A 50GB Cache of Lost Star Wars History Just Surfaced from an Effects Wizard's Archive

A 49.6-gigabyte digital collection of previously unseen visual effects assets, reference photography, and production records has surfaced on the Internet Archive. The files stem from the liquidation of Tippett Studio, the Berkeley effects workshop founded by animator and designer Phil Tippett.

How a Liquidation Binder Reached the Web

Tippett Studio closed its physical facility in Berkeley, California, on August 28, 2026, ending 42 years of operation in the San Francisco Bay Area. The closure followed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the studio's U.S. entity in 2024. During a two-day liquidation auction in late August, an attendee acquired a binder of studio CD-ROMs and DVDs containing decades of internal production assets.

The purchaser digitized the discs and uploaded the disk images to the Internet Archive under the moniker TippettFan. The release contains 90 distinct, non-duplicated ISO files.

In a note accompanying the upload, the archivist wrote: "I quickly realized that some of this information wasn't available online and might not ever be in the future in such high resolution. So I purchased the disc folder and digitized all of its contents. What you have here are .ISO image files of the 90 key, non-duplicated discs from Tippett's archives." The uploader added that personal data was excluded, as were unreadable discs and discs containing final release versions of films, noting that preserving the assets serves the public interest.

What the Archive Contains

While some reports characterized the sale informally as a garage sale, the files represent internal studio working assets spanning both stop-motion animation and early digital visual effects.

The preserved Star Wars media includes high-resolution reference stills from the Mos Eisley cantina sequence, photos of the trash compactor dianoga puppet, and models built for the holographic Dejarik chess sequence aboard the Millennium Falcon.

The ISO collection also includes material from several other films and studio milestones:

• RoboCop: Construction photography and armatures for the ED-209 enforcement droid.
• Jurassic Park: Early digital wireframe tests and reference materials from the production's transition to computer-generated effects.
• Hellboy: Production digital assets, including Abe Sapien skin texture reference files.
• Studio archives: Photos from animator Ray Harryhausen's 90th birthday, a 2008 video interview with Tippett, and a 2014 studio retrospective video.
• Reference assets from Starship Troopers, The Matrix, Constantine, and Evolution.

Preservation and Copyright Questions

The long-term availability of the files remains uncertain. Intellectual property rights for the underlying films and characters belong to studios including Disney, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros., which could issue copyright takedown notices against the repository.

The archive's appearance also highlights conflicting accounts of Tippett's status. While some reports linked the studio closure to Tippett's retirement, Kotaku reported that Tippett has stated he is not ready to retire, despite the physical toll of completing his stop-motion project Mad God and the financial collapse of his studio.