BTS The Jedi clothing / hairstyle thread

An addendum to my previous post:

It's been noted before, but I think it's worth a reminder that these two TPM action figures of Qui-Gon™ and Obi-Wan™ in "Jedi™ training gear"...



...seem to represent the two respective styles that the idea of black clothing for the TPM Jedi could have taken. On one hand, Qui-Gon wears black body armor as envisioned by Doug Chiang, whereas Obi-Wan wears black robes with minimal armor.

 

Ewan McGregor is chunky?

 

Sorry, I didn't phrase that well. I was referring to structural proportions relative to the other actors he shares a lot of screentime with, who tend to be long lanky types: Hayden Christensen, Liam Neeson, Christopher Lee (who definitely has a much more flattering costume as well), even Jimmy Smits. I didn't mean it as a slight.

 

I like the idea of Jedi dressing like the common man, but I never liked the robes.....too formal & haughty. I like Luke's outfit in ROTJ as a battle dress, but not as regular wear. The outfit he wore in ESB seems more appropriate for a new Jedi order.

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he didn't wear a jedi outfit in esb.

 

I think I mentioned earlier in the thread that the original idea for Jedi hairstyles in TPM was the inverse of what's in the final film. Obi-Wan would start out with long hair, denoting a Padawan, and then entirely shave his head (except for twin braids in front of his ears) on his ascension to full Knighthood at the end of the film.

This is actually one of the many, many costume ideas in TPM that George Lucas reused from Willow. In that film the female lead Sorsha, a fierce warrior woman, was originally going to start out with a full head of long hair, which her love interest Madmartigan complimented her on. However, at one point in the film when she was angry with Madmartigan, Sorsha would shave her head to spite him, leaving only a topknot of hair.

Sorsha's two hairstyles show up in concept drawings for Willow by the famed French artist Moebius.

The reason Lucas didn't use this idea in TPM was apparently that he didn't want to bother with having Ewan McGregor wear a wig for most of principal photography. So the short hair became a mark of Padawan status, instead of a full Jedi Knight.

(The loss of the haircut in Willow, on the other hand, seems to have occurred because Lucas deliberately made the film's final version much more family-friendly than it initially was--originally Sorsha was going to lose an eye in the finale, and Madmartigan a hand.)

 

In the final version of TPM (and of course the other prequels) Jedi Padawans wear short hair with a single long braid next to one ear. Numerous tie-in books state that this braid is ritually cut off with a lightsaber on the Padawan's ascension to full Knighthood status.

This seems to be another idea rescued from unused costume concepts for Willow. I mentioned in my last post that originally Sorsha was going to shave her head midway through the film, and leave only a topknot of hair in place. During a subsequent battle scene, an enemy soldier would cut off her topknot with his sword, leaving her completely bald.

The significance of the cutting of the single braid/topknot may actually be why the Padawan hairstyle, which originally featured two braids, has only one in the final films.

 

I said earlier in the thread that Madmartigan's hairstyle in Willow was the apparent source for the long ponytailed hair sported by Obi-Wan Kenobi in Doug Chiang's concept paintings for Episode I. In fact, the connection between Madmartigan's hair and that of the Jedi in the prequels runs even deeper.

In the original draft of Willow, it seems that Madmartigan had both his rear ponytail and one of his fore-braids severed in battle. The result is that in the film's finale, he would be seen with short hair, with a braid hanging forward over one ear. This is clearly the same hairstyle worn by the Padawans of the Star Wars prequels.



In fact, Madmartigan's hair in the finale of Willow as originally scripted (and thus the Padawans' hair in SW) is derived from Charlton Heston's appearance as young Moses in the 1956 film The Ten Commandments. As a slave in Egypt, Heston's Moses wears short hair with a braid over one ear. (Keeping with the Ten Commandments theme, Sorsha's costume in the finale of Willow was originally going to mirror that of Yul Brynner as Rameses, bare chest and everything.)



The tattooed forehead of Jedi Knights as envisioned by Iain McCaig in early Episode I concept art also apparently comes from Willow. The first draft of that film was much more violent than the final product, and at one point Madmartigan was to be branded on the forehead when he was captured by the villains' army. The symbol applied to him was going to be a black sun, the insignia of the evil queen Bavmorda--hence the name of the crime syndicate in Shadows of the Empire.



Besides making a reference to Toht and his hot poker in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the branding scene in Willow also alludes to something in The Lord of the Rings: people with magical sight, such as Elves like Legolas, can see a white flame which burns upon Aragorn's brow, a mark of his indomitable will and greatness of heart.

The stylistic influence of The Ten Commandments on the Jedi of SW appears to go back to the OT days: one of the earliest ideas put forth for the appearance of Yoda was that he should look like the white-bearded older version of Heston's Moses in that film.

 

Obi-Wan also has a ponytail in TPM. Just a small one. Short enough to stick straight out of the back of his head. I like how it's small enough to look ritualistic (silly, some would say) rather than cool/hippie.

 

Or, say, short enough to look as though somebody severed the rest of it?

 

Interesting; I never thought of it that way before. I always just thought that for a religious order which supposedly cares nothing for outward appearances, there must've been an awful lot of trouble taken over Padawans' hair cuts! Obi-Wan for example would have had to regularly cut his hair short, but leaving a small bit in the middle of the back of his head a little more than fingers'-length, to tie up.

 

Since the original idea in Willow was that Madmartigan would have a long ponytail that got cut off by an enemy sword, that's probably where the idea of the really short ponytail on Padawans comes from. Who cares for practical costuming when you can allude to your unused ideas for earlier films?

The early Madmartigan fared better than poor Sorsha, however, who ended up totally bald--which seems to have inspired the look of Asajj Ventress.

 

ATMachine the visual of paired braids, one over each ear, survived fairly late into TPM's production I think, until just before principal photography. You can see in the video of Ewan Mcgregor getting his haircut that they initially left the bits over both ears long.

 

Yeah, I recall seeing that. The paired-braids idea comes from the early concept-art featuring Obi-Wan drawn by Doug Chiang, who showed him with black hair, twin braids, and a topknot in back--again going back to Madmartigan's hairstyle in Willow.

 

I'd like to see some of those scrapped PT concepts for the ST. I'd forgotten how cool those black armored uniforms are.

I like that Jan Duursema hinted at some of those designs in Dawn of the Jedi.