Ryan McAvoy said:

^^ I wonder how much my post from the Doctor Who thread last year inspired Tobar while working on that observation ;-)

Hah. I'd completely forgotten about that post.

Hal 9000 said:

Fixed.

While that's how the final design was chosen. They still had to have a general concept from George to start from, ie. "orange desert with a ball shaped craft with legs."

NeverarGreat said:

There's so much that we assume influenced ol' George when making Star Wars, sometimes it seems like he'd have to be the most well read/watched person on the planet.

George knows his stuff when it comes to film and you can bet being the Sci-Fi fan that he is, he was a fan of classic Doctor Who, the same as Spielberg.