zacharr

GLogus said:

zacharr said:

Just found this edit - sounds like an awesome project!

I don’t know if you’re done with Episode 8 yet / still working on it, but if there’s still a chance, I’d like to throw one thing into consideration that I felt was weak about the finale: Sabine’s force push.

Hear me out: Sabine had been struggling with the force all series, and Huyang even commented that she had the weakest force potential of any jedi student he’s ever seen (and, in 4 seasons of Rebels, we didn’t get any inkling that Sabine could use the force). So it feels like it comes way out of left-field, and really kills the suspension of disbelief. In my opinion, a better pay-off for Sabine’s force is the lightsaber force pull. It’s comparatively more minor, but it has a few really nice thematic tie-ins: (1) her struggle was trying to pull the cup to her, so it’s neat to see that by the end of the show, she finally manages to pull something to her; (2) Luke’s first big force feat (beginning of Episode 5) was pulling a lightsaber, so it’s good symmetry, and the force push just kind of overshadows it; (3) eliminating Sabine’s push gives Ezra the chance to shine, really conveying how good he got in ~8 years on Peridea, with him making a fantastic, near-impossible jump.

I haven’t seen any other fan edit that has removed the force push yet, so I’d be excited to see it.

I agree that pulling the lightsaber was “just right” and that the jump should have been Ezra’s moment completely. I don’t know how feasible it is in terms of a fanedit, but I do agree with you. I suspect there’s an earlier draft of the script somewhere where it’s Ezra giving Sabine the boost and not vice versa, but the powers that be had Filoni change it last minute. For me the key word is discipline. Fans who are more knowledgeable than I will argue "anyone can use the Force,’ but it doesn’t change the fact that Sabine never cultivated the necessary discipline, be it as a Jedi or not, to use the Force that adeptly.

100% agree with you. I don’t know how technically feasible it would be because, honestly, I’ve never movie-edited anything in my life. But story-wise, it feels like it should mess up very little because, even assuming Sabine does more with the force in Season 2 (which I feel like is a same assumption), that growth can happen off-screen without it being jarring, as long as the lightsaber pull is kept in.

Just found this edit - sounds like an awesome project!

I don’t know if you’re done with Episode 8 yet / still working on it, but if there’s still a chance, I’d like to throw one thing into consideration that I felt was weak about the finale: Sabine’s force push.

Hear me out: Sabine had been struggling with the force all series, and Huyang even commented that she had the weakest force potential of any jedi student he’s ever seen (and, in 4 seasons of Rebels, we didn’t get any inkling that Sabine could use the force). So it feels like it comes way out of left-field, and really kills the suspension of disbelief. In my opinion, a better pay-off for Sabine’s force is the lightsaber force pull. It’s comparatively more minor, but it has a few really nice thematic tie-ins: (1) her struggle was trying to pull the cup to her, so it’s neat to see that by the end of the show, she finally manages to pull something to her; (2) Luke’s first big force feat (beginning of Episode 5) was pulling a lightsaber, so it’s good symmetry, and the force push just kind of overshadows it; (3) eliminating Sabine’s push gives Ezra the chance to shine, really conveying how good he got in ~8 years on Peridea, with him making a fantastic, near-impossible jump.

I haven’t seen any other fan edit that has removed the force push yet, so I’d be excited to see it.

Kaweebo said:

Artan42 said:

Kaweebo said:

Artan42 said:

WitchDR said:

If Sabine has to have the force, they shouldn’t have made her terrible at it in the beginning. The show spend it’s first few episodes basically telling you she’s terrible via Huyang. Instead she should have been able to use it to a small extent from the start, which could have easily been hand-waved away as something she learned how to do from her previous training with Ahsoka.

But that’s exactly what it’s about and why adults have always made terrible Jedi students since ESB. She’s spent her life not using the Force so will be terrible at it because she’s got 20 years of mindset to undo. Then, when it matters the most it clicks for her.
She’s not lifting an X-Wing, she’s accelerating a 70 odd kilo human who’s already magically levitating themselves, the extra dozen or so metres into a slowly moving wide target. That is in no way not possible for somebody who has probably been taught the theory of levitating even if she couldn’t do it herself until then.

Maybe they could have focused on her PoV for all this a bit more, but, at the end of the day, it’s not Sabine’s story.

It’s not just that she’s an adult. Luke had extreme potential in the Force and it still took him time to fully unlock it. The problem is Sabine’s prior training is all offscreen, with nothing to back it up from Rebels (and no, training with the Darksaber does not count). And even still, they still bumrush her from barely being able to pull a saber to throwing Ezra through the air in the span of a few minutes. It took Luke at least days of training to get to where he is by the end of Empire and he’s still not great at it. And he has much more potential than her.

They needed to sell it much better than they did. Sabine honestly shouldn’t have unlocked anything this season tbh. It ends in a failure with Thrawn escaping anyway. Let the audience feel the amount of time and effort she had to put into it rather than one single training sequence and some offhand remarks to OFFSCREEN training. The way they presented it, I just don’t buy it.

I don’t get what the issue with it being offscreen is. It’s not like Luke’s five mins of backflipping in a swamp acually explains any of the skills he has in RotJ or The Mandalorian, you have to assume Yoda acually tought him useful stuff off screen.
Sabine has already done the start of the combat training way back in Rebels and I’m perfectly happy with her having had the Force related bits off screen between then and this show. Fits with Luke and most of Anakin’s training (you know, as we don’t see any of the bits between TPM and AotC onscreen).

Because we had four seasons of prior engagement with this character where under no uncertain circumstances was it even hinted at that she was Force-sensitive, Huyang calls her “the worst candidate for a Jedi ever,” and it’s obvious she doesn’t have the talent that someone like Luke did. Also, Empire was a film that had to tell a story in under two hours, whereas Ahsoka was a whole TV show and I’m gonna be honest, the pacing is so godawfully slow, they could have easily incorporated more scenes or flashbacks showing her training. The show has to sell to us that someone who has no talent with the Force whatsoever can eventually attain the ability with enough practice and failure, but they present her with the same struggles Luke had, but they’re not nearly the same situation! Luke was strong in the Force, Anakin was the Chosen One, Sabine is neither of those things and that’s an important distinction that the show fails to actually live up to.

Having everything be off-screen and told to us breaks “Show, don’t tell,” first of all, and it’s also a massive leap from her character in the show that this is basically a sequel to. It feels unearned in every way.

Yeah, honestly, this is what it is for me. It’s not that some new characters couldn’t have force abilities; sometimes, it can work in the narrative. It’s that Sabine is a terrible candidate from a narrative point of view for me, because it goes against everything we’ve seen. In four seasons of Rebels, she was constantly around Kanan, even training with him at one point; and Kanan (after losing his eyesight) became really in tune with the force. The fact that Kanan wouldn’t realize Sabine had solid force-potential and want to train her just goes against everything we’ve seen, and kind of makes Kanan look incompetent (at least at finding force users; which is weird given how quickly he senses Ezra’s ability). And, more than that, I actually thought it was a really fun idea to have Sabine train with a lightsaber (an homage back to her time with the Darksaber), and to become a non-force-sensitive Jedi (which is what Huyang’s comments lead us to believe she is). So just, from a narrative point of you and a in-world-logic point of view, it doesn’t feel like Sabine should be force-sensitive.

Anyway, digressing a bit, if I had one “wish-list” item for an Ahsoka fan edit, it would just be to remove her involvement with Ezra’s massive force jump. This does two things narratively: (1) it makes her force-pulling her lightsaber the defining improvement in her force powers, which I really like given that her previous struggles were in pulling a cup; and (2) it would help Ezra shine a bit more, showing just how in-tune with the force he has become in his time on Peridia without a lightsaber. As a small bonus, it also leaves Sabine room to grow with the force next season, if that’s where they go with it. Anyone who wants to take on this small edit has my full support! 😄

Fair enough, that does make sense. Thanks for the advice.

I feel like it’s an important thread that will be picked up a bunch later, though. The New Republic citizens, especially those living in the core worlds, didn’t even notice the regime change after Jakku. I feel like the government not taking action against the Imperial remnants is gonna be expanded in the upcoming ‘Mando-verse’ TV shows and it helps segue into the sequels, regardless of how you feel about those movies.

Yeah, I agree it’s going to happen whether you like it or not - as I said on my comment, Disney is clearly pushing ahead with the Sequel Timeline.

But this is a fan edit thread, on a site dedicated to the original trilogy. I’ve seen several good fan edits of the Sequels that go in a different direction (the First Order, Last Jedi single movie is one example; the duology that will treat the New Republic and the Resistance as one entity (still upcoming) is another). And it’s still another 24 years until the events of the sequels - it’s far too early in my opinion for the New Republic to be super inept, or else it would never have even lasted 30 years.

So I guess I feel that the particularly egregious bits of dialogue, like decommissioning the Alliance fleet, should be removed. Maybe my opinion will change after watching the rest of season 3, but it seems compatible with all timelines, and just removes some sequel foreshadowing, while making the New Republic more believable as an entity.

I just watched Season 3 episode 3, and this is exactly what my soul is yearning for! What an amazing idea, and thank you!

Two questions, if you don’t mind –

(1) Is there somewhere I can donate to your work? Do you take donations? If not, no problem.

(2) There’s one additional thing that bugs me about season 3, which I’d suggest you take a stab at (it’s hopefully no-where near as hard as removing grogu!)
Context: One of the reasons that Grogu returning so early irked me was that it was clear that Disney was going all-in on the Sequel Trilogy rendition of Luke and the New Republic. They were portrayed so beautifully throughout Mandalorian Season 1 and 2, that it really saddened me to see them change course in BoBF and Season 3. In Season 3, the New Republic seemed particularly inept, because of a couple of throwaway lines that could be easily fixed.
Suggestion: Would you consider looking through the episodes (episode 3 especially) and removing dialogue where the New Republic is just acting absurd (biggest example – the line about “decommissioning the old rebel alliance fleet”. Who decommissions serviceable ships when the Imperial Remnant, with Moffs and Star Destroyers, is still roaming the outer rim?). This small removal would make the New Republic so much less jarring, and ultimately won’t impact much.

Thank you again!