I spent the weekend studying the opening crawls of the movies (both from the theatrical cuts and fanedits), and was hoping to get some feedback on my take for Episode I:
The Jedi Knights, once the guardians
of peace and justice in the galaxy,
have become mere couriers to
a complacent, stagnant Galactic
Republic within the last
millennia.The TRADE FEDERATION, with
aide from a specter of the Jedi’s
past, has exploited this galactic
malaise with an occupation of
the peaceful Planet Naboo.Only a chance meeting of two
radical idealists, Jedi
Master QUI-GON JINN of
Coruscant and QUEEN AMIDALA
of Naboo, can hope to settle
this conflict…Admittedly, there’s a lot I’m trying to cover here: Making the crawl a fitting introduction to the SW universe, stating that the Jedi golden age has waned, the failing state of the government, something from the Jedi’s past opts to threaten the peace, & placing Qui-Gon and Amidala as the most important characters in this episode (drawing on the “Padme as Death Star plans” idea) as well as two of the only people in the galaxy striving for positive social change. I also replaced “blockade” with “occupation” to go with the idea of only one ship being in Naboo space, so a blockade doesn’t conveniently disappear in Act Three.
There’s some interesting ideas here, but I don’t know if it’s sufficiently engaging to be a proper Star Wars crawl: it feels more like dry exposition than the sort of heightened melodrama that made the OT crawls work so well. In particular, the third paragraph of the crawl should provide a natural bridge to the opening scene, like “pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents” in ANH or “dispatched thousands of remote probes” in ESB.
Here’s my own take on the crawl from a few pages earlier, so we can compare and contrast with your version:
The galaxy is in chaos. Driven
by greed and lust for power,
the ruthless Trade Federation
has blockaded the peaceful
planet of Naboo.
As the Federation prepares
to send their fearsome droid
armies to seize the planet’s
valuable resources, the last
hope of Naboo’s queen lies in
the Jedi Knights, guardians of
peace and wielders of the
mystic Force.
Hearing her desperate pleas,
the Chancellor of the Galactic
Republic has sent Jedi master
Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice
to bargain for the queen’s
freedom, unaware that a
sinister force is behind these
shocking events…