The dial takes real-world inspiration from the Antikythera mechanism, a circular device retrieved from ship wreckage near the Greek island Antikythera in 1901. Believed to date back to second century BC and originating from ancient Greece, it was most likely a computing device that aided in tracking stars and planetary movements; an inscription was also discovered on its eroded surface. As the real-world Antikythera mechanism was discovered in pieces, the Dial of Destiny, as created for the film, is divided into two fragments featuring different cogs and wheels. Astonishingly, among its many layers, the movie dial also includes rings with the ancient Corinthian calendar, a lunar ring with the days of the month, and instructions for its operation — all in actual ancient Greek.
In the film, the dial does a lot. It splits apart, gets handed off, thrown around, manipulated. So (at the risk of spoiling movie magic), Wilkinson’s crew built multiple versions. “You had the complete version — the version that goes together,” Wilkinson says. “One that they could chuck, one that they could kind of stunt with, one with a bit of size so when they’d done the closeup, we could get all the mechanisms inside to get the dial spinning.” And even during filming, the dial makers continued to tinker with their device. “We’d seen it a couple of times and then Jim called us over and was like, ‘Oh, what could we do on the back of it? It just needs a little bit more.’ So then we added to it while it was even shooting.”
Wilkinson finally saw the finished film on the big screen for the first time the day before speaking with Lucasfilm.com. It sounds like something of a surreal experience for the longtime prop maker and movie buff. “You’ve got the dial and that was blowing me away, because I was seeing it on posters, like behind the characters. As I’m watching it — and I gotta watch it again, because I was just distracted going, ‘Oh my God, there’s this!’ When he opens a drawer and the dynamite’s there and it’s like, ‘Oh, that was us!’ Even the real little things, everything’s exciting.”
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