Happy Star Wars Day!

The franchise that took Motion Picture, VFX, Animation & Gaming out of this world.

Happy Star Wars Day! – It’s time to worship the Wookiee…

As George Lucas bashed away at his typewriter in the early ‘70s to create ‘The Star Wars’ (as it was called then), little did he know that he’d spawned a beloved movie franchise. So beloved, in fact, that fans worldwide now celebrate Star Wars Day every year.

Landing on 4th May (May the fourth be with you – geddit?), this annual appreciation of all things Star Wars very publicly revisits why we all fell in love with these movies in the first place. Any of us who raced to the cinema when the original came out will happily testify to how eye-wowing the special effects were, in a decade when Hollywood was still producing stinkers like Starship Invasions.

Bringing the vision to life with VFX – The creation of a pop-culture phenomenon.

Of course, much of the VFX we now see in the three original films are touch-ups which Lucas applied to the 1997 Special Editions. By this point digital technology was sophisticated enough for him to fix some of the original trilogy’s less impressive practical and optical effects. However, Lucas didn’t stop there, and rather controversially made various additional alterations to each one, not only adding new CG characters, but also touching up backgrounds and, well, the less said about Greedo shooting first, the better…

All this was just light tinkering, however, compared to what Lucas achieved in the much-anticipated prequel trilogy with the help of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the company he’d founded in 1975. Kicking off with 1999’s The Phantom Menace, Lucas and ILM took CGI to the next level. While the prequels themselves weren’t exactly universally loved, you have to take your hat off to what Lucas brought on screen – we’re talking fully realised alien worlds and photo-realistic computer-generated characters.

And it’s precisely this groundbreaking approach to special effects that we’re continuing to witness in not only the sequel trilogy, but also the plethora of spin-off movies and TV shows. This Star Wars renaissance sprung up after Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, for a price tag of $4.05 billion. We’ve been in fan heaven ever since.

From the motion-capture marvel that is Supreme Leader Snoke in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, to the digital recreation of Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) and the young Princess Leia in Rogue One, the fan-friendly moments are endless. And the Star Wars train doesn’t look like it’s stopping anytime soon. By the way, if you haven’t yet seen the innovative technology employed in The Mandalorian, The Book Of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re dead to us.

This wondrous new world for Star Wars fandom owes a debt of gratitude to a game-changing piece of tech called The Volume. Developed by ILM initially for use on Rogue One, it’s also come in immensely handy on the various other Star Wars TV shows that have been blossoming lately. It involves shooting real-life actors and sets surrounded by large, extremely high-def LED video walls. These walls display CG backdrops, which were once traditionally composited in post-production. The Volume allows the crew to instantly realign the background based on moving camera positions while shooting, enabling the entire computer-generated background to be manipulated in real-time.

So, the next time you’re watching Mando walking across the sands of Tatooine, or you see Darth Vader on the mining planet of Mapuzo, remember that those actors are simply in front of an extremely sophisticated video wall, and – in most cases – haven’t had to leave the studio.

Superstar Animation

Before we depart for our Star Wars binge watch, we’ve absolutely got to give a shout-out to one of its most innovative animated series – Visions. Released in 2021, Visions is the work of seven of Japan’s best animation studios, each gifting their own unique spin to an episode. The studios were given carte blanche to bring their Star Wars fantasies to the screen. Collider reckons that this resulted in “a stylish series that frequently changes animation and storytelling styles in each episode”. We 100% agree with that statement.

Intergalactic Gaming

Our final mention involves what’s frequently considered as the best Star Wars game of all time. This has been confirmed by Josh West over at GamesRadar, who’s just given us his professional take on the top ten Star Wars games.

And in at number one is… drum roll… Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Josh credits this classic RPG with “boasting one of the best video game stories, fantastic character building, and an expansive series of planets to explore, KOTOR is a definitive experience that is a must play for anyone who has dreamed of one day becoming a Jedi.”

Hands up those of you who haven’t ever dreamed of becoming a Jedi. Thought not!

So where do your Motion Picture, VFX, Animation or Gaming talents lie?

If you’ve got the goods to get involved in projects as innovative and impressive as these star turns, all of us at mustardFX are dying to have a chat with you. We’ve got the kind of job opportunities in the VFX, gaming and animation industries that’ll make your head spin. The number to call is 0117 929 6060.