For most cinephiles, yellow text on a black background takes them back to one place—The Star Wars movies. Yellow prominent text crawling against the backdrop of pitch black and John Williams’ score—that’s how the first Star Wars movie opened, which became the identity of the Star Wars movies. While the world was familiar with space stories in both comics and movies, Star Wars was the first of its kind space adventure on the silver screen. Thus, for Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope (1977), context was as important as the narrative.
Voice-over was an obvious choice to quickly bring viewers up to speed, especially kids for whom reading the moving text might be quite difficult, and so 20th Century Studios even tried to replace the text with a narrator, but director George Lucas wanted something different…something that would also set the tone for the narrative visually. “But they’re [kids] going to have to learn to read sooner or later. Maybe Star Wars will give them some incentive,” was Lucas’ defense for the crawling text, as he shared in J.W. Rinzler’s book, The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind The Original Film.
In this article, we’re examining the origin of the iconic Star Wars opening crawl, which begins with “In a galaxy far, far away…”
The Origin of Star Wars
It’s no secret that Star Wars was inspired by the legendary Flash Gordon comics series by Alex Raymond (1934-1947). Lucas had grown up on Flash Gordon, and after he became a filmmaker, he was eager to bring them to life on the silver screen; only he couldn’t obtain the rights. Reportedly, Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis had held on to the rights till 1980. Lucas had even tried to talk it out, but was denied as Laurentiis’ former collaborator was to direct the film. Lucas was disappointed but even more determined now to create a space opera of his own. Thus, the Star Wars franchise came into existence. By 1st August, 1971, Lucas had registered the ‘The Star Wars’ title at United Artists.
Right after finishing American Graffiti in 1973, Lucas dove right into the development of Star Wars, and after four years of sweat and blood and four completely different screenplays of the same concept, Lucas was ready to pitch his dream project. Lucas was always very open about his inspirations for Star Wars. In an interview with American Film that was published in April 1977, Lucas said, “I wanted it to be an adventure in space, like John Carter of Mars. That was before science fiction took over, and everything got very serious and science-oriented.”
Talking about the spirit behind Star Wars, he said, “As a kid, I read a lot of science fiction,” Lucas recalls. “But instead of reading technical, hard-science writers like Isaac Asimov, I was interested in Harry Harrison and a fantastic, surreal approach to the genre. I grew up on it. Star Wars is a sort of compilation of this stuff, but it’s never been put in one story before, never put down on film. There is a lot taken from Westerns, mythology, and samurai movies. It’s all the things that are great put together. It’s not like one kind of ice cream but rather a very big sundae.”
About The Text
Before Star Wars, opening crawls were used in film series like Flash Gordon (the inspiration for Star Wars) and Buck Rogers. To be more specific, the opening crawl takes significant inspiration from Cecil B. DeMille’s Union Pacific, where the opening crawl ran along a railroad track toward a vanishing point, as the main title sequence and credits.
The Essence of The Crawling Text And Its Journey To the Screen
The first time I saw the crawling text, it reminded me of the solar system (or space in a broader view). The dark, pitch black background covered in sprawling yellow text, that’s as bright as a celestial object (read: the sun). Clearly, Lucas hit the bullseye.
An opening so iconic, but it wasn’t perfect. In fact, a couple of renowned filmmakers and friends of Lucas extended their creativity to help him bring his vision to life. Reportedly, the rough cut was screened before a small group of filmmakers (also Lucas’ friends) such as Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma, Jay Cocks, Willard and Gloria Huyck, Hal Barwood, and Matthew Robbins. But the reaction was quite far from what Lucas had expected.
Spielberg told Empire how, at the dinner post screening, De Palma began yelling at Lucas, saying, “I don’t understand your story. There’s no context! What is this space stuff? Who cares? I’m lost!” Brian even said that the screened version would tank at the box office, as nobody would understand what was going on with a few stars and silly ships moving around.
Even Terri Nun, who was almost cast as Princess Leia (but then Carrie Fisher got the part), one of the most iconic characters of the entire franchise (and the fantasy of any man who has seen Star Wars), said in an interview with Empire, “Nobody understood what George was doing. We just showed up in this warehouse, sat down in folding chairs, and started to read these lines that were like, ‘R2-D2, grab the phaser! The Force is coming! It will destroy us all!’ I was like, ‘What the fuck am I saying?” You can’t say that shit!’
Ultimately, the post-screen dinner led to an idea that “troubleshot” Star Wars into its glory. According to Spielberg, Brian suggested that Star Wars should begin like a legend. Lucas took the idea and “that became the famous crawl at the beginning of every episode,” Spielberg shared with Empire.
Developing the Star Wars’ Crawling Text
Every bit of the crawling text had to be shot manually, unlike how we simply insert elements into our editing and special effects software today. For the Star Wars trilogy, physical models, spanning two feet wide and six feet long, were developed. They were laid out on the floor so that the camera would move longitudinally along the text, creating a “crawling effect.”
The research and development was quite a tedious task, too, as per Dennis Muren, special effects advisor. The team ran various tests, in multiple languages, to finally come to the final version.
The effects only began to be generated digitally since 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace; however, it was another struggle matching the digital render with the classic manually created design.
Making Star Wars was quite the challenge for Lucas, be it development or its production. It was also his first big-budget project with a large crew, which demanded that he be more than a filmmaker and a creative person. While there were hurdles, Lucas came through and Star Wars turned out to be iconic—a concept and film franchise that garnered a huge number of fans and both inspired and influenced the entire science-fantasy genre with its novelty.
Which is your favorite Star Wars movie?