Star Wars Movie Effects

Have you ever heard of Star Wars? You probably have. It’s “a space opera film series (created by George Lucas) that became one of the most successful and influential franchises in motion picture history.” Starting in the late 20th century, and brought back at the turn of the 21st century, the Star Wars films continually advanced the field of special effects, and developed into a massive merchandising industry. Lucas’s success as director and writer with his previous films got him the support of 20th Century Fox, which put up around 10 million dollars for the creation of the first Star Wars movie, known as Star Wars. The film was in production for four years, with scenes shot in Tunisia and Death Valley, California, and on soundstages in the …show more content…
The film won six Academy Awards and a special-achievement award for accomplishments in sound. Lucas’s effects company, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), designed a wide variety of curious alien creatures and mechanical “droids” that populate a variety of exotic locations. Perhaps most impressive, however, were the elaborate space battles done with miniature versions of massive spaceships. The series continued to make advancements in the field of special effects into the 2000s, and ILM became one of the most successful effects studios used by Hollywood. Lucas followed the first Star Wars film (later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope) with two sequels, Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi (1983). The franchise did very well in the 1980s and ’90s through the release of videos, a huge merchandise line, and the re-release of the trilogy in …show more content…
Lucas returned to the role of director (he had directed the first film but not its two sequels) and utilized a new cast of popular young actors—including Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman—as well as recent advancements in digital video technology. Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace (made in 1999), Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones (made in 2002), and Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith (made in 2005) were all box-office successes, though they received far less critical acclaim than the original trilogy. The Star Wars franchise, however, remained incredibly lucrative into the 21st century. It included not only clothing, action figures, and multiple extensive book series but also the animated feature film Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)—which depicted events occurring between Episode II and Episode III—and numerous successful video game lines created by another of Lucas’s companies, LucasArts. By the time the sixth film was released in 2005, nearly 30 years after the series began, it was estimated that the franchise as a whole had brought in some $20 billion, an achievement thus far unparalleled in the motion picture