STAR WARS' New Stormtrooper Look Was Inspired By Apple and Nazis
The Empire has evolved in the Star Wars universe with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. They are now known as The First Order, and as you've seen in the trailers, the Stormtroopers have been given a sleek, cool new look.
During an interview with Vanity Fair, costume designer Michael Kaplan spoke about coming up with the new Stormtrooper look, and revealed that when creating them, he was inspired by Apple and the Nazis. When asked if J.J. Abrams used any of the original costumes from the original trilogy, Kaplan said:
"We didn’t use anything, but I went up to George Lucas’s archives—huge building—and just spent a day going through sketches and looking just to get the tone of the movie, you know, in my guts and veins so that when I went to London I felt equipped and inspired, which I certainly did.
"But the old stormtroopers uniforms would not be usable. Audiences of today have become so sophisticated that a lot of things you could get away with in the past, you can’t anymore. So the new uniforms are much heavier. Also, the action in the film required them to not be “VacuFormed” [like the old uniforms] as those all broke and cracked. These new ones are much more heavy-duty, but they are redesigned, too, they’re not the same stormtroopers."
He then went on to reveal how he came up with the new designs:
"Maybe subconsciously, but with the stormtroopers it was more of a simplification, almost like, 'What would Apple do?' J.J. wanted them to look like stormtroopers at a glance but also be different enough to kind of wow people and get them excited about the new design."
As for the Nazi inspiration, he explained the look saying it gave the Stormtroopers a "slicked back and very hard-lined" look. He went on to say that Nazi thing was "always there with the Empire." He then talks about what Abrams was looking for in the new look:
"Everything was a conversation with J.J., of course. He wanted to hold on to the uniqueness and not get too far away from the stormtroopers, keep that iconic look, but still have 30 years of difference. I mean, it would be a little odd to have the same stormtroopers this much later when Leia and Han are so much older."
I love the new Stormtrooper design! They are extremely cool, and it's good to get a little background on how the look came about.