“George took all of these unrelated boards and made sequences out of them, even though there was no inherent continuity and each board was different from the next,” says Ralston. “Then the storyboard artists went back to work and began refining the sequences. The problem was that we had already started working with those original storyboards, and unfortunately there wasn’t enough information then to really do the shots right.”
“On Jedi we have probably already done more storyboards than on any other show,” says Johnston. “We’ll end up using maybe 500, but we have done some sequences over and over—three or four times. George is really the designer, with a capital ‘D.’ He’s influencing the look of the films by what he picks from our designs. They are really his films, but he knows how to utilize talent. He gives people a lot of freedom and really uses input from others. That’s the thing that makes it such a pleasure to work for him. I don’t think there are too many directors or producers or filmmakers—whatever you want to call them—who have their egos under such control.”
To realize those boards, Peterson and Gawley supervised the burgeoning model shop. By this date, in addition to refurbishing the older models, 19 new models were complete, with 15 more under construction. Ralston’s crew had shot 38 elements for the space battle, using 17 ship models, with Gawley making sure the models for that sequence were on target. Peterson was in charge of “alien landscapes” as well as some spacecraft. “We are getting fast at what we do, but not quite fast enough,” says Gawley. “It’s still a lot of work.”
A concept drawing of the B-wing, May 1982.
Bill George at work on the B-wing model.
Johnston, Rodis-Jamero, model maker Jeff Mann, Lucas, and Rose Duignan in the spray paint room, examining a rebel cruiser.
"ILM model makers Ira Keeler, Jeff Mann, Ease Owyeung, and Bill Buttfield apply surface details to Admiral Ackbar’s space freighter miniature. At ILM, this ship was referred to as “the pickle ship” because of its shape."
Model maker Bill George.
“The Model Shop were the good-time boys,” Duignan would say. “That was a well-run department between Lorne and Steve. They were so topnotch and hired such great people, and you could just tell George loved being around them. It was always very good meeting with them. Everyone heard what George wanted, so he was always thanking them and they really felt appreciated. There was always music playing in the Model Shop and people doing what they loved.”
“Our Model Shop had evolved and gotten much larger and there was more specialization,” Huston would say. “There were people who were very good at building tabletop models for motion-control. We also had a bunch of exterior sets that needed to be built, more than we’d done before, so I volunteered to design a lot of those sets and oversee their construction. That was a new direction.”
“George loves to have his head of steam going at ILM,” says Peterson. “Then as thoughts come to him, he can stop in and have the change in five weeks.”
“It was like 99 percent men,” Duignan adds. “Barbara Gallucci got here and I think she was the first woman with a power tool in her hands. But after three days, she just says, ‘That’s it. I am out of here. I have more experience in power tools than nine tenths of those guys, but every time I pick up anything, the room stops. Everyone puts down their tools and watches me, fearful that I’m going to blow something up. They should come to my house and see that my whole living room is filled with power equipment.’ I said, ‘Good idea. Let’s have a party at your house.’ We did and they saw all her huge sculptures, band saws, sanders, they saw everything. She stayed.”
At another party around this time, Lucas ran into Ralph McQuarrie. “George asked me to come back on a temporary contract basis to do the last portfolio paintings of Jedi,” McQuarrie says. “I wanted to round off the trilogy and another collection of my work in print would certainly be satisfying, so I said, ‘Okay.’ I was feeling better, so I did some very interesting pieces based on live-action reference.”
By August 7, the model shop had completed 23 models and had another 35 under construction. The Death Star tunnel model for shot RA 22, however, was changed to allow a wider pan shot, which required four model makers to put in an additional six hours each. With time now short, 20 models had not yet been started.
In the Art Department, all concerned are storyboarding like mad (FROM LEFT): Johnston, Dave Carson, and Rodis-Jamero (Patricia Blau is sitting in the chair).
Costume designer Nilo Rodis-Jamero at work in the art department.
THE AGONY AND THE EDITING
The first of what would be many pickup shots was filmed on August 4: bluescreen work of skiff #2, with Jim Bloom, Ian Bryce, K. C. Holdenfield, Seth Ferguson, Mark Smith, and Tim Gould in alien makeup and costume. “We did a more elaborate skiff shot with a bunch of Phil Tippett’s full-size monsters on it, when their skiff kind of skids into the frame shooting at the other skiff,” says Edlund.
A week later, the US Department of the Interior wrote to Lucasfilm that its “cleaning bond” on the Yuma location would be released, crews having cleared litter and garbage, taken down the perimeter fence, et cetera. “We enjoyed doing business with you,” wrote Roger Zortman, area manager.
Although already issued on VHS, Star Wars was reissued in theaters once more on August 13; it would play for around four weeks, making over $11 million, including $3,766,803 the first weekend. Its eventual income would help Lucasfilm cover Jedi’s growing number of effects shots, 22 of which crept into the optical department, while various tests and elements continued to be filmed.
But the big news—after four rough cuts had been viewed in various forms—was that Marquand and Barton were ready to screen the director’s cut for Lucas, Kazanjian, Marcia Lucas, Duwayne Dunham, and a few others, on or around August 19. At 127 minutes, 01 second, its 12 reels (11,432 feet) contained live-action footage shot at Elstree and on location, but not a single visual effects shot. A bad buzz had preceded it.
“There is video content at this location that is not currently supported for your eReading device. The caption for this content is displayed below.”
Marquand’s first cut makes use of Hamill’s footage shot at Elstree on the rancor set, and temp footage shot at ILM of someone in an ape suit standing in for the rancor, circa August 19, 1982. (Note the Jawas pounding on Luke’s fingers when he’s holding on to the grate—a scripted moment that won’t make the final cut.) (1:22)
“You’ve got to give the director his first cut,” Kazanjian would say. “But I remember seeing the scene where the Emperor is arriving and is met by Vader, and they walk down this huge docking bay—but cutting back and forth between the two, the screen direction was wrong, backward. I thought, Oh, gee. But I can understand how it went wrong on that particular scene.”
“George knew that it wasn’t going to be good,” Roffman would say. “He had this kind of dread of what [he was] going to see. He told me that when they sat down to watch it, Richard Marquand said, ‘We’ve worked really hard and this is as good as this movie’s going to be.’ They watched it and basically said, ‘Thank you, Richard.’ George took it over at that point; he just rolled up his sleeves, because he was going to be in the editing room for a long time to get this film done.”
“We didn’t get it right for George,” Barton would say. “We had a screening at George’s house. It did not go down well. Everybody said, ‘Well, let’s get to work.’ ”
“Richard had interpreted George incorrectly or his instincts were moving in a different direction,” assistant editor Steve Starkey would say. “To get the tone and the style, the stamp of Star Wars, it was clear that George felt he was going to have to step in. That’s what happened at that screening. It was the turning point where George dove in and, from the beginning, started re-cutting.”
“The first cut on a film is never wonderful; it’s never good,” Lucas would say. “It’s just the tradition. It is always horrible and you live through that first cut and then you start fixi
ng it.”
In the Monster Shop, creature technicians Randy Dutra and Tony McVey help put the prototype rancor costume on Phil Tippett, who then strikes a formidable pose (below).
Tippett examines the rancor costume on a makeshift cave set built for the telematics.
Muren filming the man-in-suit rancor test version.
Assistant editor Steve Starkey outside editorial updating the progress wall. Each shot in the film was color-coded, the specific color denoting whether it was temp, partial, final, etc.
Assistant articulation engineer Ebon Stromquist models the rancor claws, which were to be part of the man-in-suit rancor design. The finished weight of the completed hands and monster suit proved to be too impractical, however, and a rod puppet was chosen instead for the rancor.
Muren, Johnston, and Tippett working on the rancor sequence storyboards.
In the director’s cut, none of the alien languages were yet in place, with Jabba still speaking English, a little like Truman Capote. In Jabba’s palace, Chewbacca was thrown down the stairs, while the rancor scene was cut together from the man-in-suit telematics. On their skiff, Luke explains to Han that he had to get them all into the open to effect their escape; at the pit, all of the stuntmen’s efforts paid off, with great falls into the Sarlacc maw.
Other parts of the director’s cut had Lando hugging Luke and Leia goodbye in the rebel hangar and Vader strangling Jerjerrod with the Force to get into a Death Star elevator. In the Ewok village, C-3PO’s campfire story was longer, as was the scene in which Luke tells Leia that they are brother and sister, which culminated in a goodbye kiss.
During the space battle, as Lucas had done for Star Wars, World War II footage was cut into the film. (At least four ten-minute rolls of 35mm World War II footage were generated to show others what Lucas wanted for the “air action sequence.”) In the throne room, the Emperor orders Endor destroyed, creating a time-lock situation below. Jerjerrod questions the order and the Emperor angrily responds, “You will destroy it!” Ackbar is out of his chair much of the time during his scenes. When the rebels fly into the superstructure, Jerjerrod gives the order to open up shaft obstructions.
While any early cut may be different from the final film in hundreds of tiny ways, the overall problems were those of pacing, emphasis, and rhythm—the general feel just wasn’t similar to those of the first two films.
“George told me later that he was thinking of firing me until he saw some of my black-and-white safety cut, which Ben Burtt was using to develop alien voices,” Barton would say. “George said, ‘I was very disappointed in the cut, but then I saw your original cut and I thought, Oh, you knew the sort of thing I wanted.’ After that we settled down to the Fine Cut, long days for many months. I would cut a scene, then George and I would discuss it.”
“There is video content at this location that is not currently supported for your eReading device. The caption for this content is displayed below.”
Marquand’s cut features the Emperor ordering the Death Star to turn its laser on Endor (a scene that will not make the final cut), circa August 19, 1982. (1:11)
In addition to Lucas and Barton in the editing room at Sprockets was editor Duwayne Dunham, who says that Lucas had not shown the film in any of its earlier edited forms to Marcia. “He told me, ‘Always save a person whose opinion you trust for the very end.’ ”
“I love film editing,” Marcia Lucas would tell a reporter. “I have an innate ability to take good material and make it better, and to take bad material and make it fair. I think I’m even an editor in life.”
“After I had delivered the first cut, I said to George that I’d like to go away for a vacation, go to L.A. and talk about future projects,” says Marquand, who soon began flying back and forth to Paris to set up his next film. “He said, ‘Don’t be gone long; we have to work together on this,’ which was great. Usually studios don’t say that. They say, ‘Goodbye!’ and hope you don’t show up again. George has a reputation for being a man who takes all the footage and re-cuts it, because he just loves to get his hands on film.”
“The advantage is that normally producers do this cut and they frequently don’t know a great deal about filmmaking, which can be very heartbreaking,” Barton continues. “In this case, it’s quite a relief to know that the person who is going to make the decision in the end is someone whose technique and taste one admires. I can’t imagine that the cut will differ too much, since we are cutting the movie very tight. The film will be fast, very fast—packed with stuff. I think it’s got more story, more plot, more action, more monsters, better monsters—much more like Raiders in space.”
“Sean will be here now right to the very bitter end,” adds Marquand. “And George is a transformed man. From being this exhausted, worried guy during the shoot, he is now this delirious, laughing, happy person. He is discovering that it is all there, in fact. There are things that are not that good, sure there are. But that’s okay. It’s looking wonderful.”
“George always takes a look at the entire picture and tightens and tightens, eliminates and tightens and tightens,” Kazanjian says. “That’s standard with George.”
“Sean, he was the editor,” Lucas adds. “I let Duwayne do cutting and Duwayne worked with me. So I had Sean cutting and I’d tell him what to do; with Duwayne, I’d sit and cut, and say, ‘Cut this here, do this here.’ He was an assistant who was basically cutting.”
“I was really the person who was in charge of all the effects,” Dunham would say. “Just keeping it all going was a major job.”
“By the time George is through with it, the whole film will have a very definite rhythm that’s all his,” says Muren. “And that’s nothing you can get from reading a book on how to cut a movie. It’s intuitive.”
“George was the bottom line,” Ralston would say. “Duwayne did most of the effects things. Sean Barton was there, but George took it and changed it and I wouldn’t have it any other way—him, I trust.”
“There is video content at this location that is not currently supported for your eReading device. The caption for this content is displayed below.”
Marquand’s cut has a longer scene on the rebel hangar set as Lando, Han, Luke, Leia, and Chewbacca say their goodbyes, circa August 19, 1982 (the matte painting of the Falcon had yet to be completed for the background). (1:21)
DEATH OF A POTATO
ILM was busier than ever by the end of August. Thirty models were now complete, with 33 in progress and 7 not yet started. Testing was being done on a miniature forest set (for a chicken walker sequence) and on Han’s meltdown, while moves were plotted for five bike chase shots. Additional work and “general aging” had been requested on “Tunnel 3” of the Death Star superstructure model, with more detail, mirrors, and velvet, which would take four model makers one week each. The number of projected models now totaled 160.
“Once again, it was a bigger show than the last,” Gawley would say. “We were supposed to make more than a hundred models and sets for the show in a very short time, about a year—whereas for Empire, we’d had two years.”
Edlund, Lucas, Johnston, Steve Gawley, and Duignan discuss one of the Death Star tunnels.
Death Star tunnel models.
Lucas decided to go with Muren’s recommendation of a go-motion puppet or rod puppet for the rancor monster, on August 31. “After viewing the videomatics shot last week it was decided that a puppet was necessary for the shots which didn’t work with the large rancor [one-man] suit,” a production report note reads.
“When the suit was almost finished, we redid the videomatics in a rough mockup just to get an idea of how everything was going to look,” says Muren. “The second one we shot with Phil in the nearly completed suit. I thought it actually had a chance of working. The suit was still pretty limited, but it was sort of starting to work.”
“George was really adamant that we were going to do it as a man in a suit,” says Tippett. “It was gonna be like a really cool God
zilla. I actually had to wear this suit and try and perform in this thing. But it was just this, blah, this big, dumb thing that was a cross between a bear and a potato.”
“George just didn’t care for it at all,” says Muren. “When he saw the footage, he thought that it really wasn’t getting anywhere and just said, ‘No, it’s not going to make it’ and told us to go ahead and try it any other way we wanted.”
The three-men-in-suit had not been a total loss, however: When Kirk Thatcher had been in the rancor costume, with Muren and Dave Carson at his side, each working an arm, it had become apparent that if they scaled everything down and made a Japanese Bunraku-style rod puppet, it would work pretty well. The schedule wouldn’t allow for a go-motion puppet, so Muren prepared to shoot a rod-puppet rancor at a very high-speed and live-action style. “Not to be doing the same old thing again—and rapidly running out of time and money,” he says, “we came up with the idea of trying something like a Japanese theatre rod puppet and went back to Phil’s original design that looked like it couldn’t be a man in a suit.”
“But the schedule was looming because we’d eaten up so much time doing this other experiment that failed,” Tippett explains. “By the time we had scratched the man-in-a-suit we were running out of time.”
The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (Enhanced Edition) Page 43
