‘Star Wars Rebels’ artists voyage to Skywalker Ranch for inspiration
Published 7:32 pm Thursday, October 9, 2014
MARIN COUNTY — R2-D2 rests on the floor inside a dimly lit storeroom next to the Ark of the Covenant from “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” An array of light sabers fills an entire shelf, enough to rival even the most well-prepared Jedi armory. Bizarre alien masks, including a pig-faced Gamorrean guard from the “Return of the Jedi” Jabba’s palace sequence look down over an armada of models, including the Millennium Falcon, a hulking AT-AT walker and the sinister Imperial Star Destroyer.
We are inside the Lucasfilm archive at the heart of George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch. Access is strictly controlled and it’s easy to see why. Every prop, costume, painting and file from Lucasfilm’s cinematic legacy, “Star Wars” to “Red Tails,” is stored here.
Kilian Plunkett admits he’ll use any excuse to drive 45 minutes north from his San Francisco office and poke around. As art director for the animated series “Star Wars Rebels,” which debuted Friday on the Disney Channel, he’s finding plenty of reasons to make the trip.
At the moment, he holds in his hands an 18-by-41-centimeter piece of cinematic history: one of artist Ralph McQuarrie’s gouache concept paintings for the original “Star Wars” trilogy.
“I always assumed these things were giant movie poster size,” Plunkett says as he points out the finer details of McQuarrie’s style.
It is smaller than expected, but then again, so is the Mona Lisa. Physical size bears no relation to the impact these paintings have on pop culture.
McQuarrie’s name may not be as instantly recognizable to “Star Wars” fans as Lucas’, but the late artist’s mind dreamed up iconic images including Darth Vader’s imposing mask and many alien landscapes depicted on canvas.
Those paintings, and other “Star Wars” artifacts, may eventually end up in the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art to be built in Chicago. But today they aren’t on display so much as hanging out, free to be handled and examined by the next wave of artists tasked with keeping the “Star Wars” universe alive.
That tactile connection to history has been a great boon for Plunkett and his team, who feel a responsibility to get things right on this first look at the “Star Wars” universe under its new Disney ownership.
“You realize the way these models look in reality doesn’t always match to how they’re presented on screen,” Plunkett says, pointing out how the pilot hatch in the back of one ship doesn’t exactly align with the cockpit. “It looks really cool,” he says, “but when you study it, you realize there’s no way for people to get inside.”
Patrick Kevin Day,
Los Angeles Times
