eFX ANH Vader Helmet Discussion Thread

StarWars Collector · **Posted:** Mon Jun 25, 2012 7:42 pm

Too Much Garlic wrote:

I thought so.

Nothing unusual there - that's supposed to be there.

Hmmm

That's new to me. Don't recall ever seeing it on an ANH dome.

Too Much Garlic · **Posted:** Mon Jun 25, 2012 8:05 pm

He's very rarely photographed from that angle and sorry about the crappy pic... but I see a dent there in the same area as on the eFX. Maybe DJ and SL can confirm whether it's there?

DynamicMenace · **Joined:** Sat Feb 25, 2012 12:26 am **Posts:** 285

lenasith wrote:

it is a TM JRX ROTJ , a great ROTJ helmet :wink:

man,,that's a sweet looking ROTJ lid..paints look excellent.

thanks for the info man.. :thumbsup

SithLord · **Joined:** Sun Sep 10, 2006 12:12 am **Posts:** 3132

Too Much Garlic wrote:

He's very rarely photographed from that angle and sorry about the crappy pic... but I see a dent there in the same area as on the eFX. Maybe DJ and SL can confirm whether it's there?

From what SL photos I could quickly dig up it isn't the same. There are naturally irregularities at that part of the dome where the center ridge meets the crown, but on the eFX the two more noticeable flat spots seem to be more pronounced. I don't have a perfect angle with me here at work so I'll check when I get home to make sure. But it is different. The edge profile of the center ridge in terms of how it varies in thickness appears a bit different as well, but again I should really get an identical angle to be sure, plus I need to compare with any source material of the original dome so that I'm not comparing something that is potentially different on the SL (although I doubt it is).

StarWars Collector · **Posted:** Fri Jul 13, 2012 7:01 pm

Any news on this, Thomas?

StarWars Collector · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2012 7:29 pm

The first 'in hand' pics of the Limited (uberstahl @RS)

Please stand back 6 feet, and zoom in... :toothy

dcarty · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2012 7:51 pm

I saw the other pics he posted over at RS and it will be interesting once we get more definitive and detailed photos of the Limited but so far it looks just like the Legend casting with a different paint job. Just casually looking at it you can see it has the same granulation in the corners where the planes meet. Front face of the nose seems a little cleaner. I wonder if the remnant of the paint drip along the side of the eye is there too.

Albatrossone · **Joined:** Tue Jan 18, 2011 9:09 pm **Posts:** 122

Ooo this is the one I'm interested in picking up on the second hand market. Nice if it is the same casting with a quicker sprayed paint job but from the pics it looks like there are a few dings filled in - or am I mistaken?

Too Much Garlic · **Posted:** Sun Jul 15, 2012 10:29 pm

It's definitely been cleaned up a whole lot more than the Legend... but even that was cleaned up far beyond what I would have hoped for, so my favorite is still the Limited version + I like the paint job better.

dcarty · **Posted:** Mon Jul 16, 2012 12:52 am

I'm really liking the Limited myself. Without being too snarky about it I would say the Legend Edition is about 85% cleaned up and the Limited is around 90%. Apart from marketing hoopla I almost wonder why they ,bothered to go through the headache of making two editions. The Limited gives a nice idealized version of the helmet while still holding largely true to the original casting.

In my opinion the comment that the one guy made over at the RPF about them going after it with bleach was right on the mark.

The choices they made about what to keep and what to change are certainly "interesting" and if what ended up in our hands is truly an example of Gino's work I don't think much of it. There are loads of guys who could have done much better.

darthjones · **Joined:** Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:57 am **Posts:** 472

That dent is way there.

jkno · **Posted:** Tue Jul 17, 2012 12:01 pm

Helmet looks very nice. I'll have some time waiting for mine, though still not sure if worth keeping the pre-order...

SithLord · **Joined:** Sun Sep 10, 2006 12:12 am **Posts:** 3132

StarWars Collector wrote:

Any news on this, Thomas?

From what I can see, it is not supposed to be there. Below is the SL ANH (top), the eFX copy shown (middle), and then a screen shot from the Tantive IV original ANH (bottom) showing the same, and single, peak point on the center ridge of the production ANH as on the SL (within the red rectangle) but no indication of those two flattened deviations in the curvature. Yes, I considered the angle, and I know from experience what the shape should look like at different angles. So it would seem to be possibly a result of how either the master or that particular pull came out of the mold.

SithLord · **Joined:** Sun Sep 10, 2006 12:12 am **Posts:** 3132

Wavey wrote:

This efx is my first real up close up look at something from the Baker mold but I have been getting a better all round match in shape and detail with Vader from the Corbis/JS shoot time period rather than going directly from pics from the movie to the finished efx. Would I be right in thinking the Baker mold was made around the time of that photo shoot?

The Baker mold was taken off the original before the Corbis photo shoot. According to the ILM artist that sold the SL ANH to me, the mold was likely taken off the original ANH helmet around the time of the pickups of ANH, which would place it just at the end of production (making it technically a production mold, at least as far as when it could have been made). The Corbis shoot was already in June of 1977 (the 24th), nearly a full month after the release of Star Wars.

DynamicMenace · **Joined:** Sat Feb 25, 2012 12:26 am **Posts:** 285

SithLord wrote:

StarWars Collector wrote:

Any news on this, Thomas?

From what I can see, it is not supposed to be there. Below is the SL ANH (top), the eFX copy shown (middle), and then a screen shot from the Tantive IV original ANH (bottom) showing the same, and single, peak point on the center ridge of the production ANH as on the SL (within the red rectangle) but no indication of those two flattened deviations in the curvature. Yes, I considered the angle, and I know from experience what the shape should look like at different angles. So it would seem to be possibly a result of how either the master or that particular pull came out of the mold.

would it be at all possible that the RB mold(which was made of rubber) could have shrunk or distorted in some way due to its age and where and how it was stored? just sitting around in a certain position could have altered some details. that could explain a lot of the differences that are seen on the efx compared to the original or SL and others.
what do you think? anyone for that matter?