“It was a far less frightening, but an equally self-reflexive version of that scene in Being John Malkovich where Malkovich goes inside his own head.”

Dan Silver: When asked, that’s the way I describe my (all too brief) time spent at LucasFilm and ILM. Over the years, I’ve been extremely fortunate to have found myself in situations where the ivories on my geek piano are tickled under the guise of “professional responsibilities,” but never have I been to a place like LucasFilm and ILM. This is the only place on the planet that can position a wall sized mural of early and little seen conceptual sketch of Yoda right outside a room where post production work was being done on Pacific Rim. (FYI, I saw as close to nothing as one could see, I just happened to be admiring the Yoda artwork when someone walked out of a room, and before the door closed I caught a glimpse of a screen. I only knew what I was seeing was Pacific Rim because an image of Charlie Hunnam in his Jaeger get-up was frozen on screen.)

But that’s exactly what’s so impressive about LucasFilm and ILM. Walking the hallways, I was consistently reminded by the memorabilia that litters their campus that this was a place that didn’t only just bring us a galaxy far, far away but also gave us Roger Rabbit, a flying Delorean, the T-100, T Rex, Davey Jones, and, as we’ve seen right here on Grantland, an assembled Avengers. The magicians (I use that term literally) who work there have influenced movie fans young and old, and continue to do so every day. It’s both inspiring and immensely humbling.

You’ve all gotten a pretty good look at all this via the previous Inside ILM “episodes”, but now you’re about to see the greatest feat ever pulled off at LucasFilm and ILM, me walking the halls and not (completely) embarrassing myself.