10 Star Wars Clichés Episode VII Must Include

10. That Iconic Scrolling Introduction

Starting with an obvious element that's appeared at the start of every Star Wars film: an introductory paragraph or three scrolling vertically upwards across the cinema screen. A Star Wars film just wouldn't be a Star Wars film without this opening convention. Originally used as a way of evoking 1940s movie serials, such as Flash Gordon, Captain Midnight, and the Crimson Ghost, the slowly scrolling text also provided George Lucas with an elegant method of giving movie goers a story-so-far blurb. Of course, with Episode IV: A New Hope, that "story so far" was entirely made up, at least at the time. This first set of "crawling" text only existed to engender a false sense of nostalgia; it was an artifice to give the admittedly cool impression that the film was the latest installment of an already ongoing multi-part series. Luckily, after a long break between trilogies, the "Part IV" section of the film's title was made real. While on the subject of the titles, the "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." sentence has to be the very first thing seen on screen, followed by the stunning blast of the amazing, still-stirring theme music and the instantly recognizable Star Wars logo filling the screen, before shrinking into the far distance with the "crawl" starting below. When an audience sees those three elements ("A long time ago...", the logo/blast of theme music, and the crawling text), they know they're watching a Star Wars film. If it ain't broke, don't fix it...