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tangelo1023

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18-Sep-2020
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26-Feb-2024
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Post
#1526738
Topic
(The Mandalorian+BoBF) The Way of Mandalore | A New Mandalore Movie Saga (Final Update in Progress)
Time

These are great ideas, but it may be helpful to hold off on repurposing those intro scenes as Din’s flashback.

Possible spoilers for Season 3

There’ve been a few leaks that the kid there (the one you’re thinking to repurpose as Din) will play a larger role in the season. It might be wrong, but thought I’d let you know just as a heads up.

Post
#1509646
Topic
(The Mandalorian+BoBF) The Way of Mandalore | A New Mandalore Movie Saga (Final Update in Progress)
Time

That’s a terrific idea Acbagel.

Making the prison heist a second act without Grogu turns his eventual rescue a lot more powerful. One thing I would do in this case is take some of those episode 3 scenes where Mando is noticing the absence of Grogu on the ship and pepper them throughout the second act. That way, the audience feels like Grogu is somewhere in the back of Mando’s mind and that it’s weighing down on him. This can also lend a different shade to the betrayal by the heist crew. Somewhere, Mando feels like he has no true “tribe,” for a lack of a better word.

I also agree 100% with Eddie that episode 3 would be the best ending in this case. It’s just so climactic. Sanctuary does feel more like a interlude or prologue than a epilogue. In your initial edit, the Sanctuary scenes did feel a bit like a traditional opening to the second episode of a show. It’s the calm after a storm, but with a ominous note at the end that sets up the rest of the story.

One thing you could do is crosscut the flashbacks with the final fight of episode 3. The action in both is vaguely similar, so it might not be too jarring. Then you can show the final flashback scene (the Mando finding child Din) right before Din hands the ship part to Grogu at the end of episode 3. It’s showing how he’s found a new family and continuing the discussions about Mando’s sense of identity in the first and second acts.

Post
#1509622
Topic
(The Mandalorian+BoBF) The Way of Mandalore | A New Mandalore Movie Saga (Final Update in Progress)
Time

That’s a good idea. Moving up the flashbacks to that section will give us a progressive exploration of Mando throughout the film. He’s a cipher that slowly gets filled in as the film goes on. As you said, it adds a strong character arc that ties together a more episodic narrative

I would personally keep the ambiguous ending about the heist crew though. I like the idea that we don’t fully know him or his morality by the end of the first episode.

Post
#1509512
Topic
(The Mandalorian+BoBF) The Way of Mandalore | A New Mandalore Movie Saga (Final Update in Progress)
Time

Watched the first episode. Agreed with Eddie. This was really fantastic, especially how seamlessly you wove together the first three episodes. I never felt once like anything was missing. It’s also pretty great how you joined episodes 4 and 6. Making Sanctuary more of a interlude that sets up the emotional stakes involved in removing Mando’s helmet helps reinforce the helmet references in episode 6. It flows really well. All of the transitions were clean. I only caught one that seemed a little off and that was the shot of the Razor Crest bridging episodes 4 and 6. The music seemed to suddenly switch. Other than that, this was beautifully done.

My only narrative issue was that it did seem like two arcs joined together. Your skill in grouping episodes 1-3 and 4-6 together seemed to create two distinct episodes. The first half deals with Mando finding Grogu and having a crisis of conscience. It sets up the main emotional arc of the show beautifully, even ending with the first instance of Mando handing the ship part to Grogu. The second half feels like a transition chapter with Mando’s helmet and his sense of identity being discussed. It also deepens the Mando-Grogu relationship, ending with the second instance of Mando handing the ship part to Grogu.

Since you seem to be viewing this more with television pacing rather than film pacing, one possible suggestion could be to split the two halves into two episodes. The first half really feels like a knockout series premiere and both halves already have mirrored endings. This would also add some breathing room between Mando’s initial relationship with Grogu in episode 3 and their very warm relationship in episode 4. That’s just a possibility though. It still currently works nicely as a episodic movie.

I really enjoyed this and it’ll be hard to go back to the originals now. I’m looking forward to watching the rest.

Post
#1494715
Topic
KENOBI: A STAR WARS STORY [The Radical "Help Me Obi-Wan Kenobi" Cut]
Time

I watched this without watching the original series. I enjoyed it, with some reservations. Note that I still haven’t looked at the changelist or the original show. I’m reacting to this as if it was actually a Kenobi movie that came out. I loved the opening 10 minutes or so. The rapid cuts and repetition of Ben’s daily routine juxtaposed with his nightmares was terrific. It definitely adds a psychological context to the whole thing.

Once the narrative actually got going, I did feel like there was a lack of “rhythm” to many sections. I could feel the absence of scenes, even if I hadn’t seen the original series. A big contributer to this was the music. Nearly every scene had music and the audio transitions between scenes sometimes feels disjointed as a result. One example was the scene where Ben digs up his lightsaber. We hear the Force theme, then a snippet of the show’s main theme. Then there’s a cut to the kidnappers arriving on Daiyu. This scene has a score that is not very congruent with the previous scene. The result is a feeling that something isn’t quite right. I personally would remove the music from some scenes, just to let them breathe a little.

Many scenes also seemed to be cut (apparently) short, contributing to that lack of rhythm. We switch to different scenes before there’s a natural ending. An example was when the Grand Inquisitor met Reva on Daiyu. That scene ends with the Inquisitor chastising Reva, but it doesn’t feel like the end of the conversation. The following scene has Reva put out a alert for Ben. There doesn’t seem to be a natural connect between both scenes. Another example was the knife scene with the unmasked Jedi. We didn’t seem to reach a natural close before moving on.

There are also gaps in the narrative that contribute to that off feeling. I noticed that Ben seemed to recognize and mourn the death of the Jedi at the start of the film. I don’t remember there being an implication that they knew each other though. The inquisitors had also unmasked him earlier in the movie (and presumably killed him then), so I’m wondering why they did the whole “there’s a Jedi on Tatooine” routine after that. I’m also incredibly confused at how the fake Jedi helps rescue Leia. We hear him through a comm help navigate Ben through an ocean. However, what he’s saying isn’t clear and it isn’t apparent what exactly the plan to rescue Leia is. I’m also not sure where this fortress is. When Obi-Wan is swimming to the fortress, there are shots of someone sitting at a communications desk of some sort. Is it being implied that the fake Jedi is helping Ben from the inside?

One thing that I think would strengthen the narrative is lacing Vader throughout the movie. That way, the narrative is emotionally grounded between two strong forces, Vader and Ben, right from the start. At present, it’s hard to find a emotional core in the Inquisitor narrative until Vader comes in later. The Inquisitors and the initial conflict of the movie feels a bit nebulous for the longest time. At the very least, establishing a small hint of Vader’s presence before Ben leaves Tatooine would spark our interest.

I really enjoyed the final scene and the final music choices made me emotional. I don’t know if that was present in the show, but it just reaffirmed what a vital component of Star Wars John Williams is. Sorry if I sounded overly critical. I hope some of my reactions prove useful. I did enjoy watching this and it’s a monumental undertaking. Congratulations on the release. I’ll now read through your changelist and watch the original show.

Post
#1493018
Topic
THE HAN SOLO TRILOGY: THE CANON CUT - a novel fanedit (Released)
Time

THE HAN SOLO TRILOGY: THE CANON CUT is a fanedit combining the novels The Han Solo Trilogy 1: The Paradise Snare (a Legends novel) and the Solo novelization into one long story about Han Solo’s origins and the people surrounding him. VERSION 1.0 is out now.

As someone who adores the EU Han Solo Trilogy, I was incredibly excited to watch the canon film. I was disappointed. The late AC Crispin’s iconic trilogy had the feeling of a Dickensian epic. It spanned decades and told Han’s story from his time as a streetrat up until the moment he sits down in front of Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi in that famous cantina. More importantly, it had a real grit and weight to it, combining tragedy and adventure and love in a way reminiscent of a 70s American New Wave movie. In contrast, Solo felt like a filmed Wookiepeedia article. It wasn’t terrible but in trying to simultaneously be a fun caper and a epic origin story, Solo made it feel like everything remotely important to Han Solo as a individual and as a icon happened in one week. He meets Chewie, meets Lando and the Falcon, flies the Kessel Run, gets the Falcon, and becomes a fully formed character on one heist.

I got the idea for this edit when rereading The Paradise Snare. In one scene, Han’s romantic interest, Bria Tharen, remarks that Han is a good man at heart. I noticed that there was an almost identical scene in Solo, except with Qi’ra saying it instead. Key spoilerish moments in both novels (that will be discussed in the spoiler filled changelist) subtly and overtly call back to this “good man” line. When putting both novels together, I felt that there was a very compelling narrative that could be brought out. I didn’t have to add any key story beats. There was a beautiful story hidden beneath the continuity conflicts of novels set in two timelines. My job was to emphasize what was already there and smooth over these contradictions. This was done in a few key ways. Main changes are listed below. Story spoilers have been tagged. If you haven’t read Paradise Snare, I highly recommend not looking at those!

  • Han doesn’t join the Empire right after leaving Corellia, as seen in the film. Instead, he boards a trader ship which leads into the start of the EU Han Solo Trilogy where Han has lived on a trader ship his whole life. This is changed to one year in this edit. He joins the Empire at the end of Paradise Snare (as originally present in the novel), leading to the events of the canon Solo novel.
  • Han’s relationship and desire to get back to Qi’ra is referenced throughout The Paradise Snare. This is where most of the text additions came in. There are no new scenes, but many conversations have been extended to naturally include Qi’ra into this plot. Both this and the references to Bria in Solo have intentionally been added to form a mirrored arc and I’m very happy with how it has turned out.
  • Bria’s relationship with Han is referenced throughout Solo.

SPOILERS FOR THE PARADISE SNARE AND SOLO

  • Bria’s sacrificial death is moved up from the third Han Solo book (which isn’t canon compatible and isn’t included in this edit) to the end of the Paradise Snare. It is off screen and presented by a omniscient narrator. This brief switch in POV is probably the most obvious addition to the novel, but it was the only way to go about this without creating a whole new scene. If you’re a Witcher fan, this has been done similarly to how a key character’s fate is revealed in the “Little Sacrifice” short story. Bria’s death is mentioned throughout the Solo novel.
  • Lines are added to explicitly connect Han’s decision to not kill Garris Shrike at the end of Paradise Snare and Han’s decision to kill Beckett at the end of Solo. Bria and Qi’ra’s assertions about Han being “a good man” are referenced here as well.
  • Han’s promise to his EU Wookie friend at the start of Paradise Snare (“I’ll save one of your kind. I promise.”) is explicitly referenced after he saves Chewie at the start of the Solo novel.
  • Han’s EU backstory connecting him to Corellian royalty has been completely removed.
  • Bria and Han’s relationship has been slightly rewritten to remove the “passionate first love that is mutual” angle. This would’ve made the Qi’ra references in Paradise Snare feel awkward. The relationship is now a bit more complicated, especially on Han’s end. Bria adores Han (as in the original novel) and Han likes her, but he can’t fully forget Qi’ra.
  • The closing lines of Paradise Snare are moved to end of the Solo novel.

THE HAN SOLO TRILOGY: THE CANON CUT uses the relationships Han Solo has with the two mentors in his life, Garris Shrike and Tobias Beckett, and the romantic relationships he has with two women in his life, Bria Tharen and Qi’ra, in order to explore his morality and kickstart his journey towards the more grey shaded man we see in A New Hope. I’m extremely proud of this edit and I hope you all feel that it is a more complex, mythic origin story for our favorite smuggler.

FINAL NOTE: As always, support the original authors, AC Crispin and Mur Lafferty, and make sure that you purchase both books. This is especially important in AC Crispin’s case. Crispin’s family had not been receiving royalty payments from Disney on some editions of The Han Solo Trilogy until recently. It is still not evident if this has been completely remedied. Support the creators that contribute to our favorite universe, especially when the corporations that control these IPs frequently don’t. Ok, I’m done soapboxing. Enjoy the edit, y’all.

Post
#1492969
Topic
The Rise of Skywalker: Ascendant (Released)
Time

Congratulations on the release of the “Rey Nobody” version. I took a look at the scenes where Rey’s heritage (or lack of) had the most discussion. It’s very seamless. So much so that it’s a testament to how unnecessary the Palps revelation was. The new plotline about the twin opposing paths of Ben and Rey is a lot more compelling and mythic.

Post
#1472252
Topic
Mando EP3: A New Path (A Book of Boba Fett Edit) [RELEASED]
Time

Sirius said:

Boba Fett has some weak lines in this show. Maybe you could use this site to create new lines for him:

https://fakeyou.com/?vocodes=1

This is a site that creates AI generated voices, and have Boba Fett and Din Djarin voices in it.

That’s very cool. I’ve been playing around with some lines and it sounds really good for Boba since his voice is already modulated.

Post
#1467032
Topic
Mando EP3: A New Path (A Book of Boba Fett Edit) [RELEASED]
Time

It’ll definitely be interesting to see how you handle this one. I like the flashbacks, but the present day stuff seems bafflingly underwritten. I’m not really sure what Boba’s motivations are. Moreover, it doesn’t even feel like him based on what we’ve seen in the canon comics and small snippets in TCW and the OT. A character developing is great, but Boba seems to have popped out of the sarlacc fully developed already. He seems pretty chill and nice even before he joins the Tuskens. There’s not even a hint of his former self.

I’m also surprised at how unintelligent he seems in the present day scenes. I laughed when the Mayor’s aide snuck out and Boba was like “he locked the doors!” Hopefully, the upcoming episodes will give you something to use to clarify his motives in a film edit.

Post
#1467030
Topic
The Star Wars Novel Editing Ideas Thread
Time

Interesting thread. I think the three things that would benefit the most from fanedits are the ST novelizations. JarJar and CaptainFaraday have already done work on this. I think there’s a lot a stuff you could do in terms of structure and minor editing that would restore a sense of finality and respect the overall saga, while also being canon compliant. One idea I had was including a scene in the TROS novelization where Anakin’s force ghost appears to the slowly dying Leia. Leia forgives him and then decides to use the last of her energy to reach out to Ben. It creates a nice parallel of sons and daughters. Leia forgives her father (or tells him that she had already forgiven him long ago). Han forgives his child.

Another idea I had was moving the TLJ epilogue (broomboy) to the end of TROS. Instead of the kids just talking about Luke’s sacrifice, they talk about the whole saga. Heroes triumphing over the evil Empire, Luke’s sacrifice, and the Resistance defeating the First Order. The Skywalker Saga ends on the myth of their story and presents a hopeful future.

Post
#1466617
Topic
Darth Plagueis: The Canon Edit - A novel fanedit (Released)
Time

Guiguioh said:

Thanks for this, and i will give your Solo edit a look for sure. Do you have any interest in giving the ROTS novelization a canon clean up ?
(pmed you for the updated link )

Sent. I think Darth Zounds has already done a ROTS novelization edit. Here’s a link to that.
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Revenge-of-the-Sith-A-Novel-Fan-Edit-released/id/90896

Post
#1466613
Topic
Star Wars: The Last Skywalker Awakens - A sequel trilogy &quot;mega-edit&quot; (<em>RELEASED</em>)
Time

bbghost said:

I am pasting this rambling manifesto here as a keepsake, and for anyone in these forums who for some reason wants to read 2,000 words on why I made this edit and how I approached it, now that it’s complete. Read at your own risk!


From a Certain Point of View​

DS

Star Wars premiered in 1977 as a nearly perfect film. So wholly self-contained was its story it needed no sequel, no prequel, no appendices, no expansion. It did, however, make enormous amounts of cash, so inevitably it got all of these and more, coming to form a large portion of the blueprint for serialized fiction and media franchises for the next half a century.

Star Wars is still, to me, watching a VHS copy of Return of the Jedi in 1994 taped off of Saturday night TV; ads, Lotto and all, bits of the sand barge fight lost to bad tape. By 1997 I had worn the tape out completely, just in time to be introduced to the concept of fan editing as George Lucas released the Star Wars Special Editions… These Special Editions, along with decades of expanded universe media, the exponential complexity of technology, remakes, remasters, director’s cuts, video game modding, retcon, side-canon, headcanon and the construction of modern fandom culture have all encouraged fans to engage Star Wars with a sense of modularity and malleability that’s only grown as more changes are made to the original films themselves, even under new ownership.

Later, I was inspired by other fan editors and their efforts in transforming and recontextualizing Star Wars, shaping their own visions of what it meant to them, just as Lucas continued to do with his own work. Granted, the often combative mentality with which a sizable portion of “the Star Wars fandom” takes to this stuff can be off-putting at the best of times. But in between all of that is a thoughtful and creative community, collaboratively making sense of all the disparate elements that make up Star Wars.

An Old Hope​

Hands

The themes of Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy were made clear from the outset. As The Force Awakens transformed the events of prior films into diegetic myths and legends, a story very much preoccupied with our own connection to the nebulous, mercurial world of Star Wars began to emerge. This metatextuality is embodied through its characters: in Kylo and Rey’s reverence for and respective interpretations of their forebears’ deeds, analogising the audience’s relationship to Star Wars itself. Through images and symbols: the Skywalker lightsaber and its family’s legacy, Rey living among the bones of her grandfather’s empire, Vader’s helmet, prayed to by Kylo as an object of almost religious significance.
While Lucas’ own infinitely referential image systems served as a foundation for this new era of Star Wars, it became a kaleidoscope of familiar faces and motifs, colliding in a chaotic cosmic dance of semiotic friction and synthesis, the familiar becoming charged with new context, metatext, intertext.

Though both shared their origins in old adventure serials and Lucas’ other esoteric interests, the original trilogy dealt largely in Arthurian and Campbellian mytho-religious space fantasy, while the prequel trilogy focused on realpolitik and cautionary tales about the dogmatic hubris of American hegemony. The sequel trilogy, however, struggled to find its place among this mélange. Much has been said already about The Last Jedi’s gesturing at systems of dark capital that fund both sides of the eponymous war in the stars, only to be ‘undone’ by the appearance of the Final Order’s gargantuan fleet in the next film, unbound from any considerations of logistics or commerce (to say nothing of the preceding Starkiller Base with its dizzying scale and power). This to-and-fro reads very much as Star Wars in search of an identity.

What do the new Jedi look like as an institution of political power? What is the underlying ideology of Rey’s Jedi order, and how is its vision of “order” informed by or differentiated from that of old? After the Final Order’s defeat, how will the victorious Resistance reckon with the systems that gave rise to the Empire and the First Order in the first place? What does it mean to consider the humanity of each and every stormtrooper? How do we as an audience contend with the often racist anthropological inspirations of Star Wars? What good is a fantasy about being on the morally right side of perpetual warfare in a contemporary media landscape where this is virtually the only narrative being sold to mainstream audiences, and a world in which perpetual imperial war seems almost inevitable? (Not that it didn’t in the 70s for targets of America’s ire, but that’s another rant.)

While The Last Jedi itself was not particularly “subversive” in a thematic sense, it did pave the way to further these ideas in a possible and alternate Episode IX. I was excited initially at the prospect of opening a proverbial Pandora’s box, at a potential rattling of Star Wars’ foundations and seeing how it might change. But, ultimately, Disney’s films were disinterested in these questions. They eschew the material almost entirely in favour of the insularly mythic, characters often feeling like pawns of fate destined to restore the status quo rather than agents locked in a conflict, fighting for a new world among the ashes of the old. Lucas’ original three films also shared this disinterest, hence the collective balking at the prequels’ hard tonal shift, but they rarely, if ever, gestured otherwise.

And if I’m being honest, it’s difficult to envision what a multi-billion dollar tentpole media product from the Disney corporation that attempts to engage with such questions in any substantive way even looks like. Perhaps, in the end, it was for the better that the sequel trilogy bent back on itself in an ideological loop. Perhaps the box should have stayed closed for good. Perhaps this is a failure of imagination on my part. Perhaps in a better world where the call had gone to just about anyone other than Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, JJ Abrams, or Chris Terrio, we might have the answers.

The Scavenger​

Scavenger

So, in lieu of any overarching materialistic themes, questioning of power structures, subversion of the series’ mytho-religious template, or interest in a wider political scope, what remains is the turbulent internality of our two main characters: Rey Skywalker and Ben Solo. Integral to their stories are the aforementioned reverence for the events and characters of the original trilogy, as well as broad thematic notions of belonging and familial attachment.

Some may argue that metatext is nothing but “pure laziness,” and there is an undeniable ubiquity to the Found Family theme in modern pop culture. But Star Wars has always been built on archetypes, and the zest with which the new cast took to their roles, coupled with a ready-made formula of industrial light and magic and John Williams’ pleasantly heavy-handed romantic score, makes it all just about work.

Rey’s meandering quest to find meaning in life and belonging in the galaxy, looking to Luke Skywalker and the Jedi for both, is the rails on which the whole cart rides. Grappling with the Jedi order’s legacy and how it became interpreted by later generations becomes central to Rey’s journey, and Luke’s. The Jedi shunned “emotional attachment” for fear it could lead one to moral ruin, or lead them away from their true purpose as ascetic, monastic, celibate enforcers of state power. Inevitably, their refusal to acknowledge this fundamental part of the human experience led to Anakin’s downfall, and the Empire’s rise.

In both the original trilogy and the sequels it’s this attachment and familial belonging which makes our heroes strong, leading to Vader and Kylo’s redemption, Rey’s awakening and resurrection, and Palpatine’s defeat(s). Luke’s self-imposed exile and detachment from his loved ones, a warped reflection of that Jedi dogma, refuted spectacularly by the end of The Last Jedi, and again less elegantly in The Rise of Skywalker, also serves as an extension of these intertwining ideas about legends and family. He goes on to inspire the galaxy to fight back, and helps his sister Leia in guiding Rey toward peace and purpose.

Kylo Ren interprets Darth Vader’s death not as a redemption back to the light, but a failure to achieve an absolute hereditary hegemony; a Skywalker dynasty that would overthrow Palpatine and “bring order to the galaxy.” His character arc weaves a characteristically chaotic line, torn apart between light and dark, progressing, regressing, heroically sacrificing, and it’s the Vaderfication of Ben Solo that results in some of the sequels’ most compelling filmmaking. Adam Driver also just does “sexy bad boy you can definitely fix if you just love him hard enough” extremely well, which helps.

Yes, some disappointing moves certainly were made on the part of the filmmakers. Arguably among them was the decision to make a recursive and metatextual story of the sequels from the outset, rather than search for new stories, untethered from what came before, free to graze upon new narrative pastures. But that’s not what ended up being made, and among the rubble and detritus of good ideas questionably executed is where we find the bits and pieces that resonate with us.

A New Order​

Order

Thus it became these kernels around which my edit centred itself. At first I began by hacking away brazenly, then carefully rebuilding, adding, removing, re-adding, slowing, quickening, adjusting, shifting, borrowing. All of which still begs the question: why have I made this in the first place? After seeing The Rise of Skywalker, in all of its inglorious, messy wonder, the urge to make an encompassing 3-films-in-1 edit came about more as a compulsion than a formalised idea. It became a space in which to play around with and externalize the myriad feelings and ideas about Star Wars that lingered in my brain (as this manifesto apparently has). This dovetailed conveniently with video editing becoming an increasingly necessary skill elsewhere in my life, giving me an opportunity to learn the tools involved and feel out in practice some of the more intuitive aspects of the craft.

One of the more repeated concerns people have about the sequels, due in large part to the tonal inconsistency between films and Abrams’ “texture over substance” style of filmmaking, is if you step away and take your head out of it all, the whole thing begins to fall apart a bit. My solution? Never take your head out. Embrace the sense of leaden fate, of destinies being fulfilled. But who would even want to watch a five and a half hour long fan edit of three Star Wars movies? Well, me, for one. Assuming you’ve read this far, also you. Other than that it’s not really my concern. Because despite their shortcomings, these films are still inescapably Star Wars. And they are dear to me.

As I’ve said above, the aim was never to excise every single thing I found “distasteful” about the films and leave the remainder as is, nor to “fix” the trilogy. I sought to prune and sculpt the sequels into something that better reflected my past hopes for what was yet to come, my mourning for what never was, and my joy at what endured, all while hopefully creating a final product that is cohesive in and of itself. Billy Dee Williams’ returning performance, for example, is… not good, God bless him, but I kept his role in as it forms the basis for a lot of plot and character propulsion in Rise. “Rey Palpatine” still sorely reminds of what could have been, in another story, but as a final chomp of the ouroboros’ tail it makes a sort of dramatically ironic sense, which I chose to lean into.

Conversely, I adore Finn, who should have been brought to the fore as another protagonist, not left waiting in the wings of someone else’s story. I wanted to see entire films about his and Poe Dameron’s escapades. I do want to see shelves filled with stories about Zorii Bliss, Amilyn Holdo, Jannah, Rose Tico, Phasma, Lor San Tekka, etc, and I’m sure some of those are out there in the new extended universe. But in editing down this Star Wars story about Star Wars, cuts had to be made, and many of these characters wound up in the margins. This, however, is not an indictment of any of them, and I strove to keep intact the essence of the remaining characters: Snoke as a force-wielding homunculus of a cruise missile, aimed squarely at the surviving Skywalkers; Finn as a brave soldier who comes not only to fight, but to live for the people he loves; Poe as a cocksure yet charming ace pilot, learning how to be a leader from those around him.

Iris Out​

Iris

My own worst critic that I am, it’s still difficult to shake the feeling that somewhere along the way this turned into polishing a turd (TRoS), while getting crap on everything else in the process. But for good and for ill, The Last Skywalker Awakens is the result of following my emotional truth wherever it led.

The sequels are a familiar song in a different key, with a new and thumping bassline. Like any other series, they form a palette that grew with each instalment, gradually painting a picture in our minds that became whole only with time and hindsight, hues constantly shifting as emotion and memory intermingle. Memories from before we had the whole picture, from when we were still discovering (whether or not we liked the discoveries.) This is my mind painting. Or a greatest hits playlist with a few remixes on it. Take your pick.

Because Star Wars isn’t just about myth, or politics, or the Jedi, or workaday life among the scrapyards of great epochs past. It’s about the tension and conversation between all of these things. A balance, if you will. The DNA of Star Wars is the history of cinema itself. Deciding where that truth lies for you among the maelstrom of homage, self-reference and repetition is part of what it means to be a Star Wars fan.


Some of my favourite bits that didn’t make the change list: the cut from a disgraced Hux on the bridge of the Supremacy back to the vast negative space of Ach-To. Rey bullseye-ing that final rocket trooper. Learning where and how to place that damn crackling lightsaber sound. Cutting from D’Acy and Tyce’s kiss to Poe and Finn’s hug. The cut from Kylo’s wet glove to Rey’s sweaty brow. The wipe from Han and Leia at sunset to TIE fighters in the snow. “That is a big gun.”

A very insightful read that explains your thought process behind the edit. Even as someone who didn’t entirely like these movies, there’s food for thought here.

Post
#1466483
Topic
Darth Plagueis: The Canon Edit - A novel fanedit (Released)
Time

New (and presumably final) version of the edit has been uploaded. Out of place EU references have been removed. I’ve been working on something else recently, a fan edit of the Solo novelization that combines it with the EU Han Solo Trilogy. It’s the most ambitious edit I’ve done and I’m very happy with how it’s turning out. Will hopefully get a rough draft of that by next week.