This Week! In Star Wars: Aphra, LEGO, Boba
Most people are looking at a long weekend, and no doubt the “This Week! In Star Wars” crew deserves a bit of a break. But before they start up any socially distanced downtime, Kristin Baver dropped some gratifying content.
Breaking out some very stylish “dress pajamas” emblazoned with The Child, Kristin name-dropped Doctor Aphra, Boba Fett, and LEGO
San Diego Comic-Con Exclusives, Brand New LEGO Art, and More!
This week in Star Wars, we get our ears ready for the Doctor Aphra audiobook original with casting news, take a look at the brand new LEGO Art series, check out some San Diego Comic-Con ‘sclusies, and much more. Plus, we take a look back at 1978 when the Boba Fett prototype costume debuted in a screen test at the Lucasfilm headquarters in Marin County.
I really loved the piece about Boba Fett. So I dove in.
Boba Background
“This week in Star Wars history, back in 1978 the very first Boba Fett costume was brought out for an initial screen test a Lucasfilm headquarters in Marin County,” explained Kristin. “Dwayne Dunham, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back’s assistant editor, wore the all-white prototype armor for the test.
“Wondering why the armor’s white instead of Boba Fett’s signature green?
“Well, it was changed to distinguish him from stormtrooper armor…”
More on Mr. Fett
And earlier this year, fellow StarWars.com’er Dan Brooks went deeper into the whammy bin to discover more about Boba’s origins.
Brooks explained:
“George [Lucas] wanted a new trooper,” Joe Johnston, visual effects art director on Empire and legendary filmmaker in his own right, tells StarWars.com. “The original idea behind Boba Fett was that he was going to be an army of super troopers. There was going to be 40,000 of these guys.” After prototype armor was built from designs by Johnston and concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, however, producer Gary Kurtz quickly realized that they couldn’t afford to make that many versions of the costume. Thus, the super trooper concept was cast aside. But Lucas found another opportunity to utilize the design.
“The outfit came back from the UK [production office] and George said, ‘Instead of an army of super troopers, this is going to be a bounty hunter,’” Johnston says.
“’He’s sort of a bad guy but he’s not on the Empire’s side and he’s not on the rebels’ side… like a free agent, and he goes around the galaxy arresting people and bringing them back to justice or bringing them back to Jabba the Hutt or whoever. He’s a mercenary. He’ll do anything for money, and his outfit, the way he looks, should reflect that.’”
And Boba Fett was truly born.
Watch the full screen test: