1983 marked the beginning of a love/hate relationship that
perpetuates to this day. And it began on
a fateful summer day among friends in a movie theater in Duncanville,
Texas. It was at the day’s first
screening of Return of the Jedi on opening day.
The day a silly blue elephant appeared in a Star Wars film and left me
in a conflicted state. While there was
as much to love about the final chapter of George Lucas’ star-spanning history
of some distant intergalactic realm as there was to hate (think Ewoks), the
fulcrum upon which that dichotomy pivots in my view was none other than Sy
Snootles’ keyboardist!
Max Rebo, accompanist and band leader (though at the time
his band was more a combo), instantly found a special place in my heart and
mind when it comes to the Star Wars saga.
In an attempt to go above and beyond when it came to peopling a scene
with bizarre aliens, George Lucas and company cast about in every possible
direction for unique designs. Perhaps the sting of using off the shelf masks
and cheesy costumes to flesh out Mos Eisley lingered when dozens of sketches
and maquettes were produced to conceptualize a
richer variety of denizens for Jabba’s Palace.
One alien creature presented in a three dimensional sculpture during the
approval process was a curious blue elephant who would get the green light for
production.
His excessively bright hue and cartoon elephant form was
initially off-putting to me. Max Rebo
seemed terribly out of place at first pass, especially given the equally
difficult to place in the Star Wars universe nature of his band. Droopy McCool appeared to be one of the worst
examples of “a guy in a suit” aliens I had ever seen and Sy Snootles
exaggerated snout terminating in Rocky
Horror Picture Show lips seemed more at home in a B-movie than a George
Lucas production! The only saving grace
of the Max Rebo Band came in the form of the Ewoks. Somehow everything that was wrong with this musical
trio was softened by the unforgivable presence of a living Soft Toys Department
on the forest moon of Endor! By the
third act of Return of the Jedi, and through subsequent screenings, the little
blue guy really started growing on me.
Part of his appeal was a very clever design. Even before images of the pre-production
maquette were made public I could tell from the sculpt of the puppet used on
set that Max Rebo was designed to be one of the more alien of the aliens in the
Palace. One of the reasons a puppet was
used rather than an actor in a costume was to allow for a non-humanoid creature
to be working the keys of the Red Ball organ for Jabba’s listening
pleasure. It was obvious to me from the
shape and placement of the character’s “arms” that they were in fact more akin
to legs. While it seemed unlikely at the
time that the musician would ever become part of the Kenner Star Wars toy line
of the day, given unwieldy size of his principle accessory – his organ, it was
no less exciting to imagine that there would be a uniquely proportioned action
figure in the series. But alas this was
not to be the case.
Whether by gross misinterpretation of what was presented on
screen or out of the necessities of 80s manufacturing processes, the toy
company determined that Max Rebo have a stout body from which a pair of legs,
complete with bare feet with toes that mimicked his suction cup fingertips,
would protrude from a loin cloth covering his alien shame. Initially I was more than a little
disappointed with this adaptation. Making
the elephant-like keyboardist humanoid robbed him of much of his mystique after
all! That his instrument of choice
helped disguise this artistic license was of little consequence to me at the
time. It would take years to simply
accept this rethinking of the character’s design and enjoy the fact that a
means to get him and his band immortalized in plastic was found, even if the
approach was personally unappealing. Besides,
over a decade later there was hope that Kenner would have a second chance to
get it right.
After an absence of about ten years from toy store shelves,
Star Wars returned to fulfill my collecting needs in the form of the Power of the
Force line in 1995. Initial offerings
seemed to meld the artistic sensibilities of Masters of the Universe with the
designs of the Star Wars saga, much to the disappointment of fans
everywhere. In time, however, Hasbro
(now exerting their name over that of their acquisition, Kenner) came to their
senses and mandated sculpts more in keeping with the on-screen look and feel of
characters. While the Max Rebo Band
would be a long while coming to the resurrected line, but when it arrived any
hope of a movie accurate band leader were again dashed. Taking their cues too heavily from the
vintage line, they simply remade a superior version of the original, right down
to the loin cloth (which was at least painted this time). To make matters worse for the cinematic
concept of this character, the so-called Expanded Universe took hold of the toy
design and folded into the visual canon via Dark Horse Comics publications and
illustrations in guide books.
Now identified as an Ortolan, Max and his requisite species were
given the Kenner design for reference purposes and the inaccurate design was
given precedence in the greater Star Wars universe. This is where the hate side of the
relationship comes heavily into play. It
was forgivable in the 80s for Max to have legs out of manufacturing
necessity. Though less so, some grace
could be given to the Hasbro incarnation as a tribute to the original toy,
though they were undoubtedly forced by Lucasfilm to use the CG version of Sy
Snootles over the original puppet design, so a tribute seems less likely. In fact, to date, only Gentle Giant Studios’
various incarnations of the character in statue and mini-bust form seem to illustrate
some grasp of the unique physical anatomy of the character. Otherwise the design put forth by Kenner all
those years ago, while obviously wrong, has become the go to version.
But why all of this contention over a 30 year old background
puppet character? Apart from the fact
that the dichotomy of Max Rebo’s suggested form and that taken on in
collectibles and adopted into the Expanded Universe having been contentious in
my thoughts for decades, I recently stumbled upon an article that showed I was
not alone in my thinking. You can read the inspiration for my own article here and perhaps gain a better understanding
of what set me off on chronicling my own long standing doubts about the
depiction of the bright blue musician. My sincere thanks to Pablo Hidalgo for penning
that article and subsequently inspiring mine.
Getting a bit of this off my chest as it were has proven cathartic and
helped elevate poor Max to a higher place in the Star Wars pantheon.
At the conclusion of Mr. Hidalgo’s article an illustration
of Max Rebo ambulating is included as well as a suggestion that the characters
ears might in fact be more akin to forelimbs.
In the spirit of that drawing, and inspired by the aforementioned
suggestion, I took it upon myself to illustrate the skeletal anatomy of Max
Rebo taking the “flipper” concept into account.
