The Death Star

The Death Star

"I made myself indispensable, and all the while, I laid the groundwork of my revenge. We call it the Death Star. There is no better name... and the day is coming soon when it will be unleashed."

- Galen Erso

The 2002 ornament that harkened in the holiday season for Mikel

Ralph McQuarrie's original matte painting for the Death Star, before moving the radar dish out of the meridional trench.

In Colin Cantwell's original Death Star model, you can see how the equator was useful to offset the warped, imperfect shape.

A lot of inspiration for the Trench Run on the Death Star wars taken from Michael Anderson's "The Dam Busters"

To get the natural planetary lighting on the surface of the Death Star, ILM just took the model out into the parking lot and shot on a sunny day

Capturing the heart and soul of ingenuity in 1976, the crew used whatever they could to get fast paced aerial shots. Including an old pickup truck driving past the pyrotechnics

John Dykstra with his Dykstraflex camera, a revolution in special effects that allowed for repeating moving camera passes that could be composited together, creating never before seen moving action shots with miniatures

Saturn's moon "Mimas" with an uncanny resemblance to the Death Star

The Geonosians were the original builders of the Death Star, planning to use the weapon agains the Republic

After the genocide of the Geonosians, slaves from around the galaxy were used to build disparate parts of the Death Star

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This episode's research heavily benefitted from Star Wars Explained's breakdown video of the death star:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvy-AnI2M8A