the details of the death star changed between different models during production of '. these changes include the position of the superlaser. the idea of the death star as a large, spherical space station was the same in all the models. the sound of the death star counting down until it fires comes from the "flash gordon" movies. making a death star that was only partly built (but was still powerful) was a problem for industrial light &amp; magic's modelmakers for '. only the front side of the 137-centimeter model was finished. the image was flipped horizontally for the final movie. both death stars were created in the movies by using a full models, models of sections of the space station and matte paintings.