kristen jones
Master Member
BWAHAHA! That's awesome :thumbsup
@Solo4114, my spin on the opening crawl is it needs a complete rework. Some elements are okay, but in the wrong order. The return of the terse first sentence is good, but it's supposed to establish, in the broadest scope possible, what's changed since the end of the previous episode. Then get more specific, until it trails off where the opening shot picks up. Also, the only words in all caps in the original opening crawl were DEATH STAR. In Empire? None. It's really only meant to be used for words that would be italicized, but there's no alternate typeface. Things like ship (or space station) names. Later on, it started to be treated like in a script, where the first time a person or group appears in the script, it's all caps so when skimming you can spot it easily. Having REPUBLIC and RESISTANCE and FIRST ORDER all caps like that is... clunky. To put it nicely. No, 99.9% of moviegoers don't notice something like that. Consciously. This plays into the responsibility of the filmmaker to manage all the subliminal cues, too.
Here's my first pass:
Episode VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
A generation has passed. Following
the death of the Emperor, the Rebel
Alliance declared a New Republic,
even though it was some time
before the Empire finally had to
surrender.
With real peace now possible, Luke
Skywalker began training a new
order of Jedi Knights. However, in a
mysterious tragedy, the academy
was destroyed, and Luke disappeared.
Now a new group has risen from the
ashes of the Empire, determined to
overthrow the Republic, and find and
destroy the last Jedi. Princess Leia
has organized an underground
resistance to oppose them and find
Skywalker first….
I know the last paragraph is a little too long. I've had this simmering in the back of my head since first seeing it, and I'll get it pared down eventually. Doing the opening crawl has been one of the fun challenges for all of my Star Wars rewrites (the six Obi-Wan prequel films, and the four films that got squooshed together into the Return of the Jedi that we got), so I've had a bit of practice with the length and cadence. This one isn't there yet, but I'm happier with what I just put up there than what was in the film. A little bit of Prequel-itis -- too much of what we don't need to know, and not enough of what we do. *heh*
I think The Powers That Be were too close to the film to see what needed to be in the crawl. But it still works better than the crawls for ROTJ or TPM.
--Jonah
What the film doesn't show is any of the political stuff. The First Order exists. Ok... It rose from the ashes of the empire. Ok...how? Wasn't the Empire destroyed? Wasn't the Empire defeated to restore the Republic? Didn't the good guys win the last round?
And the film never explains that. It never tells you how the First Order rose or, more importantly to me, why the Republic isn't the entity fighting them, and some other group called "The Resistance" is. If the First Order is taking over worlds and killing people, why is the Republic not sending it's military to fight back? What is the Resistance resisting and why are they not just...you know...the Republic?
The background material and the stuff from the novelization apparently provide this info. The Republic is paralyzed with fear after having largely demilitarized, and is hoping to be left alone. The Senate can't get its act together to gear up for war. The Resistance is made up of people who saw the threat and acted outside of the Senate, although it's supported by some within the Senate.
To me, that's the biggest question mark in the film, and the film does squat to address it. The rest of the "But what happened in between ROTJ and TFA?" stuff is either addressed or they telegraph that they're going to address it. But that part, the whole "Wait, so there's a Republic that isn't fighting, and a Resistance that is? Who are the Resistance and why isn't the Republic doing the fighting?" thing, that's a glaring hole which could either have been corrected with a few additional scenes, or which could have been corrected with a line or two in the opening crawl.
But the film does deal with all of that, it just doesn't go into great detail which is what I think that some people have a problem with. Everything mentioned above is dealt with in the movie with a few lines of dialogue, dialogue that some people apparently missed and so came away from the film confused as to what's going on. But it's all there, perhaps not to the degree that some would like but it's there none the less, while we don't get all of the details we do get the overall big picture of the state of the galaxy as it stands at the beginning of the movie. While the opening crawl could go into a little more detail I don't think that it needs that much revision, maybe another sentence or two on the state of the galaxy since the end of Jedi but even that's not entirely necessary since we do get that later on in the movie.
And the TFA Troll King award goes to:
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/this-star-wars-spoiler-is-so-audacious-you-cant-be-mad-1752242380
I totally understand why a studio would opt for digital explosions. But there is something about the mayhem on set with practical danger that simply adds to the film. The dark knight was a great example of thatastroboy said: [url]http://www.therpf.com/images/styles/prometheus/buttons/viewpost-right.png[/URL]
I'm a big defender of cgi but one thing I will say is that explosions, bullet shots and fire should always be done practically.
Filmmakers have found that it is cheaper and safer to do a lot of the on-set effects as CGI. On set the gunshots are often faked and CGI'd later in situations where safety is a concern. And waiting for a SFX crew to rig a huge (and potentially dangerous) explosion on location is time consuming in many cases and doing it CGI later is the answer. Having extras on set with little experience with weapons can be a huge problem, so having them just do "reactions" to shots and CG-ing it later takes care of that concern, and can save on cases and cases of blank ammunition in large groups of firing actors. and delays caused by misfiring weapons.
TFA used as much practical as was "practical" but most of the ST guns firing were CGI, so all the talk of the film going back to practical effects consisted of building more full sets and less green screen, and props (The Falcon being the primary example) and the X-Wings. Most of this was the result of the criticism of the PTs using too much CGI. When producers find out they can save money by doing CGI, they will do it, so any suggestion that CGI is "fakey" looking is trumped by the budgetary considerations.
astroboy said: http://www.therpf.com/images/styles/prometheus/buttons/viewpost-right.png
I'm a big defender of cgi but one thing I will say is that explosions, bullet shots and fire should always be done practically.
Filmmakers have found that it is cheaper and safer to do a lot of the on-set effects as CGI. On set the gunshots are often faked and CGI'd later in situations where safety is a concern. And waiting for a SFX crew to rig a huge (and potentially dangerous) explosion on location is time consuming in many cases and doing it CGI later is the answer. Having extras on set with little experience with weapons can be a huge problem, so having them just do "reactions" to shots and CG-ing it later takes care of that concern, and can save on cases and cases of blank ammunition in large groups of firing actors. and delays caused by misfiring weapons.
TFA used as much practical as was "practical" but most of the ST guns firing were CGI, so all the talk of the film going back to practical effects consisted of building more full sets and less green screen, and props (The Falcon being the primary example) and the X-Wings. Most of this was the result of the criticism of the PTs using too much CGI. When producers find out they can save money by doing CGI, they will do it, so any suggestion that CGI is "fakey" looking is trumped by the budgetary considerations.
...there is something about the mayhem on set with practical danger that simply adds to the film. The dark knight was a great example of that
Is it just me or do you guys also think of this song when you hear Maz Kanata's name?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeBDoNBNMro
And the TFA Troll King award goes to:
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/this-star-wars-spoiler-is-so-audacious-you-cant-be-mad-1752242380
Bad word of mouth is hurting it here in the states, too.