Were RotJ Helmets and Armor used in ESB?

Investigation -
Were Return of the Jedi style Stormtroopers
used in The Empire Strikes Back?

There have been some discussion on a number of forums recently as to whether RotJ-style Stormtrooper helmets and armor were used in ESB, filmed three years earlier. This would therefore mean that the mould used to create the helmets for RotJ was cast off an ANH before the second film was made - rather than as previously thought the third film. Though we initially did not think this could be the case, following investigation including an interview with John Mollo (Costume Director for ESB) last week, its now looking more possible. So its far from a case-closed - but certainly a possibility.

Background
Traditional thinking has been that there were two distinct helmet forms used in the Original Trilogy movies; the sharper but wider styling seen in ANH and in 1976 and the reused in ESB 1979 - and then the softer thinner recasting made for RotJ in 1981/2. When looked at side by side the differences are clear (ANH/ESB on left without ears, RotJ on right)

Thus, its always been believed that all the Stormtroopers seen in ESB were all just re-used helmets (and armor) from ANH. This has been backed up by photo evidence, on-screen and on-set photographs as well as original ESB helmets that have emerged over the years. Of the two ESB-style Stormtrooper helmets that we've seen, both were clearly old-ANH helmets which have had some minor modifications done to them such as decals, a black painted frown and some minor trimming around the eyes. Of these two helmets we know of, one of them has actually been placed in The Empire Strikes Back....

So we can be sure that the helmet we identified a few years ago in London, was the same one used in the movie. When we reviewed it, it was clearly a re-used ANH made from khaki HDPE.

In addition there have been a few shots of Stormtroopers from ESB that have clearly been re-used ANH's, like these three.

...and also these two seen captured by Lando's Bespin Guards.... Again definitely re-used ANH helmets.

Okay, so we can be 100% sure that most of the helmets and armor used in ESB were the same ones used in ANH.

However, armor-maker Paul "Trooper Master" believed that some helmets and armor seen in ESB were NOT ANH - and therefore must have bee specifically made for the movie. These helmets and armor had more of an RotJ-like appearance. He specifically drew attention to this particular Stormtrooper, seen within the Carbon Freezing/Elstree scenes in ESB are really ANH.

Though this alone is far from conclusive, there's also the following publicity photo taken for Topps Cards sometime on or before 1980. The Stormtrooper on the right certainly has the RotJ look - although again its not conclusive since it could be one of the ANH Hero's taken from an unusual angle (albeit with grey frown).

The Publicity Photographs

However, still no "magic bullet". Things get a bit more interesting when you look at the following two publicity photographs, especially as the Getty image on the left is dated 1980 and the troopers in the shot could be RotJ. There's no date for the photo on the right of Vader and two clearly RotJ troopers (although we think its 1983 and was taken at the Harrods RotJ exhibition) - but the detailing on the troopers is uncannily like the ones in the left photo with the right most trooper in both photos having a raised shoulder bell.

Taking a close look at RotJ Helmets
So digging out some shots of original Return of the Jedi Stormtroopers, we decided to look at the two different types of helmets that had been found. The vast majority were the Rounded Frowns (RF) - although in the UK there were some Square Frowns (SF) in private hands...

So here is a comparison of a number of different Stormtrooper helmets all believed to have been used in Return of the Jedi. As you can see they do vary in appearance quite considerably - although we do need to be wary of angle, distance from camera, lens etc. which can all affect the image. This has led to questions as to whether there were two different moulds, and even whether one of those moulds could have been made for The Empire Strikes Back - resulting in some "RotJ-style" helmets and armor appearing in the earlier movie.

In the composition above of nine original RotJ Stormtrooper helmets, the three in the centre column are the ones we refer to as "Square Frown" (SF)- and the columns to the left and right are all the more common-place "Rounded Frown" (RF). Though both "types" of helmets appear to have been manufactured in a very similar way, the RF's are made out of standard ABS, whereas the SF's appear to be made out of Haircell ABS - which is texture on the inner surface. In addition they have been detailed quite differently. The more common-place RF helmets in the left and right columns) have frowns which are painted a little thicker, with curved or rounded ends, as their name suggests. They also have Aluminium Mic Tips, new "RotJ" style decals and hard-hat liners installed to make them easier to wear - and also two black lines on their ears.

This differs from the SF helmets (in the centre column above) as they don't have rounded ends to their frowns which look to have been masked off in a straight line - much like the ESB Stormtrooper helmets. In addition they don't have Aluminium mic-tips like the other Jedi helmets but has resin "Hovi Mix" style mic tips (like the ESB Stormtroopers). They also don't have the pre-installed hard-hat liners that the the RF helmets have, but instead have foam (YET again like the ESB Stormtrooper Helmets). Also, instead of two, they have three black lines on their ears.

Hence, there's a theory (originally put forward by Paul/Trooper Master, who really does deserve a lot of credit for pushing this issue) is that some of the Stormtrooper helmets we think are RotJ helmets, could have actually been made either from ESB, or just following production

Reaching an impasse - Enter Mr Mollo
Well at this stage we needed assistance from someone involved in the production of the Empire Strikes Back. So who better to ask than John Mollo - the Costumer Director for the movie. Mr Mollo has assisted Star Wars Helmets.com in the past and as ever we're extremely grateful of his help.

So a couple of phone calls later and Mr Mollo had kindly agreed to meet us to discuss the costume design for ESB and specifically the Stormtrooper.

Over the years, John Mollo has proved to be a very reliable source of information for the movies he worked on since he kept chronological “sketch book’s” / diaries which detailed all the work he did including names, dates, art work, “to-do’s” and design workings for his costume work. Leafing through these books is fascinating since they details much of what was going on during the production at that time.

So we spent a considerable amount of time looking at whether any new Stormtroopers were made for The Empire Strikes Back - and thus try and tie up any potential link with RotJ style helmets. Although we couldn't find a definitive answer, it is clear that SOMETHING new was made for the Stormtroopers in order to produce what was referred to as the "Mark 2 " version - even though from a dates perspective it was done part-way through filming at Elstree in June 1979.

When we look at the costumes used in ESB its clear that many were simply re-used from ANH - although reworked or reconditioned in some cases. Since the main Imperial trooper character for ESB was going to be the Snow Trooper, there wasn't the need to have numerous Stormtroopers running around the place. By this stage the vac-forming press at Elstree was up and running so they were able to produce the new Snow Troopers there with little fuss (and therefore no need to outsource to Andrew Ainsworth as had happened in ANH)

Looking at the call sheets, for the majority of the early scenes set on Cloud City/Bespin (filmed before June 1979), there was only a requirement for seven Stormtroopers. It appears that they had just about enough helmets and costume parts to rustle up these seven required sets - but not enough to cover the TEN sets required for the main Han Carbon Freezing scenes and the Leia/Lando Bespin corridor escape. However, the scenes requiring ten Stormtroopers were not due to be filmed until late June/early July hence there was just enough time to vac form new parts - or even complete sets.

Looking at John Mollo's notes made at the time, there is an entry for the morning of 11th June; "Gary Kurtz complains over Stormtroopers - put Mark 2 into making". So although many of the Stormtrooper scenes had already been filmed, they still needed to work on the new "Mark 2 Stormtroopers" either because there weren't enough completed sets - or the quality of (some of) them was just not good enough for the key Carbon Freeze scenes - as well as the chase across Bespin, where we can count nine Stormtroopers in this one frame....

So the new Mark 2 Stormtroopers were worked on, according to Mollo's notes: "Cast off an existing model by plasterers". There's another note in his diary on 19th June saying that the "prototype" was ready - i.e. well in time for the Carbon Freezing scenes over the following weeks.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns....
Now we know a lot of things, since John Mollo's diary gives us details about what was changed on these Mark 2 costumes...

Below a scan from John Mollo's notes......

Helmet - "New liners, chin straps, trim, decals and new vac-formed green eyes" . However, all but the vac-formed eyes appear on ALL the ESB Stormtrooper helmets so we cant say they are unique to any Mark 2's.

Body (armor)
Most of the changes were to assist the wearers, such as “Elastic for the shoulder pads”, “glue shoulders to arms”, “rivet and bolt shoulder plates” - although interestingly also includes “Edged (armor) body with white plastic” – something more commonplace on RotJ armor. However, as with the helmet, these could all be changes on every set of ESB armor - not just the Mark 2's.

Below fomr Mollo's diary and again the same date.......

So what we need to try and understand is whether ENTIRELY NEW Helmets or Armor were produced, or just new parts to augment some of the existing sets that were simply not good enough to used on-screen.

If we go back to Mollo's diary there's a budget for the new Stormtroopers that covers materials and labour.....

So we know that the Plasterers (who make the moulds) were budgeted 7 hours work, with the Vac-formers another 12 hours (including forming and trimming). In addition we know how much ABS they needed, just 3.5 sheets - although the size of the sheets is not known we do know that the ABS was £16.50 per sheet back in 1979 according to Mollo's notes. In today's money that £68 per sheet or over $100 - and I bet you can buy quite a big sheet of ABS for that!

Conclusion - for now
Its hard to come to a firm conclusion as much of the information we have at this point suggests a lot, but doesn't actually deliver the killer blow. Ultimately it seems we have more questions than answers, such as;

	Did they just vac-form missing or damaged pieces or the complete suits?
	If they did how many did they make, 3, 4 ?
	Did they make helmets or just armor?
	Can you recast an entire suit in just 7 hours - or just the helmet?
	How many helmets or suits could you vac-form and trim in 12 hours?

We'll update this page as more information becomes available as we investigate further.

Our current thinking is that there could well have been up to three new Empire Strikes Back "Mark 2" helmets and (part) armor sets produced for the Carbon Freeze and Bespin Escape scenes - since there just weren't enough decent-quality sets left over from A New Hope. Whether any of these helmets have survived (and their relationship with the Square Frown helmets above) is not clear at this point. However it is strange how the SF Jedi helmets have just about ALL the same detailing as the "normal" ESB helmets including mic tips, decals, frown style and internal padding.

We know that a new plaster mould was made and its possible that this mould could have been later used for the production of the Return of the Jedi helmets and armor - although at this stage there isn't enough evidence yet to decide either way.

Whatever happened, we're pleased that Paul/Trooper Master opened up this very interesting can of worms!

Thanks again to John Mollo for his invaluable assistance - he's a true Gentleman!