ralph mcquarrie

Ralph McQuarrie is one of people whose name may not be known to the public at large, but whose imagination gave rise to some of the most indelible, incredible imagery in all pop culture. He was a designer, a concept artist, and a creator who could take fantastic ideas and give them form, serving an essential role in the making of classic films and TV shows. Born on this day in 1929, McQuarrie designed the spaceships seen in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and E.T., he conceived the look of the original Battlestar Galactica, he was responsible for a central image in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, he production designed Cocoon, and he worked as visual consultant for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. But inarguably, his major achievement was defining the look of the Star Wars universe.

For all the heavy lifting he did designing much of the look and feel of the Star Wars universe, there really isn't a whole lot of Ralph McQuarrie-inspired merchandise out there. Yes, obviously there were plenty of other massively, massively talented artists working on what would become The Trilogy, but McQuarrie's conceptualization of this galaxy far, far away established not just the tone of this world, but inspired more than a proportionate share of imitators. Still, beyond prints and art books, McQuarrie's original work is fairly non-existent. Which is surprising given that Star Wars merchandise is the reason for all merchandise, and it's been around since 1977. Thankfully, Sideshow's recently picked up the gauntlet of bringing the artist's work to the physical realm with a series of statues. Already the line features that iconic soldier, the Stortrooper, and the human hype machine, Boba Fett, who I guess is technically a bounty hunter that just sucks at getting bounties. Now the most fearsome of the Empire's agents gets the royal treatment, as McQuarrie's Darth Vader lives once more.

Boba Fett wasn't always the Mandalorian armor-wearing bad-ass that made it into the final films. Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie originally envisioned Fett as a sort of super-trooper (meow) in the Imperial army. The concept also stemmed a bit from the original ideas for Darth Vader, though we all know how that turned out. The Fett we saw on screen was a further modified version of McQuarrie's concepts that was finished off by Joe Johnston, who was an art director at Lucasfilm at the time. While the white armor even made it so far as to be screentested, the final version deviated from McQuarrie's original plans quite a bit. There have been a few different figures and collectibles over the years to commemorate Boba's original all-white armor, but none that were based solely on McQuarrie's original design. That's where Sideshow Collectibles steps in. As part of its new Star Wars Concept Art series of premium format figures, the Boba Fett that had previously only lived as a painting or sketch will soon be realized in 3D.

'Star Wars' illustrator and designer Ralph McQuarrie is responsible for some of the most iconic imagery in the pop culture and the history of movies. McQuarrie designed the look of many of the Star Wars characters including Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2 and the Stormtroopers, as well as locations like the Death Star and Tattooine. In fact, it was McQuarrie's artwork that eventually sold 20th Century Fox on the idea of letting George Lucas actually make a 'Star Wars' movie.