BEHIND THE SCENES: AN EVOLVING JEDI...

Here's an early in-the-works piece of costume design art by Nilo-Rodis Jamero for Luke Skywalker from RETURN OF THE JEDI. The dark cloak he wears would remain and become iconic, but the majority of the front layer of the costume, which is very Obi-Wan like, would be replaced with a much darker, deliberately more Darth Vader'ish ensemble, on the instructions of George Lucas, by the time of the movies filming in London in January 1982.

Check out our comprehensive AFICIONADO Behind the Scenes making of RETURN OF THE JEDI special issue here: STAR WARS AFICIONADO ISSUE 14 - THE MAKING OF "RETURN OF THE JEDI" and here: PDF SAMPLES OF "STAR WARS AFICIONADO" FEATURE PAGES

ILM CLASSIC IMAGE: BALANCE TO THE FORCE!

Here's a few great effects reference storyboards (presumably from Joe Johnston, though David Carson and Nilo Rodis-Jamero also worked in that area for the film), circa December 1982, that we weren't able to incorporate for space reasons in our MAKING OF RETURN OF THE JEDI issue of a few years back, showing some of the previously filmed classic scenes of Luke's conflict against Darth Vader when he discovers the truth about his daughter and uses the knowledge against his son, plus the all-time classic emotional moment where Vader, back to the good side as Anakin Skywalker (of which we're all now cheering him on), throws the Emperor down the shaft (referred to in the boards as "The Pit of Death"!).

Classic material, and we look forward to seeing more storyboard goodies and incredibly rare and unseen pre and post production art of all kinds when J.W. Rinzler's MAKING OF book comes out in 2013.

Meanwhile, in the long two year wait for the official book, head over to our back issues area and find out how to get out pretty exhaustive, and reader acclaimed, MAKING OF RETURN OF THE JEDI issue: BACK ISSUE PDF CATALOG