A building that looks suspiciously like Dubai’s Burj Khalifa has been spotted inside Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith movie.
What’s interesting here is that the film came out a full five years before the launch of the world’s tallest building.
Granted, films often take inspiration from real-world cityscapes, but in this case it appears the other way around. Revenge of the Sith hit cinemas in the summer of 2005, while the Burj Khalifa officially opened in January, 2010.
So how did the world tallest building end up showing up in a film five years before it was unveiled? It appears to be sheer coincidence (or perhaps, The Force?).
When creating the first Star Wars trilogy – which features the imperial city of Coruscant quite heavily – LucasArts turned to artist Doug Chiang. He was tasked with designing what had been described as a ‘retro-futuristic metropolis’ including streams of floating vehicles travelling between soaring skyscrapers.
It is thought that Chiang’s inspiration came from the likes of Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis, as well as Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner. However, neither prolifically displayed a tall jagged spire-like building.
So did star wars predict the Burj Khalifa design? Its developer Emaar says no, it didn’t.
The Burj Khalifa embodies the structure of a hymenocallis or spider lily, the regional desert flower that serves as chief inspiration for architect Adrian Smith’s vision for the world’s tallest tower.
Two tower that look dramatically alike, that appear separately five years apart? If that isn’t The Force at work, then we don’t know what is.
