Old Parts Assembled New

Nothing in the film is original and everything in it is combined for the first time: the plot of Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, the visual grammar of Flash Gordon serials, dogfights timed against recut World War Two combat footage, a mythic structure Lucas took from Joseph Campbell, and a full symphonic score at a moment when science fiction meant electronic noise. The technical achievement was the motion control camera built at the newly invented Industrial Light and Magic, which let a camera repeat a move exactly so multiple elements could be combined convincingly. The other achievement was editorial: the first assembly was widely considered unwatchable, and Marcia Lucas, Paul Hirsch and Richard Chew recut it into the film that exists.