Thread by @Richmond_Lee

Happy May 4th!
#MayThe4thBeWithYou #StarGladiator #スターグラディエイター

Seriously, Star Gladiator has such an amazing cast of characters! One of my favorites! Beyond being the COOLEST riff on Star Wars, they're just fantastic characters on their own too!

Hayato is such a great, badass main character. His bladed beam sword takes light sabers back to their roots (they were inspired by katanas after all). And my god, he's just so STYLISH. Love the ripped tee and red space Nikes!
#MayThe4thBeWithYou #StarGladiator

June is such a fun riff on Leia. Love how they translated Leia's buns into a crazy Chinese hairdo. And then they built off of that further with her Rhythmic Gymnastics theme which informs her weapon, fighting style and in-game animations!
#MayThe4thBeWithYou #StarGladiator

Bilstein is one of the most badass takes on Darth Vader ever! Rather than lean even more heavily into Vader's Samurai theme, Capcom went with a Moebius/Tron motif! And they made him even more hulking, with a really broad energy weapon to match! SO COOL!
#MayThe4thBeWithYou

Which Bilstein do y'all prefer? The Ninja/Optimus Prime face? Or the skull face (Ghost Bilstein)? Both are so cool!
#StarGladiator #スターグラディエイター

Fun Fact: Everyone knows Darth Vader (Star Wars, 1977) was inspired by samurai armor, but some accounts say he was also inspired by Hakaider (Kikaider, 1972)! Both are imposing jet black cyborg archvillains with (SPOILER ALERT) plot twists revealing them to be the hero's father!

Other sources say that the Hakaider inspiration is a misnomer and it was actually Musha Kamen (Himiysu Sentai Gorenger, 1975) that inspired Darth Vader. In any case, George Lucas was a Japanese pop culture buff and Toku stuff was an influence on Star Wars for sure!
#MayThe4th

Gamof is obviously a riff on Chewbacca. They did a great job though. The overall feel is similar, but actually all the particulars are pretty different! It was a good call to give him boots too. Much like Chewie's satchel it lets you know he's an intelligent, sapient being!

I particularly like Gamof's horn stumps. Perhaps they were inspired by Hellboy? Both visually recall raised goggles. Gamof is a lumberjack by trade, so his horns also recall tree stumps. They even have rings like a tree!
#MayThe4th #StarGladiator #スターグラディエイター

By the way folks, much like Chewbacca, Gamof has one helluva complex backstory! It involves a proud lineage beset by economic hardship, illicit drugs, ecological disaster, pandemics and discrimination against migrant laborers!

Source:
capcom.fandom.com/wiki/Gamof
#StarGladiator

Also, given that Gamof and Hayato are partners, that makes Hayato both the Luke Skywalker and Han Solo of Star Gladiator/Plasma Sword! Oh hey! Look at those belts!
#MayThe4thBeWithYou #StarGladiator #スターグラディエイター

Vector is a very unique robot design. Though not a perfect analog, as the mass produced grunt unit of the evil empire, Vector is like the Storm Trooper of Star Gladiator.
#MayThe4thBeWithYou #StarGladiator #スターグラディエイター

Franco Gerelt is one of my alltime fav chara designs! He's SO DAMN COOL LOOKING. He is the Lando Calrissian of Star Gladiator. He has a suave aristocratic air & he's also a good person who is strong armed into serving the evil empire before finally turning against them
#MayThe4th

Outside of Star Wars, I suspect Franco Gerelt was also influenced by the swordsman Ramirez (played by Sean Connery) from the film Highlander (1986)
#StarGladiator #スターグラディエイター

This is such an unbelievably cool set of armor. It combines a traditional matador outfit with European platemail and 90s Capcom sci-fi shape language mastery that I can't even describe in words. It's so damn good.
#StarGladiator #スターグラディエイター

This is such a masterful blend of unique & interesting shapes. So evocative of different time periods and cultures, yet so cohesive! 90s Capcom was on another level. If I were art director on the new Dune movie I would have told them to study Gerelt for the House Atreides armor!

In a game full of very strange characters, Gore is perhaps the strangest. He doesn't have a single analog in Star Wars. Rather he's evocative of all the outlaw weirdos at the Cantina in Mos Eisley!
#MayThe4thBeWithYou #StarGladiator #スターグラディエイター

OK let's end this with a deep cut. This isn't even a Star Wars reference. Saturn, one of the weirdest & most memorable characters from Star Gladiator must have been based off of Big Loo, a highly sought after Vintage toy released by Marx toys for the 1963 Xmas season in America!

I don't have it in writing from Capcom, but I'm so certain "Big Loo" was the inspiration for Saturn. The cone head, the green skin, the snarling smile, the beady eyes, the exotic clothing. Everything!
#StarGladiator #スターグラディエイター

Here's the original commercial for Big Loo from 1963! Keep in mind, Star Gladiator came out in 1996. Back then they already had more obscure and varied references for their work than most folks today with access to Wikipedia, YouTube, Pinterest etc!

By the way folks, Big Loo was absolutely MASSIVE. An "absolute unit" as the kids like to say.
#StarGladiator #スターグラディエイター

As far as I know, I was the first person to point out the Star Gladiator / Big Loo connection online (at least in the English language) ✌️✨

Anyway, please follow me and my blog (art-eater.com) for more random, meandering threads like this!

https://twitter.com/Richmond_Lee/status/735143620496359425?s=20

AH NUTS. Just noticed a typo in my previous tweets. The captions for Big Loo should say that he was made "for the 1963 Christmas Holiday Season" not "1983"! Ah well!