Star Wars may have the most famous opening title sequence in film history, but in terms of influence it’s got nothing on the work of Saul Bass. He’s the brilliant graphic designer who gave us the animated credits for Hitchcock’s Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho and Scorsese’s Casino, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence and Goodfellas and most of Otto Preminger’s work, including Exodus, Anatomy of a Murder and The Man With the Golden Arm. You’ve also seen his work at the beginning of West Side Story and Alien and Big and The Seven Year Itch and Spartacus.

But what if he had designed the opening credits to Star Wars? Well, it might have looked something like this video, which was created for a school project. Interesting, yes. Creative, yes. Entertaining, yes. Memorable, no. It just goes to show how significant some credit sequences can be, because this is hardly appropriate for George Lucas’ film. And I don’t just mean because the music is all wrong. If this student wanted to go with a jazz score for the titles, he should have gone with a jazz cover of the Star Wars theme. And if he wanted something more upbeat, he could have used a jazz cover of the Cantina Band song (both covers can be heard on this album).

If I was this guy’s professor, I’d give him a B+, mostly for effort and the fact that I love the lazer blasts and the zoom in on the Death Star at the end. For the A, though, he’d need to resubmit with something more suitable than a Buddy Rich soundtrack.

[via Fraktastic]