The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (Enhanced Edition)

by Rinzler, J. W.

  “Tom developed this whole set of specifications that had to do with the acoustics of the room, the ambient noise level, the placement of the speakers,” Roffman would say. “He also developed this proprietary crossover system, so that when you put all of those things together, it became a set of specifications and equipment that constituted what we now refer to as the THX sound system. But it struck us as crazy to have only one theater in the world that used it. If you were mixing to that environment, when you put it into theaters that weren’t up to spec, it wasn’t going to sound as good, so you would be losing a lot of the benefit of the work.”

  Out of “THX” thus came “TAP”: the Theater Alignment Program. TAP went into action on March 1, 1983, under the supervision of Jim Kessler, general manager of Sprocket Systems. Kessler had persuaded Lucas and Ganis of the utility of the project, and Ganis had in turn enlisted the financial support of Norman Levy at Fox. The program started with three mailers designed to educate theater owners and to inspire them to conform to certain minimum specifications when exhibiting films in general—and Jedi in particular. The first TAP program was organized to run from March 1 to June 30 and would include extensive follow-up, with visits to at least 100 movie houses. “We’ve encountered both tremendous interest and some understandable skepticism,” says Kessler.

  The first mailer contained a flyer/poster outlining generic projection and audio problems, from uneven illumination to garbled sound, together with prescriptions for their solutions. The next letter outlined Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) standards and related them directly to Jedi’s requirements: For example, SMPTE called for 16 foot-lamberts of illumination on the screen, but Jedi was color-timed to 12 foot-lamberts (a luminance measurement equal to one lumen per square centimeter).

  The last mailer contained a letter from Lucas to theater owners: “The Theater Alignment Program has been a great help to us in preparing and I appreciate your cooperation in the program. I sincerely hope that this program has also been of benefit to you. The continued success of my pictures, or any producer’s pictures, largely depends upon their presentation to the audience. Ultimately, it is your responsibility to see that the film’s presentation is technically correct, so the audience can experience the film as it was intended to be seen and heard.”

  “There were a lot of relatively good theaters, but they weren’t built according to any kind of standard,” Roffman adds. “So that if one person really liked to have a lot of subwoofers and a lot of bass, their theater might sound a certain way; other theaters might play it too low, other theaters might play it too loud. There was no assurance of consistency.”

  “This was the first film technically watched over by Tom Holman and ultimately what became THX and TAP,” Burtt would say. “So there was a great deal of engineering expertise that went into the technical specifications of the mix. We were able to exercise almost complete technical and creative control over the soundtrack, which was a new experience for all of us. Gary Summers, Roger Savage, and Randy Thom all mixed on this film—our first.”

  “Back in the 1930s, studios controlled all facets of a film and we are determined to get back to that,” Kessler says. “One reason is lower cost. You make fewer mistakes and you provide a better finished product. We are attempting to have some effect on the film production level and some effect in the presentation—to make theater owners, producers, and distributors a little more aware that the sound of film isn’t yet totally explored.”

  Holman also created a new formula for the sound striping of magnetic tape for 70mm prints, according to Kazanjian. He tested his new product and told the producer that it was much better than Technicolor striping. (“Striping” is the laying down of the magnetic tape on film in a semi-liquid form; the sound is then recorded onto that magnetic tape.)

  “When I spoke to George about using this new process, he advised that we should stick with the system already established,” Kazanjian would say. “But he agreed to support my decision. I opted to use Tom’s new technique, went to Technicolor, and explained that this new formula would enhance sound quality.” Technicolor passed, so Kazanjian went to Burton “Bud” Stone, president of Deluxe Laboratories, who suggested that he speak with Barry Stultz of the Film Processing Corporation (FPC). Barry jumped at the idea and prepared for delivery of the 70mm prints.

  “The Old Supervisor!!” joke artwork by Ralston, in the tradition of the EC horror comics and magazines such as Creepy and Eerie.

  Peter Stolz, Barbara Gallucci, Huston, Randy Johnson, and Muren (foreground in leather cap) set up for GB-74 (ground battle shot no.74), in which the AT-ST is tripped up by logs, on the miniature Endor forest in the ILM courtyard.

  Supervising stage technician Ted Moehnke and pyrotechnician Thane Morris examine the results of the crushing-scout-walker shot to refine and adjust the practical rigging for a scecond take. This high-speed-photography shot was completed outdoors in the afternoon sun (on the far right is stage technician Bobb Finley awaiting his next instructions).

  Huston and the damaged AT-ST.

  A matte painting of the Falcon to be composited together with live-action footage from the rebel hangar scenes (by Ordaz) and seen through the shuttle cockpit window (BOTTOM, by Pangrazio).

  A Johnston storyboard for JP-3 (Jabba’s palace, shot no.3), January 5, 1983, a shot that was already late was revised at the end of February.

  Holding the controller with cables attached to the monster from beneath, Tippett manipulates his creation, the Jabba’s palace monster.

  The monster and his prey, in a shot that Lucas decided placed too much emphasis on the monster and not the palace (with a second Pangrazio painting).

  The revised matte painting by Pangrazio, with a blank space left for the repositioned and sized monster escapade.

  The final frame (with an animated tongue darting out of Tippett’s monster) and composited twin suns. All in all, at least three paintings were done for this one shot.

  Pangrazio, who painted the first backdrop, stands between the painting and the model foreground.

  Pangrazio at work on a painting of Jabba’s palace at dusk.

  DUSK OF THE EFFECTS

  Just before TAP went into action, ILM completed its stage work, on the very last day of February. The night crews had been dismissed; only Don Dow remained, shooting the main title and the opening crawl, as well as two day crews working on odds and ends.

  “Rose had to come in and literally peel me away from the shot and away from the camera,” Farrar would say. “We hadn’t quite finished all the shots, but she said, ‘Okay, we’re done. We’re all done. Step away.’ ”

  Going into March, however, only about three-fifths of the optical composites were in final form—and the closeout date was April 2. “Bruce Nicholson is incredibly submerged,” Edlund writes. “He has just literally thousands of rolls of film that he’s dealing with.”

  “It’s almost over,” Ralston says. “It’s hard to believe—we’re almost done.”

  The matte department was down to its last four or five paintings, but tricky ones. One of them was JP-3, Jabba’s palace at nightfall. “This shot had been completed & approved,” read the production notes. “The set and painting, which took a week to produce, had been struck. But the concept has now been changed and the set must be rebuilt.” The problem was one of emphasis—a creature eating a smaller creature, as produced, had dominated the shot—but Lucas needed a wider shot in which the action was subordinate to the landscape.

  Audio element not supported.

  Matte painting supervisor Michael Pangrazio discusses the variety of matte paintings done for the film, in particular Frank Ordaz’s painting of the Falcon for the rebel hangar featured behind Lando and Han. (Interview by Garrett, 1983). (1:44)

  Meanwhile, Edlund was not idle. The Death Star had to be destroyed. “What we did this time was shoot several passes on the miniature with little lights that would blow out exposure-wise and illuminate
certain areas so it would look as though there were some kind of explosion starting to build within,” he says. “Then it just novas. For that, we’re using one of the large-scale explosions I shot at the San Francisco Armory during Empire.”

  For his part, Ralston finally defeated his nemesis, the MA shuttle shots. “It was one of the last sequences cut into the picture,” he says. “The shot kept coming back to us until the very end of production. We shot that scene for a whole year or more. Now when you see the sequence it looks fine, but it was a real nightmare.”

  “The last shot I did was Pangrazio’s matte painting of Jabba’s palace with the two setting suns,” Barron would say. “We wanted to show the suns slowly setting as in the original Star Wars, so on the Auto Matte, we exposed into the painting a subtle move across two little ovular cutouts, backlit with orange colored gels, a little denser with more color on the bottom to look like the suns were in the atmosphere. But in dailies the next day we saw those suns jiggling a little bit in the sky, as the camera was out of calibration, and George said, ‘Well, that’s probably okay.’ I pleaded with him, saying, ‘We’ve really got to make that better; let me reshoot it,’ and he let me correct the problem.”

  Jedi was screened for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) on March 17. The MPAA gave Jedi a rating of PG, charging Lucasfilm $8,000 for its services. Six days later, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner reported that Lucasfilm was “outraged” by an article that appeared in a small-circulation sci-fi magazine Cinefantastique, which had attempted to reveal plot points in its April–May issue.

  “The article is full of hearsay and innuendo,” Lucasfilm marketing assistant Susan Trembly was quoted as saying. “There are many things in it which are not true.” The magazine refused to say what its source was but noted that Darth Vader would die in a “supreme act of self sacrifice,” saving the Rebel Alliance, and that his spirit would return in ghostly form. They also published a bad drawing of an Ewok, revealing the forest creatures, to some degree, for the first time.

  “It was Leak City and totally nerve racking because, it’s corny, but we were ‘All for one and one for all’—even a cynical movie dude like myself,” Ganis would say. “So it was frightening to think that someone in the ranks had leaked stuff to Cinefantastique.”

  Fortunately, fans would have had a hard time distinguishing between the article’s genuine spoilers and its many errors, such as the “other” being Luke’s father. The following month Cinefantastique dutifully published several letters from upset fans: “You have demonstrated that not only have you no respect for the film product which constitutes your subject matter, you have no respect for the source of your income, your readers,” wrote Judith Lyte, from Fort Wayne, Indiana. “I shall never again purchase any issue of your publication and will, to the best of my ability, attempt to dissuade others.”

  Lucas weighed in as well, telling a journalist, “I think the film works on a better level than an Agatha Christie mystery, because if it were an Agatha Christie, it would be in the toilet right now. But I think the article does spoil it for a lot of people who would rather be surprised and be caught up in the story. It used to be that you just didn’t give away the end of a movie before it opened. Now it’s become the thing.”

  The matte painting of the rebel hangar by Michael Pangrazio was one of the more complex shots, put together on the Auto Matte by Neil Krepela. Once the painting was nearly done, the matte group realized that all the action was happening in the lower-right-hand corner, which would make the rest of the image feel static and too much like a painting.

  With Lucas’s blessing, they filmed ILMers—including Rose Duignan (in rebel garb)—on the stage and blended them into the center of the shot through the use of painted-on floor graphics that matched those of the live-action set.

  Final key set image.

  CONDUCTING THE SOUND

  Less than two months before the film’s release, the bike chase was finished, with all comps completed. As was sometimes the case, the very first shot that Muren had put through optical—a POV of Leia’s rocket bike blowing up—was the last shot to come back. With all the shots ready, Burtt was able to put the finishing touches on his mini symphony.

  Lucas came by C Theater to listen. “He liked it, but he felt it didn’t seem quite real enough, it didn’t have quite enough presence to it,” Burtt would say. “His suggestion was that we put in the sound of snapping branches and leaves, the kind of noises you’d get if those bikes were really zooming through the forest and clipping the edges of foliage, shrubs, and so on.”

  Key set image of Luke lashing out at his father, with animated lightsaber.

  Burtt suggested to Lucas that Vader’s skull be seen impressionistically through his helmet, as the Emperor’s lethal lightning whips around him. Lucas agreed and ILM completed the shot (final frame).

  The last layer was thus added to the two-and-a-half-minute bike chase on the 24-track recorder. “We went out and recorded some sticks and leaves flying by and brushing over microphones,” Randy Thom would say. “Ben put those in and they did seem to add a level of complexity that hadn’t been there before.”

  While reviewing the death of Vader in the Emperor’s throne room, Burtt suggested to Lucas, “ ‘Why don’t we see the outline of a skull on his face? There’s just something that seems to ask for it.’ Although the opticals were already well underway, George walked next door to ILM, then came back to the mixing room and said, ‘It’s taken care of. We’ll see it.’ ”

  For Vader’s last breaths, Burtt returned to a different version of those sounds originally recorded for Star Wars. “We had opted in the first to go with the colder, more mechanical breathing,” he says. “But when it came to this scene where Vader is injured and dying, and Luke is about ready to remove his helmet, we went back to some of those recordings I’d made of a very raspy, labored kind of breathing, which worked well here.”

  “John Williams came by one day while we were mixing the film in the studio,” Thom says. “He sat in the back of the room and listened patiently for a while. When we got to a certain area that he was a little concerned about, he came down in front of the console so he was standing between us and the movie screen—and he started to, literally, conduct me mixing the music, telling me what part should be emphasized and what part shouldn’t be. That was a lot of fun and something we’ve joked about a lot since.”

  At the end of his mix review, Lucas had many other modifications, as his notes indicate: “Change some of the lyrics to fit Snooty’s mouth better; better sound for thermal detonator; Fett needs better yell; add mechanical sound effects over Luke’s hand at the end of reel four; music up in Yoda’s scene; bring down computer sound effects in rebel briefing room; Ewoks should quiet down when Threepio talks to medicine man; music higher when Threepio telling story; music up when Vader and Luke meet Emperor; dialogue louder on ‘I love you,’ from Han; stop Vader’s breathing when mask comes off …”

  In the end, Burtt was satisfied with the mix, while accepting the realities of his craft: “A soundtrack is not an accurate representation. It’s a magnetic representation of what you hear, but it has tremendous limitations: You can’t have as low or as soft as your ear can manage in real life. But I thought Jedi had the smoothest sound of the three films. It was pleasant to the ear even when it was loud and had lots of noise in it. It was a good blend. I’m proud of that one.”

  On the Endor miniature, Huston, model maker Larry Tan, and Gallucci set up the log rolling shot with the latter holding up the logs on a tilted board.

  Tippett animates the AT-ST in its contortions before it falls and explodes.

  Final frames of the chicken walker’s comedic demise.

  In a shot that didn’t make the final cut, another chicken walker has its head crushed in another sort of log trap.

  FIRE AND RAIN

  But they weren’t out of the woods, yet—literally. “We have a log-rolling scene in the walker sequence that wound up
being one of the last ones out,” says Muren. “That was a difficult and time-consuming shot, right from the start.”

  “The most difficult shot was with the trees when the walker trips on them,” Tippett agrees. The problems were multiple, the most important being how to tie the go-motion animation of the walker to the separately filmed element of the falling, rolling logs. Once again, some of a shot that was first to be filmed on the miniature forest set became the last to be comped together, taking four weeks to perfect.

  “The first two weeks were spent doing a very conservative version,” says Tippett. “I tried to hide the walker behind the logs. But when I showed the test to George on the Moviola he said very quietly, ‘I don’t like that.’ He wanted it to be funny. I was trying to be realistic. I was terrified that the walker would look like a miniature if I made very broad movements, but he wanted the walkers to be anthropomorphized to a certain extent. He wanted them to feel mechanical, but still have a life of their own.”