Title sequence
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It's some kind of demon/apparition as far as I can tell. I think it was meant to imply an illusion, because once the title has settled into place on the screen, the creature has mysteriously vanished. Probably an attempt to underline the "Nothing here is real" concept, so that the show is scary without being horrifying.
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The knight has clearly moved on; the creature hasn't vanished.
If you look, the creature manifests in a tunnel, but after the title disappears, the knight's on the edge of a chasm.
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It's some kind of demon/apparition as far as I can tell.
Really? The rest of us thought it was human.
Anyway, it happens in a cave way underneath the castle. Notice the camera zooming in on the tunnel as the knight rides by.
As fluttermoth says, it doesn't vanish. The next we see the knight and horse, they are much higher up on a ledge, and about to jump a chasm. Obviously forced up there because there are monsters such as the one we have just seen, blocking caves and other entrances to the dungeon.
Thus forcing adventurers to make their way to the castle and start their quest from the top, as intended. Makes sense to me.
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Well the dungeon is under the castle, they don't use the same path back.
It's not just the creature that's odd, but having the title show half way though is what I find quite strange. Kinda breaks the flow of the sequence.
The other big question is who is locked in that jail?
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The creature (looks like something out of Ghostbusters) bursts out of the ground. He doesn't create the gap, this happen at ground level inside a tunnel (over grown thorns) The title comes up, and the next time we see the knight his further along the path and about to jump over the gap.
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The knight has clearly moved on; the creature hasn't vanished.
If you look, the creature manifests in a tunnel, but after the title disappears, the knight's on the edge of a chasm.
That 'tunnel' is actually a canopy of trees surrounding the ledge. It's true they've disappeared afterwards, but the hole in the pathway is still directly ahead, where the demon appeared - hence the horse has to leap over it - so I don't think he has moved on.
Really? The rest of us thought it was human.
I was answering Wombstar's question, when he asked what the monster was. Is it a problem for you that it's even being discussed?
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The creature (looks like something out of Ghostbusters) bursts out of the ground. He doesn't create the gap, this happen at ground level inside a tunnel (over grown thorns) The title comes up, and the next time we see the knight his further along the path and about to jump over the gap.
The thing is, when the demon appears, the horse rears up, and it's still doing so after the title has vanished - you can see its front hooves dropping back onto the pathway.
A hole appears in the path and the horse rears up. Then a few moments later it comes to another hole in the path and it rears up again? Well, it's possible of course, but I'd say it looks a lot likelier that it's just the one hole, and the disappearance of the trees is just an animation mistake. (Or perhaps they were part of the illusion of the demon?)
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I don't think so. The monster is on the ground level hidden in that over grown thorn bush. The other hole is further up the causeway, it's clear to me his on a ledge at this point but was on the ground when the monster appeared, it then cuts to the knight at the top entering the castle. So we see him at three different locations along the path.
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Looks like a ledge to me. You go to earlier in the sequence, when we first see the castle, it looks like a ledge lined with trees/thorns. If you look in the background, you can see hills surrounded by clouds at the same altitude as the path, implying this is quite high up. There's also no indication in that picture of where the 'land' gives way to a ledge.
I'm pretty sure the discontinuities are just mistakes; the background is completely clear of clouds after the demon is gone.
Out of interest, assuming your view of it is right, how did the horse get over the gap created by the demon? If the canopy of thorns was still there, there wouldn't be room for the horse to jump over it.
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The creature (looks like something out of Ghostbusters) bursts out of the ground. He doesn't create the gap, this happen at ground level inside a tunnel (over grown thorns) The title comes up, and the next time we see the knight his further along the path and about to jump over the gap.
Yup that's how I see it too. After all it's an animation sequence not a documentary. We can allow for time jumps. I also agree that it looks like something out of
Ghostbusters and I have previously thought the same thing myself!
I am glad the person behind the bars was removed from series 4 onwards. Too cartoony and distracted from the feeling of fear created by the otherwise atmospheric titles.
Since we're on the subject of "What's that thing" in the opening titles, whose hand comes out the wall in series 6-8? Always thought it looked a bit like Lord Fear's but then why would he help?
Speaking of the opening titles there was a funny line about the dungeoneer in the series 6 titles in Knightmare Live. On stage something scary happened, can't remember what, and the dungeoneer literally legged it out the door. Treguard commented that finally a dungeoneer actually runs. We saw it for years on the opening titles but never on the actual show until today I loved the sarcasm in that show and the fact that it wasn't afraid to laugh at itself and be poked fun at. Best way to be in my opinon. By the way, is sarcasm allowed here?
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The monster didn't cause a huge gap, a horse could step right over that, and we're not too sure how high those thorns are overhead. The knight must have banished the monster with his sword.
At that point they are at the foot of the mountain. Before the Knight enters that thorn tunnel you can see the castle up high in the background. Lots of trees and other growth before it. There is no sight of trees once he passes the monster.
If it's an error it a mighty big error.
The other possibility is the monster in fact casted a spell (which is why the name comes up and flashing on screen) which teleports the knight closer to the castle?
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I don't want to labour this any further, as it's a menial matter, but...
The monster didn't cause a huge gap, a horse could step right over that, and we're not too sure how high those thorns are overhead.
So to sum up, you are saying that we don't know how high the thorns are because of... what, we don't get a clear enough view of them?
But you are also saying that we do know that the gap is small enough for a horse to step over it, even though we get no view of the gap at all? (It's 'below' the level of the screen when the monster appears.)
The knight must have banished the monster with his sword.
And you say that must have happened, even though we don't get any view of that at all either?
At that point they are at the foot of the mountain.
And you know that even though you don't get any explicit view of the foot of the mountain either?
I don't mean any disrespect, Wombstar, but I hope you see what I'm getting at here. You can hardly claim there is uncertainty about one thing due to its invisibility/obscurity, and then make absolute claims about other things that are invisible/obscure as well.
If you watch the bit just after the demon vanishes, you can see the hill continues some way down below the level of the pathway. So it probably isn't the foot of the hill. (How such an unnatural-looking ledge could have formed at altitude is therefore a bit of an issue, but we can probably put it down to sorcery.)
Before the Knight enters that thorn tunnel you can see the castle up high in the background. Lots of trees and other growth before it. There is no sight of trees once he passes the monster.
If it's an error it a mighty big error.
Yeah it is. Big errors happen, especially in animation. The artist probably just forgot drawing the thorns in the earlier frames. Or maybe the artist went back into the earlier frames subsequently and added the trees in to make the pictures look creepier, and then forgot to add them into the later frames.
Or, we could say the trees were part of the illusion of the monster, if we want to 'play the game'.
The other possibility is the monster in fact casted a spell (which is why the name comes up and flashing on screen) which teleports the knight closer to the castle?
Can't think why it would do that. It would have been far less effort for the monster just to stay hidden below the path and let the knight carry on riding - he would have get there anyway.
Ah, there is some severe over-analysis going on here, isn't there?
All else I will say before dropping the subject is that, if your view of it is right, there are some pretty major actions that have simply been dropped from the sequence, and that it sounds needlessly convoluted on the whole. The view I and Hobgoblin take of it is that the knight's arrival at Dunshelm is shown more or less in its entirety, and I would suggest that it makes sense that way, but that there's a clumsy mistake by the animators that leaves a continuity error in the scenery.
There's no absolute answer of course, but the animation error still sounds likelier to me, especially given the profusion of continuity mistakes in 1980's animation, and in KM itself.
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Wow, quite a debate to wake up to! For what it's worth I agree that it's just a continuity error. Occam's razor and all that. They probably thought no one would notice - I never have despite the many, many times I've seen this sequence!
If you look at the path before the monster appears we can there's a relatively straight path running towards the castle and then a path winding round and round up the mountain. After the monster the knight is still on the straight section.
It also makes more narrative sense to assume its the same point, regardless of a lack of vegetation.
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The castle appears at the top of a mountain, we see this clearly. The path way along the mountains is where the knight jumps the gap, it's clearly a gap with a drop either side. The monster and overgrown thorn bush are part of a woody aria at the bottom of the mountain, we see the knight travel through this but at the very start. Too me this is so clear and obvious.
Who created this sequence? Maybe they could be contacted?
Things like this require a little imagination I guess, and I personally don't need to see everything to know exactly what's happening or what happened. It's about a 30 second title sequence not a ten minutes cartoon. And the back rounds change so much it seems likely to be deliberate. You just have to look at the several different envrioments to see their meant to be different places.
I al
Just my opinion of course in case anyone is wondering.
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Ah, there is some severe over-analysis going on here, isn't there?
Yes, yes there is
I thought that after I'd found myself watching the first 14 seconds of the credits three times in a row...
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Ok, how's about this:
The sequence was originally longer and the programme title is used to cover an edit between earlier and later sections of the knight's journey.
So yes, they are two different sections of the path but they are being presented in the final edit as the same point.
So everyone's right!
Like I said, I'd never actually noticed the difference such is the narrative continuity.
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What fools people is the horse. It steps back when the monster pops up, the title flashes on screen and then we see the horse stepping back again and the gap on the ledge is revealed. Like all old animation they do cheat by using the same footage. The title card half way though always seemed out of place which is why I think it was used as a kinda 'break' so afterwards to cuts to a completely different scene.
lol and yeah, I also watched it several times in a row last night on youtube.. trying to pick out every single detail.
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