Imagine watching a Star Wars movie that does not start with the iconic crawl talking about “a galaxy far, far away…” The opening crawl was the genius of none other than George Lucas. The creator of the franchise is to be credited for everything great behind it. It was his vision that made every Star Wars film, series, and character an iconic part of the history of cinema.
Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi was about to miss out on an iconic detail that made Star Wars movies stand out. But the director took the warning of Lucas and added the opening crawl just a few days before the movie was to be released, and saved himself from committing a grave error.
Geroge Lucas warned The Last Jedi against committing a mistake
Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi which came out in 2017 is the last Star Wars movie the fans have seen in a while. The studio, though, has announced a movie would soon be released, but for years now, fans have only received new content in the form of series. The last film of the franchise almost committed a huge mistake that would have made it stand out and not look like a Star Wars movie had Rian Johnson not taken the warning of George Lucas seriously.
Rian Johnson explained that the movie originally did not have the opening crawl, and though he had one written, it wasn’t final till the last few days. George Lucas called the opening crawl an essential part and also said it was “like a poem, sort of.” Johnson did not understand it, till he was finally done writing it and adding it to his movie. He stated,
“That made a lot of sense to me, having gone through this. Not because you’re, like, getting poetic with it or whatever, but because every single word matters.”
He further recounted how the opening crawl for The Last Jedi came into being,
“It was the very last piece of writing in the movie that we were working on. Literally like a few days before we had to give the movie up and say okay, we can’t touch it anymore, I was in there with the guys … we had our temp version of it in our graphics program, and we were tweaking the grammar and tweaking words in it … there’s no room for error in terms of it just flowing, you know, feeling right.”
Well as the fans know, every franchise has its trademark that sets them apart from the rest. Imagine a Marvel movie opening without the iconic Marvel montage. It would be the same for Star Wars without its opening crawl. There is something about that yellow text on a black background that connects with the fans, no matter what comes after.
Why did George Lucas add the Star Wars opening crawl?
George Lucas has always talked about the importance of the opening crawl and it has been a part of the franchise ever since its inception. But you might be surprised to know that just like in The Last Jedi, the opening crawl was the last detail added to the very first movie before it became a tradition. In his book, A Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away, Paul Hirsch revealed how the opening crawl came into being and why George Lucas added it,
“George had added this card to prevent the film from being labeled science fiction. He thought of it as a space fantasy. He didn’t want to hear about the impossibility of hearing sound in space or get caught up in any sterile arguments about what was scientifically possible.”
There have only been two movies so far that did not have the opening crawl – Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Solo: A Star Wars Story. But they did include an opening text with “a galaxy far, far away” included.
All Star Wars movies and series are available for streaming on Disney+
Source: Collider
