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Cameron Samurai said:

Thoughts on the new animated movie Subject?

I have many!

Some context: outside of the original 5 year run, In the Beginning, and A Call to Arms/Crusade—I don’t think any of the other things JMS has tried to get going have worked (although I will always say that if you compare Crusade to the first 13 episodes of B5, Crusade is actually better [despite the music and studio interference]). Also, I’ve never been a fan of multiverse stories.

I LOVE the idea of the animated film, however. I think I understand the reason for the story which is that JMS has a shot to bring back all the characters but, story wise, it would be impossible to have them all in the same movie—particularly Londo. I also think it was studio mandated that he must have the Babylon 5 station as prominent component of the story (see: intellectual property and brand recognition).

Speculations: I also think JMS is tired of being asked the question “what would have happened if Sinclair stayed on Babylon 5” and will at least deal with that here. I bet over the years he’s had better ideas for the original series and wants to play with them.

Then there’s the reboot. I’m not against the idea since WAY back in the day I wanted Richard Hatch’s Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming pitch over what Ron D. Moore was pitching… so I have egg on my face over that. Reboots can be good.

Here’s what I think is the plan: we’ll get the B5 reboot BUT, if The Road Home does well, we’ll also get the B5AU as well that will exist in the original series continuity. WB’s DCAU has been awesome and has lived alongside the live action stuff for years and years. Why have only one project running when you can have 2 working concurrently?

JMS says that he wants to make more animated films if this does well and there’s big stories he can do. I can see the stories in the canon books being adapted (psi-corp trilogy, Centauri trilogy, technomage trilogy, To Dream in the City of Sorrows), get an ending to Crusade, the telepath war (hell, bring back Talia for this one!), the first Shadow War (which could be a sequel to TDitCoS and reveal the fate of Catherine Sakai), a movie about the origins of the Great Machine, the Drakh War which was mentioned by Delenn (assuming it isn’t part of Crusade), you name it.

Up to this point, JMS has been limited by budget on B5. The animated format allows him to bring back the surviving original cast in any time frame and to tell grand stories where budget isn’t a concern. The first movie is to test the waters with the entire cast and a familiar setting, I just hope JMS decides to use it to fill in the big questions he left dangling.

-Viti- said:

Interested in hearing why you chose a movie format instead of cutting them down to a more streamlined tv show?
That said, I’ll take any excuse to rewatch Babylon 5.

Honestly, it was because I realized the big, arc heavy episodes came in multiples of 3 which roughly equaled 2 hours and a bit. It also gave me some leeway when I was mixing and matching stuff together in earlier seasons (plus making the addition of Sheridan a bit less abrupt). Also: it was just fun to see if I could do it!

That said, I’ve been planning on going back and redoing the entire thing in episodes sometime in the future. because of the higher def releases. And that I miss the intros!

andrewkim said:

Thank you for the link. I loved your work, well done.
I particularly enjoyed III because I disliked the originals so much and you managed to respin the story and remove the rubbish.
We’ll done

Thanks for that! I’m always curious what people think about that one since I basically cut out all the OT characters. I wish I had more footage to play around with and flesh in the story a bit more, but I did what I could with what I had.

Finally finished the third film in my Abridged series. Whereas the first and second films roughly followed the source material, Abridged 3 is a radical departure.

The major change is moving the story another generation in the future and making Rey Leia and Han’s granddaughter: Rey Solo. Ben Solo no longer exists and Kylo Ren is the character’s given name. Reylo was a thing in my story but it’s part of the characters’ backstory (rather than happening in the story). Kylo is basically a creepy, stalky, ex-boyfriend now.

Because it is set 60 years after Endor, very few of the OT characters appear. Having the First Order rise on their watch (along with other decisions about the characters) never sat right with me so let’s just assume they had their happily ever after, more or less. Palpatine is gone too so we just have Snoke as the main bad guy.

Starkiller Base is now located on Exogal and the final battle sees Poe fighting in his starfighter, Finn and Rose infiltrating the base, and a final duel between Rey and Kylo on the surface of Exogal. Instead of cutting Canto Bight out, it’s now an integral part of the story find someone who can help lower the shields to Starkiller Base.

All three films are now available! PM me if you want copies!

skyled said:

I’m interested in this. Did you do anything with the TV movies? Do you recommend them as part of your take on the series?

I used a bit from In the Beginning for films 1, 3, and 18 as framing devices… probably 10 minutes in total? There’s no reason you couldn’t watch the films with this (and I guess The Gathering might be required viewing just to introduce Lyta) along with a few episodes that were cut out completely, honestly, it’s up to you.

I did edit this to be completely self contained but I haven’t radically changed the story so you can expand it in any way you like.

A while back I finished my Babylon 5 edit of the entire series. I love the series but I wanted to put together an edit that which removes plot threads that go nowhere, fix a few inconsistencies, and removed the stories that don’t add to the major arc stories.

I’ve put together a series of 22 films that tell the entire Babylon 5 story while removing all of the filler. In some cases, this means just stitching three episodes together in sequence while in other cases, I’ve modified story elements and rearranged some things. In the case of Babylon Squared / War Without End, I’ve removed some of the inconsistencies to create a more seamless story, even adding more of B-Squared back into WWE.

My edit works for long time fans and newcomers. A few people have told me they couldn’t get into the series before and this helped them get into it.

SEASON ONE

• Babylon 5 Project I: Dawn of the Third Age
• Babylon 5 Project II: Signs and Portents

These two films condense most of season one into about 4 hours. Talia’s role has been minimized throughout.

SEASON TWO

• Babylon 5 Project III: Moments of Revelation
• Babylon 5 Project IV: The Coming of Shadows
• Babylon 5 Project V: The Long, Twilight Struggle
• Babylon 5 Project VI: The Fall of Night

Season two is a bit odd in that it includes both the season finale of season 1 and season premiere of season 3. In both cases it has to do with new characters who are more slowly introduced in these edits.

SEASON THREE

• Babylon 5 Project VII: Point of No Return
• Babylon 5 Project VIII: Severed Dreams
• Babylon 5 Project IX: Interludes and Examinations
• Babylon 5 Project X: War Without End
• Babylon 5 Project XI: No Hiding Place
• Babylon 5 Project XII: In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum

This is the season where the series really begins to shine. As such, there aren’t as many changes here as there were in previous seasons. Films 7 and 9 are where most of the condensing of episodes happen.

SEASON FOUR

• Babylon 5 Project XIII: The Summoning
• Babylon 5 Project XIV: Into the Fire
• Babylon 5 Project XV: Lines of Communication
• Babylon 5 Project XVI: Moments of Transition
• Babylon 5 Project XVII: No Surrender No Retreat
• Babylon 5 Project XVIII: Endgame

Like season three, there wasn’t very much to change here. The only real truncating of several episodes happens in film 15 and only two episodes are removed entirely.

SEASON FIVE

• Babylon 5 Project XIX: A Tragedy of Telepaths
• Babylon 5 Project XX: Darkness Ascending
• Babylon 5 Project XXI: The Wheel of Fire
• Babylon 5 Project XXII: Sleeping in Light

The first half of season 5 was really slow and the whole story arc of 11 episodes was truncated into a single 2.5 hour film. The series finale features a time jump so I used that to bookend the film version.

How Much Has Been Cut?
I’ve cut about 45% out of the series entirely with a large amount coming from the first two seasons. If you want to get into some specific numbers, here’s what has been cut:

• Season 1: 60% removed
• Season 2: 52% removed
• Season 3: 29% removed
• Season 4: 17% removed
• Season 5: 31% removed

Some good suggestions in there (especially some that address things I wasn’t sure about). The finding of the lightsaber was a work around for me to explain why she didn’t use it on Tatooine… in retrospect, I don’t think that needs explaining especially with the scene on Ahch-To. Other suggestions are actually what many other people think are a strength of the edit.

Ultimately, thank you for the feedback! I’ll definitely be using some of the suggestions!

Peregrine said:

Sounds cool! It would be nice to see a written outline of the plot if you have one.

I’ll end up editing my post but here it goes.

PROLOGUE

• Snoke berates Kylo Ren for having not killing all of the Jedi in a second Jedi Purge as padawan Rey Solo made it out alive. Snoke "The seed of the Jedi lives in her, as long as it does, hope lives in the galaxy.
• As Kylo has his stitches taken out, he replays the slaughter and his fight against Rey in his head. Rey loses her saber.
• Rey briefly watches the Jedi temple burn

A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY…

• New scroll explains: the rise of the First Order, Starkiller Base located on Exogal, Generals Poe and Chewbacca starting a resistance behind enemy lines, Poe off to meet with a First Oder defector on Tatooine, and that Kylo was Rey’s lover and she’s now looking for the secret journal of Luke Skywalker to help her restart the Jedi Order
• Poe arrives on Tatooine and retrieves some plans. This sequence is nearly identical to the beginning of TFA minus anything that relates to Ben Solo
• Rey Solo arrives on Tatooine on the Millennium Falcon, landing just outside Niima outpost
• Kylo gets the location of where the plans are hidden from Poe
• Rey rents a speeder and travels out to the Skywalker homestead where she digs up Luke’s journal. She’s interrupted by a sound and finds BB8 being captured by a junk trader
• Finn helps Poe escape
• Finn makes it to Niima outpost where he bumps into Rey and they’re attacked by the First Order. They take the Millennium Falcon and escape Tatooine
• Kylo receives the report that the droid escaped with Finn’s help… “What girl?” takes on a more ominous feel
• Kylo and Hux talk to Snoke. Snoke says the droid is in the hands of Kylo’s lover, Rey Solo. Kylo: “she means nothing to me.”
• They arrive on D’Qar where Finn reunites with Poe. Rey is called to a nearby Jedi temple where she finds a lightsaber and trains.
• Rey then goes through Luke’s journal, passing by an image of a wayfinder
• Threepio informs General Poe that the data is encrypted. He informs the resistance that they haven’t decrypted the information yet, but they know that the first order is building something on a world called Exogal. Rey recognizes that name from Luke’s journal and says she’ll find the wayfinder that leads to Exogal, starting where Luke’s trail went cold. Chewbacca goes with her (but not R2).
• Meanwhile, Kylo meets with Snoke again. Snoke says there’s been an awakening and if he’s felt it. He responds with “Yes, she’ll never be a Jedi. I can turn her to the dark side.” Snoke: “If what you say about this girl is true, bring her to me.” Kylo knows what she needs and grabs the wayfinder from a First Order depot and uses it to travel to Starkiller Base on Exogal
• Rey travels to Ahch-To but finds it empty. She notices an X-Wing in the water below.
• Starkiller Base destroys the Republic capital on Kijimi
• The resistance finishes decoding the data on the plans for Starkiller base. They come up with a plan to knock it out. Finn says he can take out the shield.
• Ahch-To: Rey wakes up in the village and has the first connection with Kylo. She then trains with the lightsaber as a force ghost (whose face isn’t seen) watches over her. She turns to where it was and looks toward the top of the mountain. As she climbs it, she’s then pulled toward the tree. When she reaches for the books, she has a bit of a halucinatory vision where a voice explains the Jedi texts and Rey admits she’s afraid of herself.
• Meanwhile, on the Raddus in D’Qar orbit, Finn along with Rose explain how to deactivate the shield but they can’t do it without getting past the shields first. Maz tells them where they can find a codebreaker to sneak them past
• Ahch-To: At the top of the mountain, Rey meditates and has a vision of a place on the island. Her vision also shows her holding the wayfinder.
• Kylo talks to Vader’s mask, telling it about feeling the pull to the light
• Ahch-To: Chewbacca is having issues with the Porgs in the Falcon’s cockpit. Rey has a second connection with Kylo where he tries to explain why he destroyed the Jedi temple. Rey isn’t listening to him and says he is a monster and the connection fizzles out.
• Kylo destroys his mask, angry at being called a monster by someone he obviously still has feelings for.
• Rose and Finn land on Canto Bight and get arrested
• Snoke speaks with Hux saying the Resistance must be destroyed. Hux says they’ve located the Resistance fleet. Snoke is pleased and tells Hux to go to him with Kylo Ren, it’s time to complete his training.
• Kylo fixes the mask he smashed in rage
• Ahch-To: Chewbacca has dinner. The third connection between Kylo and Rey is radically rewritten here using footage of Kylo in his quarters from TRoS. Kylo says “you still want to kill me.” Rey: “yes.” Kylo: “such pain, such anger.” Rey asks him why he killed them. Kylo says Snoke wanted her dead so he wanted to turn her to the dark side to keep her safe. He tries to rationalize them being together in the dark side and that her mother was the granddaughter of Vader.
• Rey goes to the hole in the ground and touches the mirror where she has a few visions. One is when Kylo grabbed the wayfinder with a voice over “the only way you’re getting to Exogal is with me”. Another is her and Kylo kissing with a voice over from Kylo “I’ll never stop loving you” and them raising blue lightsabers together. The final one is her sitting on a throne and holding the red double saber with Kylo behind her. “Don’t be afraid of who you are” (Kylo also says “who you are”) There’s the brief saber battle with her dark reflection. The vision ends with a Kylo voice over “the dark side is in our nature, give in to it.”
• Fourth force connection: Rey admits she’s never felt so alone. Kylo tells her she’s not alone. They touch hands and then heads off with Chewbacca to the First Order fleet.
• The first order fleet arrives at D’Qar with Snoke’s destroyer. The battle begins.
• Rey arrives and heads aboard using the escape pod.
• The D’Qar battle is cross cut with Rey facing Supreme Leader Snoke who informers her it was him who bridged Kylo and Rey’s minds. He tortures her for the hell of it and then wants Kylo to finish her off.
• Kylo kills the emperor and fights side by side with Rey against the guards. Meanwhile, Paige is the last bomber left.
• After killing the royal guards, Kylo reaches out his hand and wants her to join him. She goes for the lightsaber instead. As the saber splits in half, Paige drops the payload and splits Snoke’s ship in two.
• The resistance fleet escapes and Rey steals Kylo’s starfighter and leaves herself.
• Kylo wakes up and has a chat with Hux. They know where the resistance are going.
• Back on Canto Bight, Finn and Rose meet DJ and escape prison. They meet the kids and the fathiers scene plays out normally.
• Ahch-To: Rey destroys Kylo’s ship and Luke emerges from it. He explains to her that facing fear is the destiny of the Jedi. He also explains that his sister, on her last night of training, put her saber down and said someone would complete her journey and gives Rey Leia’s saber to take to Exogal. Everything else plays out normally in this scene.
• The Resistance arrives at an auxiliary staging point located on Ajan Kloss. Poe sends out a signal to the outer rim. R2 recieves a message from Luke’s starfighter and 3P0 tells General Poe. He communicates with Finn and Rose on the stolen yacht that they’re tracking an old ID, Finn says it has to be Rey showing them the way to Exogal. The Resistance sets off.
• The First Order at Exogal track a lone fighter on approach. Kylo senses her and says “she’s mine.” The shields to the planet are lowered allowing Rey to land. The shields are raised again.
• Meanwhile, Finn arrives, DJ gets them past the shield and they infiltrate the base.
• Meanwhile, Poe is in his X-Wing leading the charge along the markers Rey left behind.
• Rose gets the shields lowered. The Resistance fleet arrives and are immediately fired on by the First Order fleet. Poe says help is on the way.
• Kylo confronts Rey in a watery junkyard of some kind on Exogal (heh).
• Rose and Finn are captured. BB8 escapes and sabotages the oscillator, creating a hole.
• As they try to reach the oscillator, they’re swarmed by TIE fighters. Meanwhile, Rey is starting to lose her saber duel and Finn and Rose are brought before Hux. Phasma orders their execution to hurt.
• Poe thinks all hope is lost when he hears the sound of lightspeed ships arriving. Everyone arrives including Chewbacca who growls (as does a Porg). Poe heads to the oscilator as Kylo forces Rey down to her knees and the stormtroopers are about to decapitate Rose and Finn.
• The oscilator explodes, drawing Kylo’s attention away for a moment and Rey strikes, stabbing him. The explosion also saves Rose and Finn. Finn faces off against Phasma as BB8 is operating a walker. The Resistance and the starships that have shown up are now taking down the First Order fleet.
• Rey confesses to a dying Kylo that she did want to take his hand but leaves him to his fate.
• Finn kills Phasma and escapes with BB8 and Rose aboard a shuttle. He signals to Poe that Red 5 is in the air and the fleet escapes Exogal as it explodes.
• They celebrate on Ajan Kloss

EPILOGUE

• A small child on Canto Bight tells a story of Luke Skywalker to two other children before they’re yelled at to return to work. One child uses the force to grab a broom and begins to sweep. He stops when he hears footsteps on the cobblestone and looks up. A voice informs him: “I’m Rey” and we see her approach him. Rey is ready to restart the Jedi.

Peter Pan sent you a PM with both fan edits! Let me know what you think.

Put the finishing touches on my second Star Wars Abridged film! This covers all of the original trilogy, condensing it to around 3 hours and 35 minutes (minus credits). I also have Abridged I: The Republic available which truncates the prequels to 2.5 hours.

There’s a ton of changes to the OT 3-in-1 but here’s the broad strokes:

• Cold open which truncates the battle of Scarif
• New scroll text to say “Abridged II: The Rebellion”
• Inserted the scene from Rogue One between Krenic and Tarkin overseeing construction of the Death Star and tried to keep all of it from being visible because…
• There’s only 1 Death Star and that’s the uncompleted one from RotJ. It’s still being built throughout this edit. Consequently…
• Alderaan isn’t destroyed. Tarkin, in command of a Super Star Destroyer, bombards the planet from orbit
• Scene 38, 'nuff said
• The rebel base is located on Hoth, not Yavin, which is where we transition into ESB
• The Wampa sequence is removed entirely
• The Battle of Hoth has been completely changed. Luke is no longer a part of the snowspeeder battle (which still takes place) but, rather, part of a space battle happening in orbit around Hoth. This new space battle was created using footage from the battle of Yavin, battle of Scarif, and a small bit from battle of Endor
• Luke hears Obi Wan telling him to go to Dagobah while in the cockpit
• At the same time, Vader feels the force in him from the bridge of a Star Destroyer (the force is strong with this one)
• The asteroid chase sequence has been removed (more about why later)
• Bespin has been re-edited so that Han escapes with Leia and the rest
• No Jabba side story
• Footage from Luke healing from his Wampa adventure is now a post Vader duel scene set on a starship at the Sollust system rendezvous with the fleet
• The Han/Leia kiss happens here instead as they’re repairing the Falcon in Home One’s hangerbay
• Luke leaves the fleet to go back to Dagobah
• The battle plan for taking out the Death Star don’t include the ground battle
• Han pilots the Falcon in the final battle at Endor and takes out the Death Star. The footage from the asteroid chase has been repurposed here
• A new ending has been put together using footage from Rise of Skywalker

The changes to Star Wars: Abridged I - The Republic aren’t as drastic:

• The Phantom Menace has been almost completely cut out except…
• Anakin leaving Tatooine as a kid has been reworked into a prologue with a Jedi recruiter (played in a cameo role by Liam Neeson)
• The clones and chosen one prophecy have been eliminated
• Geonosis is now called Kamino
• Anakin has never before met Padme, they have more of a meet-cute… Anakin is pretty quiet throughout
• Padme’s family deleted scene has been reinserted
• Anakin and Padme sleep together on Naboo
• The Geonosis battle has been removed and this footage has been repurposed into a montage which brings us to Revenge of the Sith
• General Grievous has been completely exorcised
• Revenge of the Sith plays out more or less the same with a bunch of trims here and there.

I’ve completed an assembly cut of a third 3-in-1 film of the sequels which runs just under 2 hours. Still need to finish it off but it’s a radical departure set 50 years after Endor and Rey has been turned into Rey Solo, granddaughter of Han and Leia. Kylo Ren now has no relation to the Solos. I’ll probably finish this off in the next week or two but it’s gotten some great response as a rewrite to the sequels.

I’m working on something that probably fits this: removing most of the original trilogy characters.

Altering Rey from Rey Palpatine to Padawan Rey Solo (Han and Leia’s granddaughter), and moving the whole trilogy another generation into the future (which removes nearly all of the OT characters). Rey is the last survivor of the second Jedi Purge and looking for Luke’s journal which she finds hidden on Tatooine near the homestead (Jakku is now Tatooine) which she hopes can help her restore the Jedi Order.

Kylo Ren is no longer Ben Solo but Rey’s ex-lover who fell to the dark side… you’d be surprised what kind of tension you can get out of this change with some major re-editing of the force connection scenes.

Rose and Finn’s mission is now to find a codebreaker who can slip through the shields at Starkiller Base located on Exogal. The throne room sequence is now edited with the battle over D’Qar; the bombing coincides with the saber breaking.

The climax is now Rey traveling to Exogal giving the Resistance the coordinates and facing off against Kylo, Finn and Rose deactivating the shields, and the Resistance attacking Starkiller Base. All three battles now play off each other.

Luke does make a couple cameo appearances as a force ghost.

I’ve sent you a PM with a link! Hope you like it!

I have a viewable (just PM for it!) rough draft of a 3-in-1 that has substantially reworked the sequel trilogy by placing it a further generation into the future, changing the character arcs for Rey and Kylo, and removing nearly all of the legacy characters.

The thesis I was operating under is that the sequels deep-sixed the legacy of the OT trilogy characters by either resetting them to their ANH state, deconstructing them, or just plain adding them for the nostalgia. So I wanted to see if there was a story in there that didn’t rely on the OT characters and assumed they all got their happily ever after.

And there is!

It’s all pinned on Rey and Kylo get the biggest changes. Ben Solo doesn’t exist and Kylo is not related to Han and Leia, rather he’s a fallen Jedi and Vader fanboy. Rey is now Padawan Rey Solo (explains why she owns the Falcon), the only survivor of Kylo’s second Jedi Purge, Han and Leia’s granddaughter, and Kylo’s ex-lover. This provides the personal stakes for Rey and a central theme of loss and loneliness for my edit. On Kylo’s end, it provides some stakes as well since her continued existence is a problem for Supreme Leader Snoke.

Plot wise, the story revolves around Starkiller Base (which is now located on Exogal) and does away with the Sith fleet. One planet killing MacGuffin is all that’s required although the wayfinder is still in play. Jakku is now Tatooine where First Order defector Lor San Tekka meets with General Poe Dameron over stolen Starkiller Base plans while Rey is there looking for Luke’s hidden secret journal which she hopes can help her rebuild the Jedi.

The other major change is that Canto Bight has been completely recontextualized. Instead of Rose and Finn shutting down the tracker to the First Order fleet, they’re going to Exogal to shut down the planetary shields and allow the Resistance through. The climax brings all the characters to Exogal: Rey finding the location and facing off against Kylo (using the Death Star duel), Finn and Rose sneaking around the base to lower the shields (using the scenes from Snoke’s Destroyer), and both the starfighter battles from episode 7 and 9.

Still a lot of edges to smooth out and I need to film a single shot myself, but the core of the film’s narrative is complete.

Here’s the new crawl:

Rising from the ashes of the Empire, the FIRST ORDER strike from Starkiller Base, located on the Kyber rich world of Exogal, and annexed the Outer Rim.

As the NEW REPUBLIC gathers at Kijimi, Generals Poe Dameron and Chewbacca establish a RESISTANCE in enemy space near an abandoned Jedi temple. Contacted by a defector who stole classified plans, Poe travels to Tatooine to retrieve them.

Meanwhile, betrayed by her former lover who launched a second Jedi Purge, Padawan Rey Solo searches for the secret journal of Luke Skywalker who vanished decades prior, and hopes it will help restore the Jedi Order…

Here’s the full story:

PROLOGUE

• Snoke berates Kylo Ren for having not killing all of the Jedi in a second Jedi Purge as padawan Rey Solo made it out alive. Snoke "The seed of the Jedi lives in her, as long as it does, hope lives in the galaxy.
• As Kylo has his stitches taken out, he replays the slaughter and his fight against Rey in his head. Rey loses her saber.
• Rey briefly watches the Jedi temple burn

A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY…

• New scroll explains: the rise of the First Order, Starkiller Base located on Exogal, Generals Poe and Chewbacca starting a resistance behind enemy lines, Poe off to meet with a First Oder defector on Tatooine, and that Kylo was Rey’s lover and she’s now looking for the secret journal of Luke Skywalker to help her restart the Jedi Order
• Poe arrives on Tatooine and retrieves some plans. This sequence is nearly identical to the beginning of TFA minus anything that relates to Ben Solo
• Rey Solo arrives on Tatooine on the Millennium Falcon, landing just outside Niima outpost
• Kylo gets the location of where the plans are hidden from Poe
• Rey rents a speeder and travels out to the Skywalker homestead where she digs up Luke’s journal. She’s interrupted by a sound and finds BB8 being captured by a junk trader
• Finn helps Poe escape
• Finn makes it to Niima outpost where he bumps into Rey and they’re attacked by the First Order. They take the Millennium Falcon and escape Tatooine
• Kylo receives the report that the droid escaped with Finn’s help… “What girl?” takes on a more ominous feel
• Kylo and Hux talk to Snoke. Snoke says the droid is in the hands of Kylo’s lover, Rey Solo. Kylo: “she means nothing to me.”
• They arrive on D’Qar where Finn reunites with Poe. Rey is called to a nearby Jedi temple where she finds a lightsaber and trains.
• Rey then goes through Luke’s journal, passing by an image of a wayfinder
• Threepio informs General Poe that the data is encrypted. He informs the resistance that they haven’t decrypted the information yet, but they know that the first order is building something on a world called Exogal. Rey recognizes that name from Luke’s journal and says she’ll find the wayfinder that leads to Exogal, starting where Luke’s trail went cold. Chewbacca goes with her (but not R2).
• Meanwhile, Kylo meets with Snoke again. Snoke says there’s been an awakening and if he’s felt it. He responds with “Yes, she’ll never be a Jedi. I can turn her to the dark side.” Snoke: “If what you say about this girl is true, bring her to me.” Kylo knows what she needs and grabs the wayfinder from a First Order depot and uses it to travel to Starkiller Base on Exogal
• Rey travels to Ahch-To but finds it empty. She notices an X-Wing in the water below.
• Starkiller Base destroys the Republic capital on Kijimi
• The resistance finishes decoding the data on the plans for Starkiller base. They come up with a plan to knock it out. Finn says he can take out the shield.
• Ahch-To: Rey wakes up in the village and has the first connection with Kylo. She then trains with the lightsaber as a force ghost (whose face isn’t seen) watches over her. She turns to where it was and looks toward the top of the mountain. As she climbs it, she’s then pulled toward the tree. When she reaches for the books, she has a bit of a halucinatory vision where a voice explains the Jedi texts and Rey admits she’s afraid of herself.
• Meanwhile, on the Raddus in D’Qar orbit, Finn along with Rose explain how to deactivate the shield but they can’t do it without getting past the shields first. Maz tells them where they can find a codebreaker to sneak them past
• Ahch-To: At the top of the mountain, Rey meditates and has a vision of a place on the island. Her vision also shows her holding the wayfinder.
• Kylo talks to Vader’s mask, telling it about feeling the pull to the light
• Ahch-To: Chewbacca is having issues with the Porgs in the Falcon’s cockpit. Rey has a second connection with Kylo where he tries to explain why he destroyed the Jedi temple. Rey isn’t listening to him and says he is a monster and the connection fizzles out.
• Kylo destroys his mask, angry at being called a monster by someone he obviously still has feelings for.
• Rose and Finn land on Canto Bight and get arrested
• Snoke speaks with Hux saying the Resistance must be destroyed. Hux says they’ve located the Resistance fleet. Snoke is pleased and tells Hux to go to him with Kylo Ren, it’s time to complete his training.
• Kylo fixes the mask he smashed in rage
• Ahch-To: Chewbacca has dinner. The third connection between Kylo and Rey is radically rewritten here using footage of Kylo in his quarters from TRoS. Kylo says “you still want to kill me.” Rey: “yes.” Kylo: “such pain, such anger.” Rey asks him why he killed them. Kylo says Snoke wanted her dead so he wanted to turn her to the dark side to keep her safe. He tries to rationalize them being together in the dark side and that her mother was the granddaughter of Vader.
• Rey goes to the hole in the ground and touches the mirror where she has a few visions. One is when Kylo grabbed the wayfinder with a voice over “the only way you’re getting to Exogal is with me”. Another is her and Kylo kissing with a voice over from Kylo “I’ll never stop loving you” and them raising blue lightsabers together. The final one is her sitting on a throne and holding the red double saber with Kylo behind her. “Don’t be afraid of who you are” (Kylo also says “who you are”) There’s the brief saber battle with her dark reflection. The vision ends with a Kylo voice over “the dark side is in our nature, give in to it.”
• Fourth force connection: Rey admits she’s never felt so alone. Kylo tells her she’s not alone. They touch hands and then heads off with Chewbacca to the First Order fleet.
• The first order fleet arrives at D’Qar with Snoke’s destroyer. The battle begins.
• Rey arrives and heads aboard using the escape pod.
• The D’Qar battle is cross cut with Rey facing Supreme Leader Snoke who informers her it was him who bridged Kylo and Rey’s minds. He tortures her for the hell of it and then wants Kylo to finish her off.
• Kylo kills the emperor and fights side by side with Rey against the guards. Meanwhile, Paige is the last bomber left.
• After killing the royal guards, Kylo reaches out his hand and wants her to join him. She goes for the lightsaber instead. As the saber splits in half, Paige drops the payload and splits Snoke’s ship in two.
• The resistance fleet escapes and Rey steals Kylo’s starfighter and leaves herself.
• Kylo wakes up and has a chat with Hux. They know where the resistance are going.
• Back on Canto Bight, Finn and Rose meet DJ and escape prison. They meet the kids and the fathiers scene plays out normally.
• Ahch-To: Rey destroys Kylo’s ship and Luke emerges from it. He explains to her that facing fear is the destiny of the Jedi. He also explains that his sister, on her last night of training, put her saber down and said someone would complete her journey and gives Rey Leia’s saber to take to Exogal. Everything else plays out normally in this scene.
• The Resistance arrives at an auxiliary staging point located on Ajan Kloss. Poe sends out a signal to the outer rim. R2 recieves a message from Luke’s starfighter and 3P0 tells General Poe. He communicates with Finn and Rose on the stolen yacht that they’re tracking an old ID, Finn says it has to be Rey showing them the way to Exogal. The Resistance sets off.
• The First Order at Exogal track a lone fighter on approach. Kylo senses her and says “she’s mine.” The shields to the planet are lowered allowing Rey to land. The shields are raised again.
• Meanwhile, Finn arrives, DJ gets them past the shield and they infiltrate the base.
• Meanwhile, Poe is in his X-Wing leading the charge along the markers Rey left behind.
• Rose gets the shields lowered. The Resistance fleet arrives and are immediately fired on by the First Order fleet. Poe says help is on the way.
• Kylo confronts Rey in a watery junkyard of some kind on Exogal (heh).
• Rose and Finn are captured. BB8 escapes and sabotages the oscillator, creating a hole.
• As they try to reach the oscillator, they’re swarmed by TIE fighters. Meanwhile, Rey is starting to lose her saber duel and Finn and Rose are brought before Hux. Phasma orders their execution to hurt.
• Poe thinks all hope is lost when he hears the sound of lightspeed ships arriving. Everyone arrives including Chewbacca who growls (as does a Porg). Poe heads to the oscilator as Kylo forces Rey down to her knees and the stormtroopers are about to decapitate Rose and Finn.
• The oscilator explodes, drawing Kylo’s attention away for a moment and Rey strikes, stabbing him. The explosion also saves Rose and Finn. Finn faces off against Phasma as BB8 is operating a walker. The Resistance and the starships that have shown up are now taking down the First Order fleet.
• Rey confesses to a dying Kylo that she did want to take his hand but leaves him to his fate.
• Finn kills Phasma and escapes with BB8 and Rose aboard a shuttle. He signals to Poe that Red 5 is in the air and the fleet escapes Exogal as it explodes.
• They celebrate on Ajan Kloss

EPILOGUE

• A small child on Canto Bight tells a story of Luke Skywalker to two other children before they’re yelled at to return to work. One child uses the force to grab a broom and begins to sweep. He stops when he hears footsteps on the cobblestone and looks up. A voice informs him: “I’m Rey” and we see her approach him. Rey is ready to restart the Jedi.

PMed!

I also have a few samples

Battle of Hoth
https://vimeo.com/530066122
pass: abridged

Rey and Kylo Connection
https://vimeo.com/528639359
pass: abridged

I’ve been meaning to post this on here for a long time… I’ve been working on this off and on for over a year now: a trilogy of 3-in-1s that tells the Star Wars saga in as short a time as possible.

WIPs are available! Here’s some basic changes:

Star Wars: Abridged I - The Republic (~2.5 hours)
Most of the changes here have been seen before in other edits. Things that are more unique to this cut are:

• The removal of the prophecy
• A prologue with Qui Gon Jinn as a Jedi recruiter on Tatooine (the only scene from TPM) to set up Anakin’s attachment to his mom (I know everyone likes using Maul as the prologue, but it makes more narrative sense to set up his relationship with his mother)
• Anakin and Padme have never met before and Padme was never a queen
• Anakin and Padme kiss on the couch and it’s heavily implied it leads to more

Star Wars: Abridged II - The Rebellion (~3.66 hours)
There was a lot of work that went into this edit. A lot of the major events have been shifted or altered.

• Only 1 Death Star
• No Ewoks or ground battle
• A very condensed prologue built from Rogue One’s climax
• Han escapes Bespin and is the one to destroy the Death Star
• No Jabba’s palace
• Alderaan isn’t destroyed. Grand Moff Tarkin bombards it with guns from the Executor
• Hoth is the rebel base instead of Yavin 4
• The Battle of Hoth has been completely reworked to include a space battle built from the Scarif space battle, Yavin 4, and a bit of Endor while the ground battle is also waged
• No asteroid escape (needed these shots for Han destroying the Death Star)
• Originally I intended to have Palpatine’s return teased here but since plans for the third film have radically changed, I need to remove that.

Star Wars: Abridged III - The Resistance (~2 hours)
I went through different possible versions of this but realized I would have to completely overhaul the plot to make this 3-in-1 work. Unlike the PT and OT 3-in-1s, there’s substantial narrative changes here. The biggest realization I came to was that the sequels relied to heavily on the OT characters and that nostalgia became a crutch for a variety of reasons… so I removed Han, Leia, Lando, and Palpatine. Luke is another matter but he’s only in this sparingly.

• Moved the time frame a further generation in the future
• Rey is now the Han and Leia’s granddaughter, Padawan Rey Solo
• Kylo Ren is no longer Ben Solo. He was a Jedi seduced to the dark side by Snoke and committed a second Jedi Purge which only Rey escaped
• Rey and Kylo were lovers once which provides the emotional character throughline through this edit
• Poe and Chewbacca are the leaders of the Resistance
• Rey is searching for the secret journal of Luke Skywalker which she finds at his old homestead on Tatooine that she digs up outside (sidenote: I still need to film a shot myself to plug this in)
• Jakku is now Tatooine
• Poe meets with a First Order defector to retrieve classified plans (of Starkiller Base rather than a map)
• Starkiller Base is located on Kyber rich Exogal
• Luke searched for Exogal and his trail went cold at Ahch-To
• Canto Bight actually has a point now. Rose and Finn travel there to find a master codebreaker who can get them onto Starkiller base to deactivate the shields so the Resistance fleet can arrive.
• Rey finds no one living on Ahch-To and the force connections between her and Kylo have been substantially reworked
• The D’Qar battle has Snoke’s ship in it and is intercut with Rey arriving
• The final battle is a mix between Rose and Finn infiltrating Starkiller Base, Poe and the Resistance facing off against the First Order fleet guarding the base, and the Death Star duel has been repurposed as taking place on Exogal

All three films begin with a prologue. Originally I was going to do without the opening scroll but the changes I’ve made to Abridged III really requires one for context. So all 3 will have their opening scrolls reinstated.

I’ve done most of the heavy lifting and am now going back to refine everything as best as I can. It will be impossible to get these edits perfect, however… I’m a pretty good editor but I only have rudimentary audio and compositing skills (at best) and some of the edits are monstrous Frankensteinian beasts. After getting these work prints to a satisfying narrative place, however, I can now finish this off and hopefully smooth as much of those issues out. Let me know if anyone wants to see the workprints! Feedback is really welcome at this point!