8 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Star Wars’ Costumes

[pashnak]

8 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Star Wars’ Costumes

by Bretton Jardell | TheFW

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Costumes and makeup played an important and often-overlooked role in making the six ‘Star Wars‘ movies sensational sci-fi masterpieces that, even today, nothing has really matched. They were at the center of an engrossing experience that made the viewer literally feel as though they had been transported to a distant galaxy far, far away.

Put simply, what would the franchise have been like without the menacing sound of Darth Vader breathing through his helmet? Without Chewy’s huggable “walking carpet” fur? Or without the quaint little robes worn by the Jawas? Answer: Nowhere near as enthralling. So on that note, we have picked out eight interesting costume facts that you probably didn’t know about.

1

No clone trooper costumes were needed during filming.

StarWarsHelmets

As is painfully obvious, the three 'Star Wars' prequel films are heavy on CGI and light on physical models and sets. This makes the complicated action sequences involving acrobatic lightsaber battles a lot more feasible to produce; but it also detracts from the organic feel the original movies thrived on.

The percentage of CGI used compared to more traditional methods was so high, in fact, that not even one clone trooper costume was required for filming. Every single clone trooper you see in all of the three movies is digitally rendered, despite the apparent ease you’d have thought it would've been to use real actors in costumes.

2

Anthony Daniels' C-3PO costume kept breaking and even injured him.

TheChive

Due in part to the relatively tight budget George Lucas had for the first Star Wars movie, 'A New Hope,' the C-3PO outfit worn by Anthony Daniels was far from perfect. On the very first day of filming the costume kept falling apart every few minutes, a situation that made working in the deserts of Tunisia an especially grueling task.

This situation was made worse when a section of the left leg shattered and forced itself straight through the plastic covering and into Daniels' foot. Fortunately the injury was minor, but the problems with the costume were never really fixed for the duration of the shoot. Consequently there are numerous sequences where only the top half of C-3PO is in view because Anthony Daniels is not wearing the bottom section of the costume.

3

The bantha in 'A New Hope' is an elephant in disguise.

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When watching 'A New Hope,' banthas appear to be unworldly creatures, similar to nothing else seen on the big screen up until that point. Their sheer size, enormous horns, thick fur and relative lack of facial features make them particularly unique. But, as you may have guessed, all of this is just an elaborate costume sitting atop an animal we are all very familiar with -- an elephant. A female Asiatic elephant named ‘Mardji’ borrowed from a theme park in Southern California, to be precise.

Getting the elephant to actually wear the outfit on set was no picnic. Due to the extreme temperatures of the Death Valley shooting location (officially the hottest place on Earth) Mardji was constantly restless. Although she was well trained, the thick fur costume was understandably intolerable in the desert heat, which caused her to continually try to remove it. It’s basically the equivalent of transporting a wooly mammoth from the ice age and dumping it in a scorching desert -- it’s just not going to find it comfortable.

4

The Obi-Wan Kenobi robe worn by Alec Guinness was rented out as a monk costume to the general public.

Forbes

After filming of 'A New Hope' concluded, the robe worn by Alec Guinness in the movie was, until a few years ago, thought to be lost. In 2005, a clerk performing a stock check on monk costumes in the warehouse of a London based costume retailer noticed one of them had a rather oddly shaped hood, so he immediately put it on and showed his manager. To both of their glee it became quite apparent what they had discovered was the legendary Obi-Wan Kenobi robe, missing for nearly 30 years.

Amusingly the company was using the cloak for all of that time, but nobody knew its true value. It was used by Universal in their 1999 movie 'The Mummy' for a background character and was even rented out to the general public as a monk costume for Halloween parties. In 2007 the cloak was put up for auction and sold for £54,000 (equivalent to about $102,000 at the time).

5

Peter Cushing wore his slippers on set.

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The esteemed horror movie actor Peter Cushing, who played the role of Grand Moff Tarkin in 'A New Hope,' found it quite painful to wear the boots provided with his costume as they were too small for his feet. After discussing the problem with George Lucas it was agreed the shots where Tarkin’s feet would be in view would be limited. Cushing was permitted to wear a pair of slippers instead, and albeit comfortable, they looked somewhat out of place with his Imperial uniform on set.

Camera operators made sure to film above his knees or behind an obstacle, such as the table in the conference room. This meant Cushing could have nice warm and cozy feet whenever he was on the Death Star.

6

Carrie Fisher's breasts were held down with gaffer tape.

Lucasfilm

Carrie Fisher, aka Princess Leia, was ordered to squish her breasts down with gaffer tape because George Lucas insisted there was “no underwear in space." Simply removing her bra was not a solution as her nipples could be seen through the costume. The gaffer tape was needed to make sure that didn’t happen. It’s also been said the only directions given to Carrie Fisher by George Lucas for the duration of filming 'A New Hope' were either "go faster" or "more intense."

7

Studio executives were unhappy that Chewbacca was naked.

Lucasfilm

According to Mark Hamill, Chewbacca’s costume was at one point going to be re-designed to incorporate shorts or another type of below-the-waist clothing item. This is because some studio executives were unhappy about the loveable character’s stark nakedness.

In hindsight, this seems quite absurd. After all Chewy is covered in fur, much like a dog, and they aren’t required to wear clothes in public. So despite Chewy appearing au naturel in the final cut the movie did not receive an "R" rating. Phew.

8

Carrie Fisher thought that her costumes weren’t sexy enough.

Lucasfilm

Carrie Fisher complained the costumes she had to wear in the first two 'Star Wars' movies made it hard to determine "she was a woman" because they were so long and baggy. In other words, they covered up her womanly curves. These complaints led to her wearing the now infamous Jabba slave costume in 'Return of the Jedi.'

According to members of the crew, due to the impracticalities of the bra section of the outfit, it became necessary to check her breasts before each take to make sure they were sitting correctly –- some scenes even had to be re-shot because of "wardrobe accidents." Stop drooling, fanboys.

Bretton Jardell is a science fiction addict, product researcher at a costume store and cosplay enthusiast.

[Smally]

Thats interesting about the Obi Wan robe.

[Elegance]

Golden Bikini............. :sweat: :sweat:

[pashnak]

Golden Bikini............. :sweat: :sweat:

I want this guy's job

[trooper1]

Lol yeah! Can you imagine being the guy who rented the costume for Halloween. Then to find out later, it was the actual robe! Worth so much.....

[inglorious trooper]

cool facts,

need to have some more as i knew most,but not the obi-wan and gold bikini fact,

interesting stuff!

[pashnak]

10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Star Wars

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Star Wars. It's part of our culture. A crucial feature of our lives, like an energy field that binds all living things together. You may think you know everything about this rich universe — but there's always more to learn.

The history of Star Wars, both in the universe and behind the scenes, is such a rich tapestry that there's a nearly endless supply of weird facts. With that in mind, here are ten things that you probably didn't know about Star Wars.

10) George Lucas killed Chewbacca. The most famous Wookiee died off in a novel called Vector Prime by R.A. Salvatore. Nobody particularly wanted to kill off Chewbacca, but the authors and editors of the Expanded Universe novels wanted to kill off one of the well-known characters, because they felt as though nobody was taking the books seriously any more. So the book editors wrote to George Lucas with a list of characters they'd like to be able to kill off, with Luke Skywalker on the top of the list. Lucas wrote back with a list of characters it was not okay to kill off — and poor Chewy wasn't on that list. This was one lottery it was not a good idea to let the Wookiee win.

9) Ewoks speak Tibetan. At least, sound designer Ben Burtt used Tibetan phrases in the Ewok language. Burtt was inspired by a BBC documentary about the Tibetan, Nepali and Kalmyk languages, and later interviewed several native Tibetan speakers. So the Ewoks are speaking Tibetan, Nepalese and a few other bits and pieces. Also, Lando Calrissian's pilot Nien Nunb spoke Haya, a Tanzanian dialect. (His dialogue was recorded by a Tanzanian exchange student.) And the Jawas in the original film spoke Zulu — except that it was altered somewhat, and then sped up.

Related

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Star Wars has given us many great musical inspirations, including John Williams' timeless score. But the weirdest tune from Star Wars might well … Read…

8) Jabba's dancing girl reveals more skin than you might realize. Many VHS tapes of Return of the Jedi died to bring you this information. The Twilek dancing girl, Oola, has a wardrobe malfunction during her dance sequence to the song "Lapti Nek" — read more about that fantastic piece of music here. And during the VHS age, there was much rewinding and freeze-framing to confirm this fact. What's surprising is that reportedly, the Special Editions still preserve this Twilek nipple slip, even though George Lucas spent hundreds of person-hours changing every other aspect of that scene, to create a new Max Rebo Band performance around the song "Jedi Rocks." In any case, if you want to see screengrabs of the thrilling Jedi nudity, they're here.

7) The director of Captain America created Boba Fett. Sure, uber-Star Wars designer Ralph McQuarrie had some input into the designs for the Mandalorian bounty hunter — but effects whiz Joe Johnston is widely credited with creating the look of Boba Fett's armor. And there are tons of detailed drawings to prove it. Plus a video screen test, which you can view here. And since then, Johnston has gone on to become a successful director in his own right, most recently bringing the adventures of Steve Rogers to the screen. Originally, George Lucas planned for Darth Vader to be an intergalactic bounty hunter, but when Darth Vader became a fallen Jedi instead, Lucas recycled the "bounty hunter" concept for Boba Fett. Bonus fact: George Lucas considered revealing that Darth Vader and Boba Fett were brothers in the prequels, but decided that was "too hokey."

6) You can see Boba Fett's face without the helmet in Empire Strikes Back. Jeremy Bulloch, who plays Boba Fett, also plays another role in ESB: Imperial Lieutenant Sheckil, who captures Princess Leia during her attempted escape on Bespin. Bulloch is standing in for the original actor, who was unavailable at the last minute. But Bulloch's brief role as Sheckil was popular enough that he's gained a bigger role in the Expanded Universe — including being the Imperial Officer who shows Darth Vader the disassembled C-3PO, causing the former Anakin Skywalker to experience a flood of nostalgia. Bulloch also played another character, Alderaanian pilot Jeremoch Colton, in Revenge of the Sith. (And he played a couple of roles on classic Doctor Who.)

5) Wedge Antilles is Obi-Wan Kenobi's Uncle. Or at least, actor Denis Lawson, who played Wedge, is Ewan McGregor's uncle. Wedge is also the only background character to survive all three major battles in the original trilogy — Yavin, Hoth and Endor.

4) Greedo was a woman. At least in some scenes. The costume for Greedo, the alien bounty hunter who gets shot by Han Solo, was worn by two different actors — depending on the country where the filming was done. In the U.K. scenes, Greedo is Paul Blake. In the U.S. scenes, Greedo is Canadian actor Maria de Aragon. In an interview, Blake describes Greedo: "The most inept assassin in the Universe, the Steve Buscemi of assassins with Steve Martin overtones." Blake also says he owns a "Han Shot First" T-shirt.

Bonus fact: Light saber injuries don't always cauterize wounds. Just ask the Wampa. Or the patrons in the Cantina.

3) The cheapest set in Empire Strikes Back? The interior of the Space Slug. Otherwise known as the Exogorth, the slug is ridiculously simple on the inside. The entire set consists of black Visqueen plastic laid down on the floor of the studio, black curtains behind the Millennium Falcon, and a dry ice fog machine. Source: Celebrating the Worlds of Star Wars 365 Days by John Knoll, p. 67.

2) If George Lucas had directed Apocalypse Now, he might have skipped Star Wars. You might have known that Lucas was originally in line to direct Apocalypse Now, which wound up being directed by his friend and mentor Francis Ford Coppola — but in 1981, Lucas hinted to Starlog Magazine that he might never have done Star Wars if he'd gotten to do the Vietnam movie. Said Lucas:

My second project was Apocalypse Now which John Milius and I had been working on in school, and we got a deal with Francis to develop the project. So I said, ‘This is great. I love John Milius; he's a great writer. I was going to get a great screenplay and I wasn't going to have to write it.

Lucas might have gotten his "war" movie jones out of his system without ever venturing into space. Source: Starlog, August 1981. (Poster photoshopped by Keith Veronese.)

Oh, and speaking of Francis Ford Coppola... you probably already knew that director Sofia Coppola plays one of Padme's maids in Phantom Menace (named Saché), along with a young

. Right?

1) Han Solo was originally a green-skinned alien with gills. He would have been an undercover operative, instead of a smuggler and all-around rogue. And apparently, this version of Han went beyond early drafts where he only had a minor role — because at least at one point, Lucas was considered making green-skinned, gilly Han into Luke and Leia's friend for much of the film. Says Lucas:

[Han Solo] did start out as a monster or a strange alien character, but I finally settled on him being human so that there'd be more relationship between [Luke, Leia and Han]. That's where Chewbacca came in as the kind of alien sidekick.

And Chewbacca was originally inspired by Lucas' dog, an Alaskan Malamute, although the word "Wookiee" actually appears in Lucas' first film THX-1138 — in the ad-libbed line, "I think I just ran over a Wookiee." And that line of dialogue, in turn, was inspired by a real person, a guy named Ralph Wookie who lived in Texas. Source: DVD featurettes, Binary Bonsai.

Additional reporting by Mandy Curtis and Keith Veronese.

[pashnak]

10 things you didn't know about The Empire Strikes Back

Here's a slightly different version of the battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader at the end of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. It's just one of many revelations in a new making-of book. More rare concept art below.

The Making Of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back by J.W. Rinzler comes out today, and it's not just essential for fans of the classic film. It's also a must-read for anybody who's interested in the creative process, because it goes into excruciating detail, on a day-to-day basis, on the troubled genesis of an amazing film. You get inside the heads of everybody involved with it, and you see how much pain went into every frame of this movie. In particular, there's a 17-page section in which you get a transcript of director Irwin Kerschner and the actors — especially Harrison Ford — agonize over every second of the crucial carbonite freezing chamber scene, trying to get as much emotional truth and reality out of it as possible. This was on set, after the screenplay had already been revised several times, and every moment of that sequence gets rehashed and debated until it's (arguably) perfect.

There's tons and tons of eye-popping concept art, including tons of versions of the Luke/Vader fight. Here are a few of them:

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What Rinzler's book drives home is that Empire Strikes Back was as ground-breaking and daring, in its own way, as the original Star Wars. The film went way over schedule and massively over budget, and almost ran out of money a bunch of times. Everybody became sick on set, Mark Hamill broke his thumb doing one stunt, and there was an accident with the bacta tank that could have killed Hamill if he'd been inside. Also, the movie's second unit director and its first screenwriter both died during the process.

And you see how Lucas put together ESB at the same time that he was building his business empire, including LucasFilm and the more mature version of Industrial Light & Magic. Lucas was creating his team and fighting for creative freedom, even as he was stepping back from writing and directing — and a big part of this movie's brilliance stems from Lucas' drive to finance the film himself, keeping Twentieth Century Fox out of the loop creatively. (And if Empire had failed, Lucas would have been broke, despite the first film's huge profits.)

What comes through, in every interview and behind-the-scenes detail, is the determination of everyone involved to make The Empire Strikes Back bigger and better than the original Star Wars. In spite of huge, almost insurmountable difficulties, the determination to create something better comes through clearly.

In addition to the concept art, there are also a ton of set photos, including things like a cast being made of Harrison Ford for the "frozen in carbonite" Han Solo, and Darth Vader and Boba Fett out for a stroll. And there are tons and tons of pieces of script pages and scribbled notes. You get a real sense of what it would have been like to be inside this madhouse of creativity and seat-of-the-pants improvisation.

Here's some more concept art, showing the evolution of the tauntaun, which started out as a kind of weird lizard:

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Here are 10 things you probably didn't know about Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back:

Yoda was originally named Buffy. No, really. In George Lucas' earliest outlines for the sequel, Luke meets a supernatural entity named Buffy, or Bunden Debannen. Here's how Lucas described it:

Buffy very old — three or four thousand years. Kiber crystal in sword? Buffy shows Luke? Buffy the guardian. 'Feel not think.'"

And Lucas concludes by saying Luke will become the chosen one, "the human Buffy." In later drafts, he thought of Yoda as a kind of small frog, and Yoda had a full name: Minch Yoda. In the earliest script draft, Minch has the immortal line: "Skywalker. Skywalker. And why do you come to walk my sky, with the sword of a Jedi knight? ... I remember another Skywalker."

Lucas considered having a scene where Luke's face gets injured. Mark Hamill was injured in a car accident in 1977, and his face had to be reconstructed — so for a while, George Lucas planned on including a sequence where Luke's face is damaged, and we see it getting patched up by a droid. This got as far as filming — there's a set picture showing the droid bandaging Luke's face — but was cut out of the movie.

Luke's journey to becoming a Jedi Knight would have had a lot more bumps. One idea that got tossed around a lot in the early stages of planning ESB was the notion that Luke's light saber had a crystal hidden in the hilt, with secret encrypted information on it — including the coordinates of Minch Yoda's planet. And Luke would have been "humiliated" when he couldn't use the Force to stop an attack by a bunch of ice monsters on the rebel's Hoth base. (With Han telling Luke, "You're not a Jedi knight, and you never will be.") Meanwhile, Darth Vader senses that Luke used the force to destroy the Death Star and there's a new wannabe Jedi in town — so Vader uses telepathy to choke Luke in his spacecraft, nearly killing him — except that R2D2 jumps the ship into hyperspace and takes it to Yoda's planet.

We could have visited other planets. Possibly including a "water planet," with an underwater city, and a "city planet," with the whole planet built over. And at one point, Lucas considered having a visit to the Wookiee homeworld (some of which ended up in the Christmas Special), and Ralph McQuarrie did some concept art of a young Chewbacca. (Also, Lando Calrissian's home would have been the planet Hoth — not the ice world, but another planet named Hoth — and there might have been a whole alien race living there. And in one early draft, Lando was a clone warrior, one of the many clans of clone fighters left over from the wars.) Here's the concept art of Young Chewbacca, plus a Beast of Burden from Chewbacca's home world, both of them dating from November 1977, or early in the process:

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Darth Vader would have had a castle. And it would have been an evil fortress — in some versions, it's surrounded by lava, and full of gargoyles who are Vader's pets.

Vader wasn't Luke's father at first. In Leigh Brackett's first script draft, Luke meets his real dad, who says he sent away Luke and his secret sister for their own safety. (Luke's sister has been training to be a Jedi knight in secret, just as Luke has.) And Papa Skywalker administers the oath of a Jedi Knight to Luke, in which Ben, Minch, Anakin and Luke cross lightsabers, and Luke swears to "dedicate my life to the cause of freedom and justice."

The Luke-Leia-Han love triangle is a much bigger deal in earlier drafts of the script. It's at the root of Luke's struggles for self respect and his humiliations. When Darth Vader is trying to win Luke over to the Dark Side in the second draft, written by Lucas himself, Vader says, "You're in love with Leia. You don't want to lose her to Han Solo... But you will, if you lack the courage to use the strength that's in you. A strength as great as mine, Luke." And then at the end, Leia flat-out tells Luke that he's not the one she loves, because she's into Han. Also in this version, Han doesn't get frozen in carbonite — instead, he just flies off to take care of business, leaving Luke and Leia watching the Millennium Falcon disappear. Related

Yoda was originally played by a monkey in a mask, and other secrets of The Empire Strikes Back

Before Yoda was a Muppet, the makers of Empire Strikes Back considered casting a monkey as the movie's spiritual center. Plus the lost Wampa… Read…

The film posed unique challenges for special effects and model work. Darth Vader had a new Star Destroyer, which was supposed to be 16 miles long! And they built a full-size Millennium Falcon, which was 65 wide and 80 feet long. Also, ILM had to start a new stop-motion animation department just to make the Imperial Walkers and tauntauns work. (They tried a man-in-a-suit tauntaun, with "hilarious if not film-worthy results.") And then there's the challenge of Yoda — as we reported the other day, they considered everything from a monkey in a mask to a small child or little person to play the Jedi sage, before deciding to go with Frank Oz's puppetry.

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Stanley Kubrick nearly killed the movie. Empire was sharing studio space with The Shining, and there was a huge fire that burned down Stage 3 at Elstree Studios, destroying The Shining's sets. That meant that Empire had to give up some of its own studio space, and The Shining went way over schedule, especially as Kubrick used the delay as an excuse to rethink his own movie. "Timewise, it is doubtful the picture will recover," one crew-member wrote at the time.

Miss Piggy had a cameo in one of Yoda's first scenes in rehearsal. When Mark Hamill first met Frank Oz, he asked him to do a brief Miss Piggy cameo during rehearsals on set, as a practical joke — but when the time came much later, it caught even Hamill off guard. During one scene, Yoda tells Luke to follow his feelings. Luke protests that he has followed his feelings — and suddenly, Frank Oz whips out a Miss Piggy puppet, saying "Feelings? You want feelings? Get behind the couch and I'll show you feelings, punk. What is this hole? I've been booked into dumps before, but never like this. Get me my agent on the phone!"

[dutchy]

This is some good reading, the part about the robe was really unbelievable..

[Rolf]

I want this guy's job

http-~~-//youtu.be/GNjYQLyetTY

OMG crazy, but cool for sure