Star Wars Production Legend Dennis Muren On The 40th Anniversary: “I Had No Idea It Was Going To Be A Success”
With today marking the 40th anniversary of the legendary movie Star Wars: A New Hope, visual effects producer Dennis Muren, who was the effects cameraman on the original film, talked about the franchise's success which came as a bit of a surprise.
"Really, going all the way through the show, I had no idea it was going to be a success," Muren explained in an interview with starwars.com, about the film released in 1977. "It was too weird. The script, you know, you've got these guys running through these corridors in some sort of space planet and a guy's dressed in a dog costume running along with them, and there's this robot like the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz."
Muren, who helped create some of the most iconic scenes in the movie such as the Death Star trench run, further explains why he thought the film would struggle with reception.
"To me, even in seeing the work in Star Wars while we were doing it, most of the shots looked very crude," Muren elaborated. "The ships were doing funny maneuvers, they don't seem to be responding the way inertia would actually move something, and there's just huge matte lines in some shots. We didn't have the time. It's amazing that some of those shots are even in the show because it was such a rush."
Currently, Star Wars is at the peek of its popularity. The upcoming movie Star Wars: The Last Jedi is coming to theaters on Dec. 15, 2017. There are also additional plans for more films to come in the future. Most notably is the Han Solo standalone film, which has been slowly leaking information in anticipation of its May 25, 2018 release.
