Lucasfilm Should Canonize The Cantwell X-Wing

Posted by Chris on 02/11/23 at 07:05 AM Category: Star Wars Misc

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One of the first people that George Lucas brought on to the then "The Star Wars" project was concept designer Colin Cantwell. According to the Official Site, Mr. Cantwell's hire probably predated Ralph McQuarrie's onboarding by a matter of days. Cantwell was tasked with designing models for the ships in Lucas's space opera. The Official Site wrote the following in his obituary from May of last year:

His staggering number of designs and prototype models essentially formed the visual Star Wars starship lexicon, and include the X-wing, Y-wing (the first approved design, according to The Making of Star Wars), TIE fighter, Star Destroyer, Death Star, landspeeder, sandcrawler, and blockade runner (a design originally intended for the Millennium Falcon).

If you've watched any Original Trilogy behind the scenes documentary, you've likely seen many Cantwell prototypes. Some of them, like the TIE Fighter, are clearly far removed from being film-quality models. That wasn't the intent or task. But the X-Wing comes fairly close. Perhaps some panelization on the s-foils and weathering, and it would be there. Knowing of Lucas' love of car culture, Cantwell drew inspiration from a dragster crossed with a throwing dart to design the X-Wing. The nose of his prototype was literally taken from a dragster model kit. That's pretty cool. I don't know if it was ever confirmed, but I have to think that the greens and blues on the nose of the Cantwell X-Wing were the inspiration for the color palette of Kaz Xiono in Star Wars: Resistance.

Dave Filoni has worked countless winks and nods from Star Wars history into his projects. He's either directly inserted McQuarrie concepts or alluded to them. He canonized three Kenner figures by brining Blue Snaggletooth, Flipper Walrusman, and Singlet Hammerhead into various animation projects. These leaves me so shocked that he hasn't managed to sneak the Cantwell X-Wing into one of his projects that I have to assume he did, and I missed it. If not, it would be a another cool wink to the Star Wars past for him to work into a future project.

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The S-foils collapse flat, as on the movie X-Wing, but open in a true "X". This design also has five engines. Joe Johnson refined this concept into the on-screen X-Wing.

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From left to right, Kenner Greedo, Kenner Hammerhead, Kenner Walrusman and Kenner Blue Snaggletooth in S7:E5 of The Clone Wars.

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IG-RM in Rebels uses Ralph McQuarrie's concept design for IG-88.

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The Cantwell-class Arrestor Cruiser in Solo and Andor pays tribute to the late concept artist, who also provided the concept design for the ship for A New Hope.