How World War II bombers and dogfights influenced the most exciting scenes in 'Star Wars'
The greenhouse cockpit configuration, along with the gun turrets, aboard the ship was lifted straight out of the blueprints for the Boeing B-29 Superfortress.
Ian D'Costa of Tactical Air Network notes that Lucas became particularly enamored with the B-29 and sought to re-create its signature greenhouse-style cockpit with the Millennium Falcon.
According to a 1997 interview with Willard Huyck, a screenwriter who is a friend of Lucas, footage of World War II dogfights was used as a placeholder before the special effects were edited into the original film.
"So one second you're with the Wookiee in the spaceship and the next you're in 'The Bridges at Toko-Ri.' It was like, 'George, what-is-going-on?'" Huyck said.
In his book "Star Wars Storyboards: The Original Trilogy," visual effects artist Paul Huston said, "Joe (artist in charge of pyrotechnics) would show me a shot of a Japanese Zero flying left to right in front of a conning tower of an aircraft carrier and say, 'The aircraft carrier is the Death Star, the Zero is an X-wing. Do a board like that.'"
"One of the reasons I started writing "Star Wars" was because I wanted to see starships having exciting battles in space," Lucas said in Jonathan Rinzler's "The Making of Star Wars."
"I loved Flash Gordon and Buck Rodgers serials when I was a kid, but I thought I could create an experience closer to watching a dogfight in a World War II film - with incredible ships diving and banking in a realistic manner," Lucas continued, as noted by StarWars.com.
Whether the new "Star Wars" films will continue this tradition or look to emulate the tropes of more modern aviation is yet to be seen, but the team's shared enthusiasm for evoking past real-life battle scenes paid off in some of the most memorable, exciting scenes in film history.