Via Starwars.com:

LEARN THE HISTORY OF THE GALAXY’S FAVORITE BOARD GAME.

The scene aboard the Millennium Falcon when Chewbacca, R2-D2, and C-3PO are playing a game with small holographic creatures has certainly become a fan favorite. Han Solo’s remark about why the droids should allow the Wookiee to win and C-3PO’s logic “Let the Wookiee win” are classic moments. A similar looking holographic game was named dejarik in “Galladinium’s Fantastic Technology,” a 1995 roleplaying game supplement from West End Games, and it was soon adopted as the name for the Falcon‘s game. In this article, we’ll learn about the game’s history and about its holographic pieces.

Some history

Long before the game had a name, George Lucas was in the process of completing the first Star Wars movie when Phil Tippett and Jon Berg showed him some crazy little sculptures meant as designs for cantina residents. Although they weren’t used for the cantina, Lucas liked them so much he called in Tippett and Berg’s crazy creatures for another scene in the movie: the “chess scene” aboard the Falcon. Originally Lucas had planned to use little people in costumes on a giant chessboard, but the movie Futureworld (1976) already featured a similar scene and effect, thus a new solution had to be found to complete the scene. While Grant McCune created the chessboard, Tippett and Berg adjusted the sculptures they’d designed. Lucas asked that the figures be about six inches tall and when Tippett and Berg shot the stop-motion sequences of the creatures, Lucas was present, as well. The voices of the creatures were provided by sound designer Ben Burtt himself.

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