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Cinefex: Mostly Harmless |
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| Inside the ship, Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell) greets the hitchhikers, accompanied by Marvin, a diminutive, depressive robot, created by the Henson team as a walk-around suit worn by actor Warwick Davis. |
Arthur and Ford briefly materialize on board the Heart of Gold as talking sofas - mechanical props with articulated seat cushions and arms created by Asylum - then are met by Marvin, a diminutive robot with an expansive cranium and a depressive demeanor. The Henson crew created Marvin as a walk-around suit, adhering closely to an art department conceptual design. "They'd found a nice little recipe for Marvin," commented James Courtier. "It had the two attributes that were the worst things for a depressive to have: absolute perfection and absolute cuteness. We only had to modify it slightly as we proceeded with the build."
Marvin suit manufacture proceeded by sculpting clay over a fiberglass lifecast of robot performer Warwick Davis, then molding, casting, and tooling highly polished, lightweight fiberglass pieces. Senior fabricator Nicola Tedman generated an undersuit that supported fiberglass pieces interspersed with neoprene gaiters at the body junction points. "The hard nut to crack," observed Courtier, "was the weight of Marvin's head. We built the head out of extremely lightweight fiberglass; but, at 28 inches across, I was concerned that if Marvin fell over, or a rigger knocked the head, the leverage would be so great it could seriously injure Warwick." The head incorporated halogen lights in Marvin's eyes, heat extraction funnels, a pinhole camera, video monitor and two-way radio to enable Davis to communicate on set. To support the weight of the equipment, Henson built a mechanical gimbal to circumnavigate Davis' head, rigged to prevent Marvin's head from rocking back further than Davis' spine would allow, while distributing weight around the actor's body.
Polished, primed and painted with white pearlescent BMW automotive paint, then loaded with battery packs, the completed suit weighed 56 pounds - three-quarters Davis' body mass. "When Warwick first got into the finished suit in rehearsals at Elstree," Courtier recalled, "our hearts stopped. It had become quite heavy with all its paraphernalia, and it was difficult for him to move. This, of course, was not something we wanted to learn just before going into a major motion picture! But it was a testament to Warwick's stamina, endurance and professionalism that he overcame that. It was like weight training. He acclimatized to the suit quite quickly and we never had a problem after that."
Courtier and Peter Elliott helped Davis develop Marvin's body language,
and implemented a special rig for a scene in which Marvin was required to
run across a rocky planet surface, shot on location in Wales. "Warwick
had learned to manage the suit for all of Marvin's day-to-day events,"
stated Courtier, "but running in a quarry was something that he couldn't
do. We were scratching our heads about how we were going to achieve that
shot, wondering if we were going to have to fall back on CG, until Peter
Elliott suggested using an early prototype version of the suit." Built to
test joint articulation, the lightweight prototype was roomy enough to
accomodate Elliott standing inside with his head pushed up against the
top of the robot's cranium and his hips at Marvin's shoulders. "Nicola
Tedman made a soft fabric suit that held the panels together so Marvin's
arms just hung there; but, for long shots, you couldn't tell it from the
hero suit." With the exception of one digital rod-removal shot, all of
Marvin's scenes were realized practically.
