Star Wars opening crawl  

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The Star Wars opening crawl is a signature device of the opening sequences of every numbered film of the Star Wars series, an American epic space opera franchise created by George Lucas. Within a black sky background featuring a smattering of stars, the crawl is preceded both by the opening static blue text, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...." and by the Star Wars logo which recedes toward a central point on the screen before disappearing. The crawl text, which describes the backstory and context of the film, then recedes toward a higher point in relation to the screen and with an apparent effect of disappearing in the distance. The visuals are accompanied by the "Main Title Theme", composed by John Williams.

This sequence has featured at the beginning of each of the main Star Wars saga theatrical films produced by Lucasfilm. Although it has retained the same basic elements, the opening crawl has significantly evolved throughout the series.Template:Explain It is one of the most immediately recognizable elements of the franchise and has been frequently parodied.

The opening crawl was not used in the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars or in the Star Wars "Anthology" films, Rogue One and Solo, although all three films begin with the opening text. Additionally, the opening sequence of Solo continues with a short backstory presented in the same style as the opening text, while The Clone Wars uses a narrator to provide exposition in a similar style to a newsreel.

Structure

Each film begins with the static blue text, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....", followed by the Star Wars logo shrinking in front of a field of stars, as if moving away from the viewer. Initially, the logo's extremities are beyond the edge of the frame. While the logo is retreating, the "crawl" text begins, starting with the film's episode number and subtitle (with the exception of the original release of Star Wars – see below), and followed by a three-paragraph prologue to the film. The text scrolls up and away from the bottom of the screen towards a vanishing point above the top of the frame in a perspective projection. Each version of the opening crawl ends with a four-dot ellipsis, except for Return of the Jedi, which has a three-dot ellipsis. When the text has nearly reached the vanishing point, it fades out, the camera tilts down (or, in the case of Episode II: Attack of the Clones, up), and the film begins.



Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Star Wars opening crawl" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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