I saw Star Wars on TV recently - god it looks awesome, especially the early desert scene with red sand and gold c3po. Of course, it's probably because they adjusted the colour in later releases (a few times), but still. The added stuff looks gimmicky and unnecessary.

Chewbacca is an awesome name. I happened to need to burp while reading the article, and you know how I made it sound.

Although I'm sure the article is right about the sequence of early artwork and so on, it seems that the final creature was determined entirely at the end, by the practical matter of the guy wearing it, and that it needed to be friendly looking. He does look like a dog. All that remains from earlier is 1. ape-like; 2. bandolier

But he's right about chewie being a non-character. He's great, but just colour. It's unfortunate that there's no real relationship with Han - they 'talk", but there's no sense of anything there. While "side-kicks" were common (eg. watson, tonto, robin), there was always some friendship or connection, or even just meaningful cooperation, which isn't present with Chewie.