Brian Muir
Well-Known Member
Well it's good to see new members join in the discussion and although this has been discussed for years there are so many people who are unaware of the saga.
As there so many posts to read through I have summarized the sequence of events regarding the making of the Stormtrooper helmet and armour:-
The creation of the Armour
- I was employed in January 1976 and my initial project was to sculpt the Stormtrooper armour (in clay)– it took me approximately 4 weeks and it was under the supervision of John Barry, production designer with George Lucas’s ultimate approval.
- The armour was moulded and cast in plaster – details sharpened by me – moulded and cast in fibreglass for the tools use the vacuum forming.
- There was a vacuum forming machine at Elstree Studios and suits were pulled – I saw them and it has been confirmed by 2 other plasterers on the production.
- There appears to have been a problem with the machine and it was outsourced to Shepperton Design Studios (Ainsworth)
The creation of the Helmet
- About mid February 1976 I saw a clay helmet outside the Art Department and was unaware at the time who had sculpted it but as Ainsworth had laid claim to sculpting it in recent years and I knew nothing about him I had no reason to doubt his word.
- After being made aware of the court case (and Ainsworth’s dubious version of events) I talked to people involved in the production and then found out that Liz Moore had sculpted the clay Stormtrooper helmet – but not in the Studios. She was a very talented sculptress and John Barry had worked with her on previous productions and trusted her work.
- Again the helmet would have been moulded and cast in fibreglass to make the tools for vacuum forming by the Studio plasterers.
Ainsworth’s version of events for the Court Case
- Ainsworth produced 5 revised statements for the court case and was even changing his ‘story’ during the court case.
- There was never any mention of a clay helmet by him until I notified Lucas’s lawyer of its existence and then photographic evidence was found.
- The reason he made no mention of it was because he never saw it – he was given the fibreglass tools to pull on.
- Pemberton (a firm friend of Ainsworth's) then stated he sculpted the clay helmet – he has no sculpting portfolio and with the details he gave of adding a Morris Minor ashtray his contribution (or that of his ex partner Ms Nicola Howard-Jones) was the grey/blue painted ‘Stormtrooper’ made up of a canoe helmet and component parts.
- Pemberton’s very sketchy diary, written by his PA, was used for a timeline. Ainsworth still tried to change the timeline to suit his story.
- To make his ‘story’ anywhere viable Ainsworth had to discredit Liz, John Mollo, the plasterers, John Richardson and myself.
- He says he discarded the helmet and armour that had taken weeks of work and been approved by John Barry and George Lucas, as they were of no use to him.
- He then says he made up his own design with no consultation with John Barry or Lucas and it was accepted. His method was to ‘sculpt’ the moulds directly – with only the Ralph McQuarrie paintings to go by – if you look at his dvd on Youtube where he had a year to produce a believable ‘sculpt’ of the Stormtrooper faceplate for a multi million pound court case I would hope you would realise he is lying.
Ainsworth’s version of events for his new website www.originalstormtrooper.com
His new ‘story’ is that he consulted John Barry over time regarding the ‘sculpting’ of the armour ( he is using information I gave in my statements to make his ‘story’ viable as it was proven in court that he was lying and the judge said his sequence of events were ‘faintly absurd’).
What he is producing now as ‘original’ helmet and armour from the original moulds is another saga. If you look on his Facebook page Original Stormtrooper you will see that he will not answer direct questions regarding very obvious differences in the armour to the original.
When asked about the difference in the line of the chest plate ( his has an arc and the original has an ogee) he tries to fudge the issue and will not answer the question.
I hope this helps to give you an idea of what has happened over the past few years.
These are Ainsworth's ever changing versions of events appearing in magazines, Rebelscum, his SDS site and court statement :-
Version 1.
2005 Article featured in Model and Collectors Mart – February 2005 (linked on SDS website)
I used to give friends of mine a hand to paint scenery and one of them was a friend of John Mollo (costume designer on Star Wars). John asked him if he could make something 3 dimensional which he didn’t know how to do , but he knew a man who could…. and I’m the man who could!
He brought over some images and colour plates from John Mollo and said ‘Can you make this?’. So I knocked him up something very quickly. I thought it was for his kids or something…………………
I think what happened next was that George Lucas took them back to America. Got the film funded.
Version 2.
Feature – Collectible Stormtrooper Helmets Rebelscum.com: Rebelscum Home Page (linked on SDS website)
At the beginning of January in 1976 Mollo approached Shepperton Design Studios with a vague brief – to produce a plastic helmet – and a copy of one of McQuarrie’s final proofs. Working from scratch Ainsworth built a clay sculpt of the helmet, broke it up into castable parts and pulled sheets of heated acrrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) plastic using a vacuum pump
Version 3
2007 Ainsworth’s final statement for court case
52. Nick said that a customer of his had asked him to produce a helmet as a prop for an actor to wear. Nick said that his customer had given him 2 pictures to guide him and he showed me the helmet made out of clay which he said he had produced.
69. My recollection is that I had an accident with Nick’s helmet early on in which the helmet was destroyed. It was the result of the rush involved in producing the helmets. Nick’s helmet was impossible to cast from because it had collapsed.
Version 4.
Ainsworth's Interview with ‘Street Carnage’
STREET CARNAGE: That’s insane that you designed the Stormtrooper helmet. How did you come up with the design?
ANDREW AINSWORTH: I was given a small painting by Ralph McQuarrie, which had a sort of a trooper depicted in it, about two inches high. That was enough for me. I made my interpretation of it to help a mate out. I didn’t know that it was for a movie.
When George Lucas saw it, he ordered 50 helmets and asked me if I could make armour to go with it. I said no problem. I knocked together 50 sets of armour in about four weeks. After that, I continued working and made about 200 characters. It was fun! They took anything I threw at them and just wrote them into the script.
So what’s up these days? They are now trying to enforce a US default judgement for the $20 million on me. (U.K. law makes this void.) The case is going well; I am on my home-ground with all the evidence I saved from 1976. Chapter and Verse, as far as I can see. They know jack **** about the subject.
Phew! And that's the condensed version
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