So, I have The Art of Star Wars: The High Republic, Volume 1. For anyone interested, I’m writing down some quotes and stuff I learned.
“A trio of dinosaurs with lightsabers for horns was briefly given life on a whiteboard, and [Charles] Soule suggested a baby version of Yoda — more than a year before Grogu would be revealed to the world as a young version of the same species. ‘That was a joke pitch,’ Soule said. ‘I presented it as, ‘Baby Yodas are huge, and they get smaller as they grow. [My daughter] drew a little cartoon of old Yoda telling a baby Yoda to go to bed and the baby is like, ‘I’m not going to do that.’ Basically, ‘What are you going to do? I’m seven hundred pounds.’’”
“[Daniel José] Older was adamant that the love story arc should be dealt with directly, leaving no question in the readers’ minds about how Lula and Zeen felt. […] ‘It’s so often just been the opposite of that,’ Older said. ‘For so long it was nonexistent — across fantasy, across literature, across Star Wars, in everything. And then when [creators] finally started doing it, we did it very sloppily or just with too much vagueness or trying to hint at it. I have no tolerance for that type of stuff. I think it’s really cowardly. [In the past,] creators have failed queer fans by not providing accurate representation or any representation.’”
Yoda was originally supposed to have more hair, but he apparently looked like Bernie Sanders.
On Jora Malli: “It was a great design and pretty iconic and different. Any time we see a Togruta [like Ahsoka Tano] or any alien species that there’s a main character of, there’s a desire by some artists to kind of lean toward the look of that character. We needed to push away from what’s already been seen.”
On Keaton Murag: “It was a lot of back and forth coming from this one trying to nail down his age. He looked great, but, you know, we just kept making him too young, then we gradually aged him up.”
On Lahru: “Anx is a pretty obscure alien species. There’s one watching the race on Tatooine [in Episode I], and I think there’s another in the Senate. The character was much taller and proportionally different than is often believed out there in the world. In Episode I, they are taller and less stubby with longer legs than typically depicted.”
On Yarael Poof: “We didn’t realize that he was supposed to have four arms until the end.”
On Teri Rosason: “Something George [Lucas] was always very good about historically — not just the Jedi — was everyone having a silhouette and a color pattern that’s just very distinctive. And I think Michael [Siglain] was really pushing to make her one of the most elderly of the Council members to set her further apart from the other human Jedi on the Council.”
On Stellan’s Gios’s lightsaber: “When I was first told I was going to get to work on the High Republic, it was during the pandemic. I had an idea for a lightsaber cross guard, which combined the design of Kylo Ren’s with that of a traditional cross guard. […] I really like the idea of Kylo REN’s lightsaber, but it always bugged me that I felt like he would cut himself up.”
On Ember: “A trio of options for the charhound pulled inspiration from prehistoric predators, insects, and modern canines, envisioning the new species as a greyhound with dinosaur-like scales, a creature inspired by the extinct Hyaenodon Horridus, and a lean four-legged mammal with the coloration of a bombardier beetle.”
On Orla Jareni: “They wanted her bald initially, but when I started drawing her, I liked the way that she looked with hair. I got a couple facts and a screenshot of what the [Umbaran] species looked like. I pretty much nailed it right out the gate.”
On Orla’s lightsaber: “I didn’t realize how Rey’s lightsaber in that Dark Rey sequence [from The Rise of Skywalker] was supposed to work, so I came up with the idea of it being a flexible cable thing that was in the center. The first version had the flexible cable, and then we added a hinge.”
On Sskeer: “A Trandoshan Jedi is like seeing a Klingon on the bridge of the Enterprise. It just seemed so against their nature, so I wanted to explore a character who is nature versus nurture. He wouldn’t consider himself a Trandoshan. He’s always been a Jedi.”
On Ady Sun’Zee: “Ady Sun’Zee is a strong willed and independent fledgling Jedi, but underneath that tough exterior lies a vulnerable young woman struggling to discern right from wrong. We wanted to reflect both strength and durability in her visual design.”
On Porter Engle: “Porter Engle wants to be friends with you, but it’s hard for people to get close to him, and he finds it very hard to get close to other people, and it’s very isolating. He’s a character who I love, and I think his design reflects that. He’s more beard than man, but he’s this Jedi that has been part of the Order for 300 years and has done everything. He’s an utter legend. When he gets reactivated in the story because the Nihil comes calling, he becomes absolutely terrifying. I don’t think you want to be anywhere near a guy like that when he is [in active combat]. The sad thing about Porter Engle is that he knows that. There’s a reason he decided to go be a cook… I wanted [him] to feel like the happy cook because that’s the version that he really wants to be. And that’s the version I think people really connect with.”
On Ram Jomaram: “I really wanted Ram to be a bigger kid. I wanted a Jedi that was not really interested in the trappings of being a Jedi, but his connection to the Force is really through mechanics. That’s how he understands the world, and that’s all he wants to do. He’s doesn’t want to be on stage. He wants to fix stuff. And that’s what he enjoys doing. He’s a very utilitarian Jedi Padawan.”
“Early designs for Ram included a tribal shoulder tattoo as a nod to the character’s Polynesian inspiration, but it was also removed for sensitivity.”
On Estala Maru: “Maru was a Twi’lek right up to the last few minutes of us designing him.”
On Zeen Mrala: “For me, the moments of humanity come from these huge decisions that they make that really matter, like Zeen saving everybody knowing that it’s at the cost of her best friend and the secret that she’s harboring for her whole life. It’s a huge moment for her where she shows this generosity of spirit that is gigantic. And she doesn’t even think that hard about it. She just does what has to be done. So that matters. But it’s also the small moments of her just caring about a little creature named Cham Cham that also make her feel like a real teenage girl.”
On Sian Holt: “She’s supposed to be kind of the unknown badass, and I wanted to implement that in some of her gear. I remember really liking the idea of the hidden pistols and concealed blasters in her fancy bracelet.”
On Rhil Dairo: “She’s like if Lobot and the photography team from The Hunger Games were combined into one Star Wars character. She’s this on-the-ground battle reporter, but she’s in the story to do this puff piece on the Republic Fair. And then the Nihil come, and she has to go back into war correspondent mode. There’s Jedi, of course, being heroic left and right, but it’s crazy to see this one small woman making this huge impact and trying to get communications out. It really shows you that you could always be waiting to be saved or you could do something about it. And she’s one of the people that is a doer.”
On the Nihil: “I was thinking of terrorism in general, how it works. [The Nihil] are no match for a Jedi one on one, but they pop up and terrify everyone. They instill that fear. All their weapons are either for close combat or blunt-force trauma. Maybe you get a few of them together, and for an untrained Jedi or a young one, there’s a fear factor.”
On Lourna Dee: “The only note that [Cavan Scott] sent us was ‘She files her teeth so they’re all sharp.’ What a lady! [She has facial piercings, and] I wanted to incorporate a BDSM leather strap. And when she takes off her mask, there’s going to be a lot of short points on it so it scratches her chin. She’s fine with it. She’s used to scratches. In my head, I just found her face. It’s scary. And I can even already imagine how she talks and how she moves and how intimidating she will be. That’s her secret. She’s always angry.”
Cavan Scott and the artist for The High Republic comic, Anindito, attempted to sneak a Jawa Jedi in as a background character. It got removed.
Due to the pandemic, there had to be alterations to the story. According to Cavan Scott, the original storyline would have had Keeve in the company of a Republic contractor called Vane Sarpen (briefly considered as a potential love interest for her), as they fight off Nihil scavenger droids. Meanwhile, Sskeer, Avar, Imri, and Vernestra would be defending a planet, then called Carnaga, that had been affected by the Great Disaster but was still going to host the Relublic Fair. Apparently, Keeve would have destroyed a Nihil ship, something Scott considered out of character, and Sskeer was not her master.
The original plan for The Rising Storm had Bell die instead of Loden. However, after George Floyd’s murder, they decided to alter the plan. Justina Ireland, who was in favor of Bell’s survival from the start, says, “The thing is, we’re writing in a fictional world, but it’s still being read by people in the real world. And so we still have to be considerate to that.”
