A Star Destroyer crashes in Paris, careening to a halt just meters from the base of the Eiffel Tower. An X-Wing sinks beneath the waters of a Venetian canal, like Luke's spaceship sinking beneath Dagobah's muck. The Millennium Falcon is shot down into the Hudson.
These are just some of the arresting composites created by Paris-based graphic designer Nicolas Amiard, who imagined a world in which the spaceships of Star Wars came to Earth, only to be shot down over our major cities.
As someone who penned over 1,000 words on the design of the new Star Wars lightsaber, I'm going to nerd out a little bit here. (Because otherwise, my editors would just lose all respect for me.)
In the upcoming Star Wars sequel, The Force Awakens, a big part of the plot involves the aftermath of a major space battle that happened above the Tatooine-like desert planet of Jakku. As seen in the official trailers, this means that Jakku is littered with destroyed Tie Fighters, Star Destroyers, X-Wings, and more, the dilapidated husks of which have become the cornerstone of a local economy, scavenging for parts. In The Force Awakens, these broken ships make for really striking scenery and battle set pieces: the latest trailer ends with the Millennium Falcon flying through the destroyed engine of a Star Destroyer.
And it seems as if Amiard was inspired by the battleship-strewn planet Jakku in the new Force Awakens trailers when creating this series. Under his digital pen, Jakku becomes Earth, and Rio De Janeiro, London, Tokyo, and Moscow (among others) all become the locations of Star Wars battles that should rightly take place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
You can see more of Nicholas Amiard's work here.