Darth Raditz

We’re roughly 11 months out from Avengers: Doomsday, so I figured this post could use a bump. Since a lot of time has passed & Eddie revised his list a few months ago, I figure I’ll start there:

EddieDean said:

PHASE FOUR: AFTERMATH

• Loki S1 - Immediate consequence of Endgame, sets up unstable Kang-oriented multiverse.
• Spider-Man Far From Home - Aftermath of Tony’s death. Light mention of multiverse.
• Thor: Love and Thunder - Guardians and Thor. Takes Thor off the table.
• Falcon and Winter Soldier - Aftermath of Cap leaving this time period. Now we’ve dealt with the big three. Light touch for Wakanda, which we won’t return to for a while.
• Hawkeye - Aftermath for Hawkeye and Nat’s Death. Reintroduces Yelena.
• Guardians Holiday Special - Christmassy after Hawkeye.
• Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantumania - Aftermath for Ant-family.
• Guardians vol 3 - Conclusion for the Guardians, which deserves coming early.

Good ordering, lets us catch up with most of our Classic Avengers, setting up new status quos & & letting others ride off into the sunset. However…

EddieDean said:

PHASE FIVE: MULTIVERSE

• Loki S2 - Deals with Kang, sets up a stable multiverse. This is where we can now get weird with it.
• Wandavision - Aftermath for Wanda and Vision (who are more ‘outsider’ Avengers). Bohner as a sort-of Multiverse reference. Takes them off the board for a while. Introduces Monica.
• Shang-Chi - First new main character, but also aftermath for Hulk, Wong, and Captain Marvel (our final ‘outsider’ Avengers) showing they’re mostly off the board. Final evidence that the Avengers aren’t really a thing any more.
• Spider-Man: No Way Home - The multiverse comes to 616. This one starts immediately after the previous Spidey, but then the legal squabbles could take around a year offscreen. Plus we’re not seeing Spidey again for a while so it’s good to pace him out - though this nicely takes him off the board.
• Echo - exactly eight movies/shows after Hawkeye, continuing that thread. Light impact, but good location for it.
• Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness - We travel the Multiverse. Takes Strange and Wanda off the board for now. X-Men featured.
• Ms. Marvel Second new main character, big references back to classic Avengers. Directly into-
• The Marvels First multiversal collision. Payoff for Fury, Monica, Captain Marvel, and Ms. Marvel. Nice overlap of cosmic and multiversal threads, and leaves Monica in an X-Men universe and has Ms. Marvel planning to gather the Young Avengers/Champions who’ve been slowly introduced.

Again, mostly solid phase that gives us our big exploration into the Multiverse. My only issue here is the placement of Echo, which I’ll get into when talking about the next phase…

EddieDean said:

PHASE SIX: NEW WORLD ORDER

• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - We see why T’Challa was off the board so long (RIP), and introduce Namor and Riri, and the new state of Wakanda which’ll be relevant Doomsday/Secret Wars.
• Eternals - Placed way later than release (I justify this in-universe as the Tiamat activation being related to a huge baby boom post-blip) because originally it had a huge global impact that remained unacknowledged. Many new characters.
• She-Hulk - Returns to Hulk and Abomination eight movies/shows after their light touch in Shang-Chi. Introduces She-Hulk, and an easter egg mentions Eternals.
• Captain America: Brave New World - Continues the Hulk revival, explicitly acknowledges Eternals, and positions new Cap back at the forefront of the response to global events.
• Daredevil: Born Again - eight movies/shows after Echo, continuing that thread, and firmly reestablishing Daredevil and Punisher after a slow reintroduction after Netflix.
• Agatha All Along - Twelve movies/shows after Agatha’s introduction, and eight after the last Wanda/Billy/Tommy story.
• Ironheart - Following Wakanda Forever, introducing a new very major character and reigniting the Iron Man legacy.
• Thunderbolts - Would have been nice to have earlier but it’s so dependent on other stuff. Takes a lot of C-listers and elevates them to a B-list teamup, and finally deals with the world’s lack of a true Avengers team. Setup for what’s to come.

While I again like that this phase has a solid thesis (i.e., focusing on moreso on world events), a lot of the pics feel like fluff in comparison to the ultimate conclusion of the Post-Endgame Saga. Do we really expect Echo, Daredevil, Agatha, Billy & Ironheart to play a huge role in Doomsday? The fact that none of them got chairs in the cast announcement trailer leads me to think not (and yah, there’s one character in the movie who didn’t get a chair, but that was a pretty big surprise.

Also, not a fan of how the way everything’s split means that this Saga would theoretically have 4 phases it as opposed to 3. Just feels awkward, imho.

So after going over that, and since I got a shoutout from Eddie for where I placed Thunderbolts (thanks for that, btw!), I’m going to give another shot at reordering the phases so we just have 3.I’m also going to try and keep entertainment value in mind, which means potentially leaving out films I would outright consider bad where possible:

PHASE FOUR: AFTERMATH

• Spider-Man: Far From Home (Immediate fallout from Endgame)
• Falcon and Winter Soldier – Spece Edit (Introduce Val)
• Thor: Love and Thunder (Catch up on Thor & Guardians)
• Hawkeye (Catch up on Clint, Yelena & to a lesser extent Val)
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Last film fully following one of our tentpole Avengers & final explicit mention of Val)
• Shang-Chi – Temault - Tridane’s Edit (New Character & following up on the last of our classic Avengers)
• GotG Holiday Special (A bit of fluff before the culmination of this phase)
• Thunderbolts (Caps off this phase, addresses where the Avengers are. Will have to edit out the references to Brave New World & the Doomsday teaser)

PHASE FIVE: EXPANSION

• Loki S1 (First real foray into the Multiverse where Kang controls everything)
• Wandavision
• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness (now all the heavy hitter Avengers are taken off the table)
• Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 (EDIT: WHOOPS, I completely forgot about this originally!)
• Ms. Marvel
• The Marvels (Breach into the multiverse, X-Men universe)
• Loki S2 & Quantumania by Tremault/Tridane (Wraps up Kang as we deal with a more stable Multiverse. Yes, I am cheating a bit here, since Quantumania was not great. However, Tremault/Tidane managed to get Ant-Man 3 doen to an 84-minute Kang-focused experience, so you can pretend it’s a prologue to Loki season 2 if you really want)

PHASE SIX: INCURSION

• The Eternals: The Apostasy Edit
• She-Hulk (References to Tiamut, X-Men, and the fact that Hulk blood is valuable)
• Fantastic Four: First Steps (First look at the Multiverse after Kang got deposed)
• Captain America: Brave New World (Much like with Scott Lang, we do need to reestablish Sam. Will have to reconfigure Sam’s scene with Bucky to be a flashback that takes place around TFATWS; Original post credit scene, followed by the Doomsday post-credit scene from Thunderbolts)
• Deadpool & Wolverine (Last whacky ride before things get serious, good palate cleanser after BNW)
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day (“Everybody gets one.”)
• Avengers: Doomsday
• Avengers: Secret War

Let me know if there’s anything (else) I missed/overlooked.

My personal headcanon of “first time for me” is it’s Cassian’s first time being captured by Saw Guerrera, but do what you gotta do.

So long as we’re talking about taking more liberties with Rogue One, no Vader hallway scene. Instead, after the Death Star evaporates Jyn & Cassian, fade to white on Mina-Rau, with Bix holding her & Cassian’s baby. Then cut to Leia on the Tantive IV.

Interesting poster. Do you have a cutlist?

Now that I’ve seen Thunderbolts & have a better idea of how we’re getting to Doomsday/Secret War, I’d like to revisit Eddie’s last post from over a year ago to try and help rephase the post-Endgame MCU, balancing out pacing & holding off on introducing new info as soon as possible.

EddieDean said:

For PHASE FOUR: AFTERMATH then, it’s as I had it before:

• Spider-Man: Far From Home deals with our fear over the next Avengers-level threat (plus Spidey, post-Tony, and Fury).
• Falcon and Winter Soldier deals with the global political state post-Endgame (plus Sam and Bucky, post-Steve and a hint of Wakanda)
• Daredevil is necessary here for Daredevil and Kingpin
• Thor: Love and Thunder deals with Asgardian refugees post-Endgame plus (plus Thor and Valkyrie)
• Hawkeye deals with post-Avengers issues and more Kingpin (plus Yelena and new Hawkeye)
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Holiday Special sets them up again
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings introduces some new shit (plus an update on Hulk and Captain Marvel)
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 wraps them up and takes them off the board in a big, satisfying finale.

First off, “PHASE FOUR: AFTERMATH” is such a genius phrase for the phase immediately after Endgame. As for the phase itself, I’m going to really stretch the letter of the “8 entries per phase” stipulation:

PHASE FOUR: AFTERMATH

• Spider-Man: Far From Home
• Daredevil - The redheaded step-child of this thought experiment. On one hand, like Eddie said, it’s necessary for when Daredevil and Kingpin appear later on in the MCU. On the other hand, it doesn’t really add to the greater meta-narrative of the Phases. To compromise, we could always count Infinity War & Endgame as one entry for Phase 3, and FFH as the 8th entry. In lieu of a season one of Daredevil, I recommend Forbidden Marvel’s Man Without Fear edit.
• Falcon and Winter Soldier - I recommend Spence’s movie edit.
• Thor: Love and Thunder
• The MCU Holiday Extravaganza (aka, Hawkeye & The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special) - The GotG special is short enough that it feels weird giving it it’s own spot, and depending on how you watch Hawkeye, you’re already watching multiple hours of TV anyway.
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Provides an important bit of post-Endgame fallout, dealing with the death of T’Challa/Chadwick Boseman (especially since he was supposed to be a post-Endgame tentpole), plus it give us our final look at Val, which will be important at the end…
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Gives us an update on Hulk and Captain Marvel, like Eddie said, & shows that the Avengers are pretty disorganized/non-existent at this point, which leads to…
• Thunderbolts - Directly addresses & answers the question of “Where are the Avengers,” so we don’t need to think about it going into Phase Five. Aside from having to make edits removing/altering references to entries that haven’t come up yet, it makes for a good capstone to Aftermath.

EddieDean said:

So PHASE FIVE: MULTIVERSE can now become something much more focused:

• Loki 1 kicks it all off. It’s timeless, and ends up with a Multiverse (and Loki in unknown time).
• Spider-Man: No Way Home is our big, exciting, fan-favourite multiverse story, featuring three Spideys and Doctor Strange. The biggest sacrifice of this ordering is having this paced a while after Far From Home, but I think it’s far more beneficial this way. Here, we open on a flashback to just after he’s been outed by Mysterio, then we assume that his legal troubles occupied perhaps at most a year - in which the previous phase occurred. Then after Daredevil steps in and clears it all up, we’re back to the present in the timeline.
• Wandavision is here, as early as we can get it. Even if you ignore the Pietro tease, Wanda, Maria Rambeau, and Monica Rambeau will return this phase.
• Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantumania sits here, balanced between the two Loki seasons, and set in the middle of this phase, developing the Kang threat we’ve had since Loki 1, and giving us the update on our final group of post-Endgame characters not yet returned to.
• Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness now brings our 616 characters to other universes, starting the true crossover phase. Wanda, Doctor Strange, Maria Rambeau, Xavier, and even Captain Carter for the What If fans. We’re getting serious.
• Loki 2 next. Again, it’s timeless, but it serves to temporarily reduce the Kang threat (letting us forget him for a while) and it’s just great. And it leaves us clear to take a run at our final two items:
• Ms. Marvel has some further nice reflecting on the prior Avengers, and directly leads into-
• The Marvels, with a great focus on Carol, Kamala, and Monica, then that nice multiversal tease with Maria and Beast, and setting up Kamala looking to team up with young Hawkeye.

This is a very concise Phase with a solid throughline. I would just do a little rearranging so that it ends on a stronger note:

PHASE FIVE: MULTIVERSE/EXPANSION (because this is the “Multiverse Saga” so calling the phase Multiverse sounds a little redundant, and “Expansion” ties in with what I want to name Phase 6, but I could go either way)

• Loki 1
• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• Wandavision
• Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness
• Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantumania - Still in the middle of this phase, and given how Doctor Strange ends, makes it more dire that Ant-Man is the only one who can face Kang
• Ms. Marvel
• The Marvels
• Loki 2 - Makes for a stronger ending to this Phase & bookends with how it started, like an ouroboros.

Now, we’re still a ways out from Phase 6, but it’ll still be a fun exercise to draft a Phase 6 based on what we do know:

PHASE SIX: INCURSION/DOOM

• The Eternals - This is the latest The Eternals as a concept can be introduced, and the dead Tiamut plays a big part in Captain America BNO.
• She-Hulk - Admittedly, a bit of a placeholder, but it’s light-hearted, gives us follow-up on Bruce Banner, has a Tiamut reference, reintroduces the idea that people are after Hulk blood/want to make more Hulks, and it gives us the “hey, when are we getting X-Men” line, which leads to…
• Deadpool & Wolverine - Brings us back to the multiverse, brings back the TVA, and adds a new wrinkle to how different universes can be destroyed.
• Captain America: Brave New World - I, admittedly, haven’t seen this yet, but I know that part of the plot is Ross wanting Sam’s help to restart the Avengers (let’s say Sam trademarked it immediately after John Walker’s introduction offscreen), which is a pretty important plot point going into Avengers Doomsday.
• Fantastic Four: First Steps - The last big movie release for the MCU before Doomsday.
• Avengers: Doomsday
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day - Three for three on Spider-Man making an appearance in each phase. Plus, if the rumors that this movie takes place in a sort of Battleworld Reality post-Doomsday, even better.
• Avengers: Secret War - The end of the Multiverse Saga.

Ooh, would love to check this out at some point!

This might be how I finally watch Arcane, so yeah, I’d be interested.

You had me at “no CGI or AI implementations used in the edit as fixes.” Count me interested!

Was there ever any attempt made at visualizing the idea of Boba Fett actively hunting Luke at the beginning of the movie?

smudger9 said:

GLogus said:

smudger9 said:

GLogus said:

Smudger, I watched this edit again and just can’t believe how much of an improvement it is over the original. I simply can’t give enough praise. However, have you ever thought about ending Episode 3 with Mando leaving the armor with Ahsoka to pass on to Grogu, and saving the Luke/Grogu stuff for the beginning of Episode 4?

Thanks so much!

I have considered restructuring episodes 2, 3 and 4 and it’s something I’ll go back to after Ahsoka is finished. I think everyone can agree that the Grogu-Luke reunion was done extremely poorly in the series and it’s trying to decide at what point this occurs in the edits. Much to ponder!

Hi, smudger. Do you think you still might revisit this at some point. I know you’re hard at work on other projects, but I just thought I’d ask.

I’m hoping to. Unfortunately I’ve had a partial hard drive failure which has corrupted my Mando edit libraries. I’m about to send them off to see if they can be retrieved.

Oh no, how did this pan out?

For TFA, I’ve gotta go with Nev’s Starlight edit. I have no idea if it’s shorter than the original movie, but it is a better paced, more fleshed out version of TFA.

I don’t really dip into edits of TLJ, but you can’t go wrong with HAL’s edit. It’s shorter by 9 minutes while keeping the story the same. A similar edit is poppasketti’s, which shaves off three more minutes, tones down humor if that’s what you want, and seeds the idea of Palpatine’s return.

For TROS, I heard on fanedit.org about an edit of Spence’s TROS edit, The Final Order. Spence’s original edit is already shorter than the original film and makes things more focused by keeping Rey a nobody & killing Leia off in the beginning. Apparently, the re-edit of Spence’s edit improves things further by having Kylo’s first be him mourning his mother, so it sounds like it’s worth tracking down.

Took a few months away, coming back at this with fresh eyes.

I still love the idea of the film’s central conflict being Rey (& Kylo) dying to defeat the Sith & wiping out the Jedi or living as a Sith and condemning the galaxy. Like Nev said, either one has to happen at the end. It’s an enticing no win scenario and brings back a DotF concept (that Rey’s destiny is to die fighting evil) while giving it some teeth.

I also love the possibility that Palpatine is lying about being Rey’s grandfather. However, since we don’t know when/if the Fey movie is coming out & what it’ll entail, futureproofing an edit like this is priority.

I mentioned elsewhere that a good way to cast doubt on what Palpatine says would be to play around with color-coding on flashbacks/visions. Every time we flashback to a moment from the previous films would be in black & white, while every new thing introduced in Episode 9 (the dueling Exegol visions Rey has, everything related to Ochi & Rey’s parents) would be in color. This would come to a head when Ben talks with the memory of Han, who would be color-keyed black & white. This would highlight how you can’t live your life in fear based on what the future might be. You have to do what’s right based on what you know in your heart is true, damn the consequences.

You don’t need to reframe the dagger’s purpose or have Palpatine say he lied (although having him never refer to Rey as “granddaughter” would help). Just sew in a bit of doubt on Palpatine’s story because again, that’s not the central conflict of the movie. You can call it a “Rey Ambiguous” edit (or “Rey Mysterio,” if you’re a wrestling fan).

Jar Jar Bricks said:

So the lesson in the sequels is finally what it should have been all along: defining yourself by your attachments (Rey Skywalker) is a really good thing, even as a Jedi, but you have to have the strength to let go when the time comes. And to not fall into hatred or anger when they are taken from you (Anakin and the Tuskens). It was actually George’s intention to convey this lesson through Star Wars, I believe. Hopefully Rey’s new Jedi Order differs from Luke’s in this way for her upcoming film. It kinda sucks that in the EU this was precisely the lesson Luke incorporates into his own new Jedi Order, but this is the path Lucasfilm has chosen, so it’s best to just embrace it at this point.

If you want to seed this idea earlier, you can include part of Anakin & Palpatine’s opera scene during Rey’s vision in TFA after she touches Anakin’s lightsaber:

“The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inward, only about themselves.”

“And the Jedi don’t?”

It both sets up the final lesson & sets up Rey’s tendency to go straight to the dark, especially if you’re using Starlight as a baseline.

I watched Q2’s Episode 1 edit for the first time yesterday and it got me thinking: Could you make Maul the Sith that the Trade Federation is in league with? You’d have to darken his face in his hood, cut out frames in the Tatooine lightsaber duel that show his face off, maybe even shoot new footage of Maul alone on Tatooine to sell the idea, but it would be fun to redub his lines and make him more of an active villain in the movie. Plus that “but which was destroyed, the master or the apprentice” line hits harder because there’s another Sith still out there, especially if you’re not teasing that Palpatine’s behind it all too early.

Peter Pan said:

I would have to look, but I might still have a background for that scene flying around from the time that I gave Tambor an extra line of dialogue during the war room scene.

Funnily enough, I aimed the line to sell the „clones were originally intended for the separatist“ idea. Had him report that the republic hijacked their deal with the Kaminoans. But anyways, if I‘ve still got the assets, then I would only need a fitting shot of Grievous to fix up a proof of concept for that scene. However, I am currently short on time due to the exam season coming up. But I can send you the background plates, if I find them.

Very cool! Off the top of my head, the best shot would be of Grievous preparing to fight Kenobi. You’d have to constantly reverse the shot & paint his robe over his body, but it’s the only shot I can think of him standing up straight. It could work with him sitting in a chair, staring out menacingly.

Thanks for the feedback, Pan! Looking at AotC’s script, the cleanest option for a dialogue change would be when Obi-Wan is reporting to Yoda & Mace on Kamino. After saying that Sifo-Dyas requested the army 10 years ago, change his line from “I was under the impression he was killed before that” to “I was under the impression he went with Dooku.”

Speaking of the Council of Geonosis, this would likely take far more time and effort than most people have (myself included), but has anyone ever thought of creating a three-second shot of General Grievous at the table, just to ever so briefly set his RotS appearance?

Been looking over Nev & Pan’s questions and ideas for the clone plot in AotC. Wouldn’t the simpler solution be to go with the idea that the clones were originally created for the Separatists, and that the Jedi basically claimed them for their own? Have one of the alien Separatists dialogue say “when will you finalize the Kaminoan deal?” And Dooku will respond with “I am a man of my word.” Then, after Palpatine is given emergency powers, change Yoda’s line to "Visit I will the cloners on Kamino…and barter for their army. If I’m missing any steps, let me know.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

I’m only “aggro” about it because, for me, that’s the only thing others can do to me that will wake me up from a stupor and obsession with any particular idea I have. Which is usually helpful so I can consider things from different perspectives. If people don’t say anything in an upfront way, then I’m likely going to miss something, and whatever I’m working on isn’t going to be as good as it should be.

Granted, I do appreciate it much more when criticisms come with their own recommendations. The reason I don’t have any recommendations for you is because, from my perspective at least, I’m already pursuing all these ideas in a much more attainable way in my own thread.

That’s fair. It’s hard to backup ideas when you don’t have the skills to make example clips. I’d like to make my own fanedits one day, but that’s very much a back burner hobby at the moment. For now I’m content spit-balling ideas in the hopes it helps someone else out with their edit.

Because, like I said, fanedits are non-profit anyway. Whether I like it or not, the technology still exists, and finding a convincing soundalike isn’t always the easiest answer if you don’t know where to look or have the money to hire said actors. No need to get all aggro about it.

That is a good summation of what TROS is about, though. And it is better to focus more on making Leia’s lightsaber something with meaning to her & Rey’s character, rather than making it part of a different, third vision.

Ed Slushie said:

An idea I’ve had for a while but don’t think I’ve ever shared: to better parallel the Blue-vs-Blue duel from RotS, have the Skywalker lightsaber be red during the duel on Kef-Bir. (This would also just make the duel more visually striking, I think).
It wouldn’t have to be Red for the whole movie - it could turn red when Rey activates it in the Throne Room (implying that her vision in the vault made the crystal bleed) and then it could turn blue again when Ben gets it on Exegol.
I’ve tried editing this in myself but it’s very tedious - and given how quickly the edit that turns Leia’s Saber purple was made, presumably there are some people here for whom it’s easier (and the amount of time the lightsaber spends on screen between the throne room and the KoR fight isn’t much longer than the amount of screen time Leia’s saber got).
So if anyone else is interested in actually doing this I’d love to know.

So, I think this idea can work, but you’d have to edit Revenge of the Sith as well. A decade ago (ugh), there was a faneditor (I want to say Bob Garcia), who had an idea for Revenge of the Sith where as the Anakin/Obi-Wan duel on Mustafar progressed, Anakin’s saber would slowly change from blue to red. You couldn’t turn Rey’s lightsaber red at the start of the fight, but you could turn it red shortly after, carrying the same idea.

I still think there’s wiggle room into the whole “you’re not doing this, the effort would kill you” of TLJ. I always took that as “you cannot be projecting what you are literally doing in front of my eyes, doing that would kill you.” Then, as what started as a connection by Snoke developed into a dyad, that further developed into being able to affect the physical plane that the other person was on.

It’s just a matter of interpretation. Since ESB, I always figured that talking to people via the Force was fair game. Granted, those times the participants were on the same planet/likely in the same system, but if Kylo & Leia would be meeting each other halfway rather than just one person reaching out to another then I’d buy it more. Plus, I also found Spence’s use of it in the beginning of his RotJ Final Cut edit to be acceptable, and who knows how far apart Tatooine & Dagobah are in the galaxy.

And no, that’s not an invitation to show me a detailed map of how far apart they actually are in the galaxy. 😛

Glad to know you were thinking the same thing, RL! For the sake of minimizing dead air, as well as keeping the Padme mention (since I’m a sucker for PT fanservice, especially in the ST), here’s my crack at it:

"She was quick to learn in our training, but she feared our father’s hatred within her. So, she stayed on our mother’s path instead. Throughout her life, Leia lost everything, and everyone. But in the end, she still chose love.”

My only issue is I’d prefer if Leia herself said that line rather than Luke saying it for her. Granted, these lines tend to be AI-generated anyway, but ideally, I’d want to use a Leia soundalike. Usually, I’m fine with AI for fanedits since they’re non-profit anyway, but I just grow more & more uncomfortable with it every day.

Thanks, Starkiller. I figured I was trying to do too much with the crawl. I realize I had based a lot of the crawl on L8wrtr’s for Shadow of the Sith, and it looks like my attempt to streamline it just made it more wordy. Here’s the Shadow of the Sith crawl for reference

A thousand years have
passed since the Jedi Order
vanquished the evil Sith
Lords.
The Galactic Senate has
come to rely on the Jedi to
settle disputes and maintain
peace throughout the
Republic.
Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn
and his apprentice, Obi-Wan
Kenobi, have been
dispatched by the Supreme
Chancellor to resolve a
Dispute between the Naboo
and the Neimoidian Trade
Federation.
Little do the Jedi know that
a Phantom Menace has
been plotting revenge…

Honestly, I had forgotten there was a fourth paragraph to that crawl until I rewatched that edit for last week. Let’s try adapting the “Padme is the Death Star Plans” crawl:

The GALACTIC REPUBLIC is failing.
As its Senate further stagnates,
QUEEN AMIDALA, elected ruler
of the planet Naboo, stands as
a vocal champion against
corruption.
The TRADE FEDERATION,
exploiting the galactic
malaise, has established an
occupation of her planet
in order to force her
compliance.
Bucking conventional wisdom,
Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn,
mystical wielder of THE FORCE,
has taken his apprentice to
safely bring the Queen into
galactic custody…

I think it’s important for Padme and Qui-Gon to be part of the few in the galaxy who know that the system is broken & needs to be changed. Qui-Gon “bucking conventional wisdom” & going on an impromptu mission plays later into the movie when Obi-Wan says that if Qui-Gon would just listen to the council more then he’d have a seat. Qui-Gon is a character who will choose being good over being lawful. I’m curious about the use of “bringing the Queen safely into custody,” but I like it as a way to conflate the idea that the Jedi are the Senate’s police force. Plus, I like it as a subtle reference to Leia being “custodian of the stolen [Death Star] plans” in ANH’s crawl.

Jar Jar Bricks said:

Plus, her doing such a thing would require “all the strength she has left”, meaning she’d be dead before Endor. The reason it has to be Luke is that he isn’t confined to the rules of Force projection anymore since he’s a ghost.

Hard disagree. You could always change the context of Leia’s death to be healing Ben of his wound or summoning the spirit of Han. Leia spending her lifeforce to just distract her son by saying hi has always been a disservice to her character.

JEDIT: Using the Leia dialogue from the DotF script better serves & sums up her character as a whole. I admit, doing so they way I suggested robs an easier location to place a spot for Luke to speak to Kylo. My best solution for that would be take the first time Kylo talks to Vader’s helm in TFA, reverse it, and add the cracks in his mask in with photoshop…actually, having Luke speak first would actually play better into the Leia/Kylo dialogue I currently have, since it better sets up why Kylo would even mention Luke to his mom.

Not necessarily connected to any of my previous ideas, but there’s a bit of dialogue from the DotF script Leia had that I’d love to see inserted back in. After Rey decided to go off alone, Luke & Leia have a discussion concerning her & the Jedi Order. Luke says the reason the Jedi Order lived in isolation is because the pain of loss leads to the dark side. Leia has a response that perfectly encapsulates her character:

“I’ve lost everything, and everyone. But I’d still choose to love.”

I know some editors have wanted to resurrect the idea of of Ghost Luke taunting Kylo, but I’d be more than happy to reinsert this Leia dialogue to after the Rey Palpatine reveal, using the clip of Kylo on the bridge, staring out into space in his cracked mask:

Kylo: She’s (Rey) in pain. We both are.

Leia: Ben…

Kylo: I understand now why Luke hid himself. Grief & loss just lead to the dark side.

Leia: I’ve lost everything, and everyone. But I’d still choose to love.

Kylo: (no response)

Leia: Ben?

Kylo: (walks off, scene ends)

I spent the weekend studying the opening crawls of the movies (both from the theatrical cuts and fanedits), and was hoping to get some feedback on my take for Episode I:

The Jedi Knights, once the guardians
of peace and justice in the galaxy,
have become mere couriers to
a complacent, stagnant Galactic
Republic within the last
millennia.

The TRADE FEDERATION, with
aide from a specter of the Jedi’s
past, has exploited this galactic
malaise with an occupation of
the peaceful Planet Naboo.

Only a chance meeting of two
radical idealists, Jedi
Master QUI-GON JINN of
Coruscant and QUEEN AMIDALA
of Naboo, can hope to settle
this conflict…

Admittedly, there’s a lot I’m trying to cover here: Making the crawl a fitting introduction to the SW universe, stating that the Jedi golden age has waned, the failing state of the government, something from the Jedi’s past opts to threaten the peace, & placing Qui-Gon and Amidala as the most important characters in this episode (drawing on the “Padme as Death Star plans” idea) as well as two of the only people in the galaxy striving for positive social change. I also replaced “blockade” with “occupation” to go with the idea of only one ship being in Naboo space, so a blockade doesn’t conveniently disappear in Act Three.