Saturday 9 September 2017

'STAR WARS' AT 40: DEEP IN THE REBEL TEMPLE HANGAR BAY...

Generic shot of the hangar bay at Shepperton. Note the partially built Y-wing prop being positioned for a new take, with only one engine pod. 

Newly arrived at the temple base of the Rebels on Yavin IV, our heroes are transported into the depths of its interior and one of the hangar bays housing the X and -wing fighters. Filmed on the biggest soundstage at London's Shepperton Studios in Summer 1976, one full size X-wing and a partial Y-wing fighter were practically built, with large photo blow ups of the craft placed in various illusionary positions to make it look like a large compliment of fighter craft were present. With different scenes shot, the full size craft and photo blow ups would be re-positioned where necessary. Some long shots were heightened by later matte work at ILM.



The interior arrival sequence of our heroes disembarking the transport was flipped in editing: our heroes arriving from the other direction, as seen in this above shot. Handled in post production, this was presumably done for aesthetic reasons linked to match matte painting work at ILM by Harrison Ellenshaw. A deleted moment briefly shown in the film, but captured by on-set stills photographers in rehearsal, has Luke (once more wearing his poncho), watched by Han, going off to inspect the fighters, of which a brief start of the moment can be seen in the movie.

Luke wanders towards the fighters, soon watched by Han.




More on Eddie Byrne in his brief appearance as Rebel General Willard: https://starwarsaficionado.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/EDDIE%20BYRNE

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