Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark writer Lawrence Kasdan recently discussed why Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope's spaceship special effects were so groundbreaking. Star Wars premiered in 1977 and quickly became an international sensation and a cultural phenomenon. Making $775 million ($2.06 billion inflation-adjusted) at the box office, Star Wars is ranked fourth as the highest-grossing film of all time behind Gone With the Wind, Avatar, and Titanic.
The science-fiction fantasy adventure blew audiences away with its striking special effects set against a classic hero's journey to truly create an otherworldly experience. Famed motion picture visual effects studio Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), founded by Star Wars writer-director George Lucas, was created to craft effects never before seen in a film up to that point. ILM went on to win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 50th Academy Awards ceremony, one of six Oscars won by the film.
Kasdan recently sat down with EW to discuss his latest directorial project, Light & Magic, the six-part Disney+ documentary series about ILM's history and cinematic impact. When asked about what effect from a Star Wars film was the director's favorite, he revealed that it was the revolutionary spaceship effects from the first film of the franchise. Kasdan found them "dynamic" and "energetic" which is something that he had never seen in a film up to that point. Read what Kasdan said below.
"There are millions, but I have to go back to A New Hope, because that was what blew my mind and everybody in the theater around me in 1977. And so many of these people that worked at ILM subsequently, they were seeing that movie around the world and saying, 'How'd they do that? Why is it more exciting than anything I've ever seen?'"
"They know that there have been spaceships in movies since the beginning. Why is this so dynamic? Why is it so fast? Why is it so energetic? And so everything that's in A New Hope is the seed for everything that follows. And they found out different, better ways to do it, but nothing can equal. That's like being there when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb."
Kasdan understands that many Hollywood science-fiction films prior to 1977 have explored space travel, but he immediately recognized that Star Wars featured interstellar in a way that was vibrant and relatively realistic. Although films like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Irving Pichel's Destination Moon (1960), and Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon (1902) transported audiences to places they could only dream of visiting, ILM created effects that made audiences feel the experience like no other film ever had. Kasdan explained that Star Wars, and its iconic Star Destroyer moment after the film's opening text crawl, was the spark of the cinematic revolution to come.
ILM's work on Star Wars cemented the studio as the premier visual effects house in the industry. Their skill was soon requested for additional high-concept films such as E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Back to the Future, Ghost, and notably Jurassic Park which seamlessly integrated computer-generated subjects into a live-action motion picture, yet again changing visual effects in Hollywood. Now, ILM's name can be found on many of the top MCU films like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder as well as smaller, yet effects-laden films such as Netflix's The Midnight Sky and Mank. Upcoming projects for the company include the Willow sequel series as well as Star Wars: Andor for Disney+. For a behind-the-scenes look at ILM, audiences can catch Light & Magic, currently streaming on Disney+.
Source: EW
