Oh well, I think it’d be worthwhile to restore the original line for all the reasons I stated earlier, but like I also said earlier I don’t know how hard that’d be to do, so I understand if it’s too much of a hassle.
Well you’d just have to look back over a hundred pages to search for the context… I found it! And it turns out that yeah, you made that change very early on, way before TLJ came out:
Here’s another revision of the crawl that I rather like. This one will probably be what I go with.
Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENSLuke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen in secret from the ashes of the fallen Empire.
Failing to convince the New Republic to combat this emerging threat, General Leia Organa mobilizes a covert RESISTANCE to gather allies from the farthest reaches of the galaxy.
Desperate for her brother’s help, Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission to Jakku, where a clue has been discovered to Luke’s whereabouts…
And further down the thread you explained your thought process behind the change:
About the third paragraph, a question: why is Poe’s mission so daring ? Is Jakku supposed to be under FO jurisdiction ?
Yeah, I’d let the audience decide whether Poe’s mission is daring or not.
I swapped adjectives around to avoid using ‘secret’ twice.
The theatrical described Poe as daring, implying it’s why he was selected for the mission.I could call the Resistance “brave,” as in the theatrical, and Poe’s mission “covert.” But, I like “covert RESISTANCE.”
So yeah, you changed it because for a good while the first paragraph described the FO as “risen in secret”. Which you eventually trimmed when you inserted the bit about the FO finishing it’s weapon, but that swap on the final paragraph just stuck around. And all of this was done before the added context of TLJ. Sorry if it’s kinda creepy for me to dig up that old fossil, I was just really curious of the origin of that change, and it turns out I was right on the money!
I see, I’m definitely ignorant of all the work that goes into making these crawls look so good, so I understand the hesitation over making smaller changes. It’s interesting if that was the intention though, because I think calling it a “secret” mission also works better with the “covert” Resistance angle, so I don’t see why you’d want to change it. Maybe at some point you described SKB as the FO’s “secret” weapon and wanted to avoid using the same adjective twice? In any case, yeah it’s not the biggest deal, it just stuck out to me as an odd change, as I think it’s less congruent than what was there originally.
I also had a question about TFA’s crawl, but I’ll post that on it’s respective thread.
I noticed only recently you changed the crawl from “Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission” to “Leia has sent her most trusted pilot on a daring mission”, was this change done before TLJ came out? Because to me Poe’s arc in TLJ could be boiled down as going from “daring” to “trusted”. And with how little characterization Poe had in TFA, I’m sure the way he’s introduced in TFA’s crawl as a “daring pilot” was used to inform his character going into VIII, so it seems weird to change that. Now you go into TLJ and suddenly Leia’s most “trusted” pilot is disregarding her direct orders, getting himself demoted, and having to be “stunned down” after staging a mutiny.
- Not important at all, but is Exegol supposed to be Moraband/Korriban? Wookiepedia doesn’t seem to make that link.
They went out of their way to call it the “secret world” of the Sith, rather that the Sith “homeworld”, to avoid contradicting canon. Though it’d pretty much be presented as such to someone who’s only watched the movies, they couldn’t use Moraband since that’s a known planet and not hard to access, so they came up with a new “secret” Sith planet that would fit the story they were going with.
Tbh I think it makes sense, Sith were thought to be extinct, and part of it is that Moraband was completely deserted. But the Sith had been moving in the shadows all along, so in this way Exegol works as the new, secret world of these secretive, plotting Sith.
^ Eh, I wouldn’t want to count on changing TROS’s crawl, and to me it’s perfectly fine not to have CAPS. If there’s something to capitalize, great, and if not, that’s all right.
I’d say a couple of words for TRoS could be valuable to capitalize, such as REBELLION or HIDDEN POWER, heck, even FIRST ORDER and RESISTANCE would make more sense there, as the crawl actually sets up a different state for the galaxy, while TLJ’s is mostly recapitulating where we left off. I just thought since you’d already be reaching out to Sir Ridley, maybe you could knock two mynocks with one stone. It’d be an opportunity to do the change to “silencing” as well…
I also had a question about TFA’s crawl, but I’ll post that on it’s respective thread.
Best of luck, Sherlock! I can’t agree with your interpretation of certain key events, but I’m really curious to see how the movie can be morphed by your particular view. You did some great work for Ascendant, and some of the stuff in your change list is pretty interesting.
Since you’re going with the “Rey nobody” route, are you planning to tackle all the necessary changes on your own? Or will you wait for things to materialize on that thread? The angle you’re going with seems very similar to what RogueLeader was working on.
Have you settled on a title yet? I was thinking something akin to the name of Chapter 2: “The Tribes of Tatooine” would work, since the main focus of this adventure is on Tatooine and it’s different factions - The tuskens, the mods, the people of Freetown, the houses of Mos Espa - not to mention Boba’s goal throughout revolves around forming a “tribe” of his own. Of course, it depends on how much of this through-line remains in your edit, but even the Mando stuff is also heavly focused on “tribes” - the Mandalorian and the Jedi.
You had mentioned a while back on the Ascendant thread that you weren’t a fan of TFA and TLJ capitalizing the same two words, and also that you wanted one of your ST crawls to have no capital letters to mirror how it is in the OT. I’ve been thinking this would be a good chance to tackle both things.
I feel that TLJ’s crawl works the best as the one cap-less crawl in the trilogy, and also fits the best with the tone of the movie, not to mention it’s a more direct mirror to TESB in the OT. And this would open up the chance to get some capital letters on TRoS’s crawl, which, as I also mentioned a while back, would fit a lot better there for both the crawl and the movie’s tone.
Also, one final nitpick (sorry), but I think it’s more important to establish the FO is pursuing military control over the galaxy. It makes it clear they’re a militant group and not a proper government. And Rey would then be expanding on it by specifying they’ll take over the major systems, rather that just repeating what we already know from the crawl.
Hello, I’d like a link to it as well. Thanks!
The ships that are destroyed in the planetary sequence are First Order ones.
Nah, doesn’t Palps tell Pryde to join up with the Sith Fleet? I took that to mean that they incorporated all of the First Order assets into the Sith Fleet and they all became one huge force.
Dude, are you telling me that the central conflict they had been building up for two and a half films (the First Order) was resolved off-screen by a bunch of unknown people whom we never meet? While our protagonists were dicking around with a random side mission?
God, I hate this film.
Why would they move all their assets directly on exegol? That just sounds illogical. It’s not so different that in RotJ, the entire imperial fleet was not all present at the battle of Endor. I don’t think it’s that hard to imagine that a sizeable portion of the first order fleet is regrouped on exegol while the remaining ships scattered across the galaxy remained in place.
So no, it’s not a side mission persay. While in TrOS there’s many things that are nonsensical, I just don’t see this as a reason and if at all, one of the major ones.
You’re right in that it makes sense mechanically - that there could still be First Order ships elsewhere in the galaxy. My point is that I don’t think it’s very satisfying narratively. You have two and a half movies building up the First Order as the primary antagonists, led by Kylo Ren and General Hux; and then the finale isn’t about stopping them - it’s about stopping Palpatine (who was just retconned back into existence for this one film) and his fleet of ships, the command of which was given to General Pryde (a new character introduced in this film). From a story perspective, there’s no buildup to Palpatine, Pryde, or the Sith Fleet, and therefore neither the characters nor the audience have any emotional investment in the battle.
Maybe that’s why, in my head, I tried to recontextualize the final battle so that it did involve the First Order again. Which brings me back to my original point that if the First Order has set up on Exegol, I’d also like to establish that the Star Destroyers are starting to launch.
It’s definitely the case where the big climax of the movie only dealt with the new threat that was introduced in this movie, so the conflict of the previous movies is resolved as an epilogue with Finn’s line “people are rising up all over the galaxy” and the following montage. But to be fair, they do suggest early on that the First Order is struggling to maintain a foothold and they would dwindle on their own, so the main struggle now becomes stopping Palpatine from joining the First and Final Order. Once that’s accomplished and dealt with taking care of the remaining First Order forces spread thin across the galaxy is just the cherry on top.
Even if they might just be “nerfing” the First Order to prop up Palpatine’s forces, I think it pairs well with the ending of TLJ, which was pretty hopeful despite all the preceding tragedies. Specially with the edits on Hal’s Ascendant, which better emphasize the struggles of the the First Order and directly link them to Luke’s actions in TLJ as the spark of hope that ignited flames of rebellion.
Well, they did it, they ruined Mando season 2, this’ll honestly sour any rewatches of the Mandalorian for me and I couldn’t be less excited for the eternal Grogu merchandise adventures. The finale really cemented how shoehorned the past two chapters were. Din should’ve been a gun for hire in Boba’s squad, nothing more.
I really liked Cad Bane in this episode though, I liked how he called Boba out, and his duel with him was really good, if only the show had been building up to it. Bane would’ve worked really well as a nemesis to Boba, a constant reflection of his past life, instead it was just a last minute cameo.
And the other antagonists were so underwhelming, all that slow and tedious build up for the Pykes, the mayor & the Mos Espa houses only for Fennec to just kill them all in 5 seconds, what was even the point? For a bit I thought it was Boba that killed them, it really should’ve been him, showing he’s a killer like Bane just said, bringing things back to when he shot Bib at point-blank range, and capping the story with the somber conclusion that diplomacy failed and he had to resort to violence again. Instead it was just presented as Shand being a “badass”.
This was supposed to be what the past four actual TBoBF chapters were building up to, and it ended up being quite a mess. The fight with the droids felt so drawn out, when they first appear they seem very threatening, but after so many shots of everyone just standing around them or messing with their shields most of the tension was lost. Also everyone kept shooting the shields over and over to no avail, but once the rancor breaks them nobody thinks to blast the droids, I kept expecting Boba to bullseye their bright red weakspot just like his papa, but no, other than Din everybody just sat there and watched the rancor struggle to tear the droids apart. I also thought it was funny how Boba says “those droids will tear down the city!”, and then proceeds to unleash a Rancor on the city.
On a more positive note, I really liked the life-sized Rancor they built for the close-ups, and the CGI was so good it was hard to tell when they switched between the two, that was really a hightlight. Paired with the Cad Bane stuff it just goes to show we didn’t need all the shoehorned Mando storyline.
I had that exact same idea recently, but I was going to have it be an endless loop:
“The First Order’s only tracking us from one destroyer, the lead one.”
“So we blow that one up.”
“I like where your head’s at, but no, they’d only start tracking us from another destroyer.”
“So we blow that one up.”
“I like where your head’s at, but no, they’d only start tracking us from another destroyer.”
“So we blow that one up.”
“I like where your head’s at, but no, they’d only start tracking us from another destroyer.”
“So we blow that one up.”This continues until Poe runs out of ships to blow up, and only then does he consider disabling the tracker.
Alternatively, Finn runs out of other destroyers they’d start tracking them with, so the plan becomes to destroy every ship in the fleet.
I’ve been thinking a lot about our dissection of the events in the ST, which we were talking about earlier, and I’ve thought about a simple revision that would go a long way in better setting the stage for what we actually see in this movie, and better connect with both TFA and TRoS.
I think we can all agree that the biggest outlier is the bit about Snoke “deploying merciless legions” to take control of the galaxy, I think this single line is what has made a lot of people overestimate the power and reach the FO had, as it’s been misinterpreted to imply they just swiftly took over the whole galaxy immediately. However, as we discussed, that’s not what we actually see in the films.
Now here’s the simple change I propose:
“The First Order reigns. Having decimated the peaceful Republic, Supreme Leader Snoke now gathers his forces to seize military control of the galaxy.”
Now, instead of the immeasurable reach of Snoke’s “legions”, it’s implied that the First Order’s resources have a limit. Moreover, this helps to imlpy that the fleet that gives chase to the Resistance consist of a sizeable chunk of the Fist Order, most if not all of it, as Snoke was in the process of gathering everything he has to scheme a takeover (a takeover that hasn’t happened yet, as Rey says, it would be weeks before they take over the major systems, if left unopposed). The idea of Snoke gathering his forces also pairs perfectly with what we last saw of him in TFA, as the last thing he does is instruct for Hux and Kylo to regroup with him. And it also subtly implies that the destruction of the Starkiller did make a dent on the FO’s resources, as now they gotta “regroup and go back at em”, as Poe puts it.
So basically, Snoke is gathering his remaining forces, planing to take over. He believes there’s no one left to oppose him, as the Republic’s destroyed and he has sent Hux to “snuff out the Resistance once and for all”. But Hux fails, so now Snoke takes the fleet he’s amassed and personally launches an all-out attack on the Resistance to make sure they’re wiped out for good (while also manipulating Kylo to find Skywalker and thus end the last bit of hope in the galaxy).
Also, I don’t think “The First Order reigns” should be removed, I think that statment is key. Not only does it clearly establish the stakes, as the First Order is now the more powerful faction at play, but also establishing the idea of the First Order “reign” is absolutely key to Kylo’s character journey, as his whole plot in this movie revolves around overtaking the “reign” of the First Order, and his whole motivation in TRoS is about mantaining that “rule”. As I’ve said before, that statement was never meant to imply the FO already has control over the galaxy, and with the change I propose, it makes it clear that taking over is Snoke’s plan, but not something he has accomplished already.
As for the rest of the crawl, I think there’s a reason why it hadn’t been changed in all this time, and that’s because it’s pretty good, I don’t think it needs to be altered any further. It would’ve been nice if there had been some remains of the Republic show up in VIII and/or IX, but they don’t. You can imagine that there are remains of that government that the FO wants to take over, those planets that blew up can’t literally be all there was, but they don’t really play a role as far as what we actually see in the movies, so it seems pointless to try and clarify in the crawl that not all of the Republic was wiped out.
In fact, after Snoke learns Luke’s location he says they will go and destroy him “after the Rebels are gone” - if he had other “legions” taking over the galaxy he could’ve sent a fleet to wipe him out, instead it seems clear that his resources are focused on destroying the Resistance as his next step in achieving “military cotrol of the galaxy”. That line was removed from your edit, but still, it shows that the crawl was not meant to imply the FO had limitless resources all over the galaxy.
I don’t think it needs to be reinstated, it might disrupt the flow of the scene, but maybe:
https://streamable.com/595033
I don’t think the destruction of the Starkiller is comparable to the Hosnian system, it’s clear that the Starkiller is not the First Order’s capitol, but rather just a really big weapon. TFA and TRoS paint it as Hux’s pet project, while Snoke is off somewhere else. If anything, by it’s sheer size, Snoke’s destroyer seems more like a big mobile base of operations from which Snoke leads the First Order (I mean, that’s where his throne is), which paints the FO as a mobile armada with no main headquarters. TRoS also has Kylo Ren command from his own destroyer as well, though Ascendant adds Coruscant in the background to show that after TLJ the FO is actually triying to take proper rule over the galaxy.
Your restructure of TFA also helped show that the Hosnian destruction is a way bigger deal, painting the assault on the Starkiller as a failure despite getting blown up by the end. So the opening of TLJ makes sense, even if it’s a bit hyperbolic. The First Order reigns, not because they’ve taken over the galaxy in the 5 minutes between TFA & TLJ, but because, having decimated the peaceful Republic, they are now the most powerful faction at play, being much bigger than Leia’s covert Resistance. The part about Snoke deploying his “merciless legions” is the only bit that could be interpreted as the FO having a much wider range than what we see, but I think that bit is just meant to set up Snoke’s surprise attack on the Resistance fleet, the “legions” being all the ships, fighters, walkers and troops that chase after them. Still, perhaps “merciless legions” could be changed to something less grand to avoid confusion, such as “relentless forces”.
The fleet that chases down the Resistance isn’t necessairly all of the First Order. And likewise, despite Holdo saying they’re “the last of the Resistance”, in TRoS we see there were a few others, such as Snap Wexley, that weren’t part of the group that escaped in TLJ. But like I mentioned in the redux ideas thread, the chase and battle in TLJ really feels like the last stand for both factions. The fact Snoke himself comes out of hiding to lead the attack and the overkill of throwing his massive ship and fleet and walkers after the Resistance is enough to suggest that he’s channeling most of his resources to make sure they’re wiped out.
I agree with the complaints around TFA failing to properly explain the major factions, and that they could’ve done more interesting things with the First Order. I wasn’t saying the criticism about the FO seeming overpowered weren’t valid, but I think that’s just a byproduct of the overall direction in the ST of making everything bigger and flashier, it’s the same reason Poe pulls off insane X-wing stunts and Rey does incredible feats with the Force (that have also been labeled “overpowered”). The First Order were supposed to be the big new baddies so to fit this direction they decided to make them look bigger and badder. That paired with the plot parallels drawn to the OT I think is what made people draw the wrong conclusion that the FO was the “Empire 2.0”.
They could’ve done a better job explaining things, but all I’m saying is, based on what we actually see and hear in the movies, if you look past their big ships and walkers, there really is no indication the FO has anywhere near the power and reach of the Empire, but rather plenty that indicates the opposite.
Tbh this has always been the way I saw the First Order. People always complain about how overpowered they seem because they have bigger ships, bigger walkers, a bigger Death Star, etc. but if you look at it from a story perspective they really always seemed much smaller than the Empire. In the OT you always got the sense that you were only looking at a fraction of the Empire’s might - the secret Death Star project in ANH & Vader’s personal quest in TESB. But the Empire had control over the entire galaxy, there was always a sense that there were other equally great imperial operations going on somewhere else, officers were surprised that the Emperor would take the time to contact Vader, and outright shocked when he decides to personally oversee the completion of the second Death Star.
Now compare that to the First Order, in TFA the galaxy is under rule of the New Republic so, despite being introduced as this misterious Emperor-like character, there really is no sense that Snoke has much else going on. Moreover, he seems highly invested in the Luke map plot, and is in constant contact with Kylo and Hux. Then by TLJ he’s outright leading the assault himself, so it really feels like he’s throwing everything the FO has to make sure the Resistance is wiped out. After the destruction of Starkiller & Holdo’s ram on Snoke’s fleet, the Battle of Crait is comprised of the crippled remnants of both sides, despite the FO still having the upper hand. TRoS really hammers home that the FO doesn’t have the reach to take control over the galaxy, it even brings up how their resources have been crippled by the destruction of the Starkiller. The ammount of Star Destroyers in Palpatine’s Fleet might look ridiculous when put toghether like that, but you can imagine the Empire had equal or even greater numbers spread out across the galaxy.
That’s actually a part of why I prefer Legendary, to me Leia’s space walk is the only indication we get of Leia’s secret Force power before TRoS reveals that she had been fully trained as a Jedi and becomes Rey’s Master, both movies get some better context. Legendary also does have a few edits that Rekindled doesn’t have, such as removing Kylo’s line about Rey’s parents being buried on Jakku. So I’d say they’re closer overall compared to Restructured vs Starlight.
Restructured is Hal’s edit of TFA, with a few trims and a reordering of the story it offers a nice improvement over the theatrical cut while keeping the overall look and feel from the original. I recommend it if you like TFA and would just like to see a version that improves upon it.
Starlight is a TFA edit by user NeverarGreat, it has a few similarities with Restructured as Neverar helped Hal with some of the edits, but overall it’s a more radical version that has a lot more changes and additions. I recommend it if you’d like to see an alternate take on episode VII, though a few of the changes don’t align perfectly with Hal’s Ascendant.
Rekindled is a TLJ edit by user Poppasketti, it is very similar to Hal’s Legendary edit as it originated from it, Poppasketti did a lot of work that’s included in both edits as they were developed side by side. I think Legendary aligns slightly better with Hal’s Restructured and Ascendant, though from what I gather Rekindled seems to be a favourite among many users.
But it’s up to you which version of TFA & TLJ you prefer, there’s no “definitive” answer. I personally prefer Hal’s edits as a more cohesive experience, but Starlight & Rekindled are really good alternatives.
Does anyone have any recommendations for any fan edit of TFA and TLJ that compliment this edit visually, canonically and pacing wise??
I recommend Hal’s own TFA:Restructured & TLJ:Legendary for the most coherent/consistent ST experience.
I’d like to be wrong but it seems rather obvious Grogu will choose the vest-kar and be reunited with Din. It’s pretty clear that’s what they’re setting up, otherwise this would all be redundant of the Season 2 ending where Grogu already chose to go with Luke and Din already accepted to let him go.
The only other option would be for Grogu to somehow not make the choice at all and instead become both foundling and padawan, which might have been set up by the Armorer telling the story of Tarre Vizsla, who was both Mandalorian and Jedi Knight. I don’t know how they could make that work in a show format, but it’d certainly be more interesting, and it’d avoid undoing Season 2 entirely. Though either way I think by next week Grogu will reunite with Din.
I really hate how they’re immediately undoing the ending of Mando Season 2. I was hoping we would get one season or at least part of a season where Din is on his own, dealing with all he’s learned and how he’s changed, as well as focusing on Mandalorian culture. Instead we only got one episode of that and in a series that isn’t even his.
I guess Grogu’s just too popular for it’s own good, though they easly could’ve had him pop up on his own in Ahsoka or whichever other series. The Din and Grogu reunion could’ve been really memorable if they gave it some time, but it seems they’re desperate to get back to the winning formula to the point they ripped two pages off of Boba’s Book just so we start Mando Season 3 with the duo back together.
Yeah a few people have already implemented it, personally I don’t mind the original Luke as much as the ugly CGI on Rogue One, and Shamook’s deepfake was limited as it was just overlaying on another deepfake. Thankfully now we get to see what it looks like on full quality in TBoBF Chapter 6.
Having implemented Shamook’s work into Rogue One it’s really awesome to see it done officially in a real Star Wars production. Plus the fact he came by and shared his work on this thread is even cooler now.