Synnöve said:
Couple observations:
How would the dust stirred up from the laser bolts be done in the early 80s? Seeing those takes me out of the experience a bit as they would've been very difficult to create back then.
Compressed air pumped via a tube into a foam coffee cup, filled with fine sand or some other powdery substance. Cinemagic magazine had a tutorial on how to do such FX back then. I'm sure the ILM guys knew that trick as well. ;)