Lucas arouses a generation

From Starwars, It was Princess Leia's Organa's most memorable wardrobe choice -- albeit chosen by Jabba the Hutt -- the brief brass bikini worn while chained to the bloated gangster in Return of the Jedi. Developed in sketches by Nilo Rodis-Jamero, it was actually the ILM Model Shop that was tasked to construct the real costume worn by actress Carrie Fisher.
"Nilo was doing sketches, and I had seen what he was planning," recalls Lorne Peterson, veteran ILM modelmaker who has worked on all six Star Wars films. "Incidentally, at the same time, someone I went to college with happened to sit beside me at a café who I hadn't seen in something like 18 years. In striking up an old friendship, I realized that he was a sculptor, and many of his own private sculptures were very much like Princess Leia's outfit."

That sculptor, Richard Miller, joined ILM for Jedi, and stayed on to work on many other films, including the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

"An interesting aside is that one of the moldmakers, when he realized he was going to get to do the body-casting of Carrie Fisher... he talked about it every day," recalls Peterson. "And somewhere in Production, at the last minute, they changed and had another moldmaker do it, much to his chagrin. If he had just kept his mouth shut and not been so enthusiastic, they would have let him go through with it!"