Knoll has been praised by directors James Cameron, Gore Verbinski, Guillermo del Toro, and Brad Bird. Del Toro, who worked with Knoll for the first time on Pacific Rim, stated "He basically has the heart of a kid and the mind of a scientist, and that's a great combination."[3]
Knoll had a cameo appearance in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace as a fighter pilot,[5] helped pitch the story of Rogue One, a feature film set in the Star Wars series, for which he also worked as writer and executive producer.[6]
John Knoll reflected on his work with George Lucas on the Star Wars prequel trilogy: "I still feel like I owe George a lot to have been given that opportunity. On those three films, I feel like I got a whole career’s worth of experience packed into eight years. George never constricted his thinking to what he knew for sure the tools were capable of; his attitude was, “Yeah, well, I’m writing what I want to see, so you guys will figure it out.” I loved that he would constantly throw those challenges out with the confidence [that] you guys will figure it out. That was great."[7]
At the 2019 Oscars, John and his brother Thomas were awarded a Scientific and Engineering Award for the original architecture, design and development of Photoshop.[9]
John Knoll, J. W. Rinzler: Creating the Worlds of Star Wars: 365 Days with CDROM; Book about the Making of the Star Wars Saga; ISBN0-8109-5936-4
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