After we finished on 'Alien', the next week we went to work on 'Empire Strikes Back' at Elstree Studios where we invaded the old workshops and began modifying the R2D2's and other robots. George Lucas built his own stage within Elstree to accommodate the Millennium Falcon that was to arrive from Wales..... |
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Stage set completed and ready for rehearsals |
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Meanwhile back in the workshop......(L to R) Ron Hone,Andrew Kelly, Barry Whitrod, Roger Nichols. |
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Kenny Baker's signed photo to Roger Nichols. |
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Modifications were the norm as more R2D2 copies were needed for different tasiks.. |
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Barry and Ron check out the radio control gear. |
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Ron Hone and Nick Allder (SFX Supervisor) with basic Yoda body shell. |
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......and then came the rubber skin for Yoda created here by Stuart Freeborn (I wonder where he got the likeness from?) |
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Yoda fully dressed for his debut.... |
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Dennis Lowe working on the radio controlled servos in the animatronics version of Yoda. |
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I couldn't resist placing a spare plastic Yoda eyeball between my glasses and my closed right eyelid..... |
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We worked on other robots too like this Imperial Probe Droid. |
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......and the Medical Droid. |
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Digby Milner and Dennis Lowe working on the Medical Droid. |
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| Special Effects crew on Empire Strikes Back. (Rollover to show names) |
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Special thanks to Ron Hone and Roger Nichols for the use of some of their photographic archive. |
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