Star Wars: The Han & Ben scene we DESERVED!

Instead of that scene in The Rise of Skywalker where Ben saw his Dad, Han, on the destroyed Death Star in the middle of the ocean, they should’ve done this…

On that planet, there was the Millennium Falcon. It was downed and out of commission, because Rey and company had crashed it. Rey and Finn ended up using other ships to get to the Death Star, while Poe supposedly stayed back to try and fix the Falcon, and then ultimately all we saw was Rey leaving in Kylo’s tie fighter.

So instead – let’s have it that Poe & company (Finn, and those ex-trooper [I think that’s what they were] guys) leave the Falcon. Because, they don’t have the parts, or the time, or whatever, I don’t know it doesn’t matter (just like logic didn’t seem to matter in that entire movie!). But, they just leave the planet on some other ship (because, apparently, all of the ships work, even if they’ve been under the ocean for ages!), and they leave the Falcon behind, to be picked up at a later date.

So now, Kyle/Ben is all alone on that planet with nothing but himself, his regrets, and his father’s old ship.

After Rey leaves him, he wanders the island alone until he finds the Falcon.

He goes inside.

As he walks around the ship, ghosts of memories from his childhood haunt every corner. He sees (we the audience see) images of himself, hearing the echoing vibrations of times long past.

One ghost of him in the cockpit as a tiny kid, Han teaching him to fly. One of him slightly older, Leia ignoring him to take care of a newly orphaned Poe Dameron. Another one of him, younger again, seeing Han and Leia fighting. They’re arguing about how Leia’s always leaving them, leaving her husband and son to go and be a General, and about how she looks down on Han. Ben remembers, and hears her talking about how much she needs someone strong by her side (this shows why ultimately Ben wanted to become so powerful, he wanted to be that strong someone for his mother).

As he continues to walk, he sees another slightly older memory of himself, between the ages of 7-10. Han and Leia have called Uncle Luke over to help them deal with their “weird” kid who’s hearing voices. We hear flippant but concerned comment from Han about how, “we’ve got a little Vader here, huh?”. Ben remembers Uncle Luke telling him to “listen to those voices. Those are old masters.”

Have that memory fade into another one of an angry teenage Ben fighting with Han, saying something about something that Uncle Luke said. To which Han responds with, “then why don’t you make Uncle Luke your dad!” and so on and so forth, the memory fades on their shouts as the camera pans around to Kylo Ren again, looking at all of this, reliving all of those moments over again, all the emotions, good and bad, plain on his face.

Then, everything fades to silence. The only thing we can hear is Kylo/Ben’s trouble breathing for a breath of one, two…

Then, from behind him we hear Han Solo say, “Welcome home, kid.”

The rest of their exchange can play out the way that it did in the movie, with the aknowledgements and apologies, and Kylo casting off the name of Kylo and becoming Ben again.

But then, instead of Ben rushing to rescue Rey in an old waterlogged ship that he has not connection to, he rushes off to save her in his father’s ship. In the Millennium Falcon.

Aaaaaaagh it could’ve been so good, and so much more emotional!!!

Because, Kylo has no connection to the Death Star or that ship that he flew in the end (I can’t remember what that ship was called!), but he HAS a connection to the Millennium Falcon! It would’ve been so much more meaningful to have the father son reconciliation scene take place on a family ship.

Anyways, my dog is screaming at me and I have to go and take him out for a walk now!

What do you think of this scene re-write??

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Star Wars Rewrite: The Last Jedi is DEAD!

Time for a little RE-WRITE SESSION!!!!

<START>

The Last Jedi starts with Rey passing her lightsaber off to Luke…

Then, it cuts back to the interior of the Millennium Falcon, where Rey is telling whoever (could be Chewy, a droid, herself…), “And that’s how I’ll do it! I’ll hand the legendary sword to the Legendary Skywalker, and he’ll go off and save the galaxy!”

But, when she gets to that island planet, Ahch-To, – there’s no Luke.

So, she spends the majority of the movie searching the island for Luke Skywalker. There’s evidence that he WAS there once, but that was a long, long time ago.

Throughout her searching she has Force Conversations with Kylo Ren, who tells her that he KNOWS where Luke is. In fact, he and his uncle have actually been working together secretly this entire time, working to overthrow those on the dark side of the force once and for all. If she comes to him, he’ll take her to meet Luke Skywalker.

So, she goes to him.

He takes her to his chambers and shows her the pile of ash under Darth Vader’s helmet.

“There he is,” he says.

Rey doesn’t understand what he’s saying, or rather – she doesn’t believe it. Doesn’t WANT to believe it.

They fight.

She escapes.

She finds her way back to Leia, and tells her, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t find him. I couldn’t find Luke. But, I’ll keep looking. I’ll keeping looking until I find him.”

“Stop,” Leia orders her, “you need to stop. Ok? You need to stop. Luke is dead.”

Rey doesn’t understand – so, Leia continues.

“My son killed him. We couldn’t – I couldn’t tell anyone. Without Luke, there would be no more Jedi – there would be no more hope. So, we lied. I lied. Said that he was in hiding. Lost. Better for everyone to spend the rest of their lives fighting and searching for the Last Jedi, then to learn the truth, abandon all hope, and die.”

Now, at the climax of the film, Rey has a decision to make – tell everyone the truth, that Luke Skywalker is dead. That his nephew killed him, and his sister, their leader, covered it all up. Or continue the lie.

Rey chooses to continue the lie.

She tells everyone that she is still looking for Luke.

That she will find him.

She will find the Last Jedi.

“The Skywalker’s WILL return and save us.”

Any Jedi victories that she achieves, she attributes to Luke, taking no credit for herself.

Because, what the galaxy needs most is a SKYWALKER, not a NOBODY.

THE END.

And then, from there we would be waiting for the third and final sequel film, that for now & for all intents and purposes, will remain named, The Rise of Skywalker. The title “The Rise of Skywalker” already makes more sense now though, because now, we the viewers know that there is a LACK and a NEED for a SKYWALKER.

<END>

What do you think?

Would you have enjoyed this version of The Last Jedi more???

Let me know your thoughts, theories, and wishes (past and future) for Star Wars! šŸ˜€

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Loyal, Brave, & True (RE-WRITE!!!)

When the live-action remake of Mulan came out, they added a new song titled “Loyal, Brave & True” by Christina Aguilera. The tune is nice, the song is fine – the lyrics are all wrong!

Whoever wrote this song did not understand the character of Mulan at all!

So – I re-wrote the lyrics. I took what they had, and I moved around and fixed the lyrics so that now they fit for Mulan – they’re “True” to her character.

I’m only going to put down the lyrics as I’ve re-written them, so if you want to hear the original lyrics then you’ll have to go and look them up.

Here we go:

ā€œWar is now calling,

Over my shoulder,

I hear the soldiers cry.

All for my family,

Reason I’m breathing,

I’ll take my sword and try.

Should I ask myself in the water

What a warrior would do?

I just know beneath my armor

That I’m loyal, brave, and true.

That I’m loyal, brave, and true!

Losing is easy,

Winning is harder.

I don’t know what to do!

Out in the open,

No one to save me,

Will you turn and leave me too?

Should I ask myself in the water

What a warrior would do?

Can’t you see beneath my armor

That I’m loyal, brave, and true?

That I’m loyal, brave, and true!

Cold is the morning,

Warm is the dream,

Chasing the answer

That I can’t see.

Will I be stronger?

Will I be weak?

Will you stay with me?

Here I am without my armor,

Standing in my father’s shoes.

Even though it now is harder,

I’ll stay loyal, brave, and true!ā€

So, yeah! That’s my re-write.

I feel like this way more captures the heart of who Mulan is as a character. She IS loyal, brave, and true. She never questioned that. She questioned almost everything else in her life, but NEVER that she was loyal, brave, and true.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that she felt like that was ALL that she had to offer. She wasn’t a perfect, beautiful, feminine daughter, she didn’t know how to be the perfect soldier – but she knew that she was always loyal, brave, and true.

THESE lyrics show that! (Maybe one day I’ll record a cover with these lyrics!)

For your pleasure, I’ve attached an orchestral cover of the song – that way you can sing the song with these new lyrics without the distraction of the bad lyrics. (Yes, I said what I said, the original lyrics were straight up bad! But the tune, and the idea for the song and this cover, is beautiful!)

Star Wars: Snoke was THAT little boy?!

HERE’S WHAT I WOULD’VE DONE: EPISODE 2

SNOKE THEORY (waaaaay past it’s expiration date, I know!)

I think my favorite thing about the sequel trilogy was all of the thought experiments that it gave me.

I mean, if it had been completely perfect then there would’ve been nothing for my writer brain to theorize about, pick apart, or flat-out re-write in my head.

As things stand – oh lordy, are there plenty of things to think about!

(I mean, c’mon, this scene was ridiculous!)

Here’s one that was a theory of mine from waaaay back in the day right after The Last Jedi came out, you know, back when things were iffy in the Star Wars world but nobody had yet witnessed the absolute mess that was The Rise of Skywalker, so people were still generally amicable.

The Last Jedi ended, as you may recall, with a shot of a little slave boy using the Force to call his broom to his hand before staring out at the stars, the writers wanting us to think ‘oh boy, things are changing around here!’. Well, haha, here’s what I have to say to that.

Rewind the film a little bit, and you remember that Kylo killed Snoke, his oppressive, giant, decaying master, to save Rey.

My theory, was that Snoke had discovered the secret of immortality and that Snoke was in fact Darth Plagueis the Wise. The secret to immortality, to not-dying, and the explanation for Snoke’s decaying body was – well, soul jumping.

I think, that Darth Plagueis had learned to soul jump and was jumping from body to body to body and at the end of The Last Jedi, when he got killed, his soul jumped into the body of that little slave boy, and now he was plotting revenge against Kylo, Rey and the galaxy. THAT was why the slave boy suddenly had the Force, even though he hadn’t had it earlier in the film when he’d met Rose and Finn. THAT was why he was looking out at the stars so seriously.

And then, instead of them basically doing a poorer version of that with Palpatine (“somehow – Palpatine returned.”) the third film would’ve seen our heroes having to battle with (and possibly kill/have to think about killing) a child. Not an evil child, but a child that was being possessed by Darth Plagueis. Oh, the drama that could’ve ensued!

Then, you could’ve gone into a whole ‘maybe Palpatine himself WAS Plagueis, maybe there had only ever been Plagueis, maybe Plagueis was the first ever Sith Lord and he was just constantly soul jumping from body to body, and that’s why there was only ever two sith – Plagueis and the body that would eventually BECOME Plagueis! And, if he was the first sith, then maybe Rey was the reincarnation of the first ever Jedi and that’s why she was so strong and important!’. By the way, I have so many thoughts about Rey. You can look forward to many more posts about her and my thoughts and theories (good and bad) on her character.

But basically, yeah, I think (and will always think) that that little slave boy at the end of The Last Jedi was/should’ve been Snoke, still alive, plotting more evil for the galaxies and coming for Reylo’s head.

What do you think???

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Here’s What I Would’ve Done!! When The Devil Calls Your Name (korean drama)

When the Devil Calls Your Name is a brilliant tvN 2019 K-Drama inspired by the 18th century German play Faust starring Jung Kyung Ho and Park Sung Woong as the Devil.


First off, it’s really an awesome drama. If you haven’t seen it, you really should go watch it over on Viki right now. Seriously, pause reading this and go over and watch it right now, if you don’t want to be spoiled.


If you don’t mind spoilers, then please join me for episode 1 of Here’s What I Would’ve Done…


Now, I know you’re thinking, ā€œBut, you just said it was brilliant. Why would you wanna change anything about it?ā€
Because, it was brilliant – for the first 14 episodes. It’s only the last 2 that I would change as those were, to be honest, a real mess.


The first 14 episodes followed Jung Kyung Ho, or as he will be referred to in this post as Devil Guy (even though he wasn’t the devil, he was the guy that sold his soul to the devil, but that’s just my nickname for him, ok!), an old washed up musician who sold his soul to the devil for youth, fame and fortune, but when the Devil, Park Sung Woong, comes to collect he tries to re-neg on the deal in any way that he can.


In the beginning, the Devil tells him that if he re-negs on the deal he will go back to his life before, where he is old, poor and alone, and that everyone who’s life he touched on account of the deal will revert back to their original paths as well. This freaks Devil guy out and he instead promises to find the Devil an A-grade soul to replace his.

That’s when the rest of the story really kicks off as he finds a young, talented, down on her luck, nice girl whom he believes has that A-grade soul that he’s after. He fosters her music career all the while trying to figure out how to get her to sign a soul contract.
But, something unexpected happens. He starts to like her. Not necessarily in that romantic way, (although there were some scenes that made me think…) but in that ā€œthis is a really nice person that I like as a human beingā€ kind of way. So, he starts to try to think of new ways to wiggle out of his own wretched soul contract – but it’s all for naught.


I won’t spoil the rest of the plot – I’ll just jump right into what I would’ve done.


I would’ve ended the series where the only way out of the contract was for him to go back to being that poor, washed up, alone, has-been, that he had been before. The Devil had said that THAT was an option.


How inspiring would it have been to have the show end where he is able to change his past, undo this great mistake of selling his soul to the devil out of despair, and embrace his life as it was, saving the people that he cared about (spoiler alert he knew the A-grade girl back when he was an old washed up has-been) and living out the remainder of his days quietly and goodly, turning everyone that he met away from the empty temptations of the Devil. It would’ve turned it into Faust meets Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

(incidentally this is my favorite version of A Christmas Carol from 1997 starring Tim Curry)


The show didn’t end that way. It kind’ve ended in a way that was like ā€œso, yeah, you know even if you sell your soul, sometimes it can just come back to you.ā€


Oh, ok. Then – what was the point of all the pain, drama? Why did you put us, the audience, through the ringer if the solution in the end was just, ā€œyou know, someday you’ll be fine.ā€?


I still loved the show, it was brilliant – the first 14 episodes, the last 2, as I’ve said, were a mess. Therefore, in my opinion, the show would’ve been a lot better if the solution in the end had been to reverse the deal, give up all of the money, youth and fame, to live and die a normal life – a better life, as a better person.


Writer OUT

PS – The soundtrack is absolutely amazing! Here’s one of my favorite songs.

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