ST The ST: What Would You Change/Revise?

I really like the idea of Exogol. But like the rest of the ST, it wasn't executed well.

1: Visuals and Screen time.
Literally more of it. So much of it was just pure black that you couldn't even see it on screen. I wish like the entire last act happened on this world. As Kylo and Rey are battling Palpatine, the FO and Resistence are having a ground/orbit war.

2: Battle
The entire battle should have just been about Palpatine coming back. Not about his stupid ice fleet. Just him and his power alone is enough. That's it. Simple. You don't need a hidden space fleet as a lure, because the FO already have as many ships as they could possibly want in the trilogy. They might as well already have a billion ships. IF the ST had been about the FO desperately seeking resources, and had nothing but left over scraps, then YES, the idea of Palpatine's secret stash would worked as an ending.

The FO and the Resistance could have had an epic ground and orbit battle over just Palpatine finally returning to his corporeal form. Maybe the Resistance realizes they need to blow the planet up - a neato twist on Palpatine always destroying other planets. Blow up the planet, and the Dark Side Shrine fueling Palpatine is gone. Could have had the Resistance flying into the planet's core or something, with some really weird inner planet visuals (maybe even a call back to Naboo's inner core, cuz both of Palpatine's planets have inner cores).

3: Themes
I'd make Exogol's atmosphere poisonous. A symbol of the dark side itself. Instead of having Kylo just walking out there like no big deal, you could play with the idea that he needs to put on a breathing suit to survive. Whereas Vader needed the suit to survive in the light (the galaxy), Kylo needs one to survive in the dark (Exogol) - which means that Kylo is not a real dark sider. (BOOM) Anakin died and Vader was born in fire. Kylo is just ... poisoned. And besides, I think SW doesn't do enough with unbreathable atmosphere and cool breathing masks enough lol.

 

Some pretty cool ideas for what the ST could have been instead, namely:

-The return of the Jedi leading to an Evangelical-style Church exploiting people.
-Leia naming her daughter after Jyn Erso.
-Vader's secret students vs Luke's.

 

I thought the day the ST was announced that Luke, Leia and Han would play 'passing the torch' roles in Episode 7, and they would get a respected sendoff at the end of the movie. How great would the ending of Episode 7 be with Han, Luke and Leia waving at the falcon as Poe, Rey and Finn fly away..... Episode 8 & 9 would be about the new characters, and the new struggle that was taking place in the galaxy. The irony is that Disney used the OT characters as the drama that drove the plot for the ST (Luke essentially pushing Ben to the darkside), yet ended up giving us the same recycled OT story with the new characters?

 

I would have a scene where force ghost anakin tries to redeem Kylo Ren but Kylo defies Anakin redeeming of his teching because Kylo still honors the Darth Vader of his grandfather and not Anakin skywalker his grandfather.

 

Was thinking about this, this morning but I'd have better/new locations. Remote desert worlds are bread and butter environments in SW, but they could have done some different there. I mean the reused Not-Tatooine like 3 times in the ST. And TLJ even took inspiration from salt flats in Bolivia, which are alien-like and beautiful, and largely made them look artificial and fake.

 

@DarkGingerJedi - those would have made for interesting planets... even where I live (the Cotswolds) would have made for a better SW location. The locales in the sequels were incredibly unimaginative IMO... apart from Skellig Michael... which wasn’t used half enough. But that wasn’t because they didn’t have the options... I’m sure they scouted lots of places, but ultimately (of course) they wanted it (specifically TFA) to look like the OT.

 

I haven't been following the High Republic at all but doesn't that era take place when there are a zillion Jedi roaming around the galaxy? It would've been nice if we saw that in the ST. Instead of making Luke a loser who gave up on everything it would've been great if we were reintroduced to Luke as an older wisened person who had successfully brought the Jedi Order back, new and improved! Don't give me any of this crap about how Luke would've overshadowed all the new Jedi. A good writer could've come up with a solution for that.

Also...don't just repeat the storyline of the OT and don't magically bring back the Empire with almost the same exact iconography. Tell a different story! Make the movies look differently! Give us a new threat!

 

Even if you needed Luke out of the story, because you feared he'd overshadow the new characters, you still could have had him in exile, along with a fledging order of like 20 or so new Jedi. Maybe he retreats into exile after setting up his new order, with the newfound belief that all Masters must go into exile for a period of time, or have give up control over the position in the order.

Kind of like, the opposite of the Sith and Palpatine who wanted power above all else, and to keep it forever, Luke gives it up freely, and passes on that power and control to someone new. Or maybe Luke sets up little Jedi schools all over the place, and when it's set up, he's off to create another one somewhere else. Never staying in one place for more than 5 years or something. Kind of like the beginnings of Christianity, where monks would travel around setting up monasteries.

Could have done a whole story about how he passes it all to Ben, or maybe Luke realizes that Ben isn't the right person for the job, and this leads to having him resent Luke, or become angry and want to destroy what he feels is rightfully his.

 

@DarkGingerJedi some cool images up there. For inspiration, they only needed to go to Ralph McQuarrie's extensive back catalog of concept art. I mean, look at this. It's awesome. It would have been great for Rey to have grown up on a world of great plains maybe, instead of just more desert

 

Agreed. I was disappointed to see TFA start on another desert planet. Then in TRoS we get another desert planet. Stop with the desert planets already.

 

Say what you like about James Cameron's Avatar, at least he made Pandora feel alive and other-worldly. The sequel trilogy locales have been really uninspired. Each world just feels really empty and lifeless.

 

Yeah, more so than the Sequels, James Cameron's Avatar really does feel like a sort of evolution of what George had done in his films - both aesthetically and technologically. And as a result, Avatar wowed an audience with spectacle in a way that a film really hadn't quite done since A New Hope.

 

ESB is generally considered the best-made SW film, and it has no desert planets at all. Take a note of that factoid, film makers.

 

And no Death Stars, either!

 

The progression of planet environments in the OT is quite something. I don't know if done entirely intentional or not, but it almost reflects Luke's character and symbolic journey. I mean, I know that Endor represented the anti-Death Star, and a nature vs machine theme as at play. But the rest of the worlds all keep building on the same premise.

Tatooine - Desert. Almost hopeless environment. (Just like Luke at that age)
Rebel Base - Lush and full of life (Rebels are in touch with nature, the good side)
Death Star - Synthetic. Machine world. No real life. (Just like the Vader and Empire)

Hoth - Icy and almost lifeless. Cold. (Like the Empire itself.)
Dagobah - Lush and full of life. Almost exceedingly so. (Like Yoda, and Luke coming to train in the Force)
Bespin - Clean and light on the outside, darker on the in (Maybe like Luke, idealistic, dreaming of saving his friends, but with a hidden truth)

Tatooine - Desert - No longer as hopeless, even in this hot wretched place.
Dagobah - Same as before.
Endor - Full of life and nature. Non-technological. Good side.
Death Star - Synthetic-techno machine world again, with a core/heart that is finally destroyed. (Just like Vader, and Luke's rejection of darkness)

 

It's so hard to suggest changes , because they would destroy a some things in the ST that actually worked. But here are two things I would change:

1. I would change Finn's start. I would make him younger. I found it ridiculous that the guy is supposed to be 27 (8 years older than Rey) in TFA yet he's running around like some naïve idiot. If he was supposed to have been captured as a child/teenager shouldn't he be more squared away than that. I would either have made him a pilot or a ST with rank, even he and Phasma are buddies (lovers even) so he has more qualms about leaving TFO. Not quite the mentality of a Hitler youth recruit. I would have set him up being from an impoverished family, where his dad was a factory worker that could barely support his large family. Finn likes the TFO because it gave him an opportunity he might not have had otherwise. But as TFA continues, he discovers that the propaganda he was fed and experienced was a lie.

2. I would have given Kylo a better set up. Instead of the emo manchild. Make him a bully and a sadist, who goes overboard anytime anyone dispapoints him and challenges. As the film progresses we see that this is not the real Kylo. He only behaves like that because Snoke continually calls him weak and tells him that the only way he can be as tough as Vader and the ultimate Sith Lord is to be evil and ruthless. Hence the reason for his behaviour. It would have provided Ben with a more sympathetic back story and would have given LF a way to allow him to live after TROS.

3. I guess I would have also provided a reason why the Galaxy was the way it was. A brief conversation could have done this.

 

Wait. He's 27?!?!

I thought Finn was like 18-20 yo. Same as Rey. I don't know if it works that Finn is 27 in the story because the FO was suppose to be stealing kids - young kids - to make them stormtroopers. That gives them 3 years after ROTJ to be taking Finn. Someone who doesn't even know his own first or last name, or has any memory of his parents, apparently.

 

It's in the official literature. I don't have it on hand but it's listed as him being born close to the same year that Kylo is born. Honestly I personally ignore a lot of the official timelines and even back stories because I find it contradicts or doesn't mesh with what's on screen.

 

I mean, they never really adhered to Finn's backstory in the movies either, anyway. There's nothing about him that says "former abducted kid who spent 20 years in brainwashing camp to be a fascist soldier'. It's all left behind. The only thing we get is "I gotta make a choice" over and over again. And then "I can feel the Force", and "Rey!" "Rey?" "Rey..." "Rey?!?!?!" "Rey." "Rey-" all day long. lol

 

Honestly I think they should have committed more to the medieval knights and pirate themes that show up prominently in the art books. That would have been so cool.

 

Small little fiefdoms and kingdoms could have been interesting. We haven't really seen that set up before in the saga. The PT was galactic GOOD Republic. The OT was galactic EVIL Empire. The ST could have been large areas of NR territory, Independent states, and aress still run by Moff Warlords, and other criminals, and then an Imperial Remnant vowing to get revenge.

 

Nah, Finn was born 11 ABY, Rey was born 15 ABY, and Kylo was born 5 ABY.

Finn is 4 years older than Rey, who is 20 in TROS, and Ben is 10 years older than that at 30. Poe is 32, which is closer to Ben.

 

A better ending in The Rise of Skywalker would have been for Rey to have killed the Emperor and become that Dark Rey character she met in the cupboard on the Death Star. So when Ben comes running in, she says "Sorry Ben, I'm just not into you. I preferred the other guy" before kicking him down the hole.

The movie ends like A New Hope with a great big room full of people, but red stormtroopers and black stormtroopers, with Dark Empress Rey sweeping down the middle of them. She turns round in front of her throne at the end of the room and all the troops do a 90 degree step to face her and give her the Nazi fist salute like in The Force Awakens. She has fulfilled her destiny.

Then we see the edge of that hole, and Ben's hand come over the edge of it.

Iris out.

Miles better.

 

That might make a 'better ending' to a movie in theory. But what does that have to do with the previous 6 or 8 episodes of the saga? I know you like the darker fairy tale stuff and that's fine. But what's your message then? Don't fight the dark side, it always wins? Accept your destiny?

Just curious. How does that actually wrap up a 9 part Skywalker Fairy Tale? Unless of course, this is a lead into Ep 10. But I'm not sure trilogies have that kind of cliffhanger in them.

 

It doesn’t have to have a message. It is entertainment and that would entertain me, and would be thought provoking. And yeah, leave the door open maybe.