The origin of the Star Wars Y-Wing Fighter, workhorse of the Rebel Alliance
The dogfights of World War II were one of several major inspirations for George Lucas when he began developing Star Wars in 1974. (Others, of course, included Akira Kurosawa’s samurai movies, Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, the old Flash Gordon serials, and stories of the Knights of the Round Table.)
Naturally, those World War II dogfights led Lucas to decide that his spaceships should include the equivalents of battleships, aircraft carriers, fighter planes, and bombers. While developing the original look and feel of ships for the movie, Colin Cantwell came up with a Y-Wing Fighter design that was very similar to the one used for the final models built by the crew at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM).
“George wanted the Y-Wing to be like a World War II TBF Torpedo Bomber, which had a gunner in the belly, facing back to cover the tail, and on top behind the pilot, and then a pilot facing forward,” Colin says in J.W. Rinzler’s book The Making of Star Wars. “So the Y-Wing would have that kind of interaction between three people on it.” (Rinzler notes that Colin’s Y-Wing was “perhaps the first concept model approved [by George Lucas].”)
Colin’s Star Wars Y-Wing was designed ‘from nothing’
“I think it is pretty amazing that he designed the ship from nothing, with so many seemingly disparate parts coming together as if they were meant to fit in that arrangement,” says model-maker Jason Eaton, who has built a replica of Colin’s original Y-Wing. “Though it was not suited for blue-screen compositing (lacking an armature with mount points and some surface areas too thin to avoid ‘blowing out’ during the optical process), those very qualities make it seem almost ethereal in comparison to the thicker model that ILM produced.”
That early design made its way into Ralph McQuarrie’s concept paintings, which led some fans to believe that he crafted those designs, but he was actually using Colin’s models as references. The Star Wars Y-Wing later evolved into a single-pilot ship, with a slot for an astromech droid behind the cockpit (like the X-Wing), but Eaton notes: “Some of Colin’s choices were copied and echo in the ILM design. Wing root kit parts, the choice to use some of the same kits, and general shape and ‘vibe’ are so exciting.”
He adds: “Having built multiple ILM Y-Wings and being so familiar with the parts used on those ships put me in a surreal position while building the Cantwell Y-Wing, because as a model builder, you feel as if you are walking a mile in the shoes of the designer, and it was an amazing lesson in the design’s ‘origin story,’ for lack of better articulation. It was exciting to use similar but different parts again and again, and then inject the model with completely different pieces unfamiliar and never before used at the time to me.”
“I think it is pretty amazing that he designed the ship from nothing, with so many seemingly disparate parts coming together as if they were meant to fit in that arrangement.” — Model-maker Jason Eaton
Recreating Colin’s Y-Wing Design
Asked why he decided to recreate Colin’s Star Wars Y-Wing model, Eaton replies: “The reasons begin in the hands and minds of my friends Craig Underwood and Ed Minto. They are the two who decided to research and identify all of the model kits that Cantwell used on his Star Wars prototypes. They both excel at this vital component to replicating the ships of Star Wars, and Craig was finished with his build a solid year or two before I even started, easily. So I made this and other Cantwell ships on the foundation they provided.”
He adds: “My personal choice to make this model was out of a desire to build something fresh to me, and I knew it would give me a more rounded appreciation and understanding of the design itself. I also had a great head start on sourcing all of the model kits needed to build the ship, as I had previously built the Skyhopper and Cantwell Sandcrawler, which share kits and parts. I also much prefer the gritty used and dirty look of the Star Wars universe, so I knew I could build the ship, paint it and photograph it like the original, and then add more paint and weathering to dirty it up, and see if it felt closer to the ILM ships we saw on screen (it did).”
You can see more images of Jason Eaton’s Colin Cantwell Y-Wing recreation on his website, along with the “ILM style” version.