Technological advancement through character design: Darth Vader as case study

Abstract

The importance of character design in films and other media may have an indirect impact on future concept arts, ideas and technological advancement. Based on a story, a conceptual artist would create many, even hundreds of different designs before reaching the final product of characters, environments, vehicles, creatures and more. From these final works we get iconic figures, futuristic weapons and new worlds on the big screen that serve our entertainment purposes and hint at what the future might hold. The purpose of this paper is to bridge the idea on how conceptual art can have an impact on science, our everyday lives and even the entire world. By analysing Darth Vader in Star Wars films as the core subject, one of the most iconic villains in the history of cinema, the research will focus on the pre-production process, and how his final design can be influential to advanced technological research on prosthetic limbs, breathing apparatus and more. The process of concept art as well as the understanding of Character Archetypes will also be presented. Other well-known characters from three different platforms (film, computer games and animation) will be used as comparisons to Darth Vader in terms of similarity regarding his type of injuries and the modifications made to their bodies that could one day become an invention and thus again relate to the importance of character design.