McQuarrie Passing

I didn't link to anything when it happened, but I can hardly let the passing of Ralph McQuarrie go by without any comment.

I can't think who I first heard describe it this way, but I still enjoy the idea that someone familiar with Star Wars, but unfamiliar with McQuarrie's art, could see his original concepts and think that somehow they had come from the movies, rather than being the source. That he had heard a description of Star Wars and created these images, but that he had never actually seen the movies, so they don't look quite right. They have a feel to them that seems strange and alien, even when viewed from within the Star Wars universe itself.

Part of what I enjoy about that perspective on his work is how it pairs with my favorite way of thinking about the Star Wars films as a whole. I like to think of the story told by the movies as something that really happened. Something that George Lucas was able to witness, and ever since has been driven to capture. 

I picture a man overwhelmed by what he has seen, and struggling to use inadequate tools to represent something truly amazing. Perhaps right after his vision of this other world he is hurried and excited. He is breathless and perhaps even a bit crazed. His mind is full of ideas and images that he must get out. The descriptions of what he has seen spill out raw and unrefined. It would be this first passionate release that McQuarrie witnessed. What he captured must still be refined in calmer moments, and after further reflection, but it contains the seeds of the story that will capture the imagination of millions.