Star Wars – 1977 (WINNER)
I am going to unofficially call Star Wars the beginning of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. While space fantasies were certainly nothing new, Star Wars was the one that really took the genre to a new level, and so many films that came after did their best to emulate the style, the aesthetics, and the special effects of this great movie. Star Wars is a timeless film because it created a look that cannot be rooted to any specific era, and many of the great effects had never been seen before.
Now, I have to mention that the only version of the film I am able to watch is the new, special edition, enhanced, remastered version. That means that there were CGI effects that were added in 1997. But all those additions aside, good and bad, I’ll comment on a few of the effects that really made Star Wars stand out against most of the sci-fi films that came before it.
For example, there were the lightsabers. Who else had ever done anything like that? They were bright, colorful, and flashy and looked awesome. But every now and then, when the tip of a laser-sword is pointed at the camera, it is possible to see the silver sticks with which the actors were actually dueling. The glowing colors had to be rotoscoped onto the film. Per Wikipedia, “Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic action.” Korean animator Nelson Shin was responsible for the effect. Add to that the cool sound effects and the bright gold flashes whenever the lightsabers clashed together, and you have a wonderful, imaginative, and unique special effect that had never been seen before.
Another thing that was pretty impressive was the space ships and the way they behaved in space. In earlier films, space ships usually conformed to what we knew about realistic space travel. They were generally slow moving and dull. But the space ships in Star Wars behaved like highly maneuverable WWII fighter planes, allowing the effects artists to create fast-paced and exciting space battles. Realistic? Maybe not, but Lucas sure knew how to make the action sequence more exciting! And then there was the iconic Death Star itself! It was gigantic and ominous, and beautifully designed. And its multiple green lasers that combined to create a super-laser big enough to destroy an entire planet was so cool!
And then there was the simple effect of the hand-held blasters that fired individual beams of destructive power like glowing bullets of light. Compare those effects to futuristic guns portrayed in one of the previous year’s Best Special Effects winners, Logan’s Run. Once again, George Lucas simply did it better.
That’s not to say that every effect was perfect. Luke’s hovering landspeeder comes to mind as obvious example of a vehicle on a crane, because of the way it bounced when it was in motion. But even that was so much better and more exciting than anything the world had ever seen before. Star Wars was truly a fantastic special effects fantasy extravaganza that really deserved its award!