On Thursday night I attended this event at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater, which was a talk chock-full of people who worked on the original Star Wars and also Rogue One (and other ILM films). Even Marcia Lucas(!!!) appeared to explain how she edited the Death Star battle (and they showed chunk of the rough cut of this complete with the WWII dogfight footage she used as placeholder in lieu of ILM finishing the effects, but, sadly, this doesn't appear in the video below). They even had the Dykstraflex camera in the lobby (link to pic I tweeted of it). From the Oscars website: Over the last 40 years, technology has advanced by leaps and bounds. But the impetus to create and inspire remains the same. This event will contrast the analog technologies developed for the first STAR WARS released in 1977 with the all-digital toolsets used to create ROGUE ONE released in 2016. Key contributors from both STAR WARS and ROGUE ONE will share the journey of creating the impossible with their breakthrough visual effects. Our list of stellar participants includes: John Dykstra, Dennis Muren, John Knoll, Ben Burtt, Marcia Lucas, Bill George, Harrison Ellenshaw, Bruce Nicholson, Richard Edlund and Rachel Rose. Hosted by Kiri Hart, co-producer of ROGUE ONE, this event promises to be both inspiring and insightful.
It's a shame they didn't show the often referenced version of the space battle cut together from WWII movie footage, though I suppose it might have been a rights issue, since unless Disney owns all of those movies they probably can't broadcast it. For example, I'm pretty sure some of the trench run was assembled from shots from 'The Dam Busters' and I think that's owed by WB or Universal (I forget which.)
Here you go! Also, Dam Busters is disturbed currently by Universal, though Warner Brothers released it originally to the theaters.
You can certainly see where they got a lot of the shots and even dialogue from, though that's just a general comparison. What they showed was an actual edit Lucas himself cut together from several films including 'The Dam Busters', 'Tora! Tora! Tora!', 'The Battle of Britain', actual period newsreel footage and I think '633 Squadron' too. Sort of a pre-viz before pre-viz (which Lucas would also have a hand in inventing.) From what I recall, he'd done this before he'd even got started on the script proper, or even hired on Ralph McQuarrie and it's one of the few elements that remains consistent throughout every draft. To my knowledge I don't think they've ever released it.
What we saw in the presentaiton was what MARCIA Lucas cut together from the workprint. Was there any footage of just this pre-vis stuff? I don't recall it. Here's video I shot of the Dystraflex doing its thing along with a replica of the large Millennium Falcon shooting miniature
Don't have time to go back and re-watch the segment just now, but unless I misunderstood something, Marcia showed at least some of the aforementioned GL quasi pre-viz reel which she then edited down even further to what we're familiar with but cutting Luke's initial trench run, along with some other tweaks & restructuring. Keep in mind that at this point in production the VFX elements weren't complete, so in lieu of the finished miniature footage, she was probably still using elements of the previz reel inter-cut with the new cockpit & war room footage shot at Elstree. Which again, is why I suspect that they don't show it on-stream since it still contains what is essentially copyrighted footage and getting the various permissions just wasn't worth the hassle.
I said they don't show it. The video doesn't show any of the footage projected while Ben and Marcia were talking. What I recall seeing is the workprint footage with the Rebel pilots in front of blue screens and that WWII fighter footage as placeholder for the VFX, none of which were in the print at this point. The one thing that annoyed me was them showing Special Edition shots in place of the originals, notably the matte painting stuff, so you have Ellenshow talking about his Death Star hangar matte but up on the screen is the SE version with the Deathstar II style far hangar wall. Ugh.