It’s not so much specific explanations I’m against, it’s more the trying to cram as much in as possible. But also then yes, once you’ve gotten down to a couple different phrasings you can use, ultimately what should make the decision is which is most relevant to the film at hand. For instance, I like the idea of framing the FO as having a spy network (connects nicely to ANH), but if the spies are only relevant to the New Republic side of things (which is a very small aspect of the movie), does it make sense to talk about them and how they’re spreading misinformation or whatever? You know what I mean? It’s cool lore but it doesn’t really apply to the movie. Same would go for a crawl that tries to explain potential war crime investigations, wealthy benefactors, etc. There are certainly areas though where a little could suggest a lot. It’s not worth taking up space explaining how some NR members are loyal to the FO (in my opinion), but you could potential suggest something like that with phrasing as simple as “the fractured New Republic” or “the divided New Republic.”
This is where the struggle for me is between ‘don’t want to start another war’ and ‘complacency,’ which I think are the best options. If you’re watching the episodes in order, you definitely do need an explanation for why the NR has allowed the FO to rise. But the film ultimately is not about the NR, so whatever you say about them needs some relevance beyond the background table setting. I like ‘not wanting to start another war’ because it is easily understandable and you can also intuitively map that kind of thinking on to, say, Han Solo. But the phrasing also feels very generationally specific. Rey and Finn and co. never fought a war, so ‘learning when you need to start another war’ seems like a weird thing for them to overcome. On the other hand ‘complacency’ is the kind of pervasive struggle that is relevant to all. You could track of the theme of recognizing and overcoming complacency is relevant to a lot of the characters in the film.
What I really want to accomplish is a crawl that pairs well with Maz’s monologue in the middle of her film. In my mind that’s kind of the thesis statement for the necessity of the trilogy. To paraphrase, through the ages there have always been threats like the FO, and there always will be, and the only thing you can do is not to ignore it but to fight it. A lot of people complain that TFA ‘reverses the victory’ of ROTJ, but I think there’s a pretty mature message here that no victory is forever, and you can’t forget that and let it get you down. Since the crawl is explaining why the Empire is back in the expositional sense, in my mind it should also explain why it’s back in the emotional/thematic sense as well (if it can). I don’t know if the crawl I have right now is the best way to do it. I think at one point I even had the phrase “failing to convince the New Republic that their time of peace has inevitably ended…” But anyway just trying to explain where I’m coming from, for me I think the best TFA crawl would accomplish more than just expositional filling in the blanks.
Semi-related, do you have a crawl for ROTJ?
