movie wizards

Two images separated by 15 years synthesize the impact and evolution that Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) has had in the world of cinema, the special effects company that George Lucas started up in the seventies when he could not find any company that could undertake the tricks that

required .

The first, the initial plane of that foundational

of the saga, in which a gigantic spaceship bursts through the upper part of the screen and ends up flooding it entirely, to the astonishment of the spectators who saw the film in theaters when it was released in 1977. The second, the first test to see how the fully CG T-Rex that the company's CGI animation department had been working on for

(1993), a few seconds in which the dinosaur advances towards the public as determined as the Lumière train did at the dawn of cinema.

Steven Spielberg did not leave terrified, as the viewers of that 1896 short film say did, but he experienced the brief screening as "an epiphany", because he understood that from then on the digital image would make everything possible.

This is how he tells it in

the docuseries that Disney has consecrated to the history of the company, winner of 16 Oscars and nominated for another 46;

birthplace of Pixar and the image processing program Photoshop, and the spearhead that allowed Lucas to carry out his plan to digitize the entire cinematographic process, from the shooting of the film to its projection, including editing and design of sound.

The six chapters, with which, 19 years after his last feature film, Lawrence Kasdan presents his credentials as a documentary filmmaker —who, before making his debut behind the camera, began as a screenwriter for

(1980) and

(1981), both produced by Lucas and with ILM special effects—review that trajectory at a good pace, narrated by the protagonists themselves.

Or, what is the same, it constitutes a dazzling parade of many of the most brilliant illusionists who have been in charge of designing, sometimes with highly sophisticated engineering exercises, the most effective tricks and, forgive the redundancy, ingenious, of what is has come to be called the magic of cinema: John Dykstra, Dennis Muren, Phil Tippett, Ken Ralston or Richard Edlund, guys that Lucas turned to when they were young and illustrious strangers and who today are legends, Oscar collectors, masters of the his, from the matte paintings, those trompe l'oeil with which the cinema has deceived us into believing that they were sets or real places since long before the chromas existed,

(image by image animation) and even the design of specific cameras to optimize the filming of tricks.

The dozens of testimonies are also hooked with substantial archive images that show the opposite of the sense of wonder, the plots of, for example, the

since its inception.

The set of the series 'The Mandalorian', in an image from 'Light & Magic: A Dream Not So Distant', from Disney+.Lucasfilm Ltd. (Lucasfilm Ltd.)

There are catches.

The documentary completely forgets about the late John Stears, the oldest —and the only one who had already won an Oscar— of the initial signings of Lucas for

.

And it carries limitations derived from its condition as a self-promotional product, since the ILM belongs to Disney since it bought its parent company, Lucasfilm, from Lucas, which translates into filing the edges of history and tiptoeing, for example , due to the disagreement between Lucas himself and Dykstra, the company's first boss, and the one he dismissed after the first film.

And, despite the fact that it shows how in the seventies people were already working against the clock, it does not explain that the accelerated advance of technology has not only not stopped this trend, but also that visual effects professionals work with more and more pressure and shorter deadlines. , as several of them denounced last month —in an article published on the specialized technology website Gizmodo— what happens in Marvel productions,

But even with those shortcomings,

, available on Disney+, is illuminating.

The archive material, those

fragments full of details, at times conveys a sense of immediacy similar to that achieved by

Peter Jackson's amazing documentary on the Beatles, and also the emotion that emanates from seeing images that they show a group of brilliant people, friends in many cases, hard at work, doing what they do best, working side by side to create something unique.

Kasdan also seems to want to apply the slogan that his protagonists repeat: that the visual effects must be at the service of the script, and not the other way around.

Phil Tippet, at the presentation of 'Light & Magic: A Dream Not So Distant', at the annual 'Star Wars' convention, on May 27, 2022 in Anaheim, California. Jesse Grant (Getty Images for Disney)

So yes, we see how the magic is done, but above all there is a good story full of rich and well-rounded characters.

The most moving, Tippett, the great master of

suffering from bipolarity who after decades dedicating himself to a job that others would consider boring but that he recognizes not only excites him but also saved him from suicide, discovers when he sees the T- Digital Rex that, before the power of CGI, his art is obsolete.

"I feel extinct," he told

Spielberg in

"It's a great phrase, I'll put it in the movie," replied the director.

And then he helped him recycle.

At 71, Tippett is still working.

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