How Movies Look
Special effects pre-Lucas were mostly mechanical toys and puppets. The early computers were too bulky and expensive to be of much utility to moviemakers; among the few exceptions were Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, whose special effects were devised by Jim Danforth, Dennis Muren and other kids Lucas hired to devise the Millennium Falcon, the Death Star and Star Wars' other cool space-age gadgets. The innovations of Lucas and his team set a new standard, which everyone who followed has copied and built upon.
How Movies Sound
Ben Burtt, the industry's first "sound designer" (a term he invented), brought an artist's ingenuity to Star Wars' sound effects. Instead of using electronic noises or the loopy whirr off the theremin, Burtt went into nature for a more organic soundscape, or simply taped himself (for R2D2's beeps). He gave Star Wars its startling aural originality. But how would people hear it in theaters? Stereophonic sound had been around since the 50s, but most movie houses were mainly monaural, far below home audio quality. Lucas again to the rescue. His THX loudspeakers, paired with the Dolby system in the projection booth, brought clear, multitrack sound to theaters. Now, in a thriller movie, you'll hear the monster creeping up behind you.
The Scope of Movie Narratives
Hollywood was a robust industry, but unlike others it didn't duplicate its most popular products. General Motors, Kellogg's, Coca-Cola and Philip Morris established their brands and simply reproduced them; but David O. Selznick couldn't turn a megahit like Gone With the Wind into an endless franchise of Scarlett O'Hara films. There had been plenty of movie series before: The Thin Man, Andy Hardy films and many others in Hollywood; James Bond and the Carry-On comedies in Britain; Zatoichi in Japan; and the Huang Fei-hung martial arts movies (99 of them!) in Hong Kong. But these were typically separate adventures with one or more continuing characters. Lucas thought of Star Wars as one story in a complex mythology, so vast it needed three (eventually six) two-hour episodes to tell the tale. And when the first movie was a smash, he got to pursue his vision. This opened the door for grand schemes like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and for the not-so-grand idea of making a sequel to nearly every megahit movie. Now studios swing for the fences, hoping for some gigantic action film that can win name-brand recognition and be profitably cloned for years to come.
Sure, there'd been Charlie Chaplin toys and Shirley Temple paper dolls. And Walt Disney was a genius at converting a movie into ancillary revenue (the Mickey Mouse watch and Dell's Disney comic books, not to mention the TV shows and theme parks). But when Star Wars became a cultural phenomenon, every kid had to have the action figures, lightsabers, key chains, games, books, pajamas, etc. Lucas all but created the market for collectibles and, in the process, made himself a billionaire. Since 20th Century Fox let him keep the ancillary rights, he got to keep the money they made. He earned more from the spinoffs than from the movies.
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