Madame Tussauds

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Madame Tussauds is a chain of wax museums owned by Merlin Entertainments with 23 locations worldwide and was first founded by Marie Grosholtz, who made a living during the French Revolution by making figures of popular royal figures and death masks of those executed by the guillotine.

She then left for London and went on several traveling exhibitions around the country until she finally settled into a permanent institution on London's Baker Street, where the first Madame Tussaud's museum opened in 1835.^[1] Upon becoming a franchise, Madame Tussauds has opened in several other countries beyond Great Britain and includes a range of figures besides aristocracy. They include world leaders, activists, artists, A-list celebrities, musicians, athletes, TV and film characters.

Attractions[]

London[]

On February 3, 2015 Madame Tussauds London announced they would be doing a multi-million-pound expansion to their world-famous attraction with a major new experience near the end of the tour, based on the Star Wars series. Created in close collaboration with Disney and Lucasfilm, the mini-attraction contains re-creations of scenes from all the original and prequel trilogy installments except for Attack of the Clones. It took 180 artists to put the whole thing together. Some of them went on scouting trips to Skywalker Ranch, where they took several photos of original film props (e.g., the lightsabers) and costumes for studio reference; some were even borrowed by hand to make pitch-perfect replicas.^[2] Madame Tussauds Star Wars had a VIP opening party on May 12, 2015 featuring appearances from press members of Team Jedi News, Pip Andersen, who played a First Order stormtrooper in The Force Awakens, and Jeremy Bulloch, while the attraction officially opened on May 16.^[3]^[4]

Located after the Marvel Super Heroes exhibit, Madame Tussauds Star Wars begins with guests walking down a hallway based on the Trade Federation ship Saak'ak from The Phantom Menace with a blast door in the center and two windows that give a view of a fiber-optic-lit galaxy; the left side features a scale model of the planet Naboo. As guests descend the stairways, the first show scene they come across is a re-enactment of the Duel of the Fates where Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi clash blades with Darth Maul. Alongside decals that represent the architecture of the Theed power generator are two cylindrical tubes of optical fiber that simulate the Plasma Refinery Complex.

The next showroom is based on the Battle of the Heroes from Revenge of the Sith with fallen Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker standing on a Mustafar barge with red aura projected around his wax figure.

Crossing over to the A New Hope, the first thing guests see coming is a re-creation of the Mos Eisley cantina with a wax figure of Han Solo, as painted by colorist Alex Garnett, lounging in the seat where he first negotiated with the protagonists and shot Greedo. On the other side of the room is C-3PO and R2-D2 standing in front of a backdrop of the Tatooine desert, each with electronic lights and the latter droid making his iconic beep-boop sounds. The next scene is Han's Wookiee sidekick Chewbacca in a re-creation of the Millennium Falcon cockpit, where guests can sit in the seat opposite him and press a button, activating a video on the screen that shows it going into lightspeed. According to hair inserter Hannah Scott, Chewie was the hardest one to work on as he was made from yak hair; an entire body suit was made to accommodate his fur, with over 800 hours and 10 artists needed to make this specific figure. Crossing over to the dark side, guests find themselves in the hallways of the Death Star, where two Imperial stormtroopers stand guard.

The next stop is down a long, winding hallway that leads guests into the swampy forests of Dagobah, where they find Master Yoda (modeled after one of the original puppets) sitting on a log as clips of his most famous lines play on loop. Based on the climax of The Empire Strikes Back, the preceding showroom is a re-creation of the Cloud City reactor shaft, where visitors can stand opposite Darth Vader as the famous "I am your father" line plays on a hidden speaker.

Finishing off with Return of the Jedi, the next room is a large re-creation of Jabba's Palace with wax figures of the slug crime-lord, Princess Leia Organa in her chain-metal bikini, and Salacious B. Crumb. The "final" room (when it first opened) is based on the portions of the Battle of Endor that took place inside the Emperor's throne room with Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker clashing their lightsabers as Darth Sidious watches from his chair in devious intent. For both figures of Vader, the Tussauds artists worked very closely with casts from the original costumes as provided by a Lucasfilm employee, going so far as to re-create unnoticed details like the dents on his helmet.^[5]

On July 16 2016, a wax figure of Rey was unveiled during a press conference at the annual Star Wars Europe celebration and was later installed at the London museum on August 9, where she wields her quarterstaff, her tableau mimicking a Jakku marketplace, and is accompanied by a SFX replica of BB-8.^[6] Despite the many Star Wars products that have been released since Disney's acquisition of the franchise, no other characters have been added to the attraction.

Berlin[]

On May 11, 2015 another Star Wars exhibit opened much earlier for Madame Tussauds Berlin, where its opening party contained appearances from German celebrities like Nico Schwanz, Marc Barthel, Jimmy Blue and Natascha Ochsenknecht, Umut Kekili, Katja Keuhne, Heike Kloss, Alexander Posth, Betty Taube, DJ Chino and Mateo of the band Culcha Candela, Kristin Meyer, Lovelynn, Gabby Rinne, and Rolf Scheider.^[7] It contains roughly the same figures, but is a lot smaller omits characters like Anakin & Jabba.

As always, the experience starts with Obi-Wan and Darth Maul in their epic duel, though Qui-Gon is absent. Instead of their version of Yoda being based on his exile years, Berlin depicts him during his prime as Jedi Master, seated in a replica of his chair from the Coruscant Jedi Academy. (To promote the exhibit, Yoda's figure was placed outside the world-famous Brandenburg Gate.)^[8]

The final section takes place entirely inside the Death Star hallway with Vader and Luke locked in combat as two stormtroopers watch from behind the former while Han and Leia are in the latter's sidelines. This time, Han is standing upright while Leia is dressed in a replica of her all-white costume from A New Hope. The last figures guests see before exiting through the gift shop are Artoo and Threepio.

According to an article from Mandatory, duplicates of Rey and BB-8 were set to be added to the Berlin museum, though those plans were never fully realized.^[9]