Let’s not pretend everyone should enjoy video critiques from randos that take as long to watch as it takes to view the movie itself. It shouldn’t be surprising that not everybody is going to care about that sort of thing.
Damn, I’m jealous. The fact that I haven’t been yet is killing me.
Here’s the problem with the crawl, you have to start out with the threat. You can’t have two paragraphs of “good guys are winning,” that’s not terribly exciting or urgent enough.
I wonder, though, if this particular movie might do well with exactly that. Imply that people seem pretty hopeful and all that, then your opening sequence establishes that “the First Order was just the beginning” and “witness the power of my forty-seven THOUSAND star destroyers!”
In my crawl draft, I thought about adding the word ‘disparate’ regarding the worlds of people who have risen up. There are more of them than each may realize and they haven’t coalesced. The FO has them believing they’re alone. But when I read it back it sounded weird.
“The populace of countless [disparate] worlds have risen in defiance of the diabolical First Order.”
Well I do think you’re on to something, one of the few clear themes that comes through in this movie is uniting and working together, so it’d be wise to set that up.
I get what you’re saying about making it seem like the good guys are winning, but I think it doesn’t really track with what we see of the Resistance in the film, they’re clearly struggling even before Palpatine is on the scene.
That in mind, this is my new crawl mockup
The galaxy is divided. All over, people raise arms in the fight for freedom, and are quickly quelled by the tyrannical FIRST ORDER.
But the spark of hope burns bright, under the leadership of GENERAL LEIA ORGANA, who dispatches her agents to unite these disparate worlds in the name of RESISTANCE.
Meanwhile, SUPREME LEADER KYLO REN searches for the source of his former master’s dark power, anxious to end the cycle of war once and for all. . . .
I’ve ditched Rey completely as it’s a distraction that doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know. I didn’t mention Luke because it’d feel weird to me to mention a character in the crawl who isn’t really in the movie, plus I think the “spark” should invoke him well enough. I’m also hoping to make it seem like rounding up the people of the galaxy is something that’s been in the works for awhile and doesn’t just occur cause they all lost bets to Lando. And finally, I’m trying to retain some continuity with Kylo’s goals from TLJ by reframing them a bit.
Here’s the problem with the crawl, you have to start out with the threat. You can’t have two paragraphs of “good guys are winning,” that’s not terribly exciting or urgent enough.
The thing is they missed an opportunity with the Star Destroyers. Because of the size of the fleet, they could have had each stationed in every system, waiting to fire. Wouldn’t that have been interesting? If we saw the “people” rising up to fight across the galaxy, rather than just on Exegol? It would have made the pay off (Star Destroyers falling over various planets) make more sense.
Speaking of, what a massive whiff to not have one of the prequel planets in that montage. They literally had three planets (Bespin, Endor, Jakku), it was right there for them to do one from each trilogy.
Definitely coincidence. More likely than not Williams was linking Kylo Ren and Palpatine/the dark side, and Kylo Ren and Rey (rather than Rey and Palpatine).
Is it weird I found the planet killing Star Destroyers logical within the lore? It feels a natural progression from Death Star, not unlike the evolution and mass production of atomic weapons.
I find Starkiller Base more egregious because it’s big thing is “it’s bigger”. It becomes so big it’s unbelievable, and it’s a very stupid concept to make yourself a bigger target after two failed Death Stars.
I tend to agree, I’m not sure I understand the hate against the Death Star Destroyers besides the fact that we’ve had a lot of Death Stars. The fact that SKB is bigger is basically irrelevant.
I believe the plan was for her to be a puppet in TFA as well but they didn’t finish her final design in time.
*Her, and whether she follows a project through to the end is her business. Shaming is poor form.
HER? What an inconsequential piece of information that has blown my mind.
Snooker is trans; it’s only fair to provide ample warning so as to avoid accidental misgendering leading to unpleasant misunderstandings.
Oh, the more you know.
Maybe try not being an asshat next time.
Oops. I genuinely did not mean that in the way it read. Very sorry. Was just trying to voice my surprise without making it seem like it mattered to me.
Tries to stick up for Snookers work flow and gets skewered by people ousting Snooker on info that should be up to them to reveal if Snooker wants to. Internet win for all of you!
If you look at the conversation, I was replying directly to Anakin Starkiller, who was doing anything but sticking up for her workflow. What I did was also literally the gentlest possible correction, which was not “ousting” by any means, considering that info is literally in her signature (used to say “She/Her” now says “I’m a girl!!!”).
And I didn’t “skewer” stickydixon until he loudly proclaimed that the information was “inconsequential,” which again doesn’t seem to be the case, considering it’s literally in her signature.
*Her, and whether she follows a project through to the end is her business. Shaming is poor form.
HER? What an inconsequential piece of information that has blown my mind.
Snooker is trans; it’s only fair to provide ample warning so as to avoid accidental misgendering leading to unpleasant misunderstandings.
Oh, the more you know.
Maybe try not being an asshat next time.
Can we add a health meter for all of Rey’s scenes? Just to show that she’s not OP and does indeed take some damage.
*Her, and whether she follows a project through to the end is her business. Shaming is poor form.
Do we think it’s possible an earlier version of the film established early on that Leia was dying? Rey and Leia’s emotional goodbye seems to imply they both know the possibility. Wonder if this is something we should expect from the deleted scenes. Also wonder if this is something that wouldn’t feel weird to establish in a crawl.
RL, as always I love your ideas. But I often struggle to see the feasibility of them. Hopefully with this, we get the rumored extended version of this scene on the BD.
I actually think perhaps the simplest explanation would be to just cut out Kylo killing the cultists, and just cut from the Mustafar exterior to the shots of Krennic’s ship landing at the castle (replaced by Kylo’s TIE), followed by Kylo locating the wayfinder. Of course even then you still have the technical challenge of accomplishing those VFX, but you alleviate some confusion I think as to the appearance of Mustafar (because it looks very different in TROS).
It’s a matter of expectation. Iron Man was a surprise hit. The other films, like Captain America, did about as well as everyone had expected, and were successes because they were budgeted with that sort of return in mind. Solo was a failure because after TFA (and the residual ‘Star Wars is back’ novelty that boosted RO), Disney came to expect that every Star Wars film would top a billion.
Proooooobably not worth mentioning, but in light of Palpatine having his skin melted/torn off his body from force lightning at the end of ROS, would it make sense to include Palpatine being disfigured from his force lightning in LOE? I feel like there’s always been an argument over whether Palpatine was hiding his true form prior to being “lightninged” in ROTS or if he was truly disfigured from the process. ROS seems to clarify that, but maybe I’m reading into it.
Also, I know you deeply want to leave these edits alone at this point so feel free to ignore this post.
If anything I’d say TROS clarifies the situation in a way that fits better with LOE as is. In TROS when Palpatine is rejuvenated he has the melted look, which implies that is his true visage.
I feel like this edit ought to have a title more like your other two for a nice match set.
Well, this title happened organically without thought of Eps 8 or 9 needing any work, and I’d hate to change it now. Would be confusing.
You should do a new version that’s solely changes having to do with the restructure, then another version with all of your additional non-restructured changes (and a new title).
When was the Jedi war against the Mandalorians? That’d seem like the most obvious next move to me.
Yeah I mean, it definitely is starting to feel like what we’re seeing is a very isolated sect. Which is where the history we haven’t seen - post Rebels - will come in and hopefully explain.
Honestly the big thing I wonder is are we working towards a version of this show where we see him without the mask more often than not? That’s kind of what I’d prefer, as we get to know him more deeply, but who’s to say. I’m sure as the years go on Pascal will be less and less available.
Remember Luke had never heard of the Force in the original film. And Old Ben has to explain to him and the audience who and what the Jedi were.
The galaxy is a big place.
But Luke was a 19 year old who’d never left Tatooine. These characters are not comparable to that. I’ve always defended Han as a character who never encountered the force but none of these people have even heard of it or the Jedi? I mean I really don’t care but like I said it strains credulity.
I still don’t really get how they’re portraying Mandos in relation to what we’ve seen in the animated shows either. I imagine they’ll have to explain this a bit, with the dark saber in the picture.
I definitely think it was a weird decision that after TLJ broke the saber in two, that JJ decided to just repair it offscreen rather than allow Rey to build a new saber from it. I thought for sure she would build a double-bladed lightsaber using the two crystals.
Well, I think repairing it was a fair way to continue the meaning, though they way they did it they essentially just had it be ‘same saber, but not broken now.’
DominicCobb said:
Besides the fact that it makes no sense, I like the idea of people who have literally never heard of the JediWhy does it make no sense?
Given the prequels and TCW, I’m not sure how none of those characters had ever even heard of the Jedi, when you consider how important the Jedi were in the Clone Wars (and on Mandalore specifically) and how instrumental Luke was in winning the war.
The logic problems are exactly dead last in the list of concerns for me.
I finally caught up. 7 and 8 really do kick the show into another register. I’m curious what season 2 will bring though I imagine it’ll probably be more one off adventures, which is fine and fun. I definitely worry a bit about the tie in to the larger saga. Besides the fact that it makes no sense, I like the idea of people who have literally never heard of the Jedi, but the idea of them potentially encountering Luke and co. is a little frustrating, as the series’s disconnect from the big saga stuff is part of the appeal. We’ll see, I kind of doubt they’ll do that anyway.
I mean, personally I’d hate to ruin either TFA or TLJ by putting in a TROS scene. Something subtle is better.
Post credit scenes seem terribly in Star Warsy to me, but adding something as simple as Palpatine’s laugh might work. There is precedent as I believe TPM ended with Vader breathing.