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George Lucas Pirated Chewbacca's Image

By Posted by Alan Wexelblat

...but that's OK. This is the conclusion of a long essay in The Binary Bonsai blog. The blog has extensive source material but the gist is that the visual representation of the character we saw on-screen as Chewbacca in 1976 was taken quite directly from an illustration for a George R R Martin story that was published the previous year.

This is an age-old debate that periodically pops up in this blog as well: if we're going to protect the creations of artists and others it's important to understand the sources and methods that go into those creations. Do I think Lucas and his film team "stole" Chewbacca and should be punished? No, of course not. But I do think they should be more up-front about the ways in which their creations are based off the work of others, and be a lot less hostile to the derivative works created by fans and others who've taken from the film's material, in much the way that Ralph McQuarrie did.

Full post as published by Copyfight - The Politics of IP on September 23, 2010 (boomark / email).