From the iconic and now historic debut Star Wars. Episode IV – A New Hope In 1977, the Star Wars saga (available on Disney+) became a milestone in cinema. Not only as a space opera, which has given the genre back significant brilliance in terms of plot and depth. As well as a journey through the possibilities of practical effects and more digital evenings where stories of great importance are told. George Lucas was a pioneer in analyzing the larger idea of creating possible universes, updating the technique, and creating a unique visual section.
Also, that all the skill behind the camera is part of the significant interest in their stories. Star Wars was able to suggest that the burden of spectacle, in terms of cinematography, is also a responsibility. It’s not just about improving the visuals. Or, at least, to make those that are part of the more complex elements of their storytelling more vivid and surprising. George Lucas’ goal has always been to create a universe in which history has the most weight. And that it also matches the amazing picture story.
And most of the time he succeeded. The most amazing? what a good part The most amazing effects of the Star Wars saga are the result of painstaking craftsmanship.. A learning journey – often with film-specific innovations – that took the saga to the next level. With increasingly mature and complex stories, the visual part has evolved into a careful vision of context. At the same time as a hallmark of the franchise and its possible future legacy.
We’ll tell you about five cases where Star Wars hit the world with special effects. From models to camera tricks. Tales from a Galaxy Far, Far Away has a special sense of wonder and good taste. One that also develops a new sense of cinematic spectacle in mass cinema. A combination that George Lucas has always defended.
Star Wars. Episode IV A new hope and its unusual models
The road to filming the first great Star Wars movie was long and arduous. By the time filming began, George Lucas had been writing the script for over a decade and envisioning the worlds of his vast mythology. While still a student, the future director planned in detail the perception of the appearance of his characters, as well as ships, weapons and even robots. For young Lucas, it was especially interesting that every detail appeared on the screen with as realistic as possible.
With so much information, the battle with executives and producers was hard and often fruitless. By the 1970s, there were no visual technologies that could provide the level of realism that Lucas dreamed of. So tricks had to be invented on the fly to show quite realistic scenarios in impossible conditions. Also innovation in the sense of using models to represent space flights or even deep space perception.
The solution for George Lucas and cinematographer Gilbert Taylor was to create realistic mock-ups with unknown details. On the other hand, special effects supervisors Richard Edlund and John Dykstra had to find a way to reinvent the deep space ideal. To do this, they, along with production designer John Berry, made some aesthetic decisions.
The team decided to use matte paint, camera play, and an overall focus on empty space to create an overall sense of unsettling space. Taylor’s first attempts were to use forced perspective and narrow angles. Both methods gave the ships a sense of considerable size. All together with lighting – made with natural light that brought out shadows and details – to then integrate the scene into a single whole in an empty space.
As if the above wasn’t enoughExplosions that mimic the effect outside of gravity were carried out in a study and under controlled conditions. Bursts that were recorded at two speeds and subject to fixing their detail on the model. Most of the time, the work ended in destruction, with the special effects team recording its destruction in half the time it normally would. The effect created a feeling of weightlessness familiar from the films.
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Impossible Scenarios in The Empire Strikes Back
With Star Wars: Episode IV became a mainstream success, the pressure for technological innovation in the sequel was significant. Behind The Empire Strikes Back, Edlund invented a “motion” controlled camera to get frames per minute. Cause? There are quite a few deep space scenes in the film. So this time the sense of scale of the model was combined with the visual perception on camera.
For Lucas and the VFX team, the idea was to make it feel like the big fights and showdowns carried out by well-known technology. The feeling that the ships are not innovations, but something ordinary. Thus, the movements and the way they are controlled must be so simple – or seem so – that it can be assumed that this was a known fact. The cabins and interiors of the ships had to have slight workmanship issues to give the impression that they were already in use. The general feeling was that these cars were used frequently and especially for several reasons at the same time.
The technical team of the film spent a lot of time to ensure that every place inside the ships seems familiar. Or at least part of the design that eventually caught on throughout the universe. Understanding the little details that made the film such a big deal.
The Return of the Jedi and the Warping of Reality
Long before the advent of special effects, the use of computers and advanced optical systems, George Lucas found a way to distort reality in his films. Make it so that it can coincide with the feeling that everything is happening in the field of technology that is not very understandable by the standards of the viewer.
On this occasion, Edlund worked on the idea that time and speed are perceived differently on high-tech ships. So he came up with the idea of using hyper-controlled cameras that would allow you to take pictures at a speed below normal. It used to be used in reverse, or in a different number of frames, to mimic the feeling of no gravity. But in this case, it had to be a type of recording at such a slow speed that it would create a sense of temporary change.
It must have been a type of recording with such a slow speed that it allowed for a sense of temporal variation.
This effect was used in the now classic Endor Forest scene in which Leia, Luke and Hans glide through the trees. The speed between targets (trees, characters and other products) was completely different from each other. And in fact, the episodes were filmed separately. At the end, was combined into a single double that went down in history.
Also in the Endor Forest episode, Steadicam or mobile camera support was used for the first time in a major production. Its creator, Garrett Brown, used a primitive device that became the basis of cinema. And he did this to walk the length of the set at less than one frame per second. The technical feat made it possible to create a sense of “foggy” vision when passing through trees.
Rogue One and his old Star Wars footage
Gareth Edwards’ film is one of the great additions to the Star Wars saga, as well as the concept of high-tech special effects. But, oddly enough, it’s not his advances in digital technology that stand out the most. In fact, the film, which tells about the exploits of a group of rebels against the Empire, is full of good practical effects.
One of the most notorious was how the film crew cut old footage from the film. In several scenes of air battles, the director used a cut from the original films of the saga. So at different times, in fact, you can see the original actors and fragments of the original film. The decision created a general feeling that the action takes place in a different time than any of the known stories. And that she was also the heir to a long film tradition.
And while the K-2SO android is a combination of craft technology and digital effects, most of his movements were achieved through realistic costumes. Remember? The entire frame of Vader’s attack was created using motion capture shots of the character. Tribute to one of the symbolic figures of the saga.
The Mandalorian and his great unreal landscapes
Series The Mandalorian Disney+ impressed a significant portion of fans by capturing the essence of Star Wars. Also because its visual part successfully referred to a large part of the saga. As if that wasn’t enough, he used a kind of understated aesthetic that was reminiscent of Lucas’ direct references when creating his characters. Namely: great Italian westerns and Japanese epics of honor and loyalty.
But also, The Mandalorian it featured large and stunning landscapes. Which in fact were almost entirely false. More than half of the series was recorded using background images that were projected onto giant LED screens six meters high and with a total diameter of 23 meters. Added to all of the above is its 270-degree curvature, which allowed it to surround the actors or the stage. It was a kind of radical innovation that allowed us to abandon green screens and adapt new technologies.
To achieve the stunning level of detail that has amazed fans and critics alike, the images to be used were projected through seven computers.. To integrate all possible frames, the Unreal Engine 4 graphics engine from the Epic Games studio was used.
Source: Hiper Textual
