Bonnie the Bantha

For more information about our full-size animatronic Bantha and the list of wonderful helpers, please see the text below these images.

In April of 2022 we decided to pursue something that we have wanted to build since 2015. The idea of tackling a full size Star Wars creature has been the subject of many "what would we like to make next, to push ourselves and add more abilities?" conversations.

When we were originally talking about it all those years ago, our friend Lor (who is basically our personal Bantha expert) of course wanted us to make a full size Bantha. We had circled around between a full size Jabba display, a full size Acklay, and a few other creature ideas but we always came back to the Bantha. With the popularity of the Disney Plus streaming Star Wars shows, starting with "The Mandalorian" having a full size Bantha puppet and then "The Book of Boba Fett" show using that puppet more and having Banthas throughout that show, that really made us want to dive into this creation.

From the date we decided to tackle it, that gave us 10 weeks to start from scratch, tackle many processes that we had never done before, and get it ready to debut at Fan Expo Denver on July 1st, 2022. On top of that we were challenged with a bad car accident injuring FAC's owners and their daughter, the aftermath of that accident with vehicle replacement, physical therapy, all of them catching COVID, their beloved pet passing away, and a number of other challenges.

Somehow, with working on it all the way up until 1:30 a.m. the morning that we were supposed to leave a 5:00 a.m. to transport the puppet to the show ... we got it presentable. Setting it up at the show would be the first time we got to see all of the pieces together at one time and find out if it would all come together and look o.k. ... and it worked. The show was a huge success. The patrons absolutely LOVED it. We had a line probably 70 feet long most of the show. So many people thanked us with pure, sincere gratitude for having this display at the show.

Anthony Daniels (C-3PO actor) even came to look at our display at Fan Expo and seemed genuinely impressed and happy to see it and talk about it. He even shared a story with us from when George Lucas was getting prepared to film the desert scenes for "A New Hope". Anthony said that he asked George what they were going to do for the sand creatures that the sand people would ride. He recalls George saying something to the effect of "It will be an elephant". Anthony mentioned that he was surprised and curious about that answer, trying to imagine how an elephant would actually look in the film, but not necessarily questioning George. I would wager that George may have not really known yet himself what the creature would look like and like with many elements of that production, he could have been just believing in his team and hoped somehow that it would work out.

"Bonnie L. Bantha". or "Bonnie the Bantha". That is what we decided to name "her". This goes back to when we were first discussing the idea with our friend Lor in 2015. We thought of Bonnie Burton at the time who worked at Lucasfilm and loved how the name "Bonnie" rolled off the tongue as well. That idea seemed to stick after all this time. Regarding the middle initial "L", that is for our friend Lor. Since COVID, he hasn't really been able to get out and about and unfortunately he was not able to come assist with the build. We decided to honor him by making the middle name be "Lor" aka "Bonnie L. Bantha".

We would like to thank all of the wonderful people who assisted us with this project along the way! You all are the best!

Kathy Pierce, Tyke Pierce, Cal Pierce, Richard (Lor) Silva, Jakob O'Grady, Garrett Marsh, Jenny Shumaker, Dan Shumaker, Jean Shumaker, Lance Frank, Devin Dyke, Tad Dreiling, Anthony Fann, Erik Ross, Todd Jones, Bethany Jones, Matt Haslam, Luke True, Liam Finley, Anthony Velez, Jamison Sprague, Brielle Killip, Chris Geissinger, Steven (Doc) Gibson, Brandon Hovet, Masume (Joanna) Takeda, Ben Clark, Jim Fassler, John Erickson, Kevin Christley, Brian Clements, Corey Moosman, Jesse Velez, Gus Williams, Alexander Stephens, Jason Winter, Brack Lee, Greg Bower