The opening titles of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" uses cartoon elements like singing flowers and dancing elves to create a cheerful, child-friendly atmosphere. However, this turns ominous as the elf is stopped and the screen goes dark, revealing the actual opening. The opening titles of "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" instantly establishes the fantasy genre through its font and music. It provides background information about the rings of power through narration by Galadriel. Scenes of villages being burned and people slaughtered show the high stakes if Sauron and his orcs are victorious in their battle for Middle Earth. Close-ups of Sauron emphasize that he is a formidable force

1. 2 opening titles analysis
1) A series of unfortunate events
At the start of the film they set the scene with a vast scene of
cartoon trees with a cartoon pink bird flying across the
screen, two blue birds symbolize happiness and incorporate
titles into the film; it looks like a typical cartoon fairytale.
Then even more titles are shown; friendly woodland
creatures are shown to symbolize normal, child friendly,
fairytale elements. The bird flies through smoke to create a
hart this symbolizes cartoon happiness. There’re singing
flowers, which are often found in cartoons. The word granny
is on a mailbox, which can normally be associated with
friendly and fragile. The character and title are centralized to
show they are important and are the focus of the attention.
The camera follows the little elf to show that he is the main
character. Laughing and dancing is stereotypically all the
little elf does, it all seems too happy to be real suggesting
that it is all a dream or a fantasy. The opening is very
childish and creepy which matches the music until the elf is
stopped and the screen goes dark revealing the actual
opening.

2. 2) Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring
At the start the titles are instantly shown in a very specific
font that can closely be related to the fantasy genre, the
narrator (Galadriel/Cate Blanchette) instantly starts relating
to the books and describes the problem that is shown at the
beginning, the title of the film is shown in the font that is
instantly recognizable for the lord of the rings and hobbit
trilogy/saga. It gives a great deal of background knowledge
when it shows elves and dwarves and men being given rings
of power and relating closely to the books again. It then cuts
to the introduction of the main antagonist and problem
throughout the trilogy and gives information to why he is so
important, also the music so far has been calm as there is no
sign of danger so far, the music increases in volume and
tempo to show that this is one of the main characters
however not in a positive way, fire and lava are a common
thing on the screen now to signify danger and peril. The
narrator describes the rings distributed amongst the most
powerful and wisest beings of each key race and nothing is
corrupt or savaged until Sauron creates a ring of power that
is designed to enslave all the other races and the
antagonist’s reasons for this are purely for the gain of
himself and his subjects (orcs, goblins etc…) . A close up of
sauron’s face shows no eyes or any detection of human
features or fantasy creature there is no detection of emotion
or human like qualities. An extreme close up of the ring on
Sauron’s finger shows that it is of great importance and
significance to this scene and later the entire movie hence
the title. The next scenes are of villages being burnt down
and people who would stand against Sauron being
slaughtered to show what is at stake and what should
happens if Sauron should win this battle for Middle Earth,
this shows that he is a force not to be taken lightly. The next

3. scenes have music which has changed to an opera feel with a
great sense of awe and greatness it has a great sense of scale
and battle of which adds to the giant clash between forces
which is shown in screen, it adds to showing what is at
stake. The music stops as you see a close up of the back of
Sauron’s head towering over the men showing that they are
in in comparison miniscule to him and this isn’t going to be a
start to a film in which you feel confident in the antagonists.
The next scene is just showing Sauron wiping the men away
as if they were flies and getting an overall feel of the awe to
the movie, and a sense of what to expect.