sherlockpotter

Burbin said:

Here’s my (rough) attempt to implement some of my ideas for the vision, building off of Hal’s edit:
https://streamable.com/3gm19b

Just went back and saw this. I think the added clips really enhance it nicely, Burbin! And I love the sound effects with the screams, they create a lovely, eerie tone. It’s a little jarring to hear “Join me” and “You’re still holding on” simultaneously - I’d try to space them out slightly so they don’t overlap - but overall big improvement!

I’m still a little unsure about using those TFA shots though. The theatrical film sets that up as a “Wow, Rey is tapping into the Force and becoming a Jedi” Hero-moment, and I think it could be weird for casual audience members to have that retconned into a Dark Side moment in a 1-second flashback montage.

Okay! Finally saw the workprint. Thoughts:

• Agree with Octorox, you should probably trim Palpy’s “she is not who you think she is” mumbo-jumbo.
• You know, honestly, I think I prefer Rey’s vision without any extra footage. Keep it nice and light - Kylo’s can be all about his past character development; but I like how Rey’s feels like it’s more of a warning than the introspective rumination that Kylo’s is, especially the way it hits her unexpectedly. So, Kylo’s “vision” is really him reflecting on the previous movie; Rey’s “vision” is an actual glimpse of the future.
• Not particularly relevant, but I still get goosebumps at some of these changes, especially that puppet show. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - well done everyone who worked on those shots!
• Rey still has her line to Finn in Babu’s workshop about Ochi’s ship; Snooker already mentioned it, but I’m seconding cutting it.
• The audio mixing on Kylo’s dialogue in his bedroom randomly switches louder and softer. Needs a little fine tuning there.
• The new dialogue in the Bedroom scene functions well; but…I dunno, the whole fight just feels a little pointless now. All of the dialogue is relatively unimportant. I think the deeper point of the scene is that Rey is lashing out instead of staying calm, which is a really interesting story beat; but I wonder if there’s some way to highlight that? Maybe move the “So much pain in you, so much anger” line to this scene? (For the record, I’d much rather take empty platitudes in this scene over nonsensical retcons. It’s totally serviceable now, but I just wonder if it can be pushed further.)
• Subjective, but I think the pacing on the Destroyer feels a little off. I wonder if it might flow a little better as: Poe shot and they’re captured -> the Bedroom scene -> Pryde’s “Terminate them!” scene -> Rey finds 3PO -> “I’m the spy” -> “Friends ahead”. Thoughts?
• The Hangar dialogue all sounds really nice on a technical level. Kudos to RL and Spence and anyone else who helped with that. I did notice that Kylo says “We’re a Dyad” instead of “We’ve become a Dyad.” Not sure if that was intentional.
• Kylo tells Rey that she’s destined to kill Palpy and take the throne, and then in the next scene, Rey declares to Finn that she’s going to destroy Palpatine? Why? Wouldn’t she not want to do that? Maybe we could lampshade it a little bit by slipping in an extra line to the effect of “Kylo says…I’m going to find Palpatine, and destroy him.” “That doesn’t sound like you…” blah blah blah.
• Like I mentioned before, I think the “General/General” scene cuts off a little awkwardly. It might flow better as: Ahch-To -> Memory restoration -> Finn and D-O -> “General/General” -> Plugging D-O into the computer. Or maybe there’s some way of preserving that final shot of Poe when he’s talking to Finn? Maybe it could be reconstructed like this: “This droid…” “Who, Cone-Face?” “I am D-O.” “Sorry, D-O.” “This droid has a ton of information about Exegol.” [Hold on Poe’s face, or on D-O - just something to give the scene a little moment to breathe.]
• The conversation between Rey and Palpy works really well. No complaints there.
• Since this is a new release, will you be including Poppa’s color correction on Ben’s/Vader’s TIE on Exegol? (Was there something else that needed to be color corrected? I can’t remember.)
• Also, speaking of, are the LUTs applied to all of the scenes for the workprint? Some of the colors feel a little off, but that may just be my monitor.

Honestly, I’m not sold on the new clips. I get what you’re going for, but the TFA clip really only works in the context of Starlight - every other version of the film plays it as a heroic, “coming into her own” moment - and as much as I love Starlight, we can’t know for sure that other people will have seen it before watching this one. And then you have a quick shot of Luke, to which my gut reaction is “Oh boy, Luke Skywalker!” The context of Luke’s scene is lost; although you could probably solve at least the Luke problem by incorporating his “You went straight to the Dark” line. For the other clip, maybe that shot of her doing the overhead strike at the ed of TFA? She looks rather murderous there. Play Luke’s line across both clips.

Alternatively, just showing more shots of the future is always an option, I guess.

RogueLeader said:

I mean, yeah, it is dumb. But I think the idea is that the bad guys are defeated by the people they’ve used and abused. Rey healing the serpent inspired BB-8 to give some of his energy to D-O, and that act of kindness gave the heroes an unexpected advantage.

Honestly, I’d love to see someone replace D-O’s human (JJ Abrams) voice with some glitchy beeps and boops like a normal astromech droid would make. Especially when the droid just says stuff like, “sad” and “happy”. It’s not endearing.

That would be adorable - like you said, it’s not endearing for D-O to tell us that 3PO “dying” is “sad.” It’s like a laugh track in a comedy, but somehow even more inauthentic.

You know, thinking about it some more, I don’t necessarily hate D-O having information on Exegol; I hate how unearned the information is. They’re just moping around, and then D-O, off-screen, tells Finn, “By the way, I have all of this super valuable information, if you want it!” Maybe if R2 or BB-8 or someone had to repair D-O to unlock the information, it would explain why they’re just discovering it now. Heck, if Finn had just realized on his own that D-O might have this information saved, it would at least feel like something the heroes achieved, rather than something they were handed by the screenwriters.

EDIT: God, they can’t even be bothered to build up to the reveal at all. The hanging question is Finn asking D-O “What’s your name?” And then he goes running to tell Poe that D-O is the answer to their prayers. Why couldn’t he ask a question that’s relevant to Exegol?

I’ve only done a quick skim through the workprint so far, but I did think it was a little jarring that the “General/General” scene gets cut off so abruptly. I think it might flow better if the memory restoration scene was placed directly after Ahch-To again, and then “General/General” hard-cuts to them plugging in D-O for the weather report. It might feel like a quick cut within the same scene then, as opposed to one-and-a-half scenes awkwardly broken apart.

There was one other concern I had here - going the whole movie without knowing anything about Exegol, and then just haphazardly revealing that “Oh yeah, D-O knows all this stuff! It was right under our noses the whole time!” feels kinda… stupid. Yes, there’s an awkward throwaway line that D-O still doesn’t know how to get there; but am I the only one who finds this whole setup really awkward and contrived?

This was definitely a problem in the theatrical version too, but it feels clunkier and more obvious now without being obfuscated behind that “EPIC twist reveal” that Palpatine was retroactively responsible for shaping Rey’s entire life (*sigh*). Not the biggest issue, but I was curious if anyone else feels the same way.

NeverarGreat said:

To take the first one, that Republic reinforcements may be en-route during the Starkiller battle, that is actually what I imagine happening at this point. In fact, my concept is that the Raddus and its attending ships in TLJ are actually these reinforcements, they merely got to the Resistance too late to help in the Starkiller battle. This is also why the Resistance has a specialized fleet of what appear to be gravity-based, planetary bombers. This makes a lot of sense if they were being sent to take out something like an Oscillator on a giant planet Death Star, and not much sense for anything else.

I do agree that it should be unclear whether or not the ships actually launched before the system’s destruction, with the implication that they couldn’t even launch. This would make their appearance in TLJ a bit of a welcome surprise.

Oh I see. That does make a lot of sense. Ideally, it’s something that would be explained in the TLJ crawl, but of course that’s not something you can worry about here. Making the fleet’s status unclear seems like a perfect solution.

In thinking about this last night, I had the idea that perhaps R2 is in clear disrepair. For example, there could be panels hanging half-off of his body and he is smeared with dirt and oil. I imagine that this wouldn’t be too difficult to implement since R2 would be stationary for this change. In this state, BB-8 unveiling him is less like reuniting with an old friend and more with realizing how neglected he has become. BB-8’s sadness at seeing R2 in this state is immediately understandable and enhances the theme which is apparent in the scenes of Han and Leia happening around this point - our heroes are in a bad place and relationships that should be vibrant are stained with neglect.

Also, if R2 was so damaged, Rey’s involvement in the final scene would be much more expected since she tends to fix droids out of hand. You know, that whole “Your antenna’s bent” thing. When the scene transitions to night, R2’s broken and dirty panels are fixed and now he merely needs to wake up for the rest of the plot to happen.

Man, if anyone can pull that off, it’d be you, Nev! That sounds incredible - both working perfectly with what we’ve established about Rey, and also being a fantastic visual metaphor for the state of the Republic in light of the rise of the First Order. I could totally see R2 falling into disrepair without Luke there to maintain him.

For his introduction, could BB-8 maybe overhear some off-screen line of dialogue from someone? “Did you get the droid unpacked yet? I don’t know why the General insists on keeping him anymore…” And then he goes off to investigate, and finds R2 in disrepair? Not sure how that might work with the available shots; but in theory, it gives R2 a quick (re)introduction to set up his reveal. Also shines a bit more light into Leia’s desperation to find her brother.

Also, “Expect to launch within the hour” sounds great to me! I honestly really like sade’s idea of name-dropping Holdo here - not only would it make her feel less out-of-the-blue in TLJ, where she’s suddenly second in command even though we’ve never heard of her; but it would also help to establish both Poe’s and the audience’s inherent mistrust of her, because she failed to help them with Starkiller. (Actually, that would also help to explain that the Republic Fleet joined up with the Resistance afterwards, since we’d know Holdo was in that group. “Oh, there she is! Finally!”)

Maybe something like: “General, the Senate has voted - Vice Admiral Holdo is mobilizing the fleet! They expect to launch within the hour.” “They haven’t got a chance.” (Just because she trusts Holdo, she also knows that Hyperspace travel isn’t instantaneous unless it’s in TROS.)

Is it possible to imply that the Republic is going to send some reinforcements, but that those reinforcements are still stuck on [Not-Coruscant]? I feel like it needs to be clear that the Republic fleet is getting wiped out along with the planet, because otherwise it implies A) That reinforcements could still show up after Starkiller fires, because maybe they’re still en route, and B) That the Resistance isn’t the last hope for the Republic after all, because they still have a whole fleet somewhere out there that’s being prepped. I know the goal is to make the Republic not seem incompetent, but I think it’s starting to get to the point of muddying the stakes and consequences of the finale.

Maybe something like “General, the Senate has voted to send reinforcements and are gathering their forces on [Not-Coruscant].”

Plus, if reinforcements are going to come, and then Starkiller kills them all, that just adds to that crushing feeling of hopelessness that you build up so well in your edit.

I’m not entirely sure what the new ending is - could you give a summary please? I am worried about one thing here though:

NeverarGreat said:

But I could instead split the R2 scene differently, with BB-8 uncovering R2 and knocking him with his dome before becoming discouraged and rolling away.

As clunky as the exposition is in the theatrical film (“Oh boy, I wonder if R2 has the information we need? He probably doesn’t, but I wonderrrrrrrrr…”), the important thing is that it establishes why we need to bring back R2 for this film. I’m worried that just sticking him in the film with a literal curtain flourish, and then walking away from him for the next hour without a word…I think it’s going to feel like derivative fan service. It’s like Finn activating the holochess game on the Falcon - it’s the film waving iconography in your face to get a cheer from the fans, but not (seemingly) serving a story purpose. “Guys look! It’s R2! We brought back R2! You remember R2-D2, RIGHT?? HE’S HERE TOO!!!”

Maybe it’ll work better in practice though - like I said, I’m not entirely sure what the end goal is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You know, I think I lean towards the blue myself. I find it more impactful, since it brings to mind Palps and Dooku using Lightning in the past. And, I dunno…it might be a little awkward if this movie is about Rey’s journey to becoming “a Jedi,” but then her Jedi lightsaber is the same color as her Sith-y lightning.

Both are fairly minor nitpicks, and you could just as easily argue the opposite (yellow makes her stand out more from the Sith, and it being the same color as her lightsaber allows the yellow color to bookend her arc). I say go with what makes you happy, Hal! Which is probably the yellow. 😉

May the Fourth be with you, everyone!

I think you’re overthinking it, Nev. When Leia sends her assistant-person to the Republic to “insist they take action against the First Order,” all the Resistance knows is that the FO just attacked a seedy bar. That’s certainly enough to make Leia worried, but do they have any tangible proof about Starkiller Base yet? Heck, they don’t seem to have any data on it at all until 10 minutes before the battle, when Poe does the whole “This was the Death Star. This is Death Star 3.0” thing. The fact that assistant-person is still there when the system is destroyed makes me think the Senate is still stalled on the matter.

Starkiller’s been built in secret, and the Republic doesn’t really seem concerned with the First Order as an organization. I don’t think it will break the suspension of disbelief if the Republic’s not actively fighting the First Order. (That’s kind of the point of the Resistance, no?)

That’s a good point. Plus, that would make the whole concept of the Sequels less cynical - not so much “everything our OT heroes worked for failed because they’re bad at their job,” and more that “They succeeded for a time, but eventually the First Order stole their victory.” I think the key would be to somehow establish both that everything has been grand, but also that the First Order wants to do away with it. In under 100 words.

The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, working
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Peace dissolves into chaos,
and Imperial sympathizers
begin rising in power.
Declaring the Republic to
be broken and inept,
they demand a return
to the FIRST ORDER
of the Empire.

While the Senate stalls,
a few determined members
secretly form a daring
RESISTANCE to the threat.
They pursue a lead to the
Last Jedi’s whereabouts,
believing that Luke can
end the Imperial threat
once and for all…

It would also work to add “While the Senate stalls, [desperate to avoid war]” to the last paragraph; but that puts you at ten lines, and I think the other lines are all more important to the setup…

Octorox said:

I think the line would make a lot more sense if she said she was going to destroy Kylo Ren. Then she gives into her anger and does almost kill him, which traumatizes her so much that she leaves for Luke’s island.

Mine is still in progress, but that’s largely how I’m planning on implementing it for my version. Kylo wants Rey to join him, she later reflects “He killed [his] father. I’m going to destroy him.” - setting up both why she still doesn’t trust him, and also (re)fueling her anger towards him for when they fight on the Death Star.

Not to belabor the crawl, but I think it’s still a bit…wordy. Just based on how it’s designed - how it moves slowly and then fades into the distance - I think short sentences are easier for the audience to read in the limited time allotted.

The other concern is that I don’t really think anyone in the First Order cares about Luke and the Jedi except for Kylo and (to a lesser, less personal extent) Snoke. Kylo has the personal vendetta against Luke; and Snoke really only cares once there’s a threat that the Resistance will join with Luke to help bring about a new Jedi Order. “The droid will soon be delivered to the Resistance…our strategy must now change…” And Hux’s line: “Supreme Leader Snoke was explicit. Capture the droid if we can, but destroy it if we must.” It sounds to me like Snoke mainly wants to prevent a Jedi resurgence, rather than the First Order actively hunting them down.

Bear in mind too, that the galaxy perpetually has short-term memory loss about Jedi even existing. Everyone forgot about them 15 years after the Order fell the first time, and now 30 years later, when Luke’s own sister is helping to run the Republic, Rey says “Luke Skywalker? I thought he was a myth.” I know Jakku’s not the most advanced society; but still, people are stupid, yo.

I took Hux’s speech as, like you said, fascist propaganda. But, I suppose there are tons of other reasons why he might feel betrayed by the republic. Personally, I gravitate towards general disorder and chaos in the galaxy, due to ineffective New Republic governance. That explains A) Why the Senate are a bunch of dumb-dumbs who can’t even act against an obvious threat. B) Why the First Order thinks things were better under the Empire. C) Why they chose the name First Order. D) Rose’s complaints about the economy and wealth inequality in TLJ. In a similar vein, E) Why the Republic apparently has to buy their weapons and ships from private contractors, instead of having their own construction yards. Heck, maybe that even explains why Kylo would help the First Order destroy the Republic; why would a tiff with his uncle cause him to want to overthrow the entire galactic government? Etc.

“The Republic told us things would be better without the Empire. Look at how terrible everything is now though. They lied to us. We need to replace them.”

Obviously, this is all conjecture, and we can’t really too much get into this in the space of a title crawl anyway.

So, all of that in mind, how’s about something like this:

The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, working
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

In the ensuing chaos,
Imperial sympathizers
have begun rising in power.
Declaring the Republic to
be broken and inept,
they demand a return
to the FIRST ORDER
of the Empire.

While the Senate stalls,
a few determined members
secretly form a daring
RESISTANCE to the threat.
They pursue a lead to the
Last Jedi’s whereabouts,
believing that Luke can
end the Imperial threat
once and for all…

Every line is 25 characters or less, except for “Have begun rising in power.” which is 27. This way, you also get the direct lead-in to Poe’s mission on Jakku (rather than the more vague “find the Last Jedi”), which matches the convention of the other films’ crawls.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Fun fact: even the new Lego Star Wars game replaces the Aki Aki puppet show with the story of the Skywalkers. In that case it’s Anakin, but same difference, really. Just thought it was cool that the devs thought along the same lines there.

Clearly the game devs view Ascendant as the canon Episode IX instead of the theatrical cut.

It should be possible to remove the flashbacks while still maintaining a fairly cohesive score - I’ve been testing that for my edit. (Still need to finish the new dialogue, so I don’t have anything to present right now.) That said, I’d be very interested to seeing a version of the scene without any music at all. I’d imagine that you’d have to re-foley the entire sequence though, so that’ll be a ton of work.

I agree with RL - it’s a really clever solution, and the match cut works well. But I was also caught off guard a bit by the sudden switches between the ship and planet sets. Without as much setup into the idea that we’re going to be flashing back and forth in the scene, it felt a bit jarring, like, “Wait, where are we right now?” I think it would be especially confusing for first-time viewers. (That said, maybe it flows better in context, when we’ve already had one Skype call with them on Pasaana, and we’ve already established a few minutes beforehand that Kylo is on the planet.)

Ah, that’s right, I totally forgot about Kylo’s line earlier. (Maybe I blocked it from my memory when “They sold you to protect you” happened.) Thanks, RL! So yeah, TLJ establishes that Rey is upset about her parents abandoning her. Kylo reintroduces that in TROS on Pasaana, and then it comes to a head in the confrontation with Palpatine. That works from a structural perspective, right? Setup and payoff and all that jazz?

And like Starkiller said, I would just assume Palps is probing Rey’s mind for potential weaknesses at that point - places to twist the knife. Kinda like Vader sensing Luke thinking about Leia.

“Do you still count the days since your parents left? Such pain in you. Such anger.” Actually, the line works perfectly to tee up Rey’s potential fall to the Dark Side. Which makes less sense in the Rey Palpatine version, because Kylo says “Don’t you feel hurt and angry that your parents left you?” And then later he says “It wasn’t their fault. Palpatine did it, not them.” Like, he tries to make her resent her parents; but then absolves her parents, and tries to blame it on Palpy instead? Why not just blame Palpatine in the first place! And that’s why she calmly tells Sheev “My parents were good people, and they loved me”; and Palpy then awkwardly has to pivot his whole plan to making vague threats against her friends instead. God, this movie just shoots itself in the foot every chance it gets.

So here’s something worth considering. For my Rey Nobody version, I wanted to cut any reference Kylo makes to Rey’s parents. At that point then, you could edit Palpatine’s dialogue with Rey during their confrontation so that he calls her “Weak, like your parents.” Building off of TLJ, that line actually makes a lot of sense - how can Rey possibly hope to stand up to Palpatine, if her parents were drunken fools, left to rot somewhere on Jakku? How is she any better than that?

On the other hand, does it feel too…I dunno, shoehorned? Pointless? Like, that would be the first real mention of Rey’s parents since she realized that they were nobodies in the last movie. Is it weird to bring that element back at the eleventh hour, without having built on it at all throughout this film? (“Oh yeah, that’s right. She was upset about her parents or something before? Who cares at this point?”) Or would it be a good way of acknowledging that she’s finally come to terms her her parents’ identity; and her not falling for Palpatine’s taunts actually becomes a moment that shows her growth since the previous film?

Trust me, I went back and forth on the name a lot! Still probably only about 75% convinced on it, honestly. But I like that there was sort of a double meaning, in my mind - I’m trying to “un-tell” the original story and remove the retcons, while also, as Cap said, telling my own version.

And it’s not just removing Rey’s parentage - it’s replacing that element with a new arc that focuses on her tipping towards the Dark Side. Plus new stuff to flesh out Kylo, exploring more of the wider galaxy, some new sequences, etc.

Nice, simple re-edit lol.

SpenceEdit said:

I’ve been playing around with the ending for my personal edit, which is a Rey Nobody edit, and I think I’m onto something that could be useful to others:

https://vimeo.com/681559817

Basically, I used footage from HAL’s version and the theatrical to eliminate the old lady and the “I’m Rey” business, so we can end on a more emotional note.

I like how you were able to incorporate the original “silhouette” shot, it really helps smooth the pacing without the old woman.

Personally, I do like the ghosts, though. Otherwise, It feels kind of reductive of her journey throughout the trilogy. She’s back to where she started - all alone on a desert wasteland.

NeverarGreat said:

And here is my latest take:

The last Jedi has vanished. In his absence, a new Imperial power has risen to threaten the galaxy.

Descending into chaos and division, members of the Republic Senate have secretly called upon a daring RESISTANCE to find Luke Skywalker and restore the light of hope to the darkening stars.

Arising from its barbaric hidden stronghold, the IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER hastens toward a village on Jakku, sanctuary of Luke’s faithful disciples who hold the key to the Jedi’s return…

I think that new take works really well, Nev! Implying that the First Order rises specifically because Luke has gone into hiding makes a lot of sense - plus, that adds a really clever twist when you get to TLJ, and you learn that both events stem directly from Luke failing Ben.

You might just want to clarify that “certain/some/several members of the Republic Senate have secretly” blah blah blah, just to make it clearer that Leia & Co. don’t necessarily have the full Senate’s support. (Otherwise, it could be read as if “The Senate has secretly created a Resistance without the First Order realizing.”)

And if I want to be reeeally pedantic, you might be able to more readily hint at Starkiller Base by changing “from its barbaric hidden stronghold” to “from a mysterious hidden base,” to imply that not only does no one know where it is, but also that there’s something more to it than it just being a staging ground. But that’s just splitting hairs.

It’s great to have you back, Nev; take all the time you need!

EddieDean said:

Finally read through this, it sounds fantastic. Thoughts:

• Not important at all, but is Exegol supposed to be Moraband/Korriban? Wookiepedia doesn’t seem to make that link.
• I love the idea of using Kijimi to enhance the Luke’s inspiration subplot. Some new background voice chatter should be helpful there, like the finale’s "For Skywalker!"s. It’d be great to get graffiti, as people have suggested, maybe even explicitly showing Luke’s face or a stylised version of his facedown on Crait.
• The only change I’d prefer to avoid would be that I’d rather keep the Palpatine reveal early, so it hangs over the movie for longer.
• Well, that and maybe preserving Rey claiming the Skywalker legacy at the end. I think it makes sense for her to declare the identity that she’s worked so hard for.

This next thought might not quote belong here, but shifting the improved Mustafar Minute to the end of TLJ might do us some good. Ending TLJ with Rey shutting out Kylo, then the radio/whispers of ‘find me’ followed by Kylo raiding Mustafar and finding the Dark Power (unidentified) on Exegol means that offscreen time can be spent with the First Order collaborating with Palpatine to enhance their fleet. It would also parallel TFA nicely: TFA has the coda where Rey leaves the main plot to find her hope, and TLJ would have the code where Kylo Ren leaves the main plot to pursue a new power.

Thanks, Eddie! I really appreciate your insights, especially given your experience with your awesome Clone Wars edits!

Moraband, Korriban…not sure. I was mainly going off of Clone Wars since I just watched those episodes recently. It’s just kinda weird to me that they’d create another “Sith Planet” just for this film (like geez, how many do they need?), so I wanted to try untangling that knot a bit. I suppose, for what I was planning, it doesn’t really matter what the true Sith Planet is. (I was going to use one of those 3PO AI bots, so I guess whether or not it’s even included depends on how good it sounds.)

Graffiti on Kijimi would be awesome to add, but I don’t know how to 3D track elements into the film. If anyone wants to lend a hand with that, I would love to include it!

For Palpatine, I’d rather not go back to TLJ; my goal is to minimize him, not spread him out over more of the trilogy! I know, it’s a pretty radical plot change; maybe it won’t work in practice, but I promise, it’s really cool in my head! The way I envision it, basically, is that Palpatine feels less like his own character, and more like the symbolic manifestation of the darkness building within Rey. (It’s kind of like…you know in the Narnia films, how the White Witch keeps coming back to tempt the Pevensies? She’s in those sequels more for character reasons than plot reasons, and that’s how I want to treat the Palpster.) The Sith Fleet is the in-universe excuse for bringing him back, not the metatextual reason for why he adds value to the story.

I want the showdown with him to feel very personal for Rey, rather than Rey fighting him by default because she’s the only character with a lightsaber. And that’s why I’m going to such lengths to remove him from as much of the story as possible - because it should be Rey’s story. He never tried to kidnap her as a child, he didn’t have some grand plan to lure her to Exegol - she goes to Exegol to face her own demons. Palpatine’s plan is solely about launching the Sith Fleet, not about Rey. And if it’s so straightforward, I don’t think we need to dwell on it beyond that. (Ironically, by making the mechanics of his plot more surface-level, I’m trying to add a lot of symbolic/abstract depth to the characters.)

Again, it works in my head. We’ll find out (if I ever finish this) if it works in practice!

For Rey Skywalker, I think I less hate the actual declaration (especially with the different shot used in Ascendant), and more so just how clunky and awkward the setup is with “Rey WhooooOOOOOooo???” (I wonder if there’s a way to introduce “Rey Skywalker” more organically? Luke says “Never forget who you are.” Rey: “I’m a Jedi - Rey Skywalker.” Something like that.) Although part of me also thinks she shouldn’t have to declare herself a “Skywalker” in order to have value as a person. She should learn to accept that being a Nobody isn’t a bad thing - she can still be a good person and accomplish great things without being part of a legacy.

Raditz, I am trying to expand on Poe a bit more during the Kijimi section; but I like your idea about making it more explicit elsewhere too! I think there’s definitely room for having him be an inspirational figure elsewhere as well.

And Arabian, those are all definitely valid points. It kind of makes me reconsider that shot of him staring at the Starkiller beam firing, like maybe he’s feeling a bit regretful about everything behind that mask. I just don’t know if he needs a romantic arc in order to be redeemed; but I’ll keep mulling it over in the back of my mind. I really appreciate hearing another perspective on that part of the story, thank you!

arabian said:

sherlockpotter said:

Maybe I’ll be like Rey - suffering an abusive relationship with this story for so long that I eventually embrace it romantically. 😉 […] it just feels like a very…I dunno, unhealthy foundation for a romance. But I’m open to having my mind changed - goodness knows there’s still plenty of time for that to happen!

Rey/Ben is actually the OPPOSITE of unhealthy and toxic. It’s just been very misrepresented. Rey fell for BEN, not Kylo. She saw through Kylo, wanted to save Ben from the darkness he was lost in. But she realized at the end of TLJ that she couldn’t save him. He could only save himself. We saw awesome, healthy, NON-TOXIC-NESS on display because Rey walked away from Kylo when he wouldn’t stop being, well, Kylo, and continued to embrace the Dark Side.

She continued to want nothing to do with Kylo throughout TRoS. And when she saved his life, she let him know that she wanted to take BEN’S hand, not Kylo’s. And that was like a LIGHTBULB going off in Ben’s head. He could be loved as Ben Solo, something that he hadn’t realized. He didn’t have to be this dark, brooding bad boy, essentially. He could try and be a good guy. That is who Rey wanted, that is who she cared for… the guy who had good in him. Remember she had seen inside his head in TFA, she knew what his childhood and teenage years – where he had been manipulated and abused emotionally, mentally, and physically by Snoke. That was who she was reaching out to. The guy who, like her was looking for a place to belong.

And in the end, BEN made the choice to reject Kylo Ren and save himself, and then go and try to help save the galaxy. He made the healthy choice and it was only at that point that Rey accepted him because he had rejected Kylo Ren.

TLJ, again, set this up beautifully – which had actually started in TFA – but sigh the ball was dropped in quite a few ways in TRoS. double sigh

Ahhh, okay, that’s a really good explanation, thank you! Probably the first time that relationship has made sense to me, at least on paper.

I think the problem though (in my own interpretation of the films) is twofold:

1. Yes, Rey saw the good (i.e. the “Ben”) in Kylo in TLJ, but I didn’t interpret that as “I’d bone ya if only you’d stop slicing people and objects in half with your lightsaber in violent fits of rage.” I took that to mean that she might forgive him someday; perhaps even be friends. But again, that’s such a huge leap from “You’re not completely evil,” to “I’m totally in love with you, let’s make out.” I think TROS could have developed that into romantic feelings, but I don’t think it did.

2. I don’t see “Ben” and “Kylo” as distinct characters, except in the abstract. Actually, that’s one of the things I most enjoy about Kylo, and that I wanted to emphasize in my edit - that under the suit he’s still a relatively normal guy who misses his family. The flipside of that coin is that he’s a relatively normal guy who’s done some absolutely monstrous things, both to the galaxy at large, and to Rey personally. This is the guy who knocked Rey unconscious, kidnapped her, tortured her, and then blew up an entire system of planets in a diabolical power grab. The guy is a fascist, a terrorist, and a murderer, regardless of whatever goodness he may also have; and I don’t buy that Rey would start snogging him immediately after witnessing all of that.

Burbin said:

Best of luck, Sherlock! I can’t agree with your interpretation of certain key events, but I’m really curious to see how the movie can be morphed by your particular view. You did some great work for Ascendant, and some of the stuff in your change list is pretty interesting.

Since you’re going with the “Rey nobody” route, are you planning to tackle all the necessary changes on your own? Or will you wait for things to materialize on that thread? The angle you’re going with seems very similar to what RogueLeader was working on.

I so appreciate that, Burbin! You’re referring to the Exegol battle stuff, right? Haha, I know we’ve debated this in the past, but I still feel like it can be streamlined a bit more. I’m putting it on the list for now, but we’ll see what happens!

RogueLeader and I have actually been discussing a few different elements here, include Rey Nobody - you’re right, I think we both have very similar interpretations for how we want to play it. I think my version is going to be different from the other Rey Nobody versions though, mainly because of how I’m incorporating all of these other elements along with it. For example, the way I’ve rewritten Kylo’s Quarters in my version, it’s not just a straight 1:1 “replace dialogue with Rey Nobody stuff”; I’m working on new dialogue for Kylo that will tie together something like five all-new story elements. It’s tricky, but everything seems to make sense in my notes! Once I start locking things in place, I’ll probably post some test scenes to see if they make sense for you guys, too.

So to answer your question, my plan is to hopefully include some of the parts that have already been developed by other folks, mixed in with additional new dialogue that I’m working on myself.

Hal 9000 said:

Another thread to keep a close eye on. Sounds like an ambitious changelist, and I have learned my lesson about underestimating what’s possible. I like several of your ideas, so I’ll do what I can!

I might have already said this at some point, Hal - I tried to do an edit like this when the Bluray first came out, and it was a disaster. The only reason I think this is feasible at all is because Ascendant gave me such a strong foundation on which to build. So thank you!