So I remember in a debate over whether or not the spin-offs should have crawls, someone mentioned that even with the additional need for context, an opening crawl is and always was a lousy exposition device. Of course it was originally meant as an homage, but I think we have to look past that and ask ourselves if crawls are really good moviemaking. That said, I don’t want to sacrifice the brilliant opening fanfare and clever pan down (or up, in AOTC’s case) from the stars. I remember that as a little kid, I didn’t know how to read yet, so I had no clue what it said. Normally, my dad would read out loud for me. You’ll notice how all the young-child-targeted Lego SW specials always have Tom Kane do his CW narration over the crawl. Here’s what I came up with. The movie starts the same, with the fanfare and SW logo. Then cut to a CW-style newsreel with the text usually contained in the crawl being delivered through voiceover. Once that’s done, you cut back to the starfield and show the episode number and title. I’m not sure how well it’d work, but it’d be worth a shot. The thing is, you’d need footage for the montage. ANH would be extremely easy thanks to RO. I was thinking ESB and ROTJ could use footage from EA Battlefront, given that the graphics of the game are practically photorealistic (so long as you don’t show humans or fur). The Prequels would be harder. Maybe that Darth Maul fan film for TPM? You’d have to rewrite the crawl to better match the footage, but that’s pretty much a given, since no one goes into a SW movie to read about politics. Maybe there’s some CW fan films out there to use for ROTS. I really don’t know what to do for AOTC, maybe some footage of Christopher Lee? What about TFA? It would be neat to see the Second Jedi Purge, but you’d need new footage for that. What do you guys think?
