Via Starwars.com:

During the Great Depression, movie audiences were thirsty for all manner of film diversions — and spectacle was something they sought constantly. The 1930s equivalent of spectacle was much different than the explosion-heavy expectation we have today, though. Throughout that era of film, one of the most popular forms of big-screen splendor came in the work of Busby Berkeley.

Berkeley came to Hollywood by way of Broadway and was known for making dance numbers that were divorced from the reality of the rest of the film, fantasy scenes that couldn’t be contained by the physical restraints of the movies. His works include Footlight Parade, The Golddiggers of 1933, and 42nd Street. Each film utilized absurd amounts of dancers and overhead shots that were patently arranged in geometric patterns.

You may be understandably thinking that dance numbers don’t seem like the sort of fare that would inspire the work of George Lucas. But you’d be wrong.

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