Showcase: Star Wars 80s High School Redesigns

Han and Chewie

Luke and Leia

Nerdroids

Vader, Boba and Trooper

Lando and Greedo

I don't make a habit of doing Star Wars-themed posts, for a couple of reasons. First off, there's so much Star Wars fanart out there, you could dedicate an entire blog to it and still not have it covered. I know that if I took it upon myself to start including Star Wars in my repartee, I'd be opening a Pandora's Box full of demons that would consume me to the point where I posted nothing but Star Wars, all the time. The other reason is that I feel like Star Wars, while a topic that I can nerd out about with the best of them, tends to be much more insular a nerd community than my typical fare.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you may have noticed that there are certain fan subcultures that I have made an effort to avoid. Pokemon is one of them: I steadfastly refuse to post Pokemon fanart here. It's not that I have anything against Pokemon; it's just not within the purview of what I'm doing here. The same goes for Star Wars. There are dozens, if not thousands, of Star Wars fan-art blogs out there, and it's not a niche I really feel all that compelled to contribute to myself.

But then again, every once in a while, something amazingly cool comes along and I just have to post it. Like this, for example: Denis Medri's revamp of Star Wars characters, as high school teenagers in the '80s. Medri's also done a series of Old West-style Justice League heroes, and steampunk Spiderman villains, but I think this is my favourite thus far.

Let's break it down, from top to bottom:

a) Han and Chewbacca as a pair of metalhead thrasher rebel types. I love how Han is wearing a clearly hand-made shirt, has nunchuks for no apparent reason, and drives what appears to be a Ford Thunderbird. These are guys who have no business being cool, and are probably into some crazy and possibly illegal shit, but are still probably alright guys.

b) Of course Luke would be the all-American boy next door, while Leia would be the bubblegum, headphones and eyeliner type. Luke is modelled after the epitome of '80s high-schoolers, Marty McFly, and his skateboard sports the same colour scheme as his landspeeder. Leia's headphones are a nice touch.

c) The Nerdroids, based on C-3PO and R2-D2. This one is my favourite of the lot: I really love the tall, skinny, bespectacled 3PO, and the patterned sweater and red button on the R2 nerd is pretty much all you need to get the idea across. They kind of vaguely remind me of Martin Starr and Samm Levine's characters from Freaks & Geeks.

d) In Denis' revision, Vader is the leader of a "motocross crew" - so naturally, he and his cronies wear modified full-face dirtbike masks. It never occurred to me until now, but almost all the bad guys wore helmets in Star Wars, and none of the good guys. Anyway, I like how Vader wears a Michael Jackson 'Thriller'-style jacket, only black, while the Stormtrooper has camo pants on. 'Cuz he's in the military, get it?

e) And finally, preppy, smooth-talking Lando and punk rock villainous scumbag Greedo. I can't really see thrasher Han being old buddies with yuppie Lando, but I can totally see Han shooting Greedo over a debt.

Hopefully Denis isn't finished with this series - I'd love to see how Jabba, Yoda, the Emperor and even the Ewoks fit into this whole concept.

[Denis Medri's Deviantart]