There’s a Propstore auction heading our way on 25th – 27th March in Los Angeles, and one of the most impressive items up for grabs (if your pocketbook is substantial enough) is this incredible Light-Up C-3PO head, which will be hoping to blast through it’s estimate of $350,000 – $700,000 on Day One of the auction. Here, Adam Savage takes a look at the head, and how goldenrod was originally adorned in his metallic gold finish.
Adam examines a selection of props and costume pieces from the Star Wars original and prequel trilogy, including one of the last surviving C-3PO heads from The Empire Strikes Back! We take a close look at this helmet’s light-up functions and metallic gold finish, which retains some of its weathering from production. Plus, miniatures used in pre-production and a see-through astromech dome!
Here’s the description of this incredible lot on the Propstore auction site:
A light-up C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) head from Irvin Kershner’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. This is believed to be the only original C-3PO head from the film in the collector’s market.
C-3PO voiced the first on-screen dialogue heard in A New Hope and is one of the only characters to appear in all nine films of the Star Wars saga, making him one of the most memorable robots in cinema history. In The Empire Strikes Back, Threepio survived the Battle of Hoth and accompanied Leia (Carrie Fisher), Han (Harrison Ford) and Chewie (Peter Mayhew) on the Millennium Falcon to Cloud City, where he was blasted to pieces by a stormtrooper. He managed to escape the city with his friends, but not before Han was captured and encased in carbonite.
The golden robot was originally designed by legendary concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, who was inspired by Walter Schulze-Mittendorff’s Maschinenmensch “Maria” robot from Fritz Lang’s 1927 German expressionist sci-fi film Metropolis. Daniels instantly fell in love with the character when he saw McQuarrie’s concepts. After being cast, he went through a lengthy process of having molds taken of his face, torso, and limbs to create the costume. Several different versions of the head were sculpted by Liz Moore, and George Lucas chose the now-iconic final design.
The costume head is made of thin fiberglass to be as close-fitting and lightweight as possible, and it comprises three major components: a backplate, a faceplate (with installed eyes), and a neck-ring, which are all fixed together with two neck-bolts and a forehead antenna. It differs in its construction from the head initially built for A New Hope. Where the head from A New Hope features aluminum details that were machined and individually installed on the back of the head and the mouth of the faceplate, this head’s components are cast into the fiberglass. The fittings that hold the two halves of the head together were also updated as the films progressed; the neck bolts and forehead antenna had threaded connectors on the Episode IV pieces, whereas this head features the more advanced quarter-turn versions. The design was subsequently tweaked again for Return of the Jedi – for instance, the placement of the horizontal and vertical grooves around Threepio’s “ears” shifted between Empire and Jedi. These differences clearly identify this head as being from Empire.
The costume’s illuminating “photoreceptor” eyes were designed in such a way as to keep them from blinding Daniels when illuminated; a black material was installed behind the lights to shield the actor’s eyes, leaving only small ports through which he could see. The right eye retains its original wiring, whereas the left eye’s wiring has been replaced. The original power connector has also been replaced, but is included in the lot. The wiring now connects to a more recently installed battery pack and switch on a custom-made display stand. The interior of the faceplate features “6” handwritten in black marker pen and the interior of the backplate features “5” handwritten in ink.
The whole head has been intentionally distressed and tarnished to give the character a weathered look, worlds away from the clean, golden sheen with which the character appeared during the medal ceremony at the end of Episode IV. While much of the original dulling spray applied to the finish is no longer present, it still retains much of its original metallic finish. Some of the gold from the right cheek has slightly worn away, revealing a silvery sheen underneath. However, the exterior finish remains original and unrestored.
Threepio stands as one of the most recognizable cinematic character designs of all time. Dimensions: 9.75″ x 7.75″ x 12.5″ (25 cm x 20 cm x 32 cm)
