We’ve now seen a lot of things from Star Wars: The Force Awakens take strange and unexpected turns thanks to The Last Jedi, but even the events of the first movie weren’t always set in stone. There was even an entire alternate opening planned before it was eventually scrapped, and now you can watch it, recreated in animated form.
Animator Tim Gray made the above video, based on J.J. Abrams’ own unused storyboards, which mirrors the opening of A New Hope to satisfying effect. The familiar scene has smaller ships being tailed by a looming Star Destroyer, but then it flips the script: They’re actually tugging the decrepit ship along to its final resting place on Jakku, where scavengers like Rey will inevitably harvest it for parts.
It makes a lot of sense for a movie that’s already well known for strongly resembling A New Hope, and it goes a long way in explaining what Jakku is all about as a junkyard planet. Ultimately, though, it sets a quieter stage for the events of the film than what we wound up seeing in theaters, and it would’ve fit better in a movie about the First Order taking shape out of the ashes of the Empire, rather than one where they’re already a force to be reckoned with.
Instead, we jumped right into the action both with the opening and the state of the warring factions in the movie, and things moved along at a pretty fast pace from there. It all worked out in the end, but now I kind of want to see the movie that would’ve fit with this alternate version.
(via Geeks Are Sexy, image: screengrab)
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