TFA: A Gentle Restructure (Released) — Page 22

Here’s another attempt:

Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the ashes of the fallen Empire, plotting a return to Imperial rule.

Failing to convince the New Republic to combat this emerging threat, General Leia Organa gathers allies from the farthest reaches of the galaxy to form a covert RESISTANCE.

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to Luke’s whereabouts…

I liked the ‘return to power’ better, as it is simpler, but I understand that there could be confusion about that. Instead of that third sentence being a veiled allusion to SKB, it would be better if you stated its secret presence outright.

‘Demilitarized New Republic’ is accurate but perhaps too advanced a term for the crawl.

I don’t think you need the word ‘daring’ if you use ‘trusted’ directly before it.

NeverarGreat, and others, I apologize because I edited my post right afterward to revise it yet again.

JEDIT: There’s just something satisfying about seeing the capitalized word “Imperial” in those yellow letters, I gotta say as I am looking at the pre-render version in Blender.

No worries, I too do that all the time 😃

Last night I played around with Youtube rips of the deleted scenes trying to cobble together a usable mockup of Leia at the Resistance base: https://mega.nz/#!iY83FLZI!U5kMj4Efpv70sttWNIQL507rkKf19JgGn7MUJSmnBm4

It feels somewhat jarring the first time, but after a few watchthroughs I don’t feel the deletion of the Finn material nearly as much.

MalàStrana said:

DigMod said:
I suppose they are akin to the Nazis of post WW1 Germany.

No. Not at all.

Here’s a good read about this.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/star-wars-force-awakens-order-inspired-nazis/story?id=33338629

JJ Abrams said:
“That all came out of conversations about what would have happened if the Nazis all went to Argentina but then started working together again?’” Abrams added. “What could be born of that? Could The First Order exist as a group that actually admired The Empire? Could the work of The Empire be seen as unfulfilled? And could [Darth] Vader be a martyr?"

This is what my comment was a out. They aren’t the Empire. So rising again to power doesn’t make sense.

These are fanatics who admire the Empire but are definitely different. They existed before during and after the Empire. They just never made their move until the Empire crumbled. So yes, they are very much like the Nazis.

Sorry Hal. Just wanted to explain why I would think that line on the crawl wouldn’t work for me.

Thanks, I used the wipes because they tend to soften a quick transition. I’ll try it without and see how it works.

@Kexikus: Originally I thought that the natural place for the scene was after ‘I need your help’, but after putting it there it just didn’t work for me. The problem is that you expect an immediate response to Finn’s line, and cutting to a somewhat arbitrary bit of exposition is too much whiplash. At least with its placement just after Finn’s arrival, he could be taking in the sights. This allows the audience to take a momentary break from his story.

I also cut the entire resistance base section into pieces to try and work it in later, but there’s just no place. As George Lucas once said, if you move just one piece all the rest don’t work.

I love the new mockup about using the deleted scene. I agree about the wipes, and having Snap’s line begin before we cut to him and Leia would be best. I hope this gets spruced up enough to really work well. The good thing is that it would just be a bonus, and nothing really hinges on it for the edit to work.

I agree I’m overthinking the crawl at this point. 😃 I will leave the first paragraph at, “plotting its return to power.”

I will be keeping reference to Luke as Leia’s brother, as a germane reminder to the viewer, but in a more subtle way than the theatrical TFA’s crawl.

Mala, Dominic, try to get along in this thread. Since Disney took over, we’ve all felt the need to be militant about our opinions. We’re probably all still used to being of one radicalized mind about the OUT, and find ourselves in a brave new world full of ambiguity. Let’s try and drop the Dr. Strangelove paranoia.

And I am pretty happy with this being the crawl’s final form:

Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the ashes of the fallen Empire, plotting its return to power.

Failing to convince the New Republic to combat this emerging threat, General Leia Organa gathers allies from the farthest reaches of the galaxy to form a covert RESISTANCE.

Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to Luke’s whereabouts…

I think the crawl is wonderful, a great improvement of the original.

The Leia scene will entail quite a lot of effects work, starting with the footage itself. I also have a few more ideas about how to integrate it into the scene. 😃

NeverarGreat said:

I think the crawl is wonderful, a great improvement of the original.

The Leia scene will entail quite a lot of effects work, starting with the footage itself. I also have a few more ideas about how to integrate it into the scene. 😃

There is always the problem of her hair being different.

Another idea for the edit:
https://mega.nz/#!iN83iIrQ!he9Q9EX-CgV3f3DtSmpboXohXV6NSqytnx2DL8oIx_8

In version 1, the first time we hear about Finn working on the Starkiller Base is in the briefing, and it feels like we’re missing crucial information about both Finn and the base. With this in mind, I’ve changed Poe’s line so that it reads: “Finn’s familiar with a weapon in the Hosnian system, he worked on the base.” This establishes that the Starkiller, not the Republic, is based in the Hosnian system. In giving it a named location, it also presumes reconnaissance by the Resistance.

I think it might work if the sound was finessed a bit more, the biggest issue is one of canonicity, since nobody knows whether the word ‘Hosnian’ will come up again in the Sequel Trilogy. Presumably it will, but then again Alderaan was never brought up again after Star Wars.

JEDIT: Or, since there’s a brief cutaway to Leia, he could say any made-up location at all, as long as it doesn’t sound unnatural.

I agree with Kexikus.

It’s probably more jarring than it’s worth to have Poe mention “a weapon” like that. Might be better to just let us infer it as the movie goes on.

Perhaps if he says “Finn is familiar with their weapon system, he worked on the base”. It still references a weapon, but we have already seen the Starkiller twice at this point, so most people probably assume it’s some kind of weapon.