CLASSIC ART: McQUARRIE'S DAGOBAH

Here's some intriguing ideas from the master STAR WARS visualist for a far more unusual and alien environment for Yoda (originally known as Minch Yoda in late 1978) on his sanctuary world of Dagobah. The little Jedi's hut/home would basically stay the same for its eventual on-screen appearance (if a little smaller), though I think its time THE CLONE WARS adapted the rest of the environment for one of its alien planet fall episodes-it would look great.

For even more definitive behind the scenes info on the making of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, find out how to get hold of our two popular volumes on the film here: STAR WARS AFICIONADO "EMPIRE" BEHIND THE SCENES COMPANION and here: STAR WARS AFICIONADO DOUBLE ISSUE 11/12-THE MAKING OF "THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK"

CLASSIC ART: FIRE IN THE SKY!

Here's a terrific and evocative piece of art by the late sci-fi talent John Berkey-a favourite illustrator of George Lucas- from sometime between 1976 and 77, showing Rebel X-wing fighters making their attack runs in, out and around the mighty planet killer, the Death Star, from the original STAR WARS. Sadly, this image from Berkey (whose other great film work would include art for KING KONG (1977) and SUPERMAN III (1983)), which was created as part of his commissioned work for the STAR WARS poster campaign, was not eventually used, though one other piece of character/action art (featuring the towering figure of Lord Vader with a defiant Luke, Leia and the droids underneath him) would make the grade as the iconic cover of the UK SPHERE BOOK edition of the movies adaptation in 1977. This Death Star battle art is yet another fine example of the incredible artistic work done for the saga over the last thirty-four years, and its stunning depiction remains indelibly iconic....

Check out more of Berkey's brilliant sci-fi work here:  John Berkey Image Gallery

CLASSIC ART: WHEN VILLAINS MEET!

Here's another great piece of Hildebrandt brothers art from SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE- a classic scene where the mighty Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, meets his new rival in the hunt for Luke Skywalker: the reptilian Prince Xizor of the galaxy spanning criminal empire, BLACK SUN.

BEHIND THE SCENES: AN EVOLVING JEDI...

Here's an early in-the-works piece of costume design art by Nilo-Rodis Jamero for Luke Skywalker from RETURN OF THE JEDI. The dark cloak he wears would remain and become iconic, but the majority of the front layer of the costume, which is very Obi-Wan like, would be replaced with a much darker, deliberately more Darth Vader'ish ensemble, on the instructions of George Lucas, by the time of the movies filming in London in January 1982.

Check out our comprehensive AFICIONADO Behind the Scenes making of RETURN OF THE JEDI special issue here: STAR WARS AFICIONADO ISSUE 14 - THE MAKING OF "RETURN OF THE JEDI" and here: PDF SAMPLES OF "STAR WARS AFICIONADO" FEATURE PAGES

CLASSIC ART: TOONAMI JEDI!

Here's a great piece of UK bus stop/terminal promotional art for the superb animated CLONE WARS series from 2005, shown on CARTOON NETWORK, and brought to life by Genndy Tartakovsky and his talented team of writers and animators.

Somebody PLEASE release this fantastic micro-series and its epic EPISODE III related sequel onto Blu-ray!

AHSOKA'S FATE?

The excellent artist Adriano Ticiano has sent us another splendid piece of work-this time a dark and disturbing image of what may possibly be Ahsoka Tano's future at the end of THE CLONE WARS animated series. I say possible, because only George Lucas and Dave Filoni really know what's going to happen with this popular character, who has become an inspiration to younger STAR WARS fans across the globe.

I personally don't want them to chicken out on what will happen with Ahsoka. When the series comes to its eventual conclusion, hopefully long past Season Five, she has to confront her former Master, Anakin Skywalker, now as Darth Vader.

CLASSIC ART: "AMAZING STORIES" - "RUNNING THE BELT"

Here's a terrific spaceship art cover for a very hard to get hold of issue of the US published AMAZING STORIES sci-fi anthology tales magazine, issue no 597 (Summer 1999), which featured a special one-off STAR WARS story- RUNNING THE BELT- from EPISODE II adaptor/NEW JEDI ORDER devised writer R.A. Salvatore (who is also interviewed in its pages), and concerning the Solo children in a coming of age story. As well as STAR WARS being a major selling point, its probably even harder to get hold of because of the also unique BABYLON 5 after-series tale specially written for the magazine by it's creator, J. Michael Straczynski.

If anyone has the cover art as a better quality scan could they please send it through so I can update the Blog.

CLASSIC ART: A LEGEND RETURNS...

I love this super artwork by the late, great John Alvin that was used for in-store/magazine promotions in America and Australia for the unaltered Classic Trilogy's "one last time" final release on VHS tape circa 1995 (Alvin did the VHS tape sleeve art for the individual films that year, too), before the onslaught of the love 'em or hate 'em SPECIAL EDITIONS in 1997. If anyone has this image in better res quality, please send it through so I can re-post.

I wish LUCASFILM would release this terrific image as an official poster. It'd make a great Blu-ray sleeve cover for EPISODE IV!

CLASSIC ART: TINY WISDOM!

Here's a fun b/w late 1978 or early 1979 storyboard, possibly by the respected UK artist Ivor Beddoes during the time he worked on storyboarding for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK at ELSTREE with the late director Irvin Kershner, showing a wide-eyed and innocent, dreaming of adventure and excitement Luke Skywalker conferring with an early version of Yoda within his hut home on Dagobah.

With thanks to Ian Trussler for the image.

CLASSIC ART: DARTH VADER STRIKES BACK!

Here's a revised commercial art version of Lawrence Noble's great work for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, of which a prior version had been originally considered as a theatrical release poster for the 1980 cinema engagements, and then finally put out as an official poster for EMPIRE's Tenth Anniversary in 1990. This new art version has substantially changed imagery at the bottom of it, including Rebel Snowspeeders and Imperial Walkers.

If you're in the UK, celebrate Darth Vader's epic return to fight the Rebels by catching the HD screening of the much beloved film this Saturday afternoon on ITV1.

CLASSIC ART: A DIFFERENT KIND OF JEDI...

An intriguing image by Doug Chiang showing his idea for the Jedi Knights of the Old Republic (this is presumably Obi-Wan with the Battle Droids) rendered probably sometime between 1996 and 1997 (note the braids idea which would be tried on Ewan McGregor as seen in THE BEGINNING documentary, before only one was decided on, and at a shorter length), before the attired look was eventually pinned down to resemble Sir Alec Guinness's Obi costume from the first STAR WARS movie in 1977. During that period, Chiang's early design for the Jedi would also make its way into several of his pre-production conceptual paintings for EPISODE I.

CLASSIC ART: ESCAPING IMPERIAL ENTANGLEMENTS!

Getting the New Year off to a bang, here's a wonderful space battle image from the finale of 1995's Steve Perry written STAR WARS adventure SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE, where our Rebel heroes in the Millennium Falcon, accompanied by Dash Rendar, try to escape Coruscant and the clutches of Prince Xizor and Darth Vader in this amazing art from the esteemed Hildebrandt brothers- commissioned for the TOPPS card series released that same year.

Click the pic to see the image in its full widescreen glory.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

SEASONS GREETINGS!

Yoda at Xmas. Lovely art by Tsuneo Sanda.

A very Happy Xmas and a prosperous New Year to all our readers and to STAR WARS fans across the globe. 2011 looks set to be an exciting year, what with Seasons 3 and 4 of THE CLONE WARS, the awesome terror to come of Savage Opress, some intriguing new merchandise projects, especially tantalising new behind the scenes books and, of course, those shiny Blu-rays of all six films!!

Bring it on!

With thanks to our friend Andy Dukes for forwarding this little STAR WARS related Xmas ditty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMmaO6MzK4E&feature=player_embedded

CLASSIC ART: MORNING PATROL!

On an unknown alien swamp world, a squad of Clone Troopers begin their morning patrol in this intriguing pre-production conceptual art for what was planned as a major sequence of EPISODE III showing what was going on with the epic Clone Wars across a dozen or so worlds-both familiar and new.

With thanks to Chris Baker for the image.

CLASSIC ART: TO SEDUCE A PRINCESS!

The evil head of the Black Sun criminal organisation, the reptilian Prince Xizor, prepares to use his natural pheromones to make Princess Leia (wearing her Boushh bounty hunter disguise) his next conquest, in this scene from the movie that sadly never was: SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE. This great art for the LUCASFILM marketing and merchandise campaign, created to test and generate fan interest for the soon to be re-released Classic Trilogy SPECIAL EDITION movies in 1997, was one of many pieces done in TOPPS card form back in 1995/6 by the esteemed Hildebrandt Brothers.

We've got THE CLONE WARS series and its great. Now, c'mon Mister Filoni and the gang, make SHADOWS an animated reality!

HOW TO KILL A COMIC FRANCHISE THE MARVEL WAY!

This is a classic image showing the later issue look of the post-RETURN OF THE JEDI characters in the monthly STAR WARS comic book then being produced by MARVEL COMICS. I like the image a lot-finally a Jedi, Luke's stance is great and its all nicely composed with friends and enemies old and new. The thing that makes me laugh, though, is that this magazine was a MARVEL COMICS news magazine which was proudly proclaiming the future of STAR WARS in its monthly series, and yet it wasn't long before they actually axed the title (in 1986, with its 107th issue), and the writers and artists working on it were forced to truncate their then current epic storyline (featuring a new regular enemy, the Nagai) into one wrap-up finale issue (which was very disappointing for everyone!). MARVEL cited its reason for the comics culling as being due to lowering readership since the end of the films and the limbo between sagas. And yet, from behind the scenes sources who worked on the title at the time, their consensus to STAR WARS fans was that the comic was actually still garnering consistent figures that were higher than some of MARVEL's very own created titles, which weren't being axed! Talk about one hand at MARVEL not knowing what the other was doing! Go figure!

It may have been a while later, but, with the superb DARK EMPIRE story re-launching STAR WARS as a viable comics franchise, MARVEL's loss was ultimately DARK HORSE's gain!

CLASSIC IMAGE: A PRINCESS AND A SCOUNDREL!

An early version of Roger Kastel's 1979/80 art for the homage GONE WITH THE WIND style poster of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Its a wonderful, timeless piece, and works beautifully in summing up the more sophisticated nature of the first STAR WARS sequel within its black and white reproduction.

CLASSIC ART - "STAR WARS" : FRENCH STYLE!

This is a nice piece of MARVEL related STAR WARS art, for a French comic imprint which, I'm assuming, was from the time of RETURN OF THE JEDI (the Luke image looks like its from JEDI, whilst Leia is from STAR WARS). With the Stormtroopers at the bottom of the image, it looks like they either copied or transplanted from the Al Williamson/Carlos Garzon art used for the 1980 EMPIRE adaptation.

I don't know who the overall artists for this piece were, but if anyone can help with more info or other covers that the TITANS magazine had to STAR WARS, please get in touch.

Here's a few more French covers (any more information on them would be most welcome):

The French JEDI adaptation from 1983

One of the earliest TITANS STAR WARS covers from 1978

Obi-Wan vs Vader, with Threepio an unwilling observer!

Carmine Infantino and Gene Day's original MARVEL US comic cover artwork gets a bit of a make over from an unknown artist for the inside DOOMWORLD strip, in which Luke and the droids are trapped on a water world.

A MARVEL UK STAR WARS WEEKLY comic cover gets a make-over for the French comic compilation for STAR WARS in 1978

Its always fascinates me the way each country that has STAR WARS related books, merchandise, etc, all have different interpretations to one another in the way they promote and represent the films and their characters, and not always in regard to the way they look in the films.