Secrets of the Force

by Edward Gross

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  At the time, George Lucas struck me as a regular guy. Kind of like John Carpenter after a showing of Dark Star with some other people related to it. He [Carpenter] came over to me and said, “You want to get something to drink?” I said, “Well, I don’t drink,” but we ended up going to Hamburger Hamlet. We both had chocolate shakes. I talked about how I wanted to be a writer and John talking about how he wanted to be a director and it’s a shame there’s no recording of that conversation. Of course, it worked out for both of us, which is nice. And George I thought I could have done the same thing with if he hadn’t been overwhelmed with work at the time; we could have had a perfectly nice conversation about movies and film history and literature and everything else, but he didn’t have time for that. Then, of course, he did sell Star Wars.

  * * *

  To write the novelization of Star Wars, Foster had access to the screenplay and over a dozen illustrations done by artist Ralph McQuarrie that helped bring the story to visual life, which, he says, was hugely helpful despite the fact that many of the finished versions of things would be somewhat different. Particularly useful were images of the Millennium Falcon and lightsabers.

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  The feeling of the film was there in the paintings and that’s all I had to work with. No shots, no stills from the set, or anything else. No pictures of the principals. I had no idea what anybody would be wearing or what weapons would look like or anything. So certain things like the exact appearance of Chewbacca I had to keep somewhat nebulous along with certain other things. I mean, I had met Mark Hamill and knew what he looked like, but I guess the first time any kind of promotional thing was done was at the Kansas City Worldcon prior to releasing the film. Charlie did a whole promotion there and Mark was there and so was Gary Kurtz. I didn’t participate in that, but I ran into Mark in the bookseller’s room. He was looking at comics and I was looking at books and we chatted briefly. So I had some idea what people looked like, but there was no pile of related material like I would get today to use.

  I do remember reading the script and looking at the paintings before I started anything, and as I’m turning pages I’m thinking, “That sounds really cool. They’ll never get that on-screen, but it looks great. This is actually science fiction; it’s never going to be a success.” And it was pretty much that way through the whole screenplay. And when I finished it, my final conclusion was that this was going to be a great film, but they’re never going to get this stuff on the screen. I knew I could do it in the book, because I had an unlimited budget.

  * * *

  The novelization of Star Wars was released on November 12, 1976, in hopes to build up anticipation for the movie, set to be released the following May. However, reviews at the time for the novel were … less than enthusiastic. Film critique, still mired in the cinema verité, naturalistic aesthetic of the seventies, found this lightweight fairy tale to be less than compelling. One review in an issue of Cinefantastique states, “In short, the novel is a huge cliché, and a poorly written cliché at that. A problem is Lucas’s poor prose style. He is wordy and almost always overwrites; while saying a lot he oddly fails to give much visual feeling. He is annoyingly arch and self-conscious; he often describes aliens as ‘outlandish’ or ‘monstrous.’ Outlandish to whom? Certainly not to themselves or the other inhabitants of this cosmopolitan universe. They are outlandish to George Lucas, who should be in the background where a storyteller belongs.” Little did that reviewer know of what was to come.

  With Star Wars entering postproduction, Alan Dean Foster set to work on the sequel novel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye.

  STEPHEN SCARLATA

  When it came to Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, Alan Dean Foster could not use the characters of Han Solo or Chewbacca, because Harrison Ford was kind of on a movie-to-movie basis, so they weren’t sure if he’d return for Empire or come back for Return of the Jedi. So Alan Dean Foster wrote the novelization, which was a hit, and he wrote the low-budget sequel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. After Star Wars came out and was a hit, Splinter came out and became the first novel of the expanded universe.

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  When I worked on the outline for Splinter of the Mind’s Eye with George Lucas, Star Wars was still in production. George didn’t know, nobody knew, that he was creating a social phenomenon. We sat down to consciously design a book that could be filmable on a low budget. But [by mid-1977] George no longer has to worry about that.

  RAY MORTON

  (senior editor, Script magazine)

  In the midseventies, sequels were not considered a prestige business, but rather as a slightly déclassé way of cashing in on the success of a popular movie. In those days, sequels almost always made less than their parent pictures, so they were usually given a smaller budget than the original film and shot on a tighter schedule, often with a largely different (and cheaper) cast and creative team. 20th Century Fox’s Planet of the Apes series followed this model—each film in the Apes series had a lower budget and a shorter schedule than the one before. Every Apes installment did indeed gross less than the previous one, but because of the reduced costs, all of them were profitable. The success of the Apes movies is one of the reasons Fox had decided to make Star Wars, which the studio felt had similar sequel potential (in fact, one studio executive actually suggested that material for a follow-up be shot during the making of the original film, but as there wasn’t the time, the money, or a story idea in place, the idea was dropped). With all of this in mind, Foster was commissioned to write a contained tale that could be made on a much smaller budget than Star Wars.

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  On Splinter, I was given complete freedom, just using the background I had for the sequel novel. Besides not using Han or Chewbacca, there were two things I had to take out of the book. One was a small thing that I can’t even remember anymore, but the other was the first chapter of the book was originally a fairly complex space battle, which is what forces Luke and Leia down onto a planet where they really bond for the first time. George said, “You need to take it out; it’d be too expensive to film.” After the success of the first film, I had thoughts in the back of my mind, “Well, Splinter would make a nice movie for TV between Episode IV and V,” but it’s just one of those things that didn’t eventuate. There’s a very nice four-part comic book adaptation of the story.

  * * *

  Foster’s story picks up Luke and Leia shortly after the events of Star Wars. They are on their way to the planet Circarpous IV to persuade its leaders to join the Rebel Alliance. Along the way, Luke and Leia crash-land on the fog-enshrouded planet Mimban, where they discover a shard from the Kyber Crystal, a mysterious object that can be used to focus and control the Force. After tangling with Imperial forces, the young rebels trek to an ancient temple where they believe the Crystal is located. Unbeknownst to them, they have been followed there by Darth Vader, who confronts them when they enter the temple. Luke and Vader engage in a vicious lightsaber battle during which Luke cuts off Vader’s arm. The duel ends with Vader falling into a deep pit, seemingly to his death. Luke and Leia, romance stirring between them, ride off to resume their mission.

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  Of course there were a couple of things in Splinter that had to be changed as time went on. There’s no mention of the fact that Darth Vader could be Luke’s father and there’s fairly innocent flirtation between Luke and Leia before anybody knew—including George—that they were brother and sister. This is the way stories develop. There is, of course, that kiss she gives him when they swing across the gap inside the Death Star, which isn’t particularly chaste. And then there’s the bit in Empire where she kisses Luke to make Han jealous. That’s all fairly problematic, although this is a galaxy far, far away and maybe they do things differently there. Who knows what the restrictions are?

  RAY MORTON

  Foster’s story was tight and exciting and properly contained—it basically t
akes place all in one location (and the fact that Mimban is fog-enshrouded meant not a lot of money would have to be spent on sets, since they mostly wouldn’t be seen) and would require a minimum of special effects. If filmed, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye certainly would have made a perfectly suitable, if rather ordinary, sequel to Star Wars.

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  Another thing I wanted to do in the novel was deal with Darth Vader. He’s subservient to the Emperor, yet he’s like, the number two guy. He’s a really smart guy and we know nothing about his personal history or anything else. Just that he has these Force powers and he essentially works for the Emperor. But what I really loved about the original conception was his contempt for everybody around him. Mentally he’s like, “I can take all of you out with a wave of my hand. I’ve chosen to work for the Empire, I’m not forced to do this.” Of course, nothing had really been defined at the time and I was really interested in the idea of exploring who the Sith were and what was behind the mask. At that point, we didn’t even know if he was human. Could have been an alien, but I couldn’t explore that. I was asked to keep it within the confines of the first film, unfortunately. Intelligent bad guys are always interesting. Witness The Silence of the Lambs—intelligent bad guys are so interesting, but I never got to explore that with Vader.

  As far as Luke goes, we don’t really know much about him beyond him being a farm boy and wanting to fight for the resistance. I was actually more interested in the character of Leia than I was with Luke. She was a strong woman in the first film and now there are a lot of strong women in film, but none in science fiction before that. They’re all pretty secretaries to the scientists or something like that. Even Forbidden Planet, she’s nothing but decoration and a love object for the male cast. She could have been really interesting, but that wasn’t her role in the 1950s. If you want an interesting early strong woman, although it’s pushing it a little bit, you look at the character of Maria, the robot from Metropolis. But there was only so much I could do.

  RAY MORTON

  However, when Star Wars became not just a hit, but the highest-grossing film in movie history, Lucas abandoned the low-cost sequel idea and began developing much more ambitious plans for a much more ambitious follow-up.

  ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  Nobody, including me, had any idea George had any kind of long story arc mapped out, even if only in his own mind. And it was obvious he could do whatever he wanted to do.

  * * *

  With the deal for the novelization and its sequel secured at Del Rey, Charles Lippincott turned his attention to what he felt was the next most important component of the film’s marketing: licensing a comic book adaptation deal.

  CHARLES LIPPINCOTT

  I went to New York in the hopes of meeting Stan Lee at Marvel Comics to work out a deal, but Stan kept turning me down. He said, “Once you shoot the film, come in and see me.” From there I had a friend introduce me to then Marvel editor Roy Thomas, and discussed the idea with him. He was intrigued, knowing he could get a meeting with Lee, and asked if he could edit and write the comic book if Marvel went ahead with it. I agreed and then we approached Howard Chaykin about the artwork. Then it was the meeting with Stan Lee.

  Finally, Stan Lee said, “All right, if you want to do it, fine, but the deal is you don’t get any money for the comic book for the first one hundred thousand issues.” I said, “Fine, but I want a miniseries of comic books.” Nobody had done a miniseries at that time. I said it had to be at least five comic books, because I wanted to present three of them before the film came out and two of them after the film came out. Stan Lee agreed to that. I got the deal through and went back to 20th and they said I was stupid. They didn’t care about the money issue. They just thought I was wasting my time on a comic book deal.

  * * *

  Shooting on Star Wars began in March 1976 and Lippincott almost immediately began doing presentations at conventions. The first was LosCon in late June of that year, followed the next month by that year’s edition of San Diego Comic-Con, where he, Thomas, and Chaykin did a presentation on the idea of adapting a movie into comic book form.

  CHARLES LIPPINCOTT

  LosCon is where I was heckled off the stage by [writer] Jerry Pournelle. He really gave me a tough time, saying things like, “This is space opera. It’s not science fiction.” And with Comic-Con, Marvel didn’t do anything to push the comic book and the movie had just finished shooting, so nobody knew much about it. But Howard drew a poster which we printed up a thousand of, and we went there with the poster, a little information about the film, and we did our presentation. We had a fairly good crowd show up for it. I talked to a lot of kids, particularly younger kids, about what toys they liked, what models they liked, to figure out what companies we should go with.

  CRAIG MILLER

  One of the ways I got involved with Star Wars was that Charles had come to Wester-Con on July Fourth weekend of 1976. I started consulting with him on other places and ways to take the film to fandom, which was done by going to conventions. So it was Wester-Con, San Diego Comic-Con, Worldcon, and that sort of thing.

  * * *

  At Worldcon in Kansas City, the hardcore convention staff of genre fans was wary of Star Wars, but they gave the film a room where material and displays were brought in. Also joining Lippincott were Mark Hamill and producer Gary Kurtz. After that, fandom began to pick up on the film, fueled in no small way by the support that came its way through Don and Maggie Thompson’s The Comic Buyer’s Guide and James Van Hise’s RBCC.

  CRAIG MILLER

  At Worldcon, Gary Kurtz was afraid people might take the props and costumes if they thought they were something from a movie, even though no one had ever seen the movie. No one was like, a big Star Wars collector, but if they thought it was actually from a movie, it was more likely someone would try to take them, so he had all the signs say, “Replica.” But there was no money to make replicas for display purposes. They were actually film-used material: props, costumes, photos, matte paintings. Mark Hamill was there, but no one knew who Mark was. He had a small TV career at that point, but he wasn’t a star. He was just a guy in a room answering questions for people.

  CHARLES LIPPINCOTT

  There were the Darth Vader and C-3PO outfits and a number of models, all under a great deal of security. There were science fiction fans who said, “It’s just a movie, it’s not serious. This is not speculative.” On the other hand, we had a lot of people who were very enthused. I would say San Diego and Worldcon were two big moments for the film.

  CRAIG MILLER

  We spent a year telling people, “We have this movie that’s better than what you think it’s going to be.” Everyone who bothered to come to our presentations came in with the same skepticism and most of them—not all of them—came out with, “You know, if they do this right, it could be good.” And I guess we did it right.

  Then, rather unexpectedly, the theatrical trailer from Lucasfilm began to develop a following, with word leaking back to the company that there were kids actually buying tickets to other movies so that they could see the trailer.

  MARK HAMILL

  (actor, “Luke Skywalker”)

  I remember that Carrie and I, when we heard the trailer was playing in Westwood, we went to the box office and said, “We’re two actors that are in this movie Star Wars that you’re showing the trailer for. We were wondering, can we just go in and watch the trailer and then we’ll come right back out, instead of paying the price to see the movie?” And for some reason, they said, “Okay, sure.” So we went in and watched the first footage we’d ever seen. There were dubbing sessions where we’d seen bits and pieces of it, but we’d never seen it cut together and they didn’t have John Williams’s score. And there were very few finished effects. Now sometimes trailers really score and sometimes they fall flat.

  In this case, the trailer started and you hear this pulsing “Boom, boom, boom, boom,” and the voice of the narrator was somewhere in
space. Cut to all this chaos and then back to the “boom, boom, boom, boom.” So they’re alternating between explosions of action back to the narration. Towards the end—it was only sixty seconds or something—the narrator says, “Coming to your galaxy next summer,” and somebody in the balcony yells, “Yeah, and it’s coming to the Late Show a week and a half after that,” meaning television, because it looked so terrible. It looked like a complete flop, something you shouldn’t see in the theaters. But you really couldn’t tell anything from it. Who knew?

  CHARLES LIPPINCOTT

  The novel was published in November of 1976 and sold really well. Normally for a first novel—George had his name on it—there was a print run of 100,000. They had actually done a print run of 125,000 around Thanksgiving. By February, they had shipped all of them out of the warehouse, which was considered unbelievable for a first novel. They were very enthusiastic, but they wouldn’t go back and reprint it until the movie came out. That had been a painted cover, not a movie cover. Then, in March of ’77, the first issue of the Marvel comic came out and did extremely well in major cities, though it was not an immediate sell-out. But what all of this indicated was that there was already a big buildup among fans—both comic book and science fiction—and that we had a fan following before the movie even came out.