Star Wars: A New Hope - Part 1 - BoShek (1977)

BoShek,  I hear you say.  Who’s he when he’s at home?  Well his home is Corellia, according to the
Star Wars Wookieepedia, and BoShek is one of its infamous smugglers, although not of course its most infamous, old Bo might be good but it’s not like he ever managed the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs, is it.

Now being of the original Star Wars generation and one of those kids who actually saw it at the cinema the first time around I have to tell you that in reality, or at least my version of it, BoShek is just that human dude that hooks Obi Wan up with Chewbacca in the Mos Eisley cantina.  He didn’t have a name back then.  They made all that stuff up afterwards, long after I had painted over the wall paper and put the toys up the loft.

Now though, I quite like old BoShek and not because of who he became but because of what he’s wearing.  You see that there is a Windak High altitude pressure suit.  Which is, for those that don’t know; a very real, very British would-be spacesuit that never quite had the rockets to make it in the real world but managed instead to carve out a minor career in both film and television space travel.  Somewhat unfortunately though, to the best of my knowledge, that first Star Wars film was the end of this particular suits career as everything  was loaded onto the back of the big Lucas Films van and carted off never to be seen again.

But just as BoShek must live in the shadow of that more famous Correlian smuggler; Captain Han Solo, then so too must his Windak pressure suit live in the shadow of its slightly more famous and yellower counterpart.  Though a drinking companion in the first film, a second Windak suit would go on to make it all the way to the sequel and to the very front of that film’s action figure list.


Steve