MrV
Sr Member
Part 1
This post will document the journey of one of the most iconic spaceship props in film history (IMO), The Empire strikes back Snowspeeder!
In my quest to document the history of this prop I have used many resources that I feel are worth documenting on this forum. I undertook a basic documentation process on the history of this great prop and Embedded forevermore on the RPF so that it will not be lost to the sands of time.
Early designs for the Snowspeeder were painted by Ralph McQuarrie (Below), the most awesome of initial OT SW artists. From there the small twin seated attack craft was refined in design on paper by Alan Tomkins in England. If you haven’t read his book check it out “Stars and Wars”. The scale model was constructed by ILM back in the States by Joe Johnson.
With production having learned from their experience in the first Star Wars film, outsourcing production construction was the most pragmatic way to get some props built.
In the book “The making of the Empire strikes back” by Allen Arnold The author states;
“With a company based in Herefordshire (Ogle) doing an outstanding job on Lukes Landspeeder, full size Y-wing and X-Wing fighter’s for the first movie, production of the Snowspeeders was soon outsourced to the Ogle company to construct these full sized props”.
Below are images from the Japanese Magazine Car Styling (1980) featuring a section on Ogle and the making of the ESB vehicles.
Original blueprints from the JW Rinzler book detail that six of this Craft would be required, however based on production photographs it appears that only four were ever constructed.
On the 5th March 1979 filming commenced in Finse, Norway with one of the hero craft sent over (Below). Alan Tomkins details in his book "Stars and Wars" how they transported this craft over for use in the crash scene. Once filming in Norway was completed the cast and crew, then commenced filming in England where the prop was used for the echo base hanger scenes, and close-up scenes for the flight shots filmed on May 10th 1979.
This post will document the journey of one of the most iconic spaceship props in film history (IMO), The Empire strikes back Snowspeeder!
In my quest to document the history of this prop I have used many resources that I feel are worth documenting on this forum. I undertook a basic documentation process on the history of this great prop and Embedded forevermore on the RPF so that it will not be lost to the sands of time.
Early designs for the Snowspeeder were painted by Ralph McQuarrie (Below), the most awesome of initial OT SW artists. From there the small twin seated attack craft was refined in design on paper by Alan Tomkins in England. If you haven’t read his book check it out “Stars and Wars”. The scale model was constructed by ILM back in the States by Joe Johnson.
With production having learned from their experience in the first Star Wars film, outsourcing production construction was the most pragmatic way to get some props built.
In the book “The making of the Empire strikes back” by Allen Arnold The author states;
“With a company based in Herefordshire (Ogle) doing an outstanding job on Lukes Landspeeder, full size Y-wing and X-Wing fighter’s for the first movie, production of the Snowspeeders was soon outsourced to the Ogle company to construct these full sized props”.
Below are images from the Japanese Magazine Car Styling (1980) featuring a section on Ogle and the making of the ESB vehicles.
Original blueprints from the JW Rinzler book detail that six of this Craft would be required, however based on production photographs it appears that only four were ever constructed.
On the 5th March 1979 filming commenced in Finse, Norway with one of the hero craft sent over (Below). Alan Tomkins details in his book "Stars and Wars" how they transported this craft over for use in the crash scene. Once filming in Norway was completed the cast and crew, then commenced filming in England where the prop was used for the echo base hanger scenes, and close-up scenes for the flight shots filmed on May 10th 1979.
