The Force Awakens: Starlight (V1.1 Released!) — Page 13

Neverar, I really like the direction that your new crawl is heading in. The first paragraph is pretty good but I would want something a little different for the line “some in the Republic”, it just sounds off. Maybe the crawl could instead refer to the political leaders of the republic. Something like “Many senators of the Republic have begun to consider a return to imperial rule.”

The second paragraph is also quite good but feels a little clunky since it is just one long sentence that goes on for a while. The one part that makes it feel a little convoluted is the mention of the Superweapon. I guess the best way to describe how I feel is that the crawl at that point is talking about a secret extremist group, then all of sudden something about a superweapon, and then back to the search for the Last Jedi. The information just feels a little crowded.

The third paragraph is PERFECT. I really like your wording and overall choice of vocabulary. It feels really grand and communicates where the story is currently at.

Sorry if any of my feedback there did not make much sense. Best of luck with everything, the edit looks great!

I agree with all these criticisms, and I definitely want to keep some version of this last paragraph.

There is just too much information. I want to talk about why the Jedi are important, how the First Order has gained power, what the political situation actually is, etc, etc. But it all feels clunky as you say.

So here’s a version that focuses just on the geography of the situation, and though I’ve taken a few liberties with some things I think it makes a lot of sense:

The Republic is in crisis.
While searching the galaxy
for a mythical Jedi temple,
Luke Skywalker has vanished.

Fearing his capture by the
Imperial FIRST ORDER
which patrols this unknown
space, the Senate has
secretly mobilized a band
of Rebellion fighters to
follow the path of the
last Jedi and return him
to the Republic.

Learning of a map to
his last known location,
this brave RESISTANCE
sends their most daring
pilot across enemy lines,
unaware of the sinister
forces lurking in the
darkness beyond…

I don’t think it’s smart to reference Luke looking for the Jedi temple since clearly it was more of him wanting to find a place to hide out and die. When Han says it, in context of TLJ, it can kind of be interpreted as a vague rumor rather than what really drove Luke away.

I would keep the first paragraph from your last crawl but just tweak a few words here and there. I really liked what you were doing there. I also still love your third paragraph, especially the version from the last crawl.

Now the second paragraph, that is what is hard to deal with. I personally think introducing the super weapon is necessary in this paragraph.

Tomorrow I will put together a crawl that is mainly your first and third paragraphs from your previous crawl, with a reworked second paragraph that still introduces the super weapon.

That’s certainly an interesting take on crawl. It reads like three separate ideas, which is probably needed to establish everything that’s going on in TFA, but I feel like the paragraphs of a Star Wars crawl should flow from one idea to the next in a strong and logical manner.

The original TFA crawl does this in a way:

Luke is gone.
Because of this the Empire 2.0 now exists.
They want vanished Luke dead for some reason.

Because of this, Leia has formed the Rebellion 2.0.
She wants Luke to solve everything.
A Republic exists again by the way, and is helping.

Leia sends her best man to find a clue on Jakku.
The planet’s name is Important Somehow.
Pan down to movie.

The ideas don’t make much sense in themselves, or are derivative of the OT, but they at least form a narrative.
The ideas in your crawl do connect, but I’m having trouble following the flow from one idea to the next.

darthrush said:

Tomorrow I will put together a crawl that is mainly your first and third paragraphs from your previous crawl, with a reworked second paragraph that still introduces the super weapon.

I would like to see how you manage to include information about the superweapon without it feeling too wordy. I’ve just about hurt my brain trying to do that.

In the meantime, I’ve reworked my more ‘geographic’ crawl in a way that implies (but doesn’t state!) that Luke had a mission beyond just looking for the first Jedi Temple:

The Republic is in crisis.
While mapping uncharted
Imperial space, the legendary
Luke Skywalker has vanished.

Desperate to know the
full power of the Imperial
FIRST ORDER which
controls these regions,
the Senate supports a band
of rebels in their quest to
return the last Jedi and
his vital intelligence to
the Republic.

Learning of a clue to the
Jedi’s location, this brave
RESISTANCE has sent
their most daring pilot
across enemy lines,
unaware of the sinister
forces lurking in the
darkness beyond…

The reasoning behind this crawl is based on my trying to make sense of the maps in this movie. For example, it is a well-known fact in the EU that the galaxy has a vast unexplored region, and this is where the Empire was exiled. However, this is never stated in the movies. Also, we are told that the Resistance doesn’t have enough information to locate Luke with just the piece of the map given by Lor San Tekka. Since the piece of the map is quite a large section of what looks like the entire galaxy, and since it is established in TLJ that this isn’t a map of another galaxy, then it means that Tekka’s piece is part of this vast unexplored region of Imperial space.

Also, since R2’s map has a specifically-shaped missing piece and also includes a continuation of the orange dotted line from Tekka’s piece, R2’s map cannot be merely an old bit of Imperial data. It almost has to be that Luke completed this portion of the map and either gave it to R2 before vanishing, or completed the whole map and split the sections between Tekka and R2. It seems unlikely that Tekka came up with his part of the map independently of Luke, though that is still a possibility. Either way, the almost-complete map in R2’s backup memory must have been a relatively recent addition since it has evidence of being part of his search for the Jedi temple.

All of this implies that the unknown regions of the galaxy are now much less unknown after the events of TFA, which really should be mentioned in the text of the movie somewhere. Focusing on this part of Luke’s activity in the crawl allows for this, as well as orienting the viewer in the galaxy for maybe the first time in the saga.

Since I’m planning on removing the idea that the Falcon is easily trackable by anyone at anywhere in the galaxy, I think there should be a better reason for Han to find the Falcon as quickly as he does. The only way I can think to do that is if Rey intentionally travels to a major spaceport after escaping Jakku. So here’s the idea:

The Falcon jumps to Hyperspace after leaving Jakku, then immediately cut to Kylo being updated, in order to cover the trip through hyperspace. Kylo asks ‘What girl?’, and in answer to this we cut back to the Falcon leaving hyperspace and arriving near a new planet, followed by Rey and Finn’s introductions. It wouldn’t be too difficult to cobble together some imagery of this planet in the distance with lights moving here and there indicating that it is home to a busy spaceport. It could use my shot of the Falcon leaving hyperspace from Restructured as a base. After this, the previously bisected scene of the Falcon repairs would need to be joined back together, and Finn’s line ‘we need to get out of this system’ could be reinstated. Presumably this is Ponemah Terminal.

With those changes, I think it would make more sense why Han is able to find the ship so quickly, as well as the arrival of two separate gangs soon after.

It’s true, all of it.

I originally imagined that this planet would be in the same star system as Jakku, making their jump last no more than a minute and probably take less time than Kylo’s scene. But if they are doing this and not jumping to a more central system, the problem remains as to why Han and Chewie found them so quickly.

The problem really lies with the passage of time in this section of the movie. Each event leads immediately to another with no chance for downtime. I can’t imagine that more than ten minutes had elapsed between them leaving Jakku and being found by Han.

JEDIT: The only break point I can think of is sometime during Finn and Rey’s hallway conversation. After ‘I’m Rey’, cut to Kylo’s scene, then back to the Falcon falling out of hyperspace near Ponema Terminal. Cut to Rey in the midst of the pipes, as if they’ve had nothing but problems while in Hyperspace. That means the loss of Finn’s moment where he considers telling Rey the truth about himself, which is a shame. Maybe an even better break point in terms of flow would be after ‘he’s going to get you home. We both will’. Then there are no introductions at all, but it would allow Kylo to ask the question ‘what girl?’ for the audience, until she says her name later. Finn says ‘Rey’ in the next scene, but that could be edited out so that the first time we hear it is when Han asks her on Takodana.

I’m planning on removing Han’s lines about tracking in any case, simply because it makes no sense to want a ‘clean ship’ and then turn around and take the trackable ship to the Resistance Base.

But the flashing light idea is a good one (is there no problem that can’t be solved by flashing lights?).

When Han and Chewie first come aboard the Falcon, there’s a slow zooming shot of the door, and a steady shot when the door opens. On the lower right there is a little box, on which I could animate a light. By reversing the shot of the door opening with the animated light and placing this shot in the place of Rey saying ‘I can do this’ right when she starts the Falcon’s engines, it would imply that the tracking broadcast began right at the start.

Next, when Han first comes aboard, he pokes his finger into some illuminated blue box on the wall across from the door. After this shot I could place the zoom of the door, and show the tracker is deactivated. That way it’s clear how Han found the Falcon and was given a reasonable amount of time to do it, and why the ship is now safe to travel to the Resistance base without fear of further tracking.

Indeed. 😃

Since getting a clean ship isn’t an issue at any other time in the ST so far (at least I’d hope so or the entire Resistance is doomed), I’d get rid of those lines somehow.

Indeed.

On another note, I was thinking about Rey in this movie and how she has so much power, and it made me think back to the Original Trilogy. After Obi-wan dies, claiming that he will be more powerful than Vader could possibly imagine, he then doesn’t really do anything except talk to Luke for the rest of the film. I have thought the possibility exists that it was Obi-wan who guided Luke’s hand in taking out the Death Star, and in many of his feats with the Force in ESB, since he later claims that he ‘cannot interfere’ with the Vader duel. This implies that he could have interfered with other things, and now we learn in TLJ that a Force Ghost can indeed interfere in the physical world in dramatic ways.

So my idea for TFA is that Yoda (and maybe Obi-wan) is guiding Rey throughout the movie, directly influencing and augmenting her power.

It may not be as crazy as it seems - after all, one of the interpretations of the ST so far is that Rey has been chosen by the Force to counterbalance the darkness of Snoke and Kylo Ren. This is problematic if your view of the Force is one of a passive energy field only activated and guided by people. Enter Yoda, who was unable to contact Luke after he closed himself off from the Force and was forced to find someone else to rescue the ancient texts and pass on the 20,000 year legacy of the Jedi. And it would make sense that Rey would never see Yoda, since one hypothesis of Force Ghosts is that they are not visible to anyone who didn’t know them in life.

Since this is only a preliminary idea, I’m open to suggestions as to how this could be hinted out in the edit (if at all) - maybe have some ghostly Yoda echoes in Rey’s visions perhaps? Some specific sound effect linked to Obi-wan or Yoda when Rey is accomplishing her feats of Forcery? Or should it be more subtle?

Great discussion here. I love the idea of the Reydream including the tree and the books with a little voice echo, though think active pushing from Force Ghosts is maybe a little much.

The idea of having Maz be the holder of the location of the Resistance base is great too.

I’d hold fire on the explanation of how Maz got the lightsaber though, at least until we’ve seen Ep9. It was last seen falling from Cloud City, and with Lando returning, there’s a fairly likely chance that gives the writers a neat Lando > Maz angle.

RogueLeader said:

There’s both pros and cons to this idea.

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to suggest this, since it almost seems like Obi-Wan was trying to communicate with Rey during her vision. You can hear old Obi say “Rey” and young Obi say “These are your first steps.”

You might could subtly add Obi-Wan’s line regarding the Force having a strong influence on the weak-minded right before Rey tries to use a mind trick. I’m not sure where Yoda’s voice could be added besides the Force vision…

Maybe instead of hearing the sound of a child (young Rey) crying in Maz’s castle, Yoda’s voice could be calling her towards the lightsaber. Though this could take away from her hearing her own cries and what that means. Though I’m not sure how it is related to the saber exactly, but it could just represent its connection to the Force and the past, both to Rey’s and the Skywalkers’.

When Kylo and Rey are clashing sabers, maybe one of their voices could be heard saying something while Rey’s eyes are closed. Like, Yoda or Obi-Wan saying “Let go [Rey].”

I think these type of additions shouldn’t necessarily be blatant, but they could hint that they are taking an active role from the netherworld.

Though one could argue that this could take away from Rey’s own agency, since she would be basically getting help from others. But if you just simply replace the apparent “will of the Force” with the hint that is Yoda and Obi-Wan, you wouldn’t be making it any more Deus Ex Machina than it already is at least, if that is how one interprets it.

And at least now it is other characters that are driving these moments rather than the Force in a very ambiguous way, if that makes sense. Also, if you make it seem that Rey has a choice to listen to them or not, then I think she would retain her agency.

Regardless, I think one should also look at Rey’s abilities from a narrative and thematic perspective. You could argue that Rey is a fast learner because she simply just believes in the Force enough that she can do it. She doesn’t have the same kind of self-doubt that young Luke had. And Rey is demonstrated to be a good fighter, so her being able to get the hang of a lightsaber quickly isn’t too much a stretch either. Once you know how to tap into the Force, it can help control your actions while also obeying your commands, like Obi-Wan said. So her being good at various things is basically her partially letting herself go and letting the Force guide her.

Actually, this interpretation isn’t really far off from your Obi-Wan/Yoda idea, so you could go with this approach and argue that they are just an extension of the will of the Force, acting on its behalf.

I would interpret this as Yoda and Obi-Wan guiding Rey to connect to the Force, rather than Yoda or Obi-Wan acting through her directly. The Force is flowing through her, and Yoda and Obi-Wan are now one with the Force. It is both controlling Rey’s actions but also obeying her commands. In a way, adding Obi and Yoda’s voices is merely giving the character of the Force a voice.

I like this interpretation. This is the 7th movie after all, and to have a completely new ‘chosen one’ who happens to be super competent at everything including the Force, to an extent that we’ve never seen in the universe before, is really unfortunate. But if I could somehow make it seem like the Force has more of a character due to Yoda and Obi-wan, then it might help the audience identify with Rey’s character even more. After all, we know and trust these Jedi masters (or at least Yoda), so to give the Force some overtly Yoda-ish characteristics would continue that strong directive from the last movie (Returning the Jedi to the galaxy), in a way that is unexpected but actually quite logical.

And maybe this doesn’t even need to be done in TFA. It could be treated more as a revelation, and be built up to in TLJ somehow. I kind of like the idea of faint, ghostly Yoda laughter when Rey lifts the rocks at the end. But if it was fairly clearly established in TFA, then it might be more believable for the audience when Rey is lecturing old man Luke on being a Jedi, since she’s being aided by Luke’s former mentors and perhaps even being sent to the island as a lesson for the old man.

I’ll have to get into the editing and music for this project before making any final determination about whether or not to keep the original ending or use it in other ways throughout, but one of the reasons for ending the movie with her leaving the base is to keep the story firmly an ensemble with Rey and Finn. When Rey leaves Finn to go off on her own, it sends the message that Rey is the new Luke, even when Finn has had as much screen time and is really a co-lead.

And yeah, I would like to do an extended journey where I could use the credits version of Rey’s theme, but it would take a lot of vfx work or repurposing a lot of footage that we don’t have at the moment.

The latest idea I had for a potential ending is dependent on the music working, but it would go something like this throughout the movie:

-Reydream (when eating dinner at sunset)
…
-Dream of exploring the island + Jedi Texts + Maybe the cloaked figure of Luke (right between Han and Leia’s conversation and Rey waking up for the interrogation) Jedi Steps begins, to about the 1 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUBUlKgsNK8
…
-R2 finds the rest of the map, the map is complete, closeup on Rey, closeup on the holographic path to Luke. Music transitions to the Jedi Steps again, this time from 1 minute to 1:37, along with a wipe or other visual transition indicating the passage of time - a Force vision or dream. Rey climbs the steps and Luke turns. Now we see his face for the first time, and here she offers up the lightsaber. Another wipe as the music goes quiet, and it transitions to Rey saying goodbye to Finn, perhaps along with that original music. Leia says her goodbyes to Rey, she boards the Falcon, and it takes off to the final notes of the Jedi Steps.

So again, very dependent on whether the music works and it reads correctly on screen, but that’s the best way I can think to include the emotional beats of the original film in this new structure.

RogueLeader said:

So with the ending scene, you would intercut between when Rey is leaving and when Rey has already reached Luke? Hmm, I see what you’re going for, but I’m not sure that would work. You’d probably be better off either including the Ach-To ending or just end after the Falcon jumps into hyperspace like you were planing to do.

You’re probably right about that. Though I do think the Jedi Steps music would work for the truncated ending.

I was just looking for another place to put the final bit of that Luke scene, and realized that there was one more place where Rey was unconscious - in the forest with Kylo.

This might actually be a perfect place to put the end of the scene. It’s not too long after the interrogation so it makes sense as a dream that is continuing after an interruption, and it’s another unconsciousness induced by Kylo so that aspect is the same. I imagine that she would get knocked out, then as she hits the ground we see her standing in front of the hooded figure of Luke. Finn rushes over but can’t revive her, and fights Kylo. he screams, and Rey begins to move and open her eyes, but she still sees Luke standing there, turning to face her. Finn is knocked out, the lightsaber flying into the snow. Rey sees Luke stare piercingly at her, and she takes out the lightsaber and holds it in front of her, her expression turning to one of acceptance and determination. Kylo tries to summon the saber, but it flies into Rey’s outstretched hand. She has made her decision. Music swells.