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.
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.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.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…
I personally like your crawl and the amount of info it contains. One of my gripes with the original cut of the movie is the lack of information provided: in contrast to the prequels, we don’t understand the politics of the galaxy. What is the relationship between the Republic and the First Order? Where did this super weapon come from? Your crawl answers many questions in relatively few words, so I am pleased with it.
I do have two questions for you based on your crawl: you mention a weapon that can devour entire stars, yet it never does that. I came across this old post of mine, and I wonder if you’d considered a different, non-Death-Star-rehash approach to the Star + Killer Base.
- Distinguish the Starkiller from the Death Stars. I think this shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s name is “star” + “killer” after all, and besides a reference to early Star Wars concepts/Luke’s original last name, it could easily be changed to a weapon much like the Centerpoint Station of the old EU, which was stationary but fired a powerful beam at distant stars and caused them to supernova. I imagine a little technical wizardry could easily fire that beam at a star instead of the planet, cause a supernova (witnessed from the ground of Hosnian Prime), and have the supernova destroy the system. Meanwhile, remove our heroes actually witnessing this from Takdona.
So someone (definitely not me) edited this idea before TFA came out on BD/DVD. This individual used a bootleg, it is obvious, but has most certainly purchased the BD since. I believe the individual was afraid to share this idea due to it being made from a bootleg, but he reassures me he pre-ordered the BD from Amazon which arrived on the official release day. He hopes the fact that he did not feel like re-editing this with good footage will not cause a problem. This is just to pose an interesting idea.
Did I mention this is not me?
Password: SKB
My other question for you is this: do you think you can squeeze one last piece of information into that crawl? To get such a big actor as Max von Sydow to play Lor San Tekka, have him in such a crucial role as supplying the map to Luke Skywalker, and then kill him off without providing any backstory to him or the village, I feel it was a disservice, and it confused me right away. I feel the fact that his membership in the Church of the Force alone would have interesting enough to fill this hole for me, but without that mention, it’s a disappointing introduction.