Behind the Scenes - A 10th Gallery

Not done one of these for a while....

Steve

Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) - BoShek revealed.

Go here - Star Wars: A New Hope - Part 1 - BoShek (1977)  to see my original BoShek post if you want to know all about a spacesuit.

If, on the other hand, you would like to read a lovely little detective story and put a name to the actor in the costume then go here - http://billyjensen.com/finding-boshek/

 

Steve

Star Wars Ep1 - The Phantom Menace (1999)

Three unnamed background "spacers" from The Phantom Menace... that have since been named and given backgrounds, if only so they can go onto the action figure wish lists!

 

 Teyora Rekab

 

Aehrrley Rue

 

Rum Sleg

 

 

 

Steve

 

Star Wars - Return of the Jedi (1983)

It's Bossk in a blink and you'll miss him appearance in the third of the original Star Wars films.

Behind the Scenes - A 5th Gallery

 

 

 

 

Steve

Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

A recent comment from blog reader Sword Takeda in regard to Windak space suits, got be looking back at all my old posts and I realised, that while filling in the back story up to its best known appearance I had actually managed never to complete the journey.  So this is me doing just that.

Ladies and Gentleman, may I present Bossk in what seems likely to be the last known appearance of the yellow Windak high altitude pressure suit.

 

 

Steve

 

 

Star Wars: A New Hope - Part 2 - (1977)

Lets look back at Star Wars IV (The first one)  I keep trying to re-watch it to capture a little of the excitement I once felt about it as a kid but it's just not there anymore. I find this very odd because I watch all sorts of other old stuff from back then and get right into it again but not this.  ?
Ah well!

Anyway lets look at the few remaining spacesuits on view in the cantina scene.

As well as Bo Shek in his black Windak, which we looked at ages ago, there are a few others.

Unfortunately it's hard to get really good images of them so we'll just have to settle for these.

There are three spacesuited characters in this background scene.  Some of them may well have inherited character names in the intervening years but clearly at the time they were just there to make the place look sufficiently sci-fi.  And they were there to do it within a budget as well which is why they are all existing suits and helmets.  What we have to do now is identify them...well we don't have to but it's a fun game to play.

lets do the easy one first.

That's the yellow Windak, the twin of Bo Shek's black one.  The two suits have had something of a career but their most famous previous appearance will be in the 1964 film; The First Men in the Moon.

Sitting next to him is Danz Borin who's suit has that distinctive black patch that suggests it's from the same place as Duros (?) Ellors (?), the blue skinned, red eye'd chap below.  The helmet is from somewhere else and I know I've seen it before but I just can't place it.  If anybody wants to chip in with an idea or two, feel free to post a comment. I thought it would come to me but it's not happening.

 

Not sure about the silver suit above. It's been suggested elsewhere that it's from the TV series Lost In Space but I can't be sure.  The helmet however is from Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1971 and has also done the rounds in a series of film and TV shows prior to this. 

This image, if you've the eyes of a hawk and look into the top left hand side seems to suggest that there might have been two of these identically clad spacemen, both with their back to us while talking to Borin.  Mr yellow Windack, is sitting down by this point, on the very edge of the picture trying to pull some space floozie

 

And that white suit there, identical to Borin's above, is one of the actual spacesuits from the 3rd of the Ape movies although like the helmet it started life in the early 60's, featuring in a number of films and TV shows.  It used to be a classic silver colour too, like the Gemini suits.

 

 

Steve

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