We got it 😄
The Skywalker Saga:
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX
This is the way.
Okay, I know we said we were done here but I’m gonna put down one final alternate:
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.
Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
an intrepid militia armed
by the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search of
the last Jedi, seeking to
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….
The only real difference is in changing ‘loyal to the New Republic’ to ‘armed by the New Republic’. I keep coming back to this as the better option for a few reasons.
The first and strongest is that establishing that the New Republic has indeed supported the Resistance is essential to Hux’s plan. Without a clear understanding that the Resistance is reliant on the New Republic, Hux’s reasoning for destroying the Republic falls apart. This is probably why the theatrical crawl established the support between the two organizations.
The second reason is that now that the Republic is merely ‘fragile’ and the subjugated star systems are not ‘beyond the reach of the New Republic Starfleet’, it feels almost necessary that the Republic is involved in protecting these systems in any way it can, short of sending its entire fleet.
The third reason for this change is that it leads to a stronger flow for the paragraph by allowing for the Resistance to be understood as an extension of New Republic power, regardless of its independent leadership. Keep in mind that while the deleted scene does give the impression that the Resistance has little support in the Senate, Leia is specifically asking them to take direct action against the First Order, which is a very different demand than merely asking them for a few X-wings to help find Luke. It is also possible that the situation between the Senate and the Resistance has deteriorated since arming the militia.
Anyway, those are my arguments 😃
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
Aside from the crawl, what are the changes coming to the next version? Apologies, but I am not sure if there is a running post anywhere detailing this.
I agree with those changes! Might I suggest some different wording:
Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
a militia secretly armed
by the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search
of the last Jedi, seeking
to restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars…
The Skywalker Saga:
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX
This is the way.
I like DZ’s clarification way more. I also think intrepid is a strange word to describe the Resistance (sorry). Not only will most people not know what it means, Google says it’s most often used in a humorous or rhetorical way.
By the way, with AI lines becoming much more feasible and easy to do (by taking character audio from the film itself), feel free to send me a list of everything you want to try for this version. I’ll definitely replace the Illum system line by Poe.
I agree with those changes! Might I suggest some different wording:
Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
a militia secretly armed
by the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search
of the last Jedi, seeking
to restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars…
I like this. I think “secretly” is very important, cause officially the Senate was still debating to take the threat seriously or not, right?
If we can add one more line of text to the final paragraph, this may be better:
Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
a brave militia, secretly
armed by leaders of the
New Republic, has sent
its pilots in search of
the last Jedi, seeking to
restore a light of hope to
the darkening stars…
The Skywalker Saga:
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX
This is the way.
I agree that helps make it clearer that only some people in the New Republic support the Resistance while others have their doubts.
It’s also now 88 words total - the same number as the original TFA crawl. But that last paragraph is a pretty lengthy sentence.
Here is another run at it:
Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
several leaders of the
New Republic have secretly
armed a brave militia, and
have tasked its pilots with
finding the last Jedi, and
restoring the light of hope
to the darkening stars…
The Skywalker Saga:
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX
This is the way.
Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
leaders in the New Republic
have secretly armed a brave
militia, tasked with finding
the last Jedi and restoring
the light of hope to the
darkening stars…
We miss out on the reference to pilots (and therefore Poe) but at least it’s much more streamlined.
It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
Saying that Luke is “striving” to reforge the Jedi order is saying that he is currently doing this, in the present tense. He is not, he is in hiding currently. I think this needs to be reworded to be in the past tense.
It is a time of despair.
After failing to restore
the legendary Jedi Order,
Luke Skywalker has vanished.
I’m not a writer, so mine isn’t necessarily good either, haha. But that’s just my quick thought.
But “failed” gives away too much.
Maybe, “who promised to restore the Jedi order?”
I think Nev is pretty locked in on the first 2 paragraphs. Let’s keep the focus on the last one that is still a little up in the air.
The Skywalker Saga:
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX
This is the way.
But “failed” gives away too much.
Maybe, “who promised to restore the Jedi order?”
Yeah, failed wasn’t really a suggestion, not “striving” was the suggestion. I just threw that out there as an example.
I think Nev is pretty locked in on the first 2 paragraphs. Let’s keep the focus on the last one that is still a little up in the air.
Maybe, but it doesn’t make any sense that way, and with as much work as everyone is putting into this, as nitpicky as everyone is being, that is a big thing to overlook.
Keeping the surprise until TLJ is the way to go. You can’t giveaway the biggest twist of the sequel trilogy in the first sentence of a crawl for a movie Luke is barely in.
The Skywalker Saga:
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX
This is the way.
It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
There is nothing here that contradicts canon. For the audience and galaxy at large, all we know is that Luke was striving to bring back the Jedi right before he vanished. We aren’t supposed to know anything beyond that. If you want to be nitpicky about it, just insert the word “while” before striving in your mind while reading.
EDIT: I suppose “destined” would be a suitable replacement for “striving”. But I don’t think it’s worth changing if Nev is satisfied with how it was originally.
Ultimately, DZ is right, we should be focusing our efforts on this last paragraph which is particularly troublesome.
Keeping the surprise until TLJ is the way to go. You can’t giveaway the biggest twist of the sequel trilogy in the first sentence of a crawl for a movie Luke is barely in.
I guess you’re not getting what I’m saying. I’m not talking about what needs to be there, I’m talking about what doesn’t need to be there. It is saying that he is doing one thing, but also that he has vanished, in the same sentence. Both things cannot be true at the same time. It needs to say that he WAS doing a thing, but now he isn’t because he has vanished. The wording just doesn’t make any sense.
Here’s what I’m thinking all put together:
It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, destined
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.Desperate to unite these
far planets in RESISTANCE,
leaders of the New Republic
have secretly organized a
brave militia, tasked with
finding the last Jedi and
restoring a light of hope
to the darkening stars…
I think I am setting a record for the most crawls written for TFA 😄
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENSIt is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, destined
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.With the Senate in endless
debate, leaders of the
New Republic have secretly
armed a brave RESISTANCE,
whose pilots have been tasked
with finding the last Jedi, and
restoring a light of hope to
the darkening stars…
The Skywalker Saga:
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX
This is the way.
Hey, at least we’re still in agreement concerning the first two paragraphs 😉
You’re also right that it may be best to just clearly define the RESISTANCE as an organization and forgo the whole militia thing. I’d make the following minor changes to your final paragraph so the formatting is all neat:
With the Senate in endless
debate, leaders of the New
Republic have armed a brave
RESISTANCE in secret, whose
pilots have been tasked with
locating the last Jedi and
restoring a light of hope to
the darkening stars…
EDIT: “Locating” works better than “finding” only because the movie is dealing with a map location, not with pilots trying to land at his exact location. I also wanted to share something ChatGPT said about that comma before “and” - “a comma before the ‘and’ is not necessary. The sentence is correctly punctuated as is. In lists of three or more items, you’d typically use a comma before the “and” (known as the Oxford comma), but since there are only two tasks mentioned (“locating the last Jedi” and “restoring a light of hope to the darkening stars”), no comma is needed before “and.” The sentence flows well and clearly conveys its message.”
Maybe this is cleaner??? Just brainstorming…
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENSIt is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, destined
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.With endless debate in
the Senate, a brave
RESISTANCE militia has
sent its pilots across
the vast galaxy to find
the last Jedi, and to
restore a light of hope
to the darkening stars…
The Skywalker Saga:
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX
This is the way.
I think it might defeat the purpose of what we are trying to accomplish here. We want it to be clear that there are some in the Republic helping the Resistance secretly, but there are also still those in it who don’t support taking any action against the First Order with their fleet. Which is actually a reasonable approach seeing as how they aren’t infringing on Republic space. It’s like the isolationist argument during the world wars.
With endless debate in
the Senate, leaders of
the New Republic have
secretly armed a brave
RESISTANCE militia to
locate the last Jedi,
hoping that his return
can restore peace to
the darkening stars…
The Skywalker Saga:
I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX
This is the way.
I think that “Resistance militia” just sounds a little clumsy. I’d prefer either term by itself, and the common use of “the Resistence” in the movie means that it’s the term we have to keep.