“He basically destroyed the model but then reattached all the pieces to this armature. Johnston was inspired to make a walker that would scout ahead of the larger AT-ATs and created a 3-D model of the concept instead of a sketch. The scout walker was a last-minute addition created with kitbashing. “ made foreground sets out of baking soda that kind of pushed the perspective back,” said Tippett.ħ. Large background paintings, a 20-foot-long bridal veil, and painted rocks made up the miniature Battle of Hoth set. The snow in the walker scenes is actually baking soda. And we were going to have those be red inside there in every shot, and I don’t remember what happened, but we never did it again, except that one shot.”Ħ. Visual effects director of photography Dennis Muren recalled, “You’ll see a little window in the front of that walker head, and it’s red inside.
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The ominous red windows are only on screen for a few seconds. Keep your eyes peeled for a unique AT-AT with the inside illuminated in red. “I would take that back and put it on the Moviola and just study the footfall patterns.”ĥ.
“The first thing we did was to go out to one of these wild animal farms and got an elephant, and I put chalk marks on all the elephant’s joints,” said stop motion animator Phil Tippett. While the scale didn’t match, the animators turned to nature to understand how a four-legged walker might move. The AT-AT’s walking motion started with studying an elephant. “I think that somebody just saw those cranes and said, ‘Hey, that looks just like those walkers in Star Wars!’ But that’s total nonsense,” Johnston said.Ĥ. You’ve probably heard the rumor yourself about George Lucas getting the idea for the walkers from the cranes in the Oakland bay. AT-ATs were based on a Syd Mead illustration, not construction cranes. “We never referred to it as the AT-AT,” said Johnston with a laugh. “He would basically leave all the action out knowing that we were going to be using storyboards and models and whatever technique we could.”įorget the argument about the right way to pronounce it - to the crew, the AT-AT had another name. “There was no written sequence in the first script that I read, and this was typical of the way George would do the action sequences,” recalled visual effects art director Joe Johnston. He trusted their skills and creativity implicitly. George Lucas often left the details of the action scenes out of the script and up to the crew. Here are 15 things we learned from talking to these titans of filmmaking that we don’t want you to miss.ġ. Hours of exclusive interviews revealed fun behind-the-scenes factoids you’ve probably never heard before, straight from the source. Star Wars luminaries George Lucas, Mark Hamill, Joe Johnston, Ben Burtt, and more chatted with as part of our yearlong celebration of the 40th anniversary of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
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To celebrate the classic film’s landmark 40th anniversary, presents “Empire at 40,” a special series of interviews, editorial features, and listicles.
On May 21, 1980, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back made its theatrical debut.