Back in 1998, before the Star Wars prequels, PC users were given the first public look at the deleted scenes from Star Wars–the original, Episode IV, A New Hope, etc. A two-CD-ROM set called Star Wars: Behind the Magic whetted the appetites of fans who were soon going to be able to see a new Star Wars movie for the first time in 16 years. Deleted scenes? Lucas shot scenes we hadn’t yet seen? Finally those still images we only saw as kids in The Star Wars Storybook came to life, like this guy that looked like Clark Gable or Tom Selleck named Biggs Darklighter, with Luke Skywalker and a group of his young friends just hanging out on Tatooine. Some of the deleted scenes never made it back into George Lucas’s re-worked final canon version of the trilogy. But the data on those CD-ROMs was unprecedented, and better compiled and searchable than much information available even today on the Internet.
So we were excited to see Industrial Light and Magic release a new Behind the Magic entry this past week, even if only a few minutes long, this time for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The reel, posted to YouTube by ILMVisualFX, is a bit of a rollercoaster ride through all the layers of CGI and blue screen work required to create so many locations, special effects, characters, and visual spectacles. It’s wired up with crazy sound, too, and just might make you dizzy as you fall in and out of scene after scene.
For fans of Star Wars waiting for the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in December, and the release of the 3D edition of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in November discussed here previously at borg.com, and featuring even more behind the scenes features, this new reel just locks in our fanboy and fangirl need for that 3D edition.
Check out this behind the scenes look at last year’s–and this year’s–biggest film, in Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of Star Wars: The Force Awakens:
The 3D edition of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is available for pre-order now and being released November 15, 2016. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in theaters December 16, 2016.
C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com
