In a time of experimental technology in hollywood, ILM utilized the old film trick of matte paintings. Matte Painting is when theres a scene that would be unnecessarily difficult to physically recreate in a film set is instead painted on glass and scanned overtop of the rolls of film. This if done properly creates a seemless and in this case, magical result on screen.
Ralph McQuarrie became the backbone for this process on the original Star Wars Trilogy. The empty spaces in the images above are where the film goes underneath, Like a window. This process becomes Ideal in both a practical sense and a financial sense. If it wasnt in the budget to turn a film set into a Star Destroyer Bridge, why not paint over the scene entirely?
In the realm of fictional storytelling, McQuarrie's ability to replicate life and scenery gave George Lucas absolute uncapped freedom. This was just one of the reasons the film series was so monumental.
