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Why were the special effects in Star Wars so much better than other 70s/80s films?
Posted on 4/19/22 at 12:33 am
Posted on 4/19/22 at 12:33 am
The Krull thread got me to thinking about this. That film came out in 1983 (the same year as Return of the Jedi) and spared no expense with a gigantic budget for the time of $50M. But it's effect didn't come close to those in Star Wars. And it wasn't just Krull. This same phenomenon occurred throughout the late 70s and 80s.
So what was it? Was Lucas that much of a genius, or did he just assemble the greatest special effects team on Earth, and they kept all their secrets for themselves?
It wasn't until other geniuses like James Cameron and early CGI came along did special effects finally catch up and supercede those of Star Wars, which came out years before.
**And yes, I intentionally left out mentioning 2001: A Space Oddysey. That's Kubrick in 1968. And he was simply in another realm.
So what was it? Was Lucas that much of a genius, or did he just assemble the greatest special effects team on Earth, and they kept all their secrets for themselves?
It wasn't until other geniuses like James Cameron and early CGI came along did special effects finally catch up and supercede those of Star Wars, which came out years before.
**And yes, I intentionally left out mentioning 2001: A Space Oddysey. That's Kubrick in 1968. And he was simply in another realm.
This post was edited on 4/19/22 at 1:12 am
11
Posted on 4/19/22 at 1:04 am to Jack Ruby
quote:
Was Lucas that much of a genius, or did he just assemble the greatest special effects team on Earth, and they kept all their secrets for themselves?
I'm thinking a little of all of this. Some non-SW movies that used George's ILM looked way better than other contemporary SFX films so you can deduce they may have hoarded their secrets from other studios until some of those designers left ILM to form their own effects companies. But I could be wrong.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 1:28 am to LSUFreek
I always found it odd that Douglas Trumball (photographic effects supervisor for 2001) worked so little in Hollywood during this time when sci-fi films were exploding.
He was the only guy who was ever really comparable to or better than the Star Wars/ILM/Lucas crew in that era.
This is basically his entire filmography:
- 2001
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
- Blade Runner
- The Tree of Life
I guess it's no coincidence those films still look incredible and were outliers.
He was the only guy who was ever really comparable to or better than the Star Wars/ILM/Lucas crew in that era.
This is basically his entire filmography:
- 2001
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
- Blade Runner
- The Tree of Life
I guess it's no coincidence those films still look incredible and were outliers.
This post was edited on 4/19/22 at 1:29 am
Posted on 4/19/22 at 1:29 am to Jack Ruby
As you mentioned, Space Odyessey (1968) proved such things in 1977 weren't incapable or novel. I mean Lucas just used miniature models and animatronic puppets.
It wasn't that people couldn't do it, nobody was interested.
It was the 70s man. All about realism and true to life Cinema. frick the 50s fantasy, Buck Rogers and that creature from the Black Lagoon.
Star Wars entered the picture at the tail end of that ethos and rewound Cinema. No wonder it was such a hit. People were tired of mean streets and sleezy cops and whores.
I've never read anything that Star Wars SFX was a giant leap forward like like Digital later or filmmaking like Citizen Kane. I think most competent Directors could've spent the time to do it but it wasn't de rigueur. Lucas and his team spent a long time building those robots, building the universe, the miniature models.
His secret was time and effort. The film was in production for 4 years!
If it was sci-fi back then, studios wanted instant crap as the genre was seen as B-movies, Kubrick excepted.
Lucas got time.
It wasn't that people couldn't do it, nobody was interested.
It was the 70s man. All about realism and true to life Cinema. frick the 50s fantasy, Buck Rogers and that creature from the Black Lagoon.
Star Wars entered the picture at the tail end of that ethos and rewound Cinema. No wonder it was such a hit. People were tired of mean streets and sleezy cops and whores.
I've never read anything that Star Wars SFX was a giant leap forward like like Digital later or filmmaking like Citizen Kane. I think most competent Directors could've spent the time to do it but it wasn't de rigueur. Lucas and his team spent a long time building those robots, building the universe, the miniature models.
His secret was time and effort. The film was in production for 4 years!
If it was sci-fi back then, studios wanted instant crap as the genre was seen as B-movies, Kubrick excepted.
Lucas got time.
This post was edited on 4/19/22 at 2:03 am
Posted on 4/19/22 at 4:11 am to Jack Ruby
Watched Explorers (1985) with the family last weekend. SFX were pretty bad.
I looked into it and SFX company was Industrial Light snd Magic, founded by George Lucas for Star Wars and went on to make SFX for many other high profile films.
Industrial Light and Magic
Budget for Explorers was $25M so about typical for the day.
I looked into it and SFX company was Industrial Light snd Magic, founded by George Lucas for Star Wars and went on to make SFX for many other high profile films.
Industrial Light and Magic
Budget for Explorers was $25M so about typical for the day.
This post was edited on 4/19/22 at 4:13 am
Posted on 4/19/22 at 7:37 am to meeple
quote:
Watched Explorers (1985) with the family last weekend. SFX were pretty bad.
I said the same thing a few weeks ago on here. I watched it about a month or so ago and it was not very good at all, and the SFX were bad like you said. It wasn't remotely as good as I remember it as a kid (which makes sense I guess, but still).
Posted on 4/19/22 at 8:21 am to Jack Ruby
The Star Trek movies also looked great. TWOK in particular with a small budget. Some crews just knew how to do it better.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 8:43 am to Jack Ruby
I always thought the movie Krull was way ahead of it's time for special effects. After a little research I found out it was the same guy that did Superman 1 and 2. Several early james bond films and the 1989 batman. Died in 1995. (Derek Meddings)
I often wonder if people like that ahead of their time would do okay with todays technology. Or go effects crazy like Lucas did with the prequel.
I often wonder if people like that ahead of their time would do okay with todays technology. Or go effects crazy like Lucas did with the prequel.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 8:52 am to Jack Ruby
quote:
Was Lucas that much of a genius, or did he just assemble the greatest special effects team on Earth, and they kept all their secrets for themselves?
It’s this, there’s a reason ILM became the go to for F/X
Posted on 4/19/22 at 9:00 am to Master of Sinanju
quote:
The Star Trek movies also looked great. TWOK in particular with a small budget. Some crews just knew how to do it better.
ILM did the special effects for TWOK and most of the Trek movies. It did NOT do ST:TMP (studio did the sfx in house for that one). It was the "comparison" of that movie and Star Wars that got Paramount to bring in ILM for the next and later movies.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 9:23 am to Jack Ruby
A private screening of Jurassic Park ruined George Lucas
Posted on 4/19/22 at 9:58 am to Jack Ruby
Add Silent Running to the list. This movie gets lost in the shuffle and the story was a little heavy-handed, but the special effects were phenomenal.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 10:27 am to Jack Ruby
I think Alien(s) films were probably better fx films, but the Star Wars (77-83)movies were great.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 10:40 am to mizzoubuckeyeiowa
quote:
I've never read anything that Star Wars SFX was a giant leap forward like like Digital later or filmmaking like Citizen Kane. I think most competent Directors could've spent the time to do it but it wasn't de rigueur. Lucas and his team spent a long time building those robots, building the universe, the miniature models.
His secret was time and effort. The film was in production for 4 years!
All true, but some of the stuff he did WAS groundbreaking. Rather than moving the models in front of a stationary camera, the models he used were stationary and the camera itself moved around the model to give the idea of motion:
When George Lucas organized Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) in 1975 to create the visual effects for his new film, Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), one of his specific goals was to realize dynamic shots of moving spacecraft. The idea for capturing detailed model ships with aerial cinematography required a new camera system designed and built under the supervision of ILM’s visual effects supervisor, John Dykstra.
Multiple layers of a given shot had to be separately photographed. One layer might depict an X-wing fighter, another the surface of the Death Star, and still more for the starfield and blaster fire. The layers would then be combined through the process of optical compositing to create the final shot seen in the movie. Traditionally, visual effects shots were locked off in a single position so that these layers would seamlessly align together. But with the camera in motion, how would the ILM crew capture each layer to accurately match the other?
For Star Wars, George Lucas wanted the camera to swing across the action like the authentic World War II documentaries that had inspired him. The solution was a technique called motion-control. Using a mechanical system operated by a computer to move on a path specified to the fraction of an inch, a motion-control camera was able to shoot duplicate passes one after the other. The resulting elements of footage could then be accurately composited together.
At a time when the personal computer was still years away, the ILM crew hand-built custom hardware to operate their own original system which came to be known as the “Dykstraflex.” The flexible precision of the camera was a boon for the aerial dogfights and breathtaking fly-bys depicted in Star Wars. The tool was a major contributor to the energy and vitality that so excited audiences upon its release in 1977.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 10:48 am to CocomoLSU
quote:
I said the same thing a few weeks ago on here. I watched it about a month or so ago and it was not very good at all, and the SFX were bad like you said. It wasn't remotely as good as I remember it as a kid (which makes sense I guess, but still).
Thing is, it was a pretty good movie until the aliens showed up. The stand up act with them just kept going on and on.
I had never seen it before. We were all like, this just fell off a cliff. How can a movie just go off the rails that fast
Posted on 4/19/22 at 11:32 am to udtiger
quote:
ILM did the special effects for TWOK and most of the Trek movies. It did NOT do ST:TMP (studio did the sfx in house for that one). It was the "comparison" of that movie and Star Wars that got Paramount to bring in ILM for the next and later movies.
Paramount wasn't able to get ILM for ST V and it definitely shows.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 11:40 am to Bankshot
quote:
Paramount wasn't able to get ILM for ST V and it definitely shows.
Yep
Posted on 4/19/22 at 1:02 pm to Jack Ruby
quote:
I always found it odd that Douglas Trumball (photographic effects supervisor for 2001) worked so little in Hollywood during this time when sci-fi films were exploding.
He was the only guy who was ever really comparable to or better than the Star Wars/ILM/Lucas crew in that era.
This is basically his entire filmography:
- 2001
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
- Blade Runner
- The Tree of Life
He also directed one my favorite Sci-Fi Movies... 1983's Brainstorm with Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 1:32 pm to Jack Ruby
I think it was because unlike everyone else, Star Wars basically had a dedicated SFX company. Everyone else had to outsource their special effects; I don't think even Disney had a dedicated effects company.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 2:17 pm to meeple
quote:
Thing is, it was a pretty good movie until the aliens showed up. The stand up act with them just kept going on and on.
I had never seen it before. We were all like, this just fell off a cliff. How can a movie just go off the rails that fast
Correct. I remember the alien part as a kid, but didn't remember it being THAT long. When I watched it a few weeks ago, I didn't realize it lasted like 30-40 minutes.
And like you said, it was just like one bad standup/physical gag act and got very annoying. It's just bad. The parts with the kids and all of that (on Earth) are still pretty good. But all in all I was pretty disappointed since I had such fond memories of it in my head.
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