Superlative For … Best/Worst Opening Crawl

Here we are, once again, with my Star Wars Superlatives, with the “Best/Worst Opening Crawl” category Of course, I heartily accept disagreement/blatant hatred towards my opinions. The “crawl” here, in case it is no clear, is a reference to the opening paragraphs of exposition before every film. I will only list the top and bottom, with some honorable mentions, since some of them are not terribly exciting.

The winner of best opening crawl is… “Revenge of the Sith”

This is the face of action… and bad acting

Say what you like about the film itself (and I’m certain we all have a lot of things to say) but this opening crawl is the most exciting of the entire series. Let’s just look at the first paragraph:

“War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere” 

How are you not excited!? There is already a mention of war, battles, evil; what else could you possibly want from a film? It goes on to talk about a kidnapping and the Jedi Knights sent to save him – it’s setting you up for what sounds like the most action packed film ever! No boring backstory, or mention or troop movements. Well done.

And the winner of worst opening crawl is [*drum roll*] … “The Phantom Menace”

 

Who’s pumped for some democratic discussion? 

Let’s take a look at how they set us up for the new trilogy:

“Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute”

I don’t know whose idea this was: introducing a new series by talking about taxes? And trade routes? It is hard to believe this is the same series that had space battles and arm mutilations. This sounds like a tax law course, not a space western. No one has ever come to Star Wars looking for interesting discussions of intergalactic politics, and even if they did, they chose the wrong film for it. Anyone remembering the long podrace and fight scenes would should be shocked they’d chose trade routes. If you’re looking for intense discussions of millitary spending, you should be looking to the “Clone Wars” cartoon.

Superlative For… Worst/Best Film Title

Let’s take a break from my discussions of literary theory and celebrate the upcoming Star Wars trailer that, supposedly, will be shown in select theatres. Let’s look into my long list of Star Wars superlatives. Yes, I have determined Star Wars superlatives. Yes, everyone is going to disagree with me. But I will fight you on it. That’s what being a nerd is. So let’s begin our look at … Star War’s “Worst/Best Title”. Going in chronological order:

   

The Phantom Menace : While strange and not at all useful as an indicator of plot, this title does make sense after you’ve seen the film, and have had some time to think it over. The ‘Phantom Menace’ is, I assume, the Sith – Sidious specifically. So it actually is helpful, assuming that you already know what the series is about and are prepared to think of it as a metaphor. Which is a lot of work for a title.

Attack of the Clones : It is tempting to call this the worst title of the series, for the simple fact that, before going into the films, no one had any idea what the hell the ‘clones’ were supposed to be. And you only find out half way through the film. So it’s a spoiler that doesn’t even work because you don’t understand what is being spoiled for you. Rather impressive really.

Revenge of the Sith : This wins as best title, in my opinion. Because do you know what happens here: the Sith get their revenge. Yep, that’s the actual plot of the film. And you totally knew that going into it, so it doesn’t tell you anything you weren’t already excited for. Sidious gets some serious revenge in this film – after all, how can you defeat your enemies more than eliminating them almost entirely, and turning their golden boy into a child slaying evil plastic man? Awesome

 

A New Hope: This film was originally released without this as the subtitle, since it wasn’t always intended to be billed as the first in the trilogy. So it can’t really be blamed for how lame it is. Really though, you’re calling Luke Skywalker the new hope. Desperate times man.

Empire Strikes Back: Second most useful title, only losing points for the fact that it is less the Empire doing the striking and more Darth Vadar. On another note, this film wins as biggest waste of time.

Return of the Jedi : Jedi? Really? You’re calling Luke Skywalker, who has gotten like 10 minutes of training from Obi Wan and a clearly mental Yoda, a Jedi? And even ignoring that, he’s the only one there. The Jedi are hardly returning. It’s just this one guy.

To end this very important discussion, I bring you to the title of the seventh film in the series: The Force Awakens. Do I even need to say anything about this? I mean, why was the Force not there? I thought Luke was supposed to be a Jedi. Are the new films going to be an interesting look into the nature of the Force? Or is this just whatever JJ Abrams and the writing gang could come up with. I despair.

Tune in next time for when I talk about something completely different. Star Wars Superlatives will return some other time.