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As part of my unofficial 'Why wasn't Star Wars a crock of shite?' series of posts, i bring you... someone else's site, where they have naughtily scanned some of the paintings in question.
According to the dubiously transcribed book blurb, at least a few of these pictures were on the table while Twentieth Century Fox were tentatively developing the flick (and the artist's site confirms this). I like the idea that these visuals might have helped persuade them to go for it.
The pics show an interesting mixture of fidelity to the final product and early playing-around with ideas. The Metropolis C3PO was forced to become clunkier etc, but some of the design work is so spot on I imagine it was done far further into production. It would be interesting to know if any of them were artist takes that then got faithfully realised. Certainly they're a cut above your average storyboards, if that's the purpose the later 'high fidelity' ones were intended for. I'm sure they were also still there to flesh out the world to nervous investors etc, and the 'atmosphere' shot of X-wings and the Death Star stuff would doubtlessly have helped fill in the gaps when Lucas was still using WW2 placer footage during early showings.
Here's a McQuarrie pic I feel less leery about linking up, which i think kinda illustrates why this stuff was influential. According to this site, it's Luke depicted as a girl. You can see proto Han & Chewie in the background etc too.
That oddity aside, it's kinda generic, early days stuff, and that kinda shows. It could be the cover for any old 50p sci-fi novel in some ways (which is all the initial scripts deserved to be, apparently). But the existence of the later paintings shows a continued emphasis on the visual, and perhaps explains the solid, consistent, believable 'feel' of the flick that was part of the captivation i felt as a kid. The balance struck between rough-edged futurism merging with sleek ships & light shows etc. It's one of the many aspects the first flick nailed, despite the technical limitations of the day.
The initial trilogy contains so many stereotypical elements that feel like they should be scrotum-scrunchingly bad, yet they somehow got away with it. Is it just style over substance? I dunno, i could probably rewatch the damn things again, and still end up rooting for the good guys and booing the baddies once more. I reckon this successful world evocation has got to be playing a big part in that level of fantasy immersion.
According to the dubiously transcribed book blurb, at least a few of these pictures were on the table while Twentieth Century Fox were tentatively developing the flick (and the artist's site confirms this). I like the idea that these visuals might have helped persuade them to go for it.
The pics show an interesting mixture of fidelity to the final product and early playing-around with ideas. The Metropolis C3PO was forced to become clunkier etc, but some of the design work is so spot on I imagine it was done far further into production. It would be interesting to know if any of them were artist takes that then got faithfully realised. Certainly they're a cut above your average storyboards, if that's the purpose the later 'high fidelity' ones were intended for. I'm sure they were also still there to flesh out the world to nervous investors etc, and the 'atmosphere' shot of X-wings and the Death Star stuff would doubtlessly have helped fill in the gaps when Lucas was still using WW2 placer footage during early showings.
Here's a McQuarrie pic I feel less leery about linking up, which i think kinda illustrates why this stuff was influential. According to this site, it's Luke depicted as a girl. You can see proto Han & Chewie in the background etc too.
That oddity aside, it's kinda generic, early days stuff, and that kinda shows. It could be the cover for any old 50p sci-fi novel in some ways (which is all the initial scripts deserved to be, apparently). But the existence of the later paintings shows a continued emphasis on the visual, and perhaps explains the solid, consistent, believable 'feel' of the flick that was part of the captivation i felt as a kid. The balance struck between rough-edged futurism merging with sleek ships & light shows etc. It's one of the many aspects the first flick nailed, despite the technical limitations of the day.
The initial trilogy contains so many stereotypical elements that feel like they should be scrotum-scrunchingly bad, yet they somehow got away with it. Is it just style over substance? I dunno, i could probably rewatch the damn things again, and still end up rooting for the good guys and booing the baddies once more. I reckon this successful world evocation has got to be playing a big part in that level of fantasy immersion.
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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here
Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here
Last edited by Golgot; 08-05-09 at 04:12 PM.
