How Brian De Palma Contributed To 'Star Wars'
Image Source: Turner Classic Movies
A long-ish time ago, in a place not so far away…George Lucas, Brian De Palma, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola walk into a bar. No, it’s not a set-up for a joke, it’s a thing that may or may not have happened, we don’t know for sure. It was certainly possible, however, as the five legendary filmmakers did collaborate on a lot of films together in the 70s when they were all young up-and-coming directors. It must have worked wonders, soon they would each direct Star Wars (Lucas), Scarface (De Palma), Jaws, as well as many others (Spielberg), Taxi Driver (Scorsese), and The Godfather (Coppola). The five would bounce ideas off of each other and give each other advice on their upcoming films. This meant that we got to say hello to De Palma’s little ideas for Star Wars. On second thought, maybe his ideas weren’t so little.
It used to be thought that Spielberg was the only one who supported the idea of Star Wars, but De Palma has since said that this is not true. He clarified that he, as well as Scorsese and Coppola, thought the idea had plenty of potential, but they simply didn’t think that the special effects at the time were capable of producing something so ambitious. This was a concern for many people on staff at the time as well, even during filming. One critique he did have however proved to be way wrong. Although he did see the value in a mystical spiritual guide, De Palma said that he thought the idea of giving it a hokey and bland name such as “the force” was poor and would be seen as silly by the audience. He has since admitted that this was an incorrect prediction on his part.
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His largest contribution to the franchise was almost undoubtedly the idea of the opening crawl. Knowing that George had viewed A New Hope (then just called Star Wars) as part 4 of a series, he felt it was important for the audience to get an introduction to the setting at the beginning of the movie. He felt like throwing the audience into the middle of a story with no explanation would be jarring, and that anyone watching would need to be ‘caught up’ on what’s happening.
Image Source: Yodasnews.com
Given how Star Wars was so heavily based on the Flash Gordon serials, De Palma suggested that George copy the idea of having a text crawl at the opening of each ‘episode’. After seeing the original crawl as being 6 paragraphs long, De Palma suggested that George shorten it. He then noted the improvement when he saw the revised, 3 paragraph crawl that ended up becoming the crawl that ended up making it into the film. Interestingly, that opening crawl went on to become the basis for Rogue One in a few decades. So you can give De Palma credit for one of the most unique and interesting things in Star Wars: in fact, you can give him credit for the first thing people saw in it. Now there’s a contribution!
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Source(s): Comicbook.com, Wookieepedia, Wikipedia