One of the noticeable things about THE FORCE AWAKENS movie is that it hasn’t got a satifyingly ‘stand-alone’ storyline for anyone that hasn’t seen the Original Trilogy first. It gives a very different kind of ‘conclusional’ finale to that seen in A NEW HOPE, for instance.
And that’s okay I guess, although the specific way this sequel was structured ended up leaving a lot of questions unanswered about Luke at the very end - especially seeing as we never got to hear him say anything whatsoever, nor even accept/ignite his lightsabre briefly. But since this first chapter of the new ‘sequel trilogy’ left us on a ‘cliffhanger’ ending anyway, there’s a part of me that kinda thinks the makers could just as well have kept the grand entrance of Luke’s appearance until the NEXT movie instead. Sure, I can understand why Mark Hamill (and his character) was included briefly at the end in this relaunch, but we’re just left with a very ‘to-be-continued’ ending either way.
Some have already said they dislike the ‘helicopter’ zoom-around shot of Luke and Rey at the very end before the credits, and I’m not too keen on it either to be honest. There’s actually a few alternative shots that I’m still contemplating about using as the finale of my own version eventually - a couple of options that involve shots of the Falcon flying, as well as a couple of options that involve different close-ups of Luke’s face, and another option that involves the close-up of Rey offering the lightsabre - although I’ll need to try them out properly before I decide, and I may even need to wait to see how the scenes involving Luke and Rey start off in the next instalment, before I can choose properly.
But if I do end up using any of the footage where Rey finds Luke and then offers him the lightsabre, then I reckon I’d ideally keep the score throughout the existing scene as it is…except I’d MOVE the ‘helicopter’ shot of Luke and Rey to just BEFORE I end things with the close-up shot of Luke (or Rey) before the credits instead.
However, I thought some of you may like this short clip which I came across over at Fanedit(.)org the other day, done by a guy called ‘Jyndir’. It uses the awesome ‘trailer’ music that Williams came up with, and shows just how differently the movie could have ended on an alternative ‘cliff-hanger’ to the one we got. I reckon I would have been just as satisfied to lose the reveal of Luke in this particular chapter, if it meant hearing the movie end on these notes before the credits appeared instead! - https://vimeo.com/168168098