AN 'EMPIRE' AT 40: BUILDING THE REBEL BASE!

Knowing that a new, bigger filming space area was going to be needed for Star Wars II, Gary Kurtz and George Lucas negotiated in advance with Elstree Studios for a new soundstage to be built for 1979 filming. The soon christened Star Wars Stage was finally near finished by June 1979 to first house the immense Rebel Hangar bay set that would showcase numerous Snowspeeder props, a full-size, newly-built X-wing fighter (with additional nose-length, wing-less partial props that would be positioned in darkened hangar bay alcoves), and the incredible full-size Millennium Falcon built in secret in Wales and transported to London for pieces re-assembly.

UK Elstree Studios production map/blueprint for the Rebel base hangar bay.

Despite the size, however, the final stage still proved too small, with an extension built onto the end of it which also allowed for natural lighting to open through and simulate the Hoth environment outdoors for several excellent establishing shots of the bay. The set and all it house could be rearranged so that it would seem on film that there would be several hangar bays/base entrances, rather than just one.

Here's a selection of superb images from the work-in-progress hangar bay...

Note the shield door in final construction and testing.

Image: via Star Wars Archives.

AN 'EMPIRE' AT 40: CANNON MAN!

Luke Skywalker is back in his fighter pilot garb to man the laser turret of a Rebel Tank (prior used in filming at Norway), in posed publicity pictures of Mark Hamill for The Empire Strikes Back, taken around June 1979 on the Rebel Base hangar set at Elstree Studios.

There has been a lot of fan misreporting and persistent online lingering that one of the publicity images was linked to a scene in TESB that was deleted, in which Luke fires at attacking Wampas, part of an earlier filmed but deleted sequence where the ice creatures had broken into the base and attacked Rebels and R2-D2 (partially seen on Blu-ray). But it is not. Leigh Brackett's original unused script draft based on the original George Lucas outline for 'STAR WARS II' of late 1977 did indeed have a scene where the Wampa, at the worst possible time, attacked the hangar right in the middle of the Imperials ground assault, of which Luke fought a monster back only to be injured (resulting in Artoo flying him into space in the X-wing en route to Dagobah), but this never made it to the final shooting script by Lawrence Kasdan for shooting.

CLASSIC DESIGN WEEK. PIC TWO - HOTH REBEL HANGAR

Out in the UK this week is the long-awaited, new nice price edition of the lavish and informative STAR WARS: BLUEPRINTS hardcover book by J.W. Rinzler, available from TITAN BOOKS. In celebration of the must-have title, this week we're having a week-long celebration of some of the six film's classic production designs.

Day Two is a look at the then brand new STAR WARS Stage at Elstree, specially built for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK filming in 1979, supervised by new Production Designer, yet an already experienced hand to STAR WARS- Norman Reynolds. It would first house the magnificent and huge Rebel Hangar, home to the in-repair Millennium Falcon, several specially built prop X-wing fighters and also showcasing the ground to air vehicles that were the Snowspeeders. Finally, in the bottom right corner of the set, almost complete for Summer photography, is a tarpaulin covered Rebel Tank, previously used on location filming in Finse, Norway.

Get hold of STAR WARS: BLUEPRINTS here: Star Wars - The Blueprints: Amazon.co.uk: J.W Rinzler: Books