ILM Shares How Luthen Rael's Ship Came To Life In 'Star Wars Andor'

Star Wars

Feb 6

In episode 11 of Star Wars: Andor, Luthen Rael and his ship are in the crosshairs of an Imperial ship, frantically trying to escape. After destroying the tractor beam with shrapnel, the commander sends out several TIE fighters to take care of Rael. Luthen maneuvers his ship in attack position, ready to face the TIE fighters head-on. As they rush towards him, he deploys frickin’ lasers from each side of his ship, slicing the TIE fighters and blowing them into smithereens.

In an interview with Befores & Afters, Scott Pritchard, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), breaks down the moment and a few other key scenes of the series. Pritchard also talked about how they wanted to match the aesthetic of A New Hope and Rogue One while allowing Andor to have its own individuality.

RELATED:

Featured

What Is ILM's StageCraft And Why Is It Revolutionizing Television

When working on the effects of the escape scene, the team at ILM tried to figure out a way to make the Haulcraft believable mechanics-wise, but also to give it secret weapons that only Luthen Rael would have. Pritchard stated,

“The biggest challenge was actually the design of the Haulcraft, in that we had to figure out a way of getting the wings to fold up, and then the cannon to come out. This went through a lot of iterations. I always loved in the film Troy, they had a design where the Trojans had this spear or shield where there was a notch out of the shield and they laid their spear through the notch. I always thought that would just look really cool.”

The Imperial ship, known as a Cantwell-Class Arrestor Cruiser, was originally seen in a deleted scene in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Since ILM still had the ship in their archives, they wanted to put it to good use and let it have its moment to shine.

Founded in 1975, ILM is known for its innovation in the special effects field, hitting numerous milestones over the past few decades including the first morphing sequence in Willow and creating iMocap, which uses computer vision techniques to track live-action performers on set. iMocap was first used in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and affectionately called “computer pajamas.”

While there’s no release date for season 2, you can rewatch Star Wars: Andor on Disney+.

READ NEXT:

Featured