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Debut model C-3PO and a deep dive into the aesthetic of Star Wars
George Lucas’ sprawling Star Wars space opera has transfixed multiple generations since it first took flight in 1977. To celebrate the franchise’s enduring cultural influence,
L’Uomo Vogue is proud to feature its first droid-cast shoot (and cover) alongside our deep dive exploration of the earth-bound inspirations that informed the Star Wars aesthetic. Did you know that Darth Vader’s sinister costume was based on a shopping spree in London’s Soho? Or that C-3PO, this issue’s star and the first character to speak in the entire Star Wars saga, was originally conceived as having a New York accent? These are just a few surprising facts behind a story that has been so instrumental in shaping our perception of the future.
It all began with him, and it all ends with him. The very first lines in the Star Wars saga, in the first film that hit screens in 1977, were pronounced by C-3PO. As the rebel blockade runner was being attacked by Darth Vader’s Imperial Star Destroyer, he said to his astromech robot sidekick R2-D2: “Did you hear that? They shut down the main reactor. We’ll be destroyed for sure. This is madness.” C-3PO also has the most heart-wrenching line in Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker, the ninth episode in the series produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by Walt Disney. This is to be the final adventure, where the fates of all the characters, including C-3PO’s, will be decided. “Taking one last look, sir, at my friends,” he says in that plummy British butler’s accent of his, eliciting a throaty lament from Chewbacca, who is all too familiar with C-3PO’s spirit of servitude and self-sacrifice.
A figment of George Lucas’s imagination, created in the mid-1970s as a male version of the female robot Fritz Lang had conceptualised for Metropolis and a cybernetic incarnation of the simple peasants in Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, C-3PO, a protocol droid, is the only character to have appeared in all nine episodes of this modern space epic. Deprogrammed (and therefore “dead” in a certain sense) and reprogrammed many times, he was the first character to fully come to life from illustrator Ralph McQuarrie’s pencil. Following Lucas’s original concept, McQuarrie imagined him lost in a desert with a craggy rock wall behind him, twin suns reflecting off his polished gold plating. That desert would become known as the planet Tatooine, a desolate world that was home to C-3PO’s maker Anakin Skywalker, who conceived and built him out of spare parts salvaged from the cosmos. C-3PO’s look was further perfected by production manager John Barry and sculptor Liz Moore, though Moore never got to see him come to life on screen because she died in a 1976 car accident. “Those two round eyes were created to symbolise innocence but with something subtly humorous in their sparkle, a bit like Groucho Marx,” says McQuarrie. His character is frequently in the background even when he’s not directly involved in the action. A droid who is an expert on manners and etiquette, C-3PO enters the frame in the darkest, tensest moments as a way of representing beauty, elegance and grace even in the midst of horror. “His plating is gold because it’s the purest metal,” explains Neal Scanlan, who is responsible for making all of the droids and creatures in Star Wars, in a phone call from the United States. “Gold also conducts electricity, it disperses heat, and it has a power of attraction over human beings, which is why it’s historically been used to make robots for the cinema.”
A figment of George Lucas’s imagination, created in the mid-1970s as a male version of the female robot Fritz Lang had conceptualised for Metropolis and a cybernetic incarnation of the simple peasants in Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, C-3PO, a protocol droid, is the only character to have appeared in all nine episodes of this modern space epic. Deprogrammed (and therefore “dead” in a certain sense) and reprogrammed many times, he was the first character to fully come to life from illustrator Ralph McQuarrie’s pencil. Following Lucas’s original concept, McQuarrie imagined him lost in a desert with a craggy rock wall behind him, twin suns reflecting off his polished gold plating. That desert would become known as the planet Tatooine, a desolate world that was home to C-3PO’s maker Anakin Skywalker, who conceived and built him out of spare parts salvaged from the cosmos. C-3PO’s look was further perfected by production manager John Barry and sculptor Liz Moore, though Moore never got to see him come to life on screen because she died in a 1976 car accident. “Those two round eyes were created to symbolise innocence but with something subtly humorous in their sparkle, a bit like Groucho Marx,” says McQuarrie. His character is frequently in the background even when he’s not directly involved in the action. A droid who is an expert on manners and etiquette, C-3PO enters the frame in the darkest, tensest moments as a way of representing beauty, elegance and grace even in the midst of horror. “His plating is gold because it’s the purest metal,” explains Neal Scanlan, who is responsible for making all of the droids and creatures in Star Wars, in a phone call from the United States. “Gold also conducts electricity, it disperses heat, and it has a power of attraction over human beings, which is why it’s historically been used to make robots for the cinema.”
A figment of George Lucas’s imagination, created in the mid-1970s as a male version of the female robot Fritz Lang had conceptualised for Metropolis and a cybernetic incarnation of the simple peasants in Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, C-3PO, a protocol droid, is the only character to have appeared in all nine episodes of this modern space epic. Deprogrammed (and therefore “dead” in a certain sense) and reprogrammed many times, he was the first character to fully come to life from illustrator Ralph McQuarrie’s pencil. Following Lucas’s original concept, McQuarrie imagined him lost in a desert with a craggy rock wall behind him, twin suns reflecting off his polished gold plating. That desert would become known as the planet Tatooine, a desolate world that was home to C-3PO’s maker Anakin Skywalker, who conceived and built him out of spare parts salvaged from the cosmos. C-3PO’s look was further perfected by production manager John Barry and sculptor Liz Moore, though Moore never got to see him come to life on screen because she died in a 1976 car accident. “Those two round eyes were created to symbolise innocence but with something subtly humorous in their sparkle, a bit like Groucho Marx,” says McQuarrie. His character is frequently in the background even when he’s not directly involved in the action. A droid who is an expert on manners and etiquette, C-3PO enters the frame in the darkest, tensest moments as a way of representing beauty, elegance and grace even in the midst of horror. “His plating is gold because it’s the purest metal,” explains Neal Scanlan, who is responsible for making all of the droids and creatures in Star Wars, in a phone call from the United States. “Gold also conducts electricity, it disperses heat, and it has a power of attraction over human beings, which is why it’s historically been used to make robots for the cinema.”
With his body language hindered by the many joints in his metallic body, the slight movements of his head are meant to express anxiety, curiosity, fear or surprise, depending on the context. C-3PO transcended his nature as a droid to approach a more human-like emotional sphere. Despite being hardwired for self-preservation, he has suffered memory wipes, decapitation and dismemberment. He has even had his plating removed, exposing a tangle of red and blue cables similar to the so-called Anatomical Machines conserved in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples. These anatomical studies show the circulatory system of two mummified human beings, said to be the result of alchemy experiments carried out by Count Raimondo di Sangro in the 18th century. C-3PO develops memories, a conscience, a sense of self-determination and self-confidence. He even chooses to sacrifice himself, following the example of his master and friend Luke Skywalker, and assuming a central role like no other droid. Because his memory has been erased and reset many times, he is continuously besieged by flashbacks from his “past lives”, providing constant and implicit references to Eastern philosophies on metempsychosis and reincarnation. “When I see him come on set, I can feel the aura that surrounds him. It’s the same aura that surrounds the grand old divas,” continues Scanlan, who talks about the aesthetic delight experienced by Star Wars directors of photography when working with the light reflected off C-3PO’s metallic cladding, whether outside in the sun or inside an LED-illuminated spaceship.
With his body language hindered by the many joints in his metallic body, the slight movements of his head are meant to express anxiety, curiosity, fear or surprise, depending on the context. C-3PO transcended his nature as a droid to approach a more human-like emotional sphere. Despite being hardwired for self-preservation, he has suffered memory wipes, decapitation and dismemberment. He has even had his plating removed, exposing a tangle of red and blue cables similar to the so-called Anatomical Machines conserved in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples. These anatomical studies show the circulatory system of two mummified human beings, said to be the result of alchemy experiments carried out by Count Raimondo di Sangro in the 18th century. C-3PO develops memories, a conscience, a sense of self-determination and self-confidence. He even chooses to sacrifice himself, following the example of his master and friend Luke Skywalker, and assuming a central role like no other droid. Because his memory has been erased and reset many times, he is continuously besieged by flashbacks from his “past lives”, providing constant and implicit references to Eastern philosophies on metempsychosis and reincarnation. “When I see him come on set, I can feel the aura that surrounds him. It’s the same aura that surrounds the grand old divas,” continues Scanlan, who talks about the aesthetic delight experienced by Star Wars directors of photography when working with the light reflected off C-3PO’s metallic cladding, whether outside in the sun or inside an LED-illuminated spaceship.
With his body language hindered by the many joints in his metallic body, the slight movements of his head are meant to express anxiety, curiosity, fear or surprise, depending on the context. C-3PO transcended his nature as a droid to approach a more human-like emotional sphere. Despite being hardwired for self-preservation, he has suffered memory wipes, decapitation and dismemberment. He has even had his plating removed, exposing a tangle of red and blue cables similar to the so-called Anatomical Machines conserved in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples. These anatomical studies show the circulatory system of two mummified human beings, said to be the result of alchemy experiments carried out by Count Raimondo di Sangro in the 18th century. C-3PO develops memories, a conscience, a sense of self-determination and self-confidence. He even chooses to sacrifice himself, following the example of his master and friend Luke Skywalker, and assuming a central role like no other droid. Because his memory has been erased and reset many times, he is continuously besieged by flashbacks from his “past lives”, providing constant and implicit references to Eastern philosophies on metempsychosis and reincarnation. “When I see him come on set, I can feel the aura that surrounds him. It’s the same aura that surrounds the grand old divas,” continues Scanlan, who talks about the aesthetic delight experienced by Star Wars directors of photography when working with the light reflected off C-3PO’s metallic cladding, whether outside in the sun or inside an LED-illuminated spaceship.
Ever since the character first appeared on screen, C-3PO’s costume has been filled by British actor Anthony Daniels, who was discovered by George Lucas in 1975 when he was in a London stage production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. This absurdist tragicomedy features two minor characters from Hamlet who, in many ways, seem to have served as models for how C-3PO and R2-D2 communicate. “At first, the idea of essentially being chosen to bring a puppet to life offended me,” Daniels has said while discussing his recently published autobiography I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story. “Then, little by little, he drew me in with his innocent rationality and absolute sense of loyalty that likens him to certain figures from classic tragedy.” Lucas originally didn’t plan on using Daniels’s voice. He was looking for something more akin to a “used-car dealer from the Bronx”. Then he decided to keep his British accent and give C-3PO that larger-than-life quality that many characters in the saga have. “He is an iconic character in the truest sense of the term,” says costume designer Michael Kaplan, “because his appearance has remained unchanged – he is perfectly identifiable. Nobody looks like him, and he has that eccentric individuality that suits him perfectly.”
Ever since the character first appeared on screen, C-3PO’s costume has been filled by British actor Anthony Daniels, who was discovered by George Lucas in 1975 when he was in a London stage production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. This absurdist tragicomedy features two minor characters from Hamlet who, in many ways, seem to have served as models for how C-3PO and R2-D2 communicate. “At first, the idea of essentially being chosen to bring a puppet to life offended me,” Daniels has said while discussing his recently published autobiography I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story. “Then, little by little, he drew me in with his innocent rationality and absolute sense of loyalty that likens him to certain figures from classic tragedy.” Lucas originally didn’t plan on using Daniels’s voice. He was looking for something more akin to a “used-car dealer from the Bronx”. Then he decided to keep his British accent and give C-3PO that larger-than-life quality that many characters in the saga have. “He is an iconic character in the truest sense of the term,” says costume designer Michael Kaplan, “because his appearance has remained unchanged – he is perfectly identifiable. Nobody looks like him, and he has that eccentric individuality that suits him perfectly.”
With a past working on films that have had a great impact on style and fashion – such as Blade Runner, Flashdance, Burlesque and Fight Club – Kaplan took over from costume designer John Mollo, who died in 2017 and had been with George Lucas since the beginning. An expert in military history, Mollo dressed the characters by taking inspiration from illustrated military manuals and scouting out-of-theway shops in London, accompanied by a model who acted as a mannequin for trying out various outfits and combinations. “This is how Darth Vader was created,” says Laela French, director of archives at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is due to open in Los Angeles in 2021. “Lucas had imaged him as a ‘dark knight riding in the wind’, and Mollo went into a shop in Soho and found a black motorcycle suit, a cape, a gas mask and, finally, a Nazi helmet.” He was ahead of his time in mixing and matching different styles, from Russian Cossacks to Tibetan monks, from samurai helmets to the Mexican soldaderas who inspired Princess Leia’s hairstyle. His was a mix of old and new, familiar and profoundly “other”, and it fired up the imagination and synapses. There are many deeply rooted references to Japan, from the Oni ogres in Japanese folklore to the kimono used by master Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi.
With a past working on films that have had a great impact on style and fashion – such as Blade Runner, Flashdance, Burlesque and Fight Club – Kaplan took over from costume designer John Mollo, who died in 2017 and had been with George Lucas since the beginning. An expert in military history, Mollo dressed the characters by taking inspiration from illustrated military manuals and scouting out-of-theway shops in London, accompanied by a model who acted as a mannequin for trying out various outfits and combinations. “This is how Darth Vader was created,” says Laela French, director of archives at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is due to open in Los Angeles in 2021. “Lucas had imaged him as a ‘dark knight riding in the wind’, and Mollo went into a shop in Soho and found a black motorcycle suit, a cape, a gas mask and, finally, a Nazi helmet.” He was ahead of his time in mixing and matching different styles, from Russian Cossacks to Tibetan monks, from samurai helmets to the Mexican soldaderas who inspired Princess Leia’s hairstyle. His was a mix of old and new, familiar and profoundly “other”, and it fired up the imagination and synapses. There are many deeply rooted references to Japan, from the Oni ogres in Japanese folklore to the kimono used by master Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi.
With a past working on films that have had a great impact on style and fashion – such as Blade Runner, Flashdance, Burlesque and Fight Club – Kaplan took over from costume designer John Mollo, who died in 2017 and had been with George Lucas since the beginning. An expert in military history, Mollo dressed the characters by taking inspiration from illustrated military manuals and scouting out-of-theway shops in London, accompanied by a model who acted as a mannequin for trying out various outfits and combinations. “This is how Darth Vader was created,” says Laela French, director of archives at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is due to open in Los Angeles in 2021. “Lucas had imaged him as a ‘dark knight riding in the wind’, and Mollo went into a shop in Soho and found a black motorcycle suit, a cape, a gas mask and, finally, a Nazi helmet.” He was ahead of his time in mixing and matching different styles, from Russian Cossacks to Tibetan monks, from samurai helmets to the Mexican soldaderas who inspired Princess Leia’s hairstyle. His was a mix of old and new, familiar and profoundly “other”, and it fired up the imagination and synapses. There are many deeply rooted references to Japan, from the Oni ogres in Japanese folklore to the kimono used by master Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi.
In this way, he inserted the highly contemporary idea that the distant future will coincide with a return to frugal minimalism and simplicity. It’s no surprise that certain great Japanese designers hit the international scene at the same time the film was making a global impact. From Yohji Yamamoto – who presented his first Y’s collection at the end of the 1970s – to Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake. In 1982, the latter designed his kamiko, a spectral, warrior-like ensemble created from shifuori (paper) fabric that would be perfect for any Jedi. It wasn’t long before the European neo-minimalists Jil Sander, Martin Margiela and Dries van Noten responded in kind. More recently, designer Siki Im acknowledged the profound influence that Star Wars has had on his style, making him the latest in a long list of creatives and brands that continue to pay homage to the world created by Lucas: Adidas, Vans, Comme des Garçons and Balenciaga, which created golden robot-like leggings inspired by C-3PO’s legs. Then there’s Band of Outsiders, which has a fitting room in its new Tokyo store modelled on the desert of Tatooine. Meanwhile, Rodarte, Patrik Ervell and Rick Owens seem to have embraced the “dark side of the force” with their black capes.
In this way, he inserted the highly contemporary idea that the distant future will coincide with a return to frugal minimalism and simplicity. It’s no surprise that certain great Japanese designers hit the international scene at the same time the film was making a global impact. From Yohji Yamamoto – who presented his first Y’s collection at the end of the 1970s – to Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake. In 1982, the latter designed his kamiko, a spectral, warrior-like ensemble created from shifuori (paper) fabric that would be perfect for any Jedi. It wasn’t long before the European neo-minimalists Jil Sander, Martin Margiela and Dries van Noten responded in kind. More recently, designer Siki Im acknowledged the profound influence that Star Wars has had on his style, making him the latest in a long list of creatives and brands that continue to pay homage to the world created by Lucas: Adidas, Vans, Comme des Garçons and Balenciaga, which created golden robot-like leggings inspired by C-3PO’s legs. Then there’s Band of Outsiders, which has a fitting room in its new Tokyo store modelled on the desert of Tatooine. Meanwhile, Rodarte, Patrik Ervell and Rick Owens seem to have embraced the “dark side of the force” with their black capes.
When the Star Wars brand was purchased by Disney for four billion dollars in 2002, merchandising and the fashion world came together in an unprecedented way, resulting in a series of licensing agreements and refined, freely inspired interpretations.
With this pool of shared influences having been drawn on liberally and almost exhausted, costume director Michael Kaplan has begun to hit the streets, while also looking back at archetypes and sifting through the Pleistocene era for ideas. “You walk around New York and see a rubbish bin? OK, that could be a new warrior helmet,” he says. He has also found inspiration in places like the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, where he discovered a parka from the Arctic island of Baffin made from seal intestines. This immediately became a costume for Jannah, one of the new Star Wars characters. “After all, as with Blade Runner and the first Star Wars movies, and as Lucas did for C-3PO when he went back to the dawn of science-fiction films, often, you can only find something truly new by digging through primitive times.”
With this pool of shared influences having been drawn on liberally and almost exhausted, costume director Michael Kaplan has begun to hit the streets, while also looking back at archetypes and sifting through the Pleistocene era for ideas. “You walk around New York and see a rubbish bin? OK, that could be a new warrior helmet,” he says. He has also found inspiration in places like the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, where he discovered a parka from the Arctic island of Baffin made from seal intestines. This immediately became a costume for Jannah, one of the new Star Wars characters. “After all, as with Blade Runner and the first Star Wars movies, and as Lucas did for C-3PO when he went back to the dawn of science-fiction films, often, you can only find something truly new by digging through primitive times.”
Model Simon Wilkie. Production Juliette Dumas. C-3PO 2019 Lucasfilm Ltd. &™, All Rights Reserved.
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