Entrance | Prequel Tatooine | Naboo
Coruscant | Geonosis | Mustafar | Death Star | Hoth
Classic Tatooine | Endor | A Disturbance in the Force | Blueprints
Blue Screen | Toy Shop & Expo Exclusive

From October 2005 until August 2006, the "Cit� des Sciences" in Paris, France run an exposition about the art of Star Wars. On display were a countless amount of movie props and paraphernalia.

Now, I don�t know how ideas such as the one for the Star Wars Expo are born, but I always imagined it went something like this...

It�s a sunny afternoon and George Lucas is sitting behind his desk in the Lucasfilm offices. A co-worker walks in and says:
"Mr. Lucas, we have a storage issue! There�s so many props, costumes, concept art drawings and sculpts that we�re paying a fortune just to store it in a hangar! We have to do something about it!"
Lucas thinks for a second, chin resting in his hand, then says...
"What if we we�d organise some art exhibitions? Like that we can actually ask people money to enter the places we use at the same time to store our stuff under the best of conditions?"
The employee�s eyes widen and he answers:
"The Force is truly with you, Mr. Lucas! You are a genius!"
"So I am, buddy, so I am... "

Well, it probably went a little different, but it�s what I always thought.

But let�s stick to giving you the tour of the Star Wars Expo...

The Paris exhibition hall was divided up into nine rooms, which represented each time one of the planets from the Star Wars universe. The movie props and costumes would then be arranged and displayed according to this setup. Next to the actual props, little screens would display bits and pieces of "making of" movies to explain how the props were used or how they were made. And so the exhibition took us from Prequel Tatooine to Naboo, Coruscant, Geonosis, Mustafar, the Death Star (close enough to a planet), icy Hoth, Endor and Classic Tatooine again.

I�ll give you the highlights of the little wee facts that I still learned about my favourite universe when strolling around the exhibition:

Entrance

As soon as you came in, you were greeted by the comical droid duo that has almost become as much a symbol of the movies as bad-ass Darth Vader. They were accompanied by two towering overgrown Ewoks as you can tell. Even knowing that they are uncannily tall, I was still awed by their height. It�s probably all the fur that does the trick...