Secrets of the Force

by Edward Gross

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  Table of Contents

  About the Authors

  Copyright Page

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  DEDICATIONS

  From EDWARD GROSS

  To my wife, Eileen. Our love story may have begun a long time ago in a galaxy not so far away, but it feels like only yesterday. Thirty-four years on, there’s no question the Force will be with us. Always.

  To our sons, Teddy, Dennis, and Kevin, all three Star Warriors in their own right, Teddy and Dennis loving the original trilogy and Kevin the sequel trilogy. They bring balance to the Force with their feelings for the prequel trilogy.

  To our daughter-in-law Lindsay. Amazingly, Star Wars played no small role in making her a part of the family.

  To our daughter-in-law Yumi, who joyfully embraces all of this pop culture stuff, from Star Wars to Back to the Future and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sorry, you’re definitely one of us now!

  To our future daughter-in-law Nicole, who doesn’t know the difference between a Wookiee and Jawa, but we love her anyway.

  To Kevin Oldham, my fellow Jedi with whom I’ve seen every Star Wars movie since the beginning. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.

  To Mark A. Altman, my cowriter and friend. How incredible that we still get to do this thing we love so much.

  To Everyone—no, not in the world, but those who have labored to bring Star Wars to life in all its incarnations. I may not love it all, but I genuinely appreciate the effort.

  From MARK A. ALTMAN

  To Isaac & Ella Altman, the biggest rebels (and Star Wars) fans I know—and the aspiring authors who coined our book’s title. May the Force be with you … always.

  To Naomi, my princess.

  To my parents, Gail & Michael, who first introduced me to a galaxy far, far away (and Farrell’s ice cream) in 1977. Which I liked more is still a toss-up.

  To Steven A. Simak, for your help with this book and your friendship, I will be indebted to you for both forever.

  To Fredrick C. Clarke, the scruffy-looking nerf herder who started it all. Without Cinefantastique, I doubt I’d have gotten so many of the amazing opportunities to visit all the galaxies far, far away from Wars to Trek … and a few not so far away as well.

  To Edward Gross, I was honored that you would join me.

  To George Lucas, thank you for sharing your worlds with us. You are a visionary, a genius, a master filmmaker, and, on rare occasions, maclunkey.

  THE SAGA

  The Skywalker Saga

  Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

  Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

  Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

  Star Wars (later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope) (1977)

  Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

  Star Wars, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)

  Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

  Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)

  Star Wars, Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker (2019)

  The Anthology Films

  Star Wars: Rogue One (2016)

  Star Wars: Solo (2018)

  Star Wars: Kenobi (2022)

  Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (TBA)

  Television

  The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

  Caravan of Courage: The Ewok Adventure (1984)

  The Battle for Endor (1985)

  Star Wars: Droids (1985)

  Star Wars: Ewoks (1985)

  Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003)

  Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

  Star Wars: Rebels (2014)

  Star Wars: Resistance (2018)

  The Mandalorian (2019)

  Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021)

  Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett (2021)

  Star Wars: Ahsoka (2022)

  Star Wars: Andor (2022)

  Star Wars: Rangers of the New Republic (TBA)

  Star Wars: Acolyte (TBA)

  Star Wars: Visions (TBA)

  Star Wars: Lando (TBA)

  Star Wars: Detours (TBA)

  Star Wars: Underworld (unproduced)

  A NEW HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

  “You don’t need to see his identification.”

  By Mark A. Altman

  You’ve never heard his name and I have no idea whatever became of him, but in my mind he is as evil as any Sith Lord, vile bounty hunter, or gangrenous gangster Hutt. A Dark Lord whose evil machinations know no bounds. Who am I talking about? Well, in 1980, he was a cherubic young student at Roy H. Mann junior high school and in early May, this unassuming young marshmallow of evil, Lance Schulman, slid the Marvel Super Special adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back across my desk in Mr. Rubin’s science class and told me to read the panel he had gently placed in front of me. I glanced down at the comic and read the words that would shatter my young mind: “No … I am your father.” I looked up aghast with burning hate in my eyes. Had I possessed a lightsaber at the time, not realizing yet that anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering, I would have probably driven it through his hard, cold heart, assuming he had one, but alas I did not. What I actually did and said has been lost to the sands of time, but I do know for certain to this day I still loathe that m@$*#$#r.

  But what I do love is Star Wars. The first time I ever heard of it was in the pages of Starlog magazine, and shortly thereafter, I picked up the paperback novelization at a local Waldenbooks (remember those!). I was a big fan of the Fantastic Four at the time, so the Dr. Doom–like visage of Darth Vader immediately caught my interest, but as a die-hard Star Trek fan, I was immediately inclined to patronize anything that had “Star” in the title.

  Of course, when Star Wars did finally come out, seeing it proved more challenging than I expected. Unlike today, when wide releases play on a plethora of screens in multiplexes across every city, Star Wars was harder to find in its initial release. Not to mention, I wanted to see it on the biggest screen possible with the best sound. Even as a ten-year-old, I had impeccable taste. As friends of mine would see it multiple times and the buzz continued to grow, May ticked into June and I still hadn’t seen the movie everyone was talking about—even though I had amassed a vast collection of reviews and articles from The New York Times to Rolling Stone to the New York Daily News. It was bad enough my parents hadn’t let me see Jaws because they considered it too violent for my young, impressionable mind, but now I was missing out on a movie I knew I had already grown obsessed with before even seeing it. I was clipping every article I could from the newspaper including Molly Haskell’s review in The Village Voice. Then one day, my parents suggested we go on a road trip. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but it was a sweltering summer day and I was looking forward to getting out of the house. We drove over the Verrazzano Bridge through Staten Island and on to New Jersey. I didn’t know where we were going, but I didn’t think it would be so far. As our long journey into night continued, I spotted o
ut of the corner of my eye a movie marquee at the Paramus Park Mall that read “Star Wars & The Other Side of Midnight.” I excitedly pointed and jumped up and down as the car continued to cruise past the mall, dejectedly realizing that was not our destination. Instead, we found ourselves at Farrell’s, an ice cream parlor, a few miles past the mall. We had a delicious lunch, some amazing ice cream, and then began our long trip back home. It was only then I realized this had all been a calculated and cunning plan from my parents to surprise my brother and me to go see Star Wars. This time as we passed the Paramus Park Mall, where the film was playing in 70mm, we turned into the parking lot and found a spot. I could probably tell you forty years later the exact spot where we parked. I was ecstatic. We were finally going to see Star Wars. And like so many of you, I can vividly recall the first crawl—no Episode IV, no A New Hope—as it climbed up the screen, and then one of the most remarkable openings in movie history as the massive Rebel Blockade Runner was chased over Tatooine by an even larger Imperial Star Destroyer.

  It’s safe to say this movie changed my life. I had always wanted to make movies and television ever since falling in love with Hitchcock films and Star Trek, but Star Wars cinched it. Its incredible mix of audacity, creativity, inspiration, and acerbic wit absolutely captivated me.

  Over the years I’ve been less enamored with many of the subsequent installments. I remember going to an advance screening of The Phantom Menace the night I was leaving for the Cannes Film Festival with my first movie, Free Enterprise, and I emerged from the theater in a daze. As I walked glassy-eyed past friends who were lined up for the next screening, they asked me how the film was. I replied, shell-shocked, “Awful.” They thought I was kidding. I wasn’t. I sat on the plane to Cannes for ten hours unable to talk to anyone about losing my religion, and it was another week before the film opened and we could commiserate about everything we loathed about it. (That said, it’s one of my son’s favorite Star Wars movies and he knows more about Star Wars than me, so go figure.) But for every Phantom Menace, there’s still a Rogue One to surprise us; or delight at the innovation and heart of The Clone Wars and Rebels TV series or The Mandalorian, which proved this is the way to do Star Wars right on any screen. Not to mention it’s a joy to hear Lucas talk about how the prequels were his indictment of the Bush/Cheney presidency, which gave me a modicum more appreciation for them over time.

  One of the greatest joys of Star Wars has been sharing my love of the franchise with my children. In the case of my son, Isaac, the learner really has become the master, having recently programmed during the 2020 COVID quarantine his own ultimate Star Wars marathon, which began with the prequels, continued through every episode of The Clone Wars and Rebels, the original films, The Mandalorian, Resistance, and the sequels. He told me he was skipping the Ewok telefilms and Holiday Special because they weren’t canon. I was quite simply in awe of his devotion to that hokey ancient religion. And the fact that he is the same age now that I was when I first saw Star Wars in a theater is not lost on me.

  The fact is I will always love Star Wars and always hope the next adventure is the greatest one yet. And that’s the spirit and audacity of filmmaking that this book celebrates and not the missteps, for as I often say, A New Hope springs eternal. Welcome back to a galaxy, far, far away. We’re home.

  A GREAT DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE

  “Rebellions are built on hope.”

  by Edward Gross

  Are you one of those people who have significant “movie moments” in your life? You know, key memories that are tied to seeing a particular film. Personally, I’ve got three that are packed fairly closely together.

  The first was in 1971 as an old man of eleven when friends and I went to the Marine Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, to catch a James Bond triple feature consisting of the first three 007 movies (representing the first time I’d seen any of them), Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger. It was just … awesome!

  Flash forward to December 1978, when a group of us went to the Patchogue Theatre on Long Island to watch Superman: The Movie, which we were so blown away by that when it was over, we stood up, looked at each other, and plopped back down in our seats to watch it a second time. Remember the moment when Superman catches a plummeting Lois Lane and then grabs the helicopter that has fallen from the Daily Planet rooftop—all accompanied by John Williams’s Superman Theme—with his cape flapping in the wind? Still gives me chills.

  The third was in May 1983 during the week that the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, was released. It wasn’t so much about Jedi itself as it was the fact that that same week 20th Century Fox released a double feature of the first two films, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. What this meant is that my friend Kevin Oldham and I caught the first two films on a Saturday afternoon and immediately after drove to another theater and got on line to buy tickets—not “online,” but literally standing in line for hours—for the third.

  In other words, we didn’t need Disney+ or Blu-rays to watch the original Star Wars trilogy in a single day. Just an incredible opportunity that somehow managed to surpass the experience of watching the films individually and forever carved out a place in my heart and imagination for George Lucas’s saga.

  There are two other distinct Star Wars–related memories that come to mind. The first was in late 1977 when I was part of The Colonial Times newspaper at Wm. Floyd High School. We were out in a portable classroom putting the latest issue together when Kevin and his brother, Rich, came in asking if we wanted to see Star Wars for the first time at a theater about an hour away. Needless to say, that probably wasn’t the best issue of the newspaper produced (far from it), but somehow we finished, jumped in their VW Bug, and made that one-hour trip in about forty minutes. So worth it!

  The other was in 1997 and the release of Star Wars: A New Hope—The Special Edition. We stood on line for literally five hours, chatting, laughing, sharing our concerns and hopes for the film we were about to see. I also think I invented something that day. As time went on, we were starving and I used the payphone (nope, no cells then) to call a local pizza place to deliver a pie. When he asked for an address, I told him the line at the Cinema 150 in Syosset. He incredulously said, “I can’t deliver a pizza to a movie line”—which neither I nor my stomach was having any of. “Why not? I’ll be the guy waving you down.” Half an hour later he showed up, I did exactly that, and we enjoyed our pizza. So did other members of the crowd when that pizza guy ended up coming back six or seven times. See the unexpected ways Star Wars impacts the universe?

  Now, truth in advertising, I have always been a much bigger fan of Star Trek than I was of Star Wars (though shows like Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard are doing their best to ruin that). But I’ve been along for the journey to a galaxy far, far away for the past four decades and am thrilled to continue to be taken for the ride, particularly as part of the franchise makes a successful transition to television.

  I consider the way that Star Wars has impacted on my life and I actually have to look to one of my sons, who was using a dating site and connected with someone in a conversation. They asked each other what they were interested in, and she wondered whether he was into movies. He said he was and listed some of them. List completed, she offered a sigh of disappointment and said, “I was hoping you’d be into Star Wars.” His response, “Oh my God, I was just afraid I’d come across as a nerd!” After which he sent her a photo of the huge UK poster of the original film that he’d “inherited” from me, and that had been on his wall for years.

  They began dating and eventually got married, elements of their wedding (including the homily) being Star Wars–themed. Could one argue that this was the Force at work? That’s certainly what I’m going with.

  Secrets of the Force is a true love letter to Star Wars: an opportunity to take a look at the franchise as a whole, presenting the views of a wide variety of people who have either been involved in its making or have been thinking about it
for years, and its impact on the world as a whole. Through all the highs and lows that you’ll read about over Star Wars’ journey through the decades, its ongoing power and influence can’t be denied.

  For me, this was a chance to give something back to an entertainment that has been with me for the vast majority of my life and I hope will be for the rest of it.

  Part One

  A STAR (WARS) IS BORN

  1

  LAUNCH BAY ’77

  “You came in that thing? You’re braver than I thought.”

  1977. The year that Damnation Alley changed cinema forever.

  Not quite. But that was the big-budget film starring Jan Michael Vincent and radioactive cockroaches that 20th Century Fox executives had pegged to be their summer blockbuster way back when, along with The Other Side of Midnight, based on the bestselling novel. Instead, it was an $11 million space opera that filmmaker George Lucas almost didn’t get made that rocketed to the top of the box-office charts and became the number-one-grossing film of all time, which changed the way movies were released and consumed forever.

  George Lucas had gone from the commercial failure of the experimental THX 1138 for Warner Bros., to minting money for Universal Pictures with the massive smash that was American Graffiti, only to see the studio ignominiously pass on bankrolling his next film, a fantasy space saga about a boy, a girl, and a universe. So instead, Lucas prevailed on Alan Ladd, Jr., the head of production at 20th Century Fox, to green-light his intergalactic fairy tale. Despite little support among the board of directors at the studio, “Laddie,” as he was known to his friends, took a leap of faith on the young filmmaker. But studio execs weren’t the only ones dubious of the prospects for the film. Even Lucas’s own cadre of close friends and former University of Southern California (USC) cronies, which included filmmakers Brian De Palma (who was auditioning actors for Carrie at the same time Lucas was reading talent for Star Wars), John Milius (Conan the Barbarian), Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), and Matthew Robbins and Hal Barwood (Dragonslayer), all dismissed the film after screening an early unfinished cut. Only Steven Spielberg and future film critic (and occasional screenwriter) Jay Cocks would suspect there was more to that initial rough cut than met the eye.