The story of our first Star Wars costumes
I have always been a Star Wars fan. When they released the Special Editions into theaters, I made costumes for each one. I made Princess Leia in the white dress, camo Leia on Endor, and the gauzy hair-down Leia dress, also from Endor. I don’t have photos of these because it was a different time and social media didn’t yet exist. However, my first documented Star Wars costume was a build of the metal bikini using sculpy clay, seen here at the premiere of Revenge of the Sith in 2005.
After that, there weren’t any Star Wars movies. But then, in 2012, Lucasfilm announced that they would be releasing all 6 of the currently existing Star Wars films in 3D (episodes 1-6). Joe and I were so excited. A new movie to go see in the theaters and dress in costume every year for the next 6 years! All we had to do was suffer through the first 3 movies to get to the good stuff….
Since they were releasing all 6, I thought it appropriate to make a costume for each of them. So I picked the sassy Padme handmaiden from Tatooine and Joe was Qui-gon Jinn. I was excited. I had a little over a month to make our costumes, so I was able to really throw my energy into it. I researched all of the details, even sculpting my own custom belt buckle medallion for the Padme costume.
Joe’s Jedi robes were like, 50 layers of fabric. There’s an undershirt, a tunic, tabards, an obi, then the robe. At one point in the movie, Qui-gon even has a brown-bordered poncho, so I made that too. This is what nerds do in their spare time.
Everyone knows that the Phantom Menace was maybe the worst of all of them. For every awesome note of Dual of the Fates, there was the deafening 10 minutes of silence during the pod-racing. Do not get me started on the pod-racing. The acting is terrible in this movie. The writing is worse.
For opening weekend, Lucasfilm had paid costumed actors roaming the theater lobby, taking photos with fans. We went to the nearest event for this, which was in Oakland-ish. We went opening night. We went for the costumed actors. And we went a third time to go with friends. 3 times, we sat through the Phantom Menace. And then…. the next year, Disney bought out Lucasfilm and cancelled the entire 3D project. So instead of having one costume for each of the films, we just got to watch the Phantom Menace 3 times in one weekend.
