That’s not just because of the Death Star’s evil connotations, but due to obvious design flaws. And when WIRED asked a bunch of designers, architects, and other professionals for their assessments, most were not kind. Point is, the drawings of the planet-killing not-a-moon may look like gobbledygook to you, but to a trained designer, they’re fair game for criticism. In advance of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a new book- Death Star Owner’s Technical Manual-lays bare the plans for the station that, presumably, get stolen by rebels, transmitted to Princess Leia, secreted in an R2 unit on board the Rand Ecliptic, and eventually made possible the Death Star’s destruction.
Despite its reputation as a symbol of fear and oppression and its confounding vulnerability to proton torpedoes, the Death Star continues to be a subject of endless fascination-especially in the design world.
