Thursday 17 November 2011

The many faces of a Wampa

I love the Net - you go off looking for info for one thing and come across something you weren't looking for, but were glad you did, even though you don't really need to know it.
Case in point here.
I've always thought there were two Wampa's in "Empire" - the rather Yeti-like one who roars up and attacks Luke:

And the much more feral, mean one seen in the Special Edition:

Two, right?

Pretty stunned to find this *ahem* "unusual" version of the fella and kinda dismissed it as one of the whole bunch of maquettes and mock ups made prior to shooting, one of those wildly in variance designs that were chucked out for George's perusal, much like the blue Yoda and the Santa Yoda.
Doubly stunned then to find that not only was it made by Stuart Freeborn, the genius who sculpted Yoda (and who quite wisely keeps this guy off his CV)but it was actually used on-screen:

NOW i know why it runs at Luke playing peekaboo...
I had a final stunned moment to find that there was actually a fourth one, who mercifully didn't make it up there: