Best and Worst Opening Montages

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dodgers

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Every so often we talk of theme songs; this is a thread about the visuals that accompany them.

I've always been impressed by the way the Gargoyles season 1 opener managed to tell the character's origins using solely visuals; without a word, the viewer is told how gargoyles are stone by day, that they were massacred, and that the survivors were made to remain stone by night until the 20th century--quite the trick, even if one needs to actually have seen the episode in order to really get it. While I love Keith David's narration in the second season, it does take away from the visuals a bit, I feel.

When it comes to openings created using specifically-prepared animation, I've always been partial to Anime's tendency to showcase absolutely every prominent character, a practice which is almost comepletely absent here--TMNT: Fast Forward and The Simpsons are the only show I can recall that have really done it, but I'd love to have seen shows with lots of characters like Gargoyles or Justice League Unlimited try it.

On a separate note: specially-made footage vs. in-show footage--which makes for better intros?
 
WITCH also did it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RprMMZjbpI&fmt=18

I'm not a fan of clip-show/montage openings to be honest. They come off as lazy and unimaginative to me, while people who made specially made intros show a lot of effort and creativity being put into a show and come off like they really care about their work and aren't phoning it in. I definitely prefer intros like WITCH and TMNT: Fast Forward to clip-show intros. Bonus points if they use an actual song and don't just repeat the show's premise over and over again.
 
Tiny Toons, Animaniacs and Tazmania all mentioned a majority of their cast (all of them in Taz's case) in their theme songs.
 
specially-made footage > in-show footage

I prefer specially made footage it just shows better quality that they actaully care. I dont mind if theres some in shows scenes spliced in with the specially animated footage since some shows dont have the budget to do a full animated into.

Best

Batman: The Animated Series: This one is probraly the most coolest it something you really didn't see in action cartoon inros. Then again thats nothing new for Batman since this show broke new ground all the time. Normally action shows are more load flashy and fast paced intros. This on the other hand was very dark and gloomy and you really didn't get a full shot of Batman tell the very end.

Batman Beyond: Again Bruce Timm and co thought outside the box and worked. I just love that shot of Batman surrounded by his enemies and its circling around him truley epic.

Theres more but I'll add them later when I got more time.


Worst

English Dubbed anime in show footage: Most animes aren't lucky like Naruto they dont get the Japanese openings aired instead some create the own openings with new music and splicing togeather footage to make a new opening. Some of them aren't bad at all but some are beyond horrible. The worst offender is probraly Funi Dubb Dragonball Z all I can say about this is thank god for Toonami's own intro's. Really this is by far the most piss poor thing ever they take footage from one or two episodes neither being very well animated or action packed episodes. They then splice those scenes with some of the worst butt rock music ever produced. Look it up on Youtube it really is terrible.
 
Best (in no order): Oban Star-Racers American Intro, Fillmore!, King of the Hill, Code Lyoko, W.I.T.C.H. (both), 6teen, Total Drama, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and some more.

In terms of worst, I'm not sure, but the Spanish dubbing of the Code Lyoko theme is AWFUL.
ESPECIALLY the lyrics.

Where "Today.." in the English version is, they use "Well, HOYYYYYY!"
 
I am going to go about this without taking the theme songs into play because that was covered in another thread, I am going exclusivly off of the footage used to create the opening sequence. X-Men TAS gets my vote, it prominantly showed each member in an epic state and the final scene where the heroes and villains are charging at eachother is just awesome and really used to gdet my adrenaline pumped for the upcoming epsiode, definatly my favorite of all-time. There has been plenty of other great opening montage's as well, Tiny Toon's, Thundercats, Batman TAS and others have all rallied me up with their opening video. The original TMNT has a great scene right at the beginning of their opening video of all the turtles cloaked in darkness, it just made them look so epic and B-A that it's hard not to get emotional for it. So many shows, so many openings.......
 
I don't care if a cartoon's opening features every single character, as long as all of the central characters are featured.

Also, I prefer shows which actually take the time to make entirely original animated sequences for their openings, as opposed to just using a bunch of clips from various episodes. A show's opening is what's supposed to get the audience psyched for the show; it shouldn't be half-assed. Clip openings are just lazy and uncreative to me. They're an immediate turn-off.
 
Garfield and Friends is a great example of Quality intro Montages. (even the Seventh season had a good montage)

Worst?... hard to think about... AH! The Super Mario Brothers Super Show had a terrible Montage in its Italian dub. Music sounded nothing like The Game.:shrug:
 
Best Opening? I would say Pokemon Kanto League since that was one of those songs that even after 10 years and the quality of the show has gone downhill, you can still remember most if not all of the words.

Worst Opening? So far, and the show hasn't even reached the midpoint of the season, I think Basquash! counts but that's because the show had to wait two-three episodes to get a new opening that was more clips from different episodes with new animation. Case in point, both intros are similar in the way they are both using the same method as I already stated (animation from the episodes and new animation) and the three girls who no one will remember from the new intro as the series go on are pretty much distractions. I wanted to see more of the main and supporting characters and not main and supporting cast guest starring Powerpuff Girls Z look-alikes.
 
I can make a endless list of animes, because that is one thing I think they do better in the east, is the opening montages. Since they like to use original animation, most shows here just use stock footage. But there are exceptions. Anyway that is just a preference of mine.

Best

Bleach opening 3 (One Lone Flower) - it perfectly highlights the characters and illustrates what the series is about.

Code Geass opening 2 (Keidokufunou) - the first opening was good too, but this one takes to another level. It highlights the characters and the action in the series excellently. Though I like the first opening song "Colors" better, but this is about the animation and art, not the music.

Code Geass R2 opening 2 (World's End) - this is my favorite opening from the series. Maybe the best song in the series. Great animation, with great music in the background.

Blue Dragon opening 2 - I don't know the name of the song, but I like it, and the animation surronding is excellent, really hightlights the characters. The only complaint I have, is Delphinium only has a one second appearance. She is a major character, especially towards the end of the first series.

There are more, but this is all I can think of at the moment.
 

I don't think one implies the other, though: I've seen plenty of intros with bad specialized footage openings (Justice League), and plenty of great "show-footage" intros (the Disney afternoon oeuvre). It's by no means clear-cut, particularly with today's video-editing software, which helps blur the difference between both styles a lot.



Ehh...while the editing on these is usually slapdash, I usually find that the right music helps a lot. The original openings for dubs like Dragonball Z or Sailor Moon wouldn't be nearly as memorable if not for the catchy songs. But yeah, when the song itself isn't any good, then you have problems.

Even so, there are quite a few dub-only openings I like, although those tend to be ones who make liberal use of the Japanese OP footage. The Pokemon openings by 4Kids (particularly the ones Advance Battle and Advance Challenge) are particularly good, as is their newest Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's opening (and most of their Yu-Gi-Oh! openings, actually).

Well, yes--but that's not the same as showcasing every prominent character. For example, a Spectacular Spider-Man opening in the style I suggest would not only spotlight Spider-Man, but his rogues gallery and the twenty-something characters in the supporting cast as well.

Heck yes--all in all, it's still the best thing about the show.
 
The best opening I seen so far is Batman Beyond. I wish more american cartoon opening ways like that.

But the worst I seen is Johnny Test second opening. The first opening was great, but the second opening felt lazy.
 
My favorite openings would be: Fighting the dreamers. Naruto. It is just such a cool, upbeat song.

Worse: The Mighty Bee! opening. :sweat: C'mon, it's weird!
 
I do agree with The Mighty Bee not having a great theme song since most of it is a bunch of kids saying "Bee, bee, bee" over and over again.

Plus I think you're talking about the Naruto's Fighting Dreamers which was the series' fourth/fifth theme song. That was one of the first songs I liked from the dub and was glad to welcome it and the other Japanese openings that Viz and CN could provide for us. As for their ending credits montages, however, THOSE are just crap.
 
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