imperial star destroyer
The star destroyer is the backbone of the Imperial Navy. Over a mile long and armed with 60 turbo lasers and 60 ion cannons, it can overwhelm just about any other starship. Its complement of 72 TIE fighters can fend off attacks from smaller snub ships. Just the presence of a destroyer in orbit can be enough to restore order to an unruly planet.
In the opening moments of A New Hope a star destroyer passes overhead and its shear size gives us a feeling of the power of the Empire.
The actor here is Michael Sheard. He played Admiral Ozzel, leader of Darth Vader’s task force, in The Empire Strikes Back. Take my word for it, Mr. Sheard is neither “clumsy” nor “stupid” in person. I can’t imagine why Vader killed him off.
I owe my success at creating the Star Destroyer to another origami artist, David Brill. In one of his books he shows how to fold a piece of paper into thirds on the diagonal line. I was very impressed with this simple geometric miracle. (If you’ve ever tried to trisect an angle in geometry class, you know what I’m talking about) I was playing around with this new idea one day and just for fun trisected the opposite corners of a square. What I had in my hands was about a third of the star destroyer. A few extra folds and it was finished.
