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Original "Stunt" Stormtrooper
Helmet
and Armor from
Star Wars - A New Hope |
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This section is
split into four parts.....
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So it was the
Stunt Stormtrooper Helmets that were the first to be manufactured by Andrew
Ainsworth at Shepperton Design Studios. Working to a frenetic
deadline, AA and a very small team worked around the clock in their design studio from
February - May 1976 churning out helmets and armor that was later to be used in the
film, being shot at nearby EMI Elstree and
Shepperton Studios. Initially, the
Stormtrooper Armor was due to be fabricated in-house at
Elstree (most probably in fiberglass),
although the Elstree technicians had been having problems with
their vac-forming machine so this process was out-sourced to
SDS. Due to its boat-making business, Shepperton
Design Studio’s was fortunate in that it had a HUGE vac-forming table,
which was over 4 meters long. This was perfect for the trooper armor as it
allowed a complete set of armor to be made from a single pull – a great
time saver when there's 56 sets to make! At
that time, the huge success of Star Wars had not been anticipated and,
according to Ainsworth, the making of the costumes was very much a
process of trial
and error. As mentioned earlier, the initial fifty "Stunt" helmets
produced, were made from a khaki-green coloured Polyethylene
- aka Polythene (HDPE) material that was being used in the workshop
at that time to produce fish ponds!. The material was then spray-painted
white, although the finish was less than satisfactory, as the almost-oily
HDPE material
didn’t take the paint very well.
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Above, here's a photo of one of the
50 "Stunt" helmets, the infamous Move Along helmet I found a few
years back, sold off at Christies - its profiled extensively on this page
here. So AA was asked to produce the helmets for the shooting which was to
start just a few weeks away, initially on-location for the Tattooine shots
filmed in Tunisia, North Africa. From the rear you can see how much
undercut there was on these helmets. This was probably due to a number of
things including the relative flexibility of the different materials (the
khaki HDPE of the Stunts being a lot more "springy" than the white ABS of
the Hero's), as well as possible damage to the moulds following 50 (very
rushed) stunt pulls made earlier. Basically the more you make, the greater
the likelihood that you'll have damage and wear. |
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| The helmet itself is very interesting as its asymmetric in appearance. For instance, if you look at the right tube
(as you're looking at the helmet) it is quite significantly different in
size and overall shape than the left. Many reproductions have ignored this
and "sanitised" its appearance and incorrectly given it a more
symmetrical look. As mentioned elsewhere the "hero" look is
quite different from the "Stunt" with a lowered frown, bubble lenses and three sets of
teeth either side of the frown. In addition, the Hero only
has one screw on the central ear section, not two. The ABS
production helmets and all the Armor were 1.5mm and made of a
specific ABS mix which had a higher ratio of rubber to styrene,
making them very strong (though slightly duller). As an indication of this
strength, AA's sporting canoes were made from
just 3mm. |
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| Details on helmets such as the Stormtrooper’s
seem to have come from from
whatever they could lay their hands on. The front "Mic Tips" have the words "HOVI
MIX pa2" written on the side of them. Even now its not clear
whether these were actually rheostat knobs (possibly military?), air
inlet valves or microphone condenser tips. The Pa appears
to refer to atmospheric pressure, measured in Pascals. Note
its possible some of the helmets had
the real mic tips, however the majority of the Stunt helmets had
resin
casts of them. |
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During their production, disaster struck on the evening of March
26th 1976, as AA’s factory caught fire. Three oxy-acetylene
canisters, which were in the building at the time exploded and the factory
was gutted, with some work lost. Unperturbed they returned immediately to the project and working 20 hour days
they were able to
complete the order on schedule. |
| Here's another photo showing 26 helmets and armor outside Shepperton Design Studios
in 1976. |
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| Above an interesting photograph from
the collection of Andrew Ainsworth of a partly-made Hero helmet taken at
his workshop in early 1976. Its missing the ears, mic tips and painted
detailing but given its made from white ABS its clearly a Hero. |
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| Above and below are four really nice photos of
one of the original ANH Stunt helmets, this one the "Set for Stun"
who got capped by Leia on the Tantive IV. |
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| This helmet (also known as the "Dave
M" helmet) really is in fantastic condition with everything intact including
ears, trim, eye lenses, mic tips and decals. |
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| The paint finish is also superb with
the khaki HDPE only showing through in a few places. Many thanks to Art
Andrews and Dave M for these great shots. |
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| Below, here's a comparison of the 2
helmets on-screen on the Tantive IV, with the Hero on the left and the Stunt on the right. |
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| These next three shots were sent to
us recently of the same "Set for Stun" Stormtrooper seen higher up the page. |
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| These are really great images and
show off the helmet detailing extremely well. Note that with all the ANH
helmets all the detailing was hand-painted, there were no decals used on the
these helmets. Many of the original 50 Stunt helmets were reused for ESB and
had decals applied over the painted detailing and the grey frown painted
black (though thankfully not this one) |
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In the shot below you can see a fifth tooth on the (wearers) left hand
side. This tended to vary from helmet to helmet and depended on how
sharp the vacuum pull was. This one is particularly sharp which is why
the extra tooth is so apparent (although its not been cut out) |
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| These next three from Art Andrews are screen grabs from the "Making of" program. Top left
is a hero whereas the lower larger picture features a Hero with two
stunts behind him. |
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| The whole project
from beginning to end was probably no more than a few months, and yet the
designs have become some of the most recognizable film props of the 20th
Century. |
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Here's a publicity shot done in the UK in late 1977 / early
1978 for the UK release. Its clear that they've just tried to pull
together any bits and pieces they can get their hands on including parts
from both Stormtroopers and Sandtroopers (check the knee plates and the
left troopers stomach box). Vader himself also seems to have a wonky dome
and may well be the ANH original, which did not have a reliable fixing
mechanism. It featured in the UK Monthly Poster mag (Spring '78). Thanks
to Braks Buddy for the photo and Jackie Chan Fan for the excellent
clean-up.
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These next three excellent photo's are from Brian R of
his original ANH Stunt helmet. Thanks to Brian for releasing these great
shots of his helmet. |
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| The helmet is white-painted Khaki
fishpond HDPE and as you can see its in superb condition and has been well
looked after by its previous owners. Looking straight on you can really
see how wonderfully asymmetrical the helmets were with the right cheek
tube (as you look at it) significantly larger and more bulbous than the
left. |
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| The mic tips are still in place and
again appear to be in superb condition. You can see that the original
helmets had hand-painted detailing and this is noticeable when you look at
the tears under the eyes and the vertical stripes in the rear trapezoids. |
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It really is in fantastic condition and surprisingly
very little of the paint has cracked and fallen off. I'm sure its the
pride of his collection so many thanks to Brian for sharing them and
allowing our readers access to these great shots of his helmet.
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| Above the original helmet (with
taped up mic tip) and below a shot from the Movie (as Leia's being led away
from Vader on the Tantive IV) |
| ..and below an on-set photo of
"Stunt" Stormtroopers lined up in Death Star Docking Bay set at Elstree. |
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| Next up, and courtesy of Braks Buddy
are a couple of shots from the Lucasfilm archives taken in 2006 of
one of the Hero helmets used in ANH. These helmets were the white ABS ones
made by SDS and referred to as the "Close up" helmets, as worn by Han and
Luke (and a number of other close up shots). Below you can see the "Hero" on
the left and "Stunt" on the right. |
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| No doubt about the paint marks on
this Stunt. The ear screws have even been painted white but they forgot to
paint his tube stripes. He's now known as "Mr No Stripes"! |
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| Finally, here's a composition
to illustrate just how wonky, or asymmetrical the this wonderful
hand-sculpted creation is. Since the left and right hand sides of the helmets
are NOT mirror images of each other (unlike the more modern Clonetroopers), if we
do mirror the face down the central axis we get quite a strange look -
showing IMO asymmetrical is best! |
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This shows how difficult it is to
make a symmetrical (non wonky) Stormtrooper helmet replica, as attempted by
Don Post a few years back and MR/E-FX more recently.
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| Above and below, some previously
unseen shots of the "Stop that Ship" and "Move Along" helmets
we took a few years back when they went up for Auction at Christies |
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| For more shots of these specific
helmets see the links at the foot of the page which will lead you to more
in-depth reviews of these specific original screen-used helmets. |
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| In the shot above you can see the
original X-Wing helmet which can be seen on this page here. The Stormtrooper
"ears" were not originals but replicas we took along with us.. |
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| In case you've missed
these, there are a couple of Photo Reviews of the above original ANH Stormtrooper
helmets on these pages here........
old TK Page here.. |
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Footnote:
The Myth behind the
"Prototype" or "Serrated Neck" Stormtrooper Helmets |
| Occasionally we come across the
so-called "prototype" Stormtrooper helmets, either on eBay or on regular
auction houses like Christies and Bonhams. Over the years we've done a lot
of work to try and find out more about these helmets and can confirm that we
are absolutely convinced that these were NOT made prior to production, but
some time after the film was made and most probably released. |
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| We understand that Shepperton
Design Studio's did produce limited numbers of Stormtrooper helmets some
time between the release of Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back (i.e.
1977-1980) - and sold them locally (i.e. London, UK) - so it could well be
that these are those short-run replicas. The most obvious difference is that
the rear section is 2-part (notice the line between the upper cap and lower
back below) - and the serrated section beneath that. Note that not all of
these helmet types had a serrated neck, some had a rounded bell section -
although it is clearly massively different from the original helmets made
for production. |
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| Below are shots of an unfinished Stormtrooper
"Serrated Neck" style helmet made after the
film-used 56 and were therefore not connected to the films production. Initially it was presumed that these were prototypes but it
has been confirmed that they were produced later. The key differences with the
helmet being the 3-piece design and serrated neck. |
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| ...and left, another shot of one of the incorrectly-termed "prototype"
Stormtrooper helmet, made some time between 1977-1979. This image clearly showing its age and state of this prop. This particular helmets looks to have been made of white
ABS, and is a THREE part design. The screen-used helmets were just two-part
with a single "swoop" from forehead to the nape of the neck, which must have
been a nightmare to pull! The rear section of these helmets were made from a
"U" shaped piece of metal with a hose pipe attached, with the ABS pulled
over them. This was then added to a cap cut from a traditional cap-and-back
sections from the helmet face moulds. |
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