I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that, more than any director, writer or actor, the special-effects wizards at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) have had the greatest impact on American moviemaking over the past 40-plus years. They changed the very nature of what filmmakers could show on screen— from the practical effects of the original Star Wars through the digital revolution of Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park— and made possible, for better or worse, most of the mega-franchises of the 21st century. They’ve earned a showcase like the new Disney+ documentary series Light & Magic. And it’s a showcase that does justice to their groundbreaking contributions.
The six (hour-long) episodes that premiere on July 27 track the entire history of the enterprise that was launched in 1975 by George Lucas because, at the time, there was no other company in the filmmaking world that was doing what he wanted to do for Star Wars. Originally under the supervision of visual-effects expert John Dykstra, ILM was founded not just as a workplace, but as a laboratory, forced to solve problems and develop technical innovations because Lucas was demanding things that had never been done before. That sensibility became a fundamental part of the company’s DNA, as Lucas’s early-adopter interest in digital technology led to more and more pushing of the visual-effects envelope once computers were part of the equation.
Director Lawrence Kasdan— a Lucasfilm veteran going back to his screenwriting work on The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark— spends most of the first three episodes on the first two Star Wars movies, which feels like a bit of a miscalculation. The original Star Wars trilogy might be the most obsessively chronicled filmmaking endeavor in human history, and plenty of “making-of” material has made its way onto previously-available DVD bonus features and behind-the-scenes documentaries. As crucial as this period was, both for ILM in particular and for the history of Hollywood filmmaking in general, it still might not have been necessary for nearly half of Light & Magic to dwell on those four years.
Fortunately, Light & Magic is as much a personality profile as it is a nuts-and-bolts explainer of how certain cinematic tricks were accomplished. Kasdan gives plenty of time to contemporary interviews from the key players— Dennis Muren, Richard Edlund, Ken Ralston, Phil Tippett, Joe Johnston and many more— allowing them to reflect on what it was like to be part of these landmark creative moments. He gives nearly every one of them a bit of biographical profile exploring how they found their way into this unique field of expertise and highlights the professional and personal relationships between them. By the end of the series, you’ll feel like you really know every one of them.
Since this is an official Lucasfilm production, it would be unreasonable to expect a “warts-and-all” portrait of the company, yet Kasdan is still able to spend time on some of the more difficult moments in ILM’s history. Episode 3 addresses the decision by Lucas not to invite Dykstra to be part of the post-Star Wars incarnation of ILM, which Dykstra handles gracefully in his interview with acknowledgment of his part in their contentious relationship. There’s also a segment dealing with how the ILM model shop dealt with becoming obsolete with the emergence of photorealistic CGI, and how hard it was for many of them to adapt to that change. There’s not much effort at confronting the downside of CGI-heavy modern filmmaking from a storytelling quality standpoint, despite enough references to the importance of “story” that would kill you if you made it a drinking game, so it’s left to viewers to assume that every new tool in the visual-effects toolbox has been an unquestioned good.
For any movie nerd who loves knowing how wizards do their tricks, Light & Magic serves as a terrific collection of information from behind that curtain. It’s also pretty distinctly a celebration of technical imagination, showing how often the ILM craftspeople were making things up as they went along, hurtling on a train towards a deadline even as they were still laying down the track in front of themselves. But perhaps best of all, this is a collective recognition of some of cinema’s most important modern-day pioneers. The names that roll by during the end credits of blockbuster movies have been mostly anonymous to most moviegoers; Light & Magic gives them a rare chance to be faces and voices talking about how they did what they did.
Light & Magic will stream exclusively on Disney+ starting July 27.
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Let’s Hear From You
Curious to see how Industrial Light & Magic reshaped what the entertainment industry could accomplish? Is there a particular ILM project you’re hoping to hear about? Will you be watching Light & Magic on Disney+ when it starts streaming on July 27? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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