6 Films That Put Painstaking Work Into Things You Don’t Even Notice
5. The Phantom Menace: The Podrace Stadium Was Based On A Model Populated By Q-Tips
There are few things in the Star Wars prequel trilogy that weren't created using CGI, but one of them might surprise you.
One of the best scenes in Episode I: The Phantom Menace that doesn't have Darth Maul in it is Anakin Skywalker's podrace and, although this sequence is laden with digital effects, it flies the flag for practical ones too.
The race begins inside a stadium with huge stands which the camera pans over for a few minutes. These stands were not built using green screen trickery alone, they were actually based on incredibly detailed scale models crafted by Michael Lynch.
Lynch populated the stalls with Q-tips and placed fans beneath them to simulate movement. There's no way casual viewers could possibly appreciate how much work and planning went into bringing the scene to life.
The Phantom Menace deserves its place near the foot of any list ranking the Star Wars movies, but the work that was invested into small parts of it deserves plaudits.