Why The New Star Wars Intro Sucks, And How To Fix It
Now that the Star Wars films have finally been released digitally, the question of what Disney planned to do with the iconic 20th Century Fox logo and opening fanfare that’s so closely associated with Star Wars has been answered.
There’s a big problem with this though, beyond the excision of the Fox fanfare. This intro is edited from a specific piece from the end titles of The Empire Strikes Back titled “The Rebel Fleet / End Titles“. It’s abruptly edited without care of the melodic impact that the splice makes.
My other problem is that it’s simply too short to convey the proper sense of grandeur that the Fox fanfare managed to bring to the beginning of a Star Wars film.
As a result, I decided to do my own re-edit to solve the issue entirely by pairing the newest version of Disney’s intro branding with the Lucasfilm logo. I chose a more triumphant part of the Star Wars score to sit behind Disney’s opening that isn’t too far removed from Disney’s own intro theme, which leads melodically into a closing theme behind Lucasfilm’s. I also manually spliced the fireworks audio in over the score during the Disney component. Some subtle timing edits were also made to ensure that the graphics matched the audio throughout.
Hopefully this gives you as a reader and viewer an idea of why the correct intro is important, and potentially someone at Disney/Lucasfilm might see that a more impactful opening is possible.
When I was young, I didn’t understand that the 20th Century Fox theme was separate from the Star Wars score. #starwars
Huh. Why did my Twitter comment appear here? Oh well.
This hadn’t occurred to me because 1) I haven’t watched the trailer and 2) some part of me STILL thinks that fanfare is just part of the John Williams score, even though I’ve seen tons of other Fox movies by now! It really will feel weird without it.
I would have loved something like this which was actually an older Disney fanfare, it’s the most similar to the 20th Century FOX one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcH84wqEaYs
What you worked out would seem to be a no brainer though!
I don’t like either the original or proposed solution. Using the very end crescendo from the end credits to intro the movie seems very anti-climactic to me.
Nathan, your version or an equivalent variation would be far better than what they slapped together. All the more reason to stop supporting the continued butchery of these beloved film.
Using the very end crescendo to a movie makes me want to leave.. Because it has a finality to it.
I also strongly believe that this isn’t the FINAL version.. I’m sure that they are cooking something up for episode 7.
My guess is they just slapped this together quickly for the digital releases. Hopefully they will improve it for future releases of the old films and for the new film.