George Lucas in Singapore - No Ewoks Yet, But There's The SandCrawler... and Yoda!

It says a lot about the power of the Force when Red Dot Diva is able to bond with a colleague and many fellow fans about Star Wars' creator and Lucasfilm founder George Lucas' visit to Red Dot Island this week.

The first word on the ground was seen on Twitter yesterday (January 15th) when staff members working at Kinokuniya mentioned about George Lucas shopping at the popular bookstore. How lucky was that person manning cashier's counter A??

That's when mere plebeians like Red Dot Diva first got news of today's official launch of the Sandcrawler Building.

The "Sandcrawler" resembles the giant desert vessel featured in the Star Wars movie franchise, although not in drab brown camouflage colours but in very shiny scifi-like silver and glass. Located at Fusionpolis View, the 22,500 square metre building will be the new home for Lucasfilm and Disney folks regionally as well as ESPN Asia Pacific.

Red Dot Diva has yet to swing by that part of town to check out the actual building but here's a pic of what it looks like. Cool, ya?

And if you are interested in what the Sandcrawler looked like while it was being constructed, there are some cool pics on Skyscrapercity.com's forum. Click here!

Pic by Straits Times, Kevin Lim

Red Dot Island's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was there to grace the building's official opening ceremony. So were the stormtroopers with their Dark Lord of the Sith.... which is a little ominous on the Dark Side of things, doncha think?  

It seems like all the Jawas have left the building too. But there is still everyone's favourite Jedi Master, Yoda! He is now immortalized as a statue at a fountain within the building.

The digital artists of Lucasfilm Singapore have contributed to quite a few blockbusters in recent times - e.g. "Rango", "Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon", the "Iron Man"/ "The Avengers" movies. The team of digital artists, which have grown in number to over 300 from just 26 when the office first opened here, is currently working on "Transformers: Age of Extinction" and "The Avengers 2" amongst other projects.

But with the news of the Sandcrawler's opening all over the internet by end of today, Red Dot Diva bets that the building is not just going to be a main digital art hub here in the region. She is sure that there will be many geek tourists and hardcore Star Wars fans, who might decide to drop by Fusionpolis just to take selfies at the landmark!


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Check out more pics of the Sandcrawler's official opening here at Asiaone

Thanks to Kelvin Chan for some of the pics!

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More past RDD articles of ILM Singapore's work in movies:

- Lion City Pride in "Rango"!
- ILM Singapore's Visual Magic In "Transformers: Dark Side Of The Moon"
- ILM Singapore's VFX Puts The Smash Into "The Avengers"