Thursday 9 February 2017

'STAR WARS' AT 40: AN ESCAPE INTO HYPERSPACE!


The calculations are done, now its time to escape the Imperial cruisers, as Han and Chewie send the Falcon into the realms of Hyperspace, on course for Alderaan, in the memorable first jump to that spacial region for STAR WARS.

This sequence has now been done many times across STAR WARS live action film and animated series, but one must never forget the impact this original "Jump into Hyperspace" scene had on first 70mm cinematic screenings back in 1977. Audiences literally rose from their seats to clap and cheer the updated 'slit-scan' graphic shot effect via Richard Edlund and ILM, whilst anyone high on LSD watching the film likely experienced the same kind of outer space "trip" that they hadn't had since the finale mind-bending scenes of Kubrick's 2001 in the late sixties.

There is a continuity blunder present in this shot: Chewbacca is wearing his bandolier but in the early cockpit shots before the jump he isn't. Presumably, all this starfield /blue screen cockpit facing material was shot together at Elstree at a later date and the error slipped through in the post production phase.


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