another thread i’m trying to pin down i hope someone could maybe fill in the blanks on: the origin of the WMAR opening crawl.

the Google Video version of the special, used by Rifftrax and later as the basis of Zion’s Hybrids, featured a unique, fan-made opening crawl. this version was uploaded in December 2006.

after doing a lot of research, i’ve yet to find the origin of this crawl. it’s possible the google video uploader created it, though my inclination is to say that’s unlikely. the other versions of the special i’ve found floating around, still up from this time, do not feature this crawl. additionally, i was able to acquire a mass-produced bootleg WMAR VHS tape from the late 90s, which also did not feature the crawl.

it leaves a few different possibilities:

the google video uploaded added it (i find this unlikely for a number of reasons)
another anonymous fan created the crawl unofficially, and it circulated on one of the early 2000s p2p sites before being uploaded to google video
one of the bootlegs circulating around the early 2000s on an early digital format added the crawl to give a more cinematic presentation

personally, i lean option 3, but i have no way of knowing. the biggest suspect here would be one of the VCD versions that got passed around way back when, which would also account for the incredibly low-quality of that upload and every version of the crawl.

if anyone has any clue as to where this came from, please let me know. additionally, if anyone still has bootlegs from the 90s/00s, i’m curious as to what information you have, or what’s on your copies.

edit:

the other possibility i just thought of is it coming from the version played on the lucasfan theater website around that time as well. don’t know if anyone would have info about that either.