Star Wars Insider – July 2019

STAR WARS INSIDER / 55

FINDING YOUR FETT

IG-88

When Ralph McQuarrie was
tasked with creating concepts for
the bounty hunters, his remit
decreed that one of them should
be an assassin droid. However, the
IG-88 that made it on screen owed
more to the fi lm’s props department
than the imagination of McQuarrie,
whose initial concepts later became
the basis for some nefarious droid
characters in Star Wars Rebels.
Bill Hargreaves, supervising prop
maker on The Empire Strikes Back,
has fond memories of creating
IG-88, but admitted: “I didn’t have
any drawings, most of it just came
out of my head.” Helping him was
Steve Short, and the two assembled
the assassin droid mostly out of
salvaged airplane parts sourced from
wrecking yards in nearby Hayes—
most notably the droid’s head,
which was originally the fl ame tube
of a 1940s Rolls-Royce Derwent
turbojet engine (a group of these

conical fl ame tubes also appeared

as drinks dispensers behind the

bar in the Mos Eisley cantina).

However, as well as his high-fl ying

parts, IG-88 had an automotive

pedigree too: “In addition to lots of

aircraft oil ways and armored cable,

there was also part of a VW gear

box,” added Hargreaves.

“I decided we needed a real

dirty, evil, and vicious ‘bot, like the

bounty hunters of old,” he went

on to explain. “Lots of weapons

and protection—dark and oily. So

we made him big, about 234cm (7

feet 8 inches) tall. We had to drop

him down a level on set to get him

in shot. He was lean, but strong. In

short, a killer,” detailed Hargreaves.

“Some of the grown-ups were not

taken with the idea, as it was taking

a different direction from the other

‘bots, but I thought it should. And

when someone said, ‘I don’t think

you would fi nd a robot like that

on a spaceship,’ my reply was,

‘You would on mine.’”

Dengar

Dengar was a creation of John

Mollo and the movie’s costume

department, and was another case

of recycling in action. His armor

included pieces from stormtroopers,

along with a snowtrooper offi cer

chestplate fi tted over a jumpsuit.

Additional greeblies added fi ne

detail, and the armor was painted

brown. However, Dengar wasn’t a

complete product of the Empire: his

gloves and boots were re-purposed

Hoth rebel costume pieces. A hood

and bandage completed the look,

adding to his menacing appearance.

Dengar was the only one of the

Empire bounty hunter designs to

show the actor’s face—in this case,

Maurice “Moray” Bush (who also

reprised the role for the Jabba’s

Palace scene in Return of the Jedi).

Makeup artist Nick Maley, who

created the character’s makeup,

recalled that, “The scars were all

collodion, an old school plastic.

You used to glue sections of it to the

face, then distort them and paint

the creases to look like scars.”