NeverarGreat

I just got around to watching this edit, and fun fact, this is the first time I’ve seen any version of it. First of all, wonderful work everybody! Most of the changes are seamless, and they really elevate this from a train wreck to something quite watchable. Now to the notes:

My first thought is that I still don’t like what they did with Poe. Before this movie, I thought that Poe had come from the New Republic military, which would give each main character a very different background, with Poe being the heroic Republic pilot, Finn being a dastardly Stormtrooper, and Rey being a scavenger from nowhere. Now the dynamic is far less interesting. So I thought since we’re able to change pretty much any voice now, that Zorri could have different dialogue, indicating that Poe was only posing as a Spice Runner for a while to infiltrate Zorri’s crew:

“Your friend never told you? He worked undercover as a spice runner for a long time.”

“I’m still digging myself out of the hole you put me in when you were called back to the Resistance.”

The bigger issue with Poe’s scenes is that there’s almost an arc but not quite. It would be really nice if we could establish that Poe has some reason to believe that people won’t join the war, perhaps stemming from his inability to recruit Zorri to the Resistance years ago. So the conversation between Poe and Zorri on the rooftop could be changed to indicate this, since Zorri’s mouth is always covered.

Or, we could use this opportunity to shore up the ‘For Skywalker!’ subplot that Ascendant introduces. The first indication of Luke’s inspiration is the festival, and the final result is the massive fleet and the voices, but it feels like there could be one more clue to this result:

“Wanna come with me?”

“I can’t walk out on this war. Not until it’s over. Maybe it is. We sent out a call for help at the battle of Crait. Nobody came. Everyone’s so afraid. They’ve given up.

“And then they saw Luke take on the whole First Order all by himself. Things are changing, Poe. The First Order wants us to believe that we are all alone…but there are more of us.”

…

The next note is about Occhi’s dagger. It still feels forced when Rey abandons her friends on the Star Destroyer to go looking for it, so I got to wondering if we could find a way to tie the dagger into the greater story. Why would Rey go after something like that? Well, that moment feels very similar to the moment in The Force Awakens when she goes to the basement of Maz’s castle. So let’s have the dagger act in a similar way to Luke’s lightsaber. When she first touches the blade in the cave there are sounds of bloodshed and violence but they are distant and confused, never becoming a vision. Reinstate the line ‘Horrible things…have happened with this.’

When she later goes to Ren’s ship and says they need the dagger and Poe asks why, cut her line and have her simply walk away, emphasizing the strangeness of her action. Then, when she’s fighting with Kylo, he can say that the dagger offered her a vision but she refused to see it. For a Rey Palpatine version, this vision would be the one of Occhi killing Rey’s parents and the suggestion that this is because she is a Palpatine.

“You are hard to find. I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it…I needed you to see it…who you are. The dagger showed me the rest of your story. You were right…your parents were no one. They chose to be…to keep you safe. If you held the dagger now you would see them.”

Rey sees the vision of her parents and her abandonment.

They paid for your protection…in more than one way. Rey, I know what happened to them. Tell me where you are…you don’t know the whole story. It was Palpatine who had your parents taken. He was looking for you. But they wouldn’t say where you were…so he gave the order.”

Rey sees her parents get killed. (For a Rey Nobody version, the vision would be of Rey destroying her parents in an attempt to keep them on Jakku.)

“You know why the Emperor’s always wanted you dead. I’ll come tell you.”

In the hangar, Kylo can have some dialogue indicating why she keeps abandoning and imperiling her friends:

“You are drawn to the darkness, Rey. You would even abandon your friends to achieve your destiny…just like me.”

…

I still think that Hux as the spy needs work, simply because the Hux from the first two movies would never intentionally want the First Order to lose to the Resistance. However, if he believes that Kylo Ren is such a bad leader that the First Order is doomed, then it makes sense why he would aid the Resistance in taking him down. Unfortunately, there’s not much room to communicate this, but maybe something like this:

“For the First Order to win…I need Kylo Ren to lose.”

…

The effects and grading in the film was very good overall, but I couldn’t help but notice that Luke’s island is too red, compared to the raw clips.

Ascendant:

Render:

…

When Poe and Finn are playing chess with Chewie, it would be nice to have some clanks and crashes as Rey exits the ship, indicating that Chewie was throwing a fit at being called a cheater.

Anyway, that’s about it. Regardless of these notes, this edit is a fantastic achievement.

I interpreted that as an instance of ‘single timeline’ time travel. As in, Ahsoka was never going to be killed by Vader because Ezra was always going to save her in the future. It’s not like this began another causal chain which led to a different Original Trilogy, for example.

Eh, World Between Worlds is dumb in any case.

Henry Kissinger

Baked beans spam spam and spam:

https://originaltrilogy.com/user/kellyjames7957/id/81695

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of sorrow.
Luke Skywalker, sworn
to rebuild the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
countless worlds beyond
the fragile New Republic.

With the Senate falling
into chaos and despair,
its leaders have secretly
commissioned the pilots
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

The first two paragraphs are now basically perfect in my eyes, and the third works well. Though if I were to change something, it would be to make better use of the first two lines of the third paragraph to suggest that the Senate is overwhelmed by chaos, so that it ties in better with Hux’s later lines of the government which ‘acquiesces to disorder’.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, sworn
to rebuild the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

With the Jedi now facing
extinction, agents of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
countless worlds beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Overwhelmed by rising
chaos and oppression,
the Senate has secretly
commissioned the pilots
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

Sure, Force descendants don’t always happen, but I am saying that they never happen, or at least there is absolutely no causal mechanism (and certainly no Midichlorians to be passed down). For me, the Force is either present mysteriously in a person, perhaps for them to fulfill some feat or destiny, or they have dedicated their lives to cultivating it in themselves and/or have an unshakeable faith in the Force which gives them their power.

It often happens that a person can temporarily gain ability in the Force to do something usually beyond their abilities, and this is where ‘May the Force be with you’ comes from in common parlance. In these cases, the Force doesn’t necessarily persist in that person once their destiny has been fulfilled.

Sounds good DZ! Definitely an improvement.

Hal, the reason I don’t care for the theatrical crawl’s wording concerning the First Order is that it makes the Order seem like it comes out of nowhere. “In his absence, the First Order has risen from the ashes of the fallen Empire” literally means that the Empire was in ashes for decades until Luke vanished, and then suddenly the First Order came into being from that. Even if we’re not supposed to believe that’s how the events played out, that’s how it’s presented.

That’s why I much prefer the current wording, since it implies that the First Order had already existed, at least on that Imperial base, for an unknown amount of time before their ambitious power grab.

Mrebo said:

EddieDean said:

I’ve been thinking about Attack of the Clones a bit lately. Spence’s recent tightening was really good, but every time I watch or think about this movie I always find the early car chase sequence really off-putting. After the droids in the factory, I find that scene the most egregious.

So why not remove it altogether? Since we already have an attempt on Padmè’s life with her ship being bombed, that gives us enough of a reason for Anakin to be assigned her protector, and I’m sure there’s a way to use voicework to tie the bombing to Obi-Wan’s hunt for Kamino.

I feel like that trimming could really improve the pace, and combined with the usual tightening, the addition of the Anakin/Kenobi training scene early, and the addition of the usual deleted scenes with Padmè’s family, you’d end up with something more focused and interesting.

I could do without the animal fight in the arena but I think that’d be my ideal structure.

The inefficiency of the storytelling is one good reason to remove. A question is whether sufficient impetus for Padme to leave is still there without the second attempt.

I agree with your assessment the scene as it exists is too much. Yet as others say, it has the merit of showing positive character interactions I wish were more prominent.

My idea is to start the film with the chase. From crawl (explaining that the Jedi are in pursuit of an assassin targeting senators who oppose the creation of an army), pan to shot of Coruscant, cut to point where Obi and Anakin are both in the speeder on through to where they lose Zam and she removes her veil.

Then Padme’s ship comes down through the clouds, no explosion, it’s morning after the chase and we go to the two heroes in the elevator (just another day in the life of a Jedi).

Snooker made a brilliant scene edit where Anakin deflects blaster shots from the assassin droid and then Anakin jumps out of the window. My crazy notion inspired by that is while Obi and Anakin are chatting in Padme’s apartment at night, Zam’s speeder slows past the window behind them. Sensing danger they run to the bedroom and Anakin deflects blaster shots (implicitly from Zam) and jumps out…onto the speeder, thus picking up that part of the chase on through to Zam’s death.

I’ve had the same thought, that Anakin should jump out of the window onto Zam’s speeder. It really illustrates their characters to have Anakin be headstrong while Obi-wan takes his time to find a speeder, and it also provides a fun reveal when we see Obi-wan catch Anakin’s lightsaber from out of nowhere, showing that Obi-wan really has Anakin’s back even in his boneheaded moments.

The Force isn’t passed down through blood relations.

Rather, it is faith alone that allows a person to gain power in the Force. Allowing Luke to assume that Force ability is passed down from his powerful Jedi father is merely a sneaky method that Obi-wan uses to jump-start Luke’s abilities. Notice that there is no obvious sign of Force sensitivity in Luke other than being a good pilot until the events of ANH.

Similarly, when it appears that Luke will be killed in a foolish quest to save his friends, Yoda implies to Obi-wan that they hedge their bets with a new Skywalker, one invented from whole cloth. Yoda tells Luke that there is another Skywalker, and Obi-wan feeds the lie by suggesting that it is a twin sister, and Luke fills in the rest with his own now certain belief. It is Luke’s belief that Leia is related to him, already knowing that she was adopted, which will allow her to gain certainty in Force abilities that were nonexistent until the blood relationship was invented.

I went through the timeline and fixed all of those issues that I could find for V1.1. There may be a few small places where they remain, as there are simply so many audio edits, but I haven’t heard any complaints about that so far 😉

PM Sent!

PM Sent!

PM sent!

All of that makes a lot more sense than what we got in the Prequels.

The latest version is 1.1, but PM sent!

Adywan’s Star Wars Revisited project is generally seen as the pinnacle of Original Trilogy fanediting, though ROTJ is still in production.

Hal9000’s Prequel trilogy edits are also seen a definitive, though there are many other prequel edits that cut them down even more if that’s what you’re after.

It’s up to 450 crawls in my document, so at 1.33 minutes per crawl, that’s 9.75 hours of nonstop crawling 😃

Anyway, I think it’s good and would be happy to have that be the final version, at least until a new idea strikes me. It’s shocking how many permutations we’ve gone through without actually cycling back around to accidentally making a crawl identical to a previous attempt. It just goes to show that the variations are truly endless.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, sworn
to rebuild the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

With the Jedi now facing
extinction, agents of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Desperate for a hero to
help resolve this crisis,
the Senate has secretly
commissioned the pilots
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

Yeah, I’m very happy with this one.

JEDIT: changed ‘pilots’ to ‘mission’ for clarity.

I am not sure about making the Republic so directly dependent on a single Jedi for its survival, even Luke. It kind of infantilizes them to make it so all they need is a consultation with Luke. Keep in mind, even Snoke believes that the threat of Luke isn’t the man himself but the ‘new Jedi’ that he may inspire.

As for crisis, I put it back in the first paragraph because it was in the third. I think when we get to that third paragraph it’s nice to have a term to encapsulate everything that’s happened so far.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

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

With the Jedi now facing
extinction, agents of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Unable to end this crisis
without the mighty Jedi,
the Senate has secretly
authorized the mission
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find their lost hero and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

Good point on ‘rebuild’.

And yes, I agree that the Republic supporting the Resistance has always been a thorn in our side, even if it’s necessary for Hux’s plan to make sense.

Because we need the Republic in there somehow, maybe if we frame the conflict in terms of the Senate needing the Jedi to function, whether to inspire public support or to serve some more technical leadership role, it can solve this issue.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

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

With the Jedi now facing
extinction, agents of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Unable to end this crisis
without the heroic Jedi,
the Senate has secretly
authorized the pilots of
a brave RESISTANCE to
find Luke Skywalker and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

I didn’t like using ‘Jedi’ twice in the final paragraph, so I had to take out ‘the last Jedi’. This meant changing something else to get the idea across that the Jedi are on the verge of extinction, and that meant changing ‘soldiers’ back to ‘agents’ for word length purposes. Eh, I think agents flows better anyway.

Or perhaps we should have something entirely different for the final paragraph:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, sworn
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Across this dark expanse,
only one valiant militia
stands in RESISTANCE,
its daring pilots secretly
entrusted by the Republic
to find the last Jedi and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

Well, it would be wrong to remove the commas from the first paragraph, since they are actually required.

Thinking more, the reason it feels like there’s a need for commas is probably due to an over-complication of the clause. I think it would help matters to avoid mention of leaders in the Republic, since that’s getting too into the weeds. The important point is that the Republic is helping the Resistance, however fraught that help actually is. On the other hand, it feels like I need more specificity when referring to the New Republic, so I could say that it is armed by the Republic Starfleet, which is basically true. Poe was originally from there, and their ships are undoubtedly New Republic military in origin. It also gives a clear hint as to how it’s so obvious to the First Order that the New Republic is involved - they find Poe’s shiny New Republic X-wing on Jakku. Referencing the starfleet also helps to prime expectation for talk of pilots.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, sworn
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Rallying against this evil,
a valiant RESISTANCE
armed in secret by the
New Republic Starfleet
has sent its daring pilots
to find the last Jedi and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

I’ve changed it to ‘in’, but either way works for me.

Extra commas may be a bit more legible than no commas, but either way is grammatically correct I think, though I was trying to avoid them, however, because I wanted to avoid the dreaded ‘excess comma disease’ that tends to affect my writing, as this sentence so tediously demonstrates.