3x3: bad opening shots in movies

If one is going to set their sites on opening exposition dumps, there are far more deserving and ham-handed targets, like Dune, Blade Runner, or the theatrical cut of Dark City.

I’m arguing that Lucas knew the difference between showing and telling. I didn’t say anything about over-egging the demarcation of good and evil. Star Wars is a fabulously unsubtle movie, and intentionally so, but that’s neither here nor there. And maybe common opinion has somehow been poisoned by the prequels, but IMO the fact that by the age of 33 he’d directed three feature films in completely different genres, each thoroughly successful on its own terms, and all arguably classics, qualifies him as a “competent filmmaker.”

Back in the day the really big-budget epics and musicals had what were called “roadshow” versions that strove to emulate attending a stage play or musical. That meant an overture, an intermission (with intermission music), and sometimes exit music. These roadshow versions would play at the big, splashy movie palaces in major cities (with a higher ticket price); smaller theaters would show a version of the movie without these frills (and a lower ticket price.).

(And hey, it turns out there are Wikpedia pages on movie overtures and roadshow versions, because of course there are Wikipedia pages on everything.)

Edit: Though properly speaking an overture happens before the curtain rises/anything is projected, so Star Wars doesn’t technically have an overture.

Also the Star Wars opening crawl was an explicit and intentional call-out to the Flash Gordon serials, and serials were down-market experiences rather than up-market ones like roadshows. Though I guess you could interpret what Lucas was doing with Star Wars as transforming what had been a low-budget genre into a premium one, even as he deliberately used antiquated, out-of-style techniques like the crawl and wipes while doing it.

I mean, fine, I’ll concede he might have known. He just didn’t care, because he loves telling instead of showing.

As I said to Tom, if you think the opening crawl is primarily about ‘telling’ anything, then I fundamentally disagree. But all that’s upthread.

It’s not a question of what it was primarily about. Being a conscious throwback does not make it good.

In the context of what I was arguing with Tom, it is a question of what it was primarily about, because Tom critiqued it on the grounds of it being a clumsy exposition lump. So my assertion that its primarily role was not to deliver exposition is relevant.

As to the reasons it’s good, I’ve explained those at length upthread too. I’ve said all I can reasonably say on the subject, so let’s agree to disagree.

I don’t think anyone disputes why Lucas put it in there: he’s a heavy-handed storyteller. Gordon says it’s not there for exposition, which I think is awfully kind to Lucas. Again, read the first drafts before he solicited outside help. The dude totally thought you needed to know that the empire is evil, etc., etc.

But if it’s not there for exposition, it’s even more superfluous, because the tone of Star Wars is set efficiently and cinematicly with the ships, the costumes, the dialogue, and – wait for it! – the music. That Lucas didn’t trust these elements is a sign of things to come. Next step, ewoks, midichlorians, gungans, and Jake Lloyd!

Which gets to another problem if you’re going to defend the opening crawl of Star Wars: anything you say pretty much applies to the opening crawls in the later movies, which get worse and worse. All that stuff about a trade embargo in Phantom Menace? It’s not there for exposition, it’s there for style, pacing, and callbacks to old movies/serials!

It’s kind of like defending games as art. Great, now you have to defend Menudo and Shia LeBeouf as art.

-Tom

As I’ve already said, one of the several reasons for the crawl, of which IMO exposition is low on the list (it’s more important that he establishes the tone of “now I begin an epic tale” than that you remember it is a Time of Civil War), is to provide a period of time during which the music can be highlighted, unobscured by action. I agree, by the way, that the beginning of Star Wars is heavy-handed. I don’t consider it a flaw in this case.

I don’t really understand your point about superfluity, which IMO could be applied to pretty much every opening titles sequence under the sun. I like opening titles sequences, as I like Louis Armstrong’s cadenza at the beginning of West End Blues. (If it were cut and you didn’t already know it was there, you’d never miss it, but if that’s superfluity, then up with superfluity.)

If you really think the opening shot of Vader wasn’t, in Lucas’s view, sufficient to establish that the Empire is evil, well, I think we just have different estimations of his instincts as a storyteller circa 1976, however they may have deteriorated in the next 20 years. But in any case, I can judge only the tale, not the teller, and it’s clear as day to me that the things which make the opening shot so bracing and wonderful have nothing to do with exposition. Perhaps he nailed it in spite of himself, but IMO he nailed it, with a little (read: ton of) help from his friend Mr. Williams.

I’ve stated my position several times, so we’re just rehashing at this point. A chacun sa gout, etc.

The crawls in Empire and Jedi are fine and at that point are simply doing something expected of a Star Wars movie, like the creepy-crawly scene and disconnected prologue of every Indiana Jones film. They’re style markers and ways to settle the audience back into a comfort zone. They didn’t have to be there, in fact, but once the first sequel set the pattern, it was probably beyond helping. The crawl in Phantom Menace is bad because it’s long and confusing, and so overloaded with detail that you begin to fear it is providing necessary exposition, which, even worse, doesn’t sound like it has much to do with High Adventure. The first sequels’ are short so they don’t distract from the other functions. But they also, inevitably, lack the impact of the first iteration. Can’t cross the same river twice, etc.

Setting aside your snarky tone, which I don’t think I deserve, are you actually asserting that the three final points here are false?

I didn’t mean to offend you, so apologies if the snark was out of line. I figured we’re trading friendly jabs, but that might not have come across as intended. Sorry for that. But, no, I don’t think the crawl does a good job establishing style and pacing, which is why I picked it as an example of a bad opening shot. As for a callback to serials, I’m with Ginger Yellow in that I honestly couldn’t care less. Serials aren’t a thing for me. They’re a dead medium. I’m sure that was cool to the fifty-year-olds in the audience in 1977. Which is why they would probably pick something else for a 3x3 on bad opening shots.

I mean, really, I don’t disagree with you about anything other than Lucas’ intent about exposition. You claim he didn’t put the crawl in for exposition, but neither of us can really be sure what was in the dude’s head. So based on the rest of his work, and based on the actual function of making someone read a few paragraphs of epigraph before they watch your movie, it looks to me like the at the very least, exposition is one of the purposes of the crawl.

But the bottom line is that by your standards – and it would be silly of me to disagree – Star Wars has a great opening shot. By my standards, and the standards of cinema in the 70s which were formative for me, Star Wars has a bad opening shot.

-Tom