Star Wars: Mark Hamill Reveals Why Rare Chewbacca Mask Was Rejected by George Lucas

Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew took to Twitter to share a vintage behind-the-scenes photo of his co-star Mark Hamill wearing a Chewbacca mask, with Hamill’s response revealing an interesting piece of trivia about the mask and why it was never produced for the masses. Hamill pointed out that George Lucas didn’t approve of the mask as it gave the Wookiee too intimidating of an appearance for such a friendly character.

Mayhew shared the above photo on social media, which Hamill then shared with his followers while adding the caption, “This pic is significant NOT because I was posing behind my 1-bedroom Malibu bachelor pad in a The Quick t-shirt. It’s because that Chewy mask rarity was a rejected prototype George Lucas gave me because he didn’t want the finished product to be snarling. (& yes-I still have it).”

In the original trilogy of films, fans saw a gentle giant, as Chewbacca’s anger and power were merely hinted out without the alien ever embracing his more violent tendencies. The Wookiee’s appearance in Solo: A Star Wars Story, on the other hand, hinted at his underlying power.

A key moment in which Chewbacca expressed his rage in Solo offered a direct connection to Star Wars: A New Hope and a scene in which he played a game of Holochess against C-3PO.

“For [A New Hope], Phil Tippett and Jon Berg designed and created 10 stop-motion creatures for a scene aboard the Millennium Falcon. Out of the 10, George Lucas chose eight of those characters to be used for the final shots,” VFX Supervisor Chris Morley shared on Tippett.com. “In Solo, the Millennium Falcon is new and clean, much different from the grimy, heavily modified version we see in the later years of its service. We decided that it would be a good idea to pitch bringing back the two Holochess characters that didn’t make it into the first film in 1977, as if in the Solo movie the Dejarik table was in full working order with all pieces intact. This led to capitalizing on a very serendipitous moment during the shoot where, in one shot, Chewie slams his paw down on the Holochess table in frustration. The force of the blow broke two buttons off the screen right side of the table set piece.”

Fans will next see Chewbacca in Star Wars: Episode IX when it lands in theaters on December 20th.

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