Star Wars - and I mean ALL of Star Wars, would never have been what it was or what it is today if not for three people; Ben Burtt, John Williams and Ralph McQuarrie. Forget George Lucas, I'm not even joking. Try watching any scenes without either the score or sound FX and nothing works - there's no soul to any of it. But preceding any of that is the look of the SW universe and that - all of that - came from the mind and massive talent that was Ralph McQuarrie.
You look at any of the paintings from the Original Film and the sets they ended up making, the characters are pretty much 90% what he created. It's the entire base for what most guys my age wanted to dress like when they were kids. Kids in the 50's watched westerns and copied that, McQuarrie essentially created the new cowboys for sci-fi fans everywhere.
