Ralph McQuarrie
Ralph Angus McQuarrie (; June 13, 1929 – March 3, 2012) was an American conceptual designer who worked in film and television. His career included work on the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy, the original ''Battlestar Galactica'' television series, the film ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'', and the film '' Cocoon'', for which he won an Academy Award. Early life Ralph McQuarrie was born on June 13, 1929, in Gary, Indiana, and was raised on a farm near Billings, Montana. He served in the United States Army during the Korean War, surviving a shot to the head. After returning from the war, McQuarrie moved to California in the 1960s, studying at the Art Center School, then in downtown Los Angeles. Career McQuarrie initially worked for a dentistry firm, illustrating teeth and equipment, before working as an Artist and Preliminary Design Illustrator for the Boeing Company, where he drew diagrams for a manual on constructing the 747 Jumbo Jet, as well as designing film posters and ani ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Industrial Light & Magic
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American Film, motion picture visual effects, computer animation and stereo conversion digital studio founded by George Lucas on May 26, 1975. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began production on the original ''Star Wars (film), Star Wars'', now the fourth episode of the Skywalker Saga. ILM originated in Van Nuys, California, then later moved to San Rafael, California, San Rafael in 1978, and since 2005 it has been based at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio of San Francisco. In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired ILM as part of its purchase of Lucasfilm. As of , Industrial Light & Magic has won 15 Academy Awards for Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, Best Visual Effects. History Lucas wanted his 1977 film ''Star Wars (film), Star Wars'' to include visual effects that had never been seen on film before. After discovering that the in-house effects de ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body aircraft, wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023. After the introduction of the Boeing 707, 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, to reduce its seat cost by 30%. In 1965, Joe Sutter left the Boeing 737, 737 development program to design the 747. In April 1966, Pan Am ordered 25 Boeing 747-100 aircraft, and in late 1966, Pratt & Whitney agreed to develop the JT9D engine, a high-bypass turbofan. On September 30, 1968, the first 747 was rolled out of the custom-built Everett Plant, the world's List of largest buildings#Largest usable volume, largest building by volume. The 747's first flight took place on February 9, 1969, and the 747 was certified in December of that year. It entered service with Pan Am on January 22, 1970. The 747 was the first airplane called a "Jumbo Jet" as the first wide-body airliner. The 747 is a four-engined jet ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mos Eisley
Mos Eisley is a spaceport town in the fictional ''Star Wars'' universe. Located on the planet Tatooine, it first appeared in the 1977 film ''Star Wars'', described by the character Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Alec Guinness) as a "wretched hive of scum and villainy". A notable scene set in a seedy Mos Eisley cantina crowded with numerous alien races made a particular impact on audiences. Location filming for the spaceport took place from 1975 to 1976 in Tunisia, with interiors filmed at Elstree Studios near London. Depiction Film Mos Eisley made its first appearance in the original 1977 film, ''Star Wars''. It is depicted as a busy, bustling port city situated in a desert plain, populated with transients of all species. The lawless spaceport attracts criminals, smugglers and fugitives. Spacecraft land at docking bays dotted across the city. The Mos Eisley scenes occur early in ''Star Wars'', when the young hero Luke Skywalker and his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi travel to the spa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tatooine
Tatooine ( ) is a fictional desert planet that appears in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. It is a beige-colored, desolate world orbiting a pair of binary stars, and inhabited by human settlers and a variety of other life forms. The planet was first seen in the original 1977 film ''Star Wars'', and has to date featured in a total of seven ''Star Wars'' theatrical films, three live-action television series, and four animated series. It is the home planet of the protagonist of the original Star Wars Trilogy, Luke Skywalker, and of his father, Anakin Skywalker (who later became Darth Vader). It is also the planet where Obi-Wan Kenobi takes up residence under the name "Ben Kenobi" in order to watch over Luke during the former's exile following the events of Order 66 and Anakin's fall to the dark side. Shots of the binary sunset over the Tatooine desert are considered to be an iconic image of the film series, along with the greatest sunset scenes in cinematic history. Development ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Empire (magazine)
''Empire'' is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Media Group. The first issue was published in May 1989. History David Hepworth of Emap, the publisher of British music magazines '' Q'' and '' Smash Hits'', proposed the idea of launching a film magazine similar to ''Q''. They recruited ''Smash Hits'' editor Barry McIlheney to edit the new magazine, with Hepworth as Editorial Director. Hepworth drafted a one-page proposal outlining the magazine's objectives, including a commitment to reviewing and rating every film released in UK cinema. The proposal also stated, "''Empire'' believes that movies can sometimes be art, but they should always be fun." The first edition (June/July 1989) was published in May 1989, featuring Dennis Quaid and Winona Ryder on the cover for the film '' Great Balls of Fire!''. The magazine achieved its initial sales target of 50,000 copies. Film reviews were given a star rating between 1 and 5, with no half-stars. McIlheney served as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the Disney Entertainment business segment of the Walt Disney Company. It is headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles, which is leased from Fox Corporation. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributes and markets the films produced by this studio in theatrical markets. For over 80 years, 20th Century has been one of the major film studios, major American film studios. It was formed in 1935 as Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation by the merger of Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures, and one of the original "studio system, Big Five" among eight majors of Hollywood's Cinema of the United States#Classical Hollywood cinema and the Golden Age of Hollywood, Golden Age. In 1985, the studio remov ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Star Science Fiction Stories No
A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sky, night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed stars, fixed points of light. The most prominent stars have been categorised into constellations and asterism (astronomy), asterisms, and many of the brightest stars have proper names. Astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. The observable universe contains an estimated to stars. Only about 4,000 of these stars are visible to the naked eye—all within the Milky Way galaxy. A star's life star formation, begins with the gravitational collapse of a gaseous nebula of material largely comprising hydrogen, helium, and traces of heavier elements. Its stellar mass, total mass mainly determines it ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Berkey
John Berkey (August 13, 1932 – April 29, 2008) was an American artist known for his space and science fiction themed works. Some of Berkey's best-known work includes much of the original poster art for the ''Star Wars'' trilogy, the poster for the King Kong (1976 film), 1976 remake of ''King Kong'' and also the "Old Elvis Stamp". Berkey produced a large body of Science fantasy, space fantasy artwork, producing utopian scenes of bubble-shaped, yacht-like spaceships. His distinctive painterly style has been evaluated as "at once realistic, yet impressionistic and abstract", and his space craft designs as being "distinctly elegant, yet clearly technological and unmistakably Berkian; more inspired by luxury yachts and manta rays than NASA". He has been described as "one of the giants in the history of science fiction art". Early life John Berkey was born in Edgeley, North Dakota, in 1932. Berkey's early childhood was spent in Aberdeen, South Dakota. When he was aged six, he and his ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Star Wars (film)
''Star Wars'' (later retitled ''Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope'') is a 1977 American Epic film, epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm Ltd. and released by Twentieth Century-Fox. It is the first film in the ''Star Wars'' franchise and the fourth chronological chapter of the "Skywalker Saga". Set in Universe of Star Wars, a fictional galaxy under the rule of the tyrannical Galactic Empire (Star Wars), Galactic Empire, the film follows a group of freedom fighters known as the Rebel Alliance, who aim to destroy the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star. When the rebel leader Princess Leia is captured by the Empire, Luke Skywalker acquires stolen architectural plans of the Death Star and sets out to rescue her while learning the ways of a metaphysical power known as "the Force" from the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. The cast includes Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Bak ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Lucas
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. He created the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founded Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to the Walt Disney Company in 2012. Nominated for four Academy Awards, he is considered to be one of the most significant figures of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement, and a pioneer of the modern blockbuster (entertainment), blockbuster. Despite this, he has remained an independent filmmaker away from Hollywood for most of his career. After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas moved to San Francisco and co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. He wrote and directed ''THX 1138'' (1971), based on his student short ''Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB'', which was a critical success but a financial failure. His next work as a writer-director was ''Am ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Matthew Robbins (screenwriter)
Matthew Robbins (born July 15, 1945) is an American screenwriter and film director best known for his writing work within the American New Wave movement. He collaborated with numerous filmmakers within the movement including George Lucas, Walter Murch and Steven Spielberg, on films like '' The Sugarland Express'', '' Close Encounters of the Third Kind'', and '' Jaws.'' He has also worked frequently with Guillermo del Toro, writing his films ''Mimic'', '' Crimson Peak'' and ''Pinocchio''. Robbins has frequently worked with writer Hal Barwood. Prior to attending USC School of Cinematic Arts, Robbins graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1965 where he was classmate and friends with Walter Murch and Caleb Deschanel. He is a graduate of the AFI Conservatory. In 2004, Robbins received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from Johns Hopkins. In 2011, he made his debut in Indian cinema by writing the screenplay for the Bollywood thriller ''7 Khoon Maaf'', along with director Vishal B ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hal Barwood
Hal Barwood (born April 16, 1940) is an American screenwriter, film producer, film director, game designer, game producer, and novelist. Early life Barwood was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, where his father ran the local movie theater. Early on he was thrilled by ''The Thing from Another World'', and later in school Ingmar Bergman's ''The Seventh Seal''. Both films possessed unique authorial personality and were important inspirations pointing him toward a filmmaking career. He studied art at Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design; and later attended the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television, where he met and became friends with Matthew Robbins, along with other film students such as Walter Murch, Robert Dalva, George Lucas and others who came to be known by some as The Dirty Dozen, and who went on to considerable success in the film industry. Career Film work 1970s In 1965, as a student, Barwood wrote, directed, and produced the s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |