The Rotating Death Star

Anyone who’s paid close attention to this movie knows that we mostly only see one view of the Death Star, despite the fact that they built a very big and intricate model of the Death Star that allowed them to shoot it from a variety of angles. Consider the following storyboards from the Tydirium’s approach to Endor.

Nov 16, 82	Dec 3, 82	Feb 15, 83

I’m presenting them out of the order they appear in the film to highlight their revision dates. Even after the Black Friday cuts, the Death Star is still being shown from a side view - but when a storyboard gets revised in February, 1983, only 3 months before the movie needs to be in theaters, the Death Star is now only being shown from that one angle. It seems that only showing the Death Star from one side was probably a time and money saving shortcut, and this issue exists throughout the film.