Death Star
Although details, such as the superlaser's location, shifted between different concept models during production of "Star Wars", the notion of the Death Star being a large, spherical space station over 100 kilometers in diameter was consistent in all of them. George Lucas gave the original task of designing a "Death Star" to concept artist and spaceship modeler Colin Cantwell, who had collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the 1968 film "". In a 2016 interview, Cantwell related that "I didn't originally plan for the Death Star to have a trench, but when I was working with the mold, I noticed the two halves had shrunk at the point where they met across the middle." As it "would have taken a week of work just to fill and sand and refill this depression," Cantwell suggested a trench to Lucas to save the labor. Lucas liked the idea, and the Death Star model was created by John Stears. The buzzing sound counting down to the Death Star firing its superlaser comes from the "Flash Gordon" serials. Portraying an incomplete yet powerful space station posed a problem for Industrial Light & Magic's modelmakers for "Return of the Jedi". Only the front side of the 137-centimeter model was completed, and the image was flipped horizontally for the final film. Both Death Stars were depicted by a combination of complete and sectional models and matte paintings.
White Star Line
Meanwhile, as a result of the IMMCo. takeover under J. Pierpont Morgan, White Star obtained four newly completed liners in the last months of 1903, they being the "Columbus", "Commonwealth", "New England" and "Mayflower". These four liners had been owned and operated by the Dominion Line for their services between Liverpool and Boston as well as their Mediterranean cruising and emigrant route, which also connected to Boston. However, the Dominion Line was also absorbed into the IMM scheme and the four ships were transferred to White Star. In addition to the acquisition of these ships, White Star also acquired control of the routes as well. Upon their acquisition by White Star, the four liners were respectively renamed "Republic", "Cretic", "Romanic" and "Canopic". These four ships were greatly similar in appearance to the "Cymric" and "Arabic", all with a single funnel with two or four masts, with engines geared to twin screws capable of service speeds between 14 and 16 knots. They all also fell within the same range in terms of dimensions, with lengths between 550 and 582 feet, beams between 59 and 67 feet, and gross tonnage as follows, "Republic" at 15,378 tons, "Cretic" 13,518 tons, "Romanic" at 11,394 tons and "Canopic" at 12,097 tons. There was, however, considerable variances in passenger capacities. "Republic", which in time would come to obtain the nickname 'The Millionaire's Ship', had the largest capacity with accommodations for 2,400 passengers (200 First Class, 200 Second Class, 2,000 Third Class). The three remaining ships had considerably smaller capacities, with the "Cretic" designed with accommodations for 1,510 passengers (260 First Class, 250 Second Class, 1,000 Third Class), "Romanic" with accommodations for 1,200 passengers (200 First Class, 200 Second Class, 800 Third Class) and "Canopic" with accommodations for 1,277 passengers (275 First Class, 232 Second Class, 770 Third Class).