Saturday, July 9, 2011

Original Death Star Panel (ca. 1975/1976-ish)

So... long time, no blog. Sorry! I've been having a really busy couple of months, but trust me, it's been worth it. I'll be making a doozy of an announcement in about a week, and hopefully you'll all be as excited by what I've got to say as I am. But enough rumor and innuendo... I've got something cool to show you!



This is an original, production-used panel from the Death Star. Yep, an actual piece of the shooting model from Star Wars. (None of that "A New Hope" junk for me -- the first will always be, simply, Star Wars.) It was part of the model used for long-range shots, where detail wasn't as important. Larger panels appeared in the close ups of the Death Star, while a large, spherical model was used for the really wide shots.

This came, via a dealer, from the collection of Richard Edlund, the Chief Special Effects Photographer for the film. Talk about provenance! It's 3 x 3 inches, and made from a rigid foam. It's painted grey, with a kind of rough texture to it.



As a huge -- huge! -- Star Wars nerd, owning a piece of the original Death Star model is a dream come true. It's an iconic part of the film, an instantly recognizable symbol of science-fiction bad-assery. And now, this tiny square is one of the crown jewels of my collection. I'm positively over the moon about this. ("That's no moon, Doc. It's a space station!")

Okay, back to my secret lair. Stay tuned for a killer, killer announcement.

3 comments:

Matt said...

Damn! You took my line for my comment! Congrats on a killer acquisition.

Anonymous said...

Hey man!
I think you're really lucky to
have a piece like this. I have been trying
to replicate this piece for myself
(because I can't effort it myself!). But while
I was doing this I actually found this particular
piece on film! I've screenmatched it! I couldn't find
a picture but if you go to youtube and type in the
Death Star Assault scene and pause it at 6:14, you
should see a turbolaser and on the right there's a
big square with a lot of pieces. left above the cylinder
thing there's you're piece! This is a
little extra that makes your piece even more fun to have!

Doc Atomic said...

Thanks. But the truth is, they used a LOT of copies of this piece on the Death Star. If you look carefully, you can see maybe a dozen instances of this piece appearing on camera. It's impossible to know which piece is mine, and which is one of the many other examples that look the same. It's unfortunate, but I've learned to live with it. :)

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