Kelvington

OK this is the history of the suits as I understand it, after having talked with a few people who worked for ILM and Lucasfilm at the time, they now work for Disney, but not on SW stuff.

The first suits for ANH, like all costumes in movies, have multiples and are typically done on the cheap, after all the entire film was made for ten million dollars back in the day.

Vader’s helmet was always, in every iteration, been made of fiberglass, with various bits and pieces of metal and plastic added, the eye lenses and silver bits on his face plate. The helmet was redone and changed for TESB and ROJ, and various “reveal” helmets created. In AHN there were three under suits made, two for Prowse and one for a stuntman.

In TESB there were four helmets made, one for the stunt crew, two for Prowse, one “reveal” helmet/split mask combo, this one can be seen lowering down on to Vader’s head in the chamber, a back neck piece was also added but never worn in any other scene in TESB. You will notice that when Vader turns in his chair, the face mask sits very differently than it is ever seen in any other shot. The lower part of the mask is tucked into his armor.

There were several under suits made, as they tended to wear out after the actors/stuntmen worked and sweated in them, they were difficult to clean, and unpleasant in general. The rest of the suit was re-vamped to move the belt boxes away from the belt buckle, the chest box was redone with more detail, and in TESB the Battle Tabard was put under the shoulder pads/upper chest armor. Although in the chair shot, Vader is not wearing either his cape or Battle Tabard. The chest box also lit up with a distinctive pattern of lights in the “coin slots”, this pattern would change in ROTJ, and a few additional items were added to it as well. The budget for Vader suits in TESB was almost $200,000. Probably ten times what was spent for Vader in ANH. In addition to a slightly changed cape shape from the first film, two lighter stunt capes were created, one with holes in it so a set of wires for the flying rig could pass through it. It was also slightly scaled down for the smaller stuntmen who would double for Prowse. In particular when you see Vader leap over the steps to get at Luke, the proportion of the chest box and cod piece look slightly off since they are on a smaller person.

For ROTJ three under suits were created, with a slightly different pattern on them, plus at least twice TESB’s stunt under suits were used because they were still in good shape. One of the stunt suits was equipped with longer right arm/fake half glove to accommodate the right hand which Luke would cut off in the climax of the film, it also had fake wiring in it. The same suit was later worn by Prowse with the back opened so he could pull his right hand back into the suit beyond the point where the wiring rig was attached to his severed right hand. Only two new helmets/masks were made for the film, plus the reuse of the split mask which had extra detailing added to it and was worn by Sebastian Shaw, this also marks the return of the neck brace which was reused from TESB. For only the second time in SW history was the Vader mask, tucked into the upper chest armor. This occurs as the actors switch places, it’s Prowse until he finishes saying, “Let me look on you with my own eyes”. The remainder of the shots are Shaw who was much smaller than Prowse, he looks like he’s swimming in Prowse’s suit. The decision was made not to use the smaller stunt suit on Shaw for continuities sake. Even though a hero suit was painted up with damage to make it look like it had been in battle, this can clearly be seen on Vader’s helmet as it’s removed.

There seems to be a lot of debate about the split mask, the Lucas archives suggest that there were only two of the split masks ever made, one for Prowse in TESB that was reused by Shaw in ROTJ and one Hayden Christensen for ROTS. But others will swear there were several masks that displayed the cut point for where the two mask pieces join. In my experience working with the Vader suits, and dressing two mannequins in original Vader costumes, (one for the Hard Rock, the other in a museum) that the masks were one piece, and did not display the cut lines.

The ROTS suit, was completely created to fit Christensen and his request, it looks incredibly different from the rest of the suits. And while a few helmets were made only two masks were made, one that was in two pieces, and one that looked like it was in two pieces, both of them had the wrap around neck attachment on them that look nothing like the one used in TESB and ROTJ.

The Rouge One suit was a comb suit, a new under suit (three were created, two for Wilding and one for the stunt person used at the end of the movie) and various pieces borrowed from what remained of the original trilogy suits. The chest box was done based on a mold of the ANH box, replica belt boxes and the like. The things I don’t have a lot of knowledge on is the gloves, the leg covers and the boots, I’ve heard several different types were used, but I haven’t seen enough of them to be certain.

Finally a bit of an oddity, is the cod pieces, while I’ve been told that none of the cod pieces used in filming had an under strap, connecting the bottom of the cod piece to the back harness. I can say the two Vader’s I dressed did in fact have the under strap. I’ve never been able to get a clear answer as to why some were different. My only guess would be the underpinned ones were used occasionally, but not in any of the stunt shots.

That’s pretty much all I know about the Vader suits. I hope this helps.