I did a Google Image Search for HG Wells’ Martian Tripos, & an early sketch of R2-D2 of Star Wars fame appeared. It bore a distinct resemblance to some early illos of the Tripods. And R2 has 3 legs.
Was R2-D2’s design influenced by the Martian Tripod War Machines of War Of The Worlds?
I kinda doubt it. I’ve been looking over a lot of illustrations of the Martian Tripods recently, and they go all over the place. None of the ones I’ve seen significantly resemble R2D2.
It’s true that R2 does have three “pads”, but these seem to have wheels that they roll on, and there is no “tripedal” locomotion. One of the interesting things about Wells’ Martians is that they appear to not have invented or at least used the wheel*, and their tripods are their wheel-less “tank”**.
*Spielberg payed notice to this in his version of the story when the Martians are exploring a human cellar, and are fascinated by a bicycle wheel. Apparently, Wells didn’t consider the screw a variety of wheel, since the Martian cylinders were sealed by screw threads.
**wells foresaw the importance of armored vehicles in war, and his story “The Land Ironclads” has been seen as a foreshadowing of the Tank. His Martian tripods are armored war vehicles, they just don’t have wheels.
I don’t mean R2 as he exists now, I mean the early sketches.
bump
That early sketch of R2-D2 looks as if it might have been inspired by a Shear-Legs – a kind of lifting crane with two angled beams held up by lines. (Also called Sheer-Legs.) Maybe the artist once watched some guys haul an engine out of a Jeep.
Ralph McQuarrie’s first image of Artoo Detoo was influenced by the Silent Running robots, but he changed them from square to round, and then added a leg. He did intend for him to walk in a tripodal fashion, like someone on crutches, but there’s no evidence it was in reference to War of the Worlds.
Source: The Making of Star Wars by J W Rinzler.
I don’t see haw he looks like a Martian war machine, unless he supposed to have a Martian hidden in him.
Holly diodes! You’ve upskirted R2.
I hope you understand I can’t have you going near my food processor ever again.
Those days are over.
I don’t recall how Wells actually described the tripods, but in all the pictures of them that I have ever seen, including the ones I just got from Google, they are tall, spindly things, about as unlike short, stocky R2D2 as an ambulatory machine could get.
Ha! I knew that was going to be a Kenny Baker shot before I even clicked…
Yeah, that was the original idea. He’d plant with two feet, throw the middle one forward and so forth. It was abandoned pretty early on but it does (a bit) resemble the tripardite motion of the martian tripods.
But I’ve never heard anything that the concept came from Wells.
