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ESB Mk 2
Original Stormtrooper Armour |
Nov 2011 - some of you may be aware that
Christies of London
had a memorabilia auction on November 23rd and there was a rather nice set of
Stormtrooper armour in the sale. A couple of months ago
Christies kindly invited us down to its Kensington showroom to help them
identify
this slightly unusual suit.
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| We say "unusual" since though some parts are clearly Star Wars A New Hope
(1977), but not all are and those were certainly not Return of the Jedi
(1983) either (although they look extremely similar). Hence the suit is a kind
of mish-mash of both armour styles. Parts including the belt, one forearm, and one
bicep were clearly ANH, however the other parts including Chest,
Back, Ab front and rear and leg sections were similar (but not exactly the
same) to the style used in RotJ, yet we believe pre-date that movie by 3
years. |
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| It didn't take long for us to realise that this
was the illusive "Mk2 ESB" suit seen in the Publicity photos taken on Empire
Day waaaaaay back on May 20th 1980 (the Trooper on the right in the photo
below). Essentially this was a set
made up from two different sources including left-over parts from ANH
combined with newly cast parts made specifically for ESB by John Mollo's
costuming department. |
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| As an interesting side note, we also managed to
identify the other trooper (next to Harrison Ford) but will talk about that
at another time. However we're pretty sure that the suit in Christies
auction is the one standing next to Mark Hamill, for example the cut lines
and seams of the Ab section appearing to match up extremely well. To be 100%
sure we'd need better reference material but in our view it looks very
promising. By the way, I'm sorry to say we've not been able to locate the
helmet that went with this armour. The background to the ESB "Mk 2 "
suits in a nutshell is; while making ESB John Mollo realised that there
would not be enough complete sets of armour for some of the final trooper
shots seen in the movie like the Bespin escape section scenes, so additional
vac forming was done and a number of pieces were made to augment the
left-over ANH parts. The vast majority of the armour you see in ESB (the "Mk
1" if you like) is simply the same reused amour seen in ANH - with the
occasional bit of refurbishment thrown in. After some investigation we
carried out a few years back we were able to determine that there wasn't
enough complete suits for some of the latter scenes - thanks to Costume
Designer John Mollo's detailed notes made at the time.....
Here's an extract from his diary made on 11th June 1979....
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| So we know that some parts were made -
we just don't know which marts and the quantity. Again going back to
John Mollo's notes we know that 2-3 days were spent (budgeted) working on
this and the approx cost of the ABS.
For more detail on
this issue see this section... (note that the section needs updating and
we'll do this as soon as we can) Back to Christies Auction, below the chest and back detailing showing the edging strips which were
added to all the new armour for RotJ, with this ESB armour acting as a kind
of prototype to the RotJ look. Rather than made of standard white ABS (like
the ANH sets), this is made from Haircell ABS which has a nice white
front side, however the back has a rough texture and is cream coloured. |
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| Next a shot of the Ab section, which appears
to have been resprayed (at least in part) at some time. In addition, note
the contrasting colour of the Haircell ABS's outside and inside surfaces.
The texture is much different too from the ABS used in ANH which is
pretty-much the same both sides. However for these armour pieces the outside
is smooth but the inside quite rough - again a feature of Haircell. |
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| ...and the rear of the Ab section. There's no
cut between the ass and lower back and apart from that tear the suit is
still in very good condition with all the white trimming still in tact. |
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| Next we'll look at the ANH belt.... |
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| Above and below photos of the ANH belt. Its
made from all white ABS (front and back) , bolted onto a canvas belt section
with the boxes attached with white elastic strips. |
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| The bicep sections are very interesting since
the one on the left is clearly ANH... |
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| ...whereas the one on the right is a ESB Mk 2 and
made from Haircell ABS (again see the differing colour and texture of the
inside surface) |
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| Next onto the forearms and again we have this
ANH/ESB mix..... |
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| Above and below, ANH forearms on the left, ESB
Mk2 on the right (for those who like to count, 12 on the ANH, 10.5 on the
ESB) |
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| ...Here's a good shot that illustrates the
differences well. Note that the ANH forearm (left) has thick edging strips
(e.g. at the 2 'o'clock position). The ESB Mk 2 on the right doesn't have
edging strips and both semi-circle sections just overlap. Note also the
difference in colour between the white ANH and the cream-coloured Haircell
of the ESB Type 2 |
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| Below a shot of both calves with the right leg
(as you're wearing it but left in the photo) showing the knee detailing |
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| ...and finally the shin sections |
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| So in summary we have a wonderful piece of Star
Wars history. Parts of the armour are production made (and most likely
screen used) ANH Stormtrooper parts. Other parts appear to us to be
production-made Empire Strikes Back parts (ESB Mk 2 ), which could be screen-used
- however we just don't have necessary behind the scenes photos from the
Bespin escape sequence to be able to verify this.
We KNOW John Mollo's team vac-formed additional parts (since they didn't
have enough sets of armour to finish production), and we can be pretty sure that this is
the suit seen with Mark Hamill at the ESB Premiere a few months later. What
we cant say is whether this armour is actually screen-used since we cant
tell from the few shots when all 10 or so Troopers were needed - even
looking at the Blu-Ray release.
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