Does anyone else find it interesting...

That the special effects supervisor for this year's biggest movie (and likely box office winner for the year), Spider-Man, is John Dykstra, the guy who gave us the effects in ANH and the same guy who did the effects for Battlestar Galactica (which Lucas sued over).

I found it extremely interesting - i thought he retired!! I was screaming in theatre when I was watching Spiderman, pointing at the screen going 'that's john dykstra! dykstra!'

No not really, I thought Spider-Man was a bit of a let-down.

The interesting part is the fact that after ANH, he was unceremoniously dumped from future SW projects, jumped at Battlestar Galactica when Universal offered him the chance (which I'm sure didn't make Lucas very happy) and now, 25 years later, he's the lead effects guy on a movie that is beating SW's 5th outing at the box office.

If you told him in 1977 that 'his' movie would be going up against the 5th SW movie in 2002, he probably would have thought you were nuts.

that just goes to show the depth of gayness Lucas has fallen to.

What are the effects like on Spiderman? They look crap on the trailers. I really want to see it though, but on the day it came out I went to see Star Wars again.

They're actually better, if you're talking about the early trailers. They apparently did an effect for the trailers, and it's totally different in the movie. The effects are far from flawless and totally convincing, but they work in a comic book as film way. All in all, there was one effect that really made me cringe, the rest didn't bother me. If you're watching the trailers that are out now, at least in the US, that's pretty much just lifted from the film AFAIK.

But, I'm not really paying attention to Spider-man anymore, I'm more looking forward to Windtalkers (hell yeah waiting about 18 months for this), and The Bourne Identity. Freaking stupid to bring that movie out in this month. Robert Ludlum spy book vs Tom Clancy spy book vs Windtalkers (which should do some damage) vs Minority Report which should clean house. To say nothing of Mr Deeds and Goldmember coming out on top of each other. WTF? What's in July? Men In Black II and Stuart Little 2? Uninteresting family fare. Yawn. There might be more, but not that I know of off the top of my head. Movies worth seeing don't seem to startup until Aug 2nd with Signs and Aug 9th with Triple X (Yes, the story may be less than inspired, but there is something to be said for enough style for a good trilogy crammed into a high-octane action movie). Who knows, with July apparently completely wide open maybe I'll see The Emperor's New Clothes and some other indies I've been looking at. (Still I'm a little ticked I missed that TMBG

Uhm.

The effects in Spiderman aren't better than those in AOTC.

Retired? Hell... I thought he was DEAD!

I thought it was interesting. But I'm sure John was under no illusion that he was the first choice for the project. ILM was busy with a little movie of their own.

Wait... Spiderman came out AFTER Star Wars in Australia??