1. Save it for later. Several members of the Art Department began exploratory concept art work in 2013 during the very early pre-production phase. It was so early in the process, this was before the movie even had a finished script. Some initial (but eventually discarded) ideas were so strong that they eventually appeared later in the saga, including an early suggestion from production designer Rick Carter that the story could include a visit to the watery wreckage of the Death Star II.
As concept artist Ryan Church recounted in The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens by Phil Szostak: “‘What if the Emperor’s chamber had crash-landed after the second Death Star explosion?’ That doesn’t make any sense, but that’s when Rick knows he has something.” Of course, we all know that this idea beautifully resurfaced (so to speak) in 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Image: Concept art of Maz holding Luke’s Lightsaber by Matt Allsopp for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
2. Gotta hand it to ‘em. The opening of The Force Awakens could have been very different. As revealed by J.J. Abrams in his director’s commentary (which appeared on the Collector’s Edition 3D Blu-ray release of the film), at one point the scene was supposed to chart the journey of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber from the Bespin duel in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back all the way to Maz Kanata’s castle. “In the original script, you saw the lightsaber falling through space, and landing on the ground, and a hand taking it,” said Abrams. “You used to have this entire backstory where we learned what happened with Luke’s lightsaber over the years and how it ended up finally in the hands of Maz Kanata.”
3. Bucket heads. In order to fill out the gleaming white ranks of the First Order, production turned to several famous faces for hard-to-spot cameos hidden under a helmet.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story composer Michael Giacchino made an early appearance as the stormtrooper behind a captured Poe Dameron on Jakku. Nigel Godrich, the award-winning producer of Radiohead, was deemed by Abrams as “a good stormtrooper for .4 seconds” before getting shot later in the film. And, of course, Daniel Craig, a Star Wars fan himself, had been filming the James Bond film Spectre on the shared Pinewood Studios lot, and was brought in for a day to live out his Star Wars dreams. His stormtrooper was called FN-007 on set, now named FN-1824 — the recipient of Rey’s first Jedi mind trick. “He shot all day and was fantastic. It’s his voice too,” remembered Abrams later in his director’s commentary.
There were other cameos beyond the First Order, too! For genre fans of The Raid: Redemption and The Raid 2, martial artists Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian played Razzo Quin-Fee and Tasu Leach, two of the mercenaries who tracked down Han Solo. Of course, Simon Pegg — known to fans of both the Abrams-led Star Trek reboot, as well as Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy of films that launched with Shaun of the Dead — donned heavy prosthetics as Unkar Plutt. “I burn for Star Wars,” Pegg boasted in between sweltering takes in the Abu Dhabi sun.
Image: Daisy Ridley and J.J. Abrams, third and fifth from left, talk to some of the crew behind the luggabeast puppet on set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
4. It takes a village. Determined to balance tangible, practical effects with computer-generated visual effects, a couple of scene-stealing creatures required an army of talent to bring them to life. The lumbering luggabeast, for example, featured the work of performers Derek Arnold and Tom Wilton inside the creature with Kiran Shah riding on top as the wily alien Teedo and BB-8 controlled by puppeteer Brian Herring. It’s a seemingly simple scene, but that makes Daisy Ridley the only unmasked human on screen! When you then take into consideration all of the concept artists and creature fabricators and designers (and eventual visual effects wizards), this one scene becomes a microcosm of the magical moviemaking experience.
Similarly, the happabore, co-star of a later scene with a very thirsty Finn, took five different puppeteers inside. The beast’s final design, however, was pitched to Abrams in a very unusual way. As concept artist Jake Lunt Davies remembers in The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens: “J.J. did his first tour of our workshop, and we rounded it off by having this enormous thing charge out of a side door into the main warehouse. It was a risk. Fortunately, he loved it.” The amount of effort for a singular unforgettable moment is rather astonishing.
5. What’s in a name? “Booooy!” For the gleaming Captain Phasma’s name, Abrams was directly inspired by a childhood horror favorite. Phasma’s shiny chrome armor reminded him of Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm, which featured a chrome ball (the lethal “Sentinel Sphere”), hence the name “Phasma.” Abrams’ company Bad Robot also performed a 4K restoration of Coscarelli’s 1979 classic.
In the years since, storytellers have added to the lore, connecting Phasma’s brushed armor to a certain Emperor Palpatine. As the story goes, the materials were salvaged from Palpatine’s chromium-built yacht.
