Few people have shaped Star Wars as profoundly as Ralph McQuarrie—and he’s still making an impact on the galaxy far, far away seven years after his death.
Unused concept art created by the late artist not only inspired the style of The Rise of Skywalker, but in some cases director J.J. Abrams brought to life specific archival images.
Fans are waiting to see how Emperor Palpatine may return, but the benevolent spirit of McQuarrie is also omnipresent in the December 20 film.
“It would be hard to deny that, though I could try to. But I would fail,” Abrams told Vanity Fair. “McQuarrie, obviously, is as much the visual architect of Star Wars as anyone. And some of his work still hadn’t been fully realized. Some of his sketches hadn’t been built, some of the sets hadn’t been made. So it was fun to get to take some of that inspiration, and run with it.”
McQuarrie, who died in 2012 of complications from Parkinson’s disease at the age of 82, was an aerospace illustrator recruited by George Lucas in the ’70s to create imagery based on his script for the 1977 space opera. Those drawings and paintings served as inspiration for costume designers, model builders, visual-effects artists, set decorators, and more.
As people tried to wrap their minds around what Star Wars could be, McQuarrie showed them exactly what it could look like. Darth Vader’s terrifying mask, C-3PO’s golden frame, the lightsaber clashes, the starship dogfights—all of it came to life first in McQuarrie’s sketchbooks and on his canvases.
The definitive book on his contributions is the two-volume, 800-page, 22-and-a-half pound opus Star Wars: Ralph McQuarrie, by Brandon Alinger, Wade Lageose, and David Mandel.
Vanity Fair went deep with Mandel, the former showrunner of Veep, about elements of McQuarrie’s work that shaped The Rise of Skywalker, based on what he’s seen in the promotional material for the film.
Vanity Fair: Did you spot these references right away when you watched the trailers?
David Mandel: One of my favorite things about all the sequels since The Force Awakens is how much they have kept alive the design language that Ralph helped create all those years ago. You see Ralph everywhere in the sequels, but yes, when I saw that “spider throne” and the Y-wing shot I was blown away.
The “spider throne” appears to belong to Emperor Palpatine—whatever form he takes in the new movie. What insight can you share about Ralph’s original illustration. What was the history of that image?
The sketch came from Ralph’s work on Return of the Jedi. Like they did on The Empire Strikes Back, Ralph along with Joe Johnston and Nilo Rodis-Jamero started working on ideas with George way before there was an actual script. As the script developed, a lot of those early ideas went away. But Ralph designed both a throne room for the Emperor on a lava planet, which made it into Revenge of the Sith, and this “creepier” spider-like, tentacles throne design which was his Death Star throne room. These sketches never really went past the thumbnail stage, but when you see the drawings they really jump out at you.
This was unusual for him, wasn’t it? I think of his work being so clean and pristine, and this looks almost organic—like a monster come to life.
Yes and no. Of course, Ralph with his background at Boeing was known for his technical drawings—spaceships and robots. But when you look back at some of his concept work on Dagobah—the wild banyan tree roots—you also see an artist with an incredible talent for bringing nature to life.
As McQuarrie experts, what are some of the other subtle McQuarrie references you noticed in the new footage?
My coauthors Wade Lageose and Brandon Allinger noticed a few additional things. BB-8’s new robot friend in the movie [known as D-O] has some similar design elements to Ralph’s “assassin robot,” which was an unused design from Return of the Jedi—they are both single-wheel robots that have antennas coming out of their heads. And Finn’s “sand ship” may owe some elements to Ralph’s designs for Jabba’s sail barge and the skiff.
The Y-wing illustration was much more carefully refined. Do you know what guidance he received before creating that? Was he just blue-skying and creating paintings he thought were cool?
The Y-wing started as a design that Colin Cantwell, a designer who built the early ship models, had come up with, and Ralph ran with it and refined it in a number of his Star Wars production paintings including the “Battle for the Death Star”—the moment [repurposed] in the new trailer.
In The Rise of Skywalker, the spinning Y-wing is attacking a Star Destroyer, but it’s clearly the same image as the attack on that version of the Death Star. Was the Y-wing Lucas’s first choice before settling on the X-wings as the lead attackers?
The Y-wing was way more prominent than the X-wing in early Ralph paintings. As the movies went from production art to designing and building actual special effects models, the designs changed as Lucas, McQuarrie, Joe Johnston, and John Dykstra worked on them…. No doubt the scene was from an early draft of the movie and based on George’s conversations with Ralph.
Also, the Death Star in his image ultimately inspired Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens. Do you see J.J. drawing a lot from his work to make the new films?
Right from the get-go, I get the sense that Abrams and his team wanted both to honor the Star Wars designs of the past and make his new world feel connected to those movies.
What did you like best about Ralph’s Y-wing attack image? I love that the ship is upside down, giving a dizzying quality to the image, and showing that there really is no up or down in space.
I think that Y-wing painting is the best of Ralph’s experience drawing planes and fighter jets mixed with George’s love of hot rods and fast things. You can feel the speed and the danger just looking at the painting.
