I can't form coherent sentences right now, I'm too flabbergasted. Okay I mean clearly this documentary did something right in showcasing the albeit compressed history of ILM to get me in this frayed mindset, but what do you want me to say?? Cause I just sat for 6 hours watching the most impossible shit I have ever seen in my entire life. Break this down with me, we have a production company that was entirely funded independently, made up of a hodge podge of different special effects crew who are for all intents and purposes unknowns, set up in a warehouse in California, doing effects shots for a movie that from the words of the maker himself said that no studio could possibly ever do, and they gotta make Star Wars happen. This became the studio that I am 10,000% certain hasn't stopped working on a single project post 1976 and continues today as THE special effects company. This is fucking impossible. I am going to repeat that again louder for the back. This is fucking IMPOSSIBLE! How??? You'd think I would know that answer after watching a documentary with so much legit archive footage that I'm convinced there is a God because it shouldn't even exist, but I'm still just as bewildered and yet in awe of all the accomplishments Industrial Light & Magic has done. You just hear these stories from the mouths of the workers themselves of basically having to burn the book of special effects production and just write a new one from scratch, creating new techniques, having to build original equipment to implement said techniques, and then having to evolve both as they essentially changed the world of filmmaking as we know it. My mind just can't take that. Now obviously I knew some details because ohh I'm a nerd and I love watching documentaries on Star Wars, and was familiar with some of the crew on it like Dennis Muren, Phil Tippet, and Ken Ralston, but it was a drop of knowledge in comparison to this. And they do such a good job explaining it, I mean they don't go in immeasurable detail this is a mini-series not a class, and thank God they decided to make this documentary while all the big players in the founding of ILM are still kicking, they make it no secret they didn't have a damn clue how to make this all happen but they were persistent and imaginative enough to swerve around any problem. It's not super in depth, it focuses a good ⅓ on making Star Wars then treads water on some of the 80s projects like E.T. and Willow and wraps up around Phantom Menace, before they jump 20 years ahead to show what it's like now with Mando. What I really appreciated seeing with this is when they hit Jurassic Park and that shift occurs from practical effects to CG, it doesn't shy away from how that affected people. The complaint is a dime a dozen nowadays that CG is too prevalent, it's too shiny, where did practical effects go, and that frustration was felt with the actual model makers, prop makers, and stop motion animators even back then. I'm a firm believer in you need to have both to make it work, and to see all the advancements that computer technology has gained even in such a short time span as the early 1980s to the late 1990s is mindblowing to see. I think a lot of people have a preconception that oh you just hit three keys on a computer and wha-bam you got a CG environment or creature effect but it's harder than it looks nowadays, try imagining doing it when the playbook was only half written and was subject to change. You see the effort, and it's a lifechanging experience to watch this honestly if you have any affinity for special effects of any variety. I'd have a meltdown of Vesuvius proportions trying to figure out how to make Star Wars, and it is unnaturally easy to take special effects for granted but not for me anymore. It's gonna be different and humbling to have my 3,752nd rewatch of Star Wars I can tell you that much. I'm rambling I know, but there will never be enough words in either existence or quantity that can voice just how ludicrous this is. History is wild to say the least but this should have been inconcievable! I had to pause on the first episode, my hand covering my mouth, as I just leaned back in my recliner absolutely exasperated, trying to figure out how they thought of such an idea to get just one shot. Couldn't do it. Not that smart nor inventive. Completely wowed by this mini-series, I'd be a damn fool for giving it anything less than a 10/10. Frankly it deserves like a 12/10! A seven day free trial of Disney+ is worth it exclusively for this as far as I'm concerned. You have to see it, that's just it.
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