ST The ST: What Would You Change/Revise?

Agree with all this.

TBH, I think if you address the humour as discussed, and change the tone of the saber toss, the audience will largely go with everything else in that act 1 - and for the sake of compromise let's add in those wild lines about the resistance fleet, etc, just to underscore they're all there. I do think that's set up by TFA and teh opening crawl TBH, but if people are struggling with the idea of the Republic fleet being wiped out, let's take out that issue as well.

 

I just wanted to throw in that I completely disagree with the saber toss needing to be changed tonally. I loved it. Especially the way it was built up in TFA with such reverence. Then we finally see it delivered to it's owner and he tosses it away like "Screw this thing".

That quick response was a hilarious and perfect way to contrast the perception of what it represented to certain people and truly captured his cynicism towards the jedi. To Rey it was a symbol of hope that help was on the way. To Luke it was the symbol of all his problems and suffering and wanted nothing to do with it. It was one of my favorite moments.

 

I don’t mind it in the film at all. I just think for the purposes of the thread, it’s clearly something that bothers some in a big way. So I figure you can still keep the same beat but give it more weight. Luke still has to throw it away or shove it straight back at her for all the reasons you describe.

 

Significant rewrites, but still retaining much of The Force Awakens and some of The Last Jedi, though set over several months to a year, rather than a week:

Luke would be a nomad, the same calm, compassionate person he was in ROTJ, but more engimatic and pacifist, a myth in his own time.The temple massacre would've driven him to travel the galaxy with Artoo by his side, to find answers on how to defeat the threat of Snoke, not give up and wait for death. The search for Luke in TFA would have been more heavy on the Lor San Tekka and Maz stuff - interesting characters with clues to his whereabouts. He still doesn't have that much screen time in TFA, but we do see him doing things and with some dialogue.

Rey is the same character, the Force 'awakens' in her, and much of her story in TFA is the same. She eventually has a more profound relationship with Luke which gives her place in the story more significance and gravitas, rather than being seen as a 'Mary Sue'.

Snoke would be a mysterious dark sider, physically weak, vulnerable and terrified at the prospect of Luke returning to the fight. He wouldn't be an amazing force user, but for one power - the ability to posses the minds of inexperienced Force users, corrupting them and bending them to his will.

Ben Solo was corrupted by Snoke, but is very much seen as a victim because of Snoke's mysterious, insidious power. Despite his outrageous acts as Kylo Ren, Luke, Leia and Han don't see him as a lost cause - Luke believes that if Snoke can be defeated, the grip he has on Ben and other Force users will be released.

The First Order is the remnants of the Empire, but not as powerful as they're depicted in the ST. They disagree with the values of the new Republic, and want to reinstate the order of the Empire. No Starkiller base, no Dreadnoughts. Early in the trilogy, they are a more ruthless, guerilla-style force.

Major plots (1) - Luke hasn't involved himself in the military struggle against the First Order because he sees Snoke as the true threat facing the galaxy. Luke doesn't understand Snoke, he's unlike anyone he's faced before, ancient, mysterious and unnatural - that's what drives his 'wandering monk' phase - he is looking for ancient Jedi clues to inform his fight against Snoke.

Major plots (2) - The search for Luke: No one was ever going to find him, it was actually up to him when he returns. He reveals himself after Rey escapes Kylo Ren at the end of TFA. Luke takes her under his wing to shield her from Snoke's sorcery, and to pass on his teachings to her as a new ally to take the fight to Snoke.

Major plots (3) - Snoke has Kylo Ren and several other of Luke's ex-students under his control. We see 8 dark Jedi, complete with their red lightsabers doing Snoke's bidding. So while the military conflict between the FO and the Republic is more even, the FO have a stable of their own dark Jedi to tip the balance, conducting covert missions to take out key Republic military leadership. The First Order get the upper hand in the conflict, making the Republics struggle more desperate, giving Poe and Finn a really meaty story to be involved in.

Major plots (4) - With Luke's teachings and support, Rey becomes a very powerful Jedi, stable in the light and armed with Luke's newfound, ancient Jedi knowledge. She is Luke's protege, really taking centre stage as the hero of the ST, and being a co-founder with Luke of the new Jedi order.

Major plots (5) - When Snoke dies, the remaining dark Jedi are released from their spell, they're no longer a threat. But it also becomes clear how Kylo had long since overcome Snoke's mind control and truly sees himself as the heir to Vader, and indulging in his darkness.

Han and Leia - Very similar story to their situation in TFA, though Han is still in a relationship with Leia. Their relationship was strained when Ben Solo went dark, and there is much resentment between them, but Han never truly left. They were both warned by Luke years ago not to try to bring Ben back because of Snoke's power - telling them to wait until he could defeat Snoke. But, increasingly desperate to get their son back, they both ignore the warning and Han is killed by Kylo as he was in TFA.

Resistance - They wouldn't be a resistance, they'd be a dedicated, unofficial corps of the Republic (maybe they call themselves 'the Alliance' for old times sake, and the fact much of the leadership is from the Rebel Alliance). The Republic don't officially engage in a war against the First Order because they'd originally wanted to try diplomacy, not be seen as a warmonger government in a galaxy still recovering from multiple wars. Poe is pretty much the same. Finn is still an ex-Stormtrooper, but it may be interesting to make him a double agent who 'goes back' to the First Order, giving us some interesting espionage plots.

 

Yeah I know it's off-putting to some, but I think the fact that he gave it NO weight at all truly reflected his thoughts and his cynicism towards the Jedi. He wasn't just doubting their ways, he thought they were full of crap. It went along perfectly with what he said to Rey later. "You think, what, I'm going to walk out with a laser sword and face down the entire First Order?", mocking the idea that he was going to single handedly fix every thing. Adding weight to the tone wouldn't fit with who he was at that time and how he acted towards Rey, imo. Luke was always a bit of a smart aleck anyway ( "You'll find I'm full of surprises").

 

Ah, I dunno. I think you can keep the beat, lessen the outrage


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Replace every single character with 40,000 Christopher Plummers.

 

Goes without saying.


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These threads need more Burgundy.


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The problem is that, in universe, we've already seen far superior bombers, the Y-Wings. Hell, the X-Wings are also superior bombers (every superweapon to date has been taken down by X-Wings). Hell, A-Wings were able to finish off the Executor. Stretching the WW2 bombing runs this far really shows the problem: the bombers are slow because slow bombers remind us of WW2.

We need to know a reason why they're using these absolutely terrible bombers.

 

Hux becoming increasingly angry at Poe could logically lead to the line, ‘for this you will watch your comrades die slowly’. Thumb on scale disappears - Hux is organically the pace setter, not the director, a Disney liaison, a film from 1980.

Like Shadao says. I think a your mom joke could work and sop modern audiences if it was a hook payoff at the end of a suitably long, suitably building, non-undermining tension. Banter between two Jedi Masters who compete on friendly terms is not incongruous. Citing modern cellular phone hooks and between adversaries is incongruous. Wall breaking if it has to be present might work better between characters that are already the audience's avatars.

With the First Order crew laughing behind his back - I have seen it only once and do not myself recall this, but it does cause me to suggest the highly rated Black Mirror episode “USS Callister”. If one has seen it one should identify in Hux a duality of dangerous malice and object of contempt.

 

Hi Satipo,
A fun thread idea. I'll contribute as I can. But there are a few big things I would think about changing:

1) I would think about a longer interlaced Kylo-Luke backstory, possibly that Rey sees as a vision. There's some sort of prolonged fundamental disagreement between the two about the nature of The Force, the direction of the new Jedi, etc. one of them being a traditionalist, the other saying that way failed. This would show how hard it is to restart something like that, which would a cool theme to explore, and it would lead to basically civil war at the Jedi Academy. The whole "Luke standing over Kylo with a light saber" seems kind of quick and too easy, and kind of slapped on, and I have to strain to buy it. The end of the the old story ends with a shot into Kylo's eyes watching the fire burn that dissolves into Kylo's eyes as he sees Luke on Crait.

2) We should definitely consider a better Kylo pitch/offer to Rey and Rey accepting it, instead of RJ stacking the deck against it with the whole "You are nothing" line. What if the film ends with light and dark united in an alliance based on common goals and sexual attraction against Luke and Leia? Is that a more interesting setup for IX.

3) The one thing I suspect everyone will agree on are the rocks. Rey has to strain and possibly resort ingenuity to clear the boulders instead of just closing her eyes and opening them on a magic princess miracle.

 

If I read the tea leaves here, Rian Johnson needed to complete a checklist.
[ ] WW2 reference for expository tone (thank you - anything!)
[ ] easily destroyed
[ ] easily represented or misrepresented as the folly of sending young people to their deaths in an arguably meaningless way

A WW2 bomber, which carries a large crew, and a crew of lower average age because it only requires a few commissioned officers, and can be taken down with ease relative to fighters, and which is more prone to loss of direction with long ranges, and is more prone to the visceral sight of balletic fall in slow motion because of its high operating altitudes, but is also expected to fly low into enemy fire to achieve acceptable Circular Error Probable, is well chosen for this application. The problem I see is that the target in TLJ was indeed strategically important, and so the heroic sacrifices on Poe's watch ought to stand for something to Leia and powers. That argument in modern subversion of the measure of valour is not made well at all. (I can imagine that he needed this minimum unit to make the subversion of valour, and then upscaled the target object to suitably Dresden size.)

 

The only one I agree with is showing Rey strain to lift the rocks more.

Busy right now but I can give reasons why I don’t agree with the others tomorrow.

 

Those are all out of universe reasons. The Resistance sure as hell isn't planning their attack runs based on those reasons.

 

Well, arguing in universe is something I mentally tag for the complaints thread, as it is implicitly non-negotiable. I would be pleased to devise tapestries to drape over the certain elephant. This thread could be the place for that.


To wit - If Rian Johnson could make his case in the meta subversion of valour, then at that time, and not before, could one devise some technobabble reason for why it is that the trusty stalwarts of yore have not done their thing. So I am stalled at the starting line, on this point, as on a number of others, waiting until I see the meta subversion of valour work.

 

The problem I keep seeing is that a lot of people here are allergic to subtext. Everyone wants everything spelled out in great clarity leaving nothing unspoken and nothing to the imagination - ie something we can infer as the full context of the plot and various arcs come to bed. Almost every suggestion I see so far is worse than what we got, bar a few minor things that aren’t a million miles away from what we have. I say this not to dump on other suggestions or to be obstructive, but to highlight how subjective this is and how hard it is to find compromise. Effectively, everyone ends up pitching for a version or an ideal that works for them. As far as I can tell, the general pitches don’t align all that much. So I think this is going to be a very slow process


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Is it? That seems a rather harsh line to draw in the sand.

 

In universe, the restored Republic lived happily ever after. I halt, there.

 

I've seen TLJ four times in theaters. For the most part it gets better each time. However the issues from the first viewing were never cut from the film thus keeping a painful reminder of what couldve been. Many have taking it to another level with critizing online. Turns out this movie is the most controversial Star Wars film since TPM. Safe to say a rewrite is deserving for TLJ. Do we post here or start a new thread? I love my rewrite of TPM (see TPM rewrites pg.6 in prequel forums). These threads of rewrites really helped us fans exfoliate our feelings and added closure.

TLJ rankes in the middle of the Star Wars trilogies for me so I didn't despise it like some fans. The buildup after a very successful TFA (although again not perfect but a great start to a new trilogy with many wonderful new characters and questions) and a superbly done trailer added hype to this film maybe it didn't or did deserve.....

Let me also state most are correct saying TFA is too similar and TLJ is too disimilar. But cant we want that balance as fans? Fans who stayed in lines for hours even overnight at Celebration?

First off let's not start the movie right after TFA, let's make it 6 months to a year. Now we can assume Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo has completed or in the middle of his training from Snoke. To keep this manageble for everyone to read I don't necessitate a new script.
Love the beginning and wouldn't chage much except you have to stay in space longer when the camera pans down. From that little nit pick we have a great opening space battle. If its true that BB8 says "i have a bad feeling about this" in droid talk, lets change that to Poe saying it. Take out the unnecessary bad humor between Hux and Poe.
We go to Ach'To and have Luke usher a famous line when handed the saber like "where's my hand" , no actually something serious like "where did you find this"? I had no problem with Lukes character at the beginning. But please add more training between him and Rey. I have no issues with the Porgs except maybe one too many silly moments on the Falcon at the end. Cut out Luke milking the Moof. Have some more respect for the Jedi order even if he is disheartened by the history. It's a 4000 or more year religion yet you'r mainly leaving it to die based on the last 50 years?
No Leia in space but show her use the Force in other ways like helping Ray move the rocks at the end. Instead of the slow space chase let' have the last of the Resistance help fight the FO while the transports sneak away to Crait. This will enable more action and allow more scenes on Crait and less on Canto Bight. I didn't care for Canto Bight but I get the whole develop a story for Finn and Rose. At least put some OT aliens on the planet! Take out the hideous parking fiasco and just have them meet DJ in a dark alley or something.
Take out the iron landing weird Space Balls humour. Lets have Luke actually go to Crait but stay in cave Force projecting himself out to face the FO as is in the movie. Then have Kylo face him for real in cave with a saber going through Luke at end with dissapearance to the Force after stating that everyone got away.
Hopefully this would at least bridge that gap between the fans and would say to us "we have all that we need".

 

I would have set this far into the future without Skywalkers or Solos. Given the new characters some actual traits & personality, and growth/lack of growth rather than what we got.

 

Easy answer for me.

Use Lucas' outlines and use him as much as you possibly could and as much as he wants to. Try to lure him in to do as much as possible.

Other than that do what RJ is doing on his trilogy and get a writer-director to do the first film and oversee and write the others (even direct the third one).