Tag Archives: model

Real or Fake?

I’ve been looking at this picture for 10 minutes. It’s being presented to me on facebook as a behind the scenes picture from Star Wars 1977. I suspect this is AI…. maybe…. Here’s why:

1st – I’ve never seen this picture. I’ve seen just about every image behind the scenes or otherwise from the original Star Wars. Every once in awhile a new one does pop up though.

2nd – The Death Star doesn’t look round. It looks egg shaped to me.

3rd – What are they doing? There’s no reason to hold a bounce card that close to a model let alone curve it. It could be some sort of ad hoc preliminary light test though.

4th – Where’s the light coming from? If the guy on the left is holding a piece of diffusion the light should be coming from behind him. The light seems to be coming from the sheet he’s holding. Flexible flat panel lighting didn’t exist in 1977.

The one thing that makes me think it might be real:

The Mole Richardson wheeled light stand (with the painted brown parts) is mostly obscured by the Death Star yet the legs and wheels appear to be in the proper position. This is something that AI will almost always screw up.

This is where we are. Is it real or fake? How much of the rest of our lives will be spent trying to figure out things like this?

Space: 1999 original 44 inch Eagle One special effects model!

Check out this video of the original Space: 1999 Eagle One 44 inch special effects model as it appears today!  See the inner workings including the crude pilots in the cockpit and how the rocket engines shoot out compressed air!  Fabulous!

…The Original 44 inch Eagle One special effects model, from the 1970s Gerry Anderson television series Space: 1999. The only large model available at the start of filming (it was later joined by two other similar models at that size) it featured heavily in most episodes – and was crashed many times. Now 35 years old, it has been damaged and painted several times over the years but was given a major refurbishment in 2002 to return it to it’s studio appearance and more importantly to prevent it falling apart. It should now easily last for another 35+!

space1999_EagleLaunch_BlackSun