[Ammi]

Tony Dyson, the British special effects artist and robotics professor responsible for bringing R2-D2 to life in ‘Star Wars’, has died aged 68.

Dyson was found by police at his home in Malta after friends contacted them concerned about his wellbeing.

The Emmy-nominated SFX supervisor worked on ‘Superman 2′, ‘Moonraker’, and ‘Dragonslayer’, but he’ll best be remembered for his pioneering work on bringing R2-D2 to life in the ‘Star Wars’ films.


Dyson built the original Artoo units for the first film based on designs by Ralph McQuarrie. He built eight versions of the droid for the film, including the ones Kenny Baker sat inside, all serving different functions on the set.
“Some were remote-controlled, some computerized – they all had different functions,” he told Geek Wire in 2015, “It was more based on special effects and not robotics specific. We’d get whatever was on the director’s list and achieve those qualifications, and that led to R2-D2.”

Although he helped create R2-D2, he was actually stopped from building any more units after the films came out, probably due to copyright issues, and was issued with warnings after founding the R2-D2 Builders Club.

“The most ironic thing as the years went by, I was told I could never build another R2-D2. I had started a R2-D2 builders club, and I was told we couldn’t do the exact same sizes and dimensions.

“The club was upset at first, but this time round, Disney is actually using two people from the builders club to help build R2-D2 for the new films.”

As well as his pioneering work on ‘Star Wars’, Dyson also built robots for Philips, Toshiba, and Sony and was recently working on building search-and-rescue drones.

He was a regular guest on the sci-fi convention circuit and had appearances booked throughout 2016.