Yesterday we watched Rogue One followed by Star Wars 4K77.

I realized that due to working on my years-long project of shot-by-shot color correction of A New Hope, the experience of watching Star Wars has broken down into a series of varying emotional reactions to the colors on screen. For example, I was forced to remark several times on the beauty of particular shots while gazing sadly at those that failed to live up to the Technicolor standard. The story of the film and its greater universe totally disappeared while in this state, even though we just finished watching Rogue One.

I was also struck by the massive stylistic difference between Star Wars and almost all subsequent entries in the series. It truly is surrealist fantasy, and time only serves to make this more apparent. From the way ships fly at the speed of feeling through impressionistic space to the visible seams between live action and painted location, the film plays like a dream. And like a dream, as it ended I felt I couldn’t say what happened or why, only that it felt like a place apart, a place of myth and adventure.

Truly strange.