matril

Film is, inherently, trickery. We're watching a bunch of rapid flashing still images or pixels and fooling ourselves into thinking it's three-dimensional motion. So whether it's computer generated or otherwise (I could rant about the misleading nature of the term 'practical' effects, but that's for another time) there's always a bit of sleight-of-hand.

For example, this final scene in the throne room, where our heroes are rewarded and celebrated. Lucas needed to evoke a large crowd of soldiers. He didn't have enough actual people to work with, so some of the crowd are actually cardboard cutouts. The fake ones and real people are blended together so well that it works.

Also notable about this moment is how there's no dialogue. We see the scene unfold wordlessly, so that anyone, from little children to non-English speakers, can tell exactly what's happening. Our heroes enter, they march down the hall to the stage, the princess gives them their medals, and everyone cheers for them. Simple, but very effective, particularly with the triumphant processional music by John Williams. Like Pomp and Circumstance for a galaxy far, far away. And this scene set the precedent for Star Wars to always finish with a dialogue-free scene, something with sweeping music and purely cinematic storytelling.

So that's Episode IV! Next time, we start V...