It all
depends on your imagination; if you weren't a
kid in the seventies you'll need to be able to put on your
percepto-hat for this one. I was born in 1967 and by the age of seven
I was into all things escapist – from cowboy shows to cartoons I
loved the fantasy world beyond ours; it shaped my play and fired my
imagination. I read books avidly and watched the old sci-fi flicks on
the telly. Older sophisticates might have seen 2001: A
Space Odyssey or Silent
Running, maybe even George
Lucas' THX-1138. Not
me; you wouldn't see these on tv for a fair while yet and for me
Planet of the Apes and
Forbidden Planet were
the excitement of the day. From my place on the floor in front of
that old wooden-laminate box, with it's curved glass and clicky
buttons I'd sit, caught up in the strange worlds that were so far
removed from Shoreham beach. Afterwards, I'd charge about with my
friends and we'd re-enact the films in our own little way, with
sticks for ray guns and whatever toys we had that fitted the scenes
we were creating. Until 1977.
Until Star Wars.
I
can't recall when I first heard the buzzing; radio ads, tv spots or
word of mouth. All I remember is by the time Star Wars premiered we'd
moved to Surrey and, for me,
a new school. The rage at the
time were the Topps cards; I had a few and so did my
best mate Fergus. Swapping
doubles was the national pastime across school playgrounds and, of
course, quickly banned by teachers. Kids who fell afoul of the
authorities on this found their treasured cards confiscated and only
returned at the end of term. No wonder it caught on. The cards
themselves showed a glamorous and weird galaxy with heroes and
villains. Right off we learnt the names 'Chewbacca' and 'Artoo' and
the showoffs tried to imply they'd actually seen the
film itself. Everything was
Star Wars to us kids
then. It was January 1978
when my friend Fergus, his Mum and little me queued for ages
to get into the Odeon Guildford.
(Sadly now demolished)
ABOVE: The Odeon Guildford
BELOW: The most famous cinema of all; Mann's Chinese Theater. Amazingly, 20th Century Fox struggled to find cinemas willing to screen Star Wars...
We were there what seemed for hours – and
probably was. We filed in to a vast, dim auditorium and settled down
– although in my case that meant I just quietened down a bit. And
then, the curtains opened...
A long time ago in a galaxy far
far away...
The music blasts out from the very
start, a fanfare and then the Star Wars
theme, the Star Wars title recedes into a vast field of stars, an
old-style text crawl follows outlining the story so far. This retro
theme carries through the whole film and is a bold move; doubtless
studio execs scratched their heads at the deliberate references to
old science fiction serials in a futuristic film. (I know,
technically its historical).
The camera drops down to
reveal the gigantic arc of the planet Tatooine, its moons hanging in
space. All at once, a space ship zooms down into frame close to the
planet, dazzling laser beams flying between it – and the gigantic
shape that follows. Filling the screen completely, the Imperial
Cruiser is overwhelming, its lasers more than a match for the lightly
armed fugitive. A blast cripples the small ship and inside a trio of
droids are stumbling through the doomed vessel, armed rebels running
past, determined to repel boarders...
but where did all this come from? - this whole galaxy at war, with
its rogues, heroes and heroines of flesh and metal?. It came from
California.
ABOVE: George Lucas on-set with Alec Guiness
George
Walton Lucas, Jr entered our galaxy on May 14th
1944 in the town of Modesto, California. A keen amateur racer, he
raced minicars before a serious crash ended his interest in
competition. Turning to film, he attended the University of Southern
California's School of Cinematic Arts alongside contemporaries
including John Milius (– who would write dialogue for Dirty
Harry, Apocalypse Now and
wrote and directed Conan
the Barbarian (1982))
and became friends with fellow student Steven Spielberg. Diabetes
exempted him from Army service in Vietnam and he re-enrolled at USC
as a Graduate Student to produce Electronic
Labyrinth: THX-1138 4EB, a
1967 science-fiction short that later provided the basis for 1971's
THX-1138. The
films depict a man's attempt to escape a faceless government which
controls and scrutinises it's citizens with computers and technology.
(You could film a sequel in any British town without changing a
thing.)
 |
| George Lucas with Anthony Daniels and Alec Guinness |
Along with Francis Ford Coppola, Lucas set up
American Zoetrope studios
to provide filmmakers with an alternative to the Hollywood studio
system and way of working. Lucas has only directed six
major motion pictures, but the three that established him as a major
film-maker were THX-118, American Graffiti and
of course, Star Wars. It
was while on holiday in Hawaii, taken
partly to escape any bad publicity should his space epic flop, that
he met up with Spielberg and Indiana Jones was
born. (Both Chewbacca and Indy have Lucas' dog to thank for aspects
of their character; Indiana was an Alaskan Malamute) However,
we still haven't answered the question of inspiration...
Hidden in plain sight
No
other film has influenced modern culture to the extent of Star
Wars – many
of the phrases and words from the original and the series are
commonplace. The
influences are there on the screen; cities in the clouds, soft wipes
from one scene to the next, the opening titles that
crawl off into the distance and even Han Solo's distinctive trouser
stripe. The
1930's serial Flash
Gordon was
the first true science-fiction serial, with it's plot of an evil
Emperor battling rebellious forces for galactic domination. The
heroes even infiltrate his fortress dressed as his soldiers – as in
Star Wars when
Han and Luke don stormtrooper armour to rescue Princess Leia from the
Death Star. Lucas also drew from Kurosawa's seminal samurai film
Yojimbo; a
cantina scene with men bragging about how they are wanted men, a
flashing blade and an arm on the ground and a character offered
payment in part up front, the rest later; these will be immediately
familiar to most Lucas fans. Boba
Fett's rocket-pack? - an obvious guess is another serial; King
of the Rocket Men. Darth
Vader's helmet and armour is based on Samurai lines as are the Jedi –
the name Jedi is a corruption of Jidaigeki
–
Japanese period dramas that inspired Lucas.
C-3PO more than partially
resembles the female robot from Metropolis,
the
medal ceremony at the end heavily echoes Triumph
of the Will, Leni
Riefenstahl's
breathless Nazi eulogy. There
are some uncanny similarities with the Lord
of the Rings stories,
and Frank Herbert's Dune
– but
for an in-depth look at these I have to concede the master is Kristen
Brennan. Check
out Kristen's site at;
In Star Wars, Han Solo
references 'The Kessel run' – smuggling spice. This may originate
from Dune, as does the
'Sandcrawler'. The Moisture Farmers of Tatooine?; the Dew Collectors
of Arrakis.
Tataouine
is
a town in Tunisia, Darth Vader is Lucas' approximation for 'Dark
Father' – although there is a Vader in Washington. Ken
Annakin was
a British film director. Princess
Leia is held in cell block 1138 – an obvious reference to Lucas'
earlier film. I
have a theory – with no evidence, that the Millenium
Falcon was
named to evoke the Maltese
Falcon,
giving the film a further echo of films from the 'Golden Age'. In
short, Lucas took a range of different images and parts from a whole
range of popular culture and blended them into one whole. Just as JK
Rowling borrows from Tolkein and Lewis
Carroll (etc
etc and etc) Lucas took everything from WWII dogfight imagery (The
Dambusters flying low to the target that they have to hit precisely)
to Rick's Cafe in (my favourite film) Casablanca
(The
polyglot citizenry in a cantina are suppressed by stormtroopers) and
blended it into a modern Myth. Lucas'
genius for me is his use of psychology – perhaps I read too much
into things, but there are some very subtle and clever things going
on here at different levels to evoke and stimulate and it all works
beautifully.
George
Lucas spent several years writing rough drafts – the film we saw
was actually shot from the fourth
draft,
earlier versions saw Luke Starkiller as a bearded old General, Han
Solo as a green alien with gills and the Force was still light and
dark sides, called 'Ashla' and 'Bogan'. Check out this site for a
better idea of how things might have turned out...
The
Industry of Light and Magic
One
major problem would be the effects for Star Wars;
in the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood, studios simply handed any effects
work to their in-house departments, but by the 1970's, the studios
had suffered so badly from decline the only option would be either to
go to an independent facility or create one. Famously, Industrial
Light and Magic (ILM) was born and, in
the 1980's partly to pay for
an expensive divorce, Lucas sold the CGI division to the late Steve
Jobs, who renamed it... Pixar. One
name that is synonymous with ILM is John Dykstra.
ABOVE: John Dykstra at work
Born June 3,
1947, Long Beach, John Charles Dykstra landed a job with the
legendary Charles Trumbull on the genre classic Silent Running.
Trumbull had already worked on
2001: A Space Odyssey
and would later provide the effects for the jaw-dropping Close
Encounters of the Third Kind and
Ridley Scott's visual orgasm Blade Runner. Yes,
I said orgasm. Dykstra impressed Trumbull so much that when George
Lucas asked him to work on Star Wars (Trumbull
was already hired for CE3K)
he recommended
Dykstra.
ILM
was set up in warehousing facilities at Van Nuys and Dykstra
assembled a team to take on their first job; completing the effects
shots for Star Wars. As
a benchmark, 2001 had
205 effects shots at $6.5 Million of the film's budget. Star
Wars would have $3.9 Million for
well over 300. On reflection it's staggering that such a major
production was dependant on such a set-up. OK, we all know the
effects were staggering, easily
among the very best and such an intrinsic part of the finished movie
you simply cannot imagine it without them. Back then? - it caused
panic. What turned it in Lucas' favour was simply that Dykstra had
enthusiasm, technical skill and imagination – and the guts to say
it could work.
ABOVE: Dennis Muren with the Death Star
BELOW: John Dykstra with the Millenium Falcon
VistaVision
was invented in the '50s but dropped after less than a decade.
Revolutionary, the system used a high-resolution widescreen 35mm
film loaded sideways that allowed for wider and sharper images. A
re-engineered VistaVision camera formed the front end of Dykstra's
idea; a digital motion control camera system. Called Dykstraflex
– Dykstra worked with a group
of people who all helped to create the system – the idea is simple.
Take a model of a spaceship. To make it appear to move dramatically
around in space, without moving it at all requires the camera
to move. From the perspective of the camera, its impossible to tell
that the model is static – but the problem comes with background.
Matting – masking areas of the film emulsion and compositing, or
adding elements together requires precision. Say you want your
spaceship to break left and roll away with a moving background of
stars. You program the (motion control) computer to move the camera
right and roll away in the opposite to the movement you require the
ship to show. That set of commands is stored and precisely
duplicated for the (travelling)
matte and composited with the star field, which can also 'move' in
any way deemed suitable. OK its relative; but that precise repetition
of movements along with high speed photography changed movie effects
forever.
ABOVE: Dykstra prepares an X-wing for its starring role
John
Dykstra went on to create the effects for the smash-hit TV series
Prattlestar Galaxative (I'm
p*ssing about here, because I LOVED Battlestar –
'derivative' not being a word I used back then) ILM
would go on to create on-screen magic for the Star Wars
sequels, Indiana
Jones, Harry Potter,
the CGI dinosaurs for Jurassic
Park, the first CGI character
for Young Sherlock Holmes, the
first morphing sequence for Willow and
it was two ILM employees who created Photoshop for
work on The Abyss... I'm
not doing the whole list, its easier to just pick your favourite film
and chances are, ILM had a hand in making it.
Evolution
of a Dream
Ralph
Angus McQuarrie was born in Gary, Indiana on June 13, 1929 and
left the World 82 years later on March 3, 2012. During his time he
was wounded in Korea, studied art and designed dental equipment and
worked for Boeing as a technical illustrator. All that pales into the
background compared with his work for George Lucas.
ABOVE: Ralph McQuarrie working on a Cloud City matte painting for The Empire Strikes Back
In 1975 Lucas asked McQuarrie to produce some images to illustrate and help sell The Star Wars, his idea for a film to a studio. His designs evolved over time to become the familiar characters, ships and places of Star Wars; Darth Vader, C-3PO and R2-D2, Ben Kenobi, Chewbacca, the planet Tattooine and the moon of Yavin... and so many others.
ABOVE: McQuarrie's designs and some early models
McQuarrie went on to
provide the inspirational visuals for The Empire Strikes
Back (In which he gets a
fleeting cameo as General Pharl McQuarrie) and Return of
the Jedi. The upcoming Episode
VII uses some of his designs and
he worked for Steven Spielberg to design the spaceships from Close
Encounters of the Third Kind and
ET. His official
website can be found here;
http://dreamsandvisionspress.com/
BELOW: Storyboards showing the development of the film's look and characters.
The sets were designed by a team under John Barry, who was to die tragically of meningitis just two weeks into filming The Empire Strikes Back. Working with set designer Roger Christian, he produced a grubby, gritty used and worn galaxy. Previous science fiction films portrayed their environments as gleaming, sparkling futures with everything looking brand-new. Christian – a Bhuddist – won an Oscar for his work on Star Wars and was nominated for Alien. His use of scrapped aircraft parts to decorate sets and create a realistic look was innovative and helped make the Millenium Falcon so iconic that it is regularly named as the best science fiction spaceship. Christian hired carpenter Bill Harmon to create the first Artoo-Detoo model from wood and a light fitting bowl. He also took blank-firing prop guns and dressed them with sights and add-ons to disguise them and invented the light-sabre handle from a camera flash handle.
What's the Score?
He's
won five Oscars* – and been nominated for forty-nine.
John
Williams is the sound of the modern film. Born
in New York in 1932, Williams is the son of Jazz percussionist Johnny
Williams.
ABOVE: John Williams (Right) with Steven Spielberg
Williams jr attended UCLA, graduated
from both the exclusive Juilliard school and the Eastman School of
Music and started work at film studios as a pianist and composer,
working with names such as Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein and
Henry Mancini. After a long period of work in which he composed for
film and tv he won his first Oscar for Fiddler
on the Roof. Steven
Spielberg used Williams for his early films, notably the score for
his blockbusting Jaws.
(As
well as the unforgettable theme for the shark, he went on to compose
the famous five-note signal from Close
Encounters and
the Raiders March
from Raiders of
the Lost Ark)
For Star Wars he
created memorable themes that are instantly recognisable. The album
is still the highest-selling classical record of all time. Williams
went on to score the rest of the original trilogy as well as the
later prequels.
* Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., Schindler's List,
Genuine
Class
Genuine Class; the most fitting anagram I've seen to date; as (Sir)
Alec Guinness (1914-2000) was one of two 'established' actors brought
in to flesh out and give credence to a cast of mostly unknowns. Apart
from a break to join the 'Wavy Navy' – the Royal Navy Volunteer
reserve , in WWII, Guinness' career was breathtaking; as a classical
stage actor and in films such as The Bridge on the River Kwai,
Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. If I fail at this
point to mention and recommend his George Smiley in the BBC TV
adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's
People consider me a cad and never look again at this wretched
page. One of two? - the second is, of course none other than Grand
Moff Tarkin...
Peter Cushing (1913-1994) is instantly recognisable from any one of
a number of Hammer Horror films, usually busy trying to stake
Christopher Lee (Later to become Count Dooku) or create a monster as
Professor Victor Frankenstein. He played Sherlock Holmes in the 1968
BBC series and in film and Dr.Who twice. Lucas originally
envisaged him playing Obi wan Kenobi. Both these fine actors add an
aspect of solidity to the proceedings that give anchors to both sides
of the galactic conflict.
For more on the cast, click here;
For an over view of the film, you could do worse than visit dear old
Wookiepedia;
And for the true fan, here's a wonderful site with original content
that you really should bookmark;
The Cantina on your bedroom floor
The toy company Kenner bought the rights to make toys tying in with the film, but they failed to see the demand and when it threatened to overwhelm them, they were forced to think outside of the box... by selling empty ones. The Early Bird Certificate was a piece of card that entitled disappointed kids everywhere to four of the still-in-production figures. There was a stand for the figures, with plastic pegs to fix them to it. My money is very few kids bothered with the stand and just made their own scenes up...
ABOVE: Giving kids the Bird
BELOW: The Force Beam was a quasi-bootleg toy that sold in huge numbers.
In addition to the figures, there was the Force Beam, a semi-bootleg lightsaber toy. Basically a torch with a coloured filter and a plastic tube, these were actually great fun (I had one) until you bent them. One thing every kid seemed to have held together by elastic bands was a partial set of Star Wars cards. Made by Topps, these came with a stick of awful gum and half my pocket money went on them. The first set had a blue border, subsequent sets featured different photos and coloured borders.
ABOVE: Original Topps cards with (centre) a US wrapper.
BELOW: The marketing people didn't stay sleeping for long.
ABOVE: Sticker sets from Topps
BELOW: The comic adaptation was a must for all my friends. (The British version was black and white)
BELOW: Toys; just a small part of the range on sale from 1978
BELOW: Also popular that summer were these T-shirt iron-ons
ABOVE: Badges, watches, Darth Vader's fighter and a set I remember well; Letraset produced a fantastic range of these scenes, with rub-on transfers that you could make your own pictures with.
ABOVE: Myth busted. For years it's been claimed Burger King only backed flops...
For a wonderful trip down memory lane, this Letraset site takes some beating;
For looks at unproduced Star Wars toys;
Oops...
When you love a film you tend to
watch it in detail and Star Wars
gets better with each viewing; there's so much in the background and,
inevitably, mistakes were made. Here's some of my favourites.
Aren't you a little tall for a Stormtrooper?;
The most famous goof of all. The control room on the Death Star and a
squad of troopers marches in to secure the room. One hits his head on
the doorway (And aren't these guys supposed to be clones? - surely
one shouldn't be taller?)
The Millenium Stowaway;
The Falcon
takes off from Mos Eisley and Han's at the wheel. Luke and Ben are
strapped in around the gaming table so who's the owner of the
shoulder we see briefly in the corridor behind Han?.
No Dice;
The first time we see the interior of the Falcon's cockpit is when
Chewie takes his seat; there's a pair of metal dice hanging from the
ceiling. Later on, these disappear (They were stolen from the set).
A Galaxy not so far, far away;
Star Wars is an immersive experience, the illusion of another Galaxy,
another time is almost perfect. Almost?;
The Torture droid on the Death Star clearly shows a modern hypodermic
syringe on one side.
The control room on the Death Star has fairly stylish bucket seats –
but on everyday office chair castors.
As the lever is pushed to activate
the Death Star's primary laser you can clearly see the console used.
It's a TV production console,
made by Grass Valley.
Weapons geeks may recognise the blasters used throughout the film;
the Imperial blasters are based on Sterling Sub-Machine Guns, the
long weapons used by the search squad on the falcon are German MG34
machine-guns from WWII and Han's blaster is a Mauser 'broomhandle'
pistol.
Clunk-click before every trip;
As Han and Chewie prepare for the jump to hyperspace, Chewie isn't
wearing his bandolier; as they go into hyperspace suddenly, he is.
Flip-Flop;
Perhaps for artistic reasons, some
of the shots of the lightsaber battle and the good guys arriving at
the rebel base and the Death
Star battle are flipped; look
for Vader's chest plate being reversed. In
the base, Han's holster on the left leg and
Red Leader's microphone changes side a few times. Also,
Threepio has a dent on his head which also flips from time to time.
Two
places, one time;
Luke's Uncle buys R5-D4,
a red-droid similar to R2-D2 from the Jawas. The droid has a bad
motivator and breaks down – luke has his hand on it when a second
later it's by the Sandcrawler being looked over by the Jawas.
THE STAR WARS LOBBY: POSTERS AND CARDS
BELOW: Star Wars art
BELOW: This art featured on the cover of the Sphere novelisation.
BELOW: Tom Jung's poster design in development.
BELOW: A rejected poster design.
Lucasfilm, the Lucasfilm logo, STAR WARS and all related characters, names and indicia are trademarks of & copyright © 2012 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved. , or their respective trademark and copyright holders.
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