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John Stears' four original droid technical manuals from the production of George Lucas' Star Wars: A New Hope. Stears - known as "the Dean of Special Effects" - created many of the iconic mechanical effects in the film, including droids R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), Luke's (Mark Hamill) landspeeder, the lightsabers and the Death Star. He won two visual effects Academy Awards® in his lifetime, for this film and Thunderball.

This lot consists of four manuals in plastic folders which were used as on-set reference for building and operating the droids, and each features exhaustive mechanical and technical information, with illustrations for four different droids: the "Stick Robot"/WED-15-XT Treadwell Droid; the "Umbrella Robot"/WED-15 Septoid Treadwell Droid; the "Dome Robot"/LIN Mining Droid; and the "Baby Box Robot"/Mouse Droid.

Each red plastic folder each has an iconic triangular "The Star Wars" sticker and an illustration of the relevant droid, likely drawn by Stears, on the cover. The pages were produced using a mimeograph, and as such the ink has transferred from some pages to others, or the inside of the folder itself. To minimise this, tracing paper is placed between each page. Dimensions (each folder): 31 cm x 25 cm x 2.5 cm (12 1/4" x 9 3/4" x 1")

Estimate: £10,000 - 20,000 †Δ

View all lots from STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE (1977)

View all lots from STAR WARS - ALL ITEMS