What were George Lucas’ five best Star Wars ideas?

Sunday, June 27th, 2010 • Horrorthon Posts

This occurred to me recently and I wanted to ask what other Horrorthonners thought. Obviously you could say “the Force” or “the Jedi” but I guess I’m asking in a more abstract, elemental “pure cinema” sense. What were the basic visual/auditory innovations that gave the thing its fundamental punch, up on the big screen for the first time? Anyway here’s my list:

1) lightsaber (probably his best idea ever)
2) spaceship dogfight
3) droids
4) orchestral score
5) use a Muppet*

Comments welcome. (I’m posting on my phone from a Massachusetts cabin, which is pretty cool.)

*(not just a mere puppet but a Muppet, specifically, complete with Frank Oz.) (Go ahead and give me a hard time about not sticking with the first movie if you feel like it.)

ADDENDUM: Others that occurred to me included “Vader mask,” “dirt everywhere,” “Death Star trench (you could just say the Death Star itself but that had kind of been done before, albeit never so well),” “Letting them try to build the Dykstraflex motion control system even though it was the pre-PC era and they had to make their own fucking printed circuit boards” etc. He had a lot of good ideas, and so did the people he brought together.