We all know the story of Star Wars and its lead hero, Luke Skywalker. But what if Luke Skywalker was a girl? What if Han Solo was an alien creature with green skin and gills? Imagine if Stormtroopers carried lightsabers?
It’s not an entirely foreign concept. Concept art for Star Wars: A New Hope drawn by artist Ralph McQuarrie, working off treatments and instructions from George Lucas, details a far different Star Wars from the one we know. McQuarrie’s vision, dubbed The Star Wars, never came to light, instead remaining as still images in the pages of concept art books, but a new project from the graduating class of 2017 at the Digital Animation and Visual Effects School in Orlando, Florida have managed to put together a concept trailer of what McQuarrie’s movie would have looked like.
Some of the trailer will be recognizable to Star Wars fans; Darth Vader still looks pretty much like Darth Vader and the Death Star is basically the same. But other things — including a female heroine, a terrifying version of Chewbacca and a squatty R2-D2 — are pretty wild to look at.
This isn’t the first time that McQuarrie’s interpretations of Star Wars have been produced. In 2014, Dark Horse Comics ran an eight-issue series called The Star Wars, collecting each of those issues in a proper volume. If you’re interested in finding out how McQuarrie saw Star Wars, this isn’t a bad place to start.
The newest Star Wars movie, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, will be released on Dec. 15.
