David George

3rd Jun 2004

Star Wars (1977)

Question: While perusing an art book on this movie I came across several foreign movie posters where the Death Star is shown with the laser dish in the southern hemisphere rather than the northern (almost as if it were upside down). Anyone know why this is?

Answer: Judging from the movies, the laser doesn't seem to have much of an aiming system so the whole Death Star might need to rotate so the dish faces its target and in some cases this could mean needing to be "upside down". Just a hunch.

Phil Watts

Wouldn't an upside-down Death Star be problematic for the countless amount of Stormtroopers, Imperial officers etc. on it?

No more than for any other large planetary body. Either artificial gravity or it's large enough to create its own.

No, as demonstrated on the Millennium Falcon and star destroyers, the Star Wars universe has some form of artificial gravity.

David George

It's space, there is no up direction.

When there is gravity, there is an up and down. I think in terms of spaceships north is usually taken as up and south as down, relative to an astronomical body. But only because most maps are made that way. Determining an up and down helps with a sense of direction.

lionhead