Ethan Anderton, for /Film:
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight on Friday after the panel at Star Wars Celebration, here’s what Kennedy had to say about the potential for a Rogue One opening crawl:
“You know, we’re in the midst of talking about it, but I don’t think these films will have an opening crawl. I think that’s what we kind of telegraphed at the beginning of the event today.”
I can understand why Lucasfilm might want to do without the opening crawl for the anthology films. After all, those films are not supposed to be about the central Skywalker/Solo family storyline, so why artificially connect these new stories to the past ones? It’s a valid argument.
Still, I can’t help but feel that to remove the crawl would be a big mistake. The opening crawl is Star Wars. I can’t even think of another movie that uses that iconic crawl.[1] Not having the 20th Century Fox fanfare at the beginning of The Force Awakens was already jarring enough.
Don’t go breaking my heart (🎶), Lucasfilm.
I know George Lucas didn’t invent the concept, but the imagery is so iconic, I doubt many would have a problem with me attributing the crawl to him. ↩