The DEFINITIVE VADER Q&A session - time to ARCHIVE?

Hey guys, as mentioned earlier, the size of the person wearing the armor has a lot to do with how it looks. I have a set of GT armor and I'm 6'6" 270, and when I wear mine the armor rolls back to the point where the base of the face mask sticks out over the armor, and the back extends farther down. In fact, the armor rolls back so far, that it is a little uncomfortable against the base of my throat. it's bearable though. I'll try to post some pics soon, if it would help.

Awesome thread, by the way
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Robert
 
Draco, I wouldnt be surprised if that chest box is from the Rubies statue. I dont think too many LFL-made boxes had the copyright notice under the bottom coin slot: "LFL 1995", yet I know for sure the rubies (and subsequently the GTs) had it.

EDIT- this is my first post to this thread and I forgot to send a big thank-you to darthjones for all the great info he's shared. THANKS!
 
Yah, of course the blue square is supposed to be over the red. One of those things. Concerning the grill on the mask, all of the ones I looked at that were in the movies had a black grill that looked like the same screen as the picture referred to. Kind of a grating screen or something intense like that. Almost like a larger version of what you would find on a surform plaster tool. The reveal helmet had totally different screen and a couple of the helmets had three layers of screen from biggest to smallest. Very different from mask to mask. The front screen though was almost always the same. They didn't seem to care about that too much as long as it looked cool.
 
Whoaa... good to see after having been away for a few days that there's still activity on this thread.

I knew it. The vent screens were black. Good job I painted my Dark Deluxe's screens black. The MOM's silver ones just didn't look right to me.

And regarding the chestbox - what Jase said. It's from the Vis. Dict. and I remember someone confirming it was from the Rubies statue.

So DJ, any luck on sending a GT chest armor up to your ILM friend?

Oh yeah, one thing I've always wondered regarding the chest armor.
You know the left and right corners at the front bottom (ie., beside the shoulder bells) - these corners taper in a wee bit, don't they? I see it very clearly in several shots, like this one:

[attachmentid=1183]

It's also done that way in my metal Vader which is highly detailed and accurate:

[attachmentid=1184]

Can you confirm this taper?
If so, then that's one thing that has bothered me with the GT armor. The corners do not taper in at all, and in fact almost flare back out a wee bit.,I know the sides were trimmed narrower, but if the trimming was only 1-1.5" on either side I would expect a little taper to start showing, or at least won't stick out the opposite way a bit.
 
KL,

Are you talking about the way the ends of the armor should follow the contour of the chest and bend in towards the armpits? In other words, imagine the armor was flexible and you pushed the two ends of the armor towards the chest / armpit.
I've noticed it too. My Gino armor doesn't have this taper either.It's actually worse than the G.T armor in this respect because there's a BIG gap between the armpit and the corner of the armor.

Chris.
 
Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about, Chris.

Yes, I would imagine the gap between the armor corner and the chest/armpit would be even bigger in Gino's if it doesn't taper at all. It's bad enough on the GT's already.

But that brings me to my next question - if it does taper, then if you have the shoulder bells lined up with the armor (instead of sitting under the armor like in the above pics), then wouldn't that look a bit weird with the taper? The armor wouldn't lead on very well to the bells, would they?
Or do the bells taper too accordingly?

Heck, here's another related question - are the bells meant to sit *under* the armor or line up with it?
 
I think the GT bells already have a slight taper on them if you look at them from above don't they. It should be a natural continuation of the taper in the chest armor. I think that for the majority of the time that Prowse wore the suit, the bells were on his shoulders and tended to slip under the armor. However, for ROTJ, Prowse's stunt double was in the costume for most of the time and he is not quite as big as Prowse. That's why they rigged up the armor so that the bells were attached to the chest to give the illusion of width.

Chris.
 
I have noticed that the chest armor appears to taper inward by the shoulders also.

I think onigiri was thinking of making a hybrid of g/t and ginos version. this would be a good feature to add.

I was going to add this in when I widenend my old g/t armor. but I only added 1/2" on each side (not enough for this type of MOD). I didn't want to over-do it. and wanted mainly to make the sides straight from the top of the shoulder to the bottom of the chest. not swoop inward like the g/t version origianll.

what statue is that pictured? it is very detalied, I like it.
 
Great shot of Vader in the meditation chamber !!! I've never seen this shot before, is he missing a shin guard though?

Alan.
 
Yep. Also missing his cod-piece, and cape (obviously).

Another interesting thing to note is that you can see that his trousers are only half leather - the front half.
See on his left leg that the back half is made of some other (presumably cheaper) material?

Can you confirm this too, DJ?

btw, anyone seen DJ?
(Everytime I open this thread I keep singing the Aqua song, "Dr. Jones, Dr. Jones, calling Dr. Jones, Dr. Jones, Dr. Jones, wake up now (wake up now!)..."
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)
 
Hey, all! Been way crazy busy over here with real life and all the false gods therein.

Yes, there is definately a taper in on the real armor. That guy up north who has a real set of armor has apparantly taken some snapshots for me and they will be here next week. I can already tell that they will not be good photographs - sort of from the top, sort of from the back, sort of from the front.

He probably just took them real quick to shut me up even though I ideally wanted to send up a GT to put next to it.

Anyway, I live in California. Who here lives close (in the states) by who can post the photos if they are helpful? I'm lame at that sort of thing and don't have a scanner.

And wow! Great meditation chamber shot.

Those shoulder bells have no "right" way of being there. They just need to get it right for the shot. Y'all know that. Fan consensus is what makes it "right." I personally think that when he was moving around they had them hinged and underneath when he was still. I have no clue on that.

And I still have not seen a GT in person. They are $ for me right now. HOWEVER - when I get those photos out, someone maybe could try and shoot their armor from the same angles. I know that GT started with Rubie's armor which is from ILM but all the changes could have come from the fact that Rubie's ended up vacuforming their version. Could have ****** it up somehow in addition to trimming it.

I still wonder why they trimmed it. Weird. Maybe for movement but no one ever moved around on film or in person in a trimmed Vader armor set - I know that Disney world trimmed the crap out of theirs but that was for total movement.

Hmmmm.
 
Thanks for the info and can't wait to see those photo's.

Hey KL, when are you going to post photo's of your Dark DLX for us to envy ???

Alan.
 
Thanks for the reply, DJ!! Looking forward to the pics!

icemanfred - oops, forgot to reply to your question earlier. To add to what Mr. Walker said, you can see more pics of the metal Vader on my website (under "TV Area").

Alan, hope to be able to take and post pics of my Dark DLX soon, but can't just yet cos I just moved and everything is still in the box. In fact, right as I type this they are getting my new display shelves ready, where all my collection will go into.
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NEW QUESTION:

DarthJones, in the meantime, can I ask what you know about the sabers? eg., what do you make of the Carbon-Freeze no-King-Sol-but-MPP-instead debate?

Also, any knowledge of the ROTJ saber?
The interesting thing I note is that the licensed stuff of the ROTJ saber, eg., the Hasbro (or Kenner?) toy saber, and the metal Vader (see pic I posted above) show NO BRASS ROD, and also the activation switch is more like a circuit board/plate rather than what we see in the MOM version.

Was there a hero version of it? and if so, perhaps this version didn't have the rod and had a circuit board, unlike the MOM version?
 
Hi. Yes, there was a hero version of the ROTJ saber to my knowledge. ILM had a velvet-lined wood box with Luke and Vader sabers in there. All others were thrown in a box. I don't know much about the ROTJ saber. I actually hate the look of it. But I do recall a circuit board type thing on it. I might have a picture somewhere of me holding it which I will look at.

In my opinion the MPP is the real deal from ANH - the best looking saber and the one they kept trying to copy for the other films.

Wish I could help more on this one.
 
regarding the shoulders, you guys have to realize that they can slide back and forward a bit, making it look as though they are too short or trimmed in various shots. I suspect that, the top and bottom has not been trimmed, only about a 1/2" triangle at the points on each side..in other words, the cut off section merges again with the bottom converging bands of the plate so its not cut off all the way around the bottom edge. Now, as to whether or not they are cut off on the top is a bit iffy to me because the top certain recieved more wear and tear so there may have been little point...either way, the tops of the shoulders go under the plate (Prowse simply would not have been able to move his freakin arms!) had they been placed otherwise.

Durasteel
 
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