Case Study Outline
- About Star Wars
a. History
- Directed by George Lucas
- American epic space opera film series
- Episode IV originally released on May 25th, 1977 by 20th Century Fox
- Episode V and VI were released at 3-yr intervals after Ep. IV
- 16 years later, the first prequel trilogy of films was released
- Final film released on May 19th, 2005
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released in 2008 it was an animated film in 3d CGI
b. Income
- As of 2008, the box office revenue from the six Star Wars films has totalled $4.41 billion
- Third highest-grossing film series, behind Harry Potter and James Bond films
- Spawned a media franchise including books, television series, video games and comic books.
c. Technical Information
- Star Wars series were shot in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1
- The original trilogy was shot with anamorphic lenses
- John Williams composed the scored for all six films
2. Plota. Original Series
- Death Star nearing completion by Vader
- Princess Leia Steals plan for to the Death Star and hid them in R2-D2
- Luke Skywalker buys R2-D2
- He finds Obi-Wan and asks about his father
- Anakin (father) was killed by Vader
- Meets up with Han Solo, and his Wookiee.
- Luke fires the shot that destroys the Death Star
- 3 years later Luke finds Yoda to start his Jedi training
- Vader lures him into a trap and reveals that he is Luke’s father.
- Luke resuces Han from Jabba the Hutt a year later.
- Yoda is on his death bed when he returns to resume his training
- Obi-Wan’s spirit tells Luke that he must face his father before becoming a Jedi
- Luke spares Vaders life while declaring his allegiance to the Jedi
- Vader turns on his master and kills him.
- Anakin Skywaler dies in Luke’s arms
- The rebels destroy the second Death Star and the Empire
b. Prequel Trilogy
- Follows the early life of Anakin Skywalker
- Jedi Council, led by Yoda sense that Anakin’s future is clouded by fear
- Obi-Wan Kenobi trains Anakin
- Queen Padme seeks assistance of the Jedi to repel the attack
- Palpatine secretly engineers the Clone Wars to destroy the republic and lure Anakin into his service.
- Anakin and Padme secretly wed
- Anakin submits to the dark side to save Padme drying in childbirth.
- He takes the sith name Darth Vader
- Vader’s limbs get severed off by Obi-Wan
- Palpatine arrives shortly afterward and saves Vader, putting him into the black mechanical suit that saves his life.
- Padme dies while giving birth to Luke and Leia and are hidden from Vader
3. VFX
a. Original Series
- George Lucas and Lucas Digital’s Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) gave the series an enormous face-lift.
- invested $15 million into the restoration project during 1994.
- Released in 1997
- Used Linux PC’s and existing SGI IRIX machines
b. ILM
- ILM was founded in 1975 to produce visual effects for Star Wars.
- Located north of San Fransisco in San Rafael, California.
- Onwed by George Lucas
- ILM produces visual effects for more than Lucasfilm productions, such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones films.
- Has received 14 academy awards including ones for its work on Forrest Gump, Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and E.T.
- Star Wars was being edited in ILM’s proprietary composting package CompTime
- All ILM 3-d Particle Simlations are done in Alias|Wavefront Maya.
- Animators at ILM use SOFTIMAGE on IRIX Computers
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars
