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Concept
Death Star
Summary
The Death Star is a space station and superweapon featured in the Star Wars space-opera franchise. Constructed by the autocratic Galactic Empire, the Death Star is capable of annihilating entire planets into rubble, and serves to enforce the Empire's reign of terror. Appearing in the original 1977 film Star Wars, the Death Star serves as a central plot point and setting for the movie, and is destroyed in an assault by the Rebel Alliance in the climax of the film. A larger second Death Star is constructed in the events of the film Return of the Jedi featuring substantially improved capabilities compared to its predecessor. It is destroyed by the Rebel Alliance while under construction, however.
Since its first appearance, the Death Star has become a cultural icon and a widely recognized element of the Star Wars franchise. It inspired numerous similar superweapons in fiction, as well as in other Star Wars works. The 2015 film The Force Awakens introduces Starkiller Base, a planet converted by the First Order into a Death Star-like weapon. While more powerful and technologically advanced than both Death Stars, it is also destroyed by the Resistance.
According to franchise creator George Lucas, his initial outline for the Star Wars saga did not feature the Death Star in the portion that would be adapted as the first film. When he set to creating the first act of this outline as a feature, he borrowed the Death Star concept from the third act.
Although details, such as the superlaser's location, shifted between different concept models during the production of Star Wars (1977), the notion of the Death Star being a large, spherical space station over 100 kilometers in diameter was consistent in all of them. George Lucas gave the original task of designing a "Death Star" to concept artist and spaceship modeler Colin Cantwell, who had collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In Empire of Dreams, a documentary about the filming and production of Star Wars, Cantwell revealed that the Death Star was originally supposed to be a perfect sphere.
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