Skip to main content

The Death Star comes to Earth ahead of premiere of 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story'

Spaceship Earth Transforms Into Death Star | Walt Disney World
Star Wars fans are eagerly awaiting the next installment of the series, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which hits theaters in just over a week. In order to ramp the hype train up to full speed, Disney has brought one of the franchise’s most popular landmarks to life, transforming the iconic Epcot center attraction Spaceship Earth into the Death Star.

Don’t worry, this particular battle station isn’t fully armed or operational. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even actually exist in physical form. Instead, the illusion was created via projectors, and it does a good job at re-creating the look of the Death Star. If you look closely, the golf ball exterior of the attraction does show through, but it’s still more than enough to wow visitors, especially those on the younger side.

The transformed attraction was revealed at an event at Epcot on Tuesday. In addition to the Death Star itself, Rogue One star Mads Mikkelsen was in attendance, as were several black-clad Stormtroopers officially known as Advanced Weapons Research Troopers. Several more Star Wars-related events and attractions are planned across the entire swath of Disney-owned parks and locations.

Whether the Death Star will continue its residency at Epcot permanently remains to be seen, but it will be there throughout the premiere of the film. With the new Star Wars Land at Disney Hollywood in the works, it would make sense if the Death Star were to stick around for a while at Epcot.

Though it’s not in theaters yet, the movie has already built up a reputation on presales alone — it brought ticket sales sites down when they started. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in theaters starting December 16.

Editors' Recommendations

Kris Wouk
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…
The 10 best lightsaber duels in Star Wars, ranked
Luke Skywalker lunges towards Darth Vader during their lightsaber fight on Cloud City.

Star Wars has contributed countless indelible moments and images to our popular culture, but if there’s one artifact that is most intrinsic to the Galaxy Far, Far Away, it’s the fantastical weapon of the Jedi Knights, the lightsaber. From the very first time audiences saw Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader cross glowing, humming swords aboard the Death Star in 1977, we’ve been absolutely obsessed, and storytellers across multiple media and nearly half a century have been only too happy to indulge our craving for increasingly elaborate lightsaber duels.
Lightsaber fights come in all shapes and sizes, from emotional one-on-one bouts in live-action to wild animated free-for-alls, and selecting our 10 favorites from the franchise to date was no easy task. There are a lot of metrics by which to judge — the excitement of the action itself, how it’s shot, the story behind it, the use of environment, even the music to which it’s set — but the cream of the crop are those duels that either dominate one category or harmoniously balance each one. Will your favorites make the list? You’ll find we’re full of surprises …

10. The Ronin vs. the Bandit Leader (The Duel - Visions, season 1, episode 1)

Read more
Like Ahsoka? Watch these 7 Star Wars Rebels episodes
Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano aboard her shuttle in "Ahsoka."

The next chapter of the Star Wars: Rebels saga has come with the premiere of the Disney+ series, Ahsoka. Set years after the disappearance of Ezra Bridger and Grand Admiral Thrawn, the show follows Ahsoka Tano when she seeks them both out as she tries to prevent another war with the remnants of the Galactic Empire.

Since this is a sequel series, some audiences may have some catching up to do. But if they like Ahsoka so far, they should check out these seven episodes of Star Wars: Rebels.
The Siege of Lothal (Parts 1 and 2)

Read more
The 10 best Star Wars action scenes, ranked
Luke Skywalker faces Darth Vade in The Empire Strikes Back.

If there's one thing that Star Wars does better than any other space opera, it's action. Since the debut of the original Star Wars film in 1977, the franchise has continuously upped its action game and put other franchises to shame. This week, the legacy continues with Ahsoka, a new Star Wars spinoff series heading to Disney+. If the trailers are any indication, fans are in for more lightsaber action and intrigue.

When considering the greatest action scenes in Star Wars, we decided that everything in the movies, the live-action series, and the animated series was fair game. However, the franchise's epic space battles have been left out of this list because we wanted to focus on the more visceral action scenes between two or more characters. After all, that is where the greatest drama can be found, as you'll soon see in our roundup of the 10 best Star Wars action scenes.
10. Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith

Read more