I’ve cut the cliff scene together in a way that seems ideal, keeping more of the action but only hinting at the cliff which I’ve always found to be over-the-top. Rewatching that scene and the entirety of act 3, I feel like there should be an extra indication of Rey’s darkness. Should I go a subtle Sith eyes route in that dark Force cliff scene?
On another note, in thinking about how to indicate the Resistance knowing about the Starkiller without drawing attention away from the map, I am more and more skeptical that any lines can be added to work. Leia’s words in the interrogation already need to establish the quest for Luke and the importance of the droid, and adding this Starkiller business just seems too much.
This is why I feel like as much as I don’t want to, the information has to go into the crawl. Here’s what it looks like right now:
The New Republic is in
crisis. Luke Skywalker,
last of the legendary Jedi
Knights, has vanished.In his absence, leaders
from a thousand worlds
have forsaken the fragile
Republic in favor of the
IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER,
which has vowed to return
strength to the galaxy
through the designs of
the once mighty Empire.Fearing another civil war,
the Senate mobilizes a
covert Resistance to
locate the missing Jedi
and repel the sinister
shadow now spreading
across the stars…And here’s a possible replacement:
The New Republic is in
crisis. Luke Skywalker,
last of the legendary Jedi
Knights, has vanished.In his absence, the fragile
Republic has quailed
under threats by the
IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER,
which claims to have
constructed a weapon
greater than any built by
the once-mighty Galactic
Empire.Fearing a direct conflict,
the Senate mobilizes a
covert Resistance to
locate the missing Jedi
and repel the sinister
shadow now spreading
across the stars…So here the Republic knows of a vague threat by the First Order but can’t substantiate the claims. Nevertheless, it can’t afford to take any direct action due to this threat so it forms this Resistance to find Luke and tip the scale in its favor.
This crawl also de-emphasizes the agency of the Senate, so that it’s not expected that they would be too active in the story.
i always liked the idea to let rey tap into the dark side of the force. Somebody even did it in his ROS Edit, so that she only could defeated Palpatine with the Force-Ghosts and her dark side.
So i would go for it. Because narrative-wise it would make sense that she dip into it but not willingly, just because she’s angry and in the later movies she’s learning to control herself.
The idea to tell the audience that the resistance knows something about a weapon through the crawl is good, for me. This way you overcome the problem to edit the hell out of the movie scenes, just to make it plausible.