Ever since we first heard word about the Dark Lord of the Sith possibly making an appearance in director Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One standalone film, fans have been giddy over the prospect of seeing Vader return to the silver screen for the first time since 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. In an exclusive article posted over on Comicbook.com, ILM visual effects mastermind John Knoll spoke about the effort that went into selecting the final design for Darth Vader’s costume in Rogue One, specifically how it related to versions of the costume seen in the Original Trilogy.
“That’s a bit of a hybrid,” Knoll said of Darth Vader’s look in the film. “If you look in New Hope, especially like that white corridor scene at the beginning you can see all these smudges and all these fingerprints on there because it was cast from a clay sculpt. Then by the time we got to Empire Strikes Back they made a new one that was like really polished and smooth and shiny and perfect. The chest plate is different in every film.
“We matched more the, what the chest plate looked like in Episode IV, but a little bit more of the high polish that’s in Episode V.”
Knoll also discussed the topic of Rogue One‘s visual identity and the desired reaction the production team is hoping to elicit from fans after they’ve watched it.
“The overwriting philosophy of [Rogue One] was to match more how you remember it than how it actually was,” John Knoll, VFX Supervisor and EP of the film told Comicbook.com in an interview at the press junket in San Francisco. The first step was starting from the ground up.
“As silly as it sounds to make it associated with a Star Wars film, we’re trying to go for higher realism and more grounded, but still with all these fantastic elements,” Knoll explained. “You go through a mental exercise of: ‘if all of this were real, how would you shoot it, and what would it be like,’ and try to let that drive a lot of the decision making.”
