Yeah, I totally get that and I did think of that while thinking of this. The idea was to reduce the number of coincidences and the fact that Poe is so eager to take Finn back to Jakku but then just goes back to base after crashing.
Coincidences in original cut - Map and Rey are on the same planet, BB8 runs into Rey, Rey and BB8 run into Finn, the 3 run into Han, Rey Finds the lightsaber at Mazs castle where Han takes them (maybe more?).
In this version - Map and Rey are on the same planet, BB8 runs into Rey.
Far less in this version. I guess running into Finn would just be one more but then Poe just leaves without BB8. I dunno.
I see your point. As Pixar’s Emma Coats says “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.” But, given the material we have, we’d end up with Rey and Finn as strangers… I don’t know about that…
Not sure how you would turn the Resistence into the New Republic aside from the crawl. There must be a lot of important dialogue with “The Resistance” in it and almost no one says New Republic so there isn’t any chance of dubbing over.
I’d try (but I don’t know if it’s possible) to trim the dialogue to avoid any mention of the Resistance, while establishing the New Republic in the crawl. This is a possible TFA crawl that:
- justifies Luke’s journey as needed in is path as a Jedi Master (and avoid to make him just run away);
- establish the New Republic and Leia’s role in it;
- as you say, make Poe retrieving the whole map from Lor San Tekka (another problem: who is him? just another random character thrown in by JJ… 😕 ).
Anyway, here’s the crawl:
Luke Skywalker has vanished! The Jedi Master left in order to find the SACRED JEDI TEXTS, the ancient books containing the knowledge and the wisdom needed to rebuild the Order.
Luke doesn’t know that, in his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER is born from the ashes of the Empire, menacing the fragile NEW REPUBLIC, for which Princess Leia Organa is tirelessly traveling as ambassador from system to system, hoping to annex as many planets as possible.
Desperate to find her brother Luke, Leia has sent the most daring pilot of the Republic on a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a map to the possible Luke’s whereabouts…