Some fans have always felt that the opening moments in Star Wars: The Force Awakens immediately following the crawl where underwhelming. It wasn't always supposed to be that way. The original script showed a Star Destroyer plummeting from space to crash land on Jakku moments before we are introduced to a masked Rey, inside salvaging for parts. We still get Rey salvaging parts, but while the Star Destroyer moment was storyboarded it never made it into the final film. Now we know what that would have looked like.

Tim Gray animated this scene, and it would have been spectacular if done properly. About creating the short animated video, Gray offered this insight.

"The original concept for the force awakens opening was very different to what finally made it to screen. Using the original storyboards by J.J.Abrams, I have attempted to capture what this could have looked like."

Tim Gray goes onto say that he's not trying to make a profit from this video, and that it was done all in good fun. He's simply trying to show other Star Wars fans what could have been, and some might argue that this would have been a much better way to kick off The Force Awakens. As it stands now, immediately following the crawl, we see the Star Destroyer silhouetted above the planet Jakku as an army of First Order Troops is sent into destroy Lor San Tekka's village and retrieve the map to Luke Skywalker.

There were early rumors that the opening shot would have even been different from the downed Star Destroyer entering Jakku's atmosphere. It would have followed Luke's severed hand as it continued falling through space with lightsaber attached, landing on Jakku for Rey and Finn to find, but that scene was scrapped too.

Here, we see two Republic ships towing the blasted out Star Destroyer, cutting it loose into Jakku's gravitational field. The ship gets pulled through the atmosphere and burns on entry, eventually crashing into the planet's sandy surface. That then cuts to a scene of Rey, which is actually used in the movie to introduce the character for the first time.

This scene is much more awe-inspiring than that initial Star Destroyer sailing in front of a planet, which has always looked a bit odd. But introducing Finn as a Stormtrooper who refuses to kill, and setting both Poe and BB-8 on their separate missions was more important in setting up the driving narrative behind the movie, and was much more economical in the long run. So, we have what we have. But we can still enjoy what might have been with Tim Gray's take on the original storyboards. You can check out the animated video at Tim Gray's Youtube channel.