Star Wars concept art

[Whofan]

One of the coolest aspect of the films for me has been the concept art. It shows a lot of 'what might have been' and-because Star Wars keeps expanding (and of course is revised) beyond the movies, several of the concept work makes it's way into other Star Wars media, as well as reissues of the films.

Here's a link to some of the work from I09:

http://io9.com/5568214/100%2B-amazing-pieces-of-star-wars-concept-art


Some examples/facts:

In the expanded Cloud City landing sequence in ESB's SE, several of the added objects such as the mining platform and the balloon were available only in concept art at that point.

Speaking of Cloud City, it started life as an Imperial prison facility where Leia would have been imprisoned in SW. However as the Death Star concept took shape, the floating city was left for ESB.

There is of course, Coruscant, which was partially based on ROTJ's Imperial home planet, Had Abbadon.

The "Air whales" seen on Kamino in AOTC were originally envisioned for Cloud City, then Tatooine, then Naboo.

The massive "Turbo Tank" seen on Kashykk in ROTS is based on an old Walker concept. Interestingly enough the Tank concept art was already used in the Expanded Universe, so reference books have it as a variant on the concept.

The shot of the diplomatic ship in TPM landing in the Federation hanger bay is straight out of ANH concept art, which had a ship which would eventually become the inspiration for both the Blockade Runner and the Millenium Falcon.


The Coruscant 'bus' seen at the end of ROTJ SE is actually based partially on early concepts for TPM's diplomatic ship as well.

The early RPG sourcebooks and the Zahn trilogy likewise borrowed from some concept art. The Victory-class Star Destroyers were based on concept art of the ANH destroyer; The Rebel gunships on early concept art for the Millenium Falcon/Blockade Runner (Which would also be used for the TPM diplomatic ship).

Finally, the Dathomir witches and Asajj Ventress from Clone Wars were based on Sith concepts for TPM and AOTC.

 

[captcalhoun]

the dathomir witches came way before TPM, didn't they?

 

[DimesDan]

the dathomir witches came way before TPM, didn't they?

Well yes and no, they appear in Truce at Bakura, published way back in 1994, but wasn't Lucas working on the PT back then, also, as they appeared in book form, we don't see them, so the look they used in Clone Wars could easily have been a concept when Phantom Menace was in pre-production.

Thanks for sharing whofan.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Truce of Bakura was published long before TPM was in production.

 

[sojourner]

Yeah, I think it shows how creatively bankrupt Lucas is. They keep re-using designs from the old ESB and ROTJ sketchbook's.

 

[Whofan]

Actually, the witches first show up in The Courtship of Princess Leia. Although Sian Phillips's witch character in the Battle For Endor Ewok movie was retroactively made into one, I believe in Kevin J. Anderson's illustrated Star Wars universe book, which used a ton of concept art.


Now that I think about it, I think it was the comics that first used the TPM concepts for a Sith witch for the Dathomirian nightsisters.


One of the more interesting stories about the concept art has been a piece of Royal Guard concept art. Basically, the design for ROTJ was going to have these really tall Royal Guards with weird headgear. The concept art was dropped in favor of the "Red guard" design we see in ROTJ and the prequels. However the design was adopted by Kenner, who wanted to use it for a new post-ROTJ toy line as a "Clone master". However that was dropped. The Royal guard concept art reappeared as the Imperial sentinel in Dark Empire, and that-ten years after it was first considered-was eventually made into toy form in Hasbro's first EU toy line (It has not, to my knowledge, reappeared in the EU two-packs, though).


A more thorough explanation can be found here under Behind the Scenes: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_sentinel


One that I missed BTW-The Z-95 headhunter, a fighter in the EU, is based on concept art for the X-wing.

 

[captcalhoun]

Yeah, I think it shows how creatively bankrupt Lucas is. They keep re-using designs from the old ESB and ROTJ sketchbook's.

don't see how it's 'creatively bankrupt', plenty of writers and artists reuse old ideas they didn't use before.

 

[sojourner]

It's like Lucas hasn't had a new concept artist since Ralph McQuarrie.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Could any of them compare to McQuarrie?