CLASSIC IMAGE: FAMILY CONFLICT...

Now more experienced and better able to handle himself with a lightsaber, the last of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker, holds firm against the might of his father, Darth Vader, within the Emperor's Throne Room, in this terrific image from RETURN OF THE JEDI.

CLASSIC IMAGE: CHAMBER OF HELL!

In a dark and smokey medical chamber of horrors buried deep within the hidden realms of Coruscant, the damaged, deformed and brutalised body of Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, is worked on by a group of droid surgeons and technicians, to be re-imagined as an evil new form of artificial life support systems and heavy metal armour of the blackest, bleakest kind. A rampaging, hate fuelled force for evil will soon emerge, in this classic image from EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH...

ILM CLASSIC IMAGE: THE KILLING BLOW!

As the re-emerged Anakin Skywalker saves his son from the Dark Force energy blasts of Emperor Palpatine, his former Master's energy bolts surround and bombard the once Dark Lord of the Sith servant-with one particular blast hitting a fateful spot, reaching into Vader's helmet and destroying a fragment of his brain...

Despite many STAR WARS fans thinking that the animated bolts hitting Vader's head and exo-skeleton were an addition put on during the SPECIAL EDITIONS re-vamps they were actually on the original 1983 version of RETURN OF THE JEDI all along, but subtly animated in quick as a flash moments- so as not to disturb younger audiences- which you have to pause your VCRs/DVDs to fully see (intriguingly the X-ray image shows a metal neck and shoulders making Vader even more cybernetic than would be seen in EPISODE III in 2005). The bolts were a last minute inclusion to the film asked of ILM's animators by George Lucas during the final stages of its 1983 post-production. A clever and original decision from the Saga's creator.

With thanks to Chris Baker for the image.

For more on the making of JEDI, check out our special issue here: BACK ISSUE PDF CATALOG

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.

CLASSIC IMAGE: SPRINGING THE TRAP!

On the top level observation spire of General Grievous's command warship, The Invisible Hand, which is immersed in a huge orbital battle above the Republic homeworld of Coruscant, legendary Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker engage in their final (all too brief on screen) lightsaber duel with the evil Count Dooku, so as to rescue the captured Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.

It will be a conflict with tremendous consequences for young Anakin Skywalker...

CLASSIC IMAGE: THE EMPEROR'S NEW PLAYGROUND!

Here's a great behind the scenes shot of Ian McDiarmid at the Australian FOX STUDIOS in 2003 filming his scenes within the now familiar and hideous make-up guise of Emperor Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith. And the creature who now resides in full charge of the First Galactic Empire...

CLASSIC IMAGE: DIRECTING VADER!

Technicians (presumably from ILM or LUCASARTS) film an unknown actor as Darth Vader for what I assume is one of the many video games or advertising promotions linked to STAR WARS ultizing the sagas most popular villain.

If anyone out there can help with any more caption info for this image, please get in touch...

CLASSIC IMAGE: DUEL OF THE FATES - THE SEQUEL!

I love this image (Kenobi and Vader fighting so intently, with the huge prop Millennium Falcon in the background), used in the pages of many a magazine of the day and even now. Its one of the earliest released stills shots and shows this by having Vader's lightsaber incorrectly blue instead of the usual demonic red. Why and how this error got through is unknown-it may have been due to time factors in the run up to the films release-Kurtz and Lucas must have been sooo busy trying to get the film completed, whilst FOX, pretty much oblivious to it all, probably didn't care and thought it had a turkey of a movie on its hands. It would be interesting to know which artist added the glow to the rod- not to blame them or anything, but just to know. It wouldn't have been Ralph McQuarrie, who also did airbrushing to selected images (adding blasts and lightsaber glows to certain posed shots, scene stills and effects images) - having been involved on STAR WARS since 1975 he would have been aware of the correct lightsaber colours. Most likely it was someone at that time in FOX's publicity department..

One thing I like to do where possible is show the image the way it was originally lensed by the stills cameraman. Many of the times this image has been used it has been cropped in too close (a major bug bear I have with some OFFICIALPIX images!)-so far in my picture research, this is the best I can get that shows more of the image - click on it to see it fully (if anyone can help with an even fuller version of this image please get in touch). I think it would be nice now if the official LUCASFILM Picture Archive, with the soon 35th Anniversary of STAR WARS, could go back to the original shot and do a new release with the blades at the correct colours, as well as keeping the original inconsistency frame.