BTS SW Costumes: Concepts and Designs (Note: Image heavy, may contain Ep VII spoilers)

Sort of - that's the 'before' picture. Here they are in a decade's time:



Botox, collagen and eyelash impants - kids, JUST SAY NO. As for those shoulder implants that Kim obviously got, well...

 

On a lark, I was just flipping through my old Episode I Visual Dictionary. Lo and behold, the guide says that the glowing gems on the hem of Padmé's royal throne-room gown are called "illuminated sein jewels."

I nearly fell out of my chair. "Sein" is French for "breast." A sly reference to that Ralph McQuarrie drawing of Leia with Barsoomian adornments, no doubt.

 

Speaking of costume,s this is an interesting link on the main StarWars.com homepage: http://www.starwars.com/news/8-things-we-learned-from-star-wars-and-the-power-of-costume

The title of this exhibit is "Rebel, Jedi, Princess, Queen." While that could describe Luke, Anakin, Leia, and Padme respectively, it could also reflect Luke and Leia's respective journeys over the course of the OT. Except that Leia doesn't become a Queen in the SW films we know... (...maybe there are some SW films we don't know?)

Anyways, a couple of amusing details emerge: one being that the collar on Leia's Boussh costume in ROTJ was partly made from a dog collar. Insert your own joke about the Royal House of Alderaan being "a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor with the dogs" here.

Also: by ROTS, Lucasfilm had finally come up with technology to keep the actors playing Wookiees cool during filming. The solution? Wearing what amounts to a stillsuit from Dune under the hot Wookiee fur.

 

Nope:

Leia’s Boushh guise has a connection to canines. The metal studs on the back of the gloves were taken from a dog collar.

The title::

4. Collar accents appeal to bounty hunters.

was misleading.

 

Ah, thank you! Me fail reading comprehension? Unpossible!

 

I wonder if Luke's robes in TFA are supposed to be what the early Force-users wore before they split into the Jedi and Sith.

 

The August 1975 third draft describes thus the scene when the heroes break into Princess Leia's cell: "Suspended inside the cell by invisible rays, a bloody and mutilated Leia Organa hangs upside down. A strange yellow glow radiates from her eyes."

Given Lucas' love of James Bond, both filmic and literary, it's possible there's a Casino Royale reference here. In Fleming's novel, when Bond and Vesper Lynd are captured, Le Chiffre's men immobilize Vesper by lifting her skirt and tying it above her head, trapping her arms inside. This leaves her naked from the waist down (apparently there's no underwear in France). Bond thinks several times about Vesper's "indecent nakedness" as the two of them are carried off.

Much the same effect would be achieved with Leia hanging upside-down in midair: the force of gravity would pull her skirt down, leaving her as exposed as Vesper.

This scene also combines influences of The Exorcist -- where Regan stabs herself in the crotch with a crucifix, taking her own virginity -- and Dune Messiah, where Paul Atreides sees his sister Alia naked and is confronted with his own incestuous desires.

In the 1975 third draft, it's Han who first steps into Leia's cell, while Luke handles the guards outside. This feels like an error in writing craft: for the scene's symbolism to work, it ought to be Luke who makes the first entry into the cell. As indeed it is in the January 1976 fourth draft (which also introduced the Lash LaRue chasm swing, and Leia seeing the destruction of her homeworld).