You know the big set piece at the end of Star Wars where the rebel X-wings are trying to drop their charges in the hole on the Death Star? Exciting, right? That's a scene only one of the movie brats could have invented. Lucas, being one of the movie brats, is basically saying to a savvy audience: I've seen more movies than you have and I've absorbed all of them, because that sequence is totally a reinvention of the bouncing bomb sequences from The Dam Busters (1955, directed by Michael Anderson). I know that I'm not saying anything new here. Star Wars, after all, is cobbled together from bits and pieces from the entire history of movies. I just think it's interesting that for a short window of time, there was a generation of movie directors to whom the entire history of cinema was a vast playground. The Dam Busters is one of those very British "how we won the war" movies that has more than a little in common with Angels One Five or The Cruel Sea or (more particularly) David Lean's Breaking the Sound Barrier. It's part procedural, part men on a mission movie. It's also the 1955 British version of a special effects spectacular. There's a reason Lucas was cribbing from it. Who needs animatics and storyboards when you have whole filmed sequences from which to draw inspiration.
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