The Basic Plot of The Rise of Skywalker, Updated and Expanded: Act I (Via JediPaxis)

It is. No one is denying that.
It's only that - personally - I am far more less sold about other things. Especially those things that go deeper into the overall narrative of the movie.
And since JP himself spoke about multiple sources... let's say I am less confident about the rest of them.

For instance... all the various wayfinders are something that... I don't know... it's too much complicated and redundant.
Or C3PO translating the sith dagger...
These may be "assumptions" made in the attempt to tie different bites of information coming from different "leakers".

I find more convincing the idea that they are implanting on C3PO whatever Zorri is giving to Poe in one of the pictures we saw.
And the fact itself that we hear Poe asking C3PO what he is doing... that may be a hint that they discarded initially that chance just because of its consequences and that C3P0 came up with that decision - basically sacrificing himself - without saying anything to anyone.

And if so, it changes a lot. It changes whatever meaning the sith dagger may have, its potential connection with Rey's backstory etc...

 

I half expect this to happen when they follow the Sith Dagger to the next clue:

 

I agree - I guess I'm just used to that always being the case with these leaks, having followed things since the prequels days. If you read the Praxis plot outline, he's actually pretty open about how most things are just "how he understands them". There's obviously going to be speculation and flat out misunderstanding involved, because history dictates there always is.

If anything, look at it like any scientific model - it's just the best fit until we understand things better.
If someone can come up with a better alternative plot that fits what we know so far, supported by evidence, then great.

Again, I agree.
For example, several people have pointed to this shot...

... and decided that the blue thing on the dashboard is obviously the "wayfinder".
If they'd bothered to check, though, they'd have realised that particular detail is a regular part of the Falcon cockpit set, and is actually part of the panel between the pilot chairs, not some little device sat on the dashboard.


Am I completely sold on the wayfinder concept?
No, but at the moment - if we presume the rest of what we know may be true - it at least provides an explanation for what leads certain characters to where they end up. It's just the best working model so far.
It seems suspiciously like the kind of thing which would never make it past the concept art stage to me, but I have no evidence to support that assertion.

I get what you are saying - "First Order Captain's Medallion" (as Paxis has it) sounds a lot like one of the code words used in the TFA call sheets that leaked, so I agree that Paxis may have been given that at face value and made the wrong assumption in that case.
I suppose the important part is that Zorri gives Poe something to aid them on their quest.
What do you think might be happening with C-3PO in this scene if it is not related to a translation of some kind?

But that's almost like using the leak to disprove the leak. How do you know there even is a Sith dagger? You have a couple of frames of Rey holding something which looks like it might be a dagger. It could be pretty much anything and there's certainly no reason to presume it is Sith-related.

Here's another way to look at it:

We have a couple of frames from a Vanity Fair BTS video where Daisy is seen wearing a necklace.
We have a single shot from a trailer where Rey and Kylo fight and trash Vader's mask.
It took several days for anyone - out of millions of fans - to notice that there were beads on the floor of Kylo's chamber in that shot. It took several days for anyone - out of millions of fans - to notice Chewbacca's bandolier and bowcaster were stashed away in the back of that brief shot.

So think about this - if Paxis is indeed stringing everything together purely by joining the dots between stuff we have now seen ourselves in trailer footage (he just knew about it before we did) then why, in the space of that particular couple of days, did he not come out himself and alert us to the bowcaster, and the bandolier, and the beads, all of which tied in perfectly with elements of his plotline? He would have known they were there, right - because he must have seen them to include those details in his plot the way he did, and it would have helped validate his claims to point them out?
Because the truth is, it seems to me he didn't even notice these things were in the trailer footage until after fans pointed them out, responding to some of these points in a Q&A later on... and yet he had already suggested Rey is given a necklace on Pasaana, Kylo reaches out through the Force bond and tears it from her neck from his personal quarters on his Star Destroyer, that Chewbacca is captured and his weapons taken, that Rey and Kylo later fight while he is on Kijimi and she is onboard his Star Destroyer, and that she escapes with a Sith dagger and Chewie's gear, leaping on to the Falcon while it hovers just outside the hangar after handing the items to Threepio.

Now, if he was making all of that up based purely on footage being used in trailers, he deserves a medal for picking out all of that background detail on his own in the first place, and also for inventing a plot which actually makes sense of it all.
Because I'm pretty sure 99 per cent of us would have gone with "Kylo and Rey fight in a white room. They trash Vader's mask" rather than tying together all the other stuff, and suggesting they are not even in the same place when the encounter takes place.
In other words, what he was suggesting would actually be rather counter-intuitive if it was based purely on what we have seen.

Just seems to me the goalposts keep moving.
I mean, when Empire released the shot of Kylo in the hangar, quite a few people said it couldn't possibly tie in with the shot described by Paxis in his outline.
Now the trailer proves it probably is exactly as he described, and it's just dismissed as "well, he probably just saw the trailer footage before us, he's still making the rest up" when the very shot people are now accepting as genuine was just "another of the things he was making up" a few weeks ago.
I mean, how many times do you get to shift the goalposts like that?

Does that mean I think he has got the plot 100% down?
As I've said several times, of course not. But he even points out the gaps in his interpretation of what he knows within the outline. And it's clear there is very little handle on dialogue, which obviously leaves gaps in exposition, which again, I don't think he is claiming isn't the case with his plot.
But the fact is, the more we see, the more it only endorses what he has said in his outline.
Add Rey's jump on to the Falcon from the hangar to the list...
Big gaping chasm in the room where Rey faces Palpatine...
Rey confronting Kylo on Kijimi, yet she doesn't seem to be dressed appropriately for the weather...
Surely were still actually in the process of adding to the validity of what he has said, rather than starting to subtract from it?

But that's just my opinion, of course...

 

In the "End" tv spot, we see a "bottomless pit". Do you think it's the never to be seen again infamous pit?

 

Don't get me wrong, I think the whole idea of "never to be seen again" is as every bit as silly as the next person does. But, then, I thought that about horses riding across the top of a Star Destroyer...
So, yeah, until we learn otherwise, here is what may well be our bottomless pit...



Also... it may just be me, but...


"You maniacs! You blew it up!"

 

@Get In Gear I agree almost completely.

Like I said, I really believe that the JP's outline is a very (very) well educated guess.

My idea is just that, it is based in the most part on leaks that proved to be 100% legit
(and that imo came from someone who saw the same footage we saw later on) and others that I am less sure about.

But then again, we just have to wait and see.
So far I am having fun speculating about the speculations too

 

I am not sure if the leaks are real or not, but if the leaks do have any validity, I am not fond of the ending of TROS. I hope the ending according to the leaks is false. I do hope that we get a surprise Anakin Skywalker force ghost. I won't hate the movie if we don't. I hope we get more Force Ghost Luke Skywalker, but I have a feeling that he will have a very short but important scene. I am very much looking forward to this movie, but my excitement has diminished a little somewhat because I couldn't get tickets to see with my son on the opening night. Tickets were sold out for the theater we wanted to see it in. I still might go by myself in a standard smaller screen. I do have tickets for a Imax screening the next morning to go with my mom and aunt before we go Christmas shopping. I will take my 12 year old son on Saturday, Dec. 21st, at the Dolby Theater. I just hope it is good enough that it's worth three days of watching it in a row. Also The Mandalorian is kind of satiating my appetite for Star Wars in the mean time.

 

We know they were present for the Jordan shoot, so the KOR might see some action on Pasaana.
They can also be seen in the background in the shot of Kylo's mask being reconstructed.
Personally, I'm betting this is the kind of scene which could easily be dropped, rather like the shot of Maz from the TFA trailer.

As for the Sith fleet, that kind of stuff is always hard to pin down because it primarily exists inside a hard drive - ie there was probably nothing actually being filmed for anyone to see and tell anyone about.
Same happened with TFA... the Making Star Wars account of the final battle included concepts that were dropped (the Resistance "Sledgehammer" superweapon vs the First Order's "Array" as described in the call sheets/schedule, but the details were sketchy - seems like the Sledgehammer idea may have been recycled to inspire Holdo's suicide attack in TLJ). I suppose it's easy to appreciate how predominantly digitally-realised scenes can be reworked and developed beyond the shooting script with little hassle and with less chance of anyone getting wind of it...

 

"DARN YOU ALL!!! DARN YOU ALL TO HECK!!!!"

 

Honestly, I think we have the main story beats. I think they're all more or less going to be represented in the final cut, although with (hopefully) more nuance. This plot synopsis is pretty bare bones.
The ONE thing I'm not convinced of is Kylo/Ben dying in such an unspectacular way. He's one of two main characters in the entire trilogy. To deny him the same final grace as Vader would be narratively weak. I'm willing to bet what we know is partially correct, but incomplete, much the same as the "Obi Wan killed your father," fakeout in ESB.

 

@Chairman Kaga
Hum... in all honesty, I think that may end up being correct.

It does sound like a compromise. One of those made to give something to everybody and that ends up dissatisfying everybody.

Especially if he gets redeemed.
Which I believe he will.
But then, he “allegedly” dies.
All you have to do is not showing the body or force ghost.
And those who want him dead will get what they want.
Those who don’t... remember dearth Mail? Remember Palpatine?
They’ll get enough to make their own head canon.

Most importantly, just because modify can foresee the future Disney will be in the position to do with the character in 10 or 20 or 30 years time not just what they’ll wish but what it may be needed/possible to do.

 

I just know I don't want any of these to happen:
1. Lando death. Leave him be.
2. No droid deaths. 3P0 and R2 must be there at the end.

I realize Leia dies, and if any of the new character dies I'll be okay with it as long as it's meaningful. But darn it no more old school character deaths.

Honestly I never thought I'd say it but I miss the old pre internet days. We were excited about Return of the Jedi in '83 but there weren't any leaks like what we get these days. Same for 1980 and The Empire Strikes Back. You talked with friends about it, but there weren't leaks and what not. Ah the good old days. LOL

 

No.. its the Pit of Shadow.. The Eye of Bogan, The Abyss of the Dark Side glimpsed in TLJ by Rey.

 

I re-watched TFA for the upteenth time yesterday. You know who fell down a hole never to be seen or heard from again....?Han Solo...Ben Solo's father. Guess who co-wrote and directed that movie same guy doing this one.. Denial is the first stage of grief...

 

My issue with the "redemption" of Kylo has always been this scene. This is pure evil. As an Audience, I'm not sure I want him redeemed. Now, I know that Anakin did in fact far worse than this. But I don't see Anakin kill the kids, I only know of it passively, which may be the bad part of ROTS. We don't see anakin's evil deeds therefore we can tell ourselves they didn't really happen. however, we see Kylo's evil deeds, he kills not only his father, but most audience members favorite character as well.

I am torn by this. Whatever happens, Kylo's story cannot end without confronting who Darth Vader was. Now if they keep the sith creating Anakin and Kylo learns this, then Rey can rightfully ask, Who has not place in this story, and Kylo, the evil Kylo can kill Sideous without ever being redeemed. Let evil kill itself.

 

2 things.
1- We haven’t seen Palpatine yet. We hear him. But we don’t see him.
This is... interesting.
2- I cannot help but think that he is the red herring. Not the surprise.

 

I kind of feel the same.
IMO, Vader worked because he was just the bad guy in a very one-dimensional way - he was portrayed as that from the outset.
Then when he revealed he was Luke's father, his character - and Luke's - branched off on a totally different tangent. It was a logical development, because now you looked at his interactions in a different way, now you weren't entirely sure what was going on behind the mask, for example when he pauses as the Falcon escapes at the end of Empire. Prior to this, his priority would have been to choke whichever one of his officers he deemed responsible to death, but now, probably for the first time, we get the sense there may be something else on his mind.

Likewise when the camera lingers on him as Luke is escorted away on Endor - it's setting up that he is beginning to consider whether he is doing the right thing.
Which, of course, ultimately builds to him actually choosing to do the right thing with his final act.
This always worked for me, because he does something massive - it doesn't cancel out all of the evil things he has done, but it makes things right in that moment. Luke was right, there was still good in him.

I'm not saying it's better or worse, or right or wrong, from a storytelling point of view - it's just different - but Kylo has been established as conflicted from the start.
He can flip-flop between murdering his own dad to struggling with his conscience and back again.
Personally, I just don't really feel like he has developed in the same way - I don't really understand his redemption because he has already had opportunities to redeem himself and made the wrong call each time. Vader, by contrast, was coming all the way back from a very dark place - it was a long journey in one direction; a massive U-turn.
Kylo is already written as swinging from one state of mind to the next - like I say, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I just don't feel he is complex in a good way, it's more confused and messy than multi-dimensional. I kind of end up not caring where he is going to go next. Don't get me wrong, Driver is great in the role, and that keeps in interesting.

I suppose the bottom line for me is, Kylo has already faked offering an olive branch to his estranged father, only to then murder him in cold blood... then he hesitated and decided not to blast his mother to atoms when he had the opportunity... he fought against Rey... and then he fought side by side with her. I'm not sure what his redemption actually entails or reveals about him as a character.

 

Well we haven't seen force ghost Luke either. So I imagine that will have to wait till the 20th. Unless a surprise one second shot or something like how they showed Rey using Kylo's saber.

 

Kylo klking his father solidified he is no Luke Skywalker. Luke tried to save Vader and succeeded; Kylo just kills his pa. For me, Kylo is redeemable, but he must do a major act of atonement to get a pass from the audience. Perhaps saving Rey from Palpatine and after destroying the Sith Lord, he says “I told you the Sith needed to die..” Then he either is kissed by Rey (Reylo Ending), or redeemed Ben is injured to the point that like Vader he’s dying; and you see the Force Ghosts of Anakin, Luke, Obi, and Yoda beckoning him home; at last he is torn apart no more.