How George Lucas Resurrected a 1950s Widescreen Jingle
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- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- Star Wars Opening Explained: Fox, CinemaScope, and Bb Major. A quick look at the very start of Star Wars, how it got there, and why it's so effective. Cinema academics! Hollywood history! Educational influential content! I don't have a Patreon!
Neat to learn. Thanks!
Really cool. I didn’t know about the CinemaScope extension part. I did read once that he purposely used an old mono recording of the Fox fanfare so that the impact of the main score and Star Destroyer coming overhead in the brand new Dolby Surround would be heightened in comparison.
Loved a lot about this video. Informative & interesting, and it was just as long as it needed to be. Not to mention the subject matter. The Star Wars opening was always so powerful, and it stuck with me forever. The tidbit about the musical chords matching between songs is genius. Great video! Wish it got more attention.
Hey thanks! This was a little low-key pandemic project and I'm glad you're one of the few who have stumbled across it. :)
The pause between the fox fanfare and the main theme to star wars is PERFECT and I love it! Too bad it the fox fanfare wasn't used for the sequel trilogy.
John Williams re-recorded the Fox fanfare for the Empire Strikes Back Soundtrack. I think they have been using that recording since.
Well done. It all makes sense.
Thanks for watching!
Wow, I had no idea about the CinemaScope reference in the title sequence! I only knew, that the Star Wars Main Theme by John Williams was strongly influenced by Erich Wolfang Korngold's theme for the 1942 movie Kings Row. And that the famous crawling backward angled text is a direct reference to Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe from 1940. The CinemaScope reference is definitely the cherry on the retro cake. Just how many references to the late Golden Age of Hollywood can you squeeze into the very first 2 minutes of a moving picture... Can it be that George Lucas wanted to create a sense of familiarity in the viewers? To add to the notion that this is indeed a story from "a long time ago"?
Thanks for adding the additional context here! I like your observation and suggestion of the conclusion :) Thanks for watching
Man, it feels so unresolved without the extension. The walk up, and the strings joining in with the horns, before coming back and finishing is what ties it all together. I know fanfares do tend to mostly stay in the same place, but damn.
I suppose I can see the logic though - sound was still novel enough by itself in the 30s, and finishing in that anticipatory phase of the melody does arguably lead-in to and build suspense for the movie to come.
But I definitely prefer when those title cards are a sort of tiny self contained narrative, so keeping the full theme after Lucas brought it back is very welcome indeed.
I also can’t help but be reminded of how Warner Brothers hadn’t used their classic shield logo for decades, until… argh what was it, I think it was a movie about time travel. Time After Time, okay. Well, the director for that movie wanted the shield logo, WB wasn’t sure about it because they had their Warner Group-wide red logo, but they were convinced. And after the critical and audience reception enjoyed the shield so much, they brought it back for good after a few years.
It’s funny how that happens.
Didn’t know aboht the WB story, thanks!
@@bzotto Nick Meyer spends a chapter on the ordeal, including the struggle to convince the studio, in his autobiography if you’d like to read more :) I bet a library has it!
It’s weird how little it’s talked about, tbh, that directors connected to the two biggest sci-fi franchises are responsible for reviving two iconic studio title cards.