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Ralph McQuarrie Website

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I've no idea if someone has posted about this before - I did try searching for a thread, but here's a link to:

Ralph McQuarrie Website

The site seems to be incomplete (it's new) and unfortunately a lot of the images are pretty lo-res.

Still, there's some interesting stuff there.
where have i been all this time ?
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Excellent! Thanks for that!

I was looking for a way to contact him, too! I've sent an email.

I've had sets of his conceptual artwork for ANH, ESB and ROTJ for some time.

A Legend!
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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http://www.ralphmcquarrie.com/galleries/SW/images/popups/Hope%2018.jpg

That's the image that McQuarrie made before anyone thought of Darth Vader as "half machine and half man." George Lucas owed so much to so many people and now he practically claims all of the genius for himself only.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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That is very true. The guy (Lucas) really doesn't have that much creative genius, sure he came up with the idea, but many people helped him get there.

I have always loved McQuarrie's art. I wonder how the various people who have contributed severly to the look and feel of Star Wars (namely McQuarrie and Williams and any number of model makers) feel about George's "it's all because of me" attitude.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Originally posted by: C3PX That is very true. The guy (Lucas) really doesn't have that much creative genius, sure he came up with the idea, but many people helped him get there.

I have always loved McQuarrie's art. I wonder how the various people who have contributed severly to the look and feel of Star Wars (namely McQuarrie and Williams and any number of model makers) feel about George's "it's all because of me" attitude.


I can’t imagine they’re happy about it. It’s too bad that the public isn’t familiar with all of the great minds involved in Star Wars. I guess it’s like anything else; the Quarterback gets most of the credit /blame for a football game, the President gets most of the credit/blame for everything and George gets most of the credit/blame for Star Wars.

The link is great, thanks f1209


"Look, going good against bashers/gushers is one thing. Going good against the living? That's something else."
- Darth-Adroit

“I also thought George could be turned back to the good side. It couldn't be done. He is more CGI now than story. Twisted and evil.”
- Darth-Adroit
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You know, to be honest, and this is not at all rooted in my modern disdain for what Lucas has become...but as a child that grew up as a part of the Star Wars generation and was beyond infatuated with the films, my interest was always in HOW it was all done. George Lucas was, to me, this nerdy guy with the big glasses. Whenever I got to see those making of specials on tv, or read about how something was done, THAT was what I was obsessed with. The guys who brought it all to life were my Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, you know? As a kid I did sort of worship these guys...Ben Burt, Dennis Muren, Phil Tippet, Ken Ralston, Ralph McQuarrie, Michael Pangrazio, etc. It was like, "Those guys are cool! I want to do what they do!".

Lucas was kind of like a general who commanded an army. His army did the fighting. He just told them where to fight.
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one of the reasons I thought all three original trilogy films were so great because of the production paintings and illustrations by Mr. McQuarrie. The art deco style design similar to rockwell but transposed to a galaxy far far away, as well as the fact that he did the animation for the moon landing for nasa.

I think the prequels should have used more of a Mcquarrie-esque design approach, maybe he should have done something there despite the fact that he is sick now.

I have always been a fan of his work and I love his designs for the 1976 star wars paperback, 1978 splinter of the mind's eye and all of those asimov covers he did are awesome.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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I'm going to try to send letters to members of the original creative teams of the OOT to find out their standpoint on current LucasFim policies. If anyone knows any good postal addresses (including ones for companies related to this situation) please post them in the thread ("Postal Addresses") I set up in Preservations And Fan Edits.
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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Originally posted by: JediFlyer06
You know, to be honest, and this is not at all rooted in my modern disdain for what Lucas has become...but as a child that grew up as a part of the Star Wars generation and was beyond infatuated with the films, my interest was always in HOW it was all done. George Lucas was, to me, this nerdy guy with the big glasses. Whenever I got to see those making of specials on tv, or read about how something was done, THAT was what I was obsessed with. The guys who brought it all to life were my Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, you know? As a kid I did sort of worship these guys...Ben Burt, Dennis Muren, Phil Tippet, Ken Ralston, Ralph McQuarrie, Michael Pangrazio, etc. It was like, "Those guys are cool! I want to do what they do!".


I was never that into the people behind the films, myself. It was more about a great set of stories to enjoy. Then for awhile there, after 1995, I began to give George Lucas a lot of the credit (based upon the publicity he gave himself) and yet even then I always knew that many other talented people were involved. Before Episode II I was hoping he would let other people have more of the control, like he did with Empire, but, as we all came to know, he didn't. Now I believe Lucas was very lucky in terms of any artistic success he personaly achieved, and I give the most credit to the amazing people he worked with.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Originally posted by: JediFlyer06
You know, to be honest, and this is not at all rooted in my modern disdain for what Lucas has become...but as a child that grew up as a part of the Star Wars generation and was beyond infatuated with the films, my interest was always in HOW it was all done. George Lucas was, to me, this nerdy guy with the big glasses. Whenever I got to see those making of specials on tv, or read about how something was done, THAT was what I was obsessed with. The guys who brought it all to life were my Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, you know? As a kid I did sort of worship these guys...Ben Burt, Dennis Muren, Phil Tippet, Ken Ralston, Ralph McQuarrie, Michael Pangrazio, etc. It was like, "Those guys are cool! I want to do what they do!".

Lucas was kind of like a general who commanded an army. His army did the fighting. He just told them where to fight.


I can relate to this. McQuarrie and Joe Johnston (how can you guys forget to mention him) were who inspired me to embark on a career in art.

It just amaizes me to think that McQuarrie was in his fifties back when he worked on the original movie.
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In 2002, that website released a DVD, "Ralph McQuarrie Illustrator", it's has interviews with him and other insights into his career from working for Boeing, the Apollo space missions and eventually illustrations for movies and books. Hopefully after the website redesign gets further along, maybe the DVD will get rereleased as well.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030204204834/http://www.ralphmcquarrie.com/sign/dvd/cover.JPG
Here's the archive.org's capture of the old DVD webpage annoucement: http://web.archive.org/web/20030204204834/www.ralphmcquarrie.com/sign/dvd/index.html
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Great site! Nice to see more of his other non OT-work too. The SW portfolio was among the earliest things in my collection. It was one of those things that opened my young eyes to the massive amount of work that goes into making a movie. Without his talents showing what Star Wars would look like, I don't think Fox would have ever given George the green light.
I still think Vader in that painting is more scary looking than in the movie!
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Where were you in '77?