Pre 1999 Yoda: Spiritual guru living in harmony with nature.
Post 1999 Yoda: Deadbeat father and military leader of a child-kidnapping cult who advocates for book burning.
All good points. I could have the crawl focus on the search for Luke and the concept that the galaxy is divided between the New Republic and First Order territories:
It is a time of darkness.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the light of the
Jedi Order, has vanished.
Searching the galaxy for
the legendary last Jedi,
a fearless New Republic
task force has uncovered
a clue to Luke’s location
on the borders of the
fallen Empire, sovereign
territory of the sinister
FIRST ORDER.
Secretly supported by a
few honorable Senators,
leaders of the fearless
RESISTANCE have sent
their best pilot to recover
this clue, unaware that
they are ensnared in a
rising shadow of evil…
This format has some issues, since it doesn’t really make sense to introduce the Resistance without first introducing what they are resisting, and I can’t do that without talking about the search for Luke taking the Resistance to the borders of First Order space. It’s maddeningly circular.
I did try to make ‘mysterious’ work for the First Order, but it just wouldn’t fit on the line very well. I also think ‘sinister’ works with both being evil and with being unknown.
Yep, the idea of Starkiller as massive overkill for Luke is something I had thought of earlier in the thread 😃
To your point about the Republic not believing that the First Order is threatening them, here’s the paragraph which separates the New Republic from the First Order’s threat:
With his memory fading
into legend throughout
the New Republic, the
evil FIRST ORDER has
risen from a stronghold
of the fallen Empire to
proclaim that those still
loyal to the ancient Jedi
shall be destroyed.
This is one of the tensions I’m constantly fighting with in the worldbuilding (or lack thereov) around TFA. I could suggest that the Republic is falling apart under attacks from the First Order, but that begs the question of why they don’t use their defensive fleet and take action against these obvious aggressors. On the other hand, if I make the Jedi central to the identity of the Republic, then I run into the problem you state where the Jedi don’t feel like long-vanished myths.
The trouble is that without a clear source of something which causes the New Republic to become hopelessly overwhelmed by chaos, they will simply look inherently weak and incompetent. And if I try to describe exactly how the Republic is failing due to the complex factors of the Jedi being absent and the First Order’s agents infiltrating the Senate and causing gridlock and doing terror attacks with surgical precision to destabilize the Republic’s power and increase support for an Imperial style of government, well then I have six paragraphs with no signs of stopping.
I do see what you mean though. The film does portray the Jedi as essentially extinct and forgotten. I just need to thread the needle somehow, pinning the Republic’s problems on the lack of the Jedi while not specifically saying that the Republic is grieving at their recent loss.
JEDIT: Perhaps something like this:
It is a time of desolation.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the light of the
Jedi Order, has vanished.
With his memory fading
into legend, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen
from a hidden stronghold
of the fallen Empire to
proclaim that anyone in
the New Republic with
faith in the ancient Jedi
shall be destroyed.
Appalled by this decree,
a few faithful Senators
have secretly lent their
support to the mission
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
One more slight update. I put the previous version to music and realized that there is a dramatic musical sting which happens at the fourth and sixth lines of the second paragraph. To capitalize on this I shifted the reveal of the First Order and its fortress down a line.
It is a time of desolation.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
With the New Republic
overwhelmed by chaos
and despair, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen
from the shadows of a
hidden Imperial fortress
to proclaim that anyone
who seeks the lost Jedi
shall be destroyed.
Appalled by this decree,
a few faithful Senators
have secretly lent their
support to the mission
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
A good effort, however I have to keep in mind the restraints of word length and how they will fit into the crawl dimensions.
Taking another crack at it, I managed to get ‘hidden’ in there, and also moved the Republic so that the sentence reads more clearly:
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
With the New Republic
in turmoil, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen
from the shadows of a
hidden Imperial fortress
to proclaim that anyone
who dares to search for
the missing Jedi shall be
destroyed.
Appalled by this decree,
a few faithful Senators
have secretly lent their
support to the mission
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
And another not-so-slight edit to the crawl, because why not 😉
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
In Luke’s absence, the
evil FIRST ORDER has
risen from a stronghold
of the fallen Empire to
declare throughout the
wretched New Republic
that anyone seeking the
Jedi’s return shall face
obliteration.
Appalled by this decree,
a few faithful Senators
have secretly lent their
support to the mission
of a brave RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
This has some vocabulary, but hopefully it’s not too much. The intention is to give the First Order a plan that doesn’t contradict canon or the film yet also makes them maximally threatening. The idea of them having a vendetta against people who want Luke back fits the film since all three of their major attacks occur on those in support of the Jedi.
The relationship of the New Republic to the Resistance also threads the needle between keeping the Senate in a minor role and explaining why they are not taking public action against the First Order, namely that the First Order has presumably only threatened violence against pro-Jedi factions before the start of the film and not directly attacked the Republic itself. The final paragraph also lends some tragedy to the Republic.
The only thing I wish were included in this crawl was a reference to the Imperial base being hidden, but that can be presumed.
Well that’s disappointing.
RL, that’s so cool. Showing the Ep 7 edit to a big group of friends and family was pretty great, but I expect it’s something else to have someone hear about a project you worked on independently. Very exciting!
If the Empire was trying to trick a group of people into being prisoners for life, I imagine that pretending to release them only to give them a new sentence would only work once. Maybe the prisoners are ‘released’ only to be transported to the neighboring prison building for the remainder of their life sentences, and one prisoner was accidentally placed back in the same building in a different level, at which point the game was up.
But wouldn’t they just be like “…hey I was supposed to be released!” to their new team, and then we end up with the same problem?
I’m imagining that there are two prison systems, one for prisoners who believe that they are working out a temporary sentence and one for prisoners who know that they are in for life. Whenever prisoners complete their sentence in the first system they are transferred to the second system (perhaps in a different building altogether) and so everyone there knows that they have been lied to and they are in for life.
This gets screwed up if someone who was supposed to be released is placed back into the first prison system instead of going to the second, which may be what has happened with the prisoner on Level 2.
If the Empire was trying to trick a group of people into being prisoners for life, I imagine that pretending to release them only to give them a new sentence would only work once. Maybe the prisoners are ‘released’ only to be transported to the neighboring prison building for the remainder of their life sentences, and one prisoner was accidentally placed back in the same building in a different level, at which point the game was up.
Leia as Luke’s sister is already convoluted and unnecessary, but there’s nothing to be done about that unless you’re willing to remove a significant aspect of ROTJ. All this solution does is remove the convenient universe-shrinkage and replace it with something a bit more mystical. I agree that it’s not perfect, but what more could be done?
I assume the title should say ‘before the prequels were made’, and if so, then yes, I did. An amphibious creature seems at home in a marsh. That is not to say that he never left Dagobah, but I still can’t see a nature-loving person like Yoda feeling at home on Coruscant or in charge of the entire Jedi Order.
Neither Vader nor the Emperor seem to even suspect that Yoda had a hand in training Luke, so it feels very much like Yoda was solidly in retirement for hundreds of years before the events of the prequels, and his training Obi-wan was probably a quiet, spiritual affair much like Luke being drawn to Dagobah in the OT. I imagine a lot of the Jedi Masters, which were solely teachers before the prequel retcons, lived quiet secluded lives on worlds of their choosing, living in harmony with their creatures and people and in that way keeping the peace across the galaxy. Jedi Knights on the other hand were specifically warriors who used their Force abilities to serve the Old Republic, and as such would have to find training from other Knights or from Masters whom they could convince to train such dangerous, headstrong youth.
Perhaps Vader always intended to betray the Emperor, and if he had successfully frozen Luke he would have taken him to another location where he could be unfrozen and convinced to join him before seeing the Emperor.
Alternately, Vader could have initially intended to turn Luke over to the Emperor, but changes his mind when Luke escapes the trap and he sees how strong Luke has become.
This latest episode felt very THX1138, which was cool. Feels like something a younger Lucas would have written.
Glad to hear, Hal. The same is true for me, learning Java for a change. It’s good to do new things.
As much as I would like it, there has never been a search function. Your best bet to find something is to use a search engine with Originaltrilogy in the terms, or use one of the indexes stickied to the top of the subforums if you want to browse fanedits, for example.
I saw a post somewhere recently that basically said “Why do people who hate Star Wars spend so much time focusing on it and talking about it? Why don’t they focus on something that they actually like and makes them happy?”
And that got me thinking. Why do I focus on Star Wars? I have a love-hate relationship with Star Wars as a franchise. The one thing I don’t feel about Star Wars is indifference. When Star Wars is at its best, it’s something that’s deeply entertaining and engaging for me. When Star Wars is at its worst, I can’t stand it. There’s no other franchise where I have both positive and negative reactions to it so strongly.
I still want Star Wars to be good. And there is still some good Star Wars stuff being made. But it’s like trying to admire the beautiful work done on a garden while the house is on fire, and the homeowners insist that everything is fine.
Star Wars is just something that I can’t fully let go of. It does bring me happiness, still.
Feel much the same way. When I think too much about the past 23+ years, that delicate balance tips more towards hate. Disassociating from all that crap, effectively acting as if the SW saga ended with the Hand of Thrawn duology, helps keep the flame alive.
Suppose The Princess Bride was such a financial success that they decided that this would be a franchise with new installments coming out every year, new books and games being produced several times a year, and merchandise and advertising being pumped out around the clock forever.
The only difference between the Princess Bride franchise and the Star Wars franchise is that they managed to make two classic movies back-to-back with Star Wars and this made everyone assume that such a level of quality could actually be achieved on a continuous basis instead of George Lucas being at the center of a once-in-a-lifetime confluence of talent and opportunity that allowed for lightning to strike twice.
Ever since then people have been wistfully looking back to those first films and wondering how everything after it seems to suck, but it’s just because the first two films managed to set expectations at a level which was unsustainable for a continuing franchise. Fans don’t hate Star Wars, they’re just disappointed with inevitable mediocrity compared to prior greatness. Fans of the Princess Bride Cinematic Universe would have exactly the same reaction if such a thing were to exist.
You could change Yoda’s dialogue in ESB:
“That boy was our only hope.”
“No…he will choose another.”
In this way, when Luke is hanging from Cloud City at the end of the film, he reaches out to Leia and thus ‘chooses’ her to be custodian of his destiny if he should fail.
Then the dialogue for ROTJ would need to change:
“Luke…there is another…” (Cut out the word Skywalker)
Then when Luke speaks with Obi-wan, remove references to Leia being his sister:
“You were our only hope.”
“Yoda spoke of another.”
“The other he spoke of is your twin…your sister in the Force.”
“Leia. Leia’s my sister.”
“Your insight serves you well. Bury your feelings deep down, Luke. They do you credit, but they could be made to serve the Emperor.”
I imagine Obi-wan is used to stretching language to convey a point, and him saying that Leia is akin to a sister to Luke is in keeping with this. Luke may or may not understand that Leia is not his literal sister, but the later scene with Luke telling Leia that she is his literal sister could remain, as Luke continuing Obi-wan’s mystical language or by simply misinterpreting the meaning. The later canonicity of Leia as Luke’s sister would make sense based on this, and feels in keeping with the mythological nature of Star Wars to have a spiritual character like Luke to treat the mysterious machinations of the Force as literally analogous to biological systems.
The change fixes the issue that Yoda both knows about Leia as Luke’s sister and is willing to let her die in ESB, and Obi-wan’s confusion as to whether there is one or two last hopes. With Luke racing off to face Vader unprepared, Yoda is saying that the Force will choose another champion, and Luke will be the instrument of this choice. It also makes clear that Vader could never have sensed Leia’s Force ability in ANH since she isn’t chosen until ESB. Finally and perhaps most importantly, it keeps the universe from shrinking to nothingness in ROTJ as this new hope could only be someone Luke knows.
Love to hear your perspective, Nev! Speaking of the characters’ ways of speaking, I recall reading an interview regarding Rings of Power that basically claimed that the writers attempted to write dialogue for each race in distinctive meters. To be honest I haven’t been able to tell if that translated into the final product. Have you guys noticed anything like that?
I haven’t picked up on if elves speak in a different meter than dwarves, no, though it could well be true. I mostly just notice when the characters try to speak with that stilted profundity which falls flat for me as much as it works.
Now that Season One has ended, I think Poppasketti can take a bow 😉
Overall thoughts about the season: I liked it. Didn’t love it, but the effort is there and I appreciate parts of every storyline. I’ll certainly tune in for season two and see what Sauron is up to with his new volcano.
Thanks y’all!
One of the changes I have made for V2 is to alter the Starkiller Destruction finale music to better fit the tone of this darker edit. Whereas before the music went from the bombastic Starkiller Destruction to the upbeat D’qar base return, now the music culminates in a sustained note and the return to base is left silent. In making this change, I was also able to salvage the shot of the ships going to Hyperspace, and I think the scene now has a sense of finality where the audience is allowed to take a breath before the next scene begins.
https://mega.nz/file/OVkzQKgK#cxHEBck-qP37CXbeerA8jy9-Utjyo6FZeYeYGzJ4aWg
And of course, the sound effects for this entire section of the film have been practically rebuilt from scratch.
I haven’t done work on any edit for a while now, primarily because money is tight and Adobe’s editing suites cost a bit more than I’m willing to spend right now. I’m determined to continue work at some point, but until then it would be helpful to view my edits as on hiatus.
As to your question about the eyes, I had done a whole lot of work on a V2 for a few months and I did end up making the eyes more pronounced, as well as going through the film and fixing a laundry list of sound and visual issues. As noted before, I discovered that a lot of my music and sound effects were stuck on a mono track so I liberated them to become part of the surround mix, and I’ve already done work on several new sequences for version 2. It’s already a lot more polished than V1.
Anyway, that’s a lot of sugar on top of what I’m sure is disappointing news, but rest assured I will not let this project go quietly into the night!
Perfectly said.