Tie Fighter Pilot Ejected Out of His Fiery Craft of Doom

http://www.facebook.com/pages/OttoMoBiehl/208602385825450
In a pivotal chase sequence in "The Empire Strikes Back" Han Solo has to evade pursuing TIE Fighters.

When the first tie impacts against an asteroid the pilot is ejected in a fiery, and ultimately gory, death. Few people I've ever talked to have ever noticed this before.

Here it is in all it's glory.

This video has caused a small debate about whether it's the pilot or simply a piece of debris. Personally I think it's the pilot (which is obvious due to me making a video about it). What do you think?

Here are some sites that also think it's a pilot:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/5100/shoe.html
http://www.eeggs.com/items/9851.html

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Star
• Wars
• The
• Empire
• Strikes
• Back
• Asteroid
• TIE
• FIghter
• pilot
• ejected
• Mark
• Hamill
• Harrison
• Ford
• Carrie
• Fisher
• David
• Prowse
• Darth
• Vader
• Stormtrooper
• Space
• jedi

[VanBullock]

never noticed that before, good eye! :)

[dsbiehl]

@VanBullock Thank you very much! :)

[geordiekimbo2]

if he ejected why didn't he eject before the asteroid hit? it looks plain to me that the guy was just flung from the debris and was dead

[dsbiehl]

@geordiekimbo2 Thanks for the comment!

I use "ejected" in the same way a person can be ejected from a vehicle in a car crash. In other words, the poor soul was ejected...it was just probably against his will.

[technicallyabsurd]

Never noticed it until tonight.  It's a miracle that the pilot wasn't exploded along with his TIE.

[dsbiehl]

No kidding. Though it looks as if he didn't last that long after being flung.

[elemental47]

dfksdf

[tarkinfish]

@JunkyardCrap They do have them I think, hence the full flight suit :)

[AnakinSolo1]

@JunkyardCrap actually a tie fighter does have an ejection seat

[JunkyardCrap]

I do belive that the guy in the vid is right about a pilot ejecting, but the average tie fighter has no ejector seat capabilities at all so the pilot must obviously be flung from the explosion.

[dsbiehl]

Awesome idea to use the official website.

[adywanuk]

TheBlitz1, just do a bit of searching and you will find the proof. maybe the first place to start would be the official star wars website. Head over to the database and search fro TI Fighter Pilots and right at the bottom, in the behind the scenes section, is the proof that it is indeed a pilot that ILM added

[dsbiehl]

Yes, Empire is the best of all the movies. I need to re-watch Empire again with the commentary too. I used to have a subscription to a magazine called CineMagic that had interviews with the ILM guys & they would mention stuff like hiding pilots in ships & such. For example, they said they put pilots into the AT-ST that got it's head crushed in Jedi but you couldn't see their handiwork. I also remember them saying something about putting the pilot in for Empire.

Anyway, thanks for the comment.

[TheBlitz1]

Well you called it ejected in your title....

>=\

[TheBlitz1]

Where is the interview and commentary which states that it is a tie fighter pilot?

[dsbiehl]

Okay, to continue from my other comment. ILM employees are renowned for putting hidden elements in their effects work whether it be a hidden image in a matte painting, a tennis shoe in space battle or 1138 hidden somewhere in a scene. There are numerous interviews and commentary available on the web to back this up.

Finally, if you have the movies on DVD and, your DVD player has a zoom function, you can clearly see the arms, legs and head of the pilot before he disintegrates. Kind of gory.

[dsbiehl]

We can call it ejected, evicted, dis-engorged, thrown, flung or whatever other synonym we can think of. It doesn't bear much on what the object is other than describing something that flew from the ship.

My 'theory' (if there ever was one) is based on observation and anecdotal evidence namely articles and interviews I've read with employees of ILM. I'll state these when I answer your other comment.

[TheBlitz1]

I didn't mean it was added in later, I meant you could tell it is an actual piece of shrapnel they used, or paper of some kind, which they painted to look like shrapnel, because of the way in which it casts shadow upon itself.

[TheBlitz1]

That makes more sense, but if it was a pilot, the body of the pilot = the size of the command pod.

Why would you put semantics aside, wouldn't that allow clearer interpretation of your theory?

[dsbiehl]

I probably should have been clearer but I wasn't implying that the ejection was voluntary. It was implied in the same manner as when a car hits a tree and the occupants aren't wearing seat belts. They usually are 'ejected' through the front windshield of the car. Lets put semantics aside though.

[dsbiehl]

Whether it's the pilot or not is debatable but I do know that it wasn't inserted and rotated 'digitally'. I just checked my copy of 'Empire' I got in the 80s to see if the object was still in there and it is. The effects of the original trilogy was done through a photo-optical process using filters, high contrast black and white films and optical printers.

Also, why only put one piece of debris in digitally when today it would be easy to use a particle generator to make extra debris?

[TheBlitz1]

Besides the ejection seat exits through the top of the fighter, not the bottom right.

[TheBlitz1]

You can tell its a piece of actual shrapnel rotated around and digitally inserted frame by frame.

We all would like it to be a pilot, but it is not.

[dsbiehl]

A few other people have made that comment too. It's a good observation. But I don't think it's the case here.  If it was debris from the tie fighter then there should be more substantial debris flying off in other directions too.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and commenting.

[TheBlitz1]

its just a chunk of tie fighter hull obviously...