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Opening crawlEdit

ESBOpeningCrawl
An example of the famous Star Wars roll-up. This one is from The Empire Strikes Back.

Each of the six Star Wars films begin with nearly identical opening crawl in which the text "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." is displayed, followed by the Star Wars logo over a field of stars against a black background. A subsequent slow zoom-out reveals the film's episode number and subtitle (in all-capital letters), followed by a three-paragraph summary of the events which describes the situation immediately prior to the events of the film.

Two typefaces were used in the crawl: News Gothic bold for the main body of the crawl and Episode number, and Univers light ultra condensed for the title of the film.[1]

In the widescreen (or letterbox) versions of the Star Wars films, each line of the opening crawl text appears directly in its entirety from the bottom of the screen. In the fullscreen (or pan and scan) versions, the sides of each line of opening crawl text are visible only after that line reaches the center of the screen.

OriginsEdit

THE STAR WARS 
Until the recent GREAT REBELLION, 
the JEDI BENDU were the most 
feared warriors in the universe. 
For one hundred thousand years, 
generations of JEDI perfected their 
art as the personal bodyguards of 
the emperor. They were the chief 
architects of the invincible 
IMPERIAL SPACE FORCE which expanded 
the EMPIRE across the galaxy, 
from the celestial equator 
to the farthest reaches of the GREAT RIFT.

Now these legendary warriors are 
all but extinct. One by one they have 
been hunted down and destroyed as 
enemies of the NEW EMPIRE by a ferocious 
and sinister rival warrior sect, 
THE KNIGHTS OF SITH.

The "roll-up," or "opening crawl," first appeared in George Lucas' rough draft of The Star Wars in May 1974.[2] As with much of the script, this was an homage to the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s and 1940, which Lucas enjoyed as a child.[3]

George Lucas in an interview in 2005 described how the final phrasing of the roll-up in Star Wars came about. "The crawl is such a hard thing because you have to be careful that you're not using too many words that people don't understand. It's like a poem. I showed the very first crawl to a bunch of friends of mine in the 1970s. It went on for six paragraphs with four sentences each. Brian De Palma was there, and he threw his hands up in the air and said, 'George, you're out of your mind! Let me sit down and write this for you.' He helped me chop it down into the form that exists today."[4]

According to Dennis Muren on the audio commentary track of the Star Wars Trilogy DVD release, the roll-ups on the "original trilogy" films, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, were accomplished with physical models laid out on the floor. Muren says the models were approximately two feet wide and six feet long. The crawl effect was accomplished with the camera moving longitudinally along the model. It was, says Muren, difficult and time-consuming to achieve a smooth scrolling effect.

With the advent of computer-generated graphics, the "prequel trilogy" films, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, the roll-ups' effect was achieved much more quickly. However, because nobody had taken notes on how the original ones were accomplished, the design team had to rewatch and piece together the elements to make the new opening crawl.

The 2004 DVD special edition versions of the original trilogy were later updated with computer-generated roll-ups as part of their restoration and enhancement.

Differences in crawlsEdit

Opening Crawl
A comparison of how the opening for A New Hope has been altered to include 'Episode IV'.

Though each crawl is roughly similar, the individual films contain some differences in their presentation. For instance, in Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the camera angle tilts upwards after the text finishes, rather than downwards as seen in all of the five other films.

Some words or names are in all-capital letters to stress their importance to the story (such as "DEATH STAR" in A New Hope, "GALACTIC EMPIRE" in Return of the Jedi, and "ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC" in Attack of the Clones). There are no words emphasized by all-caps in any of the odd-numbered films. The text is in simple, yellow, sans-serif type, and it is pitched at a sharp angle. The text scrolls upward into the distance, toward a horizon located just below the top of the screen. In a trademark of the film series, each title crawl ends with a four-dot ellipsis except for Episode VI which ends with a three-dot ellipsis.

When originally released in 1977, the first film was simply titled Star Wars, as Lucas was not certain if he would follow the film with a sequel. Following The Empire Strikes Back, the film was re-released in 1981 with the subtitle 'Episode IV: A New Hope'. The original version, without the subtitle, was not released until the 2006 limited edition DVDs. The opening crawl was re-created to not include the now familiar subtitle specially for the 2006 DVD.

InfluenceEdit

Many Star Wars video games and fan films feature a variation of the crawl. The original edition of the novel Heir to the Empire included a still-image version on its back cover.[5]

ParodiesEdit

  • The Mel Brooks film Spaceballs opens with a similar, but much more humorous crawl, with gags such as "unbeknownst to her, but knownst to us". At the end, in small letters, it reads "If you can read this, you don't need glasses".
  • Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me opens with a similar crawl. It is accompanied by a voiceover.
  • Airplane II: The Sequel begins with a crawl of the text of an erotic story that is "broken" like glass by a space shuttle flying through it.
  • The Bugs Bunny-Road Runner Movie uses a crawl to set up the clips of the shorts featured. The crawl reads "A long long long long long...time ago, in a galaxy far, far, far, far, far...away."
  • Those who attended Nintendo's online Camp Hyrule 2006 were greeted with an introductory opening crawl sequence.
  • The Red Dwarf episodes Backwards and Dimension Jump both feature similar, humorous crawls, the former scrolling too fast to be read without freeze-frame.
  • Recent editions of Apple Computer's iMovie software feature a similar title effect called "Far, Far Away" in reference to Star Wars. Recent editions of Windows Movie Maker also include a text effect in reference to Star Wars.

AppearancesEdit

NOTE: I openly invite anyone to add to this list. As long as you use the section edit links, edit conflicts shouldn't be much of a problem.

FilmsEdit

GamesEdit

BooksEdit

ComicsEdit

Other stuffEdit

  • [[]]

Notes and referencesEdit

  1. ↑ SWicon Episode III: How It Begins on StarWars.com (content now obsolete; backup link on Archive.org)
  2. ↑ The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film
  3. ↑ Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith DVD commentary
  4. ↑ Pearlman, Cindy (May 15, 2005). The force behind 'The Force'. Chicago Sun-Times.
  5. ↑ File:HeirEmpire_HC.jpg

External linksEdit


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