This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Looney Toons: Can someone confirm the claim about the Death Star in the examples? I can't find any kind of corroboration via Google, and my own memory of contemporary coverage of Star Wars' F/X tends towards recollections of mass-produced surface segments for the trench run, rather than anything about the station miniature.
Scifantasy I'll confirm the claim, but at the moment all I can do is confirm that I know I saw it, in factual sources (many explosions were made by driving by the model kits and setting off a firecracker or the like within, as I recall). I'll look for corroboration.
Romanticide: My mom has the trilogy in VHS and demostrations of how the model kits were used came as extras.
KJMackley: I cut this from the description because it had nothing to do with store-bought materials (unless they are talking about the torch). It is a clever old-school effect, but not Off-The-Shelf.
- One particularly creative example of Off-the-Shelf FX was used in the The Best of Both Worlds Star Trek two-parter: rather than use expensive (and, at the time, difficult) computer graphics to show a Borg vessel 'healing' itself, the staffers built a mock-up of a Borg cube, took a tiger-torch to it to melt the plastic, and then ran it backwards for the required scene.
