The Art of STAR WARS Episode III: Revenge of the Sith with Ryan Church

by Josh Griffin reporting from C3

(Report may contain spoilers)

Ryan started working on Episode III before Attack of the Clones was even off. He started with being asked about planets - "Have you got any new planets for me?" George said.

Ryan whipped out a pile of images from the film - literally hundreds from the film. He showed the slides in chronological order, so it was very interesting to see the evolution of the art for the film.

His mandate for the new Jedi Starfigher was to combine the starfighter and the tie fighter. His planest list included the swamp planet, the bridge planet, Chewie's planet, a volcanic planet, a ring planet, a sinkhole world, a crystal world and the infamous hammock planet - Lucas actually turned the bridge upside down. He was saddened that so many were cut of they appear for such a short time.

One of the best series of images was the crashed star destroyer at the base of the Jedi temple. It had created a huge trench that ripped through Corusant. He also was told the film would include a "Star Destroyer type vehicle" - so he drew many designs.

Side notes:
Mygeto is pronounced MY-GEEE-DOH
Utapau is pronounced EWE-TA-POW

Lucas at one point talked about "Indiana Jones in a spaceship" and the Jedi had a series of misadventures including a Zero G sequence, exploding engine rooms and running down hallways with big windows and bigger views. Then one day Lucas joked that "big windows on a warship" didn't make sense so the scene was cut.

Grievous' flagship was originally from the crystal planet, so the original designs had that look. Yoda's escape pod had several hilarious forms, including and expensive egg and the beach ball being towed by a rocket.

The best paintings of all were the "Vader smashing stuff" right after his creation, a pensive Yoda on Dagobah, and Anakin the Ace pilot. We were starting to run out of time at the end (shoot the MC) so we got to see the last 50 images at breakneck speed. Absolutely amazing stuff.

All in all - a fantastic presenter with scores of info and literally several hundred of fantastic images he created from scratch to push ILM to new levels. What's next for this guy? He is GOOD. Headed to animatics, stay tuned.