This helmet certainly is a mystery. As I said before, the big question is...
Why does it even exist at all?And I don't think it's as easy as, 'somebody stuck an ESB dome on an ANH facemask.' And why was Dave wearing it in this scene?One possible reason Dave would be wearing this particular helmet can be gleaned from the book,' the making of TESB'.
First, this particular scene is the first scene shot with Darth Vader.
Second, what you see on screen is not the first take. In the book, Prowse describes the first take;
'Wall explodes, amid a ton of smoke and debris and the two troopers in front of him, who cannot see, burst through the opening
and immediately trip over themselves. Prowse, who can't see either, tries to follow them, but one of the troopers behind him is standing on
is cape. When the cape breaks he falls down on top of the troopers.' He doesn't go into any more description than that.
But, is it possible that his helmet was damaged during the fall and perhaps this was the
only helmet immediately available? Or someone just grabbed this helmet on accident, not noticing the difference and nobody caught it until
after the shot was done. Somewhere else in the book, it describes a Wampa ice creature breaking through a wall and that wasn't working well
either. Each time it failed, it would take hours to reset the wall. By the time somebody noticed the helmet was wrong, maybe the time and cost
it would take to reset the wall and reshoot the scene was probably just not worth it. They probably just said, eh, hopefully nobody will notice.
For the last few months, nearly every day, I have been doing some very serious studying of both the ESB and ROTJ helmets and I've made some very surprising discoveries.
Things are not what they ultimately seem to be.
Screen used helmets can and have been modified.
I think it's just assumed, that the ESB was gonna have a larger chin grille from the get-go. There is no facts behind that assumption. They may still of been just trying it out.
Where are the ESB screen used helmets today? Where is this helmet today? If it is not the Don Bies helmet, where is it?