CLASSIC IMAGE: PRISONER AND ESCORT!

Breaking through Jabba's palace enforcers on Tatooine, the mysterious bounty hunter Boushh arrives at court with his captured prey, the mighty Chewbacca. But how was this possible? And what surprise lays in store for the Hutt slug?

A great atmospheric image from Return of the Jedi. 

CLASSIC IMAGE: TO PREVENT A TRAP!

A Wookiee's belly never stops being hungry, resulting in Chewbacca, and the leaders of the Rebels' small  band of heroes newly arrived on on Endor, into an archaic but nonetheless totally effective trap, despite a too late warning from Luke Skywalker, during a fun moment from Return of the Jedi.

CLASSIC IMAGE: INTO THE CELL BAY!

"This is not gonna work!"

Now disguised as Imperial Stormtroopers, Luke's plan to rescue Princess Leia from the Death Star Cell Bay begins, much to the weary chagrin of Han Solo, in a classic scene of humour from the original Star Wars.

Some of the dialogue scenes linked to the Cell Block would be improvised or enhanced by Hamill and Ford during May 1976 filming.

CLASSIC IMAGE: FAST ESCAPE!

The time is now for Han Solo and Chewbacca, inside one of the main forward hangars, to join Luke and Leia in boarding the grounded Falcon and finally escape the Death Star. But at what cost have the nearby Stormtroopers been distracted from guarding the pirate ship?

A classic moment superbly captured by the original Star Wars lensman John Jay, as seen in The Making of Star Wars TV documentary of 1977.

On set photographer John Jay captures the classic image during filming at Elstree circa June 1976.

'EPISODE III' AT TWENTY: WOOKIEE WAR BUDDIES!

Comrades in Wookiee-dom: Chewbacca and Tarfful. Image: Keith Hamshere.

It's a system that the Republic cannot afford to lose to the Separatists, as Master Yoda brings a force of Clone Troopers to the lush and tropical Wookiee world of Kashyykk, liaising with its fierce armies lead by the furry leader Tarfful (Michael Kingma), and his special aide in the legendary Chewbacca, once more played by the iconic Peter Mayhew. Fans loved this first official onscreen visit to Kashyyyk, and the return of loveable Chewie, in a sequence that ultimately proved far too short.

Peter Mayhew: A Lost Interview With Star Wars' Original Chewbacca

Back in an all-new yak hair costume after thirteen years away: Peter Mayhew is Chewbacca!

Mayhew in costume for publicity, holding a unique cane stick not seen in the film. Image: Keith Hamshere.

"I got a call from Rick McCallum last year (2003), and he wanted to check on dates and my availability. It was one of those nice phone calls that you get. It's great to know that you're going to do something that you've had in the back of your mind for a long time."

Peter Mayhew- Star Wars Insider issue 79 - Jan/Feb 2005

"Chewie is up to all sorts of things in Revenge of the Sith - battles, rescues, all the good stuff. I have a reasonable chunk of screen time."

"After so many years, it's great that Chewie is finally getting the recognition and background details that the fans want to know."

Peter Mayhew - Starlog magazine issue 334 - May 2005

Liaising with Tarfful, Yoda and the Jedi before battle begins.

A guide to the Episode III Wookiees.

A CORELLIAN AND A WOOKIEE - FRIENDS TO THE END....

You couldn't get two more loyal to each other friends than the trouble-finding smuggling buddies that are Han Solo and his wookiee compadre Chewbacca. They are potentially in it up their necks with the crime lord Jabba the Hutt by the time of the original Star Wars, but a nice easy charter, and big payment, with a strange old hermit and a callow youth bodes well for their future...

Some nice posed images of Han Solo and Harrison Ford taken during filming in London for the original movie back in mid 1976. The photographer for this memorable shoot is most likely Brit talent David Steen. 

"I thought it was a real good part - the character (of Han Solo) was humorous and I thought those things in the script that weren't exactly funny probably would be - I thought it was going to be funny. I didn't think it would have such a wide audience. It was just a good part for me!"

Harrison Ford - Bantha Tracks - 1980

"In the tests, he (Chewbacca) looked like a folding chair. At Elstree I just made it a pet relationship. "Look, I've got this huge dog."

Harrison Ford - Film Review magazine Star Wars special - 1997

"He's like a big dog, a dog that's ferocious one moment, and whimperingly docile the next. The character comes off as sweet and charming as the person who was inside him. He (Peter Mayhew) really got into the film. By the end of the picture he was very good."

Harrison Ford - Science Fantasy Film Classics magazine - 1977

"Harrison and I worked well together. He is a wonderful person and a terrific actor; truly professional."

Peter Mayhew - interview quote (unknown source)

'STAR WARS' AT 45: INSIDE THE TRASH COMPACTOR!

They've rescued the Princess (or did she rescue them?) from the cell bay, but our heroes have now had to retreat to a place even Stormtroopers wouldn't go - a trash compactor, home to smelly rubbish, a creepy underwater Dianoga creature, and, worst of all, crush-deadly moving walls!

Filmed in late June, 1976 at Elstree Studios, UK practical special effects supervisor John Stears and Production Designer John Barry (with set decorator Roger Christian) construct the Garbage Compactor room on Stage 4 over a half-filled studio water tank, added with oil and specially selected rubbish (the material also includes many Styrofoam pieces selected for it’s lightweight ability to crush and collapse easily). The garbage room walls would be made from metal clad plywood, mounted on tracks and linked together by a series of wires and pulleys to a tractor. As the tractor winch picked up, the walls slid along the track to a certain point simulating the walls closing in to crush our heroes! 

Our heroes survey their new environment. 

The Dianoga attacks!

The Dianoga creature (originally derived from the First Draft of the Star Wars screenplay- being the name of the Galactic Warriors that would eventually become Jedi) was firstly conceived and designed as a transparent, Jellyfish-like creature with see-through vein/ tentacles that would shoot up at people (of which the effects men would eventually create, what Lucas called, “an eight foot high, twelve foot wide brown turd!”). When built, however, the creature turns out to be bigger than the actual set it was to reside in! Sadly not living up to Lucas’s effects expectations, a replacement, built with little remaining money, is used for the ELSTREE filming, this one being a long tentacle several yards long (operated from below water by a pair of divers), whilst the rest of it will be replaced, for a close up shot, with a model miniature by the effects people in Van Nuys, California only a few short months before the film's eventual US 1977 release date.

Saved by the droids! At last!

The principal actors would all wear rubber suits under their costumes which, after a couple of hours, would become uncomfortable when under the hot studio lights, and would shrink whilst working in water - for days after, Hamill and Ford would have bruising. The only person lucky to escape the rubber suit is Peter Mayhew as Chewie, who would walk along a partially concealed four-inch plank, located at the back of the set near the sealed exit door, so that the expensive mohair suit wouldn’t be damaged by his treading in the combined water and oil around him (though, after filming of the sequence, the costume would nonetheless retain an unpleasant odour from the set's overall dampness for a short period). For the shot-heavy sequence, extra filming time was cleared at Elstree, with one day’s shooting hours being extended until 21.42pm on Tuesday June 22nd, though a Second Unit crew were also required on the set for the 29th. 

Behind the scenes images in the grimy Trash Compactor....

Between takes where Luke is submerged by the Dianoga, Mark Hamill has to remove his costume, get blow dried, and then be re-suited in his Stormtrooper costume for the next take, only to be pulled under water again (of which, on one of the filming days, some scenes required Hamill having to be shot from a side angle due to the whites in one of his eyes having a burst blood vessel - from the results of having to be continually submerged various times and after staying underwater for too long. Then the filming of certain close-ups of Luke would be postponed and later cut from the filming schedule. The third time he goes under, Hamill, picking up a piece of slimy looking debris from his white armour, turns to a deep in concentration for the next take George Lucas, and sings “Pardon me, George, could this be Dianoga poo-poo?” (to the tune of “Chatanooga Choo-Choo”). Did Lucas find Hamill’s humour amusing? Certainly not, as, a few seconds later, the director apparently sends Hamill back underwater quicker than he anticipated!

Filming our heroes last minute rescue, as cameramen capture an unseen moment from Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.

'STAR WARS' AT 45: THAT OLD WOOKIEE AND PRISONER ESCORT TRICK!

Now trapped and relocated to the fearsome Death Star space station, the reckless but noble Luke Skywalker convinces a doubting but greedy Han Solo and Chewbacca to walk into the Lion's Den and rescue the captured and vitally needed to their cause Rebel Princess Leia Organa, in a now classic set-piece scene that has become the stuff of pop culture legend, even referenced in an episode of the popular US mystery adventure produced by J.J. Abrams, Lost.

"I can't see a thing in this helmet!"

Hamill shares a joke with Assistant Director Anthony Waye.

Lucas and the Elstree team prepare for filming.

In a new edition of Doctor Who Magazine (June issue 578, 2022), Anthony Waye recalled that his second unit directing job on the original Star Wars came about because of an urgent request call from the film's then UK Production Supervisor, Bruce Sharman, who asked him to work on the film literally a week before shooting began in Tunisia. Waye found the location a horrible place to film in, hating the overall location, its lousy weather, the inadequate hotels and the awful food. He found producer Gary Kurtz to be totally inexperienced in movie-making at that point and that Waye, alongside many of the UK behind the scenes team, openly thought the film was total rubbish (a well known fact).

 

During chaotic location filming alongside Lucas in Tunisia - March, 1976.

Though Waye was impressed with the finished film at the London cast and crew screening a year later, he still feels that Star Wars as a film is overall still "rubbishey". Why is this writer not surprised, with those opinions, that Waye was never asked back to work as one of the key UK talents on the subsequent The Empire Strikes Back?! Regardless, it doesn't stop the now aging former producer of some of the latter (and some weaker) James Bond films from happily making money (and boosting his eventual retirement pension) from signing Kurtz/Joiner Archive behind the scenes images of himself on the Star Wars sets at UK conventions/events!

'STAR WARS' AT 45: CHEWIE'S BAD HAIR DAY!

By the time of the first Star Wars' UK filming conclusion in Summer 1976, the original Chewbacca yak-hair made costume and one of the masks created by Stuart Freeborn had begun to deteriorate. This condition was highly noticeable by 1977 as the character (potentially inhabited by Peter Mayhew once again, the actor having spent time that year promoting the film in America) partook in a series of special images primarily for licensing use, taken by legendary music photographer Bob Seidemann. Presumably due to a lack of approved Chewie posed publicity images taken during principal photography in 1982, some of these 1977 shots even got used to promote the character on selected items of Return of the Jedi merchandise during 1983/84. Because of the similar scruffy look to the character in the Battle of Endor scenes for Jedi, the 1977 Chewie shoot would, either by accident (photo library caption error?) or design, still be partially linked to that film as part of image publicity usage in magazines/merchandise by the time of the Special Editions' release!

During the original Star Wars' American-based post-production phase, the Chewie mask was also used for some kind of reference (and partying) by ILM, which probably added further to the wear and tear. By the time of The Empire Strikes Back's UK pre-production in early 1979, Freeborn would already be developing a new Yak hair suit and mask for the heroic Wookiee.

A ROTJ T-shirt using the 1977 Chewbacca shoot.

Vintage Star Wars Chewbacca character blow up from 1977.

The classic behind the scenes image, presumably linked to the 1977 Bob Seidemann poster shoot campaign shot in the US, of which the decaying Chewbacca costume was used.

The mask being referenced at ILM (for unknown reasons) by Steve Gawley and colleague-possibly early 1977. Images: Dave Berry.

Clowning about at ILM!