Colin Cantwell, The Designer Of “Star Wars” Spacecraft, Dies At 90

Colin Cantwell, the personality behind the spacecraft of Star Wars films, passed away at the age of 90. Cantwell’s partner for more than 2 decades, Sierra Dall, confirms the news to The Hollywood Reporters. He took his last breath at his residency in Colorado on Saturday. 

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Yes, The X-Wing Designer Is No More

With profound grief and sorrow, we are confirming that the Death Star designer has left for his heavenly abode on Saturday. 

Born in 1932 in San Francisco, Cantwell attended the prestigious University Of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He received a degree in animation from there. Later he attended Frank Lloyd Wright’s School Of Architecture. 

In the 1960s, this talented designer wrecked at flight educational programs of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Very few people know that he fed journalist Walter Cronkite with updates during 1969’s moon landing, narrating the historic broadcast. 

An Ardent Lover Of Space And Architecture. 

According to Guardin.com, “ Hollywood films, including Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Cantwell and Kubrick became friends during filming, with Cantwell regularly visiting Kubrick to discuss how the film was going “over turkey sandwiches” at midnight.”

In 2016, he mentioned in a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread that he convinced Stanley Kubrick not to begin the movie with a 20 minutes conference discussion. It was he who developed the revolutionary space opening, following the movie’s emblematic “dawn of man” beginning. 

The Closing Notes

His passion for architecture was the perfect combination for Cantwell to make moves in Tinseltown. His film credits include some iconic photographic effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, computer graphics design consultant for WarGames (1983), and technical dialogue for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Apart from his film work, Colin is the author of two science fiction novels, CoreFlies 2 and Coreflies 1. 

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