Every Starfighter in Star Wars Explained By Lucasfilm | WIRED

I'm Doug Chang I'm the vice president an executive career director for Lucasfilm I'm and today we're gonna talk about every kind of star fighter in the live-action Star Wars films and we do mean every star fighter [Music] I always wanted to fly one of these things there are many different classes of starships from capital ships like Star Destroyers whose space stations like the Death Star that's not a moon it's a Space Station but typically we define a Starfighter as a small spacecraft designed specifically for combat spaceship designs and Star Wars is really really tricky and that's because we have to give these spaceships personality they have to have a distinct look they have to have a distinct iconic shape and that's where I think George was brilliant in terms of creating iconic shapes for Star Wars TIE fighters they're one of the most iconic designs in the Star Wars universe and what I like about it is the simplicity of it it's just the ball with wings the original design for the TIE fighter was presented by George - rough McQuarrie in 1974 I think all of the ships and star wars you can kind of do that shorthand like almost a stick figure version of it and this Thai fighter is great cuz it's the H with the ball on it so as long as it's coming towards you you recognize it as a TIE fighter remember when I first saw it when I was 15 Partha visual was so strong but I love the sound of it it was just an amazing unexpected sound I see them the first time we see Darth Vader's TIE advanced is in a trench run at the end of a new hope one of the fun facts about it in terms of design is that George wanted to look very distinguished they're very different in terms of giving it a very distinct silhouette the wings are folded in to kind of evoke power and menace the x-wing is a really fascinating design I love the fact that it evokes war to aircraft design in terms of the form language and I also like the idea that it has a long snout George was a huge race car fan and he loved the idea that the dragsters had a very long nose and so in some of the early prototypes from Colin Cantwell you can see the same painted nose great thing about the x-wing is seeing Star Wars for the first time it was kind of the first time he saw a ship transform when you get the s-foils being locked in Attack Position that's when it makes its exit silhouette it was really fun to see one of the reasons why the x-wing is so iconic is that Joe Johnson when he drew it and designed it I mean he made a very graphic it was very easy to understand it was very easy to draw very quickly and there's a timeless quality to it that's very hard to do the y-wing the first time we see a y-wing is when they arrive on Yavin base one of the fun things about the y-wing was that George wanted it to look like a race car without all of its paneling and so you can see that the cockpit has the sleekness of a race car but then the engines in the body have all the panels removed the design actually evolved quite a bit because of the blue screen technology the very thin stress were very hard to photograph in so Colin Kent will actually beat them up and gave it a more stronger War two robustness though we were able to design the fully covered Y wing where you got to see it and its complete form before you see it in a new hope the design for the tie bomber is really unique because this is the first time we saw two pods next to each other with kind of a tie advanced wing setup it still felt more menacing and then you got a hint at what it does when they were trying to bomb the Falcon and that asteroid field a wing the first time we see the a wing is in Return of the Jedi it's one of my favorite designs because it's so fast and it's very sleek and in many ways it's the bare essence of speed because you just have a cockpit with engines and a wing and I love the triangular look of it because it just looks fast the a wing for me is really interesting because it's when the first time we saw a really rounded shape for the fighters at least and I thought that that made a really unique looking look as far as the attack positions viewing from Return of the Jedi one of fun things about the B wing design is that it's a transforming design the fact that it's almost a flying wing but then it goes vertical and I love the idea that the cockpit actually rotates it's the first time we've seen that and the whole thinking about that is that what it's flying it's actually a very interesting configuration than when it's landed [Music] the pie interceptor what's great about this design is the next evolution of the TIE fighter the Tri interceptor is one of my favorite ship designs and what the interesting thing is that we took the wings and stretched it so that it made it look more for propelling and then by doing that though we had to actually give it a slot so the pilot could actually look left and right the naboo n1 Starfighter one of the challenges of designing that was that we actually had to figure out a design history for Star Wars and George wanted to mirror that design history with our real-world design and so for instance the original trilogy designs of the x-wing and the Y wing were more in the 1930s the more manufacture look the more angular look and so episodes 1 2 & 3 actually went back to the 1920s a more romantic time more or handcrafted artisan look for the design of spaceships and this one it does okay the fun things about designing for Star Wars is that we can take a lot of liberties and part of the sleekness of the n1 is that you really can't get an astromech behind the cockpit and so if you notice it's just our two's dome his legs are somewhere inside the body the other important thing about the Naboo Starfighter is but Doug designed it the trade federation vulture droids and we see this is episode 1 Phantom Menace the thing is really cool about this is the first time we see a Starfighter in Star Wars that is a droid now first originally it wasn't supposed to be a droid I remember George actually want to start to connect the idea of the designs from episode 1 to episode 4 and so this was going to be a precursor to the TIE fighters and that's why you see the distinct wing configuration in the central ball body the Jeeves knows he and Starfighter we first see that in attack of the clones and what's interesting about this design is that George is a human race boat fan and so he wanted to mirror and design a vehicle that looked kind of like the f1 speedboats and that's where you get the twin pontoons and what I did was turn them vertically the great part about the design of the Geonosian Starfighter is that you really see that it's designed by the Geonosians or their bug light creatures so they have their own distinct look to their vehicles one of fun things is that when I was designing it I want to make sure that the spaceship actually looked almost like part of the you know see hands and so that's where the cockpit is really small it's almost like a helmet the jedi starfighter at this time George wanted to blend and blur the line so you can see here you know even though these are Jedi ships we actually kept them very triangular to sort of evoke a little bit of the transition towards the Empire Star Destroyers and one of the fun things was that I remember George saying let's just take a Star Destroyer and turn into a fighter ship that was such a bold statement but first I didn't think it would work until I saw it on paper and it actually works beautifully it doesn't have hyperspace capability so it needs a hyperspace ring to go into hyperspace Jen Kirkman 70 Starfighter and the first time we see this is in Revenge of the Sith my favorite part about this design are the multiple wings of the different designs of the code it's actually a precursor to the x-wing so the multiple ways sort of start to hint at the x-wing as well folding out but then the interesting thing is that you'll notice that there are multiple cockpits and pilots and Gunners and that's to call back to the original inspiration for this which is the Douglas dauntless fighter bomber [Music] this is the joy tri fighter and the first time we see this is a revenge a visit when the interesting things about this is it's the next evolution of Droid Starfighter ships and it's very aggressive and it's distinctly designed to look mean and menacing [Music] don't Grievous's starfighter what's interesting about this is that this is the most automotive of all the starfighters and you'll notice that the cockpit is set way back and you have this long hood sort of Konoe ting power and engine and the engines are oversized and so all about this design is about power and speed and General Grievous is the general of a separatist army he was an alien who like Darth Vader he had to replace a lot of his parts so he's mostly droid when we see him and his two arms split into four arms and he's got four lightsabers a lot of things about the prequels kind of hint at what's coming general grievous is kind of a precursor to Vader in those respects Jedi interceptor the first time we see this ship is a revenge of Issus one of the interesting thing is that in the design language we're actually starting to sort of tie in story elements that you know the good guys become the bad guys and you notice my Jedi Interceptor that were really starting to tie in bridge the Jedi Starfighter with the TIE fighters you'll notice that the wings when they unfold have sort of early distinct silhouettes of the TIE fighter and then the cockpit is actually started to become a ball and more the other interesting facts is that the r2 unit can't fit in it the body is actually too thin so the r2 unit has to be a really short one the p38 fighter the original inspiration was the p-38 lightning and that's where you see the twin tails on there and as the design evolved slowly we start to modify so that we took the round wings off and then we actually removed the connecting tail piece but you can see connecting elements like the engine scoops are actually scoops on the p-38 lightning this is the techno Union fighter the first time we see this as a Revenge of the Sith it has a very flesh Gordon esque feel to it and George was very inspired by Flash Gordon I think Star Wars itself is would have inspired by Flash Gordon and George's love of it and that can be seen in ships like the techno Union fighter viewing from Revenge of the Sith so you can kind of get ahead what's going to come in a new hope but I think this probably is the most extreme if you look at it head-on has more of that Thai fighter silhouette where you kind of see the H with the ball in the middle the first order TIE fighter in keeping to our design philosophy or 789 were more contemporary times we wanted to update both high fighter and part of the thinking was that maybe the TIE fighter for the first order they made it more robust using new materials to make it faster and leaner and more strong and so part of the idea was that we actually took the classic design of the TIE fighter and just beefed it up change the material change the configuration of the colors the first order special forces tie fighter we distinguish them by giving them red but then we also gave him external magazines for the weaponry the other thing that distinguishes the Special Forces TIE fighter is actually as two seats back-to-back in the cockpit we've got the gunner in the back you've got the pilot in the front so that's what poe and Fenner actually piloting when they escape the p70 resistance x-wing the inspiration for this was actually Ruffman Cory's original painting of the x-wing we actually had the twin turbine of the engine split down the middle for the split wing it was a very sleek design it really looked like an f1 car mixed with a spaceship the t7 is it a little bit obsolete in the Star Wars universe even at the time of the force awakens the resistance still doesn't get exactly how the charm of t70 design is that it evokes the original trilogy design that it's scrapping with the resistance at this time didn't have a whole lot of resources so they have leftovers the Thai striker from Row 1 one of the most interesting things about this high striker is that we want to come up with a new idea for a TIE fighter and we thought how would it actually operate in the atmosphere and so we turned the wings up so they are almost like wings up on top and then the ball is suspended below and so it has a slight hang glider configuration and it really sort of helps to communicate the idea that this Thai fighter this unique TIE fighter operates in the atmosphere [Music] the resistance a wink the great part about this design is it really evokes the original aiming design but I like the the engines are even more beefed up than the original and the great thing is that it is sort of the next evolution it's the next model and in this one in particular you can see the power in the speed in terms of the form language resistance bomber and the first time we see this is at the very beginning of the last Jedi and one of the interesting things about is that we want to evoke it's sort of old technology so this is obviously an old bomber and the vertical spines actually almost like an ammunition cartridge of a gun the great thing about the bomb magazine pretty downwards is it kind of gives you that hint that the artificial gravity wells is going to be used so that way the bombs can actually fall in space [Music] the tie silencer basically the concept for that is we want to give kylo something really unique and we just basically took the tie interceptor and just stretched it even more to make it even more aggressive it also reminds me of kylos mask because you see the silver framework around the cockpit and that kind of reminds me of the silver around his mask when we design spaceships they do tie into the personality of the character that's gonna be piloting it and for my little ship it was really trying to evolve a menace that we see in kados masks and so how do we translate that into a spaceship form and part of that was just the form language just making it more aggressive making it more pointed so it looks like it's a flying dagger this is the type route and the first time we see it is in solo this is really interesting to me because this is the first really asymmetrical tie design the bomber if you drew it short hand was still so you know everything else yeah it was an interesting play to try to put a separate ball turret up for the gun and it sort of is interesting in the sense that it still feels very Thai fighter issue but yet it looks like it's a more brutish version of it their resistance b-wing we first see that in the rise of Skywalker it's basically an updated model from the B wing that we saw in Return of the Jedi the updates are primarily just you know thinning down the shapes make it a little bit sleeker and then adding new coloration the resistance by weighing first introduced and rising Skywalker it just like the resistance x-wing this one also have Oaks a little bit more of that original rough McQuarrie painting first time we see it is in rise of Skywalker and it's basically the next evolution of the TIE fighter part of the idea was that we want to give it a very angular aggressive look and so we took these triangular shapes of the Star Destroyers and put them into the wings and the red marking is on a tiger to know that there's this the tie whisperer the first time we see it as an advisor Skywalker kylo Ren has a modified version with longer wings design for this really feels like the original tie but you can see it's got the extra armor around the con pin and it's Fred so it's evil you have two bonus ships that are technically not star fighters but they're so cool there's no way we're not including them the first one is the ghost from Star Wars rebels but you can see it fight and rogue one and in rise of Skywalker that ship was originally designed for rebels it's piloted by hera syndulla and the rest of the ghost crew and then for the design of that originally felonio is really drawn to the diamond shape so from the top down you can see it's got the stage perfect diamond silhouette but you really wanted it to feel like the Falcon and it was also inspired by b-17 bombers from World War two that's where you get the round a cockpit from the front is probably the most iconic design for Star Wars and one of my favorite I mean it's so timeless I remember when I first saw it it was just like wow that's a ship that I want to be on the original design actually was the blockade runner and it had the very distinct Falcon cockpit on there but then George wanted to create something that was a little bit more unique and he decided that you know let's keep the cockpit but let's turn it into something more iconic and so he suggested that perhaps we should make it round more like a saucer and so Joe Johnston when he designed it again he actually gave it some front Hannibal's to give it some direction and by combining that with an offset cockpit it gave it a really distinct personality that was unlike anything that we had seen at that time I like to Phalke it a lot because it feels very fast it's got a subtle curve to the top and the bottom kind of saucer feel but it also makes it feel very fast I love the engines on the Falcon I love it there a strip of blue light in the back part of the charm of the Millennium Falcon is that it is a character it is a Star Wars character it's what I want to imbue it with a lot of personality and like a character evolves there's a character arc to it and so one of the first tests that we had was for Solo we want to see an earlier version of the Millennium Falcon sort of the cleaner version prior to Han Solo coming in and sort of hot-rodding it and so and so lo you see all the panels are intact and there's actually the escape pod that actually fits between the front mandibles and as you progress into the original trilogy it becomes more be tonight your baby than I thought it becomes more robust you can see Hans touch in terms of how he beat up the engine made it more robust made it more practical in some ways and then moving forward to episodes 7 8 and 9 you can start to see how the Falcon has been repaired after all its various adventures you know where knocks off its radar dish and Return of the Jedi and how there's a new radar dish and so all those little evolutionary things help to inform the evolution of the character of the Falcon and it's interesting because the Falcon is so iconic that even with all these slight variations you know that it's the Falcon and one of the beautiful things about what we're doing now for rise of Skywalker's that we're consolidating all those designs to create the iconic Millennium Falcon what a piece of junk so make point 5 past light speed it may not look like much but she's got it where it counts kid that was every Starfighter in the live-action Star Wars films and we can't wait to show you what we have coming up next [Music] you

Channel: WIRED

Views: 1,378,245

Rating: 4.8717299 out of 5

Keywords: lucasfilm, starfighter, amy beth christenson, doug chiang, doug chiang interview, lucasfilm interview, starfighter lucasfilm, amy beth christenson lucasfilm, x wing, x wing explanation, y wing, millenium falcon, star wars, star wars space ships, star wars starfighters, starfighters, star fighters, star wars ships, every star wars starfighter, every star wars ship, star wars ships wired, star wars ships explained, x-wing, lucasfilm explains, wired

Id: LPPLCkIhxt0

Length: 17min 40sec (1060 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Salmon_Of_Iniquity]

Ok. THAT was cool!

[u/behemuthm]

Doug is the nicest dude ever - got a chance to work with him during his IMD days before he went back to Lucasfilm.

[u/rabidwampa]

I got to be honest, I knew there was going to be some characters killed off in the rise of Skywalker, but the one I was most afraid of was the Millennium Falcon. I just like to believe that that ship goes on flying forever and ever and ever, being forever fixed and modified and always evolving.

[u/Stay_Beautiful_]

Every time they say the word "evoke" you take a shot

[u/theandymancan]

Thank you for posting this

[u/Mastaj3di]

First of all, Techno-Union fighter but no Slave-1? Second, you can really tell the difference in their enthusiasm for the OT and PT designs compared to the ST. The fact that they went with "another TIE", "another A-Wing", "another Y-Wing", is just so disappointing on a design level. Especially when Star Wars used to really define the modern look of starships across all media.