2nd Film opening analysis
Now i will do an analysis of the opening scene of Star wars Episode VII: The force awakens.
I had to change my genre due to major group issues and now i have to analyse 2 other films with sic fi genre. (The first film i analysed was still valid because it was a sci fi and action hybrid film).
As we are talking about a star wars film, we all know that the beginning is always presented in the same format. This format tells the audience what has happened prior to the movie and sets the tone for the first scenes. This crawls are used in every single star wars movie and is the most characteristic intro of all time (personal opinion).
After this intro, we get to see props and characters such as the new droid BB-8. This straight away shows how the movie is from the science fiction genre, due to the fact that droids and robots made in real life don't have AI to work independently. Props that can lead us to think this is a sci fi film can be lightsabers, laser guns and spaceships. The lightning of this scene is very dark which causes a serious and mysterious tone to be set.
The narrative is linear. The story shows how an old man gives a younger man a sort of USB which can be connected to a droid to be presented with the location of Luke Skywalker, but the empire leaded by the sith lord Kylo ren is trying to get that USB in order to find and kill Luke Skywalker.
And once the empire arrives, they start fighting their way to that USB and they end up killing the old man and kidnapping the man who received the USB. The issue is that the droid has got the USB now and he has escaped to the most "urban" place he could find in the planet trying to escape from the empire. This story is told in present time, and there is no flashbacks or anything that could suggest this isn't linear.
The location is given by certain clues which you can only understand if you are a star wars fan. They are in a planet called Jakku. The clues are the amount of sand around the place and the sand dunes, as well as the people that live there.
The characters are presented in two sides of the force, light (good) and dark (bad).
From the light side we have Poe Dameron, BB-8 and Lord San Tekka. They are in the light side off the force with the goal of taking the USB with Luke's location to the resistance. Meanwhile, in the dark side we have Kylo Ren, Captain Phasma and all the clones that fight for the first order/empire, and they are fighting to get the USB so they can kill Luke. But in-between we get to see a disturbed and confused clone who we later realise is Finn, one of the main characters. Finn is presented as an interesting character because clones are normally 100% loyal to the dark side, but Finn does not want to fight for them. This sci fi story shows us a lot of characters and a story line which we can only think of as an out of this world story such as star wars or star trek. But i think every character is stereotypical except for Finn, who is a very innovative character for Star wars as a franchise.
The pacing of this scene is really varied. It starts kind of slow at the very first, but soon it turns into a fast paced massacre from the first order. But it doesn't take long for it to go back to slow so we can see the moment in which Lord San Tekka talks with Kylo Ren before getting murdered. And that is how this opening scene goes, it keeps changing between fast and slow pace.
And how i previously mentioned, the very beginning of the movie presents a very big amount of text in the classic star wars font and the very characteristic gold color that is presented in every star wars opening. This text is presented right after the blue colored "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...". The gold colored text is presented as a crawl in a black background and it moves upwards (away from the audience). This text sets the tone and story of what's going on and gives a reason for the movie to happen.
The scene uses fast cuts when they are presenting the battle/massacre but starts using more slow shot/reverse shots and therefore slower cuts. There is a big amount of CGI used because how the movie is a sci fi movie, we get to see unreal props such as laser guns shooting and light sabers.
And all the added special effects add a great "realism" to the scene (by realism i mean that even though is CGI, it makes it look and sound more realistic). Also, the soundtrack in the background has a really big role for the pace of the movie. The movie moves as fast as the music does, but also we can hear a change on the volume of the music depending of how intense the shot is (if is dialogue between two people then is low, but during battle is really loud.
Opening scene analysed: https://youtu.be/0G7XMoZViBo
The narrative is linear. The story shows how an old man gives a younger man a sort of USB which can be connected to a droid to be presented with the location of Luke Skywalker, but the empire leaded by the sith lord Kylo ren is trying to get that USB in order to find and kill Luke Skywalker.
And once the empire arrives, they start fighting their way to that USB and they end up killing the old man and kidnapping the man who received the USB. The issue is that the droid has got the USB now and he has escaped to the most "urban" place he could find in the planet trying to escape from the empire. This story is told in present time, and there is no flashbacks or anything that could suggest this isn't linear.
The location is given by certain clues which you can only understand if you are a star wars fan. They are in a planet called Jakku. The clues are the amount of sand around the place and the sand dunes, as well as the people that live there.
The characters are presented in two sides of the force, light (good) and dark (bad).
From the light side we have Poe Dameron, BB-8 and Lord San Tekka. They are in the light side off the force with the goal of taking the USB with Luke's location to the resistance. Meanwhile, in the dark side we have Kylo Ren, Captain Phasma and all the clones that fight for the first order/empire, and they are fighting to get the USB so they can kill Luke. But in-between we get to see a disturbed and confused clone who we later realise is Finn, one of the main characters. Finn is presented as an interesting character because clones are normally 100% loyal to the dark side, but Finn does not want to fight for them. This sci fi story shows us a lot of characters and a story line which we can only think of as an out of this world story such as star wars or star trek. But i think every character is stereotypical except for Finn, who is a very innovative character for Star wars as a franchise.
The pacing of this scene is really varied. It starts kind of slow at the very first, but soon it turns into a fast paced massacre from the first order. But it doesn't take long for it to go back to slow so we can see the moment in which Lord San Tekka talks with Kylo Ren before getting murdered. And that is how this opening scene goes, it keeps changing between fast and slow pace.
And how i previously mentioned, the very beginning of the movie presents a very big amount of text in the classic star wars font and the very characteristic gold color that is presented in every star wars opening. This text is presented right after the blue colored "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...". The gold colored text is presented as a crawl in a black background and it moves upwards (away from the audience). This text sets the tone and story of what's going on and gives a reason for the movie to happen.
The scene uses fast cuts when they are presenting the battle/massacre but starts using more slow shot/reverse shots and therefore slower cuts. There is a big amount of CGI used because how the movie is a sci fi movie, we get to see unreal props such as laser guns shooting and light sabers.
And all the added special effects add a great "realism" to the scene (by realism i mean that even though is CGI, it makes it look and sound more realistic). Also, the soundtrack in the background has a really big role for the pace of the movie. The movie moves as fast as the music does, but also we can hear a change on the volume of the music depending of how intense the shot is (if is dialogue between two people then is low, but during battle is really loud.
Opening scene analysed: https://youtu.be/0G7XMoZViBo
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