Good stuff all around. That ANH era head was in pretty rough shape. I can't see how someone would use it again without repainting it. Collecting it, yes. But using it on screen or other?! No. I looked inside of it. There was some yellow foam as I recall.

The ROTJ hero there was all decked out with nice foam arrangement and neck strap, etc.

BUT - if you look closely at that faceless helmet on the right, look higher up on the head. You will see a little hole drilled into it. There were a few holes drilled into it because it was the kill Palpatine helmet and I was told that they put squibs in it and shot them off as Vader got fried.


And oh! I think Ghost Host has the negatives for those shots but he said he couldn't get too much more out of them. I think he has them at least. Last I recall. ???

Ah I should have gone with my first impulse: lobotomized ROTJ stunt pyrotechnics holder ;) Good stuff indeed.

Thanks for the info DJ.

Yeah, I remember we spent a lot of time hashing out what the Movie Poster helmet was and coming to the conclusion that it was from the Rick Baker mold. I took another look at it before I posted my opinion though and it's a very funky helmet. Perhaps because it was put together so closely to production of ANH it mimics that helmet as it does.

I don't think we were ever able to nail down what was going on with the helmet in the Japanese video either since there is such a scant view of it. It very likely is not the screen used helmet but speaking purely in terms of likelihood it isn't an impossibility either.

And I'm not suggesting definitively what either helmet is but I do think it is worthwhile to revisit some ideas to see if they still hold up. In light of recent comments by Lindsey Muir on Facebook new scraps of information -- or forgotten ones -- can rewrite what we think we "know" about all this stuff.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to discount your thoughts like that. And I haven't been that observant, but could you post what Lindsay Muir wrote on FB?

There's just something about that Japanese helmet that just doesn't look right.

The main thing Mrs Muir wrote that caught my eye was in the long post/thread which features the pic of Vader in the Meditation Chamber being discussed here as well. I have copied and pasted her comments here:

"Oooh this reminds me of the prop forum days All I can say is that there were 2 finished Darth Vader helmets made for A New Hope. They were kept in a locked box and wheeled onto the stage every day of shooting by the dresser, John Birkenshaw that is confirmed by Brian and John Mollo. In recent years it has been stated confidently by people who weren't there ( or even born then) that there was only one helmet........"

"Alan Tomkins told us that when starting on TESB there was a locked container that no one had the key for. They had to break it open and they uncovered a Darth Vader helmet. He was of the opinion it was then made into a TESB helmet. Nothing known about the second helmet."


What I find interesting about these comments is that they both simultaneously support and negate popular theories we have within the community.

In her first statement Mrs Muir declares that more than one helmet was made for ANH -- I've seen the numbers as high as three or four helmets bandied about over the years. It makes perfect sense to me that more than one helmet was made and finished. Having a back-up in case one gets destroyed is only common sense, and while much has been made about Star Wars' "low budget" over the years I wouldn't think that it was so penny pinching they couldn't stretch to making two helmets at the same time. So two helmets made, but that doesn't exclude the notion that they mainly used one of those two helmets which shows all of the damage from being handled and is what we think of as "the" ANH helmet.

What I find dangerous is what we tend to think of as fact. After years of repeating over and over again that they only "used" one helmet on screen (potentially); that has come to be confused with the idea that they only "made" one helmet for ANH.

Mrs Muir's second statement also falls in line with what we have been thinking about the ANH helmet being re-purposed for ESB yet still leaves open the question of what, exactly, happened to "the" ANH helmet -- the one cast by Rick Baker.

So, multiple ideas that can all be confused with each other.

I've been wanting to do a comprehensive screen cap survey of ANH and compare that to the production schedule. Ultimately it would be great to compare that information with the Continuity Notes as well.

Cheers

Dave

One thing that would be cool is to collect all known LFL Vader helmets from wherever and look at the fiberglass lay ups from behind, side by side.

Fantasy, yes, but I think that would tell us something.

Beyond that, isn't the ESB poster mask from the helmet that we see with promo suit on the starwarshelmets page? Isn't that kinda known now?

That would be cool, and I absolutely agree that it would be very telling. I've only seen part of the inside of one screen helmet myself that I can recall.

Also, yes, the movie poster helmet is the same one over at starwarshelmets.com but I still wonder if there isn't room to re-examine it?

I think of the ANH lightsaber battle scene outtake where Vader's helmet topples off forward and hits the floor. Surely damage was sustained by that fall, and a prime example why a readily available backup helmet makes sense. Assuming it was damaged I wonder if they just did a quick patch or swapped it out with a backup helmet / dome at least for that day's shooting or if the damage was minor enough to just let it add to the "patina".

I think we have a few threads on here where Brian Muir stated things he remembered regarding the production and I believe it was said that three helmets were made and two were finished. It has been argued before that two different domes may have been used, but so far we haven't found any real confirmation that the face mask wasn't the same throughout.

The one found in the container is possibly the second helmet, as that container was locked from the ANH production, while we know that the screen ANH was on tour in the US.

I'm still of the belief that all three ANH production made helmets were turned into ESB helmets. However... did we get a confirmation whether they were part of the six mentioned or whether 6 new ones were made and the ANH were just re-used as stunt helmets? Though, I'm still of the belief the original ANH became a specific ESB helmet, but confirmation is still lacking, but may happen in the future.

I've enjoyed the detective work that has gone into trying to nail down whether the ANH hero helmet was converted into and ESB helmet. I also hope we will see some definitive evidence soon.

On another note I just re-read the entire Movie Poster helmet thread. The first ten pages are an interesting read with us all trying to figure out what it is/isn't while the last 2-3 pages just devolve into irrelevant discussion. What I took away from the thread is that the dome is definitely the Movie Poster Dome and that the face mask might be. To me, the matching cracks on the tusks suggest very strongly that the complete helmet is the Movie Poster but that never got nailed down as that's when the thread sort of fades out into nothing.

I can say that, to my my eye at least, the face mask of the Movie Poster helmet seems to be missing the filleting along the tusk tubes. Also absent are the mold marks associated with the placement of the 3M tabs. Both are features that are exclusive to the Rick Baker mold so I am tempted to rule it out as having come from that source. We can also definitively say that it is NOT the ANH hero helmet because the holes for the 3M tabs that are there do not match the location on either the TM or SL helmets. So a possible conclusion is that the Movie Poster helmet might be the third, unfinished, helmet made for ANH production.

Other specifics to note are the fact that it was cast in a white-ish gelcoat and finished with a brownish primer - both associated with ANH production. Also interesting is the two-part construction of the lenses with the lens in clear plastic backed with colored gel.

It's hard to believe that it's been almost seven years since that thread started!!!

Dave

Seven years? You got to be kidding me?

That's strange as in the book from Brandon, Colin Wilson is telling that they had just one helmet on the AnH set.
Page 27.

One helmet on the set? If that was said specifically then it just means one helmet on the set.

There could have been another helmet down the street?

this help any?



I can't pretend to see the differences as well as you guys but here is what I always thought was the original: