Forgive me if these things have been discussed before, but I just started watching the Mandalorian “Disney Gallery” making-of show and noticed some really cool bits.

One, there’s some short but great behind-the-scenes footage from the OT that’s clearly been restored in HD or better. Makes me wonder what else they’ve got tucked away in their archives. FWIW this footage may have already been seen in some of the previously released BD or 4K disc sets. I’ve never bothered to watch any of those special features and only watched a few of the OT deleted scenes.

In one episode they show the original Death Star explosion! I haven’t gone back to rewatch it and more closely scrutinize it (was it HD or just an old master upscaled?). But hey, they actually not only acknowledged it. They showed it! In an official Lucasfilm product!

There are actual motion-control shots of spaceship miniatures! They even talk about how it actually costs more to do that than CGI now, but the filmmakers wanted it so bad they managed to make a “Low budget garage version” of the dykstraflex to make those shots happen.

I’ve got a few more episodes to go but it has made me love the show even more. The people working on this show clearly understand what went right for the OT to capture lightning in a bottle, so to speak, and are doing an amazing job expanding (rather than shrinking…) the Galaxy far far away. I can’t help but feel this is the team that should’ve been in charge of the ST.