I think your crawl is far too complex and contains too much information (a first time viewer wouldn’t understand half of it, especially in a movie which is a sequel to an episode where everything seemed to be resolved).
This is actually my issue with the original Force Awakens crawl:
Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen from
theashes of the Empire and
will not rest until Skywalker,
the last Jedi, has been destroyed.In the first paragraph we are told about Luke Skywalker, the First Order, the Empire, and the Jedi. That’s a lot of information for a first-time viewer, and we are never given any indication of what the Jedi do or why they are so important. But I can understand why we might need to retain the line about the fallen Empire.
Yeah but we know who is Luke, what was the Empire (5 movies prior to this one about the Empire ! Soon 6… 7… 8… etc.) and we are familiar with the Jedi. I’m not a fan of TFA crawl but at least the first paragraph explains why the victory at the end of ROTJ is long forgotten and that some kind of neo Empire is back in business.
(I can’t believe I’m defending something written by JJ Abrams…)
Here’s a version that explains a bit more:
The galaxy is in peril.
Rising from the ashes
of the fallen Empire,
a sinister FIRST ORDER
is building a weapon that
can devour entire stars.
Better ! But I would remove “the galaxy is in peril”.
Without the protection of
the mystical Jedi Knights,
The Republic is blind to this
deadly threat. Only General
Leia Organa, haunted by
visions of impending doom,
mobilizes a small Resistance.
Very complex again, and what you be the payoff of “Leia’s visions” in your cut ?
On a mission to a distant
world, one of her pilots has
found a clue to the location
of Leia’s long-lost brother,
the last of the Jedi Knights
and their only hope against
the forces of darkness…
Seems like you just more or less rephrased the last sentence of the original crawl.
Sorry if I’m nitpicking, writing a crawl is a very difficult exercice (where is Brian de Palma when we need him !).