John Williams on the Special Editions

In a January, 1997 interview, that is, prior to the April/May releases.

CB: These films are classics. Why tinker with them now?

JW: Well, this is a very interesting question. If the Star Wars Trilogy is a kind of classic, why would we want to tamper with it? I'm not particularly in favor of coloring all the old early films in black and white and might come down on the side of saying, leave things alone. That's one side of the argument.

The other side of it is true for music also. For example, every time Brahms went to hear one of his symphonies played, he would go in the audience and listen to the symphony, and the next day he would go to the Bibliotheque in Vienna, get the original score out and make changes—he never could leave it alone. Some sage said that a work of art is never finished, it's only abandoned. That's really true of all of us; it's like one of our children. You never finish trying to groom it; the child could be 60 years old, and you're still saying, "Well you look better if you dress this way."

So I think George is well within the predictable and understandable and probably correct area of an artist's prerogative to continue to try to want to improve what he's done. He complained that he didn't have the animatics 20 years ago and he wants to do it now. So I think on the one hand don't tamper with it, and on the other an artist can, should and, I think, must be excused for wanting to continue to improve his or her work. That's the two answers.

The third answer could be for those traditionalists who want the original the way it is—it's there. They don't have to go; they can listen to the Brahms without his latest edition. So they can see the original version and they can also see the new, updated George Lucas wish-list for his work.

I think it's a wonderful question and the answer has to admit all of these possibilities for us to be fair.

So, there's that.

And, Exhale

The lack of chronicling from our recently wrapped three-week roadtrip through 3500 miles of magnificient US countryside and cities isn’t from lack of wanting to bore you to death with the details; but between a whirlwind trip to see various parts of the family trees and a waterlanding of a ‘back to work’ start, in which I managed to get the cold before lunch was served, time and energy has taken a toll.

Our trip took us from San Francisco to Yosemite, King’s Canyon, Seqoia, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, up Highway 1 and finally back to San Francisco again where we, ready for three more weeks, sadly departed all too soon.

It was, amazing. An experience of a lifetime. Two in fact. To explain it, to show pictures from it or write about it, cannot do it justice. I won’t bore you with hyperbole, but it was everything we had hoped for, and a lot more.

But it would not have been all that it was, were it not for Tara (and Leslie), Tina and Kate, and of course the good Mr. Rubin, a thousand thanks. You all made our trip an unforgettable adventure.

Also, thank you all, who over the last year or two have been throwing advice and tips at me on Twitter and here on BB. We tried to adhere to as many of them as we could along the way.

And yes, I was scared shitless when I first rolled the Mustang convertible we had rented onto the South San Franciscean freeway, and no, there is literally no way to prepare you for LA traffic. Yes, we had lunch at Pixar and at Skywalker Ranch, how cool is that? Yes, I teared up—as I always do when I hear it—when John Williams conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonics through the Main Title from E.T. under a fullmoon at the Hollywood Bowl, and yes, the sunrise in Monument Valley is perhaps the most stunning sight I’ve ever beheld.

And yes, I have photos, in multitudes. Some we uploaded as we went along, but there are more to go. I tried twittering from time to time, but between the road, sightseeing and sleep, there wasn’t a lot of Michael to go around. Hopefully I’ll be able to remedy that over the coming months.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lingering cold to fight.

Mind Melting. Roadtrip Overload.

Spent the last few evenings glued to the screen, bouncing from hotel to hotel, trying to find the right fit between price and location for our stays in LA, SF and Vegas. Maybe I’m picky, but that stuff is draining. I don’t know what I’d do without Trip Advisor to be honest.

Originally we had planned to stay wherever, but as our plans started crystalizing, we decided for peace of mind, to book places while in the cities, rather than trying to find something in the stress of it all.

So now we’ve got the car ready, hopefully a true all-American Mustang V6 convertible, what other way is there to roadtrip the US? We’ve got hotels in the major cities, we’ve got our 4000+km route. We’re going to see Pixar and Skywalker Ranch! I’m meeting up with various people, including the venerable Michael Rubin, and we’re going to see both John Williams and AC/DC while in LA.

Holy crap.

Oh, and I’m still hoping for some NIN tickets for LA on the 7th, though that’s looking remote, to put it mildly. I might be able to convince Rikke that we go down to the venue on the night and see if we can pick up some tickets; it being the last concert of the tour (and supposedly for a long while), it would be epic.

And once we get home? Well, someone has to figure out how to convince our bank how we could possible be considered responsible and grown with spending habits like the ones we’re about to display. I honestly have no clue about that one. But this is once-in-a-lifetime stuff, and as such, irresponsibility is part and parcel.

The worst part? Three weeks doesn’t look like a whole lot anymore.

More Droidmaker

I know, I know, it’s starting to look more and more as if Binary Bonsai was reborn as a Star Wars and Droidmaker-reblog site after its hiatus, but if I merely updated the older entries with this information, it wouldn’t propagate, and dammit, when I have something to take credit for I’ll damn well use every excuse in the book to take it!

Then there happened to be an unusual series of events at the end of June, 2009, when a couple interesting Lucas stories were emerging. An old home movie from ILM in 1977. An older interview with young George Lucas from the BBC in 1972. My book gives some context to these items.

On June 30 I got a wild hare and generated a PDF of the entire book. I posted it on my blog and I made two public-ish announcements: I posted it on my Facebook page, and I emailed a note about it to a blogger in Europe who had just written something nice about Droidmaker a few days earlier. So I emailed “Binary Bonsai” – he posted it. And that was it.

The word spread globally in a few moments, and in 24 hours there were around 2,000 downloads of the book. A few weeks later there was another spike of interst, bringing the total downloads to about 13,000. In 14 days, more people have read my book than in the prior 4 years. And I finally feel like my work with this is done. #

Exciting for me, as I’ve been a fan of Droidmaker since it came out. I plowed through it in a few days, which is honestly rather rare for me. I hope to have the chance to meet Michael when we’re in California; a fitting encounter on a trip which is already taking us to see Pixar, Skywalker Ranch and a John Williams concert.

I honestly don’t know how all of this could get much better…