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Star Wars designer brings war stories (and real light saber!) to q

Roger Christian is an icon-making machine. He made R2-D2, constructed the Millennium Falcon set, and designed the lightsaber.
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Q18:17Star Wars redux: Meet the man who built the first R2-D2

One man's junk is another man's galaxy far, far away. Oscar winning set designer Roger Christian joins Shad to explain how he stretched four short months and a modest budget to create several Star Wars icons. 

Christian forged R2-D2, the Millennium Falcon set, the original lightsaber and more from found objects and sheer determination.  On the eve of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he shares the very modest back story of the film's most iconic objects. 

"The first thing we ever made was a wooden mock-up of R2-D2 ... they couldn't even give us any money to make him," says Christian, adding that they built the robot from re-purposed boat plywood and an old lamp.

"Gary Kurtz's wife came down one day and she said 'wow, this sure ain't Hollywood, is it?"

Icon-making machine Roger Christian stands with the original R2-D2 — the first Star Wars prop ever built. (Lucasfilm)
The q crew doesn't geek out often, but when the Oscar-winning set decorator Roger Christian rolls through with the first real lightsaber — there is no playing it cool. (Carolyn Wu/CBC)

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