A commissioned piece (meaning it wasn’t my idea; I was just asked to do it) for the Empire website on groundbreaking uses of special effects and/or new film technologies. The reason was the release of Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, and the remit was to start with Star Wars, as a way of keeping the piece a controllable length. So it doesn’t go back to The Jazz Singer or Ray Harryhausen or 2001 or whatever.

http://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/movie-special-effects-milestones