Full Series Early Star Wars (1974 - 1979) Influence in Rebels

It was first brought up by Circular Logic that Kanan seems to have some similarities with the main character from the original The Star Wars draft from 1974, Kane Starkiller, and I want to combine what he said about it with some of my own ideas and new comparisons here now.

CL pointed out that Kanan has armor covering one arm:



... just like Kane Starkiller has one robotic arm in The Star Wars. CL also speculated that Kanan's armored arm might actually be robotic as well which would obviously make the similarity even stronger, and based on the fact that on the other hand you can see his flesh fingers but not the hand on the armored side I think CL could be exactly right.

Check out this art from the recent The Star Wars comic book adaptation from Dark Horse showing Kane Starkiller (center):



You may also notice a similarity in their hairstyles. From ATMachine:

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/atms-stuff-from-the-temp-boards-thread.50003251/#post-50002362

If anyone is curious how he got those quotes, you can get the full text of all the scripts and treatments for the early SW drafts at this awesome site: http://starwarz.com/starkiller/category/star-wars-scripts/star-wars-star-wars-scripts/

Kane Starkiller is tied at the top of his head while Kanan's is tied at the bottom, but they're both main characters that have relatively long hair tied back. George Lucas had this idea all the way back in 1974 and it seems it's gone unused until now.

In addition to the arm and the hairstyle, there also seem to be some strong similarities in the roles Kane Starkiller and Kanan play in their respective stories. From what little we know of Kanan so far, his introduction video says he is the "perceived head" of the band of rebels and is "a little rough around the edges." He's referred as a Jedi "forced underground" who "saw the destruction of his way of life." He basically lost faith in himself as a Jedi because the Jedi were hunted down. This is really similar to the situation Kane Starkiller finds himself in. From The Star Wars 1974 first draft:

Kane Starkiller is one of the very last Jedi, always on the run and being hunted, to the point where he doesn't even trust himself to be a Jedi anymore. Later in the script, General Skywalker hints that Kane was not the most disciplined Jedi or strictest follower of their rules. These are all traits Kanan shares. But I predict Kanan will transform from a Kane Starkiller type of character to more of a General Luke Skywalker type of character, kind of fusing the two. The way Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker's father originally started out as two separate characters and eventually fused into one, I think Kanan will fuse Kane Starkiller and General Luke Skywalker. This will revolve around his relationship with Ezra. Kanan will go from wanting to perpetuate the Jedi but feeling inadequate to the task because of the toll the Jedi being hunted down has played on his psyche like Kane Starkiller to assuming the mantle of mentor the way General Luke Skywalker does for Annikin Starkiller at Kane's request.

And in case anyone reading this didn't watch Kanan's introduction video, it is pronounced "Kane-in." So on top of all these physical and character similarities, they also have practically the same name.

 

A couple corrections to the above post:

- Kane Starkiller isn't the main character in this draft, I shouldn't have said that; Annikin Starkiller is probably the main character, with Kane Starkiller and General Luke Skywalker being the main mentor figures; people are predicting Ezra will be the main character and Kanan will be his mentor, and I'm predicting Kanan will combine Kane Starkiller and General Luke Skywalker as detailed above

- I said Kane and Kanan were both main characters with long hair pulled back, but I really meant to say they're both male main characters with long hair pulled back which is obviously much more distinctive; it's well-known that one of GL's biggest influences in writing The Star Wars was the Japanese film The Hidden Fortress, and it seems likely this choice of hairstyle goes all the way back to that influence:

 

Actually, Dark Lord Tarkas, if you look very closely, you can see the (flesh) thumb of Kanan's right hand. Could be synthflesh, of course.

 

Revanfan1 thanks for pointing that out, I saw in some of the unfinished animation both hands actually have the same type of glove on, but in a lot of the more finished pictures the armored arm doesn't have that and I didn't notice the thumb. Of course, as you also point out, even if it looks like a normal hand it still might be robotic in the SW universe. I'm counting it as a homage to Kane Starkiller anyway since that's hardly the only similarity and it is visually distinctive, but if it is robotic that will just make it a more direct tribute.

 

As of today it has been officially confirmed that Zeb is the species the EU created based on original McQuarrie concept art for Chewbacca. The name of the species is Lasat, and according to Wookieepedia:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lasat

And here's the link to the official source confirming that Zeb is a Lasat:

http://www.jedinews.co.uk/news/news.aspx?newsID=15742

(Warning! There are TCW The Lost Missions spoilers on the same page! Rebels info in lower right corner box.)

Here's a Lasat from the EU (also thanks to Wookieepedia):



And here again is the McQuarrie concept art in question:



Several people on this forum pointed out how extremely similar the designs were immediately. Last time I posted about this, before this new announcement that Zeb is a Lasat, the best pictures of Zeb that were out were of action figures. But now we have some better shots to compare with.




I actually think Zeb looks even more like the McQuarrie concept art than the EU Lasat depiction, particularly around the nose, mouth, and top of the head. McQuarrie has his brow so large that from most angles the top of his head looks like a cluster of three lumps which the EU Lasat depiction totally lost but is copied exactly with Zeb. Same with the long slit nostrils and distinctive angle where they connect with the mouth (whatever that part of your face is called) - the EU Lasat depiction lost them but Zeb has them.

Yet another way they are officially acknowledging Rebels' heavy influence from early SW drafts.

 

I did an extra little bit of tracking and found the original *exclusive* article about Zeb that came from IGN, and that article says:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/18/star-wars-rebels-exclusive-first-look-meet-zeb

I think the exclusive article that first introduced the character saying that is basically as good as it coming right from Disney.

 

I gotta say, personally I've been looking forward to getting to know Chopper since we were told he was Grumpy, lol. But the fact that he uses his little arms all the time just makes me love him more. I may just have to buy his figure when it comes out. Well, as long as it has little movable arms.

 

SabineFett I have to admit I'm looking forward to Chopper a lot more than I thought I would be before watching his character video, which I actually didn't for awhile because I was so convinced I wouldn't care that much. R2's unending supply of cheerfulness got old for me somewhere along the way so Chopper being in a bad mood all the time sounds really entertaining, like Oscar the Grouch in space. It's also ironic that I'm pretty sure that was the only video that mentioned McQuarrie's influence on the design while obviously that topic interests me enough to make a thread partially about it. I think the arms on the toy is going to be hit-or-miss because I saw a picture of a plush with two arms sticking out but also another picture of a small toy that didn't have any.

 

Here's something I found on tumblr that points even more towards the Early Star Wars influence in Rebels.

In the first image, we see the resemblance of Kanan from Rebels with the concept art by McQuarrie for Deak Starkiller, forerunner to Luke Skywalker.

The second image shows the similarities between the Inquisitor figure and McQuarrie’s concept art for Darth Vader.

Pretty interesting all that.

 

Great stuff SabineFett thanks a lot for posting!! When a picture of that Kanan action figure was posted in the Rebels main discussion I posted that classic McQuarrie picture and pointed out the similarity, I neglected to post about it in this thread though. Now that thing with the Inquisitor's helmet is new to me. I scoured every source of McQuarrie art I could find looking for something like that because I had a feeling that helmet came from early Sith designs, but I never saw those pictures. Has anybody here ever seen those before? I wonder if Darth_Nub Lt.Cmdr.Thrawn or ATMachine is familiar with them.

 

I haven't seen them either. If anybody would have it would probably be ATMachine, I think he has a nice McQuarrie book.

 

I had not seen that drawing myself! That McQuarrie Vader helmet design is totally new to me. AFAIK it's not in any of the McQuarrie books I have.... which were taken primarily from Ralph's own collection of drawings. I know some of his work is now in private hands (for instance, I recall seeing elsewhere an unpublished sketch of Montross, Han Solo's sidekick from the ANH second draft), and that may be the case for this one as well. Or it could be buried somewhere in the Lucasfilm archives Disney Vault.

Or it could be that this was a design for another character which was ultimately not used. We know that McQuarrie did work on costumes for other Sith lords, before they were cut from the script, and Making of ROTJ has some heretofore unseen drawings of his concepts for the Imperial Royal Guard that are very Vaderesque, all in black robes with bottom-flaring helmets.

 

Well now I'm really intrigued. SabineFett could you possibly search your browser history for where you got these pics and contact the person who posted them? I'd really like to know where that apparently never-before-seen McQuarrie concept art came from.

 

I found the post, apparently they edited it since I was last there to add this to the bottom.

IMAGE CREDIT: Paul Bateman of RalphMcQuarrie.com

So, I guess that's where. They also listed Rebel Force Radio's site, but I think that's where they got the figure images, not the McQuarrie art.

 

SabineFett thanks a lot! I found Paul Bateman's email address and dropped him a line so hopefully we can get direct confirmation of that being McQuarrie's work and I also asked if it's ever been published before. If they're releasing "new" mid-70's McQuarrie concept art to show how Rebels is taking from it, who knows what else is coming our way!

 

SabineFett Lt.Cmdr.Thrawn ATMachine Darth_Nub Trebor Sabreon

BIG NEWS!!!

I actually got a response from Paul Bateman very promptly but neglected to post it because of all the chaos with TCW's The Lost Missions coming out.

For full context, my email to him:

And his response I got less than an hour after emailing him:

He called me that because the email I used to email him from is the one I made specifically for my JCF account so it has the same username.

I have to say, I don't think there's anything he could have said that would have been more exciting to hear than this! He confirmed that this picture:



...is really from Ralph McQuarrie's earliest work on The Star Wars. And from the sounds of it, it makes sense that no one here has seen it because it hasn't been widely published.

But the really exciting thing about his response is when he says "Ralph was extremely prolific and only a portion of his work has ever been published. He drew a whole bunch of Star Wars material that has never been seen publicly so don't be surprised if much more shows up." To me this opens the door to what I was hoping for in my previous post - that there could be even more essentially "new" mid-70's McQuarrie concept art on the way as Rebels continues to take more from it. Better than that, Paul says "much more" could come out.

 

Yet more McQuarrie influences could be seen in the various helmets, some of which Ezra will inevitably pilfer from the Imps.



This was going to be a snowtrooper for TESB. It was eventually repurposed into TCW's clone sandtrooper. The helmet design now comes full circle back to the McQuarrie-inspired Imperial military in Rebels.

 

Sorry for the double post, but here are some more McQuarrie helmet designs that caught my eye. These were originally intended to be considered for Boba Fett and one of the alternatives obviously did end up in TCW as Rako-Wan's helm. However, some of the mid-right designs look like they could be realised in Rebels, be they Imperial or otherwise. If the McQuarrie influence on Rebels is as strong as suggested, I suggest watching out for these.



Here's a refinement of the TESB snowtrooper design, where the similarities with TCW's flame troopers and snowtroopers are even more apparent...



... and a better picture of Ezra with Rebels' rendition of the sand/snow helmet:



I have a feeling that fans of plastic armour and sinister helmets will like Rebels' use of these.

On the Rebel/Alliance side of the conflict, we may see different variations on the standard pilot gear...



... and slightly stranger versions of the Rebel soldiers' dome-like helmets.



And a less obvious influence from McQuarrie is Sabine Wren's attire, which resembles that proposed for Luke Skywalker.

 

Great contribution to the thread QuangoFett thanks a lot!! I never looked at those helmets side-by-side before and to say the resemblance is striking would be a great understatement. They're practically identical! Thanks for the pictures, there are a couple interesting ones in there I don't think I've seen before too. You also have me more curious about what standard rebel attire is, if there even is such a thing IU at this point, and how much that will take from McQuarrie. (Maybe that will be something they put out "new" mid-70's McQuarrie concept art out for? ) But to be honest I'm really not seeing the influence of that conceptual Luke outfit and Satine.

Also thanks to Todd the Jedi for the latest official confirmation of McQuarrie influence in Rebels, this time from Dave Filoni himself. I was going to post that in here but you beat me to it!

 

For more speculation on what the Rebels' uniform helmets may look like - assuming that in the scope of this show they get organized enough to have some people with uniforms - based on old McQuarrie concept art:



I've seen this plenty of times before but never this large. When it's this big you can get a good look at how unique the helmet is.

 

Another Rebel in a face-concealing helmet? Before I saw that picture of the pilot with the Y-Wing (posted earlier), I never considered that any of McQuarrie's helmet designs were for Rebels rather than Imperials, Darth Vader or Boba Fett. Until the clone troopers, SW has generally kept its protagonists' faces visible. I would personally like to see more Rebels hiding their faces in Rebels, but it does buck the convention set by the films.

The Rebel helmet in the image you posted calls to mind the Imperial scout trooper (ROTJ) and Republic ARF (TCW), swamp and airborne troopers (ROTS). However, it's fairly distinct. The big visor makes the character seem more heroic than the Republic and Imperial troopers.

 

Here's a bigger shot of that Hoth concept art for comparison:

 

A lot of this page of this thread has already been dedicated to exploring how Kanan is looking very much like the character Kane Starkiller from the original 1974 The Star Wars draft, both in his physical appearance and what we can tell of the basics of what his role in the story will be like. (And then there's the name...) A little bit of recent news about the latter is out and I definitely think it reinforces this similarity.

It's looking like there is going to be a holo-recording of Obi-Wan Kenobi that Kanan has and Ezra finds and watches, and I think that basically no matter how it goes down, just the basic facts about it we know from the video/reports tell me that this is going to be yet another way in which Kanan is the few-decades-later incarnation of Kane Starkiller. There is some speculation that I am thinking/hoping is correct that it is the message Obi-Wan talked about sending out in Ep. III warning any surviving Jedi not to go back to the Republic because they have been betrayed. The other possibility I can think of which I would actually be greatly disappointed by, is that Kanan might be trying to contact Obi-Wan to see about getting Ezra better training than he could provide. Both of these would be very close parallels to what is going on with Kane Starkiller and main character Annikin Starkiller in the first The Star Wars draft. As the opening crawl sets it up:

http://starwarz.com/starkiller/the-star-wars-rough-draft/

As I believe I have already described above on this page of this thread, Kane Starkiller is more machine than man ( !!! ), and with the Jedi-Bendu nearly extinct, Kane Starkiller wants his son Annikin to become the Padawan Learner of General Luke Skywalker so that the Jedi-Bendu can survive and hopefully start a new generation since he feels he is no longer capable of doing it properly himself. This is obviously an exact parallel to the OT era we are now approaching in Rebels in which the Jedi Knights are "all but extinct," with Kanan in the role of one of the last teachers of his order's ways, just like Kane Starkiller. Now, if the holo-recording is Obi-Wan's message about Order 66, that will be a great symbol of how the status of the Jedi Knights in Rebels is exactly the same as the Jedi-Bendu in The Star Wars and drive home how similar the roles of Kanan and Kane Starkiller are. However, if Kanan is actually trying to reach Obi-Wan because he think he would be a much better Jedi mentor for Ezra, they won't just have similar roles, they will basically have identical roles.