Marc Thorpe, VFX and Model Artist for Original ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy, Has Died at 77

We are sad to report that Marc Thorpe, who worked on props and visual effects for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, has died at 77.



Thorpe's daughter, Megan Feffer, announced her father's passing on social media this past Friday. She discussed his long-term struggle with Parkinson's disease and stressed the importance of remembering his many artistic achievements as a way of honoring him.

Marc Thorpe's career in the film industry began when he was hired by Industrial Light and Magic in 1979 as a model maker and animatronic designer. Thorpe worked in the optical effects unit on The Empire Strikes Back and later contributed his talents to Return of the Jedi as well.



Thorpe's effects work wasn't limited to Star Wars, however. He also worked on all three of the original Indiana Jones movies as well as other major films from the 1980s and 1990s like Dragonslayer, Poltergeist, Explorers, Howard the Duck, and The Hunt for Red October.







Still, many people may remember Thorpe even more for what he did after his time at ILM. In the early 1990s, Thorpe was a senior designer at LucasToys, which was a division of Lucasfilm. During that time, he got the idea of hosting events in which contestants would remote-control their own robots in fighting matches against each other. Thorpe named this new venture Robot Wars, and the first event took place in 1994.



Sadly, Thorpe wasn't involved with his creation for very long. In 1997, Profile Records assumed creative control of the business, and Thorpe took a step back from the robot-fighting community that began to grow from the success of Robot Wars. Even so, Thorpe proved that the audience for that kind of entertainment existed, and Robot Wars itself would continue for several more years. Additionally, other robot-fighting shows were later produced, some of which, like BattleBots and its spinoffs, continue to this day.



BattleBots was quick to post a tribute to Thorpe on social media, acknowledging him as the founder of robot fighting sports:



https://twitter.com/BattleBots/status/1728171061936836878?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1728171061936836878%7Ctwgr%5E558ba69e5b9021c8a85ab4109565003aee0ebf77%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo.com%2Fembed%2Finset%2Fiframe%3Fid%3Dtwitter-1728171061936836878autosize%3D1



Lastly, it's worth noting that a number of inventors and engineers who would later go on to become famous in their own right participated in the early Robot Wars competitions. Those events featured robotic warriors created by the likes of Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman (the future hosts of MythBusters), Caleb Chung (one of the inventors of the Furby toy), and many others.



If you want to learn more about Marc Thorpe and his career in film and robot sports, you can check out his website.



We here at Star Wars News Net wish to extend our condolences to Marc Thorpe's family and friends in their time of loss.



May the Force be with him.



Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, Gizmodo, Marc Thorpe's website



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