If you ever want to see one of the longest and most elaborate introduction sequences to a movie you need to watch the movie Touch of Evil by Orson Welles. It is outstanding! It is a very long tracking shot using a crane on a dolly and finally finishes hand-held, clocking in at about 3 1/2 minutes long! It's very suspenseful and interesting, and while the camera movements and technique are smooth through out most of the shot, at the end it switches to hand-held to stir up our emotions and help us feel like we're there-- amid the chaos.
Another interesting note about this movie is the fact that the studio re-edited, re-shot, and even replaced some parts of the movie with out Orson Welles permission. He later wrote and turned in a 58 page report stating the things he didn't like about the current version and what needed to be done to make the story work. The studio ignored him and released their own version instead. In the 70's they found a preview print before the final edit was done, and in 1998 another producer decided to re-edit Touch of Evil following Welles's report as closely as possible-- a task only for the legendary editor Walter Murch.
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