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
Over the next 12 years, White Star focused their attention on other matters of business, expanding their services with the introduction of several cargo and livestock carriers on the North Atlantic as well as establishing a small but lucrative passenger and cargo service to New Zealand. By 1887, however, the "Britannic" and "Germanic" and the four remaining "Oceanic" class liners had aged significantly and were now being outdone in speed and comfort by newer ships brought into service by White Star's competitors such as Cunard and Inman. In an effort to outdo their competitors, White Star began making plans to put two new liners into service which would prove to be exceptionally innovative in design for the time, "Teutonic" and "Majestic". In order to build these new ships, Thomas Ismay made arrangements with the British Government under which in exchange for financial support from the British government, the two new ships would be designed as not only passenger liners, but also as armed merchant cruisers which could be requisitioned by the British Navy in times of war. Measuring at 565 feet in length and 57 feet in width and with a gross tonnage of just under 10,000 tons, the new liners would be nearly twice the size of "Britannic" and "Germanic". Additionally, owing to the arrangement with the British Government, the "Teutonic" and "Majestic" were the first White Star liners to be built with twin screws, powered by triple expansion engines capable of driving the ships at speeds of up to 19 knots.