And here it is compared with the '06 and '04 DVD's.

Going with the redo theory, would they have re-filmed the lettering or just recomp'd as maybe some new development was figured out in optics?

Looking at crawl production pics:

SW - (early crawl).................................... ESB

The light rigging box looks the same between movies.  The cameras don't look the same but since I can't name the parts, not sure how much is just redressing.

poking around, Sam Longoria says:

http://emusingmusic.blogspot.com/2011/05/typographic-rage.html

The artwork for a filmed title sequence, while hand-assembled from Letraset rub-on letters, as you assert, were not silk-screened onto a glass plate.

They would instead be shot on a stat camera, onto high-contrast Kodalith film. That's pretty standard, for movie title work.

The artwork that went before the ILM VistaVision Dykstraflex motion-control camera, performing its title crawl, (operated by Richard Edlund in your photo), was most probably a big black strip, assembled from sheets of Kodalith film (with white titles on a black field) and black paper, all held together by black photographic tape.

That would be taped onto the top surface of a fan-cooled Light Box, mounted atop the Dykstraflex's main rail, on the floor.

I've shot lots of titles on animation stands, and I was on hand at ILM in 1980, as they shot the "Episode IV: A New Hope" crawl, to replace the original "Star Wars" title.

What I saw that day looked to be Kodalith film artwork on the light box, as it shot that artwork onto VistaVision 35mm color negative.

White letters on a black field, to be composited in the optical printer over the starfield. Yellow title color would be achieved at that stage, as you mentioned.

http://samlongoria.blogspot.com

So let's get our thoughts together, and send over a question or two.  The blog is still active.

As Richard Edlund's in the first shot, he's got a website too: http://www.richardedlund.com/home

What's with the big blue ....thing?

You guys have definitely darkened it TOO MUCH

none wrote:  poking around, Sam Longoria says:

http://emusingmusic.blogspot.com/2011/05/typographic-rage.html

Mr. Longoria was nice enough to answer the questions sent over, they've been added to the above blog's comments section.

You are welcome, Christian, and I thank you for the opportunity to comment on your fine post, which I enjoyed very much.

I am grateful also to Peter Lopez, who wrote me recently, to ask more detailed questions about the title shoot.

Just to be clear, I did not work at ILM in 1980. I came there to visit in when my friend (and later boss) Richard Edlund ASC invited me. Later, I worked for Richard at his special effects company (Boss Film) in Los Angeles.

What I saw of the title shoot was quite wonderful. They ran the VistaVision camera over the high-contrast title artwork on a light box. I've shot lots of titles on animation stands, so it was familiar to me, but I'd never seen it done with a motion-control camera before.

I remember seeing the title "Episode IV - A New Hope," and wondering at it, but I don't recall much discussion.

If there are variations between title crawl versions, as Peter asserts in his email to me, that would be caused by some combination of executive order and camera operator choice, both in the original photography and in re-photography. (Optical printing, printing for foreign distribution, etc.)

There are sooo many parts to a movie, and there are so many variables.

I hope my response is helpful. Keep up the great work!

Sam Longoria
http://samlongoria.blogspot.com

So the next step is to send something over to Mr. Edlund.  He did do the work, wish we had a little more then speculation...

Some general info on the crawl creation:

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/23/magazine/tm-39966

SO SOCAL: The Best...The Beautiful...And the Bizarre
: STAR WARS

May 23, 1999|Jason Dietrich

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . .

To be exact, it was 22 years ago. And the galaxy was a makeshift viewing room in Van Nuys, where graphic artist and title designer Dan Perri carefully analyzed the opening sequences in the 1939 film "Union Pacific," in which titles traveled down the tracks, and some 1930s serials. Next to him sat George Lucas, and together the men would conceive the stark, foreboding opener for the first "Star Wars" film.

After the film's screening for cast and crew, Perri, who had designed title sequences for "Taxi Driver" and "The Exorcist," knew the force was with him. "When the letters started rolling up from the bottom of the screen," he recalls, the audience "went berserk."

To create the effect, Perri made a negative photostat of Lucas' introduction and painstakingly rubber-cemented the white letters to a 4-by-12 piece of black poster board. ("I wonder where the thing is now," Perri laments.) He mounted the poster board at an angle and a camera slowly tracked over the type; the text looked as if it vanished into a star field.

Perri modified Lucas' original, vertical "Star Wars" logo into the distinctive broad-lettered block that we know today so that it would fit the wide-screen Panavision format.

In a Hollywood awash in computer graphics, Perri's handiwork, completed with grade-school art project supplies, seems long ago and far away after all. "It was really primitive," says Perri, who is still in the business but can't claim title credits for "The Phantom Menace," which opened this week. "Now you could do something like that in a day."

Sounds like maybe this was a previz version to test the scheme.