The Force Awakens: Starlight (V1.1 Released!) — Page 79

Is that really a worry though? I don’t imagine many viewers would assume Luke vanished and was found all within the opening crawl, and even if they did the first scene clarifies that the Mcguffin is just a map to Luke.

I love what you are going for in the crawl, but in my opinion (not right or wrong at all!), I think it is a little wordy. I try to keep the paragraphs to 6 or 7 lines and 4 to 6 words per line to match the average length for the other saga crawls. I tried to make the text a little more concise but keep your goal intact:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

The New Republic is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by Luke’s absence,
sinister Imperial agents have
risen from a hidden base as
the mysterious FIRST ORDER,
proclaiming that anyone who
seeks the last Jedi’s return
shall be destroyed.

In an act of RESISTANCE,
a small band of rebels has
sent its most trusted pilot
to Jakku, where a clue has
been discovered that can
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…

I’m actually pretty dialed in on the number of lines and characters per line, since I use the exact font in my text editor that will be used in the AE render, and the program is set up with proper column width.

So for example, the character count per line is usually no more than 27, including spaces. That means ‘The New Republic is in crisis.’ would be too long, as it takes 30 characters including some capitalized letters. You can of course fudge the margins with spacing like the theatrical version, but one of my self-imposed restraints is to do this as little as possible.

With regards to the number of lines, I’m using 21 lines of text since that’s the number of lines in the crawl for ANH, and it happens to line up well with the music and timing of my bespoke crawl.

Fair enough on it being too wordy, as there has always been a ton of information to convey in this crawl and it’s one of the reasons that I’ve literally done hundreds of versions over several years. It’s simply the case that not all of the information can be conveyed in 88 words. Interestingly, that’s identical to the word count of the theatrical version so the only real change is that the average word length has increased slightly.

This is all to say that I definitely get where you’re coming from, but a lot of crawl rewrites I have to discard out of hand due to line length or line number. The 4-9-8 line numbers are set in stone for this project, for good or ill 😉

Blueffalump said:

Hi NeverarGreat!

Your changelist reads like a substantial improvement!

Are there any chances of you releasing an additional smaller filesize versions of Starlight? The current one is sadly too large for my modest internet connection/hardware configuration.

Check your pms!

NeverarGreat said:

This is all to say that I definitely get where you’re coming from, but a lot of crawl rewrites I have to discard out of hand due to line length or line number. The 4-9-8 line numbers are set in stone for this project, for good or ill 😉

Last thing, I PROMISE! haha

In paragraph 2 you mention the “New Republic” but in paragraph 3 they are just called the “Republic”.
Lore nerds might go a little crazy on that so I updated those two spots. Each 27 or less characters for the line 😉

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, agents of the
IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER
have risen from a sinister
hidden base to proclaim
across the vast galaxy
that anyone who seeks
Luke Skywalker’s return
shall be destroyed.

In an act of RESISTANCE,
a band of rebels with the
support of the New Republic
has sent its most daring
pilot to Jakku, desperate
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…

Or if it makes better sense in the editor, just take out the line in paragraph 2. I think it works a lot better and helps to reduce the wordiness:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, agents of the
IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER
have risen from a sinister
hidden base to proclaim
that anyone who seeks
Luke Skywalker’s return
shall be destroyed.

In an act of RESISTANCE,
a band of rebels with the
support of the New Republic
has sent its most daring
pilot to Jakku, desperate
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…

It’s funny that you zeroed in on that line to remove, as I had literally copied it into the paragraph because I thought the second paragraph needed to include the New Republic. But you’re right that it was in the wrong place. How about this:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

With the New Republic
overwhelmed by chaos
and despair, agents of
the evil FIRST ORDER
have risen from a hidden
Imperial base to proclaim
that anyone who seeks
Luke Skywalker’s return
shall be destroyed.

In an act of RESISTANCE,
a rebel force supported
by the Republic military
has sent its most daring
pilot to Jakku, desperate
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…

Granted, it does still have the change from ‘New Republic’ to ‘Republic’, but I think it makes sense if I include the ‘military’ modifier since that makes it more clear that the Senate may not actually support the Resistance, only the Starfleet really supports Leia.

JEDIT: I could say “Republic Starfleet” in the crawl instead of “Republic Military”. The benefit would be to imply that we would see them in action, saving the day at the end of the film, only to subvert expectations with their absence. Alternately this may be seen as annoying to introduce something that is only referenced a few times and barely seen. And perhaps I could make more reference to an individual instead of the vague ‘rebel force’:

In an act of RESISTANCE,
a rebel leader supported
by the Republic Starfleet
has sent her most daring
pilot to Jakku, desperate
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…

JEDIT 2 Electric Boogaloo: Or I could just do what you said and keep New Republic across both paragraphs, since ‘Starfleet’ isn’t the technical lore term and ‘New Republic Defense Force’ probably wouldn’t even fit on a line.

The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

With the New Republic
overwhelmed by chaos
and despair, agents of
the evil FIRST ORDER
have risen from a hidden
Imperial base to proclaim
that anyone who seeks
the return of the Jedi
shall be destroyed.

In an act of RESISTANCE,
a rebel leader supported
by the New Republic has
sent her most daring pilot
to Jakku, desperate to
find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…

Hmmm. My only concern with this is that it turns the First Order into active belligerents, since threatening ‘destruction’ for seeking the Jedi is essentially a soft declaration of war on their part. I think that’s an issue, because the fragile peace between the First Order and New Republic is one of the main reasons why the New Republic doesn’t officially throw its support behind the Resistance. I still think there’s big value in emphasising the fragile peace, and less-but-still-some value to emphasising the First Order as a particularly extremist faction.

Okay I took another stab at it with the 4-9-8 max of 27 characters:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Imperial agents of the evil
FIRST ORDER, emboldened by
Luke’s absence, have risen
from a hidden sinister base
to proclaim that anyone who
seeks the Jedi’s return
shall be destroyed. The
frail New Republic, urging
peace, has failed to act.

Fearing war, members of the
New Republic Senate have
secretly organized a covert
RESISTANCE, and have sent
their most daring pilot to
Jakku, to find any clue of
Luke’s whereabouts amongst
the darkening stars…

EDIT: Must have been looking for too long cause the last two lines were messed up, now we are all good 😃

Interesting take, DZ, though it has some of the issues that plagued my prior crawls, such as ‘Imperial agents’ not really being accurate since they are from the First Order and the problems with stating that the Republic was responsible for the Resistance.

EddieDean said:

Hmmm. My only concern with this is that it turns the First Order into active belligerents, since threatening ‘destruction’ for seeking the Jedi is essentially a soft declaration of war on their part. I think that’s an issue, because the fragile peace between the First Order and New Republic is one of the main reasons why the New Republic doesn’t officially throw its support behind the Resistance. I still think there’s big value in emphasising the fragile peace, and less-but-still-some value to emphasising the First Order as a particularly extremist faction.

I see how this could be an issue, but consider that in the theatrical version Leia is convinced that Snoke is behind the destruction of the new Jedi Order, which is a far more blatant act of war than merely a vague threat of destruction if a government does something which it hasn’t officially done.

It also gets into the murky situation, if I were to say ‘There is an uneasy peace between the First Order and the New Republic’ that this would establish the two powers as comparable in strength, or at least having a known strength. With the current wording it could be interpreted that the First Order is a largely unknown power arising from a secret base, which makes the threat more like something that would come from a modern day stateless terrorist organization rather than a country with nuclear weapons. One expects that a terror organization would make these kind of threats and be ‘at war’ with a government while the government wouldn’t be in a position to deal with this diplomatically.

I also just think that having the First Order make a threat against anyone seeking the Jedi’s return is a far better attitude than having them be on a quixotic vendetta against Luke specifically, a person who has already disappeared and isn’t currently a thorn in their side. When Kylo Ren orders the destruction of San Tekka’s disciples, this is directly in line with the established First Order threat because the disciples are part of the Church of the Force, a sanctuary of those who believe in the Jedi. In the theatrical version this scene came across as a gratuitous ‘kick the dog’ moment, while this new decree practically requires such an action. The belligerence of the First Order rises in scale from there, with the attack on the Force-sympathetic Maz’s castle to the destruction of a government secretly supporting Jedi sympathizers. They may not be terribly effective in their villainy, but with this decree they are at least murderously consistent.

That’s a really good point about not wanting to imply relatively equivalent power levels.

Your other paragraphs give me an idea though - what about hinting that the Republic fears that the First Order is backed by resurgent Sith? That would make the Snoke (and later Sidious) reveals a bit more punchy, and justify why San Tekka and Maz’s castle are early targets. But better, it would also justify why the Republic doesn’t want to explicitly validate the galaxy’s fears that force users are back in play - a fear that’s likely to still be prevalent, especially given that even the Jedi are feared because of the Old Republic/early Empire’s propaganda around Order 66. It also gives us a little early feel for what ‘The Force Awakens’ means.

You might even make it explicit that Lor San Tekka is a member of a force cult.

How about-

The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by his absence,
the evil FIRST ORDER, an
extremist remnant of the
fallen Empire, have
proclaimed from a hidden
base that anyone who
seeks the Jedi’s return
shall be destroyed.

Fearing involvement from
the resurgent Sith, some
New Republic Senators have
secretly organized a covert
RESISTANCE, and have sent
their most daring pilot to
meet with a member of a
Jedi cult, seeking any
clue to Luke’s whereabouts
amongst the darkening stars…

Following the 4-9-8 27 Rule:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by his absence,
the sinister FIRST ORDER,
an extremist remnant of the
fallen Empire, has risen
from a mysterious base
to proclaim that anyone
who seeks to restore the
ancient ways of the Jedi
shall be destroyed.

Acting against this threat,
the New Republic Senate has
secretly organized a covert
RESISTANCE, and have sent
their most daring pilot to
Jakku, to find any clue of
Luke’s whereabouts amongst
the darkening stars…

I think paragraph 3 helps to make this line by Hix hit a little harder:
“At this very moment, in a system far from here the New Republic lies to the galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance.”

While the Force cult and Sith discussion are interesting, it’s not really explored in the film.

Here’s where my thoughts lie at the moment:

The Republic is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore its legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Rejoicing in Skywalker’s
downfall, sinister agents
bearing the mark of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
emerged from a hidden
Imperial base to declare
that anyone who seeks
the return of the Jedi
shall be destroyed.

In an act of RESISTANCE,
a daring band of rebels
armed by the Republic
has sent their greatest
pilot to Jakku, desperate
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…

There are quite a few little changes and tweaks here.

Most notable is that the ‘New Republic’ has been changed back to simply the ‘Republic’. This is due to several reasons, mostly length of the title on the line, and this also helps to prevent the audience dwelling on the title of an organization which doesn’t really have much presence in the film. It also is a valid way to describe the government and is described this way in the film itself. Also, introducing it in the first line allows for a more clear understanding that the Jedi Order is essential for replicating this timeless Republic, which Luke was trying to do. Finally, I can now have the Republic introduced before paragraph two, and this frees up that paragraph to flow better as it is now fully about the First Order.

I’m pretty happy with where the crawl is now, and I’m really beginning to feel a bit like David in the Wrath of Khan: “I don’t think there’s another piece of information we could squeeze into the memory banks.”

hinventon said:

It probably wouldn’t fit anywhere in the crawl, but I wish there was a way to elaborate on why there’s no Republic fleet to counter the FO. What makes the most sense to me is that the Republic demilitarized after ROTJ fearing they would become another Empire, and are funding the Resistance in secret to fight them, but that’s not explained very well in the actual film.

Can’t wait for a V2 whenever you start it back up, this edit’s my favorite!

I wish I could include that as well, but the space just isn’t there. I’ve certainly tried! And thank you for the encouragement; this project will be completed, hopefully on a Death Star II schedule and not Death Star I 😉

VVPizza said:

This feels like the best crawl so far-- dense with info without feeling forced. Introducing the Republic early does helpthe second paragraph flow better.

I feel like while “Rejoicing in Skywalker’s downfall” does set the right sinister tone for the First Order, it might point too heavily toward later revelations about Luke’s arc following RotJ, where the rest of the movie teases out the mystery. “Skywalker’s abscence” might be a suitable more-neutral phrase. Then again, the First Order having apparent knowledge of said downfall establishes a mystery of its own which gets resolved later, so the trade-off may be worth it.

I would also suggest changing “the return of the Jedi” to “the Jedi Master’s return” or something similar-- with “the last Jedi” already present in the next paragraph, two title drops in one crawl feels a bit too “winking” to me. It would also reaffirm his goal of restoring the Jedi Order, and his prospective role as a mentor to Rey later on.

In a non-crawl-related note, I’ve gotten an idea in my head lately about Rey’s Dark Side connection in the duel which I can’t shake. I’ve been imagining the blue-red flickering on her and Kylo’s faces resolving to primarily red as she taps into that power-- paralleling the color symbolism when Kylo chooses the Dark in the previous scene.

Interesting idea about the light changing! Something more subtle may be appropriate, since I wouldn’t want to suggest that Rey’s saber goes red.

Those are some fair points on the crawl as well. I did try ‘absence’ instead of ‘downfall’, but downfall just sounds more dire and clear that this is a bad thing for the good guys. There are also a lot of ‘s’ sounds on that line. Maybe generalizing the downfall to the plural Jedi would make more sense.

How about this:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

The Republic is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore its legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Rejoicing in the Jedi’s
downfall, sinister agents
under the command of
the evil FIRST ORDER
have emerged from a
hidden Imperial base to
declare that all who seek
Luke Skywalker’s return
shall be destroyed.

In an act of RESISTANCE,
a daring band of rebels
armed by the Republic
has sent their best pilot
to Jakku, desperate to
find the last Jedi and
vanquish the shadow now
rising across the stars…

I like that a lot too. I think your new ‘rising shadow’ is better than ‘darkening stars’. I’ve just rewatched Starlight/Rekindled/Ascendant and would still advocate for explaining that the Republic is demilitarised, because that really hangs over the whole trilogy (especially TROS, where no Republic fleet comes to their aid), but I appreciate it’s a complex thing to get across. I appreciate that Starlight includes the scene which gives the context that it’s largely Leia who’s behind the Resistance, and the Republic is hesitant, but it’s still a little odd that no military joins for the final conflict. Either way, it does work as is.

Well remember that version 2 will have the subplot about the fleet being assembled to aid the Resistance, but the Hosnian system is destroyed before it launches. If I ever manage to do a TLJ edit, the Raddus fleet will be retconned into being the remnants of the Republic fleet which has suffered horrible loss in their defense of the galaxy, in an attempt to give the illusion of time passing between the two films:

EPISODE VIII
THE LAST JEDI

The Republic is doomed.
Without the Jedi Knights,
nothing can stand against
the ascendant First Order.

Using secrets delivered
by a sinister informant,
an armada of fearsome
warships commanded by
Supreme Leader Snoke has
ravaged the unsuspecting
New Republic Starfleet
and hunted its survivors
across the stars.

Attempting to escape this
deadly armada, the last of
the tattered fleet has fled
to General Leia Organa
and her Resistance base,
seeking a final spark of
hope amidst the galaxy’s
most desperate hour…

Good thoughts, VV!

I’ve been playing with some AI lines that Jar Jar Bricks has graciously provided, and there is one that I’ve already been able to implement:

https://mega.nz/file/fdVGWITD#W-SkNY4yf0OVjPYbB5WNPGyzUBA19TeoEOeSwZ-yq2U

This is the line where in V1, Leia says 'The First Order…they’re charging the weapon now. The Senate is the target."

It always felt odd to have her say ‘the target’ instead of ‘their target’, so this new version has the updated line generated by AI. I used just the ‘Senate is their’ snippet, but I think it marries quite seamlessly into the flow.

Okay, here’s version 2:

https://mega.nz/file/bd9ABBzC#rMW8Q-gGe_kyRSr8cDKbx8suklsmjvJkKiB04Yoduec