Gothamknight

What follows are reedit possibilities I jotted down while rewatching The Force Awakens. I’m liking where this is heading, but always welcome feedback and new ideas.

STORY SETUP:

• The Knights of Ren are the trigger: New Republic/Resistance leaders fear the rise of a counter-order of Dark Jedi – therefore enlisting Force-users becomes a top priority
• Consider a prologue that immediately reveals Ahch-To, Luke, the Knights of Ren, and possibly Snoke’s first dialogue with Ren
• Crawl: since Poe later says to Finn, “You completed my mission,” it should be mentioned in the crawl that Jakku is Poe’s last undercover stop

CUTS/ALTERATIONS TO TFA

• Look for stormtrooper stuff to use as backstory for Finn (use training clips from Kurt Russell’s Soldier?)
• Trim dialogue between Poe and the old man; don’t show him handing an object to Poe
• Cut Poe removing drive from the bag when he gives it to BB-8
• Cut Ren’s mention of the map when grilling the old man
• Cut Ren’s line to Poe: “The old man gave it you.”
• Cut interior of Rey’s Star Destroyer scavenging
• Cut Rey’s cleaning of her wares
• Cut Rey’s food prep; keep exterior AT-AT shot, cuz that’s when she discovers the droid
• Cut Ren to Poe: “I didn’t know we had the best pilot in the Resistance onboard”
• Could start with “Comfortable?” - but it might be possible to jump straight to Ren’s Force-probe of Poe’s mind
• Keep Rey and droid going into the market - but cut her near-sale of the droid
• Cut Poe’s mention of the map to Finn when they’re in the TIE fighter
• Cut Ren to Hux: “I want that map. Get it.”
• Market: Cut Finn’s mention of the map to Rey
• Trim pauses in Finn and Rey’s fleeing from the FO troops
• Cut Ren’s temper tantrum?
• Trim Rey-Finn-Han dialogue to avoid “map to Luke Skywalker”
• Cut the entire rathtar scene (Chewie’s blaster injury must likewise be omitted or obscured)
• First Snoke scene: cut his mention of Luke Skywalker and “the last Jedi”; cut “your father” - can it be trimmed so that ONLY “your father” is omitted? (This could possibly also go into the Prologue)
• Cut Han’s recounting of Luke and the Jedi; jump from Rey’s “I bypassed the compressor” to Han’s “You want my help? You’re gettin’ it”
• Cut Han’s job offer to Rey
• Cut Resistance informant: ''Alert the Resistance: their missing droid is here" (???)
• Cut Ren’s “grandfather”
• Cut Maaz’s “map to Luke Skywalker”
• Enhance Rey’s Force-vision to imply she could be Han and Leia’s daughter
• Maaz and Rey: cut Maaz’s mention of Luke’s lightsaber, because in the reedit nobody has previously talked to Rey about Luke Skywalker; cut Maaz’s mention of Rey’s parents “never coming back”; cut mention of Luke’s possible return (this whole exchange could be cut; just show Rey taking off in a panic)
• Cut outsiders’ view of Coruscant being destroyed - how could they see it?
• Cut Maaz encouraging Finn to use the lightsaber
• Cut Han’s apparent unfamiliarity with the bowcaster
• Cut Finn’s “That is one hell of a pilot!”
• Cut Ren’s “The map - you’ve seen it”
• Cut Ren’s “Forget the droid. We have what we need” (to Kylo, Rey is just another Force-user he can round up; if BB-8 contains Poe’s cataloguing of Force-users in multiple locations, then Kylo would still want the droid)
• Trim Han-Leia reunion so that it seems they’re still together (actually their whole dialogue could be cut; just end it with them looking at each other)
• Cut Resistance leaders talking about the map to Luke
• Trim R2D2 scene to avoid mention of the map
• Cut Han and Leia’s HQ dialogue? If not, severely trim it.
• Trim Rey-Ren interrogation – or cut it altogether; don’t want Ren’s helmet off; don’t want him mentioning Han as a father-figure (Can I insert Luke meditating here?)
• Cut entire second Snoke scene?
• Insert Luke meditating ahead of Rey’s escape?? - Would imply that he’s reaching out to her and in fact is the one who set her free (this way she’s not so much of a “Mary Sue”)
• Trim or cut Han and Leia’s pre-mission dialogue
• Cut Rey skulking through the base (???)
• Cut Finn to Han: “Why are doing this?” (the up-nod)
• Cut pilot’s “Watch out for ground fire”
• Closeup of Rey when Han dies
• When Ren appears in the woods, can I use the trailer clip of him lighting his saber
• Cut short Finn’s attempt to fight Ren
• Cut short Rey’s attempt to fight Ren (but this has to be timed with the destabilization of the planet): they’re about to duel but then the quake hits and they’re separated
• Cut or crop Leia’s ignoring Chewie
• Cut all discussion of locating Luke
• Last scene flows directly into first Ahch-To scene of TLJ

Anakin Starkiller said:

I’d say have it be a map to the first Jedi Temple, which Luke had been looking for when he disappeared. That way instead of the map literally being a record of Luke’s journey, the map leads to the place where the Resistance had logically deduced Luke would be.

In defense of AS, I think what he means is that a possible TFA reedit should only mention the temple, rather than have the map lead people to Luke himself.

However, if no one has any objections (and I’m very open to them), I’ll pursue the “covert agents tracking down Force-users” angle.

I think I’ve got it! Yeah, BB-8’s still carrying a map, but it’s simply a map Poe’s been using to track and catalogue Force-users. If he’s working undercover in First Order territory to find Force-users and get them to the Resistance, then BB-8 could store his data for that mission. This way I could retain mentions of a “map” in TFA, but cut mentions of Luke himself being connected to said map.

This, then, shapes a new opening crawl: something to the effect of "The New Republic seeks to spirit Force-users out of First Order territory. Covert operatve Dameron Poe finds himself on Jakku at the same time as Imperial agents in pursuit of a young woman said by locals to possess ‘magical powers.’ "

Not necessarily worded that way, but you get the drift.

Jake Skywalker said:
What I meant was that ROTS ends with the Empire established, Vader “born”, Obi-Wan in hiding, and so on. And we find the same situation at the opening of ANH: Luke and Leia are grown ups, Obi-Wan is older, but the setting is the same, that’s the natural evolution of the situation we saw at the end of ROTS.
And we should have seen something similar between the OT and the ST. Instead we discover that too much has happened between the movies and the situation at the beginning of TFA is the opposite of the one at the end of ROTJ.

I understood your point and completely agree! There’s a natural progression, plotwise - despite the interior problems of the prequels - from Episode III to EpIV. But from EpVI to VII, there isn’t.

Thanks, all of you! You guys all zeroed in the key thing: what to do with BB-8. The larger issue is that, in these films, Luke has purposely hidden away on Ahch-To; I don’t want “my” Luke behaving that way, if I can avoid it. But secondly, even if we grant that premise insofar as Luke’s character development goes - who made the map and why??? Even in TFA’s own context that doesn’t make sense.

Hmm, what if either (a) BB-8 simply escapes, with the goal of hooking back up with the Resistance and reporting on the failed mission; or (b) Poe sends BB-8 to find the local Jakku Force-user?

Hi, gang. I’m planning a TFA-TLJ mashup, but I want an alternate reason for Kylo, Poe, and Rey to all be on Jakku at the beginning. I never liked the notion of a secret map to Luke. Any suggestions? Could it be as simple as both the First Order and the Resistance actively seeking Force-users?

Thanks in advance.