Star Wars and Game of Thrones — two of the biggest entertainment franchises in the world. Both have millions of fans around the globe who have been following the fantasy series for decades.
But one is clearly better than the other — for a myriad of reasons.
The Star Wars fandom launched back in 1977 with the release of the original Star Wars film, which would eventually gain the title Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Decades after George Lucas’ space opera debuted, Star Wars has consisted of nine main feature films, multiple successful television shows, hundreds of canon and Legends books and comics, its own theme park land at two Disney parks, and a slew of TV shows and films planned for the future.
Star Wars and its characters are just about as recognizable as Disney’s Mickey Mouse and its stories are an integral part of our culture. Here’s how the space opera juggernaut blows the high fantasy Game of Thrones out of the water.
1. The opening credits
Game of Thrones has a truly iconic and helpful opening credits sequence. Not to mention an incredible score by composer Ramin Djawadi.
As the sequence plays to “Main Title”, we’re treated to a soaring 3D map journey over the various lands of Westeros. And many episodes’ opening credits are slightly different from one another because the map shows the areas featured that week. The names of the great families of Westeros are also noted in their particular regions along with images showing the evolutions of The Wall, Winterfell and King’s Landing — all three are featured in every iteration of the title sequence.
The Game of Thrones title sequence has been ranked one of the best television openings of all time.
But it has nothing on the legendary crawl and high-pitched trumpeting in Star Wars’ opening sequence.
The sequence — and the entirety of the Star Wars film score — was composed by John Williams. Each film begins with a black screen and the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” before blasting the trumpets and soaring into the iconic “Main Title” music. While the music plays, there’s a several-paragraph scroll of text that provides context and backstory for the film.
The opening crawl is seen in every Star Wars film except the “anthology” movies like Rogue One and Solo.
Star Wars’ opening crawl is an epic, excitement-inducing piece of music that elicits cheers from audiences getting a new movie from the franchise in theaters. You don’t just read and listen to the Star Wars opening scroll, you experience it.