Unit Activity Lesson Plans

Introduction
Students have studied the elements of visual composition and how to analyze visual messages. In this lesson, they will read a movie review and answer questions about its content.

Lesson Description
Students will examine a media message by reading Roger Ebert's review of Star Wars. The students will respond to the review as an example of a media message, and they will consider the visual design elements of the film as discussed by Ebert.

Instructional Objectives

1. Students will demonstrate reading comprehension skills by answering questions about the reading.
2. Students will demonstrate their understanding of visual design and their ability to deconstruct media messages.

Student Web Activity Answers

1. Possible answer: "Birth of a Nation brought together the developing language of shots and editing. Citizen Kane married special effects, advanced sound, a new photographic style, and a freedom from linear storytelling."
2. Possible answer: "Two Lucas inspirations started the story with a tease: He set the action not in the future but 'long ago,' and jumped into the middle of it with 'Chapter 4: A New Hope.' These seemingly innocent touches were actually rather powerful; they gave the saga the aura of an ancient tale, and an ongoing one. As if those two shocks were not enough for the movie's first moments, I learn from a review by Mark R. Leeper that this was the first film to pan the camera across a star field…. As the camera tilts up, a vast spaceship appears from the top of the screen and moves overhead, an effect reinforced by the surround sound." This opening and visual style sets a dramatic mood too for the film to come.
3. Possible answer: "The story is advanced with spectacularly effective art design, set decoration, and effects. Although the scene in the intergalactic bar is famous for its menagerie of alien drunks, there is another scene—when the two robots are thrown into a hold with other used droids—that equally fills the screen with fascinating details. And a scene in the Death Star's garbage bin (inhabited by a snake with a head shaped like E.T.'s) also is well done. Many of the planetscapes are startlingly beautiful and owe something to fantasy artist Chesley Bonestell's imaginary drawings of other worlds. The final assault on the Death Star, when the fighter rockets speed between parallel walls, is a nod in the direction of '2001,' with its light trip into another dimension: Kubrick showed, and Lucas learned, how to make the audience feel it is hurtling headlong through space."
4. Possible answer: Ebert's purpose is to entertain you with his writing style, to inform you about the movie and details that you may not know otherwise, to influence your opinion of the movie, and to persuade you that his opinion is valid. Reactions to the film review will vary.

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