The Making of Star Wars (Enhanced Edition)

by Rinzler, J. W.

  THE FIRST TRILOGY:

  THX 1138, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, AND STAR WARS

  Star Wars has probably generated at least one critic for every hundred fans. Lucas himself joked, when he received the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award in 2005, that he was the “King of Wooden Dialogue.” Many consider him only a master of special effects, now known as visual effects (special effects referring in contemporary vernacular to those created on the sets, mainly pyrotechnics). But the fact remains that while Lucas was amazed that no one had done a film like Star Wars before him, only a few have done one since. And that’s because, as the story of the film’s creation shows, it’s nowhere near as simple as it might look to the casual observer.

  Moreover, what comes out in several interviews is that the actual techniques used by ILM were not completely groundbreaking, or all that effective. Before the Dykstraflex was the Trumbullflex; Dennis Muren thinks they could’ve done better; Lucas certainly found the effects disappointing; and at the film’s release several experts didn’t find anything revolutionary in it at that level.

  One only has to look at Disney’s The Black Hole (formerly Space Station One) to see that if effects and funny robots were the key, then there would be hundreds of Star Wars. That 1979 film, which also had beautiful matte paintings by Harrison Ellenshaw, is in fact the film Twentieth Century-Fox was afraid they were getting from Lucas: robots with eyes painted on them, cardboard characters, slight themes, and corny special effects. The Black Hole is not that bad a movie—particularly the end montage of hell—but in its attempts to copy Star Wars, right down to the opening shot, Lucas’s uniqueness of vision becomes clear by contrast.

  Joe Johnston was impressed at the time by Lucas’s exactness: In each ship’s pan, rotation, and bank, there was an incredible eye at work. For what was reviewed as mainstream simplified cinema was actually an amalgam of abstract and cinema verité filmmaking with aspects taken from the work of directors such as Michael Curtiz and John Ford—all enhanced by Lucas’s editorial artistry. And for every piece of wooden dialogue, there is solid plotting underneath to support the characters and the themes he is developing.

  “THX and Luke are both Buck Rogers,” Lucas says. “One is Buck Rogers today and the other is Buck Rogers in fantasy. One is the fantasy and one is the reality. Just two sides of the same coin. It’s the same heroism defined in different terms—but they start from the same spot: accepting responsibility for one’s actions. That’s the one thing I think that ties them together, and which ties them to American Graffiti. In a way all three of my movies have been about the same theme. THX 1138 looked at it from the point of view of a twenty-year-old. American Graffiti moved the perspective back to that of a sixteen-year-old. And now Star Wars tells the story from a twelve-year-old’s point of view.

  “It was something I saw in high school and junior college, and it was clearest to me when I was in film school,” he explains. “I made seven movies in film school while everybody else was complaining that they couldn’t make movies because they didn’t have cameras, that they didn’t have film. Well, those people are still stuck. They didn’t realize that all you have to do is just do it.”

  While sharing their major theme, Star Wars develops what is only hinted at in Lucas’s first two features: a more tangible mystical side, a return to the spiritual and perhaps more real self. The arrival of the droids on Tatooine and their purchase by Uncle Owen starts Luke Skywalker on an adventure toward his highest dreams of himself, some of which are thrust upon him and some of which he creates. Where he is drifting in the beginning, he is awakened by the end. As is Han Solo, although his transition is often overlooked—but he, too, goes from an ambiguous materialism to an acceptance of responsibility. It’s not an accident that Lucas dressed them similarly for the end ceremony.

  Final frames capture the speed that Lucas wanted during the final attack on the Death Star, though a few ILMers initially took issue with its departure from reality.

  Psychologically speaking, Luke has to rid himself of his surrogate fathers—Uncle Owen, Darth Vader, and even Obi-Wan—before he can be truly independent. In this sense he also stands with Curt of Graffiti, and THX—all three are independent at the end of their films and looking out on the future: Curt from an airplane window, THX at the sun, and Luke from the podium. While Lucas would go on to add many shades of gray to the future saga, Star Wars is really the third chapter in the trilogy of his youth. THX is the almost passive rebel who leaves a mindless society behind; Curt is a less passive loner who leaves a small town behind; and Luke is the future and mystical knight-king who leaves his farm behind—but gains a new family in Solo, Leia, Chewbacca, and the droids. Not to mention the Rebel Alliance. He is happily in the world.

  MANY FUTURES FOR THE SHOGUN

  “Making a movie is very much like constructing a house,” Lucas says. “No matter how you plan it, there are adjustments that have to be made along the way, because nobody can envision the finished structure. But that’s essentially what filmmaking tries to do, and of course life gets involved in it when you are shooting. Personalities, weather, nature—everything comes into it and adjusts it. As you bring it to life, and the film becomes a real thing, you see it in a different way.

  “So I ran the race and I didn’t do as good as I should have by a long shot,” he adds. “But whether I won or lost, I still ran the race. I couldn’t have done it any better because I tried to do it as well as I possibly could. But I certainly fell far short of what I wanted. And nothing will change that. It’s really not a matter of being satisfied; I don’t think you are ever satisfied. But when I saw the first cut, my only opinion was that I did a terrible job, but it works. It doesn’t work very well, but it works. That was reconfirmed when I saw the trailer for the first time. I thought, This is the movie I set out to make. Spaceships flying around and monsters and craziness. And then when I finally saw it with an audience for the first time, I realized that no matter how far short I fell, and how far short all the departments fell from what I wanted, the film did work for an audience. I feel a movie is very binary: It either works or it doesn’t work. And it did work. The audience did relate to it. They all laughed at the right places and they believed it.”

  Finally, in the summer and fall of 1977, Lucas took more time off and was able to reflect and relax. He attended a celebratory dinner with the board of directors at Fox, which was held on a sound stage where Lucas was seated next to Princess Grace’s daughter Caroline. He also sat down for more interviews with Lippincott, during which he talked about his future plans: “More than anything else, I am interested in seeing the genre of science-fiction adventure become strong, like the Western. I would like to see more high adventures in space. But I don’t want to be a slave of technology; I want to be able to have the technology available, and create whatever visions people can come up with. I would like to make it as free as the literary side of the genre, which is asking an awful lot.

  “I think science fiction still has a tendency to make itself so pious and serious, which is what I tried to knock out in making Star Wars. Kubrick did the strongest thing in film in terms of the rational side of things, and I’ve tried to do the most in the irrational side of things because I think we need it. I would feel very good if someday they colonize Mars, when I am ninety-three years old or whatever, and the leader of the first colony says: ‘I really did it because I was hoping there would be a Wookiee up here.’ ”

  To the press, Lucas stated several times that he was going to retire from directing. Given the experience of the previous four years, he was exhausted. His friends and colleagues were not surprised, as they’d observed his difficulties firsthand. They were also confident that he would remain fundamentally the same. “I don’t think you’ll see any change,” Harrison Ford says. “I don’t see any change in George after his success.”

  In USC’s student paper, the Daily Trojan, on December 9, 1977, staff writer Rori Benka reported on a visit Lucas made to hi
s alma mater. While the public was still standing in lines to see Star Wars, Lucas reiterated in a closed-door presentation how disappointed he was in his film. When asked about his future, he responded, “I’m retired now, I’ve done it. I have let a lot of distractions into my life, on purpose, because I want to enjoy some things that I’ve never been able to enjoy before. I can enjoy the success of the film, a nice office to work in, and restoring my house, going on vacations. I’ve decided to set a year or so aside to enjoy those distractions. Plus, I’m setting up a company and getting the sequels off on the right track.”

  To create the special effects for the two sequels, Lucas would again employ Industrial Light & Magic—but this time it would be closer to home, as he’d originally envisioned. So those first employees had a choice: They could either stay in Southern California or move north to San Rafael.

  At USC circa December 7, 1977, are: (front row) Lucas, Howard Kazanjian (who would become a producer for Lucas), Carol Kazanjian, Charles Lippincott, the late Dave Johnson (a USC cinema instructor); (second row) Randal Kleiser (filmmaker and former roommate of Lucas’s), John Milius, (unknown), Willard Huyck, Bunny Alsup; (third row) Jake Bloom, Tom Pollock, and Matthew Robbins. Lucas, Kazanjian, Lippincott, Kleiser, Milius, Huyck, and Robbins had all been students at USC’s School of Cinema.

  The ILMers who stayed in the Van Nuys facility changed their name to Apogee. That group included Bob Shepherd, John Dykstra, Richard Alexander, Alvah Miller, Grant McCune, Lorne Peterson, and Richard Edlund—though the latter two would rejoin ILM about a year later. Apogee intended to make a feature film, according to Shepherd, but that never happened. They did do the special effects for Caddyshack (1980) and Firefox (1982), among several others; the late-1970s TV show Battlestar Galactica; and many commercials.

  One of those who moved north was Dennis Muren, who was eager to help Lucas advance the capabilities of special effects. “There’s no way at the moment that this equipment can do a stop-motion dinosaur,” Muren says. “If they eventually can do it, it’s going to be great, and we’ll be able to have some really neat-looking shots, but that’s a long way off.” Muren would eventually help bring those dinosaurs to life in Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, in 1993, at ILM—winning him one of his seven Oscars.

  “Of all the people who came here, Joe Johnston is certainly the one who is going to be known and heard from again,” Shepherd predicted. “He might art-direct an important movie …” Johnston would also make the move to San Rafael, remaining at ILM for a number of years before going off to direct films such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989); Jurassic Park III (2001); and Hidalgo (2004).

  The list of accomplishments later achieved by those who worked on Star Wars would fill many pages, even if only measured by awards. Harrison Ford went on to embody Indiana Jones and become a gigantic star, winning the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award in 2000; John Williams continued to write music and win Oscars, most recently for Schindler’s List in 1994; Paul Hirsch would be nominated for an Academy Award for Ray (2004); John Mollo, after working on Alien, won for Gandhi in 1983; Rick Baker would win six Oscars; Ralph McQuarrie won an Academy Award for Cocoon (1986) as did Ken Ralston, who won five others; Ben Burtt received two Oscars, one for Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982); John Dykstra received one for Spider-Man 2 in 2004; Alan Ladd Jr. won an Academy Award for Best Picture in 1996 for Braveheart; and of course Lucas was given what is perhaps the industry’s most coveted honor, the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, in 1992.

  Sadly, John Barry died shortly after making Star Wars, while at work on the first of the sequels, on June 1, 1979. And Adam Beckett, who was by all accounts a brilliant animator, died tragically in a fire in 1978. Of course several other Star Wars veterans have since passed away.

  As for the future of cinema, Lucas’s vision of a special effects palette that would allow filmmakers as much freedom of imagination as writers and painters coincided with Dykstra’s 1978 prediction: “The next step is digital, because then you can do anything you want.”

  And while he wouldn’t direct again for two decades, Lucas dedicated years of his life and millions of his dollars in pursuit of that digital goal, helping in the process to create digital editing, sound, and cameras, as well as what has become Pixar Animation Studios.

  “If one wants to know the future of the film industry, one goes up to San Francisco and visits George,” Martin Scorsese says. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “I’m interested in cinema, the psychological process, why certain films work and others don’t. Film is magic. That’s all it is. You’re sitting there with one hand doing one thing, while you’re fooling the audience with the other hand.”

  —George Lucas

  In 1979 a Japanese poster touted Star Wars’ Oscars and a sneak preview of The Empire Strikes Back, the first sequel (left); in 1981 a U.S. poster (right) signals another revival—one of many that would continue unabated for decades …

  DELUXE EDITION

  BONUS MATERIAL

  The Complete Alex Tavoularis Storyboards

  The Complete Ivor Beddoes Storyboards

  Selected Joe Johnston Storyboards

  George Lucas Expands His Universe

  Star Wars Progression

  THE COMPLETE ALEX TAVOULARIS STORYBOARDS

  George Lucas’s second draft, Adventures of the Starkiller, Episode I: The Star Wars, is dated January 28, 1975. In mid-February of that year, Lucas hired Alex Tavoularis to begin storyboarding. Following Lucas’s written and oral descriptions of the scenes, Tavoularis sketched only a few panels from the second draft before Lucas finished his third draft, The Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Starkiller, in August 1975. The majority of Tavoularis’s storyboards depict moments from this version. Because the scenes in both of Lucas’s drafts are substantially different from the final ones, or do not exist at all in the movie, descriptive excerpts from the respective drafts accompany the storyboards—however, some storyboards are slightly different from the script, as Lucas was constantly experimenting with new ideas.

  Second Draft Storyboards

  The small rebel spacefighter is being chased by four giant Imperial stardestroyers. Every few moments, the little rebel ship returns the fire, until one of the Imperial battlewagons explodes, causing it to fall out of formation. The two elaborate laser gun turrets belch a smoky exhaust as the gun crews, wearing heat-protective suits, goggles and breath masks, cheer and congratulate each other on the direct hit.

  * * *

  An explosion rocks the ship, and two construction robots, ARTOO DETOO (R2-D2) and SEE THREEPIO (C-3PO) struggle to make their way through the shaking, bouncing passageway. One of the giant Imperial stardestroyers breaks formation and surges ahead of the others, closing on the tiny rebel spacecraft. The main battery of laser cannons on the huge Imperial warship directs an overwhelming concentration of laser fire at the main solar fin on the rebel ship. Artoo and Threepio are blown, slipping and sliding across the hallway floor into a stack of freight canisters. The lanky Threepio becomes lodged under a computer console.

  * * *

  Little Artoo waddles over to his trapped companion. The robots can only see the humans’ legs as they pass to and fro in front of the desk-like console. The captain’s FIRST OFFICER pops his head under the console and sees Artoo straining to free Threepio.

  * * *

  Artoo goes back to his pulling and pushing as the officer is joined by the sturdier legs of Captain Starkiller. DEAK STARKILLER: “The shields are down. They’ll be boarding in no time. There is a Sith knight among them. I can feel his paraforce. Hurry, secure your assault positions. The BOGAN force is strong with the enemy.”

  * * *

  Three fearsome stormtroopers armed with chrome multi-laser rifles make their way through the smoking debris into the padded hallway. The [rebel] troops sling the rifles over their shoulders and take a small baton from their belts, which instantly ignites into a long glowing laser sword. In
one amazing movement, DEAK spins around, replacing his laser sword to his belt, and draws his deadly laser pistol, blasting out four shots that rip through the soldiers. In a few moments, the entire passageway blazes with laser fire. The troops scramble away from the sub-hallway entrance, as something unspeakably evil and terrifying approaches the cabin.

  Third Draft Storyboards

  A vast sea of stars serves as the backdrop for the MAIN TITLE, which is followed by a ROLL UP. The awesome yellow planet of Utapau emerges from total eclipse. A tiny silver spacecraft races into view, followed by a giant Imperial stardestroyer. Hundreds of deadly laser bolts streak from the Imperial warship as it dives on the smaller craft. The overwhelming concentration of laser fire causes the main solar fin of the rebel craft to disintegrate, creating a spectacular heavenly display.

  * * *

  The smoldering rebel ship is quickly overtaken by the giant Imperial warship. The chaos of battle echoes through the narrow, main corridor of the starfighter. Rebel troops rush past the robots, and take up positions in the main passageway. Everything is suddenly still and quiet. The scraping screams of heavy equipment being dragged across the metal skin of the starship run chills up Threepio’s bronze spine. He huddles in a small alcove with little Artoo watching the passageway ceiling.

  * * *

  A tremendous blast opens up a hole six feet wide in the side of the main passageway and a score of fearsome stormtroopers, armed with powerful multi-laser rifles, make their way into the smoking corridor. The rebel warriors draw their chrome laser pistols, and blast out several shots that rip through the Imperial stormtroopers. Stormtroopers scatter and duck behind storage lockers. Laser bolts hit several stormtroopers who scream and stagger through the smoke, holding shattered arms and faces.