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The Force Awakens: Starlight (V1.1 Released!) — Page 31

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 (Edited)

stevepaynter said:

Made a few minor changes. Let me know what you think.

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, last
of the legendary Jedi
Masters, has vanished.

In his absence the evil
FIRST ORDER has risen
from the ashes of the
Empire with a weapon
more deadly than the
dreaded Death Star,
able to destroy any star
system while hidden
in the depths of the Unknown Regions.

With the Republic held
hostage by this deadly
threat, they dare support
only a small Resistance
to locate the long-lost Jedi
Master and defeat the shadow now
spreading across the galaxy…

Don’t think I didn’t try to work the Unknown Regions in there, but it has proven too wordy to fit so far.

As for the Jedi Master, it always felt a little prequel-y. The prequels established the apprentice-knight-master hierarchy, but the OT actually had a different system. Obi-wan is never referred to as a master in the OT, just a former Jedi Knight. Yoda is a master, but in the 80’s Lucas specifically meant that to mean that Yoda had a teaching role in the Jedi religion, while the Jedi Knights were the warriors. That is not to say that Luke couldn’t transition into the role of master, but to me that would imply forsaking the title of Knight and dedicating himself to a code of nonviolence. One could argue that this describes Luke in TLJ, but the rest of the galaxy expects Jedi Knight Luke, so announcing him to be a master like Yoda in the crawl of TFA feels premature.

BTW, random thought: Watching the Resistance Season 2 trailer, I noticed that Phasma’s line ‘I will see to your execution personally’ would have been a great line to say to Finn in TFA somewhere.

https://youtu.be/JkJtdJKCVto?t=53

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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stevepaynter said:

Made a few minor changes. Let me know what you think.

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, last
of the legendary Jedi
Masters, has vanished.

In his absence the evil
FIRST ORDER has risen
from the ashes of the
Empire with a weapon
more deadly than the
dreaded Death Star,
able to destroy any star
system while hidden
in the depths of the Unknown Regions.

With the Republic held
hostage by this deadly
threat, they dare support
only a small Resistance
to locate the long-lost Jedi
Master and defeat the shadow now
spreading across the galaxy…

Really like this crawl

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In the new book Secrets of the Jedi Luke refers to himself as a Jedi Master. I also feel mentioning the Unknown Region in the crawl feels a bit more ominous.

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It’s too wordy, though. That’s the #1 mistake people make when writing SW crawls - overdoing it.

In that vein, Nev, I think the last part of your second paragraph:

…with a weapon more deadly than the dreaded Death Star, able to destroy any star system while hidden in the depths of space.

is overly cumbersome. I’d probably remove the Death Star reference:

…with a devastating weapon able to destroy any star system while hidden in the depths of space.

I’m not enamored with “while hidden in” for some reason either, but I’m not sure what I’d replace it with.

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Hey Steve, I think the opening crawl is meant to be more flowery than literal. Unknown Regions would be cool to use, I’ve tried making it work before, but it doesn’t really roll off the tongue well in the crawl.

Also, I think calling Luke a Jedi Master might leave the impression that there may be other Jedi, but he’s the only Jedi Master. Also, I think Masters are still technically Jedi Knights.

Nev, that line would fit in well where you now have “You’re nothing without the First Order.” Maybe we can see if we can get a clean sound byte if that line when the episode comes out, I’ve heard that might not be Gwendoline though.

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ChainsawAsh said:

…with a devastating weapon able to destroy any star system while hidden in the depths of space.

I’m not enamored with “while hidden in” for some reason either, but I’m not sure what I’d replace it with.

Maybe something like:

…with a hidden superweapon, capable of destroying any star system from across the galaxy.

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Much to consider…

I’ve been playing around with After Effects today, learning the basics, and mocked up the crawl using the timing of the original crawl from 1977:

https://vimeo.com/354131654

Password: fanedit

There are some changes to the wording, and I’ll continue to work on both the wording and the technical aspects of course, but I’m happy with how it syncs to the music.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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That crawl is way too wordy. Here’s my idea:

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, the legendary
Jedi Master, has vanished.

In his absence, the sinister
First Order has risen, wielding
a deadly weapon capable of
destroying any star system
in the galaxy.

Held hostage by this dreaded
threat, the New Republic
organizes a covert Resistance
to find Skywalker and destroy
the First Order…

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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I do think your first paragraph is too short, the others a little too long maybe. Starkiller’s AG’s whole crawl is too brief, I think.

Just as reference, here are the Original Trilogy crawl word counts:

Paragraph 1: 24, 32, 29

Paragraph 2: 30, 27, 27

Paragraph 3: 29, 22, 22

Total: 83, 81, 78

I’m just gonna throw out another idea that tries to fit within this format.

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the mysterious FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, their greatest threat, has been destroyed.

During their exile, the First Order constructed a weapon more deadly than the dreaded Death Stars, capable of destroying any star system from across the galaxy.

Held hostage by this hidden weapon, the New Republic mobilizes a covert Resistance to locate their long-lost hero before their new enemy finds him first…

I wanted to try to keep the exposition regarding Starkiller, but also maintain the focus on finding Luke. Illustrating that the First Order is focused on finding Luke before anything else might help justify why the First Order hasn’t already attacked the Republic.

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 (Edited)

The mockup was mostly to test whether the timing could work with each paragraph, and for that I made every paragraph as long as possible. They will definitely be less wordy in the final version. I’m aiming for something that is no more than 90 words in length. I like the brief crawl StarkillerAG! It’s good to see the ideas can be condensed so much. And RL, I feel like Luke already is understood to be the greatest threat to the First Order since it is only his absence which allows it to rise to power. But maybe not since they took pains to establish this in the original crawl. The first paragraph is as long as I can make it though, while still fitting the music. The crawl for TPM actually uses a four line opening paragraph as well, probably for a similar reason of fitting the music, though that crawl doesn’t do that particularly well.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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 (Edited)

I don’t really have any meaningful contribution to the edit, but it’s alway a good thread to post one’s scrawl ideas.

Yes, it’s political. I know politics in Star Wars is fashionable to hate, but I remember my first screening of TFA and being confused about the state of the galaxy for most of the film, which was made worse, not better, by the crawl.

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the peaceful
NEW REPUBLIC is vulnerable to
the sinister forces plotting to
overthrow the young democracy.

An evil warlord has unified
the supporters of the fallen
Empire under the banner of the
FIRST ORDER, and resolved to
build the deadliest weapon the
galaxy has ever seen.

Frustrated by the Senate’s
inaction, General Leia Organa
leads a brave RESISTANCE. She
has sent her most daring pilot
to a desolate world to find
traces of the last Jedi….

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^I like it too and it is not too far off from the plot of the novel Bloodline which explains a lot about the political state of the galaxy and Leia’s motivation for forming the resistance six years before TFA . It’s a great read and one of the best of the new novels I have read .

https://screamsinthevoid.deviantart.com/

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Another attempt at the crawl:

https://vimeo.com/354343958

Password: fanedit

The crawl runs 81 words now, pretty ideal considering the OT crawls.

The term ‘Jedi Knights’ I feel is appropriate when referring to the group as a whole, even if Luke isn’t technically a knight anymore. Simply referring to Luke as a Jedi leaves the distinctions up to the audience.

Dr. Krogshöj’s verbiage concerning the combination of forces could serve as a good explanation for how the Imperial remnant could gain so much power so quickly. I like the idea that the First Order is a hybrid of disaffected New Republic systems and Imperial holdouts, which is explored a bit more with Canto Bight.

The reason the First Order hasn’t outright attacked the Republic becomes more clear when you take into consideration that the two sides in the battle are more interconnected than it seems, and an attack on the Senate would naturally cause problems with systems leery of the Empire’s more ruthless methods.

I’ve made the weapon more vague again, simply because it does feel too specific for something that won’t be seen until almost halfway through the film. The tricky part is to ride the line between intriguing the audience (which actually wouldn’t be good since it is revealed to be very similar to just another Death Star) and spelling out that it is just another Death Star, which also isn’t true.

Basically, I want to include everyone’s ideas, so I try and it leads to a wordy crawl which must be reworked and simplified so much that it loses the ideas that made the effort interesting. Sigh. It’s getting better though, right? 😉

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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I’m really liking this one!
That addition of ‘in the New Republic’ flows really nicely in my opinion. I don’t know if ‘noble’ is necessary, or if ‘legendary’ was better, or if it should just be ‘last of the Jedi Knights’. Not saying you should do anything, it does work, but maybe play with some other adjectives too?

The second paragraph isn’t bad. I’m wondering if you could use a different world than ‘suffering’, or just say ‘hundreds of worlds’. Suffering is just a little vague. Why are they suffering? Are they suffering under the Republic? Under the First Order, which has forced them to join their cause?

Some experimenting with paragraph 2:

In his absence, an evil warlord has unified the supporters of the fallen Empire into the FIRST ORDER, while secretly constructing the deadliest weapon the galaxy has ever seen.

also

In his absence, hundreds of worlds have allied with the remnants of the Empire to form the FIRST ORDER, which has constructed the deadliest weapon the galaxy has ever seen.

I‘m liking the third too! Maybe consider replacing ‘dire’ with ‘hidden’ since that angle sorta got lost in this version? I like how you used ‘the Senate’ in this iteration too. Not saying I think this would be better, but you could use ‘fearsome’ rather than ‘fearful’, and I also think you could cut ‘now’ from ‘now spreading’. Do you still feel the reinserted deleted scene works within the new context? I think it does.

Also, did the ANH crawl fly away to the horizon that fast towards the end? It feels fast but maybe it is just me. Anyway, as far as content I think this is one of my favorite so far.

Off topic but I wanted to mention something else on my mind.

One of your ideas I love about your edit is having Poe fail at blowing up Starkiller base like he does in theatrical version.

Yes, Poe also fails to blow up Starkiller base before it destroys the Republic in Restructured, but the trench run stills ends in the same result as it does in A New Hope. But with your most recent version, I could see how a hypothetical audience could be surprised with what happens.

In a way, I think it turns Poe’s trench run from pretty simplistic plot/imagery repetition into intentional parallelism that is meant to subvert audience expectation in a clever way. Anyone who has seen Star Wars knows what the trench run means. I think it is one of the weakest points in the theatrical film, because I imagine a lot of fans were like, “Really? Seems like a pretty on-the-nose rehash.” But in your version, when Ackbar says it didn’t work, I could imagine audiences raising their eyebrows and thinking, “Oh, it didn’t work?”

In retrospect it makes the Resistance being able to come up with a plan to destroy it within minutes actually work. At that point the audience is like, “Okay, I know where this is gonna go.” But, their impromptu plan didn’t work as planned. Yes, they still succeeded at destroying Starkiller, but only at the cost of the thing they were trying to save.

I know subverting expectations has become a somewhat controversial phrase, but I think this is actually what we want in this case. Not only does it surprise audiences, but it also surprises the characters within the story. Poe and the Resistance know the story of Luke and how he destroyed the Death Star in the nick of time. They’re emulating the Rebellion just as much as the First Order is emulating the Empire. They think they’ll be able to pull of the same thing, and we do too, but it is interesting when we, and they, turn out to be wrong. It also helps prepare the audience for The Last Jedi, which does a lot of the same thing. Poe’s semi-failure can also add to what compels Poe to do what he thinks is necessary at all costs, like he’s trying to compensate for that failure at the end of TFA.

I know you know all this, just wanted to reiterate my support of it! Obviously the BIGGEST critique of TFA is its similarities to ANH. This is what you’ll hear from even casual fans. While fan edits can try to eliminate the parallels, I think if an editor can come up with ideas like this that turn those parallels on their head, it can actually transform TFA’s weaknesses into its strengths.

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Nev, I had a thought regarding how you wanted to have BB-8 not reveal/know the location of the Resistance base (for very fair plot and character reasons). I lamented the loss of BB-8’s cutest moments, but I think there might be another way to keep them.

https://vimeo.com/354551657

I know my “I’ll drop you off at Panima Terminal” sounds bad, but it is just a rough idea. Both of the moments are obviously recontextualized, and may not be as funny as their theatrical counterparts, but I think it would be a fair compromise between keeping some of that humor that makes BB-8 endearing, but also retaining the logic that you’re trying to preserve. I also kept Finn’s line about needing to get out of this system because I felt it flowed better into Rey’s line. Yes, they do jump to hyperspace in your version, but they were only in hyperspace for a minute or less, so it is probably that they are on the outskirts of that system at the very least. Because of how they fell out of hyperspace, I don’t think it will confuse the audience.

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RogueLeader said:

I’m really liking this one!
That addition of ‘in the New Republic’ flows really nicely in my opinion. I don’t know if ‘noble’ is necessary, or if ‘legendary’ was better, or if it should just be ‘last of the Jedi Knights’. Not saying you should do anything, it does work, but maybe play with some other adjectives too?

The second paragraph isn’t bad. I’m wondering if you could use a different world than ‘suffering’, or just say ‘hundreds of worlds’. Suffering is just a little vague. Why are they suffering? Are they suffering under the Republic? Under the First Order, which has forced them to join their cause?

Some experimenting with paragraph 2:

In his absence, an evil warlord has unified the supporters of the fallen Empire into the FIRST ORDER, while secretly constructing the deadliest weapon the galaxy has ever seen.

also

In his absence, hundreds of worlds have allied with the remnants of the Empire to form the FIRST ORDER, which has constructed the deadliest weapon the galaxy has ever seen.

I‘m liking the third too! Maybe consider replacing ‘dire’ with ‘hidden’ since that angle sorta got lost in this version? I like how you used ‘the Senate’ in this iteration too. Not saying I think this would be better, but you could use ‘fearsome’ rather than ‘fearful’, and I also think you could cut ‘now’ from ‘now spreading’. Do you still feel the reinserted deleted scene works within the new context? I think it does.

Also, did the ANH crawl fly away to the horizon that fast towards the end? It feels fast but maybe it is just me. Anyway, as far as content I think this is one of my favorite so far.

The words will change, dire was a last-second decision.

The crawl in the '77 Star Wars did accelerate at the end, but I don’t think the later, 'standardized crawls do. The original crawl moved at a slow, almost stately speed, then moved away more quickly when the words started to become unreadable. And of course the paragraphs synced with the music, something I’m determined to replicate here.

Off topic but I wanted to mention something else on my mind.

One of your ideas I love about your edit is having Poe fail at blowing up Starkiller base like he does in theatrical version.

Yes, Poe also fails to blow up Starkiller base before it destroys the Republic in Restructured, but the trench run stills ends in the same result as it does in A New Hope. But with your most recent version, I could see how a hypothetical audience could be surprised with what happens.

In a way, I think it turns Poe’s trench run from pretty simplistic plot/imagery repetition into intentional parallelism that is meant to subvert audience expectation in a clever way. Anyone who has seen Star Wars knows what the trench run means. I think it is one of the weakest points in the theatrical film, because I imagine a lot of fans were like, “Really? Seems like a pretty on-the-nose rehash.” But in your version, when Ackbar says it didn’t work, I could imagine audiences raising their eyebrows and thinking, “Oh, it didn’t work?”

In retrospect it makes the Resistance being able to come up with a plan to destroy it within minutes actually work. At that point the audience is like, “Okay, I know where this is gonna go.” But, their impromptu plan didn’t work as planned. Yes, they still succeeded at destroying Starkiller, but only at the cost of the thing they were trying to save.

I know subverting expectations has become a somewhat controversial phrase, but I think this is actually what we want in this case. Not only does it surprise audiences, but it also surprises the characters within the story. Poe and the Resistance know the story of Luke and how he destroyed the Death Star in the nick of time. They’re emulating the Rebellion just as much as the First Order is emulating the Empire. They think they’ll be able to pull of the same thing, and we do too, but it is interesting when we, and they, turn out to be wrong. It also helps prepare the audience for The Last Jedi, which does a lot of the same thing. Poe’s semi-failure can also add to what compels Poe to do what he thinks is necessary at all costs, like he’s trying to compensate for that failure at the end of TFA.

I know you know all this, just wanted to reiterate my support of it! Obviously the BIGGEST critique of TFA is its similarities to ANH. This is what you’ll hear from even casual fans. While fan edits can try to eliminate the parallels, I think if an editor can come up with ideas like this that turn those parallels on their head, it can actually transform TFA’s weaknesses into its strengths.

Indeed, I hadn’t considered all the ramifications of this change when it was made but you’ve laid them out very well.

RogueLeader said:

Nev, I had a thought regarding how you wanted to have BB-8 not reveal/know the location of the Resistance base (for very fair plot and character reasons). I lamented the loss of BB-8’s cutest moments, but I think there might be another way to keep them.

https://vimeo.com/354551657

I know my “I’ll drop you off at Panima Terminal” sounds bad, but it is just a rough idea. Both of the moments are obviously recontextualized, and may not be as funny as their theatrical counterparts, but I think it would be a fair compromise between keeping some of that humor that makes BB-8 endearing, but also retaining the logic that you’re trying to preserve. I also kept Finn’s line about needing to get out of this system because I felt it flowed better into Rey’s line. Yes, they do jump to hyperspace in your version, but they were only in hyperspace for a minute or less, so it is probably that they are on the outskirts of that system at the very least. Because of how they fell out of hyperspace, I don’t think it will confuse the audience.

I like it! I don’t think anyone would think twice once the audio is finessed a bit more.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Here’s a suggestion:

In the novelization of The Force Awakens, we get more dialogue from Snoke, and at one point (I think?) he explains how he saw the rise and fall of the Empire. So my suggestion is to re-arrange parts of existing audio of Snoke that sound right and repurposing it into new dialogue (similar to Despacito 2 having remixed audio from Despacito) explaining how Snoke saw the rise and fall of the Empire and formed the First Order. What do you think?

The unfortunate reality of the Star Wars prequel and Disney trilogies is that they will always be around. Forever. They will never go away. It can never be undone.

I also prefer to be referred to as “TNT”, not “Freezing”.

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Okay, I had to have my own attempt at the crawl:

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the fledgling
REPUBLIC has been threatened
by the sinister FIRST ORDER,
born from ashes of the Empire.

Lead by a mysterious shadow,
this faction of evil vows to
annihilate all in its path
until Skywalker, the last Jedi,
has been destroyed.

Determined to defend the
vulnerable Republic, General
Leia Organa leads a RESISTANCE
to stop the rising foe and find
her brother Luke before they do…

“The Ziggy Edit” — A Conceptual Fanedit of Return of the Jedi

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Episode-VI-Return-of-the-Jedi-The-Ziggy-Edit/id/17844

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Big project 😃
About the crawl, it’s just like the original EP7 crawl, in that you are using the wrong typefaces.

Timing it with the music isn’t too difficult. Recreated crawl from scratch(recreated the 1977 fonts for the crawl body and logos): https://vimeo.com/196999184

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It’s been a little bit, so time for an update. I continue working mostly on audio, filling in bits throughout act 3, but I did manage to move 3PO’s ten minute countdown dialogue to the scene where Leia reacts to Han’s death. Now 3PO exposits and Leia completely ignores him, as is tradition with the character.

The issue with moving this dialogue is that the Resistance update scene was cut quite short, so as I was rummaging through the TFA Lego game audio for something I found some Poe dialogue that would help explain why the X-wings suddenly decided to leave the oscillator and go into space:

https://vimeo.com/356563017

Password: fanedit

It also allowed me to repurpose a shot or two that had previously been deleted from the X-wing battle.

FreezingTNT2 said:

Here’s a suggestion:

In the novelization of The Force Awakens, we get more dialogue from Snoke, and at one point (I think?) he explains how he saw the rise and fall of the Empire. So my suggestion is to re-arrange parts of existing audio of Snoke that sound right and repurposing it into new dialogue (similar to Despacito 2 having remixed audio from Despacito) explaining how Snoke saw the rise and fall of the Empire and formed the First Order. What do you think?

It would be far easier to record new dialogue for this, and while it would be helpful I don’t know whether it would justify the effort, at least for this edit. It’s definitely something I’ve considered though.

ziggyonice said:

Okay, I had to have my own attempt at the crawl:

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the fledgling
REPUBLIC has been threatened
by the sinister FIRST ORDER,
born from ashes of the Empire.

Lead by a mysterious shadow,
this faction of evil vows to
annihilate all in its path
until Skywalker, the last Jedi,
has been destroyed.

Determined to defend the
vulnerable Republic, General
Leia Organa leads a RESISTANCE
to stop the rising foe and find
her brother Luke before they do…

It’s an improvement to the original crawl, but there’s a lot of stuff that I’m intentionally leaving out of this crawl such as Leia’s involvement since it is unnecessary and deflates the later (small) reveal.

Reese said:

Big project 😃
About the crawl, it’s just like the original EP7 crawl, in that you are using the wrong typefaces.

Timing it with the music isn’t too difficult. Recreated crawl from scratch(recreated the 1977 fonts for the crawl body and logos): https://vimeo.com/196999184

I have seen your recreated font and like it, is there any way you could share? I was planning on recreating the typefaces as well, but if you already have them on hand… 😉

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:
I have seen your recreated font and like it, is there any way you could share? I was planning on recreating the typefaces as well, but if you already have them on hand… 😉

I am unwilling(at least at this time) to share it with anyone.
I would however be willing to make the crawl and render it for you to use.

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“You’re using the wrong thing!”

“Oh, okay. Can I borrow the thing?”

“No!”

…😕