In the Special Editions, the Rebo Band were big victims of George Lucas' digital wand.
Here’s how CGI changed them - seemingly forever… Then 20 years old, the original 70s print was decaying.
Effects shots were damaged.
Darth Vaders once imposing black mask and cloak had faded to a wan shade of pale blue.
Lukes landspeeder now floats on a more convincing looking shadow, as it zooms across the desert.
But other additions would soon become infamous: Greedo shooting first in the cantina.
Luke left Tatooine a wide-eyed boy, but now hes returned as a seasoned warrior.
Jedi Rocks changes the tone of the Jabbas palace sequence completely.
Gone is the off-kilter, disquieting beat of Lakti Nek.
With the new song came new special effects.
The original three-piece Rebo band was upped to nine members, including three backing singers.
Vying for attention was Joh Yowza, a furry, squat creature known as a Yuzzum.
Then there were the denizens of Jabbas palace.
A poster on the wall states that the psychiatrist is in.
The actor Deep Roy, whose role was uncredited, sweated away in the Droopy McCool suit.
Between takes, hairdriers were often used to blast cold air into the actors broiling masks and outfits.
The tall, skinny Sy Snootles was a far more complex creation.
Looking back at the behind-the-scenes footage, you might see just how tough Sy must have been to operate.
Rose doesnt have enough room to stand up straight in his little area beneath the raised stage.
Sy Snootles was the hardest character to do, Rose writes on hiswebsite.
I designed her as a reverse string marionette which I operated with Mike Quinn.
(Apparently, it was quite common for Marquand to sit and chat to Crumb between takes.)
Because its really putting me off.
The crew began to laugh, but Ford was less than amused.
As a rather sneaky compromise, Rose was kept on.
An assistant director told him, If anyone asks, youre the new guy.
Rose recalls that he and Quinn didnt get enough takes to bring Sy to life as they wanted.
The lyrics to the song were written by Annie Arbogast, a Lucasfilm sound engineer.
Arbogast wrote the song in English.
But unfortunately at the time the rumor was Anne was keeping company with George Lucas.
Told you this is a curious story.)
Behind-the-scenes footage certainly suggests that Lucas was originally planning to have more going on in the Rebo Band scene.
Finally, the barn doors of his imagination could be flung wide open.
But the state-of-the-art animatronics had only reached a certain level.
And although there were a lot of characters, none of them really quite moved properly.
Sy Snootles couldnt really open her mouth, she couldnt lip-synch properly.
Her eyes didnt move.
It was a very complex creature to develop.
And I think this gave us the opportunity to actually open that up.
And so it was that Lucasfilms artists and technicians were given the task of reworking the Rebo Band sequence.
To bring these exotic aliens to life, they were using what was then cutting-edge graphics technology.
The difficulty was that we were locked into a basic shape.
We tried to hone in on making her appear aesthetically pleasing while sticking to her original shape.
Ultimately, we only kept one longer shot of the original puppet.
After the Special Editions release, he defended his liberal use of CGI to spruce upor replaceold sequences.
Is a digital character more fake than a big fat rubber character?
I mean theres nothing real here at all…
Lucas may have a point here.
In the Special Edition versions ofReturn of the Jedi,they can barely be seen at all.
Even Rose doesnt have a pristine copy of his performance as Sy.
InThe Force Awakens,J.J.
