Star Wars Episode I: Production Notes

Another epic action sequence is the final battle, which called for a fleet of mechanical vehicles piloted by a robot army. The droids had animalistic features, which were reflected in their vehicles. Lucas had described the troop transport, the MTT, as resembling a big locomotive that plows through trees. That led to further creative concepts. "The image I saw right away was a charging elephant," says Chiang. He then adapted those features to a mechanical design and interpretation of the racing beast. "I used an elephant's proportions in designing the vehicle: the cockpit resembles the animal's head, the body of the MTT is its trunk, and the vehicle's side arms that culminate into little guns are the tusks."

The attack tanks evolved the same way. "I liked the shape of a spade or a shovel; I felt that suggested something dangerous and deadly," Chiang comments. "I then added a large turret, making it resemble a flying iron, plus some animalistic qualities in terms of the lines, surface and overall shape."

For the STAPs, smaller vehicles used by the battle droids, Lucas wanted a variation on the speeder bikes seen in Return of the Jedi. Chiang toyed with several concepts before settling on design with the driver in an upright position. He again returned to nature, this time using a hummingbird as the principal inspiration. "The pedals of the vehicle resemble the hummingbird's tiny wings," Chiang explains. "The vehicle's sleek 'head' also resembles the hummingbird."

Chiang explored both traditional and exotic designs for a submarine that figures prominently in another large-scale sequence. The sub has a bubble in which the pilot sits. The propellers are squid- or stingray-like, forming an elegant looking tail. Once Lucas had approved this initial idea, the design was refined several times. The sub's original design was spherical, but Lucas wanted something flatter, which would permit a better view of the vehicle, adding to its stingray look.

While most of these vehicles and spaceships represent a new creative direction for the Star Wars saga, some Episode I story and location requirements called for vehicles already familiar to fans. The Trade Federation battleship incorporated surface textures from the Star Destroyers seen in the original trilogy. Lucas had considered a flying saucer shape, before deciding on something less conventional -- a donut shape. A ball was then placed in the center.

The spaceship of one of the film's principal villains was also conceived as predecessors to ships from the previous films. "I took bits and pieces from the original designs and merged them," explains Chiang. "The result looks like a TIE fighter, but it has shapes and angles reminiscent of the Imperial shuttles."

There are several versions of landspeeders in Episode I. One is a sleeker version of Luke Skywalker's landspeeder from the first film. Another was based on real car designs, on which Chiang placed specially designed jet engines.

All this work done by Chiang and the Episode I art department, whether striking out in bold, new design directions or recalling earlier creations, serves the epic tale told in this new chapter of the Star Wars saga.

"As marvelous as all this design work is," says producer Rick McCallum, "it is one thing to see a beautiful painting or a striking image on a page and another to create it as a physical reality. For that we needed a production designer who could look at absolutely anything and say, 'Yes, I can build that.' Gavin Bocquet was our man." Bocquet, a veteran of the globetrotting Young Indiana Jones Chronicles production, joined the Episode I production prepared to provide blueprints for the most exotic flights of imagination. Board by board, Bocquet and his team built a fantasy galaxy, painstakingly bridging the gap between an artistic image and a reality in which Lucas could set up his cameras.

The size and complexity of Episode I, with its many otherworldly environments, presented Bocquet and his team with some extraordinary challenges too- including the fact that a number of the environments would be built partially or entirely in the computers at Industrial Light & Magic, after principal photography was completed.

The digital components did not change Bocquet's basic role as Production Designer: "Generally it's to produce any background that you see behind the actors, whether it's an in-studio set or on location, including props and set dressing. We deal with any inanimate objects," Bocquet says. All together, he and the designers and craftspeople who work with him built around sixty sets. "About 40 of those were constructed on the stages at Leavesden and the rest were on location," he adds.

The designer points out that even with wildly unusual environments, Lucas likes them to relate to environments that are familiar to the audience. "So we'll come up with geographical or environmental things like forests or deserts, or architectural styles that are known such as classical or art nouveau-things that give the audience some sort of key. If you try to design something completely in the abstract, something not of this world, there's less chance that the audience will believe in it. They need to have something to latch on to, even if it's subconsciously."