Check out Forbidden Planet (1995) concept art and storyboards by Ralph McQuarrie!
Years ago director Irvin Kershner, who directed Star Wars:
We'll never know how it would have turned out, but McQuarrie and Syd Mead's designs are gorgeous as usual. Ain't It Cool News got exclusive concept art from the film and I tracked down some artwork by Syd Mead.
Ironically enough, Forbidden Planet star Leslie Nielsen, who died on November 27, 2010, and Kershner died within a day of each other.
John Scoleri of Dreams and Visions Press sent me an email letting me know about an amazing project being crowdfunded on Kickstarter! It's a "400+ page coffee table book featuring the largest collection of Ralph McQuarrie's non-Star Wars art ever published." The book will include almost all of the non-Star Wars material from they're 2007 collection The Art of Ralph McQuarrie, along with more than 150 pages of previously unpublished material; including a huge selection of Ralph’s unseen work for Irvin Kershner’s proposed remake of Forbidden Planet. This post just has a sample!
Ralph McQuarrie was a professional illustrator who worked on Hollywood films and television like Battlestar Galactica (1978), Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Syd Mead is a professional concept artist and "visual futurist" who's worked on Hollywood movies like TRON (1982), Blade Runner (1982) and Aliens (1986). Find out more about the project and see concept art!
Click on the images to enlarge.
Ralph McQuarrie
Here's the description of the upcoming book The Art of Ralph McQuarrie: ARCHIVES:
Best known for his instrumental
contributions to the making of the original Star Wars trilogy, Ralph
McQuarrie has inspired several generations of film fans and artists.
While much of his Star Wars artwork has been reproduced in numerous
volumes over the years, his non-Star Wars work has previously only been
available in The Art of Ralph McQuarrie, a limited edition that we
(Dreams and Visions Press) published in 2007. That book is long out of
print and now commands high prices on the secondary market.
With The Art of Ralph McQuarrie: ARCHIVES, we will bring back into print a career-spanning retrospective of Ralph McQuarrie’s non-Star Wars artwork. At 13” x 9.5”, this 432-page volume is not only offered at a more affordable price point than our original 2007 release, one third of the content is original to this edition. That's hundreds of Ralph McQuarrie illustrations spanning all aspects of his body of work.
TRADE EDITION COVER DESIGN - NOT FINAL TRADE EDITION COVER DESIGN - NOT FINAL
We've been hard at work on the book for the past several months. Our efforts have not just been focused on assembling new art, but upgrading source materials where possible, and doing additional research to provide more details on many of the pieces within, both new and old. We are on track to finalize the book this summer, after which we will hand it off to the printer to meet our target release date.
The book will be available in two states: 1) a hardcover version with printed covers and 2) a deluxe clothbound individually numbered limited edition housed in a clothbound presentation traycase. Each copy will be smyth-sewn with head and tail bands to provide a sturdy binding that will last for years to come.
DELUXE EDITION CONCEPT (BOOK WILL BE BOUND ON THE LEFT) DELUXE EDITION CONCEPT (BOOK WILL BE BOUND ON THE LEFT)
The Art of Ralph McQuarrie: ARCHIVES contains examples of Ralph's work in each of the following areas: Early technical illustration, movie posters, book covers, film and television production, other commercial illustration and a selection of personal pieces. In many cases we have examples of work that demonstrate Ralph's process, from his tiniest thumbnails to larger sketches, color comps and ultimately his finished paintings.
With The Art of Ralph McQuarrie: ARCHIVES, we will bring back into print a career-spanning retrospective of Ralph McQuarrie’s non-Star Wars artwork. At 13” x 9.5”, this 432-page volume is not only offered at a more affordable price point than our original 2007 release, one third of the content is original to this edition. That's hundreds of Ralph McQuarrie illustrations spanning all aspects of his body of work.
TRADE EDITION COVER DESIGN - NOT FINAL TRADE EDITION COVER DESIGN - NOT FINAL
We've been hard at work on the book for the past several months. Our efforts have not just been focused on assembling new art, but upgrading source materials where possible, and doing additional research to provide more details on many of the pieces within, both new and old. We are on track to finalize the book this summer, after which we will hand it off to the printer to meet our target release date.
The book will be available in two states: 1) a hardcover version with printed covers and 2) a deluxe clothbound individually numbered limited edition housed in a clothbound presentation traycase. Each copy will be smyth-sewn with head and tail bands to provide a sturdy binding that will last for years to come.
DELUXE EDITION CONCEPT (BOOK WILL BE BOUND ON THE LEFT) DELUXE EDITION CONCEPT (BOOK WILL BE BOUND ON THE LEFT)
The Art of Ralph McQuarrie: ARCHIVES contains examples of Ralph's work in each of the following areas: Early technical illustration, movie posters, book covers, film and television production, other commercial illustration and a selection of personal pieces. In many cases we have examples of work that demonstrate Ralph's process, from his tiniest thumbnails to larger sketches, color comps and ultimately his finished paintings.
It's an amazing book and they've already made
Update: They made the goal! The book is on the way!
See more of Syd Mead's marvelous portfolio at http://sydmead.com and Ralph McQuarrie's illustrations at dreamsandvisionspress.com.
Click on the links if you want to see more of Syd Mead and Ralph McQuarrie's work or Forbidden Planet on my blog.
Would you have liked a Forbidden Planet remake? What do you think of the upcoming book? If you've seen Ralph McQuarrie's work what do you think? What's your favorite project he's worked on?
Forbidden Planet Summary
Directed by Irvin Kershner
Production design by Richard Sylbert
Planned release date: 1995
© Copyright 1995 New Line Cinema. All rights reserved
Follow @filmsketchr
About the Author
Thanks for this! Another, more recent remake of "Forbidden Planet" was proposed a few years back but also doesn't seem to have gotten off teh ground.
ReplyDeleteI say "NO"... to any remake, though the imagery is pretty bad-ass!
ReplyDeleteWow, Mcquarrie was a true master. This artwork really deserves to be in its own book. Thanks for bringing this, and hope that Kick starter is a success
ReplyDeleteThe McQuarrie book will be amazing - but ANY remake of Forbidden Planet will be horrible, because they will change - and therefore ruin - Robby the Robot. He is an icon. Would you change R2-D2 if you made another Star Wars film?
ReplyDeleteI most definitely would not.
ReplyDeleteJust imagining the visions Ralph McQuarrie and Syd Mead would've cooked up together makes my head spin.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree a remake would be blasphemy, although that's my knee jerk reaction to remakes in general.
J Michael Straczynski was developing a trilogy about 4-5 years ago. That sure spiked my interest, and at least with him it would have been a very respectful treatment.
Looks like the remake was on its way to being yet another off-road-vehicles-in-space action flic. What's good about Forbidden Planet is that it's a fabulous period piece from a time when a coherent story mattered. And Anne Francis's bare legs can never be equaled.
ReplyDelete