The Force Awakens: Starlight (V1.1 Released!) — Page 69

Crow11081111 said:

Hi Chase, could I get a link as well, please? Thanks!

Done!

Darth Raditz said:

Do you have a link to the Visions edit, the one that ends with Rey dreaming of meeting Luke on Ach-To? If so, I’d like a link to that (I already have the standard version).

Unfortunately that cut has not yet been completed as others may have mentioned earlier.

As for those who have been messaging me about a higher bitrate version, I just thought I should direct you to Nev’s post here:

NeverarGreat said:

Several people have asked specifically for the high bitrate version, however, and while I still have the small one, I no longer have the ability to host the large file. Since the only other option right now is the 'spleen (which many people can’t access), perhaps someone who already has the full file may find a way to make it available.

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.

Anybody who would like a copy of this project can PM me, as I have started to host it at Nev’s request to unburden him.

So let me know, and I’ll getcha a copy.

NeverarGreat said:

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…

I think that new take works really well, Nev! Implying that the First Order rises specifically because Luke has gone into hiding makes a lot of sense - plus, that adds a really clever twist when you get to TLJ, and you learn that both events stem directly from Luke failing Ben.

You might just want to clarify that “certain/some/several members of the Republic Senate have secretly” blah blah blah, just to make it clearer that Leia & Co. don’t necessarily have the full Senate’s support. (Otherwise, it could be read as if “The Senate has secretly created a Resistance without the First Order realizing.”)

And if I want to be reeeally pedantic, you might be able to more readily hint at Starkiller Base by changing “from its barbaric hidden stronghold” to “from a mysterious hidden base,” to imply that not only does no one know where it is, but also that there’s something more to it than it just being a staging ground. But that’s just splitting hairs.

It’s great to have you back, Nev; take all the time you need!

Those are some great ideas! I really like ‘endless division’ and ‘mysterious hidden base’, among others. Trouble is, it has to fit well on the lines and ‘mysterious’ is just too long no matter how I slice it. Along those lines, I need to keep the paragraphs quite short to prevent it being too wordy which is most of the problem in the first place. That’s also why Luke goes without a Jedi title, keeping it implied that he’s the last Jedi. I’m pretty sure people wouldn’t be confused by that.

As for the First Order, I do want to keep some aspect of ‘Imperial’ in the final paragraph to directly call back to the first paragraph, and it’s probably weird to capitalize it as part of the First Order. Making the base ‘Imperial’ may have the added benefit of implying that this was a half-completed project of the Empire that the First Order merely made operational.

Adding ‘humble’ into the description of the village hopefully prevents confusion with Luke’s Jedi Knights. It’s important to me to establish the entire village as a single group, since without that information one could come away with the idea that only Tekka was an ally of Luke like the original crawl suggested. That makes it weird when the First Order makes a point of destroying the entire village and I even felt strange that Tekka pulled these random innocents into the whole thing. But maybe that was just me. So here’s a new attempt, checked to make sure it fits:

The last Jedi has vanished. In his absence, a new Imperial power has risen to threaten the galaxy.

Descending into endless division, some 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 hidden Imperial fortress, the evil FIRST ORDER hastens toward a village on Jakku, a humble sanctuary of true believers who have found the key to the Jedi’s return…

Also: I could change ‘light of hope’ to ‘light of the Jedi’ with little issue. Which one seems best?

Indeed! Still playing with the wording, I don’t care for ‘village’ since we only see the village for the first scene. Here’s the new one:

The last Jedi has vanished. In his absence, a new Imperial power has risen to threaten the galaxy.

Descending into endless division, some 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.

Emerging from its hidden Imperial fortress, the evil FIRST ORDER hastens toward the wasteland of Jakku, sanctuary of the true believers who have found the key to the Jedi’s return…

Building on that, here’s my take…

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, a new sinister
power has risen to threaten the
galaxy. Descending into endless
divide, the New Republic has failed
to address this growing threat.

In the wake of this failure,
Leia Organa has organized a
daring RESISTANCE to find the lost
Jedi, and restore a light of hope
to the waning stars.

The evil FIRST ORDER, emerging
from a hidden fortress of the
fallen Empire, hastens toward
the haggard wastelands of Jakku,
where a clue to Luke’s whereabouts
has been discovered…

The trouble with ‘Luke Skywalker has vanished’ is that it gets crushed right into that first line, and it’s bugged me ever since I first saw the movie. The original TFA crawl has this issue in several places, actually, and is one reason why I’m so set on making sure every word has sufficient space. I’m not too concerned with ‘the last Jedi’ being the sequel’s title since that’s the sequel’s problem, and leading with a title instead of a name immediately puts the conflict in big, general terms before getting down to the specifics later on.

Maybe waning stars is better than darkening, though I feel like the general term ‘darkening’ implies a more general and reversible change in the galaxy instead of ‘waning’ which implies a more permanent change, at least to me.

I dunno, the crawl as it is feels pretty good to me.

As good as the previous crawl was, I didn’t like how the senators calling for the Resistance were implied to be the ones in endless division. Here’s a new attempt:

The last Jedi has vanished. In his absence, a sinister Imperial power has risen to threaten the galaxy.

As the Republic fractures under the threat of war, a few brave senators have secretly called upon a daring RESISTANCE to find Luke Skywalker before the light of the legendary Jedi is lost forever.

Emerging from its hidden Imperial fortress, the evil FIRST ORDER hastens toward the wasteland of Jakku, sanctuary of the true believers who have discovered a key to the Jedi’s return…

I think ‘a few brave senators’ casts the Republic in the light of being worth saving while also recognizing that the Senate will be unable to directly help the Resistance. I also wanted to lead into the third paragraph by subtly implying that Luke (or the idea of the Jedi in general) is under imminent threat.

Just a look at where things are, and I’ll be moving on to addressing other issues in the film.

Definitely something to consider 😃

NeverarGreat said:

As good as the previous crawl was, I didn’t like how the senators calling for the Resistance were implied to be the ones in endless division. Here’s a new attempt:

The last Jedi has vanished. In his absence, a sinister Imperial power has risen to threaten the galaxy.

As the Republic fractures under the threat of war, a few brave senators have secretly called upon a daring RESISTANCE to find Luke Skywalker before the light of the legendary Jedi is lost forever.

Emerging from its hidden Imperial fortress, the evil FIRST ORDER hastens toward the wasteland of Jakku, sanctuary of the true believers who have discovered a key to the Jedi’s return…

I think ‘a few brave senators’ casts the Republic in the light of being worth saving while also recognizing that the Senate will be unable to directly help the Resistance. I also wanted to lead into the third paragraph by subtly implying that Luke (or the idea of the Jedi in general) is under imminent threat.

Just a look at where things are, and I’ll be moving on to addressing other issues in the film.

I’d suggest “Emerging from a hidden Imperial fortress”. The pronoun sounds initially like it’s going to refer back to the previous sentence (the Resistance), rather than refer forwards to a new noun (the First Order). The indefinite article removes that ambiguity.

Good catch, consider it done 😃

I recall some discussion of a tool for generating C-3PO dialogue earlier this year, and realized that there’s one place in this edit where it could really come in handy. When the Resistance is discussing the Starkiller’s target, 3PO says ‘Without the Republic fleet, we’re doomed!’ This works well in the original film, but in the edit it feels like a bit of a non sequitur. A better line would speak to the question of Hal and others regarding evacuation of Hosnian Prime, namely why the Resistance didn’t even try to request an evacuation. I’m imagining a conversation like this:

Leia: “The First Order. They’re charging the weapon now. The Senate is the target.”
Poe: “The Hosnian system.”
C-3PO: “And a full evacuation would take weeks…if not longer!”
Han: “Okay, so how do we blow it up? There’s always a way to do that.”
Leia: “Han’s right.”

Something like this would be pretty well in keeping with the style of the film, acknowledging the difficulty then shifting to the dramatic action alternative.

JEDIT: “And the Senate is unlikely to order a full evacuation!”

NeverarGreat said:

I recall some discussion of a tool for generating C-3PO dialogue earlier this year, and realized that there’s one place in this edit where it could really come in handy.

That tool was a text-to-speech voice on TikTok. I just took a look and it’s not available for me anymore. Hoping it’s just me 😧

DMC said:

NeverarGreat said:

I recall some discussion of a tool for generating C-3PO dialogue earlier this year, and realized that there’s one place in this edit where it could really come in handy.

That tool was a text-to-speech voice on TikTok. I just took a look and it’s not available for me anymore. Hoping it’s just me 😧

That’s a shame.

Well, 3PO has probably the largest body of voice work of any Star Wars character so it shouldn’t be too hard to find something better to slot in there. Does anyone know of a time he says something like that, or mentions an evacuation?