While the storyline of Star Wars was really engaging, it was the battle scenes of spaceships and futuristic crafts that defied gravity that made us hooked on Star Wars.
The Whole Fleet
Details were mapped out for each aircraft type for the original trilogy – from the speed and manoeuvrability of each type of fighters. You can see why Darth Vader’s modified TIE fighter has an advantage against the standard X-Wings, while the X-Wings squadrons could hold out on their own against the TIE fighters.
The details went all the way onto the fighter pilots’ helmet designs. Gold leader and Red squadrons.
And with military, you have ranks, and from the designs you can see how each rank was represented in the Imperial army.
Planning the Attack
The original painting of the strategy session when Admiral Ackbar planned the attack on the second Death Star.
And the set designs for the X-Wing run to destroy the energy shield of the original Death Star was displayed alongside the Rebel’s fighter uniform.
Imperial Star Destroyer
These Imperial Star Destroyers of the Galactic Empire were the largest battleships before the Super Star Destroyers (10x bigger than Star Destroyers) came about. I was not impressed with the Super ones – it can be destroyed with a kamikaze fighter smashing into the bridge. But these Star Destroyers did strike fear into the rebels and smugglers.
Thrusters 
Imperial Shuttle and Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter 
TIE Bomber 
Bridge of the Star Destroyer 
Maintenance bays 
Gun turrets for incoming fighter
Other vehicles and space crafts
Slave I 
Imperial Shuttle 
Snowspeeder from the Battle of Hoth 
TIE Interceptor alongside the TIE fighter 
AT-AT Walker 
B-Wing Fighter and A-Wing Fighter escorting the Mon Calamari cruiser, Liberty
In the multiple battles in the Skywalker saga, you can see the evolution of the designs of vehicles – from the boxy designs of the original trilogy, to the rounded gherkins of the prequels. And then in the sequels, they returned to the timeless designs of the original, but with more spectacular CGI for realism.
The designs of the ships were mind-boggling when they released the first movie in 1977. But as I grew older (and studied laws of physics and aerodynamics), one cannot help but to think that these crafts were not practical. But if you think of wars among the stars to be like Master and Commander , then these space crafts were designed beautifully for these shot them silly sequences.
The Star Wars Identities exhibition ran from 30 Jan to 13 June 2021 at the ArtScience Museum. And according to the website, this will be the last location that the exhibition will run.
Date Visited : Feb 2021
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