One of the top secret blue pages, this one shows Marquand’s last-minute dialogue changes to the sister-revelation.
REPORT NOS. 8–10: WEDNESDAY–FRIDAY, JANUARY 20–22; STAGE 3—EXT. EWOK VILLAGE & INT. EWOK HUT, SCS. 79, 132 [END CELEBRATION], 80 [LEIA IS SISTER]
For the Ewok village celebration, Denis Lawson was on hand as Wedge, having been “called in at the request of Mr. Lucas,” per a Progress Report. A later memo from Sid Ganis to Kazanjian explained, “His popularity and fame has grown in England and he has a fairly good career there now. On Jedi, again for continuity, we decided to use him (shooting only a couple of days) even though he doesn’t take these small parts now. He most graciously accepted his part.”
For logistical reasons, Marquand had to shoot the end of the film on the eighth day of principal photography. “At first the shooting is always agony and everything is going wrong, so to be forced into a situation where I’m shooting a glorious ‘Thanksgiving’ party, the culmination of Star Wars, right up front, is terrible,” says Marquand. “In fact, it’s terrific. I could always meet the challenge and everything is okay. But, in my mind, it’s a nightmare.”
Although only the second week of the shoot, the 39 Ewoks were settling in. “It was a real magical moment for me when I walked into a studio to find 40 people of similar proportions staring back at me,” Warwick Davis would write. “There was one other 11-year-old, Nicki Reade, who was just a couple of months older, and we became friends straight away. In fact, we all pretty much got on from the first moment, young and old, male and female. We all bonded over being short.”
“Slowly after a couple of days you got to know the names of the actors underneath the heads,” says Marquand. “David Tomblin worked very closely with them. They liked him a lot. He demonstrated to them that he really cared for their welfare, that he wasn’t just ripping them off. He would be very tough about the number of takes we could go and that kind of thing, which was quite right.”
“We would always make sure we knocked on the door and coughed loudly before we went into a room where we thought little people might be,” Reynolds, who had returned from the United States, would say. “Because within no time at all we found they were really getting very friendly with each other—overfriendly, to such a degree that we would find occasionally that there were couples in our dressing rooms and all sorts of things were going on there. They’d never been in an environment where they were surrounded by other little people.”
“When we were dressing them, they were very cheeky,” Janet Tebrooke would say. “A lot of them used to grope us!”
“Little people sense they are completely isolated from society,” Marquand adds. “You open up a whole new world when you work with them, eat with them, walk down the street with them, as you realize that nothing is done for them.”
Peter Diamond had been the “minder” of Kenny Baker and Jack Purvis on location during the first film in Tunisia, where locals spat on the two little people because they were seen as cursed. Twice they were almost physically attacked.
A scene without little people was shot in the Ewok village on Thursday, the first “blue” pages of the script, in which Luke tells Leia of their mutual parenthood, an emotionally complex scene.
“The days when we would shoot the secret scenes, they would ask the crew not to listen,” says Fisher. “We learned to get the secrets and learn them fast. You had to because you wouldn’t get the script pages for those scenes until the last minute and, whereas I might want to work on them, you can’t. There was no time.”
“They would give me pages and have me memorize them, and then shred them,” Hamill laughs. “It was like being in the Nixon administration. One time, my three-year-old son was on set and he’s saying, ‘Daddy, you go with Darth Vader.’ He said all this stuff—so the producer says, ‘This kid’s a security risk.’ I said, ‘George, how about if I do the dialogue, but I won’t listen to it?’ He said, ‘Okay, do that,’ somewhat sarcastically of course.”
“It’s one thing to have Darth Vader tell Luke he is his father, but it’s another thing to have Luke tell Leia that she’s his sister and that Darth Vader is their father—that really gets hard to swallow,” Lucas would say. “That discussion is one of those scenes you never want to have to write. It’s a real challenge to come up with dialogue that is sincere and believable.”
“I’d have laughed on camera if Mark had told me for the first time on camera,” Fisher says. “It would have been like, ‘Carrie, your dad isn’t Eddie Fisher. Hitler is.’ ” Decades later she would add, thinking of the first film: “So this is my father, who tortured me in that little room?! But this is George and this is the kind of amazing fairy tale myth that he’s constructed. It’s like opera and we accept it because we enjoy the relationships.”
“The third one is difficult because you have to tie up all the loose ends,” Hamill says. “I thought when they unmasked Fett he was going to be my mother, because it all seemed so pat, and I complained about that to George. But George said, ‘So are fairy tales.’ ”
At the time, Fisher regretted “not having taken maybe an extra beat or two during the scene with Mark,” to create more emotion. “But with George, it’s always, ‘Faster, more intense.’ ”
Although she had apparently asked Marquand to soften Leia, the final result was perhaps too far in the other direction. “I didn’t understand the character,” Fisher would say. “I couldn’t get into the swing of things, so I couldn’t find my way into the character fast, because she was different. All of a sudden I was someone who loves you and, you know, all that stuff; my hair was down and I’m wearing this hippie dress … I felt like a Barbie doll. And I got insecure. I felt really uncomfortable. I remember Dave Tomblin trying to sort of save me.”
Although she wasn’t aware of it, the actress almost suffered another, more physical blow that day. “I remember Luke and Leia on the Ewok balcony with great anxiety,” says Burtt, who, for experience’s sake, was holding the sound boom for this one scene. “I had a ‘fish pole,’ about eight to ten feet long. But there was no rehearsal before they shot the three-minute scene and when they called, ‘Roll it,’ I was in a really uncomfortable position and having trouble holding onto the mike. It was beginning to come out of my hands and dip into the scene—I was so afraid I was going to drop the fish pole and hit Carrie Fisher in the forehead, therefore ruining the scene and ending my career forever in sound!”
Disaster averted, cast and crew completed the day, and production was back on schedule.
SETUPS: 118; SCS. COMP: 7/132; SCREEN TIME: 17M 55S/120M
Marquand directs Fisher (disguised as bounty hunter Boushh) and Mayhew in Jabba’s palace, circa January 26, 1982. On the side of Boushh’s helmet, as an in-joke, was stenciled “1138” in homage to Lucas’s first feature THX 1138 (1971). DP Alan Hume, hand on camera, supervises his team using two cameras on the crowded set: Frank Elliott (additional camera, with beard); Simon Hume (lower right); and others.
Director Richard Marquand, Carrie Fisher (Leia), and executive producer George Lucas go discuss the scene while referencing the script.
C-3PO and R2-D2 infiltrate Jabba’s palace. The crime lord Jabba the Hutt was barely finished in time (nearing completion in Freeborn’s shop). He is flanked by Oola (Femi Taylor), Bib Fortuna (Carter), and the puppet Salacious Crumb.
An early clay model shows how two puppeteers would be situated inside the giant Jabba puppet.
Part of the Jabba the Hutt team: Mike Osborne (chest and stomach “bladders”), Bob Keen (facial radio controls), Richard Padbury (as Jabba’s “smoke”), Jeremy Harris, animatronics engineer John Coppinger (facial radio controls), and, next to Jabba in the back, Bob Bromley.
Femi Taylor (Oola) behind the scenes and on set.
Marquand “talks” to Salacious Crumb (presumably the hidden puppeteer could hear).
Marquand and Hamill.
Marquand and Lucas.
Mark Hamill (Luke) being attende
d to between takes, with director of photography Alan Hume on the right.
REPORT NOS. 11–17: MONDAY, JANUARY 25–TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2; STAGE 8—INT. JABBA’S THRONE ROOM, SCS. 8 [DROIDS MEET JABBA], 11 [OOLA FED TO RANCOR; ENTER BOUSHH AND CHEWBACCA], 16 [LUKE CONFRONTS JABBA], 19 [JABBA REACTION TO RANCOR DEATH]; SECOND UNIT: STAGE 3—EXT. EWOK VILLAGE, SCS. 132, 78, 79; STAGE 1—INT. MILLENNIUM FALCON, SCS. 120, 129 [SHOTS OF NIEN NUNB AND TWO REBEL GUNNERS, ATTACK ON DEATH STAR’S MAIN REACTOR]
Production now moved to Jabba’s throne room, a set where the first quarter of the film would take place. Although Marquand and Lucas had chosen two places for each of the puppets, large and small, the scenes would basically unfold theatrically, with characters entering, walking to a fixed place, and talking, in this case, with an enormous animatronic creature named Jabba. The crime lord would sit sphinx-like on his throne giving out judgments—an eccentric idea that would be difficult to pull off.
“Telling the story was very, very difficult because of that,” says Marquand. “You need great performances from the actors and from these ridiculous manic grotesques.”
To make matters more precarious, the main grotesque was almost a no-show. “Both Robert and I were very concerned until the end, because we didn’t think Jabba would get finished on time,” says Kazanjian. “He was a big concern. Stuart Freeborn kept promising that it would be finished on time—but it wasn’t painted until the weekend before shooting.”
Inside the 18-foot-long Jabba costume were: Toby Philpott, who operated the left arm and head; David Barclay, who operated the right arm and mouth, and spoke Jabba’s lines in English, which were then heard on set over a PA system; and little person Mike Edmonds, who operated the tail. The trio was recruited from Jim Henson’s shop and had worked on The Dark Crystal, so they knew how to bring inanimate creatures to life. They could also spend several hours a day inside Jabba’s innards—from 8:30 AM to 6 PM, except for tea breaks and lunch—without going crazy.
“We had a great crew working Jabba,” says Marquand. “They were intellectual, clever people—and they were nervous because Jabba and the whole set was a fire hazard. It was nylon, rubber, and the whole set was made of wood. You’ve got firemen standing by, but there was very little chance to get out of there alive if something went wrong.”
Audio element not supported.
Director Richard Marquand on making sure the Jabba puppeteers feel safe on set and inside the giant animatronic puppet. (Interview by Garrett, 1982/83) (1:27)
The completed crime boss was appropriately disgusting, slimy, and drooling, with movable nose, eyes, and belly. The three operators each had a headset and a television screen inside to tell them what his part of Jabba was doing on the outside. Two exterior operators manipulated Jabba’s radio-controlled pupils and eyelids, while a puppeteer underneath Jabba manipulated his nostrils via cables.
“After the period of fittings and a brief practice, we found ourselves arriving onto a very busy set, and climbing inside Jabba through a hole underneath,” says Tony Philpott. “From then on, we were alone and almost cut off from the mayhem, though we could hear Richard Marquand’s instructions. We always worked Jabba as a unified being, an actor, which meant we’d been continuously practicing our coordination and expressiveness. We were the main character in the scenes, so there was quite intense pressure to get it right.”
“There is video content at this location that is not currently supported for your eReading device. The caption for this content is displayed below.”
A printed daily of Jabba negotiating with Luke (Hamill delivers his lines off camera); Jabba speaks in English, and moves as directed by Marquand at Elstree Studios, January 1982. (0:53)
“I’d spend most of my time yelling at Jabba,” says Marquand. “Because it was really only on the first day of shooting that we worked out a way in which we could all communicate. But Jabba is a pig and I found myself yelling at this ghastly slug, ‘Come on, blink your eyes!’ It says a lot about everybody’s patience that it worked. It’s great that people could be as professional as that, because it was incredibly hot on that set, particularly for Tony Daniels and Chewbacca.”
Fortunately for Daniels, he was encased in a new and improved C-3PO costume, with legs and arms that fit better. “By now, my metal suit was so well designed and my backup crew was so terrific, that, physically, it was great,” says Daniels, who went to the gym three times a week to stay in shape. “I think it’s as good as it’s ever going to be. But I’m getting frustrated by what I can achieve with the costume, because I can’t breathe very easily and the suit is still quite heavy.”
Additional crew supplied masked creatures with cold air (via hair dryers), resuscitation, and food. Deep Roy had been cast as Droopy, one of Jabba’s musicians. “There was a breathing problem,” Kazanjian confirms. Indeed, temperatures on the set reached 100° under the lights with so many personnel jammed into such a small area, while conditions inside the monster suits were unimaginable.
“You have to be aware when you’re playing the scene that the person inside is on the verge of suffocation,” Marquand says. “So I think, without any question, the hardest scene in every way was Jabba’s palace. It was a very, very crowded set. It was incredibly hot. There were a lot of extras and a lot of crew, and nobody could take a break, so everybody ended up on the set all the time. Between takes the noise was infernal. I used to go crazy. David wasn’t really able to control people. It was just agony. It was hell.”
“One of the problems was that while the second ADs set up the shot, the puppeteers had to hold their puppets up, which would get tiring,” Tippett would say. “Invariably by the time they wanted to shoot, all the blood had drained out of their arms and their hands were totally numb. Fortunately, David would make things happen fairly quickly.”
The claustrophobic set contained everything from a large cooking spit behind the dais and galactic fruit to a metal grate in the floor, mattresses for trapdoor falls, chains, weapons, and musical instruments. “The range of creatures in Jabba’s palace did compound my problems,” Reynolds says, “because it meant that the entire set had to be built up off the floor in order to accommodate the people who would be working the creatures from below. The entire area had to be removable with individual panels—sort of like trap doors—and that became very expensive. The other problem was the sheer number of people involved—make-up, puppeteers, wardrobe, video, engineers. I remember once going in there when we were trying to finish the set and screaming at everyone, ‘Get off! Get off!’ It was like Piccadilly Circus.”
“On this film there was so much going-on with the preparation of effects, set dressing, getting people costumed and made up,” says DP Alan Hume. “Then they were all milling around on the set, doing their own thing and making a lot of row and noise when doing it—they were totally unaware of the private battle I am having, trying to ‘paint’ a nice picture with my lamps and electricians.”
Some of the more curious items on the set were real and fake frog-like creatures that lived in a jar and served as Jabba’s treats. “They spent a lot of money sending someone to Africa to gather a specific kind of frog for Jabba to eat,” says Freeborn.
“I did the left hand, so I got to hold the hookah, hit See-Threepio, and eat the frog,” says Philpott. “The frog you see swimming in the bowl was a real and rare creature, but the one I had to handle was, of course, a rubber one. After the first rehearsal, with a dry frog, I had to try to hold onto this slippery thing with my oversize three-fingered glove, and put it in the mouth. Dave would then chew it, while I switched my right hand from tilting the head forward, to going inside the tongue, to lick the lips. On one take I didn’t get the frog right into the mouth, but left a dangling leg, so when Dave chewed, it flailed around in distress. I heard, ‘Cut!!’ ”
Audio element not supported.
Hamill explains why Luke hasn’t given C-3PO all the information about his plans to rescue Han Solo. (Interview by Garrett, Februa
ry 1982). (1:00)
* * *
JABBA’S CREATURES, AS DESCRIBED BY PHIL TIPPETT
Gargan (the heavy lady): “Obese and disgusting, to enhance her frenetic dance, we applied two extra pairs of jiggling breasts and a pie-crusty face makeup.”
Oola: “We felt it necessary to adorn the supple Oola with extra body parts fabricated from foam latex and blended with makeup. This appliance took the form of two tentacles protruding from the skull that responded to every gesture and movement. In keeping with Jabba’s debauchery, we felt that Oola should be semi-nude and, in order to give her that final touch, she was made up with plant-sap-green body makeup.”
Bib Fortuna: “His role as Jabba’s major domo and translator required him to fill in a gap between the horrible slug-like Jabba and the humanlike characters. This makeup was achieved by the use of several foam appliances that were carefully sculpted to conform to the performer’s own face. Molds were then made and cast into foam latex. These were trimmed and carefully glued to the face, leaving Bib only remotely recognizable as a human. His face was comprised of a huge waddle dangling underneath his chin and a pair of five-feet-long tentacles draped ornamentally around his shoulders. Air bladders, operated through hoses by off-stage technicians, were fitted into the brows and temples, achieving a pulsing effect. As a translator, Bib had extended dialogue scenes, and a set of filed-down teeth provided a ghastly focal point for his oration. Bib’s piercing stare was finished off by a pair of dayglow-orange contact lenses that covered the entire surface of the performer’s eyeballs. For the final touch, clawlike finger extensions were fit through fingerless gloves to give Bib a spidery reach. Due to the complexity of the design, Bib took eight hours of makeup every single day.”
The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (Enhanced Edition) Page 28
