It’s interesting you decided to put more focus on Luke’s fallen students in your new crawl.
ChainsawAsh made a good point about one aspect of one of your crawls, but I think it is relevant to the crawls in general. Whatever is mentioned in the crawl, it "sets the audience up to expect that to be a focus of the movie”, but it can be disappointing or confusing if "it ends up being minor subtext at best.”
Which is why I don’t think so much focus should be put on his students. Now we are expecting his students to be the main baddies, even though we won’t even really see the Knights of Ren until (maybe) the last film in the trilogy, sans the master himself, Kylo Ren.
Personally, I think why Luke has vanished should remain a mystery, and we discover why as the movie unfolds along with the other characters.
To be honest, I prefer this crawl you did.
Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the power
of the Jedi Knights has
faded into legend.
This is pretty solid, with the added benefit of retaining that great first sentence.
This idea of the Jedi and their legendary status also is a big theme within the TFA and TLJ, so it fits Ash’s idea of setting up what the audience should expect.
Now, I think the second paragraph could be changed
In his absence, the remnants of the Empire have emerged from the darkness of space and have reformed as the FIRST ORDER.
In his absence, the mysterious FIRST ORDER, a remnant of the fallen Empire, has emerged from the dark corners of space and…
Biding their time on the fringes of space, a remnant of the fallen Empire known as the FIRST ORDER has emerged from the darkness to…
“emerged from hiding” maybe
I think something like this, particularly the second or third one, could help make it clear that the First Order existed before Luke’s exile, but possibly his disappearance encouraged the First Order to come out of hiding. This seems to be the case in new canon material as well. The First Order did exist before Luke vanished, but senators like Leia were only becoming aware of some dark force lurking on the fringes of space around the same time Luke did vanish. The last part of that sentence could either deal destroy the remains of the Jedi religion, something to do with a weapon, yada yada. It could be interesting to say something about the First Order emerging from the edge of known space with mysterious power or something like that to vaguely hint at Starkiller, Snoke, or their surprising rise to power. Could be overthinking it now, which should be the slogan of crawl writing.
And that third paragraph can deal with the Resistance. Something like you have already.
While the [New] Republic strives
for a diplomatic solution,
a few bold senators fund a
covert RESISTANCE to
counter these attacks and
find their guardian of
peace and justice amid
the endless stars….
I think an angle like this is a pretty good way to approach the New Republic situation. Like I’ve said on threads, I think, alternatively, mentioning how Leia might believe First Order spies/supporters have infiltrated the Republic could also help explain the New Republic’s indecisiveness and a motivation to create a task force outside of the Republic. Technically both angles are true in canon.
The only problem I see with this structure for the crawl is that it kind of goes against the grain of all the other opening crawls. By the third paragraph, the crawl should be giving details of what we are about to see in the very first scene. By now it really should mainly be talking about the search for Skywalker.
The Republic/Resistance situation, and maybe some First Order stuff, really should be focused in paragraph two.
Which is why I think the overall structure needs to be closer to the original crawl. Keep the first sentence. Either cut the second, or integrate/replace it with the first stuff about the First Order. Luke’s absence didn’t create the First Order, but make it clear that maybe his presence was keeping them in the shadows. Holding them at bay.
Man, this was a lot more than I was planning to write about the crawls. Sorry, Nev. I know this probably feels like a Sisyphean task.
Regarding your post about restructuring Maz’s castle battle, I think your logic is sound and I think you should go for it. Honestly, I think you should make some test scenes, all the way from Rey waking from the Force vision to Finn screaming out “REY!!!” as she flies away with Kylo Ren. I really need to see your ideas.
I had some other thoughts/suggestions I wanted to share but I’ll save them for another post.