Concept artists who drew the future
Before Star Wars had a budget, Ralph McQuarrie's paintings of Darth Vader, the droids and stormtroopers helped convince the studio to take a risk. His work set the "used future" look that Industrial Light & Magic then built in miniature. Blade Runner's Los Angeles owes its layered, neon-soaked streets to Syd Mead, who called himself a "visual futurist" and designed the flying spinner cars. Alien took the opposite approach: the Swiss artist H.R. Giger designed a creature and derelict ship that feel organic and mechanical at once, while French comics artist Jean Giraud, known as Moebius, contributed spacesuit designs. Moebius later worked on The Fifth Element.
In fantasy, Weta Workshop in Wellington produced the armour, weapons and prosthetics for The Lord of the Rings, working alongside illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe, whose Tolkien paintings had defined Middle-earth for readers for years. Guillermo del Toro designs his creatures by hand, and performer Doug Jones played both the Faun and the Pale Man in Pan's Labyrinth under practical makeup.
Real places doing the heavy lifting
Some of the most otherworldly scenes in cinema were filmed on Earth. Hobbiton was built on a sheep farm near Matamata in New Zealand, and its set still stands as a visitor attraction. Wadi Rum in Jordan stood in for Mars in The Martian and for Arrakis in Villeneuve's Dune films. The monastic island of Skellig Michael, off the coast of Ireland, became Luke Skywalker's hideaway in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Blade Runner used the Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles for J.F. Sebastian's apartment.
Why does location matter in an age of digital effects? Because real places bring real light, real wind and real distances. Actors react to them, and audiences sense it even when they cannot explain why.
Languages with history
J.R.R. Tolkien was a philologist who invented the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin and then wrote stories so they had people to speak them. The films used those languages on screen, with lines translated and coached for the cast. Star Trek gave Klingon a full grammar through linguist Marc Okrand. More recently, David J. Peterson, known for Dothraki on television, developed the Chakobsa language for the Fremen in Villeneuve's Dune. Even if you never learn a word, a consistent language makes a culture feel older than the story.
Sound as worldbuilding
Close your eyes during Star Wars and you still know where you are. Sound designer Ben Burtt created the lightsaber hum by combining the idle buzz of a film projector motor with interference from a television set. He also built R2-D2's voice partly from his own vocalisations processed electronically. Hans Zimmer's score for Dune leans on throat singing, bagpipes and invented instruments so Arrakis sounds unlike any other place. Vangelis' synthesiser score for Blade Runner is inseparable from its rain.
Viewer's checklist
- Does the world look used, repaired and lived in?
- Do the rules of magic or technology stay consistent?
- Do characters refer to events or places we never see?
- Would you recognise the world by sound alone?
Four yes answers usually mean a world worth moving into. Questions? Visit the transmission log.