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

CLASSIC IMAGE: A SMUGGLER'S SEARCH

From his vantage point astride a Tauntaun, things don't look too good for Han Solo in the search for his missing friend Luke Skywalker, somewhere trapped in the deadly snowy wastelands of the ice planet of Hoth, in this classic scene from THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

CLASSIC IMAGE: SNOW RAGE!

Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) braves the outside sub-zero temperatures of the icy planet Hoth and barks out his dissent to the nearby Imperial Probe Droid, for a scene filmed by Irvin Kershner and his EMPIRE first unit crew on location at Finse, Norway in March 1979.

OOPS!! CLASSIC SCENE: REBEL RETREAT!

Here's a great shot-a classic moment- of the Rebels retreating from the Hoth battlefield whilst General Veers lead AT-AT Walker is about to destroy the power generators. This is a clever image but it also shows a mistake. The mistake is that the Rebels look like they are running away from the battle, and the Walker, but they are not running away. Look carefully, and, despite the rear explosion near a troopers leg, you'll see that they are running forward into battle- you can see the gun emplacements and some still dug in Rebels pointing their weapons the other way. Obviously, Lucas, Editor Paul Hirsch and ILM got hold of a live action plate and added the Walker behind it, extending the action sequence itself and creating a whole new scene of tension and excitement from it- making the most out of one of the then unused angles from the battle that had been filmed-but never completed in its entirety (due to bad weather)- by the Second Unit at Norway in early 1979.

Amazingly, thirty years on, it was only whilst watching EMPIRE recently that I noticed this.

Very ingenious, eh?

CLASSIC IMAGE: HAN ON HOTH

Hell be damned, as Han Solo, having successfully rescued Luke Skywalker from an icy death on the freezing plains of Hoth, poses for a quick posed image before taking on a pesky Imperial Probe Droid alongside his friend Chewbacca. Both Solo and the actor who brought him to life, Harrison Ford, would endure many cold weather challenges during the ultimate realisation of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.