www.wired.co.uk: When costume designer Michael Kaplan (Blade Runner, Star Trek) was looking for a way to update the stormtroopers for The Force Awakens, his inspiration came partly from the phone in his pocket. "With time, I think, simplification occurs," says Kaplan."Because the stormtroopers are hard and white and plasticky, my thoughts did go to Apple."
18 comments:
CHOO CHOO get on the Star Wars hype train because we are right around the corner. In just under a month we will all be watching the force awaken. This gets me so excited. I am disappointed though about a certain aspect of these costumes. Disney is not selling them. You can buy loads of different $20 costumes made of cheap crap online. But if they are going to legit make these for the movie (as opposed to CGI) I can not believe that they did not make extra to sell around. Missed Opportunity.
Maybe that comes later, I just have this image in my head of an army of storm troopers attending the movie, and I am disappointed it is not going to happen. It won't stop The Force Awakens from being the second biggest highlight of my year (after my wedding).
I honestly can't wait for this movie to come out. I was so nervous when the new Star Wars movie was announced, but from what I've seen so far it's going to be good. Also JJ Abrams is at the helm and he already did a great job revamping another beloved franchise of mine (Star Trek). I hope beyond anything that this movie is great because as much as I love and adore the original trilogy I would love to have a fantastic Star Wars movie that is truly mine. This movie will have been made for my generation, I mean Storm trooper costumes made with inspiration from Apple products? And I will get to be the excited fan staying up all night to see the midnight premiere. This will be my Star Wars movie and when I'm forcing my nieces and nephews to watch the originals, I want to be able to show them this and say that yes I was there. This one isn't just a piece of the past that I fell in love with, this one was mine. So let's pray to high heaven that it's good.
Oh boy! Twenty-seven days until Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theatres for the first time. I can’t begin to express just how excited I am for this movie and from what I’ve seen the time and care taken to produce these costumes and every other aspect of the film is simply incredible. Star Wars has been one of my biggest obsessions for the longest time and it is so cool to see a group of people who really seem to care just as much as I do about the look and feel of this very special universe. At this point I think its obvious the production value of these movies will be right up to par with the rest of the films for their time. I am really hoping that they manage to nail the storyline and the characters because if they manage to do that I might just die.
Excited as I am for The Force Awakens to come out I think this may actually be the first thing I’ve read on it. All I can say is that if this is representative of the level of thought that’s been put into the rest of the movie then I’m looking forwards to it even more than I was before. I especially like the way the costume designer found to update the storm trooper armor while keeping it recognizable. The amount of thought they put into is incredible. They managed to find a way to make it seem both more practical and more modern, not to mention it really does look like something Apple would design, especially the silver plated armor. Coincidentally that’s the other thing I appreciated about the costume design, it found a way to break up the same-y-ness of the storm troopers while keeping enough similarity that you knew the special armor might belong to a special storm trooper but a storm trooper all the same.
So I just read the article on why the Hobbit movies were terrible and it came down to that they didn't have enough time to plan and prepare everything before they started shooting. The props and prosthetics were getting their things out the day they were needed on the set instead of doing everything months, even years in advance. So I am really pleasantly surprised to see how prepared the new Star Wars movies are. I have been cautiously excited for the new movies just because they already had the prequel trilogy and most people hated that one. I also haven’t seen updates on the process or movie besides advertisement, which of course is going to be positive. I think a lot of people are still trying to wrap their heads around having a new set of Star Wars movies so long after the original ones. But the time taken in between is really helping the process. This is no rushed trilogy, this is a well thought out movie, made for the current generation, and it’s proving to look awesome.
I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, but I'm always interested in reading "behind the scenes" design articles, such as this one. It is cool to hear the designer's intents and insights and to see if what I'm seeing visually is lining up with what they are saying. Designs aside though, that dressing room is just staggering in size and scale. Jus seeing the level of organization to keep all the costumes straight is really darn cool. Anyways, yeah, the streamlining of the stormtrooper design makes sense given the "modernization" of the Star Wars universe. I totally see the correlation between the costumes and the "Apple" streamlined aesthetic. And man, that is a really awesome illustration of a stormtrooper mask. I totally would buy that and hang it on my wall too! Lastly, the brief mention on fabrication techniques is also interesting. Neat to hear the progression of fab techniques from the 1st Star Wars to now, from fragile then to sturdy now!
I think Kaplan's creation of Christie's armored costume speaks to the magic that can happen when a designer just goes with their instincts. Sometimes we make things because a production requires us to, and sometimes we make things because our own creative vision tells us we can't ignore an idea. And chances are, when we can't ignore our own ideas, it can be hard for others to as well. By following an instinct and playing around with an idea, Kaplan spawned the birth of an entire character, one who - based off of what I can tell from the stills - is sure to make a lasting impression on audiences. Along with his thoughtful revival of the stormtrooper and his provocative design for Kylo Ren, Kaplan has my respect for instinct alone. I cannot wait to see what else Kaplan has done with his powerful aesthetic instinct for the rest of the film and think the depth of this thought process will have an incredible effect on the tone and mood of the film as a whole. Here's hoping Captain Phasma is as cool as her costume makes her seem.
I am so excited for this movie. I have really loved Kaplan’s past designs so I’m sure that I won’t have any bad to say about this movie too. He made it clear in his Blade Runner designs that he is excellent at invoking the past without copying it. (All of Rachel’s outfits in the film invoke thoughts of the 1940’s but with a futuristic twist.) I think that he’s done the same with these storm troopers both in looks and materials. I love Star Wars and I have a fondness for the old storm troopers. But these movies take place in a different time period than the originals and it would be easy to assume that their technology has advanced as ours has. I also love the costume for the villain character. It does hark back to Darth Vader, but the fabric choices also hark back to Obi Wan’s robes in A New Hope.
I loved the designer's comment about simplifying the design of the storm troopers as a way to push his designs into the future. There is something so powerful about Apple that made all of our products -- especially our design aesthetics -- push into a more simple, less cluttered mindset. It's only applicable that in the future of Star Wars the storm troopers sought out less bumps and knobs and focused more on the functionality of the piece, as we humans have done in history as well. Like all of the other commenters, I'm very excited to glimpse all 1,500 of the designs for this movie. It sort of blows my mind that Kaplan thought up such a diverse, complicated world in terms of design. I can barely think past one project, so it's a major challenge to think of my brain holding all those worlds, their habits, their customs and forms. There's got to be a lot of weight on his shoulders as well, being that these films are a legacy of their own and that the costumes of the previous films are so, so recognizable. So, like the Apple iPhone, Kaplan is taking a well loved product and bringing it to a contemporary audience's sensibilities -- something I encourage and admire.
Something from this article that I think is interesting is the fact that to design costumes for a galaxy far far away, Michael Kaplan pulled from this galaxy for inspiration. To pull from Apple’s design in creating something that is so open is strange to me, but as a movie goer all of Apple’s concepts make sense for this design. In the real world we do seem to move closer and closer to minimalism, efficiency is key. I guess what I’m considering as a designer, and since this is a sequel it might not be the best example, is when designing something that is so open to interpretation as in something from another galaxy, do you go with what makes since aesthetic wise to this galaxy, or do you take the risk and do something completely out of the box,, because you can, and because if it were another galaxy that is how it should be.
Seeing where designers source their designs is, for me, almost as entertaining and magical as observing the rest of the design process. After scrolling through all of the pictures in this article first ( I couldn't restrain myself) I went back to read the body text, and upon seeing how much thought and talent went into the designs captured, had to take a moment and step back, and cool my jets for a moment or two. Hearing costume designers of Michael Kaplan's order talk so non-nonchalantly about designs that will no doubt go on to spark the inspiration of everyone from small children (future designers, perhaps) and fellow designers alike, hearing this sends shivers down my spine. I know that Kaplan realizes that young Star Wars superfans will scrutinize his designs over and over, model their own out of cardboard and masking tape, paint with fingers and plastic brushes, and destroy on the playground, never once to know his name. This, to me, is the duty of the designer, and one I hope to sere someday, on such a scale, for such a diverse audience of starry-eyed faithful.
I cant wait for the star wars film to come out, at first i dreaded it but nice i saw that it actually had a good story and was more than a money maker, i got excited. I really like that this costume designer has pulled inspiration from the objects from the everyday lives of this new generation watching. Its weird to see because I know it as star wars but it is different and i like that in the end i think. What I like about the star wars universe is that you as a designer can make whatever you want because it is a world like our own but totally different.The star wars universe also has the ability to show the good things and bad things about our world and give them the same meaning in a different story. what i also like about these new movies, unlike the other prequel movies, is hat they are not taking the old designs for costumes, they are implementing a whole new set of designs to tell the story of whole new world after the fall of the empire.
These costumes are really cool; also they look a bit uncomfortable. I guess I never realized that every costume for every storm trooper really has to have every detail perfect since many of them will be seen pretty clearly in the foreground. I guess I also never really thought about how costumes like there were actually created. They needed hundreds of identical pieces.
I like that they shared the process for how they made the armor. Polyurethane casting. I guess that would be the way to go. You can achieve almost any hardness on the A, C, or D scale, achieve pretty good color, and create cheap and repeatable parts.
I wish I could see one of those costumes in person. I'd like to see how they molded the individual plastic parts and connections.
We see movies on a daily basis and talk about how amazing the actors are and the story was interesting but not much is talked about costumes and what goes into designing movies like Star Wars. I was intrigued by this article because I am not a crazy fan of Star Wars and its every single behind the scenes detail but this one caught my attention because sometime I forget that every storm trooper is a different actor that has to wear the same costume. That’s a lot of people to costume. And on top of that each angle of the mask is thought out precisely and done with extra care. They don’t just slap a helmet on some guy and put him in the background, they take as much work to design this costume as they would one of the lead characters. I am just happy that there is an article like this out to make people more appreciative of the work designers do for every single person on screen.
AAAAH these are so beautiful. I think the designer is so right to not directly go off of the old movies, but take it into a new age. I think its so interesting that in science fiction, even though its set in the distant future, you can always tell what era it is from due to the influence of costume design. Like, Uhuru in her A-line skirt in the 60's, is much different from the sleek modern day Uhuru in the new movies. And it's always evident when you watch an 80's sci-fi movie, from the hair. Even in the movies of the early 2000's style influenced the costumes, with Natalie Portman's bra-less Britney Spears- looking white ensemble from the 2nd film. And for the Storm Troopers and villains of the newest films to be sleek, technology inspired designs, it's perfect.
If they had opted for the old Storm Trooper suits, the movie would not have looked as updated and it definitely would've felt oldfashioned.
And, also may I just mention, that even though this costumer has had to dream up 1,000+ costumes, this is still a dream job working totally fictionally, and in the realm of the most beloved franchise ever. However, they do have a lot of.. fan standards to meet. Working on Star Wars means a lot of scrutiny from nerds everywhere.
As I'm sure many people have mentioned, making another movie in a series that has already gathered so much attention and so many fans is a very hard task. It's like making the Hobbit movies, the newest seasons of Doctor Who, or the Legend of Korra. People who were children when the first movies or episodes came out are married to the ways of the old show, and are bound to be difficult to please when it comes to new things introduced in a new version. The director is treading on unstable ground when it comes to pleasing fans. Still, I think his new vision is heading in the right direction: I am glad that they have found a way to evolve the costumes and also come up with something that allows their vision for these movies to be included. It's an intuitive transformation for the masks to get simpler, and yet they are still recognizably Storm Troopers. I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the movie holds!
My first thought when I saw the updated Stormtroopers was that the new iPhone-esque helmets were to the new Star Wars movies as the Apple store-esque bridge was to the new Star Trek movies. That being said, since these movies are supposed to be a continuation of the original narrative instead of a reboot, I think in this case the updated design was necessary and fit well with the overall idea they were trying to convey. I think making the first officer's suit metal is a much more interesting and discussion-worthy topic. On one hand, the updated Stormtrooper design takes the movie into the future, but on the other hand the metal takes you pretty forcefully back into medieval times. I think it's too early to say what the overall result will be-- just looking at it I can't decide whether the effect will disjointed and dumb looking or clever. As far as how these changes are effecting people's desire to see the new movies, I think anyone who won't let them make any changes to the original designs is disillusioned and impossible to please. There's no way to add on to an existing (much-loved) franchise without making at least one person mad, and by exploring these new designs the movie-makers are trying to appeal to both a new generation of Star Wars lovers and multiple generations who grew up with the original movies or prequels-- a task of massive proportions.
I have no idea what the old storm troopers looked like, but i think that these new ones were approached with a detailed design eye and really were worth the effort. Michael Kaplan has done a great job of using todays technology as inspiration for his costume. Its crazy that there are 1,500 costumes that are being over seen by the designer. I would be curious to see how many assistants he has, to help bring this together. While I have not seen any of the star wars movies, and really have no investment in this series, I hope for the people who care abut it that he has done justice to the iconic look of these costumes. I have to say that if he modernizes the costumes with the same careful eye he did for the storm troopers, the costumes in this movie will be a success. That photo of the storm troopers dressing room was hilarious.
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