The Risks of Sub-light Travel

"Cover youre eyes folks!"

I love this page! It was a nice surprise when I rediscovered it in 2009. Do you notice that Han originally said "Cover yore eyes folks!" which is even sillier! I can only presume it was intended to sound American. Cowboyish.

GLARE!

Yep, that's right, unless you know what yore doing - hyperspace can give you very hurty eyes. Thankfully, Han Solo's in the driving seat folks! - and offers helpful advice to his passengers. Don't you think they should be well used to, and prepared for it at this stage?

Art Notes

That wild multi-coloured, positive-negative thing is lifted once again from Chaykin's Marvel adaptation. He hadn't seen that part of the film when he illustrated it. I had. Hey! - d'you remember this earlier page?

I suppose I liked the weirdness of it! And it's a fun thing to try to do.

Film Notes: Make & Do

Apparently this was another of those bits of the film that - much to George's surprise - wowed audiences. The streaking stars effect drew much positive comment says George, and it was one of the simplest to achieve. The other 'traveling through hyperspace' effect - reminiscent of the Dr.Who opening title was achieved - with a toilet roll tube and aluminium (aluminum) foil!

See the second image on the left? It worked remarkably well. George was - and perhaps the BBC were also inspired by the Stargate of 2001 - a truly breath-taking experience. I don't know how Kubrick and Co. created the Stargate (it's  kaleidoscopic at times) but an early Dr.Who opener technique was a video feedback loop, created by pointing a television camera at a monitor.

Incidentally, SW visual effects wizard John Dykstra worked on 2001.

I still can't get used to saying Dyke-stra. When I was a kid I thought it was Dye-kas-tra.

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