2: Star Wars (1977) -

2: Star Wars (1977) - Destruction of the Death Star.
Oddly enough the final TIE fighter that Luke shoots out from the Falcon in the 'Escape from the Death Star' sequence seems a far larger-scale explosion than the Death Star's in the 1977 blockbuster. The 'ring'-effect added on to the original - admittedly rather small-scale - 'sparky' explosion doesn't add anything much to it, and seems to have been nicked wholesale from the destruction of Praxis at the beginning of Star Trek VI. The ring effect was produced in both cases by ILM, and Star Trek VI director Nick Meyer was inspired by the FX in The Poseidon Adventure (1972). The sound of the Death Star explosion uses the famous 'Castle Thunder' sound effect originally generated for Frankenstein (1931), which is the explosion sound-mixer's equivalent of the Wilhelm Scream. Check out this huge list of other movies where Castle Thunder has guest-starred.

Impact: The most critically appreciated Star Wars movie is arguably the one with no explosion at the end. In Irvin Kirshner's The Empire Strikes Back (1980), our heroes have slunk away to lick their wounds, and even C3PO's buff-up can't conceal that they've all had a terrible kicking. Nonetheless the destruction of the original Death Star is one of the crowning cheer-moments of 1970s cinema, and is ingeniously preceded by a smaller cheer-moment as Han Solo finally stops counting his wad and gets with the action.

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