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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9456699" data-attributes="member: 4937">I don't think that's fair at all.  This is very much a world building info dump it's just a very well thought out one as opposed to a strawman example of bad world building.The opening crawl truly begins with a fairy tale introduction, but with a well-conceived twist.  This isn't merely far far away - this is in a galaxy far far away.  That tells the audience what sort of genre to expect and consciously and unconsciously asks them to suspend their disbelief.  This is a fantasy story, but dressed in the trappings of space opera.  Then we're told it is a period of Civil War, and the rebels are the good guys.  And here we are not only told that explicitly, but to an American audience this rebellion against Empire aligns with the national myth.  And we're drawing on swords and sandals here by aligning the Empire with Rome - which is going to get reinforced in just a few scene with mention of a disbanded Senate.  So already we are drawing upon a massive amount of cultural myth.The we are told that we are going to begin In Media Res.  There was just a battle of some sort, and regardless of whatever other results, the Rebels achieved the main objective - stealing the plans to a super weapon that ... WOW... can destroy a whole planet.Then we are introduced to the first main character whose rescue is going to be the object of the first act of the movie - Princess Leia.  Again, reinforcing the fairy tale theme.  And that's it.  We've been told very little, but it has enough mythic resonance that the whole audience can reasonably fill in the blanks.  By the time we see Storm Troopers wiping the good guys out, officers wearing knock off Nazi uniforms, and this iconic black armored knight, we know everything we need to know that we didn't pick up on earlier.</blockquote>

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