Colin Cantwell, the creator of the Death Star and the most legendary Star Wars ships, dies

The

, the

starfighter, the Star Destroyer, the

and nearly every other legendary starship in the

universe were created by American concept artist and director

, who died Saturday at 90. years, as confirmed by his wife to the US media.

Although his best-known works are those he did for the

saga , the truth is that

helped create the universe of many other iconic films, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, War Games or Close Encounters in the third phase. .

However, long before Reuben H. Fleet hired him to produce effects and direct an early multimedia presentation titled

,

worked for

and was in the CBS News studio for the Apollo 11 moon landing helping

while narrating the moon landing.

“Midway through the final descent, I alerted Walter that I had detected an orbit change that would consume more fuel, but allow it to go a bit further than the planned target,”

wrote in a 2016 Reddit AMA.

"When the other TV stations had the spacecraft land according to their NASA manual, I determined that Apollo had not yet landed. It was later confirmed that I had the accurate version of the landing."

After serving as a technical consultant for

Steven

Kind in 1973,

received a call from

asking him to be the concept artist on

after seeing his work on starships in

.

Colin Cantwell, with some of his most iconic ships.INSTAGRAM

In 1974

was hired to work on the first

film .

With instructions from

, he created the original designs and concept models for a number of vehicles, including the

fighter , the

,

, the

,

, the

(originally going to be the Millennium Falcon), or the landspeeder.

"I didn't originally plan

have a trench, but when I was working on the mold, I noticed that the two halves had shrunk where they met in the middle. It would have taken me a week of work just to fill, sand and refill this depression. So, to save myself the trouble, I went to George and suggested a trench,"

once declared of the construction of the famous and mythical

.

However, his first film job was a year before the moon landing with

and

, for which he created many of the special effects and was the one who convinced

to start the film with the famous scene of the dawn of men and the famous bone.

"I couldn't have picked a better time to be born," he once wrote.

“So much has happened so fast! Our spaceflight dreams are maturing and I believe one day soon

.”

Despite his extensive accomplishments,

preferred to live a quiet life away from the spotlight, working as a computer engineer in Colorado in the last years of his life and turning down a job to run

's famed

special effects studio. .

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