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shootingwomprats
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 Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2018 9:53 pm Post subject: How Would You Fix Ep VIII: The Last Jedi? (spoilers) |
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I have been kicking this around today and trying to see how I would change things to make it a better story and more Star Warsish. I am interested in other peoples ideas as well. Please feel free to poke hole in mine and ask questions.
1. I would redo the entire opening scene. It would start with ships blasting off from the Resistance base. People moving around quickly, loading equipment, supplies, etc onto transports. Shot of the traffic control who sees on the sensors incoming First Order ships. "Oh no!".
2. In comes the dreadnought. Poe seeing this immediately attacks, calling in the bombers as well.
3. The commander of the dreadnought, currently in communication with Hux begins to order TIE fighters to launch. Huck's in his arrogance tells him to concentrate on the Resistance base, the Resistance in inconsequential. The commander argues with Hux but follows the order. This scene would setup the idea that the "old guard" Imperials are often at odds with the much younger, arrogant, and zealous First Order leadership.
Things progress pretty much as seen in the movie from this point.
4. Rey holds out Luke's lightsaber to him to take. Expecting him to take it and follow her back to lead the fight against the First Order. He takes the lightsaber, looks at it, closes his eyes and hands it back to her. Shaking his head he walks away muttering, "A lightsaber, the greatest weakness of the Jedi."
Continue on in the movie, cut the scene where Finn walks around like a garden hose full of holes.
5. Poe goes to check on Finn in the bio station. Finn wakes up groggily, Poe fawns over him a bit. Finn looks up, "where's Rey" to which we see Poe a little abashed but explains where Rey has gone and her mission.
Continue you on.
6. The Resistance fleet has jumped to Krait on purpose but cannot jump immediately into orbit as there is a a nebula/back hale/other space anomaly which forces the ships to drop out of hyperspace further out. They meet up with elements of the Resistance that jumped earlier, meaning a fleet of more than 3+ ships.
The First Order shows up. The fleet is surprised and takes off for Krait. Because of the anomaly small ships cannot be launched as only the larger ships have strong enough protection to withstand whatever it is. This is why the First Order cannot jump in front of the Resistance fleet and why they just don't launch fighters.
As an aside, perhaps the First Order does not immediately release this until they engage the Resistance and this is why the ships are recalled.
Movie continues as before. Toying with the idea of removing all the Candle Bright (or whatever its called), since this is nothing but foreshadowing (IMO) of the director's upcoming Star Wars trilogy.
7. Luke explains to Rey that he felt a growing darkness in Ben and did not know how to help him. So he stopped teaching him. Ben took this is a slight, believing he was the successor/scion of the Skywalker line. That it was his destiny to become a great Jedi. He feels angry and slighted by Luke, who tells him to go on a "walk-about" and come back and they will talk about possibly training again.
Before Ben leaves, he is able to talk several students into going with him. While on this "walk-about" he learns about the Knights of Ren, which he and his fellow students immerse themselves. As time progresses, Ben becomes angrier and angrier with Luke, that he purposefully abandoned him.
Ben returns to the Jedi temple, facing off with Luke, who greatly underestimates Ben/Kylo's power and has an entire building pulled down on him. While Luke is unconscious, Kylo and his Knights of Ren kill most of the students, turning others to their cause, and destroy the temple.
Though not explained in the movie, during the intervening time, the group breaks apart, either from Kylo killing them one by one, infighting, or go another way.
This is about as far as I have gotten thus far. Though I did have another idea, but its a radical departure from the movie.
Rey accepts Kylo's offer to join him, they kill Snoke and the Red Guard. They begin to rule the new First Order together. She will attempt to temper his dark side tendencies and emo, little boy abandonment issues. Things progress pretty much the same as the movie, but Luke somehow saves them at the end, as opposed to Rey.
Episode 9 would start 15+ years after Episode 8. The galaxy is similar, but darker, New Order. Rey and Kylo would rule together but their relationship would in some ways mirror that of Vader and Palpatine. The three kids we see from episode 8, would be our main characters.
Thoughts?
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Falconer
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| Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2018 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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1. Leave Hux and Phasma dead on Starkiller Base.
2. There totally should be an “Imperial Old Guard” faction led by an Admiral Pellaeon type character, that just wants to have sweet uniforms and Star Destroyers, but the heroes should be able to work with them.
3. The mysterious and sinister “Snoke” faction should have retreated after their defeat and been brooding and plotting in the Unknown Regions. Make the heroes come after them. It could be some neat exploration and revelations about all kinds of weird and ancient and new stuff going on out there. Quit kicking the can down the road—innovate for real!
4. Keep Luke awesome. Black outfit, green lightsaber, optimistic, never gives up, doesn’t freakin’ get killed off. Because it’s The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, duh! |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 3:05 am Post subject: |
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The whole Hux/Phansma issue is one thing i really wish they explained.. HOW DID either survive the explosion of that base?? I don't remember any shuttles leaving.
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Sutehp
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| Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:13 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | The whole Hux/Phansma issue is one thing i really wish they explained.. HOW DID either survive the explosion of that base?? I don't remember any shuttles leaving. |
Correction: we didn't see any shuttles leaving but we're only seeing the destruction from the point of view from the good guys. But we do see at least the start of the First Order evacuating when that one lieutenant runs from his post yelling "Just Look! Even Hux is gone!" And immediately after that, we see Snoke ordering Hux to evacuate and bring Kylo Ren with him. So yes, the First Order did evacuate Starkiller Base, but it's an open question as to how many of them got away with their lives.
As for Phasma, it's mentioned (either in the Captain Phasma novel or the comic, I don't remember which) that only a few minutes after Han, Chewie and Finn locked Phasma in the trash compactor, one of the First Order officers finds and releases her...whereupon she promptly murders him so he can't tell anyone that it was Phasma who lowered Starkiller Base's shields in the first place. It was established in this story that Phasma really is a Dirty Coward who only used the First Order just for her own advantage and has no problem whatsover betraying or murdering anyone who stands in her way (including her own family).
Also, on a side note, Word of God says that while Phasma is a tall blonde woman, she specifically does not look like anything like Gwendoline Christie, which is why she's never unmasked in TLJ, not even when Finn has her at his mercy.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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I wonder if she will ever get 'unmasked?
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Whill
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| Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 6:46 pm Post subject: Phasma |
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| Whill wrote: | | Phasma Rescued and Unpunished? – In TLJ there is absolutely no hint as to how Phasma had escaped Snoke’s wrath for lowering the shield to the Starkiller base which allowed the Resistance attack and the ultimate weapon’s destruction in TPA. It doesn’t make sense that they wouldn’t know who did it because they wouldn’t just let anyone in the First Order have access to that (Finn didn’t). Access likely would have only been given to Hux, Ren and maybe senior officers. Surely Phasma would have to use her system log-in credentials or something that allowed access to the shield controls. So I don’t see how they wouldn’t know who did it while Phasma was still trapped in the garbage masher. There was also no indication given in either film for how Phasma escaped - She must have also been rescued by Hux. I can only assume that the reason for her being rescued and forgiven is that she is Snoke’s personal love slave, and that’s just… ew. |
| Sutehp wrote: | | As for Phasma, it's mentioned (either in the Captain Phasma novel or the comic, I don't remember which) that only a few minutes after Han, Chewie and Finn locked Phasma in the trash compactor, one of the First Order officers finds and releases her...whereupon she promptly murders him so he can't tell anyone that it was Phasma who lowered Starkiller Base's shields in the first place. It was established in this story that Phasma really is a Dirty Coward who only used the First Order just for her own advantage and has no problem whatsover betraying or murdering anyone who stands in her way (including her own family). |
OK, maybe we're on to something. Does the Phasma novel or comic say that Phasma also framed the murdered officer as the one to have lower the Starkiller shields? I just can't imagine there being shield lowering stations scattered all over the base. I can't imagine that just anyone had the system access to do so. I can't imagine how the First Order wouldn't know who lowered the shields. Finn couldn't do it on his own, and earlier in the film they addressed Poe escaping only with inside help. So they should have been wondering who on the inside lowered the Starkiller shield because it cost them a little more than a TIE Fighter, an awol stormtrooper, and an escaped Resistance pilot this time!
| Sutehp wrote: | | Word of God says that while Phasma is a tall blonde woman, she specifically does not look like anything like Gwendoline Christie, which is why she's never unmasked in TLJ, not even when Finn has her at his mercy. |
Well we do get to see her eye in TLJ, which looks exactly like Gwendoline Christie's eye.
| garhkal wrote: | | I wonder if she will ever get 'unmasked? |
It's not likely she survived falling into an explosion in the Supremacy hanger, and if she did, she would probably be all melty-faced.
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jmanski
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| Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | It's not likely she survived falling into an explosion in the Supremacy hanger, and if she did, she would probably be all melty-faced. |
Oh dear God, please tell me she doesn't get the Darth Vader treatment....
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Whill
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| Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2018 3:03 am Post subject: Re: How Would You Fix VIII: The Last Jedi? |
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Indeed. Let's pray she doesn't.
| shootingwomprats wrote: | | I have been kicking this around today and trying to see how I would change things to make it a better story and more Star Warsish. I am interested in other peoples ideas as well... Thoughts? |
OK, even though the trilogy isn't complete and we don't know what Episode IX will have in store for us, I'll play just for fun. One thing I didn't like in the film that I'll keep in this fan-version is the Skywalker blue-bladed lightsaber being destroyed. I'm assuming that it is somehow important (even if just in symbolism) that Rey and Ren fight over it and it breaks in half. Here are my fixes for TLJ:
* It is officially established in the film that TFA/TLJ takes place 35-36 years after RotJ, undoing all the previous published materials saying it is only 30 years.
* At some point there is a montage of battle scenes showing the war between the First Order and the Republic going on around the galaxy during the events of the film, with a Lucas-created planet or two being briefly shown. (This may require a slight edit of the film's opening crawl.)
* On the new planets, there is a Lucas-era alien or two in the background, like a rich Neimoidian war droid dealer at the casino world, for example.
* After Rey realizes that Luke has turned his back on the Jedi way, she asks him why he was wearing his Jedi robes when she first arrived. He answers that he thought she was coming to kill him and he felt it was appropriate dress for that. (This will explain why a non-Jedi was wearing his Jedi robes and also plant a suggestion with the audience that Rey could turn bad.)
* The First Order does not say that the Resistance fleet is "faster".
* Phasma is shown being menacingly questioned by Snoke in his chamber about the events surrounding the Starkiller shield being lowered with her system log-in credentials, Hux having to rescue her from a garbage masher, and the officer she says stole her credentials and lowered the shield but didn't escape so can't be questioned now. Snoke starts to painfully invade her mind (like Ren did to Poe in TFA), but then Hux walks in and Snoke stops. Hux reports on the situation with tracking the Resistance fleet while Phasma composes herself, which leads into the scene in the film where Ren walks in. Snoke tells Hux and Phasma to report to their duties and comments to Phasma he will deal with her later. Hux and Phasma both leave then Snoke's conversation with Ren happens as in the film, and Snoke's comment about Ren's ridiculous helmet could also been seen as a comparison to Phasma, and Ren destroys it in the turbolift just the same.
* Snoke is revealed to have been a non-Sith secret apprentice of a powerful dark side user "Plagueis the Wise" who had began building the First Order in the Unknown Regions before the rise of the Empire, including the Starkiller weapon.
* Rey and Ren have an actual lightsaber battle against each other in Snoke's chamber, with Snoke and his red guards watching. It is eventually apparent to us that they are both holding back because Rey still believes that Ren can be turned to the good side and Ren is still conflicted himself. And Snoke ridicules them both. Then it boils to down to what happens in the movie with Snoke saying Ren has finally found his resolve, except Snoke never says the phrase "complete your training" when he tells Ren to kill Rey.
* Instead of the entire bridge of the Raddus being destroyed and Leia flying out into space, a smaller hole is made on the bridge that blows everyone else out into space except Leia and Ackbar who hold on to a railing as Leia uses the Force on some jammed blast door to come down, saving them both right before they are blown out of the ship. Leia and Ackbar are both still severely injured and out of commission, so Holdo takes over. Holdo tells Poe the whole plan of how they would make it to the old Rebel base, but Poe is skeptical it would work so still wants to pursue another option, leading to the secret side plan with Finn and Rose and the rest of the mutiny plot pretty much in tact. Leia and Ackbar come to, and it is determined that there needs to be two people left behind on the Raddus for some reason, so Ackbar and Holdo insist on staying so Leia can go send the message. Then when the escaping ships are attacked, Admiral Ackbar, with Holdo's assistance, turns the ship towards the Supremacy and do the lightspeed jump kamikaze.
* Chewie and Rey in the Falcon show up at the Battle of Crait and lead the TIEs away as in the film, but Artoo is shown plugged into the ship near the copilot seat. The Falcon air/underground battle is extended from what is shown in the film, with a lot more TIEs.
* The old Rebel speeders don't have skis hanging down and dragging in the salt but they were still low altitude ships. Finn doesn't keep flying through the beam that melts his ship - He just flies up one side of the beam and is taking heavy fire as he gets closer and closer, until Rose dramatically flies through the beam to knock Finn out of his suicide assault.
* After Ren realizes that the "Luke" that was evading their "duel" was only a Force projection, Luke's X-Wing (with no astromech) comes flying from around the mountain and attacks the First Order ground forces. After some heroics take down one of the big FO walkers, the X-Wing is shot down and crashes near Ren. The real Luke comes out of the wreckage for a real lightsaber battle with Ren (with Luke using his real green lightsaber). Luke then denies Ren the kill stab again by doing a Ben Kenobi and fading away into the Force (and without the cheap Yoda-fade effect being used). The rebels making it out of the back of the base is extended to synch up with this extended Luke distraction.
* Rey and Poe had already met offscreen at the Resistance base during TFA, so instead of introducing himself to Rey, Poe goes up to her and thanks her for saving them. And she says, "Poe, right?" just confirming her memory of his name.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2018 3:17 am Post subject: |
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My thoughts...
1). The bombers are fine, but free-fall bombs in space is just silly. Replace the bombs with lots and lots of proton torpedoes that fire straight down...
2). Make Holdo a better leader on screen, and integrate her into the Canto BIght side mission from the outset, perhaps authorizing it while prepping in the (likely) event that it doesn't work.
3). Have Rose be a bridge crewmember, maybe a 23'er intel specialist (per the Rebel Alliance SB, an intelligence agent had a 23% chance of surviving twenty field missions, and anyone who did was a very competent field operator), so that she can legitimately be sent on a special mission.
4). Restructure the entire Canto Bight sequence, with DJ being revealed as the Master Codebreaker (and the "Master Codebreaker" removed completely).
Apart from that, everyone seems to have already covered the other bases.
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Solo4114
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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I'd use inspiration from BSG's episode "33" where the issue is less about how much fuel each ship has, but rather how quickly their jump drives can cycle back up. Sublight speed could be an issue, sure, but only insofar as they let you stay ahead of the enemy fleet while trying to jump out.
I'd break the initial chase into two sequences with several jumps, but then some issue where the jump drives are either damaged or likely to overheat if they jump too soon immediately after dropping out of hyperspace. The ticking clock could still have a role, but it would be less about "We'll run out of fuel!" and more about "We have to hold them off this long til we can jump again!"
Poe/Finn's mission could still take place, and still as a minor mutiny, but it would only occur after the 2nd jump when they've figured out that they're being tracked, and have to break the tracker.
In general, though, I'd preserve Poe's arc. I liked it, and I think it's important to demonstrate that the hothead daring plan against all odds...isn't always the smart move.
But the fuel thing...just kinda seems out of place to me. |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 4:21 pm Post subject: |
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May i ask why??? Do you feel SW ships shouldn't have to worry about low fuel?
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Solo4114
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | May i ask why??? Do you feel SW ships shouldn't have to worry about low fuel? |
Basically it doesn't jive with the kinds of issues we've seen in the past. Hyperdrives are always problematic, it seems. You get the Naboo starship's hyperdrive that breaks in TPM, you have the Falcon's faulty motivator, etc. Hyperdrives breaking down "make sense" in-universe to me.
But aside from what looks like fueling of the X-wing just before the battle of Yavin, we literally never see or hear anything to suggest that fuel is remotely a concern. Nobody has ever worried about it, so it seems (to me, at least) like a contrived problem. Moreover, it's one that's unnecessary (again, in my opinion), because you can fall back on the hyperdrive needing to cool down or get fixed after an attack or whatever. Hell, that could be the Finn/Poe mission: get a hyperdrive mechanic and spare parts or something, instead of the "Master Codebreaker." In a way, it'd make more sense, and you'd still be able to have Finn's arc.
Holdo wouldn't tell him why they aren't going after the mechanic/parts, even though there's a port in range. (But her reasoning could be that they don't want the FO to attack the planet, or that they know they're being tracked, so there's no point in running.) And she could still be headed to Crait, but with no intention of telling him (because she thinks the bridge might be bugged or there's a spy). Poe could still insist on doing something more than just waiting, which jeopardizes the safety of the crew, for a risky mission that's ultimately pointless anyway.
But to me, the entire battle being just one long, visually slow-moving chase is kind of dull, and the answer as to why being "We're running out of fuel" just felt like "Wait, what? Since when has THAT been an issue?" That's like saying "My x-wing is almost out of blaster ammo!" It doesn't break a rule per se, but it's jarring in the face of that never being an issue before.
For the most part, though, I don't have a ton of complaints about TLJ, so there isn't much that I think needs to be fixed. I really enjoyed it, I found it believable, and aside from the kind of "Whoa, WTF?!?" element of Leia's spacewalk, the fuel thing was the only part that really stuck out to me as being kind of lame.
Canto Bight was fine for me, even though the entire detour wound up being for naught, because...well, that was the point. And besides that, the Resistance touched those kids' lives, and who knows what the future holds for them. |
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Raven Redstar
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| Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 4:59 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | May i ask why??? Do you feel SW ships shouldn't have to worry about low fuel? |
Fuel is never mentioned in any of the movies before now as a super necessary resource. Repairs, yes, but they never just "run out of gas". People fly from the core to the outer rim without having to stop for gas.
They start to bring it up a little in Rebels and once in the Clone Wars series but it's still just kind of a reach.
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Urban Spaceman
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| Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 9:11 am Post subject: |
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| Raven Redstar wrote: |
Fuel is never mentioned in any of the movies before now as a super necessary resource. Repairs, yes, but they never just "run out of gas". People fly from the core to the outer rim without having to stop for gas.
They start to bring it up a little in Rebels and once in the Clone Wars series but it's still just kind of a reach. |
What about in The Phantom Menace when Qui-Gon Jinn says "We'll have to land somewhere to refuel and repair the ship."?
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Solo4114
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| Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Urban Spaceman wrote: | | Raven Redstar wrote: |
Fuel is never mentioned in any of the movies before now as a super necessary resource. Repairs, yes, but they never just "run out of gas". People fly from the core to the outer rim without having to stop for gas.
They start to bring it up a little in Rebels and once in the Clone Wars series but it's still just kind of a reach. |
What about in The Phantom Menace when Qui-Gon Jinn says "We'll have to land somewhere to refuel and repair the ship."? |
I don't really remember that all that well, but my recollection was that the real problem wasn't fuel, but rather that the hyperdrive was damaged.
Another way to view it is that fuel generally isn't an issue in space travel...provided you start with the required amount to get your ship running. So, it's less "fuel" in the sense of "we are constantly burning this to keep moving" and more like antifreeze or power steering fluid, where unless there's a leak, you shouldn't ever really need to add it except for the occasional maintenance checkup.
In TPM, as I recall, their hyperdrive was all shot up, so maybe it was leaking "fuel" for the drive, but it's not the kind of fuel where you need to gas up every # lightyears/parsecs/whatever. |
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