May the Fourth Be With You

May the Fourth has become an unofficial Star Wars day.  I found out about it last year and did a quick post of Darth Vader.  This year, I had a chance to put a little more thought into a post for it.

If you've followed my blog for any length you know that I'm a huge Star Wars fan.  The first movie is probably still my favorite by virtue of it being the first one and there wasn't anything quite like it before or since.

If you ask which scene sticks out in the head of most people, they will say the opening scene after the crawl.  It kind of sets the tone for the rest of the movie.  So far this year's pictures, I tried my best to recreate it with my camera.  I hope you enjoy.

 The scene starts out with Princess Leia's ship racing away from the scene.  If I remember correctly, this scene was created using motion cameras.  Instead of moving the model, the cameras were moved.  It made it look more believable.  For my scene, I just had a little model of the Tantive IV.

 In the movie, you would see turbolaster blasts racing towards her.  Unfortunately, I'm not quite that good.

 Shortly after that, you see a lumbering Imperial Star Destroyer following her.  On that ship is Darth Vader and he is trying to recover the stolen Death Star plans.

 What makes the scene memorable is the fact that the Star Destroyer seems to go on forever.  Unfortunately, I couldn't quite get the right angle on my camera and still have it in focus.

 And then you see the tail end of the Star Destroyer.  If you were watching Space Balls, you'd see a bumper sticker that says, "We Brake for Nobody".   And then you hear the rumble of the engines.  The rumble is very similar to the sound of a normal ship which makes it believable.  Sadly, I couldn't quite figure out how to make it look like the engines were lit.

And then the camera pans around to the front with the Tantive IV getting shot at by the Star Destroyer and Tatooine at the bottom.  Again, I couldn't quite pull either of those off but I did manage to make the Star Destroyer look like it is floating in space.  And shortly after this, you have the scene of the Stormtroopers boarding the Princess' ship.

I hope you enjoyed.