I’m not terribly familiar with TROS, but would it be possible to have Rey leave for the obstacle course and right after that have Leia collapse, as if she wanted to spare Rey the knowledge of her illness? Then we would view the entire course as build up to an inevitable reveal.
On an unrelated note, I was looking back over the discarded ending for this edit which was once to be part of its own edit, and realized that it may be fairly straightforward to include some of that after all. In particular, I could have the Resistance base transition to night and use my custom nighttime shot of the base. Everything else could be the same as it is in the current version, just retaining the color grading of the droid and map scenes to take place at night. I’d likely drop the explicit concept of Rey fixing R2 while keeping a hint of it with her staff in the background of the shot while R2 wakes up.
So what do you think? Would this be an upgrade to the edit or just a change too many?
I don’t know about you guys, but this trailer has already given us the best Star Wars material in years.
Oh man, Eddie having a voice cameo makes this edit even better!! Love it.
I wonder if you could go with a line like this:
“General, the Senate has responded. They’re mobilizing the fleet. Will they reach us in time?”
I kind of like this line because it gets the same idea across, but it might help paint this picture of the fleet gathering over Hosnian Prime, getting ready to send it to Starkiller Base, but it reminds the audience that both the Senate and a huge chunk of the navy is destroyed. We could see some ships jump to hyperspace before the planet is destroyed perhaps.
And Octorox, I think that idea can still get across because we see that the New Republic being slow to action causes their destruction. Yes, they finally came to the right decision, but only after too much debate.
Also Nev, I’m assuming you’ll play around with covering Leia’s mouth movement before her trimmed line, “They haven’t got a chance.” Is that correct?
Glad you like it, RL! I’m honestly shocked at how quickly this has come together with Eddie’s help.
I don’t want to make the line too long, as there’s a limited amount of space for it in the scene, which is why I was trying to shorten it to two sentences. But if Eddie wishes, he could do a variety of takes and we’ll see what works.
And yes, I will be fixing the weird mouth movements, probably along with the eventual timecode removal.
That’s a fair assessment, Octorox. Perhaps something like this:
“General, the Senate has voted to send reinforcements. Will they reach us in time?”
“They haven’t got a chance.”
This way it’s up to the viewer to determine how many ships will be sent (though I like the idea that the ships at the beginning of TLJ are the ones that made it).
In any case, here’s the updated scene with Eddie’s excellent line reading and Threepio’s new line, as well as some more audio work. I think it’s starting to look like a real scene!
Thanks Eddie! Your voice is great! Not an exact match to the actor (that would of course be impossible) which means all his lines would probably need replacing, but that strikes me as an opportunity…
…because the character only has one other line in the film that I can see, which is in the Resistance Briefing scene where he says ‘A laser cannon.’ In reading the general Sequel fanedit ideas thread, there was the idea that the Starkiller was only a single-use weapon, so it would probably be fairly simple to change his line to ‘A single use laser cannon’ or ‘a one-use laser cannon’, where he says the first part off-screen.
As for the invented scene, Here’s a few ideas for alternate dialogue which may be better:
“General, the Senate has responded and is scrambling ships. Will they reach us in time?”
“They haven’t got a chance.”
or
“General, the Senate has voted to scramble the fleet. Will it reach us in time?”
“They haven’t got a chance.”
Well, I believe I’ve found a solution to the Senate inaction. It uses deleted footage and would require a voice-over, but I’m sure some excellent volunteer could manage it since it is a standard male Resistance officer and his mouth is out of frame for most of the shot. All other hurdles such as timecode removal are old hat at this point, so it would just take a bit more work.
Here’s the mockup if anyone wants to take a gander. I’m quite proud of the scene flow and placement, personally.
JEDIT: The end of the scene felt a bit abrupt, so I lengthened it with the shot of Threepio after Leia’s pronouncement with his line ‘Oh my, this is a catastrophe!’ I suppose it could just as easily be changed to ‘Without the Republic fleet we’re doomed!’. That’s probably the best place for that line, with the catastrophe line going in the Resistance briefing scene.
In rewatching the Gungan city scenes, the real draw of the location is the location itself rather than the characters or dialogue. So how about this sequence:
-Beginning of film plays out normally, until the Jedi run into Jar Jar.
-Cut lines about Jar Jar being banished. He just leads them to the city. Cut before the captain confronts Jar Jar.
-Droid invasion of the capital and the capture of the queen.
-Bongo bursts from the underwater city with our three heroes. Splice this scene with the scene of emerging from the water at Naboo, cutting whatever fishy shenanigans you wish as well as dialogue concerning banishment.
This allows for the introduction of the pretty Gungan city with none of the stilted dialogue and bypasses the silliness of going through the planet core. Jar Jar’s life debt is still established so it is expected for him to hang around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yh_6_zItPU
Neat.
I’ve never liked it when prequel edits try to make Palpatine being Sidious less obvious. I feel like that’s actually something that makes the prequel trilogy really work. It’s the whole Hitchcock “tension is better then surprise” kinda thing. It’s more thrilling to see the villain being there working behind the scenes the whole time and the characters not suspecting anything. It allows the audience to admire Palpatine for his planning, manipulation and two-faced nature. I’d rather have more character development for Palpatine then a surprise.
There’s not really any way Lucas could’ve done it without it being obvious anyway. It’s the same actor. He’s the old guy who becomes Chancellor. Of course it’s the Emperor. Lucas isn’t JJ Abrams, he doesn’t try to make everything into a cheap surprise. So he chose to ring out the tension and show Ian McDiarmid’s strength as an actor.
The prequels are really built around the idea that the audience is familiar with the fates of its characters already, so it does feel a bit silly to mask them for surprise value.
I guess I just want there to be some way to allow the Republic to do something instead of being useless and then dying. Even Hal decided against using my dialogue discussing the Hosnian system because it would draw attention to the fact that the Republic seems to not even bother evacuating. I feel like after the Resistance learns of the Starkiller, there has to be some system in place even in a gridlocked Senate to act against its impending destruction.
Regardless of if there is dialogue about the Republic response, it might be neat to add the ships from TLJ into the final D’kar planet shot for continuity purposes.
I’ve written so many versions of ‘The Senate is desperate to avoid war’ that I’ve lost count, and none of those versions even get out of the word document phase. It’s a shame since that is probably the best explanation as to why the Republic fails to act.
One problem here that is largely self-inflicted is the big restructure and its effect on the setup. In the original film, the Republic was destroyed in a surprise attack before any of our heroes knew about the Starkiller. In this version, however, not only must we explain why the Republic doesn’t act against the vague threat of the First Order, but we must also contrive some explanation for why they are unable or unwilling to act even in the face of their own impending destruction once the Resistance learns of the Starkiller.
In Restructured, it is only known that the Starkiller is charging, not what its target may be. I changed this to include reference to the Hosnian System, but that does add the issue of why the Republic can’t or won’t act. Of course, even in Restructured the target of the Starkiller would have been obvious, but saying it does add that bit of expectation for the Republic to respond in some way.
In an ideal world, I would have some dialogue indicating that the Republic is sending ships in support of the Resistance attack but show that it is too late for them to arrive in time. Then the crawl for TLJ would indicate that the Raddus and its support ships were those intended for this operation, and now exist as the last remnant of the Republic fleet. The bombers which fail in space combat may have actually won the day against the Starkiller.
JEDIT: I could change the dialogue from the scene where Leia is updated about the attack:
“General, are you seeing this?”
(Subtitled) “The Senate has responded! They are sending reinforcements.”
“But their weapon will be ready to fire in ten minutes! It would take a miracle to save us now.”
I saw Everything Everywhere All At Once in theaters over the weekend, and it was absolutely fantastic. It’s basically Parasite meets The Matrix meets a tab of LSD, with a surprisingly heartwarming message framed by exhilarating action and hilarious comedy. Definitely the best movie of the 2020s so far, and possibly one of the best movies of the 21st century.
I just came back from seeing this and I gotta say that though it was good, I didn’t love it. My girlfriend described it as three films in one and I agree, but the big sci-fi frame tale aspect gets basically dropped halfway through and that was the part that most interested me. Still super inventive action and some laugh out loud comedy. Would recommend, just don’t expect perfection.
BTW, I have updated the crawl above to discuss a civilian fleet angle.
But yes, I’m definitely belaboring the crawl, though I agree with you Sherlock about the Republic being flawed and this being a factor in the return of Imperial sympathies. All of your points are correct.
And yet, if I were to use such a crawl that writes off the Republic and the Senate as a lost cause it would sap almost all tragedy from the Republic’s destruction. More than that, it would be a betrayal of that which our heroes fought and died for over the course of thirty years.
But democracy is imperfect, it is riven with chaos and compromise, constrained by its constitutions and treaties and slow to go to war. These are not failings; these are strengths. If the reason for a return to fascism is that most of the galaxy prefers it over democracy, then there was never any hope for a Republic.
My point, if I have one, is that if the Republic is to fail, it should fail because it is too honorable, too trusting, too idealistic. It should fail due to no fault of its own, but rather because its enemies are unconstrained by honor, and it trusted the Resistance to protect it from just such treachery. Only in this way could the Republic remain sympathetic.
I don’t have a specific crawl in mind for this other than the prior one, just a feeling.
I agree that a peace offering is too much for the crawl.
And as for the two offered revisions, neither explains the political situation sufficiently. Remember that the primary issue with my v1 crawl is that it suggests that the entire Senate has supported the Resistance which isn’t at all what the film implies.
JEDIT: Here’s an idea, one that might actually work not just for this film but for the entire trilogy:
The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
With the New Republic
gathering civilian ships
to search for the missing
Jedi, emissaries of the
IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER
have warned the Senate
that a united starfleet
would be considered an
act of war.
Refusing to fully abandon
their mission, a few
rebellious senators have
secretly called upon a
daring RESISTANCE to
find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
Here we have the answer to a lot of questions in the film. Why doesn’t the New Republic use their fleet to strike back against the First Order? They don’t have a united starfleet. Why don’t they have a united starfleet? It’s a stipulation of the treaty with the Imperial remnant, which is actually part of the lore. This way, the small numbers of ships throughout the film makes sense as a consistent feature of the galaxy post-ROTJ.
This framing also has payoff in TROS with the arrival of the massive civilian fleet. If it was already being assembled by the Republic before its fall, then it doesn’t come out of nowhere.
I do! It’s a good reminder not to lose sight of the basics like the First Order’s villainy. Though I wonder if there could be a way to work in their menace without having them outright attack the Republic, as well as offering this peace. In the film Poe looks astonished at the hangar which could mean that they are so reclusive that almost nobody in the Republic knows about them.
I will think on this further.
JEDIT: Thinking about it, it makes sense to capitalize on the idea that the First Order are established enemies of the Republic but I don’t think we need to specify acts of aggression, since it’s not felt anywhere else in the movie (no ruins from First Order attacks, for example), and people generally seem pretty chill about the First Order in general and consider it a ‘there’ problem not a ‘here’ one.
I also feel like the opening attack can work with the prior insistence of them being established enemies of the Republic as well as some language at the end of the third paragraph:
The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, failing in
his quest to restore the
Jedi Order, has vanished.
In his absence, enemies
of the New Republic have
returned from exile as the
IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER
bearing an astonishing
offer of peace, requiring
only that the noble Jedi
shall forever be declared
extinct.
With the Senate divided,
a few rebellious leaders
have secretly called upon
a daring RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi
and unmask the Imperial
shadow now spreading
across the stars…
I’m still not entirely happy with the final paragraph, since the movie resists all efforts to simplify the political situation. The deleted scene with Leia implies that the Senate at large will refuse to even listen to her, which means that the Senate at large doesn’t view the First Order as a threat. There’s also the odd language Hux uses in his speech about the New Republic ‘lying to the galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance’. It strikes me that Hux feels personally betrayed in some way by the Republic, even though he views the two governments to be at war. Granted it could all be fascistic propaganda, but it would be nice for it to mean something to the story beyond fiery words.
So I got to thinking, what if the First Order made a specific offer to the New Republic?
The galaxy is in crisis.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Order, has vanished.
In his absence, agents
bearing the mark of the
IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER
have emerged from exile
seeking to rejoin the
peaceful New Republic
on the condition that the
ancient Jedi be declared
extinct.
Suspicious of this peace
offering, members of the
bitterly divided Senate
have secretly called upon
a daring RESISTANCE
to discover whether the
last Jedi still lives amid
the darkening stars…
I don’t know if I’ll go in this direction, but it’s a rather compelling take.
For one, it explains why the First Order is so intent on destroying Luke - he would see through their deception immediately and would have the popularity and power to oppose them. And by so publicly claiming the Jedi to be extinct, Luke has become their greatest potential PR liability, adding more power to his reappearance in TLJ.
It also explains the First Order’s original plan, which would have been to take over the Republic from the inside (as described in the novels). When the Resistance gets in the way they change the plan to destroying the Hosnian System and taking over in the ensuing chaos.
The Starkiller weapon is almost necessary in the context of this story framing, since the First Order merely having a large fleet and army wouldn’t necessarily be an insurmountable issue to joining the Republic, but the existence of a superweapon instantly and completely shows them for the villains they are.
This framing also explains the change from the Empire to the First Order, since the organization is clearly trying (and failing) to put on a different facade. The fact that their ships and troops look the same but different works thematically rather than it coming across as entirely lazy.
Finally, the rather odd worldbuilding decision to create a galaxy free of the Jedi makes sense here since it’s a necessary condition for this setup. Rey viewing Luke and the Jedi as a myth is thematically important, as is the film’s interest in rediscovering their power.
Well, you’ve convinced me, y’all 😃
They’re all good crawls, y’all. It’s just that there are a ton of restraints on the crawl that need to be taken into consideration, or rather, things that I feel are important to a nice-looking crawl.
For example, there are only about 25 characters (including spaces) to work with on each line. ‘Jedi Knights, has vanished.’ is 27 characters, but that’s pushing it.
The number of lines is also important for the timing of the crawl to sync up with the music. I’ve found that a 4 line, 9 line, 8 line crawl is optimal.
So the thing is, these crawls while good largely won’t work with my constraints. that’s what makes it so challenging, as flowing sentences often become unworkable due to word length.
JEDIT: Here’s what I’m working with right now:
It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Knights, has vanished.
In his absence, legions
of brutal warriors under
the command of the
IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER
have emerged from a
mysterious hidden base
to terrorize star systems
throughout the peaceful
New Republic.
Overwhelmed by chaos,
several members of the
bitterly divided Senate
have secretly called upon
a daring RESISTANCE
to find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
Well Tzetzo, it’s a well-articulated introduction but it’s too wordy for an actual crawl. As a point of comparison, the original crawl to the film was 88 words and I’m trying to keep my crawl down to the low to mid 80’s. So 124 words is rather impossible.
Yeah, unless Shaw was replaced with Hayden in both of his scenes, it wouldn’t make sense to me. Heck, I would still prefer Shaw even if that happened.
Nice one! Much to consider.
JEDIT: So having considered it, though it’s nice to have the Imperial fortress before the First Order, it reintroduces that awkward sentence construction that I’ve tried hard to avoid this time.
I worked a bit more on the second paragraph and came up with this:
In Skywalker’s absence,
warriors raised in exile
under the cruelty of the
IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER
have emerged from their
fearsome hidden fortress
to terrorize star systems
throughout the peaceful
New Republic.
This puts the responsibility for malevolence on the First Order rather than the soldiers, and also works in the idea that the Empire was actually exiled after their defeat.
Yeah, even just looking at it I may change ‘IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER’ to ‘sinister FIRST ORDER’ and ‘barbaric hidden fortress’ to ‘hidden Imperial fortress’, which would imply that the Starkiller was first an Imperial project. It’s a shame because I like the whole line taken up by that title, but it may be clearer the other way…
JEDIT: This crawl also threads the needle of the fortress being important to the story without stating that it is a superweapon, which would work for any edit which removes that aspect of the story 😉
So I’ve been sitting with the updated crawl for a while, but it just feels a bit off compared to the structure of the first. I really like going from Luke’s disappearance in the first paragraph to the First Order in the second and the Resistance in the third, that way there’s no splitting of the First Order between the first and third paragraphs. In light of this, here’s the new crawl:
It is a time of despair.
Luke Skywalker, striving
to restore the legendary
Jedi Knights, has vanished.
In Skywalker’s absence,
malevolent forces raised
under the banner of the
IMPERIAL FIRST ORDER
have emerged from their
barbaric hidden fortress
to terrorize star systems
throughout the peaceful
New Republic.
With the Republic falling
into chaos and division,
a few brave senators have
secretly called upon a
daring RESISTANCE to
find the last Jedi and
restore peace and justice
to the darkening stars…
I believe this fixes the two biggest issues people took with the first crawl, namely the run-on sentence in the second paragraph and the inaccurate role of the Republic in the story.
Another adjustment was changing ‘Jedi Order’ to ‘Jedi Knights’ because that is a bit more well-known to the average viewer and more illustrative of their role as warriors. I’ve also changed ‘missing Jedi’ to ‘last Jedi’ to clearly state that plot point.
Finally, the word ‘raised’ in the second paragraph has a double meaning as Finn describes being literally raised by the First Order. The word ‘terrorize’ more accurately describes the activities of the First Order at this time (such as the events described in Bloodlines) and offers some explanation of why traditional armies and fleets fielded by the Republic may not be effective against this foe.
I’m pretty happy with this crawl, personally.