‘The Force Awakens’ misses the mark on the oldest Star Wars tradition
Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens is out, and suffice it to say, fans are really thrilled with the film. Despite being the first movie in the main saga created without the input of original series creator George Lucas, the movie manages to capture the same sense of fun and adventure in the previous installments, under the supervision of director JJ Abrams and producer Kathleen Kennedy.
A big part of the movie’s success can be credited to the extensive attention to detail involved with recreating some of the series most beloved icons — the interior of the Millennium Falcon, Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber, and even bigger surprises we won’t spoil here.
But there is one glaring error, and it’s right at the start of the film. Each main series Star Wars film starts with an iconic opening, where yellow text, scrolling into infinity, gives a three-paragraph summary of everything the audience needs to know as they join the story already-in-progress.
The ‘roll-up’ has a very specific typographical treatment in the previous six films — and the font used for the episode title, “The Force Awakens”, is wrong. Really wrong.
The Star Wars opening crawl is perhaps the most famous narrative device in cinema history. Star Wars has many stylistic hallmarks, such as the Kurosawa-inspired scene wipe. But the opening crawl has become so associated with Star Wars that no other film could possibly use it without seeming like a blatant lift. In fact, you might say that the opening crawl is the thing that makes a Star Wars film feel like The Real Deal™.
When series creator George Lucas got his chance to make the first sequel to Star Wars (1980’s The Empire Strikes Back), he made a very controversial move — re-titling his original blockbuster, Star Wars, by appending Episode IV — A New Hope. With this in mind, he decided the visual consistency of the opening crawl across all future episodes would be so sacrosanct, that he completely re-shot a new opening crawl that contained the new title and episode number.
Ever since, every main saga episode of Star Wars has contained the Episode number, typeset in the News Gothic family, and the title of the film itself, typeset in the Univers family.
Industrial Light and Magic’s Chief Creative Officer and Academy Award-winner, John Knoll, understood this during his work on the three Star Wars prequels. In his effort to match the look-and-feel of the originals, he underwent extensive research to determine the typographical qualities of the crawl, and took great care to create a digital emulation of the photographic qualities of the original equipment used to film the crawls for the original Star Wars trilogy.
The Force Awakens gets it close, but is wrong in one very crucial way. The episode’s title is set with some condensed version of News Gothic, when it should be set in Univers: likely, specifically, Ultra Condensed. News Gothic (also used for the body text) is very round, friendly, and readable, whereas Univers gives the title of the film some stately heft — telegraphing the impression that the events about to transpire are carved in the stone of destiny (or something).
There’s currently no legal way to obtain a screenshot of The Force Awakens’ crawl at this point, but here’s an approximation of what you’re seeing in theaters right now (body text omitted to be spoiler-free):
And here’s another crude approximation — a bit closer to what it probably should have looked like:
It’s subtle, but noticable. The ‘S’ and ‘R’ glyphs, in particular, are very different. Overall, it’s boxier, and feels more staid. Less urgent.
Ironically, much of the promotional material for the film, which is often subject to less scrutiny, gets the font correct! Both the online Star Wars Crawl Creator gets the episode title typeface correct, and the most recent TV ads for the movie feature a roll-up of all the publications giving the film rave reviews, which gets the typeface correct as well.
This whole thing might seem like a nitpick — and really, if this is the worst thing fans have to complain about, we’re probably lucky — but one could argue that the opening narration to Star Wars is a character all to itself, present throughout the entire saga. If characterization is to be consistent, the typography should be consistent.
Imagine the upset if Anakin’s lightsaber were shaded purple instead of blue. Or if the Millennium Falcon made the wrong noises? Or if C-3PO suddenly were voiced by Alan Rickman?
These films are treasured, and beloved for many reasons — one of which is their visual consistency. To quote an article from the official Star Wars website regarding the opening roll-up, “…the only variable that changed was the text itself — every other detail remained untouched, as if the audience were simply flipping through the pages of a book, reading one chapter after the other, moving forward along one continuous storyline.”
The film is out, and it’s perfectly enjoyable the way it is. I’m sure most hardcore fans have seen it more than once already. But the most famous typographical tradition in sci-fi cinema history should be restored. Here’s to hoping that JJ, Kathleen, and Lucasfilm restore the correct typography of the opening crawl for the film’s eventual release on Blu-ray this summer. Only they can restore balance to the Force.
