The original opening for ESB had the crawl as black letters on a white ground, which was then revealed to be the snowy plains of Hoth seen from a bird’s eye view.
In post-production this was revised so that the opening scene of the film took place in space, with Vader’s fleet dispatching probes to look for the Rebels. This kind of accidentally cemented the idea that a SW movie must have its opening crawl take place against a backdrop of stars.
Really? checks youTube really quick
I think I would have liked the original better, but then again, maybe having the opening scene among the stars, better cements the idea that, hey, you’re about to watch a story about STAR Wars.Honestly yeah, I kinda like the continuity it provides. It’s part of the hype of sitting down and seeing the Lucasfilm logo… then the “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”, then the starfield and STAR WARS. It would be weird without it.
After analyzing all the opening scenes, you almost need to have the yellow outlined Star Wars logo against the star field, and subsequently, a pan to whatever is taking place in outer space (star destroyer, star ship battles, etc).
However, I really like the idea for the original ESB opening, that it would take place on a completely white background, with the text scrolling, and then when it’s finished, the camera pans to show that it’s really the ice plains of Hoth.
The only problem with that is a white background usually subconsciously implies absence, blankness, something unfinished. But I think it would have been cool to have something different for every film.