Now that I have a somewhat solid idea on what I want in the ending, I am going back to the start, watching the main story lines that are applicable and seeing what I can work from them.
I’ve reached the conclusion I do want Cassian’s childhood scenes on his home planet, the jungle planet. I want the entire sequence of going to salvage the wrecked ship and being rescued by Maarva and Clem. It’s roughly about 15 minutes we spend on there if you put all those flashbacks back to back, which is more than I remembered.
I was watching Rogue One to get an idea of the pacing I want, and man… Rogue One introduces Jyn, her family dynamic with her mother and father, Krennic, Krennic and Gaelin’s confrontation, and Jyn running away and getting picked up by Saw… all of that almost right on 4 minutes. THAT is some well done pacing. So much information delivered but it never feels like too much.
I was cutting the childhood sequences, and right now I’m up to the part where the girl in Cassian’s group who is sort of the leader, gets shot in the back. That’s only about one third through the whole sequence but I’m already about 3.5 - 4 minutes in. I do not want the intro, up through Maarva taking Cassian away on her ship, to last more than 5 to 6 minutes. To me 6 minutes is basically too long, 5 is the sweet spot. But It is looking like I may have to cut even MORE to accomplish that. I wanted the shots of him and his sister as I feel it adds a good emotional anchor, but I might have to drop a lot of those to just put the focus just on Cassian and the group more generally if I want to hit 5 minutes. (I didn’t really plan on including other sister references in the movie anyway)
Still, it’s coming together!
Edit:
So, editing this sequence to try and make it my intro… I am realizing an issue, watching all the scenes back to back in one sequence… With just these scenes by themselves, having not seen Cassian and Maarva’s later relationship already… it really feels like she’s just kidnapping him. I don’t think the show justified her doing what she did. Would have made more sense to just say “Get out of here!” I mean his tribe couldn’t have made it that far. I feel the show would have benefited had we seen the Republican actually doing something bad to the tribe, taking them away or something similar.
It does try to express that she believes he’s going to die… but, idk… I don’t really buy it. He’s a jungle kid. If Maarva had time to carry him out of there, then Cassian would have had time to just run out of there on his own separately. I’m just not buying it.
So, a little conflicted on how I’m gonna handle it/if I should include it. My original plan was to not, but then I thought it would be useful to show it as a basis for Maarva and Cassian’s relationship, but now… I am unsure.