LOCATION SCREENTIME

The world of Star Wars is so vast and diverse that people often resonate with different aspects of it. The larger than life characters, the famous quotes, the behind the scenes production, the lightsaber dueling, the World War II-inspired dogfighting… Personally, I tend to get enthralled with all the locales the franchise has offered, both on the big and small screen.

So, when the national lockdown of 2020 happened and I suddenly found myself with a lot of extra time on my hands, I began this project in earnest.

The original idea for this came from a tweet I’d spotted by the Star Wars UK account, assigning percentage points to each location in one of the Original Trilogy films. I took that idea and ran with it, which led to this site and the graphics it presents.

With any project that relies on precise data that pulls from a wide range of media, consistency is hugely important. I knew I’d have to set a few rules before beginning.

Early on I asked myself, ‘What should count as space?’, given that the Death Star orbits planets and travels through hyperspace. It made sense that such an important location wasn’t relegated to a general term though, so I settled on anything from an escape pod or starfighter to a capital ship like a Star Destroyer comes under the space moniker, and space stations and bases are their own thing.

More rules formalised over time: Unless front and centre to the story being told, the majority of flashbacks, for instance at the beginning of The Clone Wars episodes, wouldn’t count. Likewise, title screens and end credits. It all helped the project go much more smoothly with the above foundation in place.

The obvious hurdle was the time involved. Thankfully watching more Star Wars isn’t my idea of hell and so it ended up being a real labour of love.

Talking specifics, the biggest challenge was probably the final act of A New Hope. Unquestionably one of the most iconic moments in film history, but with the perspective constantly jumping back and forth between the Death Star and the Rebel base, it took a while to collect the data. Likewise Rey and Kylo Ren’s force connection in The Last Jedi, when the setting would shift every second or two. They were hugely compelling scenes though so again, the work was done with love.

Unfortunately I’m not at the point where I can phone Lucasfilm and ask lore questions, so some unknown locations had to be labelled as unidentified, for now at least.

All the data collected is accurate to the second, and is then turned into, and presented as, percentages (thank you spreadsheet equations!). That consistency made it easy to compare one chart to another without taking into account varying running times.

The final artwork were all designed at a very high resolution. The Bad Batch one for instance, has dimensions of 12,250 by 17,380 pixels.

Originally, the plan was to present each pie chart using simple blocks of colour, but that would have done a disservice to the beautiful locations the artists and film-makers brought to life, and so I incorporated imagery.

There’s never been a better time to be a Star Wars fan, with an incredible legacy behind us and an exciting set of films, Disney+ shows, books, video games and more ahead.

Next on the horizon in the Galaxy Far Far Away is Star Wars Skeleton Crew; and so graphics dedicated to that series will be on the way as soon as it concludes.

I’d love to hear any comments, feedback or ideas you might have so feel free to message me by email or on Twitter.