5) Star Wars (1977)
Technically, this entry might seem to apply to any of the Star Wars films, given every movie has the same opening. This is, of course, an onscreen roll-up of words that brief the viewer on the state of affairs in the galaxy at that time, and outline some basic preliminaries regarding the characters and the plot of the movie in question.
Originally inspired by the similar beginnings to the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon serial films of the 1930s and 40s, this has over time become probably the most recognized (and spoofed) opening sequence to any movie in the history of cinema. But the background story here is specifically to do with the very first time that this iconic device was used by George Lucas, when the world was first transported to the galaxy far, far away in Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope), in 1977.
Apologies to Star Wars fans (and to any other movie-general-knowledge marvel) who will probably already know this, but the official name for the scrolling introduction is ‘the crawl.’ What might not be such common knowledge, however, is the history of the first Star Wars crawl, or how the crawl itself was made.
Firstly, there’s the question of the words themselves. In an interview in 2005, George Lucas described how difficult it was to know exactly how much to explain in those opening paragraphs: “You have to be careful that you’re not using too many words that people don’t understand. It’s like a poem,” he said.
But despite the flagrant lack of faith in his audience (it’s probably going to be a little while before ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” shows up in any English Literature degree finals), Lucas had, apparently, included a lot of the wrong sort of information. Brian de Palma, who was connected to Lucas at the time via an unfortunate clash between movies for which both directors wanted the same actors, read Lucas’ draft, told him that he was “out of his mind,” and immediately began reworking it.
Lucas’ original, much shorter version included the phrase “awesome GALACTIC EMPIRE” (just whose side were you on, exactly, George?), and didn’t mention Princess Leia once. It did reference the civil war and the fact that the Empire was building a Death Star but it didn’t use that specific term, and said nothing about the rebellion having stolen the plans to the ‘sinister new battle station’ (I think we can all safely conclude that Lucas’ career in poetry would have been pretty short-lived).
Secondly, there is the small matter of the crawl’s production. Today, creating something like the crawl is basically one step above playing Minecraft. In 1977 however, software of this sort of sophistication just didn’t exist. Instead, the words of the crawl were written out on physical models (approximately two feet wide and six feet long) and laid out on the floor in order. The camera then moved up, over and along the models. A tilting lens was used to combat the focus problems, but nothing could effectively remove the tiny bumps and inconsistencies that showed up so obviously on the screen during this 2000-frame-long shot.
The only option, if they wanted a completely smooth effect, was to test every iota of the models, and gradually eliminate the problems, inch by infamous inch (quite possibly another reason that it’s called ‘the crawl.’) Ken Ralston, who was the Visual Effects Supervisor for Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, described the process as “fun, but pure torture.”
The most recent Star Wars movies have of course utilized CGI to create the crawls, and the opening to Star Wars: The Force Awakens is likely to be as memorable as any other. But there is something wonderfully archaic about the idea of the intense, hands-on devotion that the earliest crawls required.
