The first Star Wars is unquestionably an amazing film, but it's hardly the most original movie ever made. In writing the script, directing and editing, George Lucas wore his influences on his sleeve, throwing in casual stylistic references to the classic Flash Gordon serials, John Carter stories or movies like The Hidden Fortress and Metropolis. It all comes together to create one of the most thrilling science-fiction sagas ever put on the big screen, but it's still interesting to dissect and really dig into it. Enter Michael Heilemann, an interface director at Squarespace who is working on creating a full-length, annotated cut of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. And you can watch an early cut of what he's put together above. The work is being done for an e-book Heilemann is writing called Kitbashed, where the author does a full analysis of all the works that fit into...
- 6/2/2014
- cinemablend.com
Michael Heilemann, an interface director at Squarespace, produced the following exploratory project which takes the original Star Wars and overlays both video clips and images to illustrate where George Lucas drew inspiration for his classic sci-fi opus.
The original Star Wars was a watershed moment, not only in film history, but in technology and modern culture. But where did it come from? What had come before, shaping it? This is Kitbashed, a work-in-progress mashup of Star Wars with many of its sources of inspiration, playing as a feature-length presentation.
You can view Heilemann’s notes on the project as well as select individual scenes at kitbashed.com.
via [Michael Heilemann]...
The original Star Wars was a watershed moment, not only in film history, but in technology and modern culture. But where did it come from? What had come before, shaping it? This is Kitbashed, a work-in-progress mashup of Star Wars with many of its sources of inspiration, playing as a feature-length presentation.
You can view Heilemann’s notes on the project as well as select individual scenes at kitbashed.com.
via [Michael Heilemann]...
- 6/2/2014
- by Adam B.
- GeekRest
Right now, director J.J. Abrams is busy on the set of Star Wars: Episode VII, and we're hoping some secrets will be spilled at Comic-Con this summer, even if it's just a title. Between now and the release of the film in December of 2015, we'll have plenty of time to revisit the original trilogy before the new one begins. However, Michael Heilemann, an interface director at Squarespace, has decided to create an annotated cut of the original Star Wars with intercut scenes from other films and TV series that inspired the work of George Lucas and spawned one of the biggest and most revered sci-fi films of all-time. It's pretty damn cool. Here's Michael Heilemann's annotated version of Star Wars (via The Av Club): There's a part of me that gets the tiniest bit frustrated when it cuts away from Star Wars, almost as if there's a commercial,...
- 5/30/2014
- by Ethan Anderton
- firstshowing.net
Let's talk about the influences that shaped "Star Wars" for a moment—everyone name checks Joseph Campbell's "The Heroes With A Thousand Faces," Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Forteress" and countless "Flash Gordon" serials. Those are certainly among the key touchstones that George Lucas re-imagined into the most influential franchise in movie history, but there are countless other points of reference that shaped the fertile mind of a young auteur. Are they worth cataloging and then editing into an annotated cut of "Star Wars" in an attempt to illuminate Lucas' creative process and the material he had access to and was engaged with at the time? An interface director at Squarespace seems to think so: Michael Heilemann has assembled an extensive and impressive Kitbashed cut of "Star Wars" as well an e-book in progress, offering a wealth of material and analysis. We get a bit of bio on Lucas...
- 5/30/2014
- by Mark Zhuravsky
- The Playlist
"I like being thought of as a toymaker who makes films." In the summer of 1971, George Lucas talked with critic / journalist / scholar Gene Youngblood for a program entitled "George Lucas: Maker of Films," which aired on public television station Kcet in Los Angeles. Michael Heilemann of Binary Bonsai has made it available for online viewing, and it's a fascinating watch.
The interview takes place a few months after Thx 1138, his first feature, opened and died a quick death at the box office. It would be two more years before American Graffiti ignited the box office and six years before Star Wars changed everything. Young Lucas was already mighty unhappy with the Hollywood studio system. Binary Bonsai provides context for his late 60s ventures, and then in the interview, Lucas says he started the feature-length version of his short Thx 1138:4Eb in the wake of the freedom created...
The interview takes place a few months after Thx 1138, his first feature, opened and died a quick death at the box office. It would be two more years before American Graffiti ignited the box office and six years before Star Wars changed everything. Young Lucas was already mighty unhappy with the Hollywood studio system. Binary Bonsai provides context for his late 60s ventures, and then in the interview, Lucas says he started the feature-length version of his short Thx 1138:4Eb in the wake of the freedom created...
- 6/22/2009
- by Peter Martin
- Cinematical
Thanks to io9 for pointing me to Michael Heilemann's Flickr set where he has assembled a batch of early storyboards from Star Wars that were made available on StarWars.com's Hyperspace Insider supplement. He has arranged them in such a way that you can also do a little comparing of old vs. new. The set ranges in images from Star Wars, to Empire Strikes Back as well as Return of the Jedi. As you can see from the image to the right that is what Darth Vader originally looked like in a shot where he is fighting against the Rebellion in his Tie-Fighter outside the Death Star in the original film. There are definite similarities to the actual Vader, but the differences are pretty cool to look at. The most drastic change, however, is the look and design of the Millennium Falcon (called only the 'pirate ship' in early...
- 11/14/2008
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
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