Star Wars: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Imperial TIE Fighter

If you ever wondered whether you were imagining things and A New Hope’s TIE Fighters really were whiter than the notable blue of The Empire Strikes Back then rest easy, the former were indeed a different colour.

Lucas preferred the blue colour scheme, but blue models tended to turn invisible when filmed against a blue-screen background and it was this technical limitation that forced the use of the light grey. For the subsequent films dark grey models were used and the blue tint was added in post production.

But blue was, according to one Star Wars model maker, not Lucas’ first choice. Instead, he wanted the TIE Fighter to be maroon (a mix of red and brown). The idea was to distinguish the TIE Fighter from the standard drab Imperial grey, but the problem was that while maroon did not disappear against a blue screen the colour did blend too quickly into the black background of space, rendering the fighter invisible at a distance.

Assuming the story is true, Lucas might have eventually got his way in the form of the Galactic Republic's signature red.