Preparatory drawing for “Dawn Greeting,” by McQuarrie.
Preparatory drawing for “Dawn Greeting,” by McQuarrie.
Preparatory color studies for “Dawn Greeting,” by McQuarrie.
Luke tells the strange creature that he’s looking for a “great warrior,” and the creature replies, “Wars don’t make one great.”
LUKE
(indicates swamp)
This is yours?
CREATURE
(proudly)
Yes. Like it do you? Try to imagine it without your craft in my pond. I didn’t plan on that. [Lucas deleted “Try to.”]
Then later, after Yoda has revealed his true identity:
LUKE
Please forgive me for my lack of respect, Master.
YODA
I am not your master.
LUKE
I’m sorry.
YODA
No. Sorry am I. For I cannot teach you to be a Jedi … I have trained Jedi for 800 years … But you, Skywalker, I have watched for a long time. All your life have you looked away—to the horizon, to the sky. Never your mind on where you were, what you were doing. Adventure, excitement. A Jedi craves not these things.
To prove he is worthy, Luke calls Ben with his mind, which impresses Yoda.
BEN
He deserves a chance. And we need him.
YODA
And say you he will finish what he begins?
BEN
He will follow the ways of the Force.
YODA
If he fails, on you the blame will be.
BEN
He will not.
YODA
A mistake I am making. Obi-Wan has been wrong before.
A montage follows of Luke in training: meditation, jumping, and so on, most of which efforts end in failure. “Forget you must all your old measures. Unlearn, unlearn,” which Lucas changed to, “You must unlearn all …” When the X-wing sinks, while the second draft had said that size was “no matter,” Yoda now says, “It matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size do you? […] And well you shouldn’t.”
LUCAS KASDAN
YODA YODA
Not material are we. Luminous beings are we, tied together by the Force … Yes. There are two of you … your body and your energy. Luminous beings are we … (Yoda pinches Luke’s skin) Not this crude matter.
Whereas Yoda had defined the Force after raising the X-wing from the bog, new words preface that act in the third draft:
LUKE
Okay, I’ll give it a try.
YODA
No. Try not. Do, do.
And new words follow that act:
LUKE
I don’t believe it.
YODA
That is why you fail.
Luke’s lessons continue in a later scene with remotes:
YODA
That would matter not were the Force flowing through you. Higher you’d jump! Faster you’d move! Open yourself to the Force you must.
Luke grabs his laser sword from the mud, ignites it and jumps up.
LUKE
I’m open to it now! I feel it. Come on, you little flying bastards!
As he moves toward the hovering balls with a poised saber and ferocious look, they draw away, retreating to the area around Yoda’s head.
YODA
No, no. This will not do. Anger is what you feel.
LUKE
But I can feel the Force flowing!
YODA
Anger, fear, aggression! The dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow … quick to join you in a fight …
LUCAS KASDAN
LUKE LUKE
Is the dark side stronger? Is the dark side stronger?
YODA YODA
Not stronger, aggressive. The attacker hateful. Tempted you will be, by the easy way … No, no. Easier, quicker, more seductive.
When the Falcon drifts away with the garbage debris, “In the foreground, the weird starship of Boba Fett floats into view.” And when Yoda brings his student to the sinister tree, Luke now actually enters with his lightsaber—and fights Vader, whose “decapitated head fades away, as in a vision.” After landing on Cloud City, Lando says to Han in a new exchange, “Why you slimy, double-crossing no-good swindler … am I glad to see you.”
HAN
(skeptical)
No hard feelings?
LANDO
Are you kidding? Han, old buddy, I had a professional’s respect for that maneuver you pulled. I’ve used it twice myself since then, to good profit.
HAN
This guy’s been trying to beg, steal, or cheat the Falcon away from me since the day we met. [Lucas’s note reads: “Was Lando’s ship?”]
LANDO
(to Leia)
It’s the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.
Back on Dagobah, Luke’s earlier failures are all revisited as successes in a second montage:
Luke is squatting before Yoda’s little stove … Now, behind Luke’s back and unseen by him, three of Yoda’s glowing-ball seekers float quietly into view. They pause, then race toward Luke firing stun bolts. The young Jedi instantly twists to face them, deflecting all the bolts with the pot lid in his left hand and the spoon in his right.
And the argument among Luke, Ben, and Yoda is longer when the former decides to go rescue his friends—with Yoda even saying that it may be wiser to sacrifice Han and Leia for the greater good. On Cloud City, Lando has an aide who councils him after a run-in with Vader:
LANDO
This deal’s getting worse all the time.
AIDE
Maybe you should have argued with him.
Lando gives his aide a look that speaks volumes, then walks a few steps in silence, thinking.
LANDO
(finally)
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
When Lando changes sides and flees with Leia and company, he announces over the public address system to the city’s citizens, “Sorry it had to end this way, my people! So long!” (Lucas cut this line out.) Now Luke communicates telepathically directly with Leia, without Ben’s intervention. The film ends with Luke saying, “They’ll find Han. I know they will … I’d go with them. But I have a promise to keep.”
Color study for “Freezing plant,” by McQuarrie, August 1978; these show early ideas for how Darth Vader might trap Luke on Cloud City.
Concept sketch (no. 259) for “Freezing plant,” by McQuarrie.
Preparatory sketch of “Freezing Plant,” by McQuarrie.
Final painting of “Freezing Plant,” by McQuarrie.
Color sketch (no. 257) by McQuarrie for his “Sword fight, interior work room.”
Color sketch (no. 252) by McQuarrie for his “Sword fight, interior work room.”
“Sword fight, interior work room” by McQuarrie August 17–19, 1978.
Preparatory drawing of Luke battling Darth Vader on the carbon freeze set, by McQuarrie.
Preparatory drawing of Luke battling Darth Vader on the carbon freeze set, by McQuarrie.
Final painting of Luke battling Darth Vader on the carbon freeze set, by McQuarrie.
Color studies of sets with Vader and Luke on Cloud City, by McQuarrie.
Color sketches for “Sword fight on antenna” by McQuarrie, August 21–22, 1978.
“Sword fight on antenna” by McQuarrie, August 21–22, 1978.
Detailed preparatory pencil sketch for “Sword Fight on Antenna,” by McQuarrie.
Early board of Luke’s fall from the exhaust port (onto the Falcon), by Johnston, summer 1978.
Early board of the final shot of the film, by Johnston, summer 1978.
* * *
BLACK FALCON SOARS
In September 1978, all theatrical runs of Star Wars came to an end except one, at the Westgate Theater in Portland, Oregon (where, thanks to a clause in their boxoffice contract, the film would play until its 76th continuous week in November). That same month, ABC began its broadcast of Battl
estar Galactica.
Over the summer, the licensing arm of Lucasfilm, Black Falcon, had loaned more than $400,000 to the production arm, Chapter II Company, and over $100,000 to ILM. Black Falcon would soon send another $100,000-plus to finance the visual effects company. Coupled with the development of Skywalker Ranch, its building costs, and founding a sound effects and editing company, Lucas’s finances were being stretched very thin—and the sequel was still nearly two years from exhibition. A Chapter II Company Operating Income and Expense Two-Year Monthly Projection for 1979 and 1980 was prepared, and the numbers were iffy. ILM’s monthly operating costs averaged around $400,000 and principal photography, which was due to start in half a year, was going to clock in at over $2 million per month—all of which meant that Chapter II would be running a monthly deficit of between $5 million and $25 million by the end of 1979. Only the coffers of Black Falcon, along with Lucas’s bonds and real estate investments, would keep Lucasfilm afloat. And one thing was clear: If Empire didn’t perform at the box office, the company would definitely be ruined.
On October 17, another surreal contract was signed, this time between the American production arm of the Chapter II Corporation and its just-formed English counterpart, Chapter II Productions Limited, so work could begin in earnest in that country.
“This is the first film that George has financed himself,” says Kazanjian. “George is taking his own money, building his own company, and putting his money where his mouth is by saying, ‘I will finance this $18 million film,’ and putting everything into it. So he was building buildings and he was putting many millions of dollars into the ranch at that time. And it was all cash in the ranch. No bank was going to lend him money on that facility. And the reason behind that was he had a great challenge ahead of him in convincing the Marin County Board of Supervisors to allow him to build that facility. If it had gone bankrupt, the only thing the ranch would’ve been good for would’ve been a Catholic school or a monastery. You couldn’t divide the land.”
Echoing Walt Disney’s all-consuming creation of Disneyland, Lucas says, “The only reason we’re continuing to do commercial films at all is to be able to finance the ranch.”
ACTION ON A FROZEN WORLD
On October 13, 1978, screen tests were held for the “New York City Landos” with actors Howard E. Rollins, Terry Alexander, Robert Christian, and Thurman Scott auditioning.
On October 24, Kasdan finished the fourth draft, his second, of Empire. “Gradually after months of labor, it all began to come together,” says Kershner. “Larry contributed, George contributed, I contributed, but it’s a very, very complex thing.”
“It was a constant battle between character and action, between speed and any kind of respite, which I believe in and I like to see in a film,” says Kasdan. “I like an exciting, fast movie as much as anyone, but I also believe that movies are a better mirror of life when there’s some breathing room in them. George has to be dragged toward that moment of respite, but he will do it.”
With red coding numbers to prevent unlawful copying, the script ran 163 pages, compared with the third draft’s 130, thanks to complicated action scenes that had been storyboarded and then described in words. Other than that, the longer draft was not significantly changed from the previous except in hundreds of subtle ways (see here).
Tippett animating a creature left over from Piranha (1978, a Joe Dante film on which Tippett worked), hooked up to the motion-control camera for an early blur test, circa summer/fall 1978: “Ken Ralston set up the rig and camera, and I animated the creature using the very first single-frame video recording equipment, which Dennis Muren had championed,” says Tippett.
Close-up of Tippett’s tauntaun sculpts.
* * *
STAR WARS: EPISODE V THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK BY LAWRENCE KASDAN, OCTOBER 24, 1978—FOURTH-DRAFT SUMMARY
After a slightly revised roll-up, scenes are broken down shot by shot in the script’s 163 pages, including new aerial “helicopter” plates that are called out in the opening Hoth sequence. Most of the changes are discreet. Now Luke has no dialogue with Han before a wampa belts him (an early name for the snow monster was “penocha”). Inside the hangar, another ice creature terrifies R2-D2:
A wampa Ice Monster suddenly appears from out of the wall and begins following the little droid. Artoo … spins his head around and sees the Ice Monster staring down at him. The droid lets out a screech and races down the hall at full tilt ahead of the advancing monster.
An ion cannon causes explosions on the attacking Star Destroyers, enabling the Rebel fleet to escape. On Dagobah, whereas Luke gradually became aware that the Creature was Yoda, now the Creature speaks to Ben, triggering Luke’s realization. Yoda’s prop has changed from a pipe to a “Gimer Stick” on which he chews in several scenes.
In the third draft, when Luke leaves to save his friends, instead of Yoda saying, “We must find another” (Lucas had crossed out “find” and written “search for”), now the small Jedi Master says, “There is another.”
Several tauntaun sculpts by Tippet, including the approved one (with rider).
Lucas’s revisions to Kasdan’s third draft dialogue for Yoda and Ben after Luke leaves Dagobah.
Fans got their first glimpse of Boba Fett on Sunday, September 24, 1978, at the annual San Anselmo Country Fair Parade in San Anselmo. (The man inside the Vader costume would need a saline solution after collapsing in 94-degree heat).
The Boba Fett costume was built by several crew and painted by Johnston (with Bruce Nicholson posing in it).
“I painted Boba Fett’s outfit and tried to make it look like it was made of different pieces of armor,” says Johnston. “It was a symmetrical design, but I painted it in such a way that it looked like he had scavenged parts and done some personalizing of his costume; he had little trophies hanging from his belt, little braids of hair, almost like a collection of scalps.”
“There is video content at this location that is not currently supported for your eReading device. The caption for this content is displayed below.”
Rare footage of Boba Fett’s first public appearance, in the company of Darth Vader and a few Lucasfilm handlers, at the San Anselmo Country Fair Parade, on Sunday, September 24, 1978. Duwayne Dunham is in the costume. (No audio)
(1:30)
* * *
ELEGANCE AND PLANNING
With the official formation of Chapter II Productions Ltd., Empire’s offices were opened at Elstree (EMI) Studios. In late October 1978, costume designer John Mollo, another veteran of Star Wars, was equipped “with a script and some clothes left over from the original space fantasy,” according to Alan Arnold, who now joined the film as unit publicist (Charles Lippincott had left the company in June).
“Some aspects were to remain constant,” says Mollo, who would be aided by costume supervisor Tiny Nicholls, wardrobe mistress Eilleen Sullivan, and their assistants. “The Imperial stormtroopers would be as before, but with some technical refinements to their armor because we are using stronger materials developed in the years between.”
Kershner’s arrival in London on October 28 was noted by several newspapers and commented on by Peter Noble in his column: “Smoking his inevitable Davidoff Havana cigar, Hollywood director Irvin Kershner flew into Heathrow and was whisked off to EMI Studios.”
Ralph McQuarrie flew in the next day. On October 30, he met the staff at EMI and read the fourth draft. In early November, McQuarrie began reworking some of the storyboards with Ivor Beddoes, who, by all accounts, was another remarkable man. Married to a dancer, Beddoes had created the matte paintings for the famous ballet sequence in Red Shoes (1948) and, more recently, had worked as a concept illustrator on Superman (1978).
“I had another artist in England who did a book of storyboards—Ivor Beddoes,” says Kershner. “Wonderful man. He started in the business as a song-and-dance man in early British films.”
“Ivor was consulted for scenes that were shot on sets,” McQuarrie
says. “Ivor’s office was next to mine; he was a fantastic person. There was a very little bar not far from the studio, and, one day, Ivor did an acrobatic dance as he entered it. He could compose music, act—he was just a wonder.”
The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Enhanced Edition) Page 17
