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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 6:56 pm 
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Thomas, If I may, I just wanted to reiterate what John Naulin
(who worked with Rick Baker many times) told me about about a
piece I acquired...

Here's the history as I know it:
ANH was a low budget ($7 million) film and the original Vader was made in a non-jacketed flexible mold made of some sort of Polysulphide-type material. Because the mold did not have a hard jacket, each casting ended up with just slightly a different shape. (yours shows the asymmetry associated with this).

Don Post Studios signed the very first merchandise license for Star Wars (set up by William Malone and Bob Short who worked there at the time). The license was strange in that DPS owned all of the rights to any full sized use and representation of the characters for 7 years.
Because of that, once the film was a huge hit DPS ended up in the middle of all the original promotions as they had to give permission to Lucas and 20th to use the characters!
One of the DPS employees was 6 foot 6 inches tall, could create the raspy metallic breathing sound and could do a spot on James Earl Jones vocal impression, so he became the American Darth Vader (Kermit Eller).
Whenever you saw and heard Vader it was Kermit as he was the only one to encompass all 3 characteristics seen on film. The original costume was shipped from England and for many of the first appearances Kermit appeared in it.
There was fear that the original would get lost, stolen or damaged, so in combination between Post and Lucas replacement parts were created and the original suit was handed over to Lucas.
About that time I took over the R&D Dept. at Post and by then Kermit was working directly for Lucas. We maintained the Vader suit, but it was kept in boxes by Eller, so he could travel with it. I travelled all over the country with Kermit and other original cast members!
We also supplied over 300 Stormtrooper helmets and did some post production work on 2 Boba-Fet costumes at Post for ESB and ROTJ, so I ended up working closely with the vendors in London (which are now combined basically as Elstree Props).

When renowned sculptor Jim Leonard started working in my department he was blown away by how crude the original Vader was. He asked and obtained permission to rework the original. A set was cast in England from the original molds to aid with this, but it took so long to get to the states that Leonard had already made an armature and was nearly done with the new helmet. (it is that 4th original cast set that is being auctioned this Fall by Elstree).
Leonard's second generation Vader is the one used to base all subsequent versions on as it was almost machine perfect in its symmetry and balance.
So, remember, when discussing original Star Wars pieces that Don Post was the American source for all the original parts and pieces as they (we) kept the parts of several characters in good shape, preserved and owned the rights to them en-total for the first 7 years.
I have recently worked with other original artists through Elstree to locate some of the original parts, combine them and create a few artists proofs of C-3PO, R2D2, and of course Darth Vader.

As to other castings, I cannot say exactly where they've come from. I do know that when Eller quit Lucas, someone found out that he was going to ship back his suit (2nd generation castings from the original molds) and set up a sting, where they posed as shippers sent from Lucas to pick up the cases. Kermit signed the papers and these guys took the entire suit. This was discovered to be a scam when the real shippers showed up the next day! So, an entire Vader Suit went missing, much to everyone's alarm and dismay.
Maybe these 3rd and 4th generation parts were birthed out of that mess. Don't know. The Elstree set is the real deal though as it has passed through only a couple of hands since the early 80's. I hope this helps explain the number of parts out there and the very real part that DPS played in the entire saga.
John Naulin


based on that information, and knowing how 'rough' the SL is. do you beliieve that the other Vaders out there might be coming from the cleaned up version by Jim Leonard?


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:04 pm 
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Interesting piece of info.

HAL9000 wrote:
based on that information, and knowing how 'rough' the SL is. do you beliieve that the other Vaders out there might be coming from the cleaned up version by Jim Leonard?

I would have to say: no.

The Elstree helmet is from the Jeff/GH style family. These other helmets has the accurate look, so from this alone, this story doesn't hold up.

EDIT: the story also seems to hint at that he sculpted a new helmet before getting the parts from the original molds. So what was used. The new sculpt or the 4th pull? Honestly... there are things that just doesn't make sense there.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:17 pm 
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Oh - SL asked if this mold was made in the U.S. I was told "yes" and that it was made here because the original mold was either still in the UK or destroyed. They figured why not cast the hero instead of ship/ search for the other. Makes sense to me.

Got this info. from the LFL archivist at the time.

I was in 4th grade or so at the time. :P


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:19 pm 
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We know there are three sources connected with the original claim.

    The UK based mold - the ESB onwards movie helmets!? (TM/TD/VP)

    The US based mold - the ESB onwards movie helmets!? (SL/DJ)

    This fabled 4th pull/new sculpt - source of Jeff/GH style helmets? Or as stated by John Naulin to be the ESB onwards helmets!?


Comments.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:58 pm 
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There are a few things that makes me wonder.

The UK mold was used to make the fourth pull that all subsequent helmets in the movie series was made from. Then what happened to the sculpt Jim Leonard had almost already sculpted by the time of getting that fourth sculpt?

What can be learned is that if the fourth pull was used for all subsequent helmets, then the nicks and dents and paint flaws was how the helmets looked when coming out of the UK mold and not caused by events happening during filming, which means there's a helmet cast that was painted inbetween the original Muir sculpt and the screen used piece.

Since the ESB helmets has traits that can be traced back to the ANH screen helmet they must have come from the 4th pull and not the new sculpt. The statement made that the ESB onwards screen helmets are identical to what Elstree sold copies of recently is definitely wrong, as that is a different type of helmet. Is that then from the new sculpt?

If these helmets are then linked to the new sculpt... then that means that they have no real connection to the ANH screen used... but for a new sculpt - even though there are visible differences - it is quite remarkable that he also managed to get accurate features into the sculpt as well.

This all just seems way too complicated and doesn't, imo, correspond with the helmet casts that have been around and those having recently surfaced.

Just speculating here...

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:11 pm 
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I dont think that there is a chance to dissolving all the different theories about all these casts after a so long time and so many different conclusions ....or may i wrong. Would be really interessent to read the correct story of all these helmets origins....but (sorry) i cant believe that this would be the fact one time.

But thanks for sharing. At any rate its very interessting to read but hard to understand :lol


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:35 pm 
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I only told Harrison a few days ago (along with a friend) in person that what he owns is no way what Norman (Harrison) thought it to be.

He accepted this wholeheartedly, which took me by surprise. The armor and chestbox are nicer pieces then the helmet IMO, not perfect but good examples.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:54 pm 
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Well John Naulin is certainly inaccurate about at least a couple of things there, and I think someone else knows better than I and can speak to the inaccuracy of some of the things he's saying.

What I can speak to at least as I mentioned before is that there was no 4th pull, Brian Muir made that clear to me. Certainly not a fourth pull that looks like the Elstree helmet. Both the UK and US helmets are based on the screen helmet. John Naulin is telling this story perhaps to pass off the Elstree helmet as an original, and it's not. Even if I knew nothing about the GH/Jeff/Elstree style of helmet or where it came from, I would not say it was an original. I don't see how you could go from that kind of helmet to the screen helmets, because the screen ESB/ROTJ helmets clearly came from something like the screen ANH helmet.

Surprising yes that Paul Harrison didn't seem put off by your suggestion that his helmet is not what it's supposed to be. Maybe someone has already agreed to buy it off him :lol


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:03 pm 
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Hmmm -

I know NOTHING about any of this but it sure does seem awfully convoluted. My take is that ILM cast up the ANH hero after Star Wars. They then cast new masks out of this mold.

There were other Vader molds at ILM from later Vader heads - I think I saw two such molds in regular blue/ green silicone.

But even the documentaries for ROTJ show folks making all the parts and pieces here in the U.S. before shipping them to UK and elsewhere for filming.

Personally I think that the SL casting is the source for all beyond ANH, either directly or indirectly.

Just my intuition - I have no facts of lineage.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:08 pm 
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darthjones wrote:
Personally I think that the SL casting is the source for all beyond ANH, either directly or indirectly.

I would say that the cast tabs on the TD/TM/VP (though ground off on that one so unconfirmed how they look) are the ones connected with the future screen used masks, based solely on the fact that the ESB stunt has those tabs in the cast.

The SL and DJ were without tabs, so at least cannot be connected with the stunt helmet.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 3:49 am 
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Finally some backing (if you'll pardeon the pun) to what Ive been saying for years....if you dont have a good mother mold / jacket youre gonna get different shapes.


--Were the molds under armed lock down?


--Were they guarded like the Ark of the Covenant? (upon opening they melted the faces of any witnesses)


--Could one or more people have made molds of the few existing movie pulls?



......these and other mysteries explained in my new book:



How to obsess over a missing mother mold:
and why theories and claims are like the pages of a book

.....they keep changing and flipping



The debates wont end because too many people have their egos and money making caught up in having the last word.

Claims $ell.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:46 am 
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darthjones wrote:
Personally I think that the SL casting is the source for all beyond ANH, either directly or indirectly.


I would say that this is an incorrect statement.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 10:25 am 
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Oh right on -

I guess it would indeed be incorrect if other screen used helms had the tabs still intact on the top of the face when cast.

Didn't think about that!

:)


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 10:49 am 
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NoHumorMan wrote:
darthjones wrote:
Personally I think that the SL casting is the source for all beyond ANH, either directly or indirectly.

I would say that the cast tabs on the TD/TM/VP (though ground off on that one so unconfirmed how they look) are the ones connected with the future screen used masks, based solely on the fact that the ESB stunt has those tabs in the cast.

The SL and DJ were without tabs, so at least cannot be connected with the stunt helmet.


I think that the Vader ESB hero and stunt helmets were made in the UK using a mold which was cast either directly off a screen-used (or a cast of a screen-used) faceplate that still had the original tabs (or cast tabs) on top.

Anyone has an idea where the original Vader ESB helmets were reworked into the ROTJ versions? UK or US (ILM)? Since they started to set up the archives after filming of ESB ended, my guess is that all the costumes were sent to the US after the production wrapped in the UK.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:30 am 
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PartsandTechnical.com wrote:
The debates wont end because too many people have their egos and money making caught up in having the last word.
Claims $ell.

True, but this is also used as an excuse to discount claims you don't agree with by some. If you don't agree with a claim it is so easy to just say the claim was made for monetary or selfish boasting reasons.

It's a fine line and both sides are equally flawed in that sense, making it even more difficult to get to the truth of things.

But I always thought... the more stories you have to go through... the more you form in your own mind how you think it happened. Nothing is absolute with these things as it is based on memory and we all know what a poor documentation tool memory really is.

When getting all the stories together... a bigger picture emerges from the collaborating and contradicting details... and when coupled with people who have financial or egotistical interests in this... it may muddy things up a bit, but the most plausible deduction of the events will form - true or not, who knows for certain. No one knows the whole truth.

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