I just watched the new trailer for Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, and there are about a hundred Chewbacca's in one clip.........Chewbacca reminds me of someone? I wonder where Lucas got the inspiration to create a large bipedal humanoid covered in hair when he was writing the scripts in the beginning (early 70's)? Just a thought.....................

You'd think that Lucas, being undoubtedly the best special effects guy on this planet, could have faked a hairy biped better than Patterson and Gimlin. There's a comparison of movie special effects technology that should be brought up!

Tom

I can give you a really boring, non-sasquatch related answer to where Lucas came up with Chewy. Lucas himself has said that Chewbacca was actually based on his dog, Indiana. He said something to the effect that whenever they would go on drives the dog was sitting co-pilot, and that image of the big, furry animal riding shotgun gave him the idea for Chewy. If you look at Chewy's face, it is a bit more dog-like than man or ape.

Yeah, but why is he so dang tall?

Better for chasing big cars?

That has something to do with the height of the actor in the suit.

He wanted Bob Heironimus, but he was unavailable, and ended up with this Mayhew guy

It appears Bob H. didn't want to be type-cast.

FWIW, IIRC the Ewoks and their village in RETURN OF THE JEDI were originally going to be Chewbacca's “people” on their home planet. However, as Chewy evolved over the first two movies, wookies became too “intelligent” to fit the role. Thus the Ewoks were created.

-RocKiteman, aka Mr. SciFi Movie Trivia Guy. I can’t remember what I did YESTERDAY, but I can remember trivia like that….