RogueLeader

I was curious how much you were able to achieve with just score isolation and how much re-foleying you’ve had to do. Has it been a lot or mostly touches here and there?

And sure! I can share some ideas I’ve written down. I actually made a rough edit years ago with some of those ideas, but a lot of my ideas have changed overtime. I can post some of those ideas later. But the gist of the first act changes were to improve the pacing and characterization. For example, I try to make Jyn a more active protagonist throughout the film, and I also try make the other character’s motivations for joining the team clearer.

Anyway, I’ll post some things later. You can take them or leave them, but I’d be happy to help implement any ideas you might be interested in.

Damn, you beat me to it!

This is great. This is exactly what I was wanting to do, just putting it off until season 2 released.

I really enjoy your taste/sensibilities, so I was really excited to see that you were the one to share this project. I was curious how a total rescore would sound and I’m happy to see the samples! I do love the original music too, really appreciate Giacchino’s work, but it is a cool alternative to have! And I agree that it does bring the movie closer to that Andor feel.

I think I had in mind was going to make bigger story/characterization changes, to address some of the issues people had with the original movie, but I think your approach of just pushing through with something more conservative was a smart idea. I know a common complaint of the first act is the constant cutting from character to character, with many people removing the Bodhi scenes up until Cassian finds him. I’m assuming you keep these scenes though? I imagine it doesn’t have the same jarring feeling that the original movie did consider the overall rescore and new episodic format.

Anyway, would love to check this out!

I haven’t been on the forums much lately due to work/life, but Dom and I had a lot of discussions about potential dialogue restructuring. I think we both agreed that we wanted to come up with a version that didn’t necessarily add anything extra, just focusing more on the dark visions, but we also talked about how a Rey killed her parents version would be interesting to see and I did some rewrites that included that premise.

A big reason it never went anywhere, at least in my case, is the weight of endless possibility. The dialogue could be anything now, and I feel like it is challenging to get new dialogue written that feels appropriate to the movie. I haven’t landed on anything that I just loved.

Maybe I could go back and find the scenes I’ve made rewrites for and post it here. I feel like it could help to have an open discussion to try to figure something out. I end up just writing a little bit, not being happy with it, losing interest and then revisiting months later. If there was a discussion here sort of like the discussion over Nev’s TFA Starlight crawl maybe we could finally figure something out, or just end up with an endless adjustments. 😂

Lol, YES. The titling of the shows has been a big gripe for me. It almost feels like they have a mandate that these shows have to have the simplest titles so it is easy for people to find and identify them. Oh! This show is about Obi-Wan Kenobi! Or Boba Fett! Or Ahsoka! The Bad Batch!

Ironically I feel like it works for Andor. Because most audiences are probably like, “Andor who??” I kind of believe Andor may be a play on the Greek “andros”, meaning “man”. Cassian is just one man. But it plays into that idea that one small person, one man, can make a a big impact on the universe. One person’s choices can ripple into a wave of change.

Even the upcoming show “The Acolyte” and “Skeleton Crew” plays into this (if the crew is called the Skeleton Crew at least). The only thing that hasn’t played into this is Tales of the Jedi.

On another note, I saw this comment on Reddit and I agreed with it. This was in regards to why they didn’t show Ezrea hug Hera, and cut away before they could really even interact.

u/joshuaizzo:
Something about this show that stood out to me is that Filoni - for some reason - is afraid of BIG emotion. Ezra and Sabine’s reunion should have been tears and crying and hugging and sobbing. They were both like, ‘Sup.
Same here. Big emotion. Run to one another. Embrace and cry. Revel in the fact you’re back together again. It was an emotional miss to me.

This is headcanon, but I like to think both are Jedi outfits, but are from different sects/periods of Jedi history.

If you look at Count Dooku, his outfit is pretty similar to Luke’s ROTJ. They probably simply referred to Luke’s outfit from a production standpoint, but from an in-universe perspective, perhaps the black uniform was used by Jedi in the Old Republic that were more “Knight” than “Monk”. They may have been more intertwined with the government they represented than later Jedi, who chose to be somewhat separate to the government they served. These Jedi may have answered directly to a government leader rather than a Jedi Council, or may have been government themselves. In Dooku’s case, he was the Count of his homeworld, and leader of the Separatist movement. In Luke’s case, he may have simply found the outfit or doesn’t know the full history behind it beyond it being a Jedi uniform. Or maybe it could be intentional, since he is a military leader within the Alliance to Restore the Republic. At this time, Luke may have saw himself more as a warrior than as a monk. Maybe this look predates the reformation of the Jedi order and the Republic.

As time went on, perhaps the sects of Jedi who adopted the more religious trappings gained more influence in the Jedi Order as a whole, leading to the more monk-like, samurai look. In the High Republic, the Jedi had essentially beat the Sith, achieving a moral/cultural victory. Because of this, they wore more opulent robes of white and gold, conjuring the image of Catholic priests. But overtime, problems grew within the Republic and the Order. Maybe the Jedi saw their opulence as representative of their pride, so their uniforms became less flashy as they emphasized more of their Buddhist monk mentalities.

Obviously in real life they just made it up as they went, but it is fun to think about.

That is interesting, have not heard that before.

There is also this quote in In Making of ROTJ, page 119.

Wednesday, January 6, was a big makeup and costume fitting day. “In a way, the first two films were an elaborate setup for Jedi,” says Hamill. “I think people really sense that this is the final chapter in the story–so far–and not a cliffhanger. It’s the big finish–all stops out, all systems go. My costume reflects that. During Star Wars, I was in a floppy, white rag-doll-type outfit. For Empire, I was in a militaristic-looking khaki costume. Now I wear the black uniform of a trained Jedi Knight. But the question is: What kind of Jedi? A wizard, a religious figure, or just a glutton for punishment?”
“Luke’s outfit went through incredible changes,” says Marquand. “We just worked and worked and worked. George really wanted Luke to wear black.”
“That was completely George,” says [costume designer Aggie Guerard] Rodgers. “He told me, 'That’s what it is–just copy the white one from Star Wars in black.”
“George was a little worried about my costume, that I would come off as a Hitler Youth or something a little too stark,” Hamill adds.

I believe there are other references to this idea, whether it is from Lucas direct or artists/designers.

I think the rationale here was that Lucas wanted Luke in black for dramatic effect and to make the audience question if he will turn or not. At the time it being a Jedi uniform was the justification for why he would choose to wear black. But then when making the prequels, Lucas returned to the idea of the Tatooine robes being more like the Jedi uniform because 1) audiences already identified the look with Obi-Wan, the most easily recognized Jedi in pop culture (a lot like how Gandalf sort of became the template of the ‘wizard’ look), and 2) the lighter, earthy tones of the Jedi robes made them more easily recognizable as the good guys.

Basically, costumes are an easy way to tell audiences who the good guys and bad guys are. For ROTJ he wanted the audience to wonder if Luke would be bad, but for the prequels he wanted the audience to immediately recognize the Jedi as good. In universe, I think the argument for the Tatooine robes is that they are reminiscent to clothes of the impoverished, simply-dressed citizens of the galaxy. And the prequel Jedi harken to the concept mendicant, ascetic monks, and the simple robes play to that idea.

You are right. I think The Secret History of Star Wars goes into it, but the change seemed to have occurred during pre-pro of Phantom Menace.

I like 2 and 3.

Also, I think you’ve been doing a great job producing and sifting through these generations. I think the quality we’ve been able to achieve with the other voices just has made me set a higher bar that I think we have struggled to reach with the Poe voice clone (and that isn’t a jab at your skill, because I think your generations have been better than mine). I think it is just an inherent issue with Poe’s voice more than anything else. Just harder to make it a 1:1 match, due to Oscar’s natural delivery, the digital cruft of his clone, etc. But I think any of these would go unnoticed as a voice clone by your average viewer. And like you said, it’d probably hard for even me to notice if I was watching it on my tv or my phone without headphones.

Not really related to Ascendant, but I feel like there is this unaddressed thing in the movies where the books are the “original Jedi texts”, but also Luke’s personal journal (Obviously a Johnson vs JJ/Terrio discrepancy). I think in some ST edit I’ll probably never do, I would want to make the texts LUKE’S Jedi texts. Instead of being the original Jedi texts, that have somehow survived over 25 thousand years, I’d want them to be everything Luke has learned about the Force and the Jedi that he’s written down. This could include ancient knowledge and lost wisdom from old masters, but all passed through the lens of Luke.

So even though we don’t get to see Luke rebuild the Jedi Order proper, Luke’s very own words can become the foundation of the New Jedi Order. Luke would become a Moses figure for the future Jedi religion.

Cool, thanks Jar Jar. Well to Hal or whoever it was, was it because of the way it fits in the shot? Or just the wording alone? I feel like it would still fit, but I think you could remove the word ‘lasers’ in order to make it fit if it just didn’t work. Just think “has been” makes the entire speech flow better… though I guess it is punchier without it. It also could just be a matter of delivery, maybe if it was just slightly slower. Idk.

EDIT: Honestly it does sound better on my phone vs my desktop. I have been listening to the same lines for hours so maybe I’m just a little over-sensitive right now.

So I have the Jannah Scene audio and the “lightspeed” alts done. I’m posting them here in case anyone else wants them for their edits.

The Jannah Scene is basically 5 tracks, small adjustments made to most of them but the bulk of the work is in track 4. I would just put each channel in for the entire scene and adjust volume accordingly if needed. I have a reference video in the folder as well so you can see where these tracks start. It should start on the first frame of the shot before the Jannah scene begins (with Poe repairing stuff in the cockpit). This might not be the most efficient way to do this, but hopefully it’ll do.

Also, the new Jannah shot is in this folder. Idk if the actual video quality is as good as it can be, but maybe it is good enough, or someone can upscale it. I might be able to redo it with a higher quality version as well if it is an issue. But that shot should fit right on top of the entire shot of Jannah saying, “You say that like you’re sure it’s real.”

Folder for Jannah Scene:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HDkzLDm6xKYCM2zWafG6iWlC6fKwpZ1m?usp=drive_link

For the lightspeed alts, I also have a reference video (starts on the shot of Rey and Finn hugging). For this one, you just need to replace the center channel with one of these. I have a lightspeed clip version, and a lightspeed slip version.

Folder for lightspeed alts:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mrCyrOdJEgyCPI_U3Pdn_8LtaNUW2kiw?usp=drive_link

As for the Jedi Text shot, I had considered putting the healing image on the page before Rey turns to the Wayfinder page, but it would literally be a blink and you miss it shot so I don’t think it’d be worth it unless you extended the shot. It’d be a pain to do because Rey is already in the process of turning the page when the shot begins. I think it’s doable, I’m just not doing it tonight. I’d rather be 100% sure we want it before I spend any time on it. And maybe it’d be weird to have the page about Force healing be right next to the page about the Sith Wayfinder.

Also, I did want to point out one thing. The last test Hal posted for the Poe dialogue sounded good, but I still feel like the second line about cannons sounds weird. I think the worsd sound fine, but I don’t think the delivery totally fits the rest of Poe’s dialogue. I think it might flow better if Poe says, “Each ship has been modified with dreadnought laser cannons.”
You may get a better delivery if you type into the ElevenLabs prompt something like: “Each ship has been modified with dreadnought laser cannons…”, he said slow and solemnly.

Based on my tests it should still fit into the shot, I just can’t get a delivery I’m 100% happy with. That’s just my opinion on it though. Might be worth playing around with just a little bit more.

I personally prefer lightspeed slipping. The idea being that a ship can enter hyperspace in order to “slip” past or through objects in real space. As long as the object doesn’t have a heavy mass shadow, like a planet or moon. So Poe was trying to slip past/through the ice wall, but called it a little close and damaged both the Falcon and the wall. Although it was still preferable to the alternative, which would’ve been just crashing right into the wall and blowing up. I did suggest both originally and made arguments for both, but I feel lightspeed slipping feels slightly more like authentic Star Wars lingo vs clipping imo.

But I think I have versions of both “slip” and “clip”, so I’ll send both to Hal.

I can get the audio stuff to you this week!

Well in the movie we have no indication the red troopers are different than regular troops. At one point I thought it would be interesting if you implied they were clones bred on Exegol.

And I had considered that as well. My initial notes had Finn basically telling the troops to abandon ship instead of “fighting back”, and then Finn says that “Stormtroopers are surrending”, implying that troopers were taking escape pods and being picked up by the Resistance. So, at the very least, Finn’s trying to save stormtroopers rather than kill them. So something like that could work, but you don’t get any of that imagery of the troopers rising up.

Regardless, I do think the change to the Finn and Jannah scene does a lot for Finn’s story already, even if we did nothing else.

Yeah, I think I agree with that. And kind of like what I mentioned with Finn, I like the idea that maybe he was unaware of the impact he’s had on other stormtroopers, but once he knows he changes his approach.

DominicCobb said:

It would be ReaL interesting if someone here were working on an idea like that.

I have been summoned.

Since it has been brought up, I have been playing around with the idea of adding a little more to Finn’s arc. Really, it is the only way I could imagine one could do the “stormtrooper rebellion” idea, and then it might feel rushed, like Burbin said. Also, not all of these ideas would have to be used, but these are all of the places I felt the idea could be implement to make it feel set up as much as possible.

To clarify, I’m not saying this has to be for Ascendant! This is just what I have been cooking up on my own, but I thought I could share in case any of it could be useful for Ascendant.

Crawl

In the crawl, it could mention that Leia has had her bravest heroes send out messages of hope throughout the galaxy. This includes Finn and Poe. This is to help set up the stormtrooper subplot and the people’s fleet coming to the rescue at the end.

First Finn and Poe Scene

In Finn and Poe’s first scene, when they are attacked by TIE fighters, when we cut to the TIE interior, we could hear that the Falcon is broadcasting one of Finn’s messages on open channels. The TIE pilot says as much and tells the other pilots to turn it off. It is basically Resistance propoganda, Finn sharing testimonial in order to de-radicalize other stormtroopers. Also cut Finn cheering when he destroys TIEs.

Resistance Base

When Rey is reading the Jedi text, we hear one of Poe’s broadcasts on the radio that is on the table in front of her. “The First Order wins by making us think we’re alone. But there are more of us.”

First Order Briefing
During the First Order briefing scene, change Pryde’s dialogue and the off screen officers dialogue from this:
Pryde: Such range and power will correct the error of Starkiller Base.
Off screen officer: We need to increase recruitments. Harvest more of the galaxy’s young.

To this:
Pryde: Such range and power will correct the error of the Battle of Crait.
Off screen officer: And the stormtrooper program. There have been more defections.

This would be a simple change that could set up other stormtrooper defections besides Jannah’s group.

Pasaana

On Pasaana, when the stormtrooper catches them, we cut most of the trooper dialogue and hear Finn off screen say, “Wait! You don’t have to do this!”. Also cut Finn cheering when he kills/nearly kills stormtroopers during the speeder chase.

Kijimi

This is more related to Poe, but when he speaks with Zorii, make it clear that Zorii is simply repeating Poe’s own words to him.
Poe: How long’s it been like this?
Zorii: Ever since Skywalker. People have been fighting, and dying.
…
Poe: I can’t walk out on this war. Not until it’s over… Maybe it is…
Zorii: You don’t believe that. Hey. “They win by making you think you’re alone.” I’ve heard your broadcasts. “There’s more of us.”

Star Destroyer Rescue

I think it’d be helpful to this idea if Finn and Poe were stunning all of the trooper on the Destroyer instead of straight up killing them. Maybe you just recolor their blaster shots a light blue, add some kind of stun mask to troopers when they get hit, and an altered stun blast sound, to imply their shots are stun shots, but slightly stronger so they can penetrate armor and keep them down longer.

Endor
We could keep the Jannah scene as we currently have it. If you wanted a more conservative approach, you could leave out most of the previous ideas (maybe besides the officer mentioning defections), and maybe Finn doesn’t realize the power his story wields until he meets Jannah, which then encourages him to do what he does on Exegol.

Resistance Meeting

When Poe and Finn are laying out the mission plan, we create a new insert shot of R2 recording the speech their giving. Then, during the prep montage, we reuse the shots of R2 transferring the Palpatine message earlier in the film to make it look like he is transferring Finn and Poe’s message from his memory to the Falcon (for Lando and Chewie to broadcast to the galaxy).

Battle of Exegol
When Finn stops and notices they are resetting their systems and decides he has to do “something”, instead of hacking one of the turrets and shooting the command deck, him and Jannah hack into the navigation signal and use it to send a message to the stormtroopers.

Rose: Finn, where are you? The lander’s leaving. (OS) Finn!
Finn: Go without us. (Cut) We’re taking this entire ship down.
Finn (OS Add): We’re gonna reach out to the stormtroopers.
Rose: What? How?
Finn (OS Cut): We’re gonna hit the command deck.
Finn (OS Add): We’re gonna slice into their nav signal.

Cut the shots of them on the rotating turret.
Add the insert of Jannah plugging the cables together here. And add her saying off screen “You’re in!”

Then, we get a brief montage from inside the Star Destroyer. In this montage, we’d hear Finn’s voice playing over the intercoms.
Some of the shots we could see:
An insert of a computer screen that illustrates their system being “hacked” and now displaying audio waveforms.
A modified shot from earlier in the film where the two stormtroopers look at each other. Mask them out and put them in a different room/hallway. As we hear Finn’s voice, maybe we hear one of the troopers say, “The Finn?”
First Order officers scrambling at their own monitors trying to stop what’s happening.
Empty hallway shots taken from the Vehicle Flythroughs video for the Finalizer as we hear Finn’s voice echo down the halls.
From TFA, a modified shot of two troopers walking around the corner off camera.

A possible version of Finn’s speech:
Stormtroopers! This is FN-2187, now Finn. The First Order only sees us as numbers. But we’re more than that. We had names, families, stories! Now’s the time. To remember! Break free! Resist!

Then, at the end of the battle, you would cut the turret firing on the command deck and Finn and Jannah’s reaction. Instead, we would take shots from TFA from when they blow a hole in the oscillator. I actually have a rough cut of this part already, but basically I’ve cut it to appear that stormtroopers are shooting at each other. We could add new trooper dialogue here to help get the idea across of what is happening. One of the defiant troopers gets shot, but his shot hits a reactor that sets off a chain reaction, causing the entire room to explode. As we follow the explosion traveling upward, we cut to outside the Star Destroyer, where now we see the whole ship exploding, leading to the command deck blowing up. I’ve also timed it to where it doesn’t interfere with the current flow of the scene or score. So it is brief, but lasts just long enough to get an idea of what is happening.
One or two of the shots would need to be adjusted to make it feel more like a generic facility interior and hide the oscillator chasm. But cropping, flipping and color grading can help make these shots feel distinct from their TFA counterparts.

Then, as everyone is flying away, we hear Finn say to Poe. “Stormtroopers are defecting. People are rising up all over the galaxy.”

I actually never liked the Final Order term either, I just figured it could be kept because it is onscreen dialogue from Poe. The only other times that term is mentioned is Palpatine off screen, and I think the exposition Resistance guy once?

You could potentially cut the shot, and slightly extend existing shots to fit the runtime without affecting the score. Or find/create a new shot that could be used for this scene. And that way you wouldn’t have to cut back and forth between original and AI dialogue. Might not be right for this edit though.

Even though I helped make the new shot, I’m glad krlozdac brought this up to debate the pros and cons of using it vs a different idea. These are definitely good discussions to have.

The dyad would’ve been a good way to have the power in the movie without it disrupting future storytelling. Like only they can do it. At the very least, full-on resurrection could be something only they could do maybe. Guess it just depends on future stories.

As far as the movie goes, Rey doesn’t seem surprised that she can heal the snake. She just decides to do it, and explains to BB-8 what she did. Which to me signals she learned it from somewhere, and the obvious answer being the Jedi texts.

It could be an ancient Jedi ability, or it could’ve been an obscure ability Luke learned somewhere else and wrote about, since we know Luke also wrote in the texts.

Beautiful. Add it to the “Changes to the OT to better match the ST” thread.

A part of my heart breaks to think all of those hours down the drain, but to be honest most of that afternoon I spent working on that shot was me just figuring out how to do it. Gotta kill your darlings I guess. But now that I know the easiest way to do it, I wouldn’t care to add whatever to those shots if I was provided the drawings and the shots needed to make them (honestly should just snag a high quality digital version of the movie). I need a better quality version of that Jannah shot too.

It would require some creative editing, but maybe the beginning of his dream could depict related his ambitions of greatness, and then the vision devolves into both Padmé and his deaths. Something that shows him in a position of power, as a Jedi Master, or being the celebrated chosen one who achieved his destiny, or in a position of power in the galaxy. Like, he sees this power and greatness he will one day have, maybe alongside happiness with Padmé too, and then he loses it. That way, we know his fear of loss is not only tied to losing Padmé, but losing the power he foresaw him having.

It would be interesting if this could be tied to Palpatine. Like, he know these visions of power are tied to Palpatine, and being associated with him. It would be ironic if he was seeing his future as Vader, but depicted in a way that looks “good”, like he is Anakin rather than Vader, Palpatine rather than the Emperor. So he does he end up getting the power he saw in his vision, but not in the way he saw it. For example, imagine the scene at the end of the film, with Vader the Emperor on the bridge of the Star Destroyer, backs facing camera. You could have the same shot, but we see the backs of Anakin and Palpatine instead. So Anakin interprets that as him bringing peace to the galaxy through military power. Stuff like that.

Anyway, not really sure what imagery you could use. It could be even simpler than that. Just picking a few existing shots and laying the right pre-existing lines underneath it.

I do like the logic of that! It’s better than Rey just happening to flip through that page the day they find out about Exegol.

As of now though, I think we’re changing that page to set up Force healing, since it plays a bit of a role in the movie too and is never really addressed. We can assume she had just scene that read about it before this day. Though your idea would still benefit from her seeing it in a vision for the other reasons you mentioned.

If you stuck with just adding new dialogue to the hologram scene, you could have Palpatine say something like:

Soon, I will have a stronger vessel.
or
Soon, my spirit will have a more worthy host.

It could be a way to address the question of, “Why would Palpatine tell them something that would make them want to kill him less?” It’s like, Rey probably would’ve killed you before you told her that. Yes, I think he tells her because of his hubris and sees that there is no other way (until there is), but it would alleviate that question if the audience could learn about his plans for spirit transfer while he tells a confidant of his intentions.

Also, everyone would probably know he is talking about Rey here, but it is still vague. He could be referring to a new clone body. But then on Exegol when he says, “That is what I want” it would confirm it is Rey.

Ah yeah I see what you’re saying.