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Peter Mayhew’s Twitter Feed Takes Us To A Galaxy Of Star Wars Production Pics

This is a slideshow we can get behind.

By David Wharton | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

Actor Peter Mayhew holds the distinction of helping bring to life one of the most recognizable fictional characters in history, but there’s a good chance many of the people who love his performance wouldn’t recognize him if they passed him on the street. That’s because he was the man inside everybody’s favorite walking carpet, Han Solo’s Wookiee copilot Chewbacca in Star Wars. Now we’ve got another reason to love the 7’3 British actor, because his twitter feed has turned into a goldmine of behind-the-scenes Star Wars images. And also an “adventure goat,” but we think that’s probably unrelated.

The pictures range from the fascinating to the sweet to the silly. Just look at these knuckleheads.


After three and a half decades, it’s kind of amazing how pictures like this continue to fascinate. Sure, behind-the-scenes images can always be interesting, but Star Wars has been such a huge part of our lives and childhoods that it’s less like watching a movie being made and more like watching magic.

Hopefully Episode VII and the other Star Wars films that will be unleashed in the years to come will recapture that magic for fans both young and old, a spell that George Lucas seemed to lose touch with when it came to the gorgeous but hollow prequels. Thankfully there is plenty of reason to be optimistic. While J.J. Abrams’ name on the director’s chair will inevitably bring disdain from his detractors, I don’t think his weaknesses lie in his directing or visual style. What he needs is a solid screenplay to work from, and thankfully his collaborator on Episode VII’s script is one of the best-case scenarios we could have hoped for: Empire Strikes Back co-writer Lawrence Kasdan. Add to that the recent word that Abrams and Kasdan are rewriting Michael Arndt’s script to give Star Wars’ Big Three — Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) — one last big-screen adventure to serve as a proper send-off and I can’t help but feel a new hope (ahem) that perhaps the new films will follow in the footsteps of Disney’s Marvel and Pixar empires and really make something special.

As for Mayhew himself, his health and age have made it unlikely that he’ll be able to return as Chewbacca for the new films. The actor may get more time in the spotlight in an unexpected way. Fanboys director Kyle Newman is developing a film based on the Black List script Chewie, a Mayhew biopic that tells the story of the making of Star Wars through the actor’s eyes. There hasn’t been any word about the project since 2012, but hopefully it’ll still make it to screen eventually, because the script is sweet and funny and I think most Star Wars fans would really love it.

We’ve included some of our favorites from Mayhew’s collection here, but you should definitely check out his twitter to see tons more, and no doubt many more to come (he says he has around 1200 more in his archive). Star Wars: Episode VII is due in theaters in December 2015.

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