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January 9, 2007
star wars @ omsi: spaceships
by sven at 8:00 am
More about the recent Star Wars exhibit at OMSI...
The amazing thing about the model spaceships I saw is that their detail looks good whether you're standing four feet away -- or four inches away. Many of the models weighed 70 pounds, 100 pounds, or more. Moving them could require several people helping.
The Millenium Falcon you see above was a special exception. It could fit in the palm of your hand. It was used for just one shot: the one where the Falcon is clinging to the back of a Star Destroyer in The Empire Strikes Back. It's a gorgeous piece of craftsmanship -- and I have absolutely no idea how it was constructed.
This X-wing is four feet long. The story goes that some of the crew were making it in their spare time... But the higher-ups heard about it, and then it got used in the film.
How do I know this stuff? The book Sculpting A Galaxy: Inside the Star Wars Model Shop was just released in November. It has a wealth of info and photos that haven't been available before. ...Uh, that and the fact that I'm a geek who's been soaking up details about Star Wars' special effects all my life.
While at the exhibit, I became fascinated with trying to figure out how the surface textures of the spaceships were created. I'm pretty sure that what we're looking at here is just some spare bits of sheet styrene that have been glued on, and a good airbrush paint job.
See that striated strip on the engine? That's also sheet styrene. I feel sure that I've seen patterned styrene like that at model railroad supply stores.
I believe this is the sandcrawler model that was made specially for the 1997 re-release of A New Hope...
For this scale, rectangles and trapezoids of sheet styrene were cut out, then glued onto MDF. There are actual spaces between the pieces of styrene, to accentuate that "sheet metal welded together" feel.
You're not supposed to be interested in the backside of the model... But I strained to get a good look. The frame for the sandcrawler is definitely MDF -- medium density fiberboard.
It's so exciting to see materials that I recognize!
Of all the spaceships that were on display, the Star Destroyer is the one that is supposed to be the largest (relatively speaking) in the Star Wars universe. In real life, it was maybe a little over three feet long. However, the original Millenium Falcon model from A New Hope was by far the largest model exhibited. It was more like four feet in diameter. And it would take at least four people to lift it.
All of the large spaceship models were supported by big metal tubes (3" diameter?). These tubes are welded onto wheeled carts, so people setting up the Star Wars exhibit can move them around more easily.
In essence, the star destroyer has the same "sheets of metal welded together" look that the sandcrawler has. However, the scale is different. The Star Destroyer is supposed to be around a mile long. So rather than cut out pieces of sheet styrene, it looks to me like the surface is one single sheet -- which has simply been scribed with an X-Acto blade.
How did the model makers create all that amazing detail? "Kitbashing." They'd take hundreds of pre-made model kits, and use little bits and pieces in unrecognizable configurations.
The spheres on top of the control tower? I have a hunch that they're faceted plastic "crystals" that you use to make rainbows, which have been spray painted over.
Talking about the exhibit with a friend, he asked me how good the kitbashing actually was. Could I recognize little bits and pieces as being from other things?
Nope! It was truly amazing. The only bit I ever recognized as being something, um, recognizable... was on the Y-wing. There's that little bit that was clearly a oil canister of some sort in its previous life.
This photo's also interesting because you can see a lot of rod -- most likely brass -- that's been carefully bent at right angles. You can probably do that with just a pair of pliers. I think there's also a tool available via Micro-Mark that helps you do that.
[to be continued]
posted by sven | January 9, 2007 8:00 AM | comments (3) | categories: exhibits & events
Comments
Great stuff!
I don't know if you get Fox TV, but they show a lot of semi behind-the-scenes stuff (whixch is essentially little more than infomercials for their own products, not so much deeply informative). They have a show where three film studens intervies directors of popular films, and they were discussing special effects (Don't know who the director or whatever was). He made the assertsion, obviously sacrosanct in Hollywood, that "Today's audience demands sophistication, so the effects have become far more sophisticated to meet that demand". As an example he used the new Star Wars movies. Then later one of the students asked about films that were made earlier, in the more 'primitive' days of special effects that just wouldn't cut it today, and his immediate examples were Predator and the original Star Wars! He had a certain contempt in his voice when he mentioned them, as if they're the redheaded stepchildren of special effects. Funnily, as an afterthought, he tacked on "ohm yeah, and story is important as well"!
I wonder if he realizes that, as sophisticated as the effects are in the more modern films (some of them anyway) - the particular examples he gave are completely ass-backwards! Star Wars is far superior to any of the last three sequels and Predator is a classic, not to be matched by anything made in the last dozen or so years!
Lucas has pissed off a lot of fans by turning away from his "dirtied-up" effects and using super-clean computer effects instead and horrible scripts to boot! Star Wars was an anachonism for him... the one good thing he ever did as a director (with the exception of American Graffiti, which also seems to have been a fluke - sheer luck). I think what happened was in those hungry days he was following a vision and using scraps of whatever available special effects technology were available, and meanwhile developing his non-linear editing systems (his real genius contribution), which eventually turned into CGI and gave him the ability to create his completely self-indulgent modern fantasies that completely miss the mark that made the original Star Wars so great!
Posted by: Darkstrider at January 9, 2007 4:22 PM
George Lucas... His name used to be a sacred word. And now...
I think what I've decided is that he's a great idea man.
He's no good at editing. [A New Hope was edited by the woman who became his wife.]
He's no good at directing. [Empire Strikes Back, the best of the lot, was directed by Irvin Kershner.]
Given the capital of 20 years of fan worship, he could make the movie any way he wanted. He decided to do it solo -- as the sole arbiter of vision. Now, I'm not saying that there should have been suits breathing down his neck. But I think the second trilogy could have been far better had the man worked in collaboration with a creative partner -- someone who was independent-minded enough to be able to disagree with "god's" platypuses.
Lucas' vision, imho, is best when mediated by a translator.
Posted by: sven at January 10, 2007 2:09 AM
He gave in to the dark side......
But you're right, as long as he had to be tethered to a creative team he did fantastic work.... once he became an empire unto himself, well.... down the crapper!
But then, he did pretty much CREATE special effects movies as we know them today (well, with maybe a little help from a nice Jewish boy named Schpielberg) ;)
Posted by: Darkstrider at January 11, 2007 12:28 AM