The Force Awakens : Fan Edit Ideas — Page 6

darth_ender said:

NeverarGreat said:

Let’s rewrite that bloated crawl!
From my thread in the Scriptwriting subforum:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi, has vanished.
In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER
has risen from the ashes of the fallen Empire.

To counter this deadly threat, the Republic
mobilizes a covert RESISTANCE led by
General Leia Organa, to gather allies from
the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

As the FIRST ORDER prepares a crippling
blow to the Republic, its dark forces gather
above the graveyard planet of Jakku…

I like this crawl. Succinct but revealing more information.

Here is my go. Bear in mind, I’m attempting to reveal several more details, but keep it concise. I have a feeling it’s still too long, but take a look:

The democratic NEW REPUBLIC rules with a just hand. But from the ashes of the evil Galactic Empire, the FIRST ORDER has arisen, its strongholds hidden among the recesses of the Unknown Regions.

This new Order, determined to restore the glory of the Empire, have secretly poured resources into a new weapon of rerror: the Starkiller!

General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE to combat such evil. With little support from the Reupublic, Leia is desperate to find her missing brother Luke Skywalker. She has dispatched her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku, where a group of Force worshipers may hold a clue to Master Skywalker’s whereabouts…

The advantages of this crawl include: a) greater distinction between the Republic and the Resistance, and make the situation appear more dire for the latter; b) allusions to the otherwise surprising DS3; c) explaining why the First Order is still a force to be reckoned with; d) containing most of the same info as the original crawl; e) perhaps explaining why Jakku holds any clues at all; f) its consistent with the background designed for the world building, but not revealed in the film itself.

The disadvantage is that to include so much information, it can make for some clunky wording and an overly long crawl. I’m interested to read others’ thoughts on the matter.

If someone is willing to render this crawl to perfectly match the movie, I’ll gladly include it in my edit. Also, I want a different name for the movie. Any ideas? The Force Awakens just reminds me too much of the title, A New Hope.

My only two major wishes for TFA would be for the Starkiller Base to be completely redone in terms of destroying systems.

I mean, to suck a sun into an ice planet only to fire it in 5 distinct beams to blow apart 5 different planets is not only silly, but ridiculous - even for Star Wars ‘science’.

Why couldn’t they simply fire a hyperspace beam weapon into a targeted system’s star, that causes the sun to shrink and nova? The ensuing blast would wipe out all the planets in the system achieving the same effect cinematically - without the incredulity of repurposing the Mars Attacks nuke sucker effect. A shrinking gas giant that nova’s wold be pretty impressive and set itself apart from the Death Stars (see 2010 - The Year We Make Contact for how that idea works).

My second wish is to have Captain Phasma be the bad-ass with the electrified Tonfa going at it with Finn on Takodana. That would have firmly cemented her as numero-two bad-ass in this sequel trilogy ala Fett. Rather than Han blast her backwards as he did that FN trooper, I would have had her shot in the shoulder by Han and then have her use a another device in her armor to perhaps create a blinding flash so she could cover Kylo Ren’s escape with Rey. Nursing an injury I think that would have also helped out with the plausible reason she could not resist Finn and Han on the base when she was forced to lower the shields.

It’s a mind’s eye wish because that is not going to happen in a fan film, but those two things would have made the movie perfect.

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen
from the ashes of the Empire
and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi,
has been destroyed.

General Leia Organa, leader of the RESISTANCE,
struggles to gain support from the REPUBLIC
to oppose those that seek chaos.
Fearing the fate of the galaxy,
she is desperate to find Luke in order to restore peace and justice.

Ace pilot of the Resistance, Poe Dameron, is sent on
a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally
has discovered the possible whereabouts of
the last Jedi . . . .

Bolded parts are the lines I changed. The original crawl had too much “Luke”, it should had made clearer that the Republic isn’t really being supportive of Leia’s Resistance, and it was lackluster in some areas. With this crawl, I wanted more impact and tension expressed. For one, I put “the last Jedi” at the end for more impact and leaves more surprise/shock that Luke is the last Jedi afterall (since one would assume that Luke would had trained Jedi during these 30 years); thus it’s the last line. To limit some redundant names in the crawl, I took out Leia sending a daring pilot and instead just threw in Poe.
For adding some spice, Leia is in desperate need of help, so in order to express that, I removed “With the support of the REPUBLIC” since that implies Leia is backed up with some major help. I’m not sure why the original crawl says the Republic is supporting the Resistance if Leia states in the movie how the Republic’s senate is too slow to get anything done and even sent a negotiator in hopes to convince the Republic to send its fleet for aid.
Overall, my aim was to trim, make some things clearer, and add more tension.

Thoughts?

Bingowings said:

It’s still to small scale a bit like the Jedi crawl.

The first paragraph shouldn’t be about characters at all.
It should set the political scene and then the military stakes.
The lead players should be mentioned in the second paragraph
and then the third should lead into the first scene of the movie.

Thank you for this observation!

Here (please excuse the quality) is my mock attempt again. I also removed ALL CAP words since apparently only even numbered episode titles have that.

Again, just a mock test. Mainly, I was trying to setup a template for Star Wars crawls in After Effects, and it seems okay. Yes, the blue far, far away text is too big, will fix later.

TavorX said:

Bingowings said:

It’s still to small scale a bit like the Jedi crawl.

The first paragraph shouldn’t be about characters at all.
It should set the political scene and then the military stakes.
The lead players should be mentioned in the second paragraph
and then the third should lead into the first scene of the movie.

Thank you for this observation!

Here (please excuse the quality) is my mock attempt again. I also removed ALL CAP words since apparently only even numbered episode titles have that.

Again, just a mock test. Mainly, I was trying to setup a template for Star Wars crawls in After Effects, and it seems okay. Yes, the blue far, far away text is too big, will fix later.

Woah, damn, nice! Are you making your own edit and if so, are you using this for yours? If not, can I use it? If yes, can you make me one?

darth_ender said:

I had forgotten to mention that if there is some way to remove the sun-sucking plot point (seems like it shouldn’t be too difficult–remove all references to it, and the darkening sky could simply be implied as the day wearing on during battle), it should be done. That is lame on a number of levels. And if this is done, clips of that effect could be run backwards, appearing to be the energy beam striking the distant sun, and used to simulate the supernova I’ve suggested.

That idea could also be realized if the planet’s natural rotation would reach ‘target window’ before being able to fire the sun killer blast that destroys a system. The sky darkening could simply be when sunset is reached as the focus cannon comes into line of sight range of D’Qar. It’s just a new twist on the Death Star orbiting Yavin in order to get a clear shot at Yavin IV. The clock simply ticks down during the planetary rotation of Starkiller Base.

Suggestion: Add the voice of someone saying “Again?!” when it’s revealed to the Resistance that the First Order has yet another superweapon. I still like my idea that this is a weekly occurrence, and that’s why no one really cares when the system is wiped out. 😉

About the map, I don’t think it’s a map to Luke specifically. They say in the movie that Luke was looking for the first Jedi Temple. This is a map to the first temple that Luke found and erased the last step so people couldn’t find it. Heck, Obi-Wan and Yoda may have deleted that section of their maps while they were in the Jedi Archives so Palpatine wouldn’t just nuke it, Luke found the final piece, hid it on that flash drive, then went off to stay there.

^^ in the ops room on D’Qar with many of the Resistance around the holo-table…

POE: The scan data from Snap’s reconnaissance flight confirms Finn’s report.

SNAP WEXLEY: They’ve somehow created a hyperlight speed weapon built within the planet itself.

YOUNG OFFICER: a laser cannon?

SNAP WEXLEY: We’re not sure how to describe a weapon of this scale…

MAJOR EMATT: It’s another Death Star!

POE: I wish that were the case, Major. This was the Death Star… (a hologram of the Death Star appears, then Starkiller Base appears next to it - dwarfing it in size) … and this is Starkiller Base…

(gasps from many of the people in the room)

HAN: So… it’s big.

ACKBAR: How is it possible to power a weapon of that size?

FINN: It uses the power of the Sun - as the weapon is charged the Sun is drained until it disappears…

Leia receives notice that they are the next target, and the weapon is already charging - the group then come up with the plan to destroy Starkiller Base…