The Making of Star Wars (Enhanced Edition)

by Rinzler, J. W.

  I saw Star Wars several times that summer over Christmas and New Year’s. I remember we went to a town called Hamilton, a couple of hundred miles north, to see relations, and Star Wars was screening in a little cinema, so I saw it there for the third or fourth time. I seemed to follow it around the country that summer as we went on our vacations. I remember buying a T-shirt with the photo of Han Solo and Chewbacca aiming their guns. I remember getting a poster of the Hildebrandt artwork, which went up on my bedroom wall. I definitely saw The Making of Star Wars on television, a week or two after it opened, so all sorts of new things were flooding into my brain—words that I’d never heard before, like motion control. Watching the TV documentary was in fact my first chance to glimpse the motion-control camera actually working, going over the surface of the Death Star. I also remember that it was incredibly frustrating because there was no way of recordings shows. I could only watch it once. That was my one shot to study how things were done.

  I had my parents’ Super-8 camera, and I’d been making little stop-motion animation films, little horror movies—but I remember after I saw Star Wars that I furiously started experimenting with spaceships. I read all the articles about how they kit-bashed them out of plastic model kits, so I went out to the hobby store and got some various trucks and things, and I built the basic spaceship shape out of cardboard and tubes and pipes. Then I glued on all these model bits, and I put all the aging on them. I couldn’t do motion control, obviously, but I set up a little dolly track and hung the spaceships in front of a black cloth in our living room. I tracked my camera toward and past the spaceships. I also figured out a way to rewind the Super-8 cartridge, so I could do a second pass where I superimposed a starfield on the background.

  In New Zealand it wasn’t really easy because there wasn’t a film industry there, and no one really made films at that time. But concurrently with Star Wars coming out there were a couple of New Zealand feature films; Roger Donaldson made a movie called Sleeping Dogs. Certainly, I felt like everything that I wanted to do was just a little bit closer to being able to happen.

  What Star Wars also did, which was terrific, and which definitely led into The Lord of the Rings much later on, was create a science-fiction/fantasy world that felt lived in, used. Things were scratched; there were oil marks, things broke down. That was a lesson I learned along with the whole world back in 1977. When you think of all the movies that have come out since that have created similarly used worlds, it seems to be so natural to everyone, and The Lord of the Rings falls into that category. We broke down all the costumes and made sure that the castles looked like they’d been repaired and patched up.

  All of that work was done with the Weta Workshop, which I started partly through circumstance and partly because there weren’t any of those sorts of facilities in New Zealand. I met other people who were interested in effects like I was, but we wanted to stay in New Zealand making films, so we had no choice but to set up our company—which in a sense is what happened to George as well. He had no choice really but to set up Industrial Light & Magic himself; they were inventing the technology as they were making the film. It’s similar in that you’re doing things that no one else is doing, so there is no alternative but to set it all up yourself. I’ve often thought that a lot of the stuff we’ve created in New Zealand—our own special effects company and our own mixing stages—all that down here, is almost like a Skywalker South.

  When I met George many years later, I was not sure what to expect. I didn’t know what to think because he’d spent a lot of time out of the limelight. The fact that he didn’t direct a movie for twenty years after Star Wars meant that he wasn’t doing a lot of publicity for the other films he was involved with. So he was a slightly mysterious figure, almost a mythic figure. But I was really delighted to find out just how friendly and funny he is. I wasn’t expecting him to be as laid-back. George also has a great, healthy point of view about the world and filmmaking. He’s got a very clever understanding of the entertainment industry, of both the pros and cons of the studio system. He’s fantastic to talk to, and I just find that a lot of the things that he believes in, and a lot of the things that he says, I agree with a hundred percent. We both prize our independence, and we share a kindred spirit in that I’ve never had a desire to go to Hollywood and work there.

  In the end, I just marvel at the way George used Star Wars to revolutionize the way films are made. Not only do I admire the way he used profits from the movie to fuel the technology of making films, which obviously benefits everybody who comes after George, but he actually had this vision of what the technology should be. He wanted to edit movies on computers, which no one else was even thinking of in those days. He wanted to have digital sound; he wanted to push computers to a point where dinosaurs could be realistically rendered on them. The sheer vision! It’s so easy, like everyone else, to say, Well, this is the technology that we have; this is the toolbox we have to work with, so we’ll make the best film that we can with the tools that we have. But George throws away the toolbox and invents a new toolbox before he even starts making his film. So it’s pretty extraordinary.

  If you were to take Star Wars away, out of film history for a moment, and therefore all the technology that was generated by Star Wars, you would just be seeing a whole different landscape of entertainment over the last thirty years. Nowhere near as exciting. We’d all be in cinemas with terribly scratchy optical soundtracks watching celluloid disintegrate before our eyes.…

  Wellington, New Zealand

  Peter Jackson and George Lucas at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in 2006. Photo by Morgan Schmidt-Fen.

  INTRODUCTION

  The story of the making of Star Wars belongs to the 1970s, when independent filmmaking penetrated even the heart of corporate Hollywood. When Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, and others made a string of movies that shocked, energized, and entertained in ways that cinema never had up until then—the result of circumstances, cultural change, and artistry. Whether operating with next to no money or with a good-sized budget, these directors managed to make personal films that spoke to audiences everywhere: The Godfather, A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Taxi Driver, American Graffiti, Annie Hall…

  The particular story of how bearded iconoclast George Lucas transformed the joys of his childhood into a swashbuckling space-fantasy is a moviemaking tale wrapped around a fairy tale, and it has already been told many times in books, documentaries, magazine articles, and biographies.

  So why tell it again?

  Because the original story of the original film has never been told—because the original words have remained hidden, almost unknown and forgotten.

  Lit by amber-colored lights and capped by a fabulous stained-glass dome, the jewel of Skywalker Ranch is its Research Library. It contains much of the Lucasfilm Archives. One day, after a tip from director of fan relations Steve Sansweet, I called library manager Jo Donaldson and asked if she knew of any old papers associated with Charles Lippincott, Lucasfilm’s vice-president of marketing and merchandising in the mid-1970s. I’d heard he’d worked on a making-of Star Wars book that had never been completed, and I was curious.

  A couple of days later, research librarian Robyn Stanley directed me to four boxes. As I went through the first box, which happened to be the least organized of the lot, I saw stacks of yellowed paper with the names “George Lucas, Harrison Ford, John Stears, Joe Johnston, Ben Burtt …” The next box had neatly filed folders marked with more names: “Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, John Dykstra, Gary Kurtz,” and even “John Barry”—the fantastic production designer who is absent from nearly every account of the film’s genesis, due to his untimely death in 1979.

  After I’d examined the contents of all four boxes, it was clear that, over thirty years ago, Lippincott had gathered a huge quantity of material for a making-of book. He had conducted more than fifty interviews between 1975 and 19
78, many of them over sixty transcribed pages long. I read through these thousands of pages during the next few months. The interviews were still fresh, sometimes quite candid, and—above all—more accurate than much of what has been written about the film since. Sixteen of the interviews—including conversations with writer-director George Lucas; producer Gary Kurtz; actors Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Anthony Daniels; and several key department heads—were completed a year or more before the film was released on May 25, 1977. They were particularly interesting because the speakers were unaware of the future impact of the movie. Even those interviewed after the film’s release, in 1978, had no idea just how huge and lasting the effect of Star Wars would be, and their recollections of the previous years’ events were still vibrant.

  If ever there was a book wanting to be written, The Making of Star Wars was it—and strangely enough, while making-of books had been published on all the other Episodes, the original Star Wars film was without one.

  Thanks to prequel trilogy producer Rick McCallum, I had spent the years 2002 to 2005 shadowing George Lucas as he and his team made Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, which resulted in that film’s making-of chronicle. When the thirtieth anniversary of Star Wars appeared on our publishing radar, I proposed a book about that one, too. It would have to be drawn from archival sources—but its writing ended up being as exciting as the process for Revenge, albeit in different ways.

  Reading the Lost Interviews was the giant first step in the rediscovery of a fascinating story—and many half-forgotten stories: the front-projection dilemma, the earliest casting sessions, and how Lucas had to finance the preproduction of a film that no one wanted to make. Other key moments of research included asking Ralph McQuarrie if he had kept the original reference material Lucas had given him: he quickly found an old envelope from 1975 in his studio, still filled with interesting illustrations—including sketches Lucas had made of the first ships and the Wookiee planet from his rough draft. Internal notes from Industrial Light & Magic allowed me to re-create the chronology of its postproduction special effects, while a “diary” in the film archives department contained information on the trailer. E-mails to the law offices of what used to be Pollock, Rigrod and Bloom yielded, thanks to Tom Hunter, original letters written by Lucas’s lawyers to Twentieth Century-Fox that revealed the real ebb and flow of a very difficult relationship.

  Coincidentally, from 2005 to 2007, I was working on another book with George Lucas, which facilitated his patient answering of many questions. A visit to Park Way—where the offices and editing rooms of Lucasfilm were originally located—was very helpful, as was the reading of Lucas’s bound versions of his various drafts, including the hard-to-find May 1, 1975, story synopsis and typed outline.

  Since 1977, Star Wars has spawned two sequels and three prequels; countless books, comic books, and video games; television shows; and innumerable interviews. But its original creation, involving a relatively small group of gifted artists and craftspeople led by one inspired filmmaker, was recorded and transcribed many years ago in the Lost Interviews. Together, Lucas and his collaborators overcame health-shattering obstacles—storms, crises, an implacable studio, technical limitations, high stress, and bitter disappointment. In order to maintain the original points of view of the participants, nearly all of the quotes in this book are from the Lost Interviews recorded at that time. So, if someone is complaining about their career or explaining how little they know about special effects, these comments should be read as circa 1975 to 1978 (as should all dollar amounts). It may be that now they know more or have different opinions about what happened, but their words in this book are what they said back then. (The few exceptions are quotes from those—such as James Earl Jones and Peter Cushing—who were not interviewed until quite a few years later.)

  To find out how it all came to be, read on.…

  THE LOST INTERVIEWS

  The interviews are listed in chronological order. Unless otherwise indicated, all interviews were conducted by Lucasfilm marketing and merchandising vice president Charles Lippincott. In fact, Lippincott already had in mind a quote to open his making-of Star Wars book, taken from Ralph Ellison’s Shadow and Act: “That which we do is what we are. That which we remember is, more often than not, that which we would like to have been; or that which we hope to be. Thus our memory and our identity are ever at odds; our history ever a tall tale told by inattentive idealists.”

  December 16, 1975: Producer Gary Kurtz

  December 17 and 18, 1975: Writer-director George Lucas

  December 29, 1975: Novelization meeting with George Lucas and author Alan Dean Foster (with John Dykstra)

  January 10, 1976: George Lucas and Gary Kurtz

  January 20, 1976: Camera meeting with director of photography Gilbert Taylor, George Lucas, and Gary Kurtz

  May 10 and 18, 1976: Production supervisor Robert Watts

  May 14, 1976: Makeup supervisor Stuart Freeborn

  May 14, 1976: Mechanical effects supervisor John Stears

  May 17, 1976: Production designer John Barry

  September 14, 1976: George Lucas

  January 4, 1977: Actress Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia)

  January 5, 1977: Actor Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker)

  January 20, 1977: Actor Harrison Ford (Han Solo)

  March 15, 1977: Actor Anthony Daniels (C-3PO)

  April 22, 1977: Composer John Williams

  May 8, 1977: Editor Paul Hirsch

  July 1, 1977: Effects illustrator and designer Joe Johnston (interviewed by Carol Titelman)

  July 1977: Gary Kurtz

  July 1977: Sound designer Ben Burtt

  July 5 and 20, 1977: Production illustrator Ralph McQuarrie (also interviewed by Titelman)

  August 11, 1977: Lawyer Andy Rigrod

  August 11, 1977: Lawyer Tom Pollock

  August 11, 1977: Lawyer Jake Bloom

  September 13, 1977: George Lucas

  September 21, 1977: Editor Marcia Lucas

  September 21, 1977: Twentieth Century-Fox executive Alan Ladd Jr.

  September 21, 1977: George Lucas

  October 1977: Special effects cameraman Richard Edlund (question-and-answer transcription)

  November 5, 1977: Gary Kurtz

  November 5, 1977: George Lucas

  November 19, 1977: John Barry

  January 23, 1978: Richard Edlund

  January 23, 1978: Special effects supervisor John Dykstra

  February 3, 1978: Composite optical photography supervisor Robbie Blalack

  February 28, 1978: Animation and rotoscope designer Adam Beckett

  March 7, 1978: Casting director Dianne Crittenden

  March 7, 1978: Joe Johnston

  March 7, 1978: Matte painter Harrison Ellenshaw

  March 8, 1978: Camera and mechanical designer Richard Alexander

  March 8, 1978: Model shop supervisor Grant McCune

  March 8, 1978: Special effects cameraman Dennis Muren

  April 8, 1978: John Dykstra and Grant McCune

  March 9, 1978: Agent Jeff Berg

  March 9, 1978: Stop-motion animators Jon Berg and Phil Tippett

  March 15, 1978: Joe Johnston

  March 16, 1978: Film control office supervisor Mary Lind

  March 16, 1978: Special effects production manager Bob Shepherd

  March 20, 1978: Editor Richard Chew

  April 5, 1978: Miniature explosions supervisors Bruce Logan and Joe Viskocil

  April 6, 1978: Second-unit makeup artist Rick Baker

  April 6, 1978: Costume designer John Mollo

  May 2, 1978: Computer animation designer Larry Cuba

  Undated 1978 interviews: John Dykstra, Joe Johnston, supervising sound editor Sam Shaw (the latter interviewed by Lippincott assistant Mick Garris)

  Concept sculpture of the X-wing starfighter by Colin Cantwell.

  Concept sculpture of the X-wing starfighter by Colin Cantwell.

  TWO VISIO
NS

  1968 TO AUGUST 1973

  CHAPTER ONE

  On the road while making Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People during the days and evenings of fall 1968, production assistant George Lucas was also rising before dawn to work on his first feature film, THX 1138.

  “George was writing the script,” recalls Mona Skager, script supervisor on Coppola’s movie. “He would write and I would type it up.” During postproduction, while sitting with some of the crew in a dingy room, Lucas once spoke about another film he wanted to make. “We were all waiting in a motel room for Francis to come,” Skager says, “and George was watching television—when all of a sudden he started talking about holograms, spaceships, and the wave of the future. Quite frankly, I didn’t even know what a hologram was, but he had a vision of doing some kind of science-fiction film.”

  Skager is thus the first on record, but hardly the last, to be perplexed by Lucas’s genre-bending ideas. Only a few years before, he had been a student in the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema, making visual tone poems and abstract shorts with a professionalism that wowed his contemporaries; his last project had been THX 1138.4EB. Recipient of the Samuel Warner Memorial Scholarship, Lucas met Coppola on the Warner Bros. lot, where the slightly older UCLA film school graduate was making Finian’s Rainbow. The two hit it off, with Coppola encouraging Lucas to write and make movies. Up until this time Lucas had figured he would work in the avant-garde documentary and animation fields. Instead, by 1968 he was scribbling out the plot and words for a feature-length version of his last student film while already contemplating a more fantastic, cinematic variation on a theme.

  “I had thought about doing what became Star Wars long before THX 1138,” Lucas says. “I’ve always been intrigued with Flash Gordon. It was one of my favorite serials and comic books, along with Tommy Tomorrow and those kinds of things. I really loved adventures in outer space, and I wanted to do something in that genre, which is where THX partially came from. THX really is Buck Rogers in the twentieth century, rather than Buck Rogers in the future.”