The pixels will be with you, always.

January 14, 2024 12:11 PM

Star Wars in one 123-meter long infographic by Swiss graphic designer, author and illustrator Martin Panchaud.

Martin Panchaud on His Amazing Star Wars: A New Hope Infographic Adaptation

StarWars.com: What are the dimensions?
Martin Panchaud: My first guess of its final length was about 27 feet, but it ended up to be 1024 x 46,5152 px / 27 x 12,307 cm / 10.6 x 4,845.3 inches. We’re talking 10 X-wings or 3.5 Millennium Falcons...

Martin Panchaud and his 123 Meter Star Wars Infographic

There is a consistent visual style to your projects. How/what are your influences?
In 2009 me and my friend Michaël Terraz, who is also the co-founder of our publisher company l’Octopode had a comic book project for which I had to create a story using only the strict minimum of elements.

This got me interested in info graphs for their capacity of delivering a message or a content in the most efficient graphic way imaginable. I now wanted to develop this quality and combine it with the fact, that human-beings are able to feel empathic to abstract forms if they are put in an emotional context. The result of 4 years of research is a new kind of visual language that leaves a huge place to the readers own imagination and works with almost every kind of narration, and this is what fascinates me most about it.

Star Wars in a Single Infographic

What was the most difficult part, design-wise of the whole thing?
The final battle in the Death Star trench. I thought it would take a month, but that one scene took three months to complete. There was a lot of detail and a lot of action between the explosions and different kinds of ships to be able to depict that. It was definitely the most complicated part.

Artist Recreates All of Star Wars: A New Hope As 123-Meter Long Infographic

Panchaud said he took influence from the ancient Chinese scrolls that used their length to tell long visual stories. According to Panchaud, the “internet likes short stories and summaries, quickly understandable contents. With my work I aimed to create a contrast to that.”

Mark Hamill: "This is absolutely STUNNING!"

Previously posted and deleted in May 2016.

posted by kirkaracha (19 comments total)

I'm only a few meters in, but this is fantastic. Thank you!
posted by neuron at 12:34 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]

brb, heading to the office to print this out
posted by neuron at 12:37 PM on January 14 [4 favorites]

That's impossible, even for a computer
posted by chavenet at 1:37 PM on January 14 [9 favorites]

It's not impossible, I used to bullseye giant womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than 123 meters.
posted by credulous at 1:51 PM on January 14 [17 favorites]

Previously posted and deleted in May 2016.

Was that one the 25th Anniversary Remaster and this off an upscaled-to-4K LaserDisc?
posted by k3ninho at 2:01 PM on January 14

Great infographic, kid! That was one in a million!
posted by New Frontier at 2:14 PM on January 14 [6 favorites]

Previously posted and deleted in May 2016.

Was that one the 25th Anniversary Remaster and this off an upscaled-to-4K LaserDisc?

No, that was the one where the printer runs out of ink first.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:13 PM on January 14

I think 2:01h of 35mm film stock would be a little over two miles long (~3.3km)... So the compression rate for this infographic is about 27:1. Which I guess is on the order of really high quality H.264?
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 3:29 PM on January 14 [3 favorites]

I'm sure there are hallways in big resort hotels that are at least this long.

Some hotel should commission this as a bespoke carpet weave for long hallways.
posted by hippybear at 3:33 PM on January 14 [3 favorites]

I love the transliteration of R2-speak. Boobobo bouingwszing beep!
posted by Foosnark at 5:15 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]

I'm sure there are hallways in big resort hotels that are at least this long.

Some hotel should commission this as a bespoke carpet weave for long hallways.

But you'd have to walk the hallway backwards...
posted by farlukar at 1:13 AM on January 15 [1 favorite]

But you'd have to walk the hallway backwards...

No, you just put the carpet on the ceiling, people can walk forwards looking up.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 9:28 AM on January 15

That was exhausting.
posted by slogger at 10:22 AM on January 15

The always-forward design suggests Luke must have taken the long way around Tatooine to get back to the homestead!
posted by mazola at 12:46 PM on January 15

this is amazing
posted by suelac at 1:23 PM on January 15

The Millenium Falcon was made for a top-down presentation.
posted by mazola at 2:26 PM on January 15

Was that one the 25th Anniversary Remaster and this off an upscaled-to-4K LaserDisc?

This is from the version where Han shoots first but also has a scene talking to Jabba.
posted by straight at 3:00 PM on January 15 [2 favorites]

Fantastic stuff, typos notwithstanding.
posted by grubi at 1:18 PM on January 16

But you'd have to walk the hallway backwards...

What would happen is 500 people will walk that hallway, 100 of them will actually notice the carpet, and maybe 5 of them will go "oh wait, WOAH" and then go along the hallway looking closely at the narrative the carpet contains.

And for those 5 people, it will be the best discovery of their lives.
posted by hippybear at 4:43 PM on January 19