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

Heads up, guys: according to this SW.com blog post, JW Rinzler has written another OT book, due for release on October 28, this time about the costumes of the OT. It's called (no prizes for guessing the title) Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy.

It should include not just photographs of the surviving costumes in the Lucasfilm Archives, but pictures of the original costume concept art as well. And Rinzler has apparently interviewed all three of the principal costume designers for the OT: John Mollo, Aggie Guerard Rodgers, and Nilo Rodis-Jamero.

There's another book added to my "must check out" list.

 

Trawling the official SW blog for behind-the-scenes info, I found some interesting concept art that is relevant to this thread. Some of it was posted quite a while ago, but it's new to me, so I'm mentioning it here.

In Lucas's early scripts for ROTJ, there were various "Imperial trackers" on Endor whom Leia had to avoid. Joe Johnston drew up a costume design for the "trackers," seen below.



As JW Rinzler notes, these "trackers" are obviously a re-working of the "trappers" on Yavin in the 1974 rough draft, who attack (and, by implication, rape) Leia Aquilae.

Rinzler says of the rough draft's "trappers": "I don’t want to say what havoc they cause, but it isn’t pretty." So clearly he's well aware of the underlying sexual-assault subtext of that particular scene in the rough draft. But the powers that be at Lucasfilm probably don't want him talking about it--after all, today's Star Wars has to maintain its family-friendly status.

Moving on to some Ralph McQuarrie art: the digital edition of The Making of Star Wars revealed a previously unseen color concept by McQuarrie for a scene in the second draft of The Star Wars. Having been thrown out of a crashed lifepod, Luke Starkiller hangs unconscious in a tree on Yavin, as a nasty alien bug crawls on him.



However, what I didn't know until now is that McQuarrie also drew a black-and-white line drawing for the figures in this scene. In the line drawing, he changed Luke Starkiller into the female Luke character who briefly emerged between the second and third drafts of the script.



Check out this SW.com blog post for a few other Ralph McQuarrie drawings.

Lastly, this other blog post reveals that the original idea for the injury to Luke's mechanical hand in ROTJ was much more extreme. It apparently involved serious damage to the palm of his hand--as opposed to the more minor wound on the back of his hand in the final film.

Here's a prop hand with that injury, which ultimately went unused:



And here's ROTJ production designer Norman Reynolds' concept art for that prop hand:



In the final film, the effect for Luke's damaged hand was accomplished with a bit of makeup on Mark Hamill's real hand instead.

 

So press copies of the new book on the OT costumes (Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy) are starting to hit, and as a result we're starting to get a peek at the pictures inside.

Apparently there's a significant number of new concept art pieces included. Take a look at this previously unseen drawing of Slave Leia by Nilo Rodis-Jamero, for instance:



Leia's outfit here is blue and gold. In later drawings it became red and gold, and the final costume featured a purplish loincloth.

Most striking, though, are her large golden hair ornaments. They remind me very strongly of the German Symbolist painter Franz von Stuck's depiction of Salome dancing before Herod, or even more aptly, his painting of Judith about to behead Holofernes. Both women in Stuck's painting wear similar ornaments about their ears.

The legend of Judith (a Jewish heroine from the Catholic version of the Old Testament) says that when the invading general Holofernes came with his army to conquer Jerusalem, she took it upon herself to save her people. So she seduced Holofernes and slept with him. After they had had sex, Holofernes remained asleep, but Judith took his sword and cut off his head, bringing it back to the Israelites as a trophy.

So yeah, here's even more confirmation, if it were needed, of the disturbing sexual undertones of the whole Slave Leia subplot.

 

Most likely yes.

G.Lucas also took advice from his former buddy G.Kurtz, who once said that the princess should always end undressed...

When you look at C. Fisher back in those days, you understand why.

 

Meh on that.

Alternatively, how about the hero should always be undressed (anakinfansince1983 and others).

 

Ah, a fan of silent movies and muscle flexing, eh? @anakinfansince1989.

Now, if we'd only get a bit less covered up Obi-Wan, after all, fair is fair, isn't it?

 

So yesterday I finally received my copy of Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy. Lots of interesting information in there, although my chief complaint is there's not enough focus on the concept art behind the costumes.

Some stuff I learned from this book:

On SW 1977, John Mollo originally proposed putting Leia in something more revealing than the white Madonna dress--in fact, he described his idea as rather "Tarzan-like." (Maureen O'Sullivan?) Lucas didn't go for it. In fact, GL also shot down Mollo's suggestion of cutting the neckline of her dress low enough to see cleavage, so instead Carrie Fisher ended up with a turtleneck collar.

John Mollo also confirms that he originally intended Ben Kenobi's costume to be that of a Tatooine hermit, and not at all the uniform of a Jedi Knight. However, this seems to have changed as early as ESB, because Mollo also says that he wanted Yoda's costume to be a more ragged version of Ben's outfit.

Incidentally, Ben Kenobi's "turtleneck" shirt is actually a Russian peasant shirt, with fastenings down one side of the collar.

Luke's SW 1977 costume was originally meant to include a long desert cloak like Ben Kenobi's. However, by the time shooting began, this had been replaced with a poncho, which is only occasionally seen in the final film.

For ROTJ, Nilo Rodis-Jamero tried to incorporate religious symbolism into the colors of the various costumes. His initial design for Luke's outer cloak, worn over a new black outfit, was also black with red highlights, which Lucas rejected after he tried to explain some of the intended symbolism. Lucas also apparently was dissatisfied with Rodis-Jamero's designs for the Emperor's entourage, asking him: "Nilo, what have you got against the Catholic Church?" (Rodis-Jamero is from the Philippines, where Catholicism is the main religion, so it's not surprising that his religious references take Catholic forms. It might have been a bit too much for a Methodist born in 1940s Modesto, however.)

Rodis-Jamero also notes that his designs for Leia's slave outfit were meant to leave her "almost bare naked," as an implicit contrast to her sack-like Madonna dress in the first film. The book also reiterates something I've heard before, namely that Richard Marquand was the driving force in the creative process who pushed for putting Leia into a slave costume. (For what it's worth, Carrie Fisher seems to have disliked Marquand immensely.)

Among the concept art of Slave Leia included in the book is the early drawing previously seen on the Blu-ray release, where Rodis-Jamero initially proposed putting Leia in a transparent mesh bikini top--leaving even less to the imagination than in the actual film.

(Rodis-Jamero recalls that Lucas was hesitant about the whole Slave Leia idea, mainly because he thought he'd never convince Fisher to wear the outfit. But Rodis-Jamero joined Marquand in advocating for the idea, and the rest is history.)

Also, Rodis-Jamero and Aggie Guerard Rogers wanted to give Han Solo a distinctive new costume for ROTJ. They proposed a dark green or a light blue shirt, along with a dark blue vest. Harrison Ford vetoed all of these ideas, and opted to wear essentially what he had worn in the previous films. Ford also rejected a pocket-less brown vest which had been intended for Han Solo to wear in the final celebration scene on Endor. (Frankly, I can see why--it looks kind of silly, judging from the picture of it in the book.)

Oh, there's also an interesting note on the costume of the original ESB Emperor hologram (which was worn by Elaine Baker, then-wife of makeup artist Rick Baker, along with heavy prosthetics). Two robes were produced, one in navy blue and one in white. The dark blue robe was used on screen and the white one served as an underlayer. But apparently the white robe was also considered as a possibility for the principal outer layer of the Emperor's cloak. (Years later, on TPM, the concept artists would return to this idea, depicting both Darth Maul and Darth Sidious in white robes.)

 

Thinking about it, the most distinctive element of Tarzan's costume is his loincloth. And of course it was fairly standard both in Robert E. Howard's Conan stories and in Flash Gordon-style space opera to put the heroine in a revealing outfit with a silken loincloth and jeweled breastplates. So perhaps John Mollo, in suggesting a "Tarzan-type" costume for Leia, actually proposed having Princess Leia's normal outfit be essentially the Slave Leia costume, two movies early.

In a similar vein, take a look at this drawing of Leia's white costume by Mollo. In addition to the main drawing of the Princess (which shows two possible necklines, one a turtleneck and another with a much lower cut), there's a different version of her dress in the upper right corner. That version would have left Leia with a bare midriff and exposed shoulders. Lucas was adamant that Leia's outfit would be conservative, however, so that idea never made it off the drawing pad.



For the curious, the costume shown at left is Mollo's version of a design for Leia's costume by Ralph McQuarrie, which involved a form-fitting leotard adorned with small metal greeblies.

McQuarrie also proposed a similarly prop-laden outfit for Luke that likewise went unused. Here's another drawing by Mollo which shows it off.

 

If there's any one element of the Saga I absolutely cannot convince myself to like or understand (and don't really want to), it's the slave costume. I feel pretty vindicated that Lucas was not the originator of the idea. And VERY glad that Leia did not wear anything that hinted of pandering to fanboys in ANH or ESB.

I have a thing for men's hands, and to this day I'm terribly disappointed that we never got to see so much as his wrists, not even when hanging by his hands from a flying assassin droid! I understand it was probably a deliberate artistic decision to have his undertunic sleeves so long and so primly demure, and that Obi-Wan's supposed to be a near-asexual character and all (like that worked, ha!), and personally I'd never, ever want to see him topless or even in an undershirt like Anakin -- but still, a little more than the glimpses of his collarbone in TPM would've made things more gender-equal, I think

 

It's worth noting that Mollo's idea of a "Tarzan-type" costume for Leia seems to have been proposed as one of two alternatives, the other being a "mock-medieval" dress. Given the Madonna overtones of the white outfit, the medieval aspect definitely carried over into Leia's costume in the final film. Also of course this is true of her hair buns, which come from medieval hairstyles by way of Queen Fria in Flash Gordon.

On a tangentially related note, the new Costumes book made me realize just how wildly Nilo Rodis-Jamero's drawings of Leia vary in depicting her facial features. In most of Rodis-Jamero's drawings of Slave Leia, she has black hair; in a drawing of Leia's Endor dress, she has brown hair and blue eyes (instead of Carrie Fisher's very definite brown eyes); and in his drawing of Leia as Boussh (shown for the first time in the new book), she's even shown as a blonde.

Rodis-Jamero's drawings of Luke and Han, though, don't vary nearly as much, being usually pretty good likenesses of Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. Yet his Leia changes from drawing to drawing, seemingly depending on what suits the color scheme of the costume she's currently wearing. That probably says something about the relative importance attached to male and female characters in Hollywood filmmaking.

 

Much as I do like the slave costume (for purely shameless reasons), it does smack of being a cynical attempt at trying to inject a bit more sex appeal into the series - but to put it in context, it was inspired by the Heavy Metal-style artwork that was a part of the fantasy revival of the 1970s, rather than being something completely out of the blue.

 

Funny you should mention that. According to quotes in the Making of ROTJ, Richard Marquand very much disliked the costumes seen in ESB. In particular he singled out Leia's dress on Bespin as being very unflattering. So it seems Marquand was definitely of the opinion that SW could use some "sexing up."

Marquand's distaste for the previous films' costumes in fact led to John Mollo not being brought back for ROTJ, which is why Nilo Rodis-Jamero and Aggie Guerard Rogers took over costume design duties.

 

And people wonder why Lucas directed all three PT films.

 

Speaking of the PT: Padme's outfit that she wears at the Lars homestead in AOTC bears a reasonable resemblance to the midriff-baring outfit which John Mollo originally proposed for Leia back on SW 1977.

 

In this article on the official SW.com site, Brandon Alinger (author of the OT Costumes book) shares a few excerpts from his interviews with John Mollo.

Here Mollo says that, at Lucas's suggestion, his costumes were designed to be color-coded, so that the good guys wore "organic" colors in earth tones, while the bad guys wore more "technological" colors in black and gray. There are exceptions to the association of evil with technology, however. Mollo notes that, while Luke's SW 1977 outfit is actually a light tan, Leia's dress is stark white, marking her as part of the technological world as well.

Mollo also confirms that Lucas initially considered having C-3PO be chrome-colored, "like the robots in THX 1138," but ultimately decided to associate him visually (as the more "human" of the droids) with the earth colors of the good guys. In fact, Lucas's 1974 rough draft does describe C-3PO as chrome in color, but his later drafts switched to describing Threepio as bronze.

 

Also of note: John Mollo describes Luke's outfit in SW 1977 as being intended to convey a "Saxon" quality. In other words, it portrays Luke as a humble peasant or farmer, like the medieval English peasantry in the legends of Robin Hood or Ivanhoe. Of course, those legends also depict the down-to-earth Saxons as being oppressed by the ruling Normans, who are typically presented as an alien French elite. One can easily make a parallel here with the Empire.

As typically depicted in films and illustrations, the costumes of Saxon English peasants are quite similar to Luke's farmboy outfit: a long-sleeved tunic and close-fitting trousers, often combined with stockings or puttees. However, per George Lucas's suggestion, Luke's shirt is Japanese in style instead of Western.

 

Which explains why TC-14 was chrome in TPM, as was the Protocol Droid on Cloud City that exited the room where the Imperials were hiding.

 

I mentioned earlier that some of Nilo Rodis-Jamero's ROTJ costume drawings show Leia with unusual hair colors--so that she has either black hair, or blonde hair and blue eyes. In fact, practically all of these anomalous drawings are for Leia's various costumes in the opening Tatooine segment of the film.

Virtually all of Rodis-Jamero's drawings of Leia in the slave costume give her black hair. Meanwhile, one of his drawings of Leia as Boushh, and another featuring her desert cloak from the deleted sandstorm scene, show Leia as a blonde. On the other hand, all of Rodis-Jamero's concept art for Leia on Endor gives her Carrie Fisher's brown hair.

This suggests (to me at least) that Rodis-Jamero was working from his own pre-existing ideas, and not really with Fisher in mind, when it came to the Slave Leia costume (as well as her other outfits worn around Jabba's palace). However, for the more conservative outfits Leia wears on Endor--which better fit with the costumes from the first two SW films--it seems he had no trouble keeping Fisher in his mind's eye.

It's also worth noting that the various costume designs which Rodis-Jamero did for Slave Leia actually run quite a gamut in terms of the degree of exposed flesh. The drawing below, for instance, gives Leia pants, making for a considerably more conservative style than ended up on screen:



However, another version not only incorporated the loincloth of the final design, it also left Leia barefoot, whereas in the actual film she has suede boots.



And, as I noted earlier in the thread, the early costume concept seen in the Costumes book (as well as on the Blu-ray) went even further. It featured a transparent black-mesh bikini top, like on Oola's costume, and a short lower loincloth with front and rear panels made of gold coins woven together.



Essentially, like the central panel on this belly dancer's belt.

It's obvious why that version was rejected--in the concept art, Leia's nipples are plainly visible beneath the mesh. Instead the fishnet top got transferred to Oola. With similar results, as can clearly be seen when Oola falls into the rancor pit, even in the 2011 SE.

Notably, it seems that George Lucas must have almost immediately told Rodis-Jamero to tone his early ideas for Slave Leia down somewhat--on that same drawing is a handwritten note, indicating a switch to using a "solid breast plate" in future concepts.

 

Here's John Mollo's take on Imperial prisoner garb, to be seen on the Death Star (or the prison complex of Alderaan, in earlier drafts) in SW 1977.



The glasses worn by the prisoner in this sketch (the figure on the right) are probably an in-joke on Mollo's part, a reference to Dustin Hoffman's character in the 1973 film Papillon.

The other aspects of the prisoner wardrobe as Mollo draws it here--namely, the light-colored full-body jumpsuit and shaved head--appear to refer back to THX 1138. Fortunately for Carrie Fisher's hair, this costume concept was never applied to Leia.

Lucas did, however, consider featuring some sort of Imperial prison garb in the film. In a January 1976 interview with Gary Kurtz, Lucas discussed a story idea where Luke and Han would be captured by Darth Vader and briefly imprisoned themselves, only to be freed promptly by Ben Kenobi. When Kurtz asked him whether Luke and Han would be wearing prison uniforms, Lucas said, "No. I thought about that. I decided we won't do it. They don't stay in there long enough." (Of course, Leia, who is a prisoner for a much longer chunk of screen time, never gets such an outfit either.)

 

Given that the 1974 SW rough-draft script implies that Princess Leia is running around bare-breasted during the third act, I wonder whether, when John Mollo considered dressing Leia in a "Tarzan-like" outfit, he didn't mean exactly that. So Leia would be wearing a loincloth only, after the fashion of the heroines in the pulp SF novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Leigh Brackett.

If so, it wouldn't be the only costuming idea from Lucas's rough draft which Mollo knew about. Mollo was definitely aware, for instance, of Lucas's original idea to have C-3PO be chrome-colored--a description that had already disappeared by the second-draft script of January 1975, written almost a full year before Mollo came on board the project in December '75.

In the same vein, Mollo drew a costume concept for Jabba the Hutt, who was a minor character in the third draft, even though Jabba's presence on screen was eliminated in the January 1976 fourth draft.



Mollo's Jabba is humanoid, but with a third eye in his forehead, something which would presumably be applied via makeup.

Mollo also drew concept art of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the garb of a Tatooine peasant: a practical outfit much like Luke's own costume, and in marked contrast to the long robes Alec Guinness wears on screen.



A handwritten note by Mollo on this drawing indicates that he should instead dress Obi-Wan in a samurai kimono. This seems to have been Lucas's idea, as Ralph McQuarrie's costume design notes also mention putting Ben in a Japanese kimono. Mollo's costume for Obi-Wan in the final film dutifully complied with this dictum.

All of Lucas's early SW scripts describe the Jedi as wearing robes, so it's not really surprising that Ben Kenobi's outfit in the finished film would ultimately become the uniform of the Jedi.

 

I recall hearing previously that GL did have a basic outline for the overall arc of the prequels--the exact length is probably as Nub describes it. Unfortunately, I can't remember the source off the top of my head. What I do vaguely remember is that, apparently, the vast majority of the outline was concerned with the plot elements that went into ROTS, the other two prequels being largely padding to fill out the much-anticipated "Prequel Trilogy."

I also agree with Nub's rather critical take on Dale Pollock's comments. Pollock may well have seen some (undoubtedly very brief) notes for a previous iteration of the ST. However, it's clear that even when he wrote his book back in the 1980s, his recollection of what he had read in Lucas's notes was hopelessly jumbled. I doubt we can take any of his comments at face value.

To illustrate: I remember that when Episode I came out and Jar Jar Binks became controversial, Pollock waded into that debate, too--he said something to the effect that Jar Jar had been part of George's notes from the get-go. In fact, Pollock seems to have remembered the character of "Bink" from the July 1974 revised rough draft, who was actually protagonist Justin Valor's younger brother. (A much closer analogue to the Jar Jar of TPM would the rough draft's Han Solo, a green-skinned swamp monster; however, the alien Han of 1974 has no trace of cowardice or clumsiness, and speaks perfect English.)

---

Correction to my earlier post: I stated earlier that John Mollo appears to have known about the initial chrome design for C-3PO. In fact, the quote in the article in question was actually said by George Lucas.

Trawling the web for more SW 1977 costume designs by John Mollo, I stumbled upon these sketches for Princess Leia's iconic white outfit:





In both of these drawings, which are clearly connected, Mollo has repeatedly drawn Leia's outfit as a two-layer ensemble. The outer layer is a full-length robe--sometimes sleeved, sometimes sleeveless--to which her hood is attached. The inner layer features a turtleneck shirt with wide billowing sleeves.

In fact, Mollo's pen strokes appear to indicate that the sleeves of Leia's shirt are transparent, and made of some sheer pleated fabric.

Now compare these designs to this drawing:



The two above sketches shed new light on what this particular drawing actually depicts. Again Mollo has drawn Leia's outfit as a two-layer ensemble, with an outer V-necked robe over an inner layer with a turtleneck shirt. Moreover, the sketch in the upper right corner of this drawing shows the shirt Leia wears beneath the robe.

In this particular sketch, Mollo has upped the sexiness factor: Leia's whole shirt is made of that transparent pleated fabric. Not to mention the bare midriff--and a flared Ming the Merciless collar at the neck, just for good measure.

This brings up the question of the "Tarzan-like" outfit Mollo initially proposed for Leia. Judging by how far the above drawing goes, his initial concept may have been even bolder: quite likely a long, all-encompassing white hooded cloak, beneath which Leia would wear little more than a loincloth and sandals, Dejah Thoris style.

That of course harks back to Leia Aquilae's costume in the 1974 rough draft, which by all indications starts out quite nunnish but ends up in Liberty Leading the People territory. Presumably Mollo intended for Leia to lose her cloak somewhere along the way. Lucas, on the other hand, had by this point decided that his space-fantasy film was to be strictly for all ages.

(Incidentally, a major female character in Leigh Brackett's The Secret of Sinharat wears pretty much exactly the cloak-and-loincloth outfit I've described here. Of course, all of Brackett's Martian women are quite scantily dressed--it's been said she was more barbarian-minded than some editors of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories.)

A less revealing but equally pulpy concept for Leia's wardrobe is visible as a light sketch in this other Mollo drawing:



Between the two full-figure drawings of Leia (again with transparent sleeves), Mollo has sketched the outline of a low-cut dress with metal breastplates riveted on. Presumably it'd be rather like the woman's outfit seen on this vintage Planet Stories cover:



Ralph McQuarrie's drawings of Leia, on the other hand, show a simple full-body white gown, with no transparency of any sort. This is the look that ended up in the finished film.



But enough about Leia. Let's talk helmets.

The new Costumes book quotes Ralph McQuarrie as mentioning that he actually intended to have two different varieties of Stormtrooper helmets. One type would be used for the rank-and-file, the other for the Stormtrooper officers. The ordinary soldiers would have "more symmetrical" helmets with silver crowns. The officers' helmets, on the other hand, would greatly resemble a skull. In the end, the concept of two different trooper helmets was dropped, presumably for budget reasons.



The third helmet on the right in this McQuarrie sketch appears to be an ordinary Stormtrooper's helmet, with a silver dome, while the two at left are most likely officers' helmets.

Additionally, one of the things John Mollo proposed as a modification to Ralph McQuarrie's Vader design was the addition of small horns to the sides of his helmet. This was presumably inspired by the kabuto of Japanese samurai, which frequently had horns attached.



Back when the other Sith Lords were still present in the third-draft script, Mollo intended this detail to carry over to their helmets as well, which greatly resembled Vader's. (Check out the figure on the right in the image below.)



Vader's horned helmet as envisioned by Mollo even made it into Ivor Beddoes' storyboards of his duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi aboard the Death Star.

 

If you look closely at this famous painting by Ralph McQuarrie, you can make out that the lead stormtrooper (with the lightsaber) has a different helmet design than the troopers in the rear (carrying shields). The officer's helmet has indents on its sides which resemble the brow ridge of a human skull, while the rank-and-file soldiers have chrome crowns to their helmets.

 

Ord-Mantell70, many thanks for clarifying the sources of GL's comments--it's good to have some concrete facts in this matter, rather than relying merely on my own vague memories.

A bit more on the costume design ideas I mentioned above:

Here, from the 1978 book The Art of Star Wars, are some additional sketches by John Mollo for Leia's white dress.



The design seen at lower left continues the motif of pleated transparent sleeves. The drawing in the middle extends this motif to the torso, creating a triangular, transparent midriff panel.

The rightmost design is a variant on the V-necked outer robe of the two-layer costume which Leia wears in other Mollo sketches. Here, though, no undershirt is visible beneath it.

(Judging from his other sketches, it's possible that Mollo originally intended this latter design as an outer layer to cover up the "Tarzan-like" garments he initially proposed. In that case, Mollo likely meant for Leia to lose her outer cloak once in captivity aboard the Death Star--after the manner of the clothing damage Leia Aquilae suffers as a prisoner in the 1974 rough draft.)

Also, from the same book, here's an original Ralph McQuarrie sketch of Darth Vader's helmet, the very same one which John Mollo later photocopied and sketched horns on.



Unusually, in this design McQuarrie has omitted all ridges on the crown of the helmet, which are a recurring feature in his other illustrations of Vader. However, Mollo's revisions to the sketch added such a ridge back in.