I could give you the rundown of why Leigh Brackett’s first draft of The Empire Strikes Back, dated February 17, 1978 — which I haven’t read yet, because I literally just found it — is a giving me a geekgasm right about now, but you should just go read Michael’s book, if you haven’t already. But the short of the long is that Brackett passed away from cancer two months after handing in this draft, and Lucas, who didn’t like the direction, discarded the work and started over. She received writing credit nonetheless.
Brackett’s screenplay has never been published. According to Haffner, it can be read at one of two locations: 1) the library of the Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico, but may not be copied or borrowed off-site; and 2) the archives at Lucasfilm, Ltd. in California.
Now we just wait for the story conference transcripts to leak as well. God I love the intarWebz.
It’s crazy how little time I have now that I have all the time in the world. I had after all originally planned spending a few months playing around with my own projects before I started up the whole freelance web developer business, but as it happens work came looking for me, and our quick London stop-over aside, I’ve been pretty busy working for the last few weeks, which has been a great way to ease into the mindset.
Monday I’m moving into an office in inner Copenhagen alongside @brianmeidell, @noscope and the @spacetimefoam boys, as well as several other minor game and web-centric companies (Limbo and Max and the Magic Marker are both there), and I’m pretty giddy about that. I haven’t started clawing at the walls yet, but there are definitely parts about ‘going to work’ that don’t work so well when all you have to do is get out of bed and there you are.
I hope to get some time to work on a ‘company’ site of some kind soon. I’ve got a name at least; but I’ll leave that for the unveiling.
For all its flaws as a film, it’s still a magnificent visual spectacle; even if the compositing at times leaves something to be desired. This video was filmed back in 1983 and put online by Sean Young, quite admirably. To think of all the similar gems like this, hiding in private collections in the hills of Hollywood. It’s enough to make my eyes water.
Recent Comments
Michael, Mathias Bynens
Echo, Michael, Echo
James John Malcolm, Michael, Brian, Morten Nielsen, Matthew
Horatio, Paul O’Shannessy, Matthew, Michael, Joen, Jon Kantro
Oomu, Michael, Matthew Fedak