Star Wars's Sauropods?
Feb. 13th, 2009 01:01 pmThe sauropods of Star Wars « Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week:
The sauropods of Star Wars: Special Edition « Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week:
The first (and best) sauropod of Star Wars will be no surprise to anyone with reasonably sharp eyes and rudimentary knowledge of sauropod osteology: the Krayt dragon skeleton that C-3PO walks past on Tatooine is composed mainly of cast sauropod vertebrae.
It is apparently no secret that the Rontos briefly glimpsed in A New Hope: Special Edition and The Phantom Menace are morphed versions of the Brachiosaurus from Jurassic Park.
Here’s the official line, from the Star Wars Databank entry:The rontos added into the Mos Eisley scenes for the Special Edition release of A New Hope are entirely computer-generated. It was a cousin of sorts to the digital models crafted for Jurassic Park; the ronto used a brachiosaur as a starting point with enough modification to make it distinctly Star Wars. Throughout the making of the sequence, the ILM animators referred to the otherwise nameless creature as a “bronto.” When asked to name the animal, George Lucas dropped the ‘b’ from the name, and thus the ronto was christened.
So now you know.


