Hi everyone, I’m back! Hopefully I shall see to the links soon.
In the meantime I have been considering the situation of V2, and in particular how the edit could use a new crawl. The old one definitely has issues, particularly with the attitude of the Republic. In Hal’s crawl, it is implied that the Senate refuses to consider the First Order a threat. This is fair of the political situation in the lore but it does cast them as at best hapless fools and at worst deserving of their fate. My old crawl for comparison painted the Republic as instrumental in the creation of the Resistance, yet unwilling to directly take action against the First Order. Neither of these takes is entirely true nor effective.
Here is the old V1 crawl:
It is a time of despair. Luke Skywalker, striving to restore the legendary Jedi Order, has vanished.
In his absence, sinister forces have mobilized under the banner of the IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER and claim to possess a weapon with the power to destroy any star system that defies their brutal supremacy.
Fearing for its survival, the New Republic secretly authorizes the formation of a fierce RESISTANCE to find the missing Jedi and restore peace and justice to the darkening stars…
And here is my latest take:
The last Jedi has vanished. In his absence, a new Imperial power has risen to threaten the galaxy.
Descending into chaos and division, members of the Republic Senate have secretly called upon a daring RESISTANCE to find Luke Skywalker and restore the light of hope to the darkening stars.
Arising from its barbaric hidden stronghold, the IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER hastens toward a village on Jakku, sanctuary of Luke’s faithful disciples who hold the key to the Jedi’s return…
This attempts to split the difference between Restructured and Starlight V1. Now the Republic is thrown into chaos by Luke’s disappearance and the Imperial threat, with only members calling for the Resistance instead of the body at large. The talk of chaos also links into Hux’s speech about the disorder of the Republic.
I have abandoned the attempt of establishing the extant threat of a weapon in the crawl since it only diverts attention from the quest for Luke. However, I feel like the weapon is important enough to hint at, thus the talk of the barbaric hidden stronghold. The crawl now also follows the pattern of A-B-A in its paragraphs, where the original TFA crawl was A-B-B in its continued talk of the Resistance through the last two paragraphs. This return to the First Order perspective preserves the continuity of the pan-down and emergence of the destroyer.