We reported before that Mike Koehler decided to launch a campaign for innovation and just plain old American dreaming to build a full sized All-Terrain Armored Transport (AT-AT) from the Star Wars movies.
He began quickly soliciting donations and created a firestorm of press (ranging from Examiner and Big Shiny Robot! to Cnet and Attack of the Show) but things seemed to come crashing down for them when they received a call from Lucasfilm asking them to halt the project.
It seems as though they looked before they leaped on this one.
I’m sure there was no harm intended on Koehler’s part, but more planning would have been wise, and according to Lucasfilm, their blessing in advance would have gone a long way.
From Mike’s report on the AT-AT for American site:
* Steve Sansweet pointed out many flaws in this plan, the first being that I didn’t let Lucasfilm know from the start what we were doing. It sounds as if they aren’t the bogeyman when it comes to giving the blessing to fan project. So I don’t want my mistakes to make anything think they are the bad guy in this. I didn’t think ahead and have as firm a plan as I should of. And again, for that I am very sorry.
But all is not lost. Koehler is determined to make it happen and when he figures out a way to work with Lucasfilm on getting this going, we’ll be right beside him.