Building character
I read your feature The 30 Greatest Star Wars Characters [TF237] with interest and was pleased to see IG-88 at number 27, but would draw your attention to two incorrect statements. Firstly you credit Ralph McQuarrie as designer, and that it was made with scrap from A New Hope. Both wrong. My name is Bill Hargreaves and I built IG-88. There were no concept drawings of any sort and I can say I never met Ralph. The parts for IG-88 were sourced from an aircraft scrapyard in Hayes, Middlesex. Of course, some were liberated from other ’bots but very little. I know things can get distorted as it all happened a long time ago but I hope I can assist in putting things right. Sorry if this sounds like a moan – I am still a fan of the first three films and had input into them all. BILL HARGREAV ES, VIA EMAIL Was reading your list of Star Wars characters and I was really disappointed to realise how few female characters there are in the Star
Wars saga. When I was seven and went to see The Phantom Menace in the cinema, I was awed by Padmé (and her wardrobe, mostly) but there weren’t really any other characters for me to cling on to, unlike my brother who had a whole Jedi council. I really hope The Force Awakens does something to address this, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that it will!
JESS FRENCH, VIA EMAIL Firstly, sincere apologies to Mr Hargreaves for the mistake. The Bothan spy who sold us the dodgy intel has been sent to clean out Jabba’s bed pan. And Jess, it looks as if there has been an awakening regards gender balance in the new SW universe – Daisy Ridley, Gwendoline Christie, Felicity Jones, Lupita Nyong’o… and BB-8 is still yet to declare. Definitely an improvement on just Padmé and Anakin’s mum, standing around shrugging that she doesn’t know how she got pregnant, like some MTV reality star.
‘I was awed by Padmé but there were no others to cling to’