Special Effects Before StarWars
Before George Lucas' ground breaking Star Wars films, CGI was still in its early years. CGI stands for computer generated imagery and is a type of special effects found in movies. Today if you were going to make a movie like Star Wars the space ships would all be CGIs, but when Star Wars: A new Hope came out in 1977 CGIs were not advance enough to generate space ships. This meant that George Lucas would have to construct the Star Wars universe almost entirely without the help of computers.
Science fiction films before Star Wars didn't have the expectations to look nice. This meant most science fiction films before Star Wars had cardboard props and actors wore cheap customs. The 50's had a huge boom of science fiction films but by the 70's the boom had worn out and production of science fiction films was low. This lull of science fiction films can be explained because of the low quality of special effects in the movies. Other genres were looking more and more realistic, but without advances in special effects it was difficult for science fiction films in the 70's, that often used futuristic props, to match the quality of other genres. Films such as War of the Worlds (1953), Planet of the Apes(1968) and the Space Odyssey(1968) were classic films re-leased in the 50's and 60's, and these films were revolutionary for there time. With the advancements in special effect that George Lucas created, Star Wars brought new life to the science fiction genre.
Science fiction films before Star Wars didn't have the expectations to look nice. This meant most science fiction films before Star Wars had cardboard props and actors wore cheap customs. The 50's had a huge boom of science fiction films but by the 70's the boom had worn out and production of science fiction films was low. This lull of science fiction films can be explained because of the low quality of special effects in the movies. Other genres were looking more and more realistic, but without advances in special effects it was difficult for science fiction films in the 70's, that often used futuristic props, to match the quality of other genres. Films such as War of the Worlds (1953), Planet of the Apes(1968) and the Space Odyssey(1968) were classic films re-leased in the 50's and 60's, and these films were revolutionary for there time. With the advancements in special effect that George Lucas created, Star Wars brought new life to the science fiction genre.
Model compared to CGI |
Sci fi movie Quality Pre Star Wars era |
Inspiration for Star Wars
George Lucas originally wanted to remake the flash gordon series but since the license for the movies were not available he received inspiration to create his own movies using ideas from the Flash Gordon as well as the hidden fortress and others.
The images to the right show the resemblance between cloud city and sky city in The Flash Gordon. Another idea George Lucas used from Flash Gordon were the character customs. There are some characters in Star Wars that resemble characters in Flash Gordon. |