The Child (a.k.a. Baby Yoda) may have stolen the spotlight from the title character throughout The Mandalorian’s first season. However, if it weren’t for the series’ true unsung hero, the Razor Crest, they never would have crossed paths in the first place. Mando’s ship certainly saw a lot of action last year, and it’s mostly thanks to the talented crew at ILM. Not surprisingly, a lot of work went into designing the bounty hunter’s space ride. But in a new 17-minute featurette, the designers themselves reveal how its creation hearkens back to old-school Star Wars filmmaking.
The featurette includes interviews with several ILM staffers, including design supervisor Doug Chiang. According to Chiang, showrunner Jon Favreau already had a good idea of what he wanted the ship to look like. He was particularly fascinated by the A-10 Warthog, an Air Force plane with two large engines on its rear. Chiang’s team used this as their starting point. They also combined it with “WWII aesthetics” to indicate an “early” spaceship whose design might even pre-date the X-Wings.
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Military aircrafts provided a lot of inspiration to the team as they designed the Razor Crest. Model supervisor Jay Machado explained that they also studied “airport graveyards” to give it a more run-down appearance. Regardless, he admitted that it was “very difficult to make something so shiny look good in all these different environments.” In the long run, concept design supervisor Ryan Church says their goal was to make the vessel look “very intimidating and very strong.”
What’s really interesting, however, is how the designers created a model of the Razor Crest for filming. As CGI technology has advanced over the years, this method has been used less and less. But with Favreau’s support, the team 3D-printed a miniature version of the ship, which paved the way for the studio’s first motion-control shoot in 15 years.
The Mandalorian (and the Razor Crest) will return to Disney+ for its second season on October 30.
You can watch the new featurette below, then share your thoughts in the comment section!
Recommended Reading: Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Code
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