According to franchise creator George Lucas, his initial outline for the Star Wars saga did not feature the Death Star in the portion that would be adapted as the first film. When he set to creating the first act of this outline as a feature, he borrowed the Death Star concept from the third act.[1]

Although details, such as the superlaser's location, shifted between different concept models during the production of Star Wars (1977),[a] the notion of the Death Star being a large, spherical space station over 100 kilometres (62 mi) in diameter was consistent in all of them.[2] George Lucas gave the original task of designing a "Death Star" to concept artist and spaceship modeler Colin Cantwell,[3] who had collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.[4] In Empire of Dreams, a documentary about the filming and production of Star Wars, Cantwell revealed that the Death Star was originally supposed to be a perfect sphere. The model was constructed in two separate pieces, however, and wasn't fitting together as planned. It was then decided that there could be a trench going around the equator of the space station. Lucas liked the idea,[3][4] and the Death Star model was created by John Stears.[5][6] The buzzing sound counting down to the Death Star firing its superlaser comes from the Flash Gordon serials.[7] Portraying an incomplete yet powerful space station posed a problem for Industrial Light & Magic's modelmakers for Return of the Jedi.[8] Only the front side of the 137-centimetre (54 in) model was completed, and the image was flipped horizontally for the final film.[8] Both Death Stars were depicted by a combination of complete and sectional models and matte paintings.[2][8]