vader’s Castle -> Forest”? That way you get a progression as the ships are flying over the planet, going from the lava-y sections to the forest-y sections.

Great work, Nev!

Burbin said:

…we have to assume they CAN’T generate a plan to disable the signal permanently.

…Yes the battle is won by destroying the nav tower, which leaves the fleet stuck on Exegol

Dude, if your argument contradicts itself, I’m gonna assume the plan makes no sense. I’m sorry. Also, again, I tried to explain from the beginning that I was insulting the writing, not you. If that wasn’t clear, then I apologize.

Okay, I’m opening this up to everyone. Burbin and I are going around in circles here. Would someone else mind weighing in?

For context: My original suggestion was to simplify the Exegol battle by cutting a mere eight(?) words of dialogue, so that the Resistance’s plan going into the fight is to destroy the Navigation Tower. Without the signal from the tower, the Sith Fleet won’t be able to leave Exegol, rendering them harmless.

Burbin is arguing that we need to keep those eight words, because they prove that the goal of the entire battle is not to “permanently” disable the signal, but instead to temporarily disable the signal. Then, in the “just minutes” while the navigation signal is down, the Resistance is going to take advantage of the ships’ lack of “navigation,” and swoop in and blow up all 10,000+ Final Order ships. On a whim, Finn decides to just go rogue and blow up the signal anyway; and, coincidentally, the rest of the (10,000+) ships are all immediately destroyed off camera.

I think my battle strategy makes more sense. Burbin thinks the other one does.

What do the rest of you think?

Cinefy said:

Would have been really nice if the Sith cultist choir had echoed subtle DOTF, tried testing it a few times.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/702816288342278207/822925192031764530/preview_DOTF.mp4

Could be pulled off a lot better.

Oh, ah, hmmm…well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I honestly don’t like DOTF here.

This moment is really interesting musically, because it’s kind of smack dab between diegetic and non-diegetic music. Like, I don’t think the Sith Spirits themselves are singing the music cue per se, but it does feel very much like Rey can actually hear echoes of the music from somewhere far away. (She turns around to look at the Spirits, as if she’s hearing something from them…) It’s kind of hard to describe; but the point is, it’s an incredibly difficult moment to score, and in spite of the difficulty, I think John Williams wrote this part perfectly.

So when you (or anyone else, I think you did a fine job editing it) put Dual of the Fates here, I’m immediately thrown off. Like, “Wait, why are they singing the Darth Maul music? How do they know that song?” And then it’s kind of way too…coordinated. Like, John gave them a pretty basic chant that you might find in an ancient church choir. It’s just one note repeating. That note carries a lot of power - it shows how like-minded the Sith are, how Rey and Palpatine are about to become one. And from a diegetic standpoint, it’s easy to imagine thousands of Siths singing the notes into Rey’s mind. Making it Dual of the Fates loses that sameness; while ironically also feeling overly rehearsed. (How do they all know this song, eh?) Couple all of this with the fact that it makes me think of a completely different movie and completely different characters, when I should be focusing on Rey…

Putting the choral Dual of the Fates into this scene would be like putting the Shire theme into the Ride of the Rohirrim. Sure, it may sound “cool,” sure, you could argue some thematic parallels; but man does it not fit in practice, and it takes me right out of the moment.

Yeah, no, definitely not for me. It’s hard to explain why, but I really don’t like it. From the sound of it, I may be alone in that though.

And honestly, I like the Solo-version Dual of the Fates in the Death Star battle, because it’s distinct enough from it’s Phantom Menace appearance that it makes me think of the cue thematically (as a dual for their fates), rather than literally (being “the Darth Maul fight scene music”).

As an aside: I honestly find it fascinating that John Williams didn’t opt to put the full choral “Emperor’s Theme” in this moment (which honestly fits the scene better than Dual of the Fates, imo). Like, that’s what I was expecting when watching the scene in theatres; and then we got something unique and wonderful instead.

Burbin, I guess I’m coming at this from a perspective of “What plan makes logical sense?” rather than “What do each of the characters say?”

So, like, we’re agreed that the Nav signal is required for the fleet to leave Exegol, right? In that case, the plan should be to destroy the nav signal, right? Because if their entire plan hinges on disabling the signal temporarily…my god, that’s just utterly stupid, isn’t it? Like, I genuinely can’t wrap my head around that plan. That actually goes beyond stupid; it’s utterly incomprehensible.

And dude, that’s not a dig at you; it’s a dig at the movie. I want to be clear about that.

I’ve gone the past year and a half assuming that the battle was won by destroying the nav tower. Because it has to be. Maybe that’s on me; maybe I gave the film too much credit, letting it have even one sequence that’s somewhat intelligible - Finn’s working on destroying the beacon; Poe’s providing cover and trying to knock out the ships in the meantime. Two-pronged attack. That makes sense. Maybe I filled in the gaps in my head, because it’s the only way I could reconcile with the sequence; but that proves that the battle still works from that perspective. And as I’ve pointed out before, the nav tower doesn’t even have to be disabled for them to destroy the ships! Destroying it just keeps them on Exegol.

Burbin said:

The thing is everything else points to the stall being temporary, and I don’t see how that’s “nonsensical” but making it permanent makes perfect sense, seems to me like it’s the opposite. Changing this would contradict everything else. The main plan, as clearly laid out in the briefing, is to hit the Fleet while they’re vulnerable on Exegol since shields don’t work on it’s atmosphere, and without shields hitting the cannons causes a chain reaction that brings down the ships. Deactivating their nav signal is only step one on the plan, as a means to stall the fleet from leaving the planet, step two is Lando riling up the people and step three is taking down the Final Order. You seem to be under the impression that the plan was to leave the fleet stranded on Exegol, while taking out a few ships on the way, but it’s explicitly stated the main goal is to take the ships down.

Exactly, the plan is to “hit the fleet while they’re vulnerable on Exegol.” So why would the plan entail only keeping them on Exegol temporarily, when they could keep them on Exegol permanently? I’m talking from a logical, plan-making perspective. Which one makes more sense?

Changing this also turns Poe’s POV of the battle into nonsense, as every line he speaks clearly indicates he believes the ships won’t be stuck forever:

“We’ll have to hit them ourselves! Except… they’re stuck here and we’re horribly outnumbered, so we could just leave and regroup with Lando!”

“This is our last chance, we’ve got to hit those cannons now! Or… maybe later! They are stuck here guys don’t worry!”

“Poe, the command ship!”
“Oh, cool, it blew up, the fleet was already stuck here anyway, but hey, they’re toast, come on!”

Yes, exactly. My suggestion, way back however-many-pages ago, was to trim some of those Poe lines down to be in line with the “trap the fleet on Exegol” plan. I acknowledged those lines and how they could be tweaked, so I don’t get how that’s a factor in this discussion? It’s circular logic - you want to keep the lines because the lines justify the plan that the lines explained.

Again, I don’t care about “What do the characters say in the original film?” But rather “What actually makes sense for them to do - and let’s make them do that.” Fan editing.

Look, Finn seems shocked that the Nav Tower is coming back online. Once it’s actually destroyed, Poe says “Their fleet is stuck here! They’re toast! Come on!” And then he sort of gestures over his shoulder, and he never takes out another SDDSSD. In fact, NO ONE TAkES OUT ANOTHER SDDSSD. They just leave, because what’s the First/Final Order going to do? Follow them? They’ve been trapped. The visuals of the film show that, as soon as the Nav Tower is destroyed, the Rebels start to leave without taking out more ships.

Seriously, I’m trying to understand this cockamamie plan to “temporarily disable the Nav beacon, and then blow up a seemingly infinite number of ships in the few minutes during which they’re stalled”…and it’s like trying to conceptualize infinity. My brain can’t do it. I’m not being hyperbolic. Swear to god, I can’t comprehend it. And if your only aversion to the change is a few lines that Poe says, when my whole pitch was to remove those lines in the first place…why not?

I’m saying change the lines, clean up the plan.

Let’s allow Exegol to make even the slightest amount of sense. Please.

Burbin, I appreciate the defense, I do; but I still can’t get behind it. Finn was all set to leave after disabling the signal - everyone was leaving - and then he was like “Hold up, they’re resetting their systems. The nav signal is coming back online! I have to stop it!” The way he says it definitely implies that they weren’t expecting the nav signal to come back online.

And look, even if you’re right - that Chris and J.J. wrote the entire thing to temporarily stop them from leaving (which is nonsensical), and then the Rebels managed to defeat an extra 7,000 ships off-screen (which is bad filmmaking) - why do we have to prescribe to that? If it’s possible to tie everything up in a nice little “They can’t get off the planet” bow, and cut through all of the obfuscation, why can’t we do that? Even if it’s not 1:1 with the filmmakers’ original intention. That’s sort of the point of this edit, no?

Damn, having rewatched the Exegol battle, I think Jar Jar is right - we should cut Poe’s “But not for long” down to just “Nice one, Finn! Nav signal’s down!” The way the line is delivered it really feels like Poe thinks this means victory.

Eight words. Fine.

Also, Jar Jar, I kind of like the “Once we complete-” line. Depending on what the full line is, would it be possible to start it even sooner though and cut off after more of it plays?

Hey, does Ben have any usable lines that we could add after he arrives to help Rey? I’d love for him to say more after returning to the Light than just “Ow.”

Burbin said:

sherlockpotter said:

Burbin said:

What’s the issue with the “for just minutes” line?? I think it’s pretty straightforward:

The original plan is to disable the tower on the ground, when they reach Exegol Pride switches the signal to the command ship, so the plan changes to disable the tower on the ship, they succeed in disabling it, which leaves the ships stuck “for just minutes” (Poe reiterates this by saying “Nav signal’s down, but not for long!”), but Finn decides to take the whole ship down, which leaves the fleet stuck for good.

Of course there’s still the tower on the ground someone could fire back up, but at that point there’s a whole galaxy of ships attacking the Sith Fleet on their bright red weak point so it’s safe to say “they’re toast”. The whole fleet is destoryed, and the people who built it are crushed by rocks, so it’s all taken care of. The whole thing is kinda dumb, but if we removed all the dumb things in this movie we’d be left with nothing. In this case removing the line would turn the plan into a “we do this one thing and we win, period.” wich would massively lower the stakes of the Exegol assault. Instead the plan is to stall the ships from leaving Exegol long enough for Lando to rile up ‘the galaxy’ to come and take them down.

Disabling the navigation systems is not the main goal or the win condition, the plan was always to temporairly delay the Final Order. In fact their “victory” in disabling the tower happens during the ‘lowest point’ in the battle, since “no one is coming to help them”.

That doesn’t make sense though. You’re saying that the entire Sith Fleet is stuck for good because “Finn decides to take the whole [command] ship down.” When was it established that knocking out the command ship would cause a chain reaction and blow up the entire 10,000+ ship fleet? If knocking out the command ship will cripple the entire fleet, why do they even care about the nav tower? Why don’t they go after the command ship in the first place? It’s not like the nav tower is actually a shield generator that’s protecting the command ship, because they establish that “shields don’t work in Exegol’s atmosphere.” And how would that chain reaction work out logistically anyway? Is every ship connected directly to the command ship’s computer? And if so, what do they need the damn nav tower for??

The film makes it very clear that there’s only thing that unites the Sith Fleet - the nav tower signal. You take that out, the ships can’t leave the planet. The command ship isn’t even mentioned - not in the pre-mission briefing when they’re expositing all of this nonsense, not when they arrive on the planet - until it becomes the source of the navigation signal.

And if we ignore all of that and stick with the “command ship” theory anyway, that means we’re trying to do the entire battle sequence without setting up the plan, the goal, the plot, or the stakes. Hal, that’s not “subtlety”; that’s just sloppy writing. We can avoid all of this confusion if we just cut four words from the script. Four words!

It’s not a “theory”, I’m literally just laying out what happens in the movie. I’ve been mostly agreeing with everything you comment on this thread Sherlock, but I think you’re misunderstanding this whole plot point.

When was it established that knocking out the command ship would cause a chain reaction and blow up the entire 10,000+ ship fleet?

That’s not what I’m saying, the fleet is stuck there because they lose the nav signal from the command ship, the ships are blown up by hitting the underbelly cannons, it’s all set up in the pre-mission briefing. It’s not about the ship or the tower, it’s about the nav signal itself. They can’t leave without it.

“Nav signal’s down, but not for long!” is a direct call back to the fact the plan was always to temporairly disable their navigational systems, that’s why soon after Poe says “I don’t know R2, maybe nobody else is coming” and “we’ll have to take them ourselves”, because he thinks they’re losing their ‘window’ to attack the ships while they’re stuck. Otherwise, why not just take down the nav signal and leave until they get the resources to take down the ships? There would be no urgency at all. That’s why it’s important to set up that the ships will only be stuck there temporairly, taking out those four words makes everything worse, we’re left with lower stakes, no urgency, and an even more implausible setup.

Later on in the fight Poe still believes the fleet is only momentairly disabled, which is why he says “This is our last chance, we’ve got to hit those cannons now!”, he doesn’t know Finn is trying to take the command ship down, and so it’s not until he sees the ship blowing up that he realizes “The fleet is stuck here! They’re toast, come on!”. So the whole dynamic of the Exegol assault won’t make sense if you take out those four words.

Oh god, every time I think about any scene in this movie, it gets more and more confusing lol.

Okay, so, here’s the thing. Yes, they establish that hitting the underbelly canons will destroy the ships. Yes, they say they want to disable the Nav beacon. And yes, I agree that the mission is “about the nav signal itself.”

But, like, they don’t need to “temporarily disable” the Nav signal in order to destroy the underbelly canons. The underbelly canons are a weak spot because “Shields don’t work in atmosphere” or whatever. And if - as we agree - “[the ships] can’t leave without [the nav signal],” why is their plan to disable it temporarily instead of permanently? How does that make any sense? And if they are trying to disable it permanently…why don’t we let Poe’s mission briefing establish that?

Also, after Poe says “They’re stuck here! They’re toast!” J.J. kindly cuts to a wide shot of the Sith Fleet:

And in the background of that wide shot, we can see roughly 4200 Super-Duper-Death-Star-Star-Destroyers (classic SDDSSDs) still hovering perfectly in formation, completely unopposed, completed un-blown up. Yet Poe isn’t screaming “Hurry! The Nav Signal is destroyed and they can’t leave the planet! We have to blow them all up before they don’t leave the planet!” He’s just like, “Nah man, they’re stuck.” And they get outta there without exploding any more ships.

So, given that they unconcernedly leave a whole bunch of ships behind; and that, if the navigation signal is gone, they won’t be able to navigate off of the planet, my read of the situation is:

1. They send a sabotage crew in to destroy the navigation tower.
2. They send an aerial crew for cover fire and support.
3. Finn tries to destroy the Nav tower with his grenades, but it’s not powerful enough, and the Nav tower starts to come back online.
4. Finn decides to destroy the entire command ship to make sure the nav tower is destroyed.
5. Poe’s feeling pretty hopeless because so many of them are dying while trying to take out the nav tower.
6. Reinforcements come, and give the Resistance the additional support they need to hold off the First/Final Order and let Finn complete his mission.
7. Finn blows up the ship. Poe thinks this went according to the original plan. He doesn’t realize Finn had to improvise to destroy the nav tower, and is still stuck on the ship.
8. Falcon picks up Finn and Jannah.
9. Everyone ignores the second, fully operational tower on the ground, because f*ck it. WE WON, BABY!

I think the part I don’t understand in your explanation is, “the plan was always to temporairly disable their navigational systems.” Like…why? Why would you decide to temporarily block them from leaving, then try to destroy every single one of their 10,000+ ships in the “just minutes” before the navigation signal goes back online? The navigation signal that doesn’t even need to be destroyed for them to destroy the ships, because the ships already don’t have shields in atmosphere?

It’s like in ROTJ - Han didn’t just disable the shield generator for 60 seconds and then tell Lando, “You’ve got 60 seconds to destroy the Death Star!!” He just destroyed the shield generator. End of story.

And I don’t blame you for reading it the other way. Chris and J.J. clearly had no clue what was happening in their own finale. It’s mind-bogglingly poor writing, in so many ways that I honestly just scratched the surface here. But all of this confusion on both of our parts sort of gets back to my original point. If we can make this whole thing make a lot more sense by just cutting a few words, why wouldn’t we?

This is kind of radical, and probably cuts too much from the film, but could the entire Kylo’s Ship sequence be cut outright? Cut Chewie getting captured and blown up before they leave Pasaana. So Rey destroys Kylo’s ship, leaving Kylo theoretically stranded in the desert. Replace Ochi’s ship with the Falcon in the wide shots, and have them take that ship to Kijimi. They slip away before the FO finds them, and head to Endor. (You could cut Kijimi too by just having 3PO give up the translation immediately, but that’s almost definitely cutting too much.)

If Chewie isn’t captured, they’ll already have the knife and they won’t need to get it back from Kylo. You can then skip over the Kylo’s Quarters fight and the hangar scene entirely. After that, the only references are Luke’s “Because you’re a Palptine” on Ahch-To, and a few references to “my granddaughter” on Exegol.

Sure, you’d lose the “Poe and Finn are immediately captured, immediately sent to be executed, and immediately saved by Super-Spy Hux,” but I consider that a positive, honestly.

I think “not for long” is fine, Jar Jar. Poe says it while Pryde is resetting the nav tower, so it is down for “not long.” Finn hadn’t managed to destroy the signal, he just temporarily deactivated it. Doesn’t it power back up in a minute anyway? I honestly can’t remember.

That all kind of proves my point though that the battle is about the nav tower rather than the command ship. Finn only decides to blow up the ship because they’re resetting the nav tower - he doesn’t do it on a whim, he does it because it’s the only way to make sure that the only operational nav tower is destroyed.

Now, whether or not restarting your computer can fix it after it’s been blown up with grenades, that’s a different question entirely.

Burbin said:

What’s the issue with the “for just minutes” line?? I think it’s pretty straightforward:

The original plan is to disable the tower on the ground, when they reach Exegol Pride switches the signal to the command ship, so the plan changes to disable the tower on the ship, they succeed in disabling it, which leaves the ships stuck “for just minutes” (Poe reiterates this by saying “Nav signal’s down, but not for long!”), but Finn decides to take the whole ship down, which leaves the fleet stuck for good.

Of course there’s still the tower on the ground someone could fire back up, but at that point there’s a whole galaxy of ships attacking the Sith Fleet on their bright red weak point so it’s safe to say “they’re toast”. The whole fleet is destoryed, and the people who built it are crushed by rocks, so it’s all taken care of. The whole thing is kinda dumb, but if we removed all the dumb things in this movie we’d be left with nothing. In this case removing the line would turn the plan into a “we do this one thing and we win, period.” wich would massively lower the stakes of the Exegol assault. Instead the plan is to stall the ships from leaving Exegol long enough for Lando to rile up ‘the galaxy’ to come and take them down.

Disabling the navigation systems is not the main goal or the win condition, the plan was always to temporairly delay the Final Order. In fact their “victory” in disabling the tower happens during the ‘lowest point’ in the battle, since “no one is coming to help them”.

That doesn’t make sense though. You’re saying that the entire Sith Fleet is stuck for good because “Finn decides to take the whole [command] ship down.” When was it established that knocking out the command ship would cause a chain reaction and blow up the entire 10,000+ ship fleet? If knocking out the command ship will cripple the entire fleet, why do they even care about the nav tower? Why don’t they go after the command ship in the first place? It’s not like the nav tower is actually a shield generator that’s protecting the command ship, because they establish that “shields don’t work in Exegol’s atmosphere.” And how would that chain reaction work out logistically anyway? Is every ship connected directly to the command ship’s computer? And if so, what do they need the damn nav tower for??

The film makes it very clear that there’s only thing that unites the Sith Fleet - the nav tower signal. You take that out, the ships can’t leave the planet. The command ship isn’t even mentioned - not in the pre-mission briefing when they’re expositing all of this nonsense, not when they arrive on the planet - until it becomes the source of the navigation signal.

And if we ignore all of that and stick with the “command ship” theory anyway, that means we’re trying to do the entire battle sequence without setting up the plan, the goal, the plot, or the stakes. Hal, that’s not “subtlety”; that’s just sloppy writing. We can avoid all of this confusion if we just cut four words from the script. Four words!

Hal 9000 said:

Well hey, I see what you mean. Earlier I read into it more subtlety than it really seems it has. Merely removing “for just minutes” could indeed streamline things. They don’t follow up on this really, unless it’s when Poe says “this is our last chance we gotta hit those cannons now!”
What’s he mean by “just minutes”? That after that the ships will be oriented again?

Christ almighty, this script really has no idea what it’s doing, does it? I mean, yeah, that was my takeaway from “just minutes.” But it doesn’t make sense, because the only thing “uniting” the Sith Fleet is the navigation signal, and then once the signal is knocked out the Rebels leave and all of the Sith ships crash, but there’s still another nav tower on the ground, and, and I just…aaaahhhhh!!

…

What if we also trim Poe’s second line (after the lightning storm stops) to “I’m back on. This is our chance, we gotta hit those cannons now”? It’s an ADR line anyway, so it should be pretty easy to do.

I agree with Hal on this one. I love the idea - honestly, “There’s been a lot of that, lately” comes very close to working for me - but in all of these clips, Carrie’s tone just sounds too…flippant? Like, the tone of the conversation is supposed to be a little on the dour side, and then here comes those cheery-sounding lines, and it just…clashes. I’d be interested in exploring other suggestions though, especially in the wide shot.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Is the loudness of a line supposed to scale with where the camera is in comparison to the character? Because my thinking was that for the first two lines the camera was further away from her, while the final was much closer to her face.

So in real life, yeah; the further you (i.e. the camera) are from someone, the softer their voice will be. But filmmaking is a little different. In a film, it’s more important that the sound be at an even, easy-to-hear level, so that it can transition seamlessly between cuts. That’s what feels more “natural” when watching a movie. So, you’ll find that if a scene is really windy or rainy, you should still be able to hear the character’s voices more clearly than you would be able to in real life.

As an example, take a look at this clip that I did to correct Poe saying that the ships will only be stuck on Exegol “for a few minutes” without the Nav Tower. (Side note: Seriously, we’re not even going to use this one? The line completely contradicts an essential plot element in this very movie!) Pay attention to the shots compared to the volume of the dialogue: It opens with a wide shot, zooms in to a medium shot, cuts to directly next to Poe, another medium, a wide…and it’s all the same volume throughout.

Just like good video editing, good audio editing should be completely seamless. That’s why so much dialogue is (re)done in ADR.

Ah, sorry Jar Jar. I thought you meant the other scene; my bad. I think Leia says “I know” at some point. So you could play it like:

“I have to go to Exegol.”
“No. [They look at each other] I know-”
“I don’t want to go without your blessing but I will.”

Maybe she’s saying “I know you want to fight [blah blah blah]”? Just an option.

And Hal, could we do a reverse deepfake on Rey? Keep her face, and just simulate her clothes and hair from TLJ? lol