8 More Movies With Seriously Insane Details You Didn't Notice

7. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Used Cotton Buds Instead Of People

PHANTOM MENACE Q Tips
ILM

Whether or not the prequels are your cup of tea, they still had some impressive effects utilised throughout the three-film run, with plenty of models and practical effects hidden away behind green screen terrors. The Phantom Menace in particular had a few cool magic tricks up its sleeve - but unfortunately, no way of making Jar Jar Binks disappear.

When Anakin tries to win his freedom by taking part in a junker race, instead of computer generating swathes of pod-racing fanatics, Michael Lynch created a stadium full of a whopping 450,000 cotton buds he’d stuck to a model stand, getting a team to paint the tips of each one different colours so it would look like a crowd in the distance.

Setting up a fan to blow the buds around a bit, he created an alien stadium populated by hundreds of thousands of Q-tips without anyone being the wiser when watching. Now that’s podracing!

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Horror film junkie, burrito connoisseur, and serial cat stroker. WhatCulture's least favourite ginger.