The opening sequence of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi uses clever cinematography techniques like establishing shots, panning shots, and zooms to introduce the plot and setting. It establishes the Death Star II as the location and shows the Empire's leaders arriving. The sequence maintains the sci-fi and military genres through its visual effects, dark color palette, and use of technical language by Imperial officers. Editing techniques like cross-cutting keep the opening scene engaging as it sets up the narrative of the Empire preparing for the Emperor's arrival.

1. Film Opening Sequence Analysis
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Star Wars Episode VI Return Of The Jedi
Name: Adam
Grundy
My Analysis
Supporting Images
Cinematography &
Camera
Techniques
Though the opening scene to Return of the Jedi is mainly CGI
based. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t feature some cleverly featured
shots. The film starts off with an establishing shot of where the
beginning and the majority of the film will take place, upon the
death star II. The Establishing shot starts as it tilts from a view of
space downwards to the shot of planet and the death star II.
Clever use from the director as it reveals a major plot hole from
the other movies as the empire have remained quiet for a year so
it shows us why they have been quiet but it doesn’t ruin anything
for the viewer which the director would want, if a director was to
give away the whole plot at the beginning it would ruin it for the
audience and they wouldn’t be interested. Next shot is a panning
shot of the leaders shuttle slowly moving towards the death star
II, the reason the director used a panning shot to make the shot
longer so the object it is tracking doesn’t go of camera straight
away and it also shows us in which way the shuttle is moving.
After this it moves onto both a over the shoulder shot and a
medium shot of the two pilots. The over the shoulder shot would
have been used to show the co-pilot using the microphone as it is
barely visible in the medium shot and the medium shot would
have been used to show their facial expressions as they are
allowed into the death star. It also proved to us that they are
actual soldiers working for the empire and not spies trying to
sneek in. The medium shot is also used in a way of a two shot as
it features only two participants inside the shot though the shot
does break the 180 degree rule as it also features a shot behind
them. Though with Continuity Editing, it doesn’t make the

2. Film Opening Sequence Analysis
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shot seem rough and unbalanced. Up next is a close up shot
of a computer screen. Though the screen may not be
readable to the viewer as it is in a different language and is
not understandable to the audience, it shows us that it is
important as it is zoomed in and the director wants you to
try and picture what it would mean in the language of the
viewer. Up next after the close up is a zoom in shot as the
shuttle is preparing to land into the death star, directors
tend to use zoom in shots when a vehicle is about to come
out of focus so it tries to keep it in focus until it is no longer
viewable and then it will move onto another shot to keep it
remained in view to the audience, they wouldn’t want to
lose track of it. Next is the final establishing shot of inside
the deathstar and where the rest of the scene is going to
take place for the rest of the scene, it is a good way of
showing the audience the place where the scene is going to
take place as it will become familiar later on, audiences
don’t like unfamiliar scenery. After this is a tracking shot of
the commander walking down the isle to the shuttle, as the
tracking shot is behind the soldiers it hides the officers face
for most of the shot but from what you can see of his face,
you can see that he really doesn’t look pleased to see
Vader, and the next shot which is a medium shot of the
commanders face showing his anxiousness, people are
generally nervous in suspections but when its a surprise one
then you can imagine why the commander feels extremely
nervous and as he’s waiting for Vader to arrive you can see
him take a gulp which also backs up that he is incredibly
nervous. After the door opens there is a low angle shot of
vader walking down from the shuttles doors, the director

3. Film Opening Sequence Analysis
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has used this type of shot to make the villain look more
menacing, a director wants to make their villain look as evil
as they can. If they don’t then the audience won’t believe
that he is as powerful as they make him out to be, and lastly
we end on a high angle shot of vader and the commander
talking. The use of the high angle shot was use to hide the
emotion of the commander and add some intensity.
Visual Effects &
Colour Scheme
The main colour scheme of this scene is all dark and dull colours
like grey, black and all the dark blues/reds etc. They used these
colours for the empire to show the audience that the times they
are in are dark and that its not a good time for anyone. Though
you can see the empires colour scheme is grey as all their
vehicles, the death star and some uniforms use a shade of grey.
You can tell this scene has uses of visual effects to enhance the
colours of some lights to make them stand out and to look more
bolder and to look more vibrant. They have also use effects to
make the reflections stand out and look more noticeable. They
have also done to it to a certain level where it doesn’t look like its
been over done to an unprofessional standard and done just
good enough so its noticeable but doesn’t become the main
subject of the scene. The visual effects do keep to the standards
to suit the angle of the shot, sometimes a director can get sloppy
and slack on the effects longer the shot but fortunatly that is not
the case here.
Genre
Conventions
The whole saga’s genre is Sci-fi, Fantasy and Action. The whole
star wars universe is a made up fantasy universe which is nothing
like our own, hence the Space Ships and space stations. The
director was very strict on making sure they stick to the same and
not cross-genre and go off topic which would be an instant turn
away for the audience but they manage to stick towards it. The
beginning you can tell that the empire is still at its peak time and
still at the height of its power as they are preparing to spend

4. Film Opening Sequence Analysis
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money on building another battle station to help them fight the
war so you can obviously see that they are not going down
without a fight. As its an opening scene you don’t want to spoil
anything so they won’t tell you the entire story but what they will
do is briefly touch upon it and give the viewer hints of what is
going to happen later on in the film, some viewers won’t
understand the hints then what will happen later on in the film
will be a surprise to the viewer. The reason it is distinctly a Sci Fi
film is due to what is in the video, nothing in this scene is in real
as it is all made up to suit the sci fi genre (Such as Space Shuttles
and Lazer Guns.)
Narrative
The narrative is all military based, from the beginning when the
Death Star Crew allow Darth Vaders Shuttle to when Darth Vader
himself tells the commander that the emperor is coming to the
death star itself. They also use Military terminology such as
“Standby” which one of the crew says to the pilots of the shuttle
as he prepares to dock. As the empire is a massive and they are
portrayed that way you would want the actors to use correct
language when speaking, you wouldn’t want Military
commanders speaking casually which they wouldn’t do in the
army so they haven’t done it in this film which makes the empire
feel more fierce and a lot more realistic, more than it would be.
So throughout the scene the characters do not go off topic or
change the way they speak which makes the film seem more
proffesional and will keep the viewers watching.

5. Film Opening Sequence Analysis
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Editing Techniques
First thing i should start with is this scene is heavy on its visual
effects as there is a lot of CGI with alot of use from Green and
bluescreens. This can be seen instantly on the first scene as it is a
scene in space so you instantly tell that it the scene will include
the some use of a visual effect. There is another shot where you
can see the director has use a visual effect, when the shuttle is
landing you can see it has a different styling effect to the rest of
the shot and that it is blurry so you can prove that it wasn’t in the
original shot so it was added it in post production which proves
that it is CGI. This scene also uses a lot of cross cutting editing to
shorten the length of the clips as you can see in the first half of
the shot when the shuttle is driving towards the death star as it
jumps from one spot to the other. The shots have shortened so
the viewer doesn’t get bored and so he will continue to watch
the scene, they don’t want to spend so long watching a scene
that doesn’t have much to show.
Title Credit Design