NeverarGreat

Good point on ‘rebuild’.

And yes, I agree that the Republic supporting the Resistance has always been a thorn in our side, even if it’s necessary for Hux’s plan to make sense.

Because we need the Republic in there somehow, maybe if we frame the conflict in terms of the Senate needing the Jedi to function, whether to inspire public support or to serve some more technical leadership role, it can solve this issue.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, sworn
to rebuild the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

With the Jedi now facing
extinction, agents of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Unable to end this crisis
without the heroic Jedi,
the Senate has secretly
authorized the pilots of
a brave RESISTANCE to
find Luke Skywalker and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

I didn’t like using ‘Jedi’ twice in the final paragraph, so I had to take out ‘the last Jedi’. This meant changing something else to get the idea across that the Jedi are on the verge of extinction, and that meant changing ‘soldiers’ back to ‘agents’ for word length purposes. Eh, I think agents flows better anyway.

Or perhaps we should have something entirely different for the final paragraph:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, sworn
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Across this dark expanse,
only one valiant militia
stands in RESISTANCE,
its daring pilots secretly
entrusted by the Republic
to find the last Jedi and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

Well, it would be wrong to remove the commas from the first paragraph, since they are actually required.

Thinking more, the reason it feels like there’s a need for commas is probably due to an over-complication of the clause. I think it would help matters to avoid mention of leaders in the Republic, since that’s getting too into the weeds. The important point is that the Republic is helping the Resistance, however fraught that help actually is. On the other hand, it feels like I need more specificity when referring to the New Republic, so I could say that it is armed by the Republic Starfleet, which is basically true. Poe was originally from there, and their ships are undoubtedly New Republic military in origin. It also gives a clear hint as to how it’s so obvious to the First Order that the New Republic is involved - they find Poe’s shiny New Republic X-wing on Jakku. Referencing the starfleet also helps to prime expectation for talk of pilots.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, sworn
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Rallying against this evil,
a valiant RESISTANCE
armed in secret by the
New Republic Starfleet
has sent its daring pilots
to find the last Jedi and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

I’ve changed it to ‘in’, but either way works for me.

Extra commas may be a bit more legible than no commas, but either way is grammatically correct I think, though I was trying to avoid them, however, because I wanted to avoid the dreaded ‘excess comma disease’ that tends to affect my writing, as this sentence so tediously demonstrates.

I’m not convinced that a nine line final paragraph is needed.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, sworn
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Against this rising threat,
a daring RESISTANCE
secretly aided by leaders
in the New Republic has
sent its greatest pilots
to find the last Jedi and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

JEDIT: ‘of’ is now ‘in’.

PM Sent.

https://i.imgur.com/pHoXOp2.jpeg

Just saw a quote on Imgur which is just as applicable to Fanedits:

“Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of by the folk.”

-Henry Jenkins, Director of Media Studies at MIT, 1997.

PM Sent.

PM Sent.

NeverarGreat said:

Okay, I took the Despecialized ending from here and threw the audio into a MIDI editor and added some orchestra and brass elements to the Force Ghost section. Nothing huge, and it’s pretty rough since I didn’t know anything about MIDI editing before today.

Here’s the result.

I did some more work on embiggening the orchestra at the end of ROTJ, and I’m quite pleased with it.

Now Lando is clapping to a drumbeat that we can hear!

Here is the original music for easy comparison. My changes start with Luke seeing the Force Ghosts.

As far as the crawl goes, I think everyone was pretty happy with it a few days ago, apart from some wording tweaks, so I don’t think big changes are necessary. Just changing ‘striving’ and adding that the Republic has acted in secret are enough:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, sworn
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
a militia armed in secret
by the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search of
the last Jedi, seeking to
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

Master Lawdog said:

Does anyone here have the high quality 1080p clip where Rey daydreams of the island while sitting in the desert with the Rebel helmet on? I can’t find it anywhere.

Check your PMs.

Okay, I know we said we were done here but I’m gonna put down one final alternate:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
an intrepid militia armed
by the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search of
the last Jedi, seeking to
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

The only real difference is in changing ‘loyal to the New Republic’ to ‘armed by the New Republic’. I keep coming back to this as the better option for a few reasons.

The first and strongest is that establishing that the New Republic has indeed supported the Resistance is essential to Hux’s plan. Without a clear understanding that the Resistance is reliant on the New Republic, Hux’s reasoning for destroying the Republic falls apart. This is probably why the theatrical crawl established the support between the two organizations.

The second reason is that now that the Republic is merely ‘fragile’ and the subjugated star systems are not ‘beyond the reach of the New Republic Starfleet’, it feels almost necessary that the Republic is involved in protecting these systems in any way it can, short of sending its entire fleet.

The third reason for this change is that it leads to a stronger flow for the paragraph by allowing for the Resistance to be understood as an extension of New Republic power, regardless of its independent leadership. Keep in mind that while the deleted scene does give the impression that the Resistance has little support in the Senate, Leia is specifically asking them to take direct action against the First Order, which is a very different demand than merely asking them for a few X-wings to help find Luke. It is also possible that the situation between the Senate and the Resistance has deteriorated since arming the militia.

Anyway, those are my arguments 😃

losthead said:

After each crawl, we still pan down through space, just to land on the next Star Wars logo, and the crawl begins anew

My current document contains over 400 permutations of the TFA crawl, so that would result in a 20 hour movie of nothing but slightly varying crawls, lol.

Anyway, yeah I think the crawl is basically there, since we’re now nitpicking very slight word choices. Funny enough, a few of my recent crawls did have ‘to claim’ but I just didn’t post those for some reason.

I do like ‘the light of hope’ instead of ‘a light of hope’, just think it rolls off the brain a bit easier.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
to claim supremacy over
all star systems beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
a courageous militia loyal
to the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search of
the last Jedi, seeking to
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

I’m okay with saying that the First Order has risen from a single base, since that is all that we see in the film. Granted they have more, but they’re not important for this particular story. I also want to include the base because the Starkiller needs some reference in the crawl so that it doesn’t come out of nowhere later on.

I do get that it is weird that the First Order would only start conquering things after Luke went away and from the one base, so I can change the wording to suggest that they are merely announcing their supremacy in this area, which leaves the actual conquering of the systems beyond the Republic to the imagination. For example, one can imagine that they have been de-facto in control of these territories for decades, only deciding to formally announce their control after Luke disappeared.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress
and claimed supremacy
over every world beyond
the fragile New Republic.

Desperate to save these
beleaguered planets, an
armed RESISTANCE loyal
to the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search of
the last Jedi, seeking to
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

I do agree with the word choices y’all suggest, so some of those shall go in.

Thinking about it, ‘fledgling’ works to describe the Resistance quite well, so if that goes in the third paragraph it would feel weird to have ‘fragile’ describe the Republic, since the words are similar. Also, it may be a good idea to actually have the Republic aid the Resistance in some undisclosed way so the First Order has a reason to go after them, and if that is established then it makes sense that the Republic isn’t frail or fragile, just consumed with its own matters. So bringing back the ‘Starfleet’ idea works to avoid any descriptor of the Republic like in the original crawl, and is a nod to the ESB crawl.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, soldiers of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress to
conquer isolated worlds
beyond the reach of the
New Republic Starfleet.

Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
a fledgling militia aided
by the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search of
the last Jedi, vowing to
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

I don’t know about pacifistic, since that may just confuse matters. The still do have a Starfleet after all. I think it’s a tossup right now between fledgling and fragile, since both are technically correct and paint it in a state of weakness.

The militia idea is a good one, though.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of darkness.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, warriors of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress to
conquer isolated worlds
beyond the reach of the
fledgling New Republic.

Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
a fearless militia loyal to
the New Republic has
sent its most daring pilot
to find the last Jedi and
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars….

Nice thoughts everyone! It gave me a lot to think about, which led to more writing, and you know how it goes.

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of darkness.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to reforge the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, warriors of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress to
conquer isolated worlds
beyond the reach of the
fragile New Republic.

Desperate to unite these
planets in RESISTANCE,
a rebel task force loyal
to the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search
of the last Jedi, sworn to
restore the light of hope
to the darkening stars…

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of darkness.
Luke Skywalker, sworn to
rekindle the light of the
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, warriors of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress to
conquer isolated worlds
beyond the reach of the
fragile New Republic.

Amidst this oppression, a
brave RESISTANCE loyal
to the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search of
the last Jedi, guardian of
the mystical force that can
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…

“Luke Skywalker has vanished” is not my favorite choice for a first line for two reasons.

The first is because it really doesn’t fit on one line without squishing the letters together. Take a look at the theatrical version and note how many lines, not just this one, are really crushed down to fit, and I’d prefer to avoid these issues if possible.

The second reason is that while it works for a returning audience, to someone who didn’t grow up with the OT and is completely new to the world, this line doesn’t communicate much of anything. You’d need a big paragraph explaining that he is a Jedi, why this is important, and what the term ‘Jedi’ actually means. Granted we try to do this anyway, but I think it’s more straightforward to lead with the state of the galaxy and then explain why it’s like this, which is what the ANH crawl did so well, and one reason why it didn’t bother to introduce terms like ‘Jedi’ until later in the film.

Thanks for all the comments, everyone. I do read them all, even if I don’t respond for…weeks? Yikes. Ah well. There just isn’t any news to report.

PsyGemini, I did read your comments and thank you for them! Some issues are things that I can’t change about the original, but you bring up good points, and I may take out the other ‘forgive me’ line to bring it back to V1.

It seems there’s some weirdness with ‘Starfleet’ in the crawl. I’m fine with that wording because it’s how it appears in the ESB crawl, but it does give power and presence to an aspect of the New Republic we never see, so it doesn’t need to be there.

Here’s another crawl, per tradition:

EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS

It is a time of darkness.
Luke Skywalker, sworn to
rekindle the light of the
Jedi Order, has vanished.

Emboldened by the Jedi’s
absence, warriors of the
evil FIRST ORDER have
risen from the shadows
of an Imperial fortress to
subjugate distant worlds
beyond the reach of the
fragile New Republic.

To counter this threat, a
brave RESISTANCE loyal
to the New Republic has
sent its pilots in search of
the last Jedi, hero of the
legendary force that can
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…

“For those who remember…for those who will never forget…and for a whole new generation to experience Hal9000 for the very first time…”

The point’s not that it isn’t scientifically accurate, but that it feels off to me, even before consciously thinking about why.

Note how even in the original shot, the explosion follows the ship’s movement against the stars.

Looking at other ship explosions in the trilogy, it looks like whenever a ship is partially destroyed it maintains momentum, but if it is totally destroyed the debris cloud quickly slows down relative to other objects as it would in atmosphere. However, the explosion often does travel quite a bit in the ship’s original direction, and it’s often quite a brief flash of light, at least in Empire and Jedi.

All this to say that a sustained TIE explosion that remains mostly in place relative to the shot feels off to me, based both on physics and the style of the OT.