May the Fourth Be With You! 2019

We're in the last year of Star Wars movies but on this Star Wars day--May the Fourth--I'd like to look back and remember two who have left us.

Peter Mayhew died last week, on April 30, 2019. Star Wars fans know him as Chewbacca, Han Solo's sidekick and co-pilot. Born on May 19, 1944, he was not an actor at all until George Lucas cast him as Chewbacca in 1976. The three main actors get lots of credit for the success of Star Wars, but can you imagine the original or its two sequels without Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca? It's a sad thing to contemplate.

Strangely, Chewbacca began life as a pointy-eared alien. Only later was he softened into a furry and lovable creature. The artist who first depicted him was a Hoosier, Ralph McQuarrie, who was born on June 13, 1929, in Gary, Indiana. McQuarrie wasn't in the movie business, either, until shortly before George Lucas hired him to create pre-production artwork for Star Wars. He went on to work on many more movies. A great deal of the look and mood of the Star Wars universe is based on his work. Ralph McQuarrie died on March 3, 2012.

As it turns out, Chewbacca's final appearance was inspired by the works of another artist and another writer. The writer was someone you might have heard of, George R.R. Martin, who wrote a story called "And Seven Times Never Kill Man," which was published in Analog in July 1975. The artist was John Schoenherr (1935-2010), who illustrated Mr. Martin's story and provided a painting for the cover of Analog that Star Wars fans will, I think, find very familiar. (In addition to Chewbacca, think Ewoks.) Michael Heilemann tells the full story on his very fine blog Kitbashed: The Origin of Star Wars, here.

Early promotional poster artwork by Ralph McQuarrie, dated April 1, 1975. The tall, pointy-eared alien is an early version of Chewbacca. Note the resemblance of the Luke Skywalker-like character to George Lucas and the golden robot to the figure in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. You can see why McQuarrie's pre-production paintings of Star Wars helped to sell Twentieth Century Fox on the project. It must have been this version of Chewbacca to whom Carrie Fisher referred in her audition for Star Wars.

Here's a sketch of the new, furry Chewbacca. The body and the getup are mostly the same. It's the head and arms that have changed, based on inspiration by science fiction artist John Schoenherr from 1975.

Here is Chewbacca with the other principals on Tatooine. Painting by Ralph McQuarrie.

And here he is again on the Death Star in another of McQuarrie's famed panoramic paintings.

Original text copyright 2019, 2024 Terence E. Hanley, with acknowledgments to Michael Heilemann for his research on the origins of Chewbacca. 

May the Fourth Be With You! 2013

Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster (1978), the first Star Wars novel, with cover art by Indiana illustrator Ralph McQuarrie.

Ralph McQuarrie (1929-2012)

Ralph McQuarrie, the conceptual designer behind Star Wars and other science fiction, fantasy, and adventure films, has died. McQuarrie passed away on Saturday, March 3, 2012, at his home in Berkeley, California. He was eighty-two. Despite years of declining health (he suffered from Parkinson's disease), McQuarrie had a very long and productive life and career, especially given his injury while serving in the Korean War. During that almost forgotten conflict, McQuarrie received a gunshot wound to the head, an injury that--if it had proved fatal--would have changed the look of science fiction forever, depriving the world of some of the most memorable and recognizable characters ever to appear on the silver screen.

Ralph McQuarrie was born in Gary, Indiana, on June 13, 1929, and spent his formative years in Billings, Montana, where his family owned a farm. He moved to California in the early 1960s and honed his skills as an illustrator at the Art Center School in downtown Los Angeles. Early in his career, McQuarrie created technical drawings and blueprints, first for a dentist, then for the Boeing Company, and most notably and fortuitously for CBS News, for which he created posters and animation on the Apollo spaceflight program. While at CBS, McQuarrie was approached by writer, director, and producer Hal Barwood, who asked him to complete some conceptual paintings for the planned film Star Dancing. Though Star Dancing never reached the big screen, McQuarrie’s work on the project led him to George Lucas, who in 1975 commissioned conceptual designs for Star Wars (1977). McQuarrie illustrated storyboards from Lucas' script and created the initial depictions of Darth Vadar, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Chewbacca.

McQuarrie went on to work on The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). His other film credits include some of the highest-grossing films of the 1970s and '80s, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). He worked on the television series Battlestar Galactica in 1978 and earned an Academy Award for Visual Effects for his work on the 1985 film, Cocoon.

McQuarrie was offered a role as a conceptual designer for the Star Wars prequel series but turned down the offer, stating he had “run out of steam.” His last credit as a conceptual artist or designer was on the 1991 movie short Back to the Future . . . The Ride. Incidentally, McQuarrie played a character named McQuarrie--General McQuarrie--in an uncredited role in The Empire Strikes Back.

An array of images created by Ralph McQuarrie showing his great skill, taste, and imagination. As you can see, he was equally at ease with the human figure, aliens, robots, monsters, spacecraft, architecture, and planetscapes. What would Star Wars--and by extension, the world--have been without him?

Written by Bridget Hanley, Proficient Pen, and Terence E. Hanley

Copyright 2012 Terence E. Hanley