What's amazing…..is when you consider the first 2 ILM episodes and how rough things were going with the special effects…..and at the same time consider this was also going on with the editing….



It's a gal darn miracle this movie became what it was

Makes it pretty clear that Lucas was first and foremost a great "idea man." But boy did he benefit from bringing in the right people at the right time

Now check this out:

There is at least one Aggie grad working at ILM. Sounds like an awesome job

bro.....2 hours? can you give me a summary?

im guessing it explains that theres quite a few inaccuracies with the video i posted above? and if so......dang....that sucks cause it was interesting as hell....

EDIT: crap.....im gonna have to watch that whole thing.....i fast forwarded to the whole "the death star was not actually about to blow up the rebel base" part and it's pretty well done explaining why that original video got it all wrong.....

I honestly recommend it. It'll suck you in.

I believed a lot of what your video says, but a lot of it is just Hollywood legend at this point and not factual.

Finished last night, so freakin' good.

The insanely rapid shift to digital was crazy, going from shows with a handful of shots to hundreds of shots in a couple years is just incredible, and seeing how that happened on Jurassic Park and how everyone reacted to it was fantastic.

I will also never be good enough for anything if Doug Chiang thought he wasn't good enough to work on Star Wars (the prequel storyboard books are really cool btw).

This show was fantastic. The most surprising thing about it was that my wife actually enjoyed it as well.

These were names that I was very familiar with during my younger years. I looked at these people like some look at ball players. I wanted to do what they were doing. I had a silent 8mm movie camera that I used to make short movies with, and inevitably, many of these movies featured my attempts to create visual effects such as we all saw in some very famous movies. For the budget that I had (essentially whatever $ I earned by doing various jobs for my parents, it was not a lot and most of it went to purchasing the film cartridges), I did reasonably well. Nothing like what some of the home movies they showed in this series. I still have all those movies, but have no way to play them.

While the entire show was fantastic, what really resonated with me was in the last episode, I believe, where Phil Tippett had that realization that his career as he knew it was over when he saw what the computer folks were doing with the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. I suspect I might have had similar thoughts (despite the fact that I am a software engineer), because I would have wanted to be in the model department. Like Tippett, I would have had to ramp up in an entirely new field to continue working.

double aught said:

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Phil Tippett had that realization that his career as he knew it was over when he saw what the computer folks were doing with the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park

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Don't you mean extinct?

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Good one.

Just started the final episode, so good. I love how the extinct line came from Phil Tippet. Also thought it was very cool of Spielberg to basically create a job for him rather than show him the door.

Also the fact that the lawyer getting eaten is the same data as the T-1000 is fantastic.

Had to look up who Barry Jenkins is, but the fact that he was so excited seeing Yoda fight Dooku validates all my feelings.

Fantastic series.

The digital cloud tool is a lot faster than the cloud tank they used previously

so right is there a support group or something for people who’ve just watched all of Light & Magic and now rue the fact they don’t work at ILM in the seventies

— Daniel Benneworth-Gray (@gray) August 9, 2022

Just finished watching this series. I had no idea who Dennis Muren was before I watched it but he was/is the lynchpin at ILM. Where would they have been without him? There were lots of genius level people who went through those doors but he is the one who brought all the parts together.

Season two just dropped on Disney+.

Three new episodes.

For some reason they waited until now to release the first trailer, but it looks great, and to pick up right where the last season left off.

Can't wait to dive in...

I posted these in the Star Wars thread over the past two nights and figured I should post them here as well, for anyone who doesn't check that thread...

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Btw, I checked out the first episode of season two of Light & Magic on Disney+ last night (it dropped on Friday) and it's absolutely worth the watch. It's basically an hour-long look at the making of The Phantom Menace, told from the point of view of George Lucas, the Lucasfilm art department, ILM, and, oddly enough, Ahmed Best (who played Jar Jar). There's so much great, back-in-the-day B-roll footage from Skywalker Ranch, with some really insightful interviews as well. I highly recommend giving it a shot, while season one is worth catching up on as well, as it's one of the best behind-the-scenes, industry-related docuseries I've ever seen.

I'll knock out the next two episodes shortly (there are only three season two episodes total) and report back as to how much they continue to dive into the Star Wars side of things.

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For anyone going to see Revenge of the Sith this weekend/next week, I highly, highly recommend knocking out all three episodes of Light & Magic first or in conjunction, as they will absolutely get you in the mood and provide so much fun context. I don't even like the prequels and this made even me want to rewatch them.

The second episode is basically half '90s/early '00s ILM stuff (Twister, The Perfect Storm, etc), but then half Attack of the Clonesmaking-of, which is so incredibly interesting, featuring, once again, all kinds of crazy access B-roll footage I'd never seen before. The episode also delves into all the Jar Jar backlash/Ahmed Best hate, and man is it heartbreaking, but then somewhat "redeems" him in a fun way I wasn't aware of either.

Unfortunately, the third episodes isn't nearly as Star Wars focused as the first two - they spend maybe 10 minutes on Revenge of the Sith - but everything else they cover (the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Spielberg's War of the Worlds, along with so much more) is just as fascinating, ending all three episodes on a really emotional note that definitely feels like the end of the docuseries, at least for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, if you have three hours to spare over the next week or so (or whenever), you won't regret spending those three hours on this.

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