10 Ridiculous Secrets Behind Iconic Movie Scenes

6. Luke's Floating Speeder Was Achieved With Mirrors & Vaseline - Star Wars: A New Hope

For the stunning shots of Luke traversing Tatooine in a speeder in the very first Star Wars movie, you'd be forgiven for assuming this was simply another case of some complex (for the time) optical effects magic.

But these images were largely achieved with a practical solution, by having the speeder run on wheels and placing a mirror on its side, reflecting the ground and, from a distance, giving the impression of wheel-free movement.

To make the effect more convincing, George Lucas also had vaseline - which he nicknamed "the force field" - smeared over the camera lens filter to better obscure the mirrors.

However, the vaseline created a peculiar orange hue during the Mos Eisley arrival in the original 1977 release, as is visible at 1:51 in the below clip.

This was digitally corrected for the 1997 Special Edition release, however, which basically looks completely seamless.