[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Today on "The Star Wars Show," Star Wars author EK Johnston
talks to costume designer Trisha Biggar
about her prequel fashions, we go behind the scenes of "Star
Wars--
Jedi Temple Challenge!", we hang out
with more adorable "Star Wars" animals, and much, much more.
- Hello and welcome to another brand
new and fun-filled episode of "The Star Wars Show" from home.
- But it's not just another ordinary episode
from home with random cameos from our celebrity friends
and/or our pets.
- No sir.
Today is our "Star Wars Show Behind the Scenes Spectacular."
- How spectacular, you may be wondering?
- Well, for starters, we're going
to be taking you somewhere you've never
been before on this show--
5 feet away from where we're shooting.
- Behold the magic of at-home studio production.
- Now you can judge the backgrounds of our homes
and the foregrounds of our homes,
and Anthony's choice in pants.
- I moved all of the dirty dishes 2 feet off frame.
- So proud of you.
- So thank you.
It's an exciting time to be alive.
- And speaking of excitement, this weekend
we'll find out if "The Star Wars Show" is going
to take home its second Emmy for our "Star Wars Animals" sketch.
- In fact, here's a behind the scenes look at how it was made.
- Check it out.
- Wish I had a microphone.
- It's good enough.
Go.
- This shoot is going to result in our next Emmy.
[DING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Here for the animal trench run shoot.
We got all these mini sets--
X-wing, mini Falcon, mini TIE fighter, and all the animals.
They're gonna be on green screens.
We're going to insert them into the classic trench run scene.
It's gonna be very exciting.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Come with us as we explore the world of making "Star Wars."
- [INAUDIBLE] my career.
[LAUGHTER]
- I am currently creating a shot list
so that we have a reference for what the animals are
going to be doing.
- Camouflaged in 'cause of my hair.
- That's why we have blue and green screens, because
chameleons can change colors.
We got to be prepared.
- Just gluing the Millennium Falcon together.
This is called space welding.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Teamwork makes the steam work.
Look how cute our stand-in is.
- John [INAUDIBLE],, Dennis Muren have nothing on us.
- Tomorrow the animals arrive, and it's going to be pretty
much the best thing ever.
- There's going to be a hedgehog, a chameleon,
and a fox, and an owl, and they're all going
to be fighting the Empire.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[BEEP]
- I am trying to make this R2-D2 hat for our guinea pig to wear.
It's probably the coolest thing I've sewn ever.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- This is Blobby Bobby.
He's our African bullfrog.
It's one of the largest species of frogs in the world.
- Aw.
- Yeah.
- I'm out, guys.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- If you can get him to look up somehow.
- You can kind of just work that way.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- This is Yemen, our chameleon.
He's about four years old.
Working here today, having some fun.
- This was good casting.
- We need the mustache, remember.
We need the mustache. - Yes.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Look at his little hands!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- This is Lily-- [DING]
[MEOW]
--getting a little Sith action going.
Pretty evil, as you can see.
[MEOW]
- This is Sally Sue. Aw.
[DING]
- Red 6 standing by.
- And today she's playing Porkins.
- Hey you.
- That's perfect.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- This is Rupert, our hairless guinea pig.
- Look at him!
- Nice little spin.
[R2-D2 SOUNDS]
- This is Zeke.
[DING]
He's a mixed terrier, and he's playing our leading role today.
- 3, 2, 1, fire.
[LASER GUN FIRING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[BARK]
- We are getting ready for the final shot of the day
with our dog Chewbacca and our fox Han.
[DING]
- Oh, she has done so well.
- All of the animals are great actors.
- I am really proud of how everyone did.
Great job, everyone.
[DING]
[BEEP]
- Move along.
- Man, what a great shoot.
Let me tell you something.
Dagger would have made a great Luke Skywalker,
but I guess I understand why they used Zeke.
- Yeah.
I mean, Zuko would have been a perfect Darth Vader too.
- I'm sorry, but you're both wrong, because the Smidge would
have made the best Darth Vader.
- Kristin Baver, host of "This Week in Star Wars"
and "The Star Wars Show Book Club," what are you doing here?
I thought this was password protected.
- Well, for starters, I was here because I found out
that everyone else was showing off their pets,
and I will take any opportunity to show off Hector Smidget.
But I was also here to share this interview I did
with "Queen's Peril" author EK Johnston
and prequel costume designer Trisha Biggar
to talk all things Padme fashion.
- Are there animals?
- I'm sorry to tell you, Andy, there are not.
There are zero animals.
- Kind of a bummer.
- Mhm.
- You know, it really is.
But it's still a really, really good conversation,
and you guys should check it out.
[PORG CALLING]
Kristin Baver here, the host of "This Week in Star Wars"
and "The Star Wars Show Book Club," and today I
have two very special guests--
Trisha Biggar, the costume designer from the "Star Wars"
prequels, and EK Johnston, the author of "Queen's Shadow"
and "Queen's Peril."
So today we're going to be talking
a lot about Queen Amidala.
Trisha, I'm wondering.
You really embraced the dress code and the motifs that
link the Queens of Naboo and their handmaidens,
but you also grounded everything with inspiration
that you took from cultural and historical pieces
that we can find in our own galaxy.
Do you recall the most challenging individual Queen
Amidala ensemble that you and your team
had to create for the prequels?
[LAUGHTER]
- That's quite a difficult question,
because really there were quite a few dresses
that were very challenging.
It is a toss up, in a way, between probably the throne
room costume and I think what we called Travel 1, which
was a black dress with sort of a spider's web lace
all over it that actually the Padme
decoy wore part of the time.
In each episode, there was a difficult
or a few difficult dresses.
I mean, for instance, in "Episode II,"
we started off with four dresses for Padme
and ended up with something like 21 dresses for her.
So at the beginning, when we started prepping,
we all said no, we're not going to have many costumes,
and then by the time we actually started shooting,
we had 21 of them.
But yeah, I would say the throne room, probably.
It was very much like a couture dress,
because it had to be done in lots of separate pieces
and then the pieces all put together at the very end.
And I think the dress took about eight weeks in total to make.
- I talk to a lot of cosplayers, and I've seen a couple
of people who make this dress, and the joke
is always like well, at least we've invented LEDs,
so [INAUDIBLE].
They don't have to keep it around the battery anymore.
- Yes, the battery around the back.
Exactly.
[LAUGHTER]
- Was there any particular one of Padme's looks
that you finished and were like yes, this one
we have absolutely nailed?
There's nothing I would do differently.
I love it.
Send it to be filmed.
- I don't think there's one.
There were so many.
Natalie Portman was a great person to dress,
because she looks great in everything.
Throughout the whole of the trilogy,
she was the most fantastic person
to put things onto because she had a huge patience.
A lot of those costumes took a long time to fit,
and we had to fit them more than once.
And there was never a murmur or oh, you know, can you hurry up?
Never ever, ever.
She was really a perfect person to be doing really
complicated dresses with.
- EK, your story deals with Padme's transition from Queen
to Senator, and on film, Trisha certainly
explored that transition visually with the wardrobe.
Can you talk a little bit about what you were studying
during the writing process and how
the visual language of the films informed your writing?
- I think the biggest difference for me was "Attack
of the Clones" in general.
Her costuming in "Attack of the Clones" covers all bases.
She has to look soft and romantic.
She has to look vulnerable.
She has to look professional.
And I wanted to sort of sit down and think
about what the transition period would look like.
And the difference between Senator Amidala and Queen
Amidala is mostly color, from what I can tell,
and I wanted to sort of look into the function
of what went into their design.
So I had the characters realize that the queen
outfits weren't necessarily going to work for the Senate.
And then it's sort of their first big bonding exercise
as a team is that they sat down and, like,
design all of the dresses that Trisha
designed for the-- for the movie because they
have to change her look.
- EK, seeing that the whole idea of her life being sort
of slightly compartmentalized in that film,
there are times where she's having a private life.
She's able to express how she would like to look
when she's alone or at home.
It was also just the sort of ideas
of going from the sort of reds that we see her in,
the sort of very strong regal colors,
and the slight changes in shape too, I think.
And she also has grown up.
A little time has passed.
She's a woman.
Times have change, she has changed, and how she looks
has changed.
So I think it was sort of a natural transference of how
instead of being encased or hidden or behind her clothing
she was able to show herself more
through what she was wearing and the colors she was choosing.
- So Trisha, I'm hoping you can answer why
is it important to you to bring that level of detail
to pieces that may be on screen for a fleeting moment,
or might just be worn by characters
like the handmaidens, who are quite often in the background
of shots, and they're not the focal point at all of what most
of the viewers are looking at?
- I think if things are going to be on the screen, really,
if you can, they should all be as well-made as possible,
particularly doing something like "Star Wars,"
where you know there's going to be people looking at it
for years and years and years.
It makes such a difference when things are lovely.
And I'm sort of a bit of a perfectionist
on that sort of level, and I think
it shows when everything works.
The pleating's beautifully done.
The hems are hand done, all the beautiful finishing,
the lacework.
And the things are only as good as the people who actually make
them, and I've had some really brilliant
people working with me.
It's great to have top-class people working
on a project like "Star Wars" because their skills will
enable me to design things that are more
complicated than you would do.
Making these things, creating these things,
and how they end up looking is a team effort.
I'm really lucky that I've had the opportunity to work
with really talented people.
- EK, I love that your book gives these exquisite costumes
even more of a backstory by weaponizing the hairpins
and adding escape hatches for the decoy maneuver.
What inspired you to add those elements
to what you'd seen on the screen from Trisha's workshop?
- I was like 15 when the movies came out,
and it was like I loved the dresses so much.
They were life-changing in every possible way.
I didn't know anything about costuming at the time,
but I could tell that they were, like, tremendously
well constructed and put together and designed
and all that kind of stuff.
And then when the Ahsoka book came out,
I started interacting with cosplayers at conventions.
I started to sort of get an idea about how garment construction
worked and, like, the time and the engineering,
frankly, that goes into it.
So when it came time to write "Padme,"
I wanted to sort of reflect both the, like,
grandeur of the movies of the things that I'd seen,
but also the ingenuity and practicality of the people
that I encountered while I was at conventions.
There's one dress in particular that I always think about.
It was one of my favorite ones to design.
She wears it when she's addressing the Senate.
It looks like a glitter overlay, like a nice sparkling overlay
on the skirt, but what it actually is is
photoreceptors so that she cannot
be photographed in poor light.
[LAUGHTER]
And I don't know if that's physically possible,
but I like the idea of--
- Sad we didn't think of that.
[LAUGHTER]
- I like the idea that all of this amazing, grand,
incredibly talent-based stuff also has
really practical applications.
- That's all the things you can do on paper.
Yeah.
- Yeah, when I don't have to worry about a film [INAUDIBLE]..
- I'm always amazed that cosplay people can make such fantastic
copies of things even before they can look at things
in really good close-up.
I remember going to the first celebration
after "Episode I" came out in Denver,
and Ian McCaig and I were on stage together chatting,
and we looked at the front row of the audience.
And apart from there being, like, 10 perfect Darth Mauls
there all in a row, there were amazing people
dressed in costumes that you thought how on earth
did they do that?
Really great copies, great copies.
- It's one of my favorite parts of conventions.
Especially if someone's been in cosplay for a while
and they see a Padme who is relatively new,
I find a lot of them will go out of their way to be
like, oh, this is really cool.
How did you do this?
And then rather than being like oh,
I've been at this for 10 years; here
is how you stitch that, they'll kind
of make it like an exchange of information instead.
So the actual community level is really cool.
They've got like Facebook groups and all kinds of stuff.
It's fantastic.
- With "Queen's Peril," we're going back in time a little bit
to Queen Amidala's reign on Naboo.
Can you talk a little bit about how
the costumes inform some of the decisions in the new book?
- In "Queen's Shadow," I always felt this huge pressure
that she had to be wearing something new and amazing
in every single scene.
So in "Queen's Peril," it was a little bit
easier, because I knew what she was
wearing in most of the scenes.
I didn't have to decide that.
The day in the movie that I always joke about that
was a real challenge to write was the five outfit day
on Coruscant, where she cycles through all
these amazing dresses, and I had to kind
of give her time to change through all of these events.
Because we just see her arrive, and then we see her thinking,
and then we see her speaking, and then
we see her thinking again, and then we see her leaving.
And I was just like, this girl needs some time to change.
As much as I loved designing dresses,
I also loved getting to use the dresses
we already had and sort of put them through their paces,
I guess.
- That is all the questions I have.
You have both been so generous with your time today.
And I thank you so much for hopping on this call
so we could chat about Padme Amidala
and how enviable her wardrobe is, all because of you
and your team, Trisha.
- I don't normally enjoy doing video things,
but actually, I really enjoyed this.
So thank you.
- Wonderful.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- What an awesome interview.
I mean, it blows my mind how much
hard work and care Trish and her team put into every costume.
It just honestly makes me love every outfit even more.
- Seriously-- eight weeks to make the throne room dress,
and Natalie Portman had to have a car battery attached
to it to make it light up.
- (TOGETHER) That is behind-the-scenes movie magic.
- Well, Carbone, any other behind-the-scenes
looks for our friends at home?
- Oh yeah, and it is a good one.
- Oh, what's this one about?
- It is about the new Star Wars Kids game show
"Jedi Temple Challenge!"-- which, no big deal, I did
get to go visit the set and run the course.
- Of course you did.
You were a Blue Barracuda as a kid,
and you get to run inside the Jedi Temple as an adult?
Salt in wounds.
Let me guess-- now I have to watch
you having fun without me?
- Oh no, I'm not in this one.
Our crew wasn't shooting when I stopped by.
- Thank the maker. - Excuse me?
- Nothing.
Roll it!
- Could've sworn I heard you say something.
[SPACESHIP SOUNDS] [WOOKIEE CALL]
[LASER GUN FIRING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- OK.
Here we go.
[INAUDIBLE]
- 3, 2, 1, go.
- "Jedi Temple Challenge!" is where three teams of Padawans
compete in three different trials
showing off their strength, knowledge, and bravery in order
to become Jedi knights.
- This is an idea that in general has
been percolating around the "Star Wars"
online team for many years.
We've always wanted to do something
in the crazy large activity game show world, and here we are.
- This brilliant idea came from a love of game shows
when I was growing up and when also Scott was growing up,
and just having a deep affinity for inspiring imagination
and letting kids have fun and being able to capture that,
and wanting to find a marriage of that type of game
show format with "Star Wars," because it felt
like a really perfect coupling.
- Yeah! Go!
Go! Go!
- I like to call it an action-adventure
kid's game show like you've never seen before.
I've never seen anything this intense.
I feel like we've taken the show to the next level
and you're living in the world of "Star Wars."
What could be better than that? - Ready?
- Yes! - Ready?
- Yes!
- When we were producing "Star Wars Celebration" in Chicago,
Ahmed came back for the 20th anniversary
of "Phantom Menace."
He came, and he did "The Star Wars Show Live!"
And we all kind of looked at each other, and we're like,
this is our guy.
We were already developing the show at the time.
And once that kind of kernel was planted,
we just followed it and started kind of developing the host's
narrative around him.
- Stepping back in "Star Wars" is a bit surreal.
It took me a long time to come back.
But you know, it's always been a love, and everyone at Lucasfilm
has always been great to me.
And "Star Wars" has given me so much in my life
that it's really good to know that I have family here
and I'll always have a home in the "Star Wars" universe.
And I'm wearing a lot less latex this time around,
which is way more comfortable.
- (ON VIDEO) Come on! Let's go!
- Wait, where-- where are we going?
- [INAUDIBLE] - I'm coming.
- I'm the guy in the droid that's
puppeteering the costume for Mary Holland,
who's extremely talented.
We went through a bunch of concepts for the droid,
and [INAUDIBLE] concepts are worked back and forth
until something was approved.
And then basically 3D printed most of the parts,
and then did a lot of fiberglass work
to make sure they're strong enough to be worn on set.
- Doing the voice for a character
that another actor is physically playing is very interesting.
I've never done that before, but it's so much fun.
It's almost like there are two minds at work to make
this character come to life.
The dynamic between Kelleran Beq and AD-3 is super fun.
They're like a married couple.
They sort of tease each other, but it's all in good fun.
One thing I've discovered in playing her
is that she's really jealous of all these young Padawans.
She wants to do all these challenges
and wants to use the Force, but as a droid, she can't.
But that's been a fun dynamic to play.
- For LX-R5, Kilian Plunkett had done some designs.
And so we chatted a little bit about the colors and whatnot,
what type of Droid it would be.
So it was an R5-style droid.
By the time we finally locked in the design,
I only had about three weeks to work on it.
It wound up being a 16-day build.
So that was a huge challenge, trying
to get it finished on time.
I mean, we literally wheeled it in on set.
I think the paint was still fresh.
[DROID BEEPING]
- Oh, this is my favorite part!
- You are now Jedi knights.
- This experience has been crazy and awesome,
because I got to meet a lot of people and friends.
- I never thought I would be on a show like this.
- It was pretty fun.
I never thought I was actually going to be on the Star
Wars Kids game show.
- I didn't know that this was going to happen,
so I'm like, oh my god.
- The kids actually make the show really special.
They were the reason why I decided to come here
and to see them go through the trials
and really work together and take the idea of being a Jedi
seriously.
They care.
They really want to become Jedi knights.
And by the end, when they put their robes
on and their-- like, their lightsabers,
they believe it and they feel it, and that's infectious.
And for me, that's what "Star Wars" has always been about.
- You're-- - --watching--
- "The--" - "--Star--"
- "--Wars--" - "--Show."
- We did it!
Another month of 2020 wrapped up and in the books.
- Time is a flat circle now.
It means nothing.
- (TOGETHER) Hooray!
- Remember to like the videos.
Subscribe to the channel.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
And as always, may the Force be with you.
- Now to take off these uncomfortable work clothes,
huh? [SIGH]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[SPACESHIP ENGINE SOUNDS]
[BEEP]
[MEOW]
[HISS]
[MEOW]
[LAUGHTER] [MEOW]
- [INAUDIBLE]
- He loves you so much, and he loves this,
and he's having a great time.
[GROWL]
[BEEP]
[SPACESHIP SOUNDS]