BEHIND THE SCENES IMAGE: WAMPA IN THE WILDS!

Inside the huge Stuart Freeborn costume for the fearsome snow beast, the Wampa, Des Webb gets ready for filming opposite the dead Tauntaun carcass. Sadly, the majority of the creatures location scenes, filmed in totally inhospitable climes at Finse, Norway, were deemed unusable and re-filmed, replaced with a new ILM insert of the creature's face and also with new material shot towards the end of the film's Principal Photography, on a partial snow filled backlot at ELSTREE.

Life's hard when you're a Wampa!

To find out more about the making of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, check out our immensely detailed behind the scenes specials here: BACK ISSUE PDF CATALOG

WAMPA: SAVAGE BEASTS OF HOTH!

Our penultimate feature celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of EMPIRE can now be found on the main site, this time linked to the filming of the Wampa ice creature sequences.

Check out the rare photo feature here:

http://www.starwarsaficionado.com/the_wampa_beasts_of_hoth.html

And don't forget, for all other things behind the scenes related to the film, our two EMPIRE special issues (from 2005 and our current BEHIND THE SCENES COMPANION) are still available as PDFs from the main site's BACK ISSUES area.

With thanks to Chris Baker for the above image.

CLASSIC IMAGE: NICE VIEW UP THERE!!

A maskless Des Webb, wearing the entire Wampa body suit created for filming by Stuart Freeborn and his team, has a look about on a filming day outside the 1222 hotel and a Winter environment that is not yet encompassed by blizzards and dangerous white-outs. In the end, much of the outdoor footage linked to the beast was never used, either re-shot at the end of EMPIRE's studio shooting (at the ELSTREE backlot) or with additional material (like a new facial close-up from ILM near the end of 1979). Note the sled next to him that would often be used by the crew to transport him around whilst he was in the costume.

Look out on our main site for an upcoming photo feature on the Wampa and its missing EMPIRE scenes, accompanied by rare images not seen in the new MAKING OF book.