This might be the single pettiest topic to ever be a topic lol. But my pedantic complaint will be heard! I dunno if it was written by Abrams, or Terrio, or both/some other party, but like.... wtf is going on with IX's opening crawl and who gave it like five cups of coffee? If you're wondering what I mean by this, I refer you to Wookieepedia. Check out all nine saga films' opening crawls: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Opening_crawl#Film_crawls Alternatively, watch this crazy ass video lol. It starts out sounding kinda cool, then the very slight differences in tempo stand out and it becomes chaos Anyway, so if you don't see the elephant in the room here, why the ass are so many words or phrases ALL CAPS in the IX opening crawl? Opening crawls didn't always use them - prior to IX, the only all caps phrases were ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC (II), DEATH STAR (IV), GALACTIC EMPIRE (VI), FIRST ORDER, REPUBLIC, RESISTANCE (VII), FIRST ORDER, RESISTANCE (VIII) So already, the sequels are a bit more trigger-happy with the all caps, but these are the terms capsed in IX's crawl: REVENGE, EMPEROR PALPATINE, GENERAL LEIA ORGANA, REY, FIRST ORDER, KYLO REN Like what So I get that some terms would be capsed to draw your attention to it due to being an important plot point, sometimes one that's just being introduced in that movie. DEATH STAR, hell yeah, it and trying to destroy it are pretty much the main focus of the movie. ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, hell yeah. Half the movie is about said army, the mystery of where it comes from, and what it'll do. GALACTIC EMPIRE, eh. I don't really get why VI capitalized that, but it's a major faction and the movie is about its defeat, so sure, why not Same even goes for VII and VIII - bit redundant that they both capitalize FIRST ORDER and RESISTANCE, but again, main factions of the trilogy. REPUBLIC is a bit of a weird choice for VII, since its contribution to the plot is being destroyed, but important background stuff, so sure But holy donkey. REVENGE is just a word. EMPEROR PALPATINE - actually, I'd keep that one capitalized since much of the movie is about his return, so I'm fine with it. GENERAL LEIA ORGANA - why? All three sequels' second paragraphs have a penchant for mentioning General Leia Organa, but I guess IX thought we couldn't hear loudly enough before. FIRST ORDER again - eh, whatever, fair enough. Both REY and KYLO REN, though? That's.... weird. They've had two movies to establish themselves as the primary protagonist and antagonist of the trilogy. Why is the crawl yelling their names at us? We don't need special attention drawn to them at this point. We know they're major characters and expect to see them So yeah. I risk opening the floodgates by posting this, but why not. If you know my stances on the movies, this might be some of the most critical I sound. Which, if nothing else, I guess I'm just grateful to be caught up on something so minor and ultimately inconsequential in the big picture But yeah, WORDS. What do all o' y'all make of this?
That reminds me of comics where certain words in the bubbles are bold font. I find that emphasis annoying; it makes it seem like the character is saying those words louder than the others, but where I come from, real people don't talk like that. It's one of the reasons I don't like reading comics. And that opening crawl definitely felt like reading a comic. EDIT: This just popped up in another thread, perfect example.
it seems they use to mostly stick to capitalizing factions. they should have stuck to that. it seems gaudy and cheesy to capitalize everything if you capitalize everything, then essentially nothing is capitalized or empharasized.
I like it when they stick to established patterns and structures - or make patterns and structures out of stuff that has good potential for it. It's nice and comfortable. It throws me off, though, when they treat a thing like a non-thing. I'm like that. I usually feel that things are the way they are for a reason. So, I found it a bit outrageous that the opening crawl in TFA had words in all caps when up 'til then, only even-numbered episodes had done that. Not only that, but they'd put more than one word/phrase in caps! Ugh. I just felt that they didn't understand the assignment at all. (It's basically the same with the episode titles, but I've discussed that at length in other threads.) On the other hand, with the ST on the whole being what it is, why not? Do it differently, go crazy, hit CAPS LOCK and go to town! Maybe, by the time they get to Episode XII, they'll emphasize words by not writing them in caps.
"Italics for emphasis" has a long history in fiction. People can emphasise words without saying them significantly louder.
The capitalization in the sequel trilogy crawls is overdone, especially with Episode IX. They also overuse Luke/Skywalker in VII. It's used 4 times in that crawl. About 2 times probably would've been fine.
Reign of the First Order would have been a cool title, and pertinent to what was actually going on in EP 8, probably better than The Last Jedi. (even if Last Jedi rolls off the tongue quicker and is probably more marketable.
The Final Order would've worked for me. (As a title; it's clunky, at best, as an on-screen concept.) As has been said many times before, XII and VIII could've just switched titles and made sense. The OP's criticism of the crawl is on-point.
