Where the Force came from
Lucas watched 21-87 over and over as a film student. He has tied the Force to a line spoken in it, and its number turns up in Star Wars.
21-87 cuts National Film Board discards and Lipsett's own street footage into a portrait of people living among machines. On the soundtrack, the NFB filmmaker Roman Kroitor talks about a kind of force that people sense behind nature, and call God.
Lucas has said he watched the film more than two dozen times, and has called the Force an echo of Kroitor's words. Princess Leia is held in cell 2187 on the Death Star, and the sequel trilogy gave Finn the stormtrooper code FN-2187.
Acknowledged by the director