Tag Archive for 'star wars'

Fincher on His Role on Return of the Jedi

Jan 18, '12 · Closed Tags: movies, star wars.

Were you around [‘Jedi’ director] Richard Marquand?
I met Marquand, but I was one of 9000 people getting the movie made. I did the Chicken Walkers [a.k.a. AT-ST Scout Walkers] — I was working on the Chicken Walkers. They had a lot of shots that were panning and tilting in the Redwood Forest in Crescent City and my job was to figure out a way to match move that stuff, which hadn’t been shot in motion control at all. So I was doing a lot of sitting in the dark and taking a mirror and taking registered interpositives and projecting them out of this vision cameras using … fuck, it was like a — I think we used little tiny leekos. It was crazy. I mean, when you think of ILM, you always think of this thing where it’s like NASA, or something: this is so thrown together and so half-ass. And I would projectile the camera on to these big cards — these big circular cards — and I would put a line on a tree. I would sit there with Jerry Jeffress’ early, early, early field motion control unit and program match move. I’d match move the plates for the pan and tilt, then I’d bring in the blue screen, bring in the go-motion unit, match the lighting, and put the Chicken Walkers into the shot.

That was my job, I was 18 or 19 years old.

Not a bad gig at that age.
No. I was a pig in shit, man. That was as much fun as I could imagine standing up. #

Fincher knows how to throw a great interview, no matter how you cut it, being both wonderfully honest, and dedicated to his films.

The Missing Star Wars Documentary

Jan 5, '12 · Closed Tags: star wars.

Welcome to the mysterious story of one of the most lost documentaries about the Empire Strikes Back: the Making of The Empire Strikes Back by the Frenchman Michel Parbot. #

It’s not a terribly insightful article, but it does provide an overview of the mystery of the missing Empire Strikes Back documentary, which hasn’t been seen publically since the early 80’s. I’ve been following the search for this documentary for years, in what has so far been a fruitless search. Why it’s being held only by the few parties privvy to it, is something of a conundrum, when pretty much all other material ever broadcast is otherwise shared freely.

Echoes of Tatooine

Dec 21, '11 · Closed Tags: kitbashed, movies, star wars, tintin.

The NY Times has a good, succinct video, looking at the phenomenon of Tintin up. Meanwhile, as a part of my research for Kitbashed, I found this a while back, from Cigars of the Pharaoh (1934), page 15:

Utini!

Kubrick’s Wonderful, Forbidden Smile

Oct 16, '11 · Closed Tags: quote, stanley kubrick, star wars.

[During the production of The Empire Strikes Back] The art department experienced an awful setback, when Stage 3 at Elstreet Studios burned to the ground. “Stanley Kubrick had built a hotel for The Shining, and they kept on covering it with salt, which was melting, so the studio was a real mess,” says [Empire Strikes Back Production Designer, Norman] Reynolds. “And it was cold and it was just dreary, really dreary. And then the hotel set caught fire and the stage burned to the ground. It was a tough time, actually.”

“The still photographer on The Shining, Murray Close, took a wonderful picture of Stanley standing in front of the smoldering remains, and he had a wonderful smile on his face.” says Boone. “I saw a print of that, but Murray was forbidden to have that picture published.”

From Star Wars: The Blueprints, page 94. Murray Close was 19 at the time, and worked with Kubrick for three years on The Shining, a period he talks about in this interview.

Norman Reynolds recalls that [legendary production designer, John] Barry was dumbfounded one day while working with Stanley Kubrick on A Clockwork Orange. They were on an apartment set and, although the fridge would remain closed throughout the scene, Kubrick insisted that Barry fill it with food props that the character would’ve stocked. “They had a bit of a falling out as a result of that,” Reynolds says. [p101]

Stanley Kubrick attended the funeral of the John Barry, the the production designer on Star Wars, who had died suddenly:

“That really was a really big shock to see Stanley [Kubrick],” says Tomkins. “The only time Stanley came out of his shell. I mean, you never would get Stanley going to anybody’s memorial service, but he did come to John’s. So I was quite impressed by that, that he must have like the guy very much.” [p95]

Science Fiction and The Masses

Oct 15, '11 · Closed Tags: andrew stanton, john carter, science fiction, star wars.

Here’s Gary Kurtz, producer of Star Wars in a 1979 article from The Atlantic:

“The title Star Wars was an insurance policy. The studio didn’t see it that way; they thought science fiction was a very bad genre, that women didn’t like it, although they did no market research on that until after the film was finished. But we calculated that there are something like $8 million worth of science fiction freaks in the USA, and they will go to see absolutely anything with a title like Star Wars.”

And…

Initial research from 20th Century Fox using the title and a brief synopsis came back with the results that only males under 25 were interested in seeing the film. Fox then deliberately marketed the film with a view to attracting older and female cinemagoers by pushing images of humans (including Princess Leia) centerstage and referring to the film in more mythic tones, rather than science fiction. IMDB

I read this today, in Andrew Stanton’s profile in the October 17th, 2011 edition of The New Yorker, in relation to the upcoming John Carter movie:

[Disney] also nervously lopped “of Mars” off the film’s title, to lower the barrier between women filmgoers – who are famously averse to sci-fi – and Taylor Kitch’s smoldering aura.

It’s… John Carter of Mars. It’s a stable of science fiction, quite literally the father of space opera, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and, ironically in this context, Star Wars.

Renaming it is in itself ridiculous; after all, every single remake coming to your local cineplex are there because you’re already familiar the name, making it easier to sell. Beyond that, to name it John Carter puts it in amongst movies like Joe Black, Jane Eyre, and Billy Elliot…

And let’s be honest here, the Barsoom series is one long male power fantasy. John Carter is strong, sexy, clever, as good with the flesh as with the steel. Unbearably so in the books, as it were.

Now, to be fair, John Carter is considerably more expensive than Star Wars was in its time, but considering the continuing popularity of Star Wars as a franchise – despite Lucas’s best attempts to alienate his original fanbase – not to mention the success of games like Half-Life, Halo, and Gears of War and TV series like Lost and Battlestar Galactica, movies like Inception or really any of the innumerable superhero movies, including such garbage as the recent Transformers movies… that by now Hollywood would trust the general public to succumb to either marketing, or simply, an idea, a solid, good movie even?

Star Wars vs Star Trek vs Forbidden Planet

Sep 18, '11 · Closed Tags: movies, science fiction, star trek, star wars.

I love Shatner, I really do. And Kirk is a great character. But aside from being a rambling mess of an argument, I wonder if he ever watched Forbidden Planet?

About Those Star Wars Blu-Rays

Sep 13, '11 · Closed Tags: star wars.

I don’t have anything good to say about the yet-another-round-of-unnecessary-updates Lucas has decided to go with for the new Star Wars blu-ray set; in fact I think Michael Kaminski said it best:

It’s not the quality of work, it’s the quality of ideas. You have Jar Jar being farted on in TPM and its rendered in state-of-the-art theatrical quality CG, but it’s still Jar Jar being farted on. #

At least Lucas’s old buddy Spielberg is a little more cued into his audience:

ET Blu-Ray: It’s coming. Spielberg said he wanted to poll the audience. He asked us if there was anybody in the crowd that would be disappointed if the 2002 Special Edition was not included on the Blu, if it was only the original 1982 version. He was greeted with a roaring “No!” from the crowd and said, “Well, that settles it then.” So, he strongly implied the ET Blu-Ray will be the original theatrical cut only and not even include the gun-less, penis breath-less CGI’d ET version.

On the ET SE: Spielberg said he let the immense criticism from parent groups after the theatrical release of ET get to him, which is what prompted the guns being taken out and the removal of the penis-breath line. He admitted that was a mistake and that he realized after the fact that changing the movie was “robbing the people of their memories of the movie.” He had a very hard time with that and said he confirmed what he told me in our interview that you won’t see any more digital tinkering in future releases of his films.

And at least ET was always available, even on DVD, in its original theatrical release, as pristine as the Special Edition, which can’t be said for the abysmal Star Wars theatrical release on DVD, which was quite frankly an insult.

The New Caretakers of the Star Wars Legacy

Sep 9, '11 · Closed Tags: star wars.

But if Lucas doesn’t respect the need for preservation when it comes to his own saga, a new hope is emerging in the form of dedicated and talented fans who have taken it upon themselves to become de facto caretakers of the Star Wars legacy. #

Rawr!

Jun 1, '11 · Closed Tags: chewbacca, star wars.

Speaking of Chewbacca, here are all the scenes with Chewie from A New Hope:

Star Wars and Me, Sitting in a Tree

Feb 17, '11 · Closed Tags: ego, star wars.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity to point to a few cool things I’ve been tangentially involved with in the past few months.

First up is The king of Apple talk radio on CNN’s Fortune Tech blog, which highlights episode 11 of The Talk Show (featured also in yesterday’s clip show), in which one of the subjects is my Chewie entry. Yes, I’ll take credit anywhere I can, especially if I can piggyback off of Dan’s amazing work, which accompanies me on my walks almost every day.

Secondly is Jamie’s last entry in his astounding filmumentary series on the making of Star Wars, Star Wars Begins, the result of several years of work, digging up and integrating rare interviews and behind the scenes footage from the making of Star Wars with the film itself. It’s the final installment in his trilogy, following up on Building Empire and Returning to Jedi, both in their own right well worth their time. I’m credited on it for a bit of feedback and some pocket cash I threw after him when he almost lost the entire thing to one of those “it’ll never happen to me”-harddrive crashes (because what is the internet, if not a place for obsessives to come together?).

Finally, I wrote a bit back and forth with Kirby, after his Everything is a Remix and my Chewie entry back in September. After we cheered to each others success and drank human blood to our fortune from the skulls of baby animals (don’t you judge me!), I showed him a video of my further work on the influences of Star Wars, something I’ve been working on intermittently over the last year or so, and he in turn drew inspiration from it, and focussed on Star Wars in his great second video essay, Everything is a Remix Part 2 (also be sure to check out the Kill Bill video). That was back in September, when I still thought I’d have my own project done in a matter of weeks. Months later, it’s turning out to be somewhat more… exhaustive.

The good news, is that I think I know how Lucas came upon the idea of turning Darth Vader into Luke’s dad…

Nerd out.

Grant McCune Dies

Dec 30, '10 · Closed Tags: grant mccune, movies, star wars.

More.

Kersh

Nov 29, '10 · Closed Tags: empire strikes back, irvin kershner, movies, star wars.

Irvin Kershner has died.

Continue reading ‘Kersh’

The Censors Strike Back

Oct 20, '10 · Closed Tags: books, culture, denmark, star wars, us.

I’m finishing The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, Jonathan W Rinzler’s recenty released document on everyone’s favorite sequel – it’s everything a nerd could hope for, by the way – and I came across this quote, which seems to pretty well describe the mentality gap between the US and Denmark:

The sequel was also number one in Tokyo, Japan, for at least four weeks, but in Denmark, Empire was ruled off-limits to children under 12 (as was Star Wars, Close Encounters, and several other films).
“Children are not allowed to see a film that desenitizes them to violence, to suffering,” says Dr. Jørgen Bruun Petersen. “They must not see a film if we feel they will get [from it] less ability to feel pity.” On the other hand, children were allowed by the Danmark censors to see sex on screen. “I don’t think children will be harmed if they see two adults going to bed with each other. But only if they express love for each other, do what they do with feeling.”
The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, p336.

That’s not to say I agree with him on the violence (much to my moms dismay, I raised myself on RoboCop and Alien), but this schism is inherent in our culture – we released porn before any other country – which makes it so absurd to us when a nip-slip causes most of the US to dive into a frenzy, while happily enganging in wars across the world.

Chewie on The Talk Show

Oct 7, '10 · Closed Tags: chewbacca, dan benjamin, ego, john gruber, Podcast, star wars, the talk show.

Imagine my surprise, when as I was doing the dishes, mine and Chewies names popped up in Episode 11 of The Talk Show w. Dan Benjamin and John Gruber. It being live, I much to Gruber’s dismay (sorry John), popped into the chat and took part.

George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It’s Okay

Sep 18, '10 · Closed Tags: chewbacca, george lucas, John Mollo, john schoenherr, movies, ralph mcquarrie, science fiction, star wars, Stuart Freeborn.

Foreword

The creation of Star Wars is comprehensive mythology onto itself, populated by rarely documented anecdotes, the likes of “the Millennium Falcon was inspired by a hamburger, with the outrigger cockpit being an olive off to the side” (1) or “My original inspiration for Chewbacca was my dog Indiana.” (2), compelling enough to be repeated until they’re so prevalent that they must be true, and are accepted even by hardcore fans and Lucasfilm itself. Unfortunately sometimes they’re embellished truths or half-truths, sometimes entirely false and in pretty much all cases oversimplifying a truly interesting, and luckily exceptionally well documented creative process.

And that’s what this is about; the creative process. Cultural touchstones like Star Wars might seem to have sprung fully formed from the minds of their lauded creators, but as in all creative endeavors, movie making, web design or this very post, nothing could be further from the truth. Creation is a process, and strangely, by looking at how everyone’s favorite plushy first-mate sprang into existence, we can learn a lot about any collaborative creative endeavor.

Unfortunately, perhaps because of the verisimilitude of the disciplines needed to make a film like Star Wars come together, the making-of narrative is surprisingly fragmented and often incomplete. A quick look at the bibliography needed to put together this post should give a good idea of just how fragmented. And once you’re down the rabbit hole, you quickly learn that nothing found there can be taken at face value. Quotes, drawings, photos and diagrams lack sources, are undated, some old, some new, some so distorted as to be pure fiction and most of it entirely out of context.

But while the official sources are often great, compiling from many different sources to dispel myths about Boba Fett’s ship, Slave 1 or tell in staggering detail the creation of the film from beginning till end as in the case of books like ‘The Making of Star Wars’, there are still plenty of dim, and in some cases even seemingly purposefully blacked out areas in the development of Star Wars. Just ask Michael Kaminski!

The story of how Chewbacca came to be is one of those. A fascinating look at what happens in the space between idea, page and screen.

Continue reading ‘George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It’s Okay’

Falcon-Centric Star Wars Posters

Sep 6, '10 · Closed Tags: movies, star wars.

Gruber linked to these great minimalistic Star Wars posters, giving points for using the Falcon twice. I would note that seeing as the blockade runner was the prototype Falcon, in spirit the Falcon is actually the center of all three posters.

What a piece of junk…

Leigh Brackett’s Hitherto Unseen First Draft of The Empire Strikes Back

May 13, '10 · 3 Comments Tags: empire strikes back, screenplay, star wars.

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.

PS: Here’s a look at design in 1977.

Skywalker Ranch on Video

Mar 17, '10 · Closed Tags: george lucas, movies, philip bloom, skywalker ranch, star wars, video.

A couple of years ago two guys from Io went to visit Skywalker Ranch as guests of Matthew Wood. I convinced them to let me post this video of theirs, from the visit:

Which of course goes hand in hand with our visit last year.

Update: As fate would have it, Philip Bloom just posted a new video from the countryside around the ranch:

Roger Christian on Star Wars, Alien and Black Angel

Mar 11, '10 · Closed Tags: alien, movies, quentin tarantino, star wars.

Holy. Fuck. I’ll tell you, I know more about Star Wars than most people, but here’s a thing I didn’t know. Roger Christian (Set Decorator on Star Wars, Production Designer on Alien, director of Battlefield Earth(!), second unit director on Episode 1) directed a small film called Black Angel which showed in front of The Empire Strikes Back, funded by Lucas. That and a lot more in this extensive interview.

It has tons of awesome trivia stuff, like:

[Travolta] said every director that he put up for Battlefield Earth, he would first go to Quentin and ask his approval. And Quentin said ‘no’ to all of them. And [Travolta] said ‘When I mentioned your name, he screamed and yelled “Yes!”’.

I asked him what this was based on, and he said ‘Didn’t you know? The Sender, the first film you made, is one of his all-time favourite movies.’ So [Travolta] said ‘Right, I’m going to put you together with him!’, and he put us together on a plane from New York – we had to fly back from the premiere. So I was there on a plane with Quentin and he spent about an hour going on about my film The Sender. [laughs]

[Tarantino] told me that when he was a video assistant he’d seen [The Sender] on television and taped it. He said ‘When it first came out in the cinemas, I realised that the studios were just against you on this, so I took people every night to see it, because I knew it wouldn’t be in the cinemas very long.’

So he’d taped it from television, and when the video rental came in, he looked at it and said ‘They’d cut some of your scenes’. He said ‘On my own money, and I was only a video assistant, I went and re-cut it – and I cut back in the scenes that they cut out, from my television recording’ [laughs]. ‘And that’s what we rented out. I’ve still got the copy somewhere at home’.

How I never heard of this, I have no idea, but it restores my hope that there are still undiscovered gems for me to discover about Star Wars.

Update: There’s another interview at Den of Geek, in which Roger says:

… because Ridley pulled his Directors Guild rights to have a screening with an audience. They [the studio] were really not backing it. And at that screening people were running out – and I remember somebody broke their arm running out into the toilets – and they told me people were stuffing towels into the speakers in the toilet they got so scared. That screening made the film a hit, when it got out.

The Other Lucas

Jan 26, '10 · Closed Tags: geekdom, george lucas, marcia lucas, movies, star wars.

I always feel obliged to link to Michael Kaminski’s articles on Star Wars because a) he has no RSS feed and b) because they’re so freakin’ good! This time he’s written an article I’ve personally wanted to read for a long time, which pulls together everything available about Marcia Lucas (which is at the same time more than I’ve found in the past, and less than one would think was available). Insightful and heartbreaking.