The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

1256 Pages·2013·98.43 MB·English

by  J.W. Rinzler

Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) on location in California’s
Buttercup Valley aboard Jabba’s barge, April 1982.
Copyright © 2013 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated.
All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-54358-5
www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
Additional research by Brandon Alinger
PHOTO CREDITS
Terry Chostner, Albert Clarke, Frank Connor, Douglas Dawson, Howard Kazanjian, Barbara Lakin, Long
Photography, Inc., Roberto McGrath, Ralph Nelson, Jr., Kerry Nordquist, Bob Penn, Dave Pickoff/AP
Photo, and Charles Wessler
Additional photos: Brandon Alinger, from the collection of Rose Duignan, Ben Burtt, the Prop Store, Kit
West, and Steve Starkey
COVER: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is caught between his father, Sith Lord Darth Vader (David
Prowse), and the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid), with the fate of the galaxy in the balance; Elstree Studios,
March 1982. Photo by Albert Clarke.
v3.1
DEDICATION
To Geneviève, Sarah, and Judith
In memory of Ralph McQuarrie, a fantastic visionary artist and gentleman, who, in the end, enjoyed sitting
peacefully in his garden
And hats off to Stuart Freeborn, who seems to have led a wonderful, charmed life, and who helped create
such lovable creatures
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am particularly thankful for several individuals who went out of their way to
help. Howard Kazanjian opened his archives to my research assistant down
south, Brandon Alinger, and the two of them thus provided a great deal of
important information; Brandon also supplied the supplemental credits and was
an essential reader, fact checker, and provider of camera info and other esoteric
bits of Jedi lore. Robert Watts and Jim Bloom made themselves available, the
former via email and long-distance calls, the latter during an afternoon in his
home across the Bay and during supplemental calls. Dennis Muren, as always,
has been just one floor down at Industrial Light & Magic, providing quick
answers to a stream of visual effects and general questions; Dennis very kindly
also read the manuscript to check its accuracy. Craig Barron took the time to
watch the whole movie with me, detailing the work behind every matte painting
and relating many memorable stories, and then reviewed the manuscript’s matte
painting sections.
Indeed many Jedi veterans donated hours of their valuable time, notably Terry
Chostner, Rose Duignan, Chris Evans, Steve Gawley, Lorne Peterson, Aggie
Rodgers, and Thomas G. Smith. The award for the best phone interview must be
shared by Duwayne Dunham and Nilo Rodis-Jamero, both of whom recalled
incidents and anecdotes with wonderful humor and clarity. I am also indebted to
Carol Marquand and James Marquand for their memories of Richard Marquand.
Without their feelings and insights, the book would not have been complete.
Once again, like each of the previous forays, I couldn’t have written this book
without the custodians of Lucasfilm’s several treasure troves: In the Lucasfilm
Archives at Skywalker Ranch, Laela French, Arran Harvey, and Joanee Honour
made the high quality artwork reproductions possible. It was always a real
pleasure to arrive Thursday mornings, sit on the couch, and chat—before
heading off into a past of drawings, storyboards, models, and maquettes. Kathy
Smeaton then took hundreds of chosen two-dimensional artworks and scanned
them patiently.
The Skywalker Ranch Research Library is overseen by Jo Donaldson and
Robyn Stanley, and they once more gave me the “keys” to the research
warehouse, allowing me to forage through dozens of cardboard boxes filled with
papers that hadn’t been disturbed since 1983. When the odd question came up
during the writing phase, Jo and Robyn were always available—thank you. In
the film archives, Monica Chin-Perez came up with the rough cut and fine cut of
Jedi, carefully cueing up picture and sound reels on the old KEM flatbed editing
table. Fragments of animatics, telematics, camera reports, and computer
printouts provided a thorough basis for writing about postproduction effects and
editorial.
I’m running out of adjectives for Image Archives, but Tina Mills’s crew (and
Tina herself) has been superlative as always. Stacey Leong oversaw scanning the
negatives, collating the collections, sending pics out for drum-scanning, and
basically making sure the book exists image-wise; Matthew Azeveda helped on
final frame screen grabs, while Shahana Alam chipped in and Tina made sure the
whole operation worked like clockwork.
At Random House, Erich Schoeneweiss has had my back on all three books—
and has been enthusiastic throughout (despite my moments of despair) and one
of the books’ biggest fans. Frank Parisi, formerly my partner in crime at
LucasBooks, was my editor and contributed many valuable notes. And warm
thanks to Nancy Delia and her crew for keeping me honest grammatically and in
other textual ways, and to Scott Biel, Keith Clayton, Joseph Scalora, and David
Moench. For the design, I am indebted to Katie Benezra, at becker&mayer!
(where Delia Greve pitched in, too), who took my rudimentary book map and
gave it elegance (Katie also designed Star Wars: The Blueprints).
And I can’t say how much I appreciate the time Brad Bird donated to write his
foreword and to discussing the Star Wars saga one rainy afternoon, sitting by a
burning fire in a Skywalker Ranch “office.” His foreword adds a lot of context,
expertise, and professional passion to this book.
At Lucasfilm, thanks to Pablo Hidalgo, who also read and corrected my
manuscript; to my boss, Carol Roeder, who facilitated the whole enterprise;
more thanks to Troy Alder and his design acumen; and to Howard Roffman for
his great interview; to Jane Bay and Connie Wethington in the chairman’s office;
to Chris Argyropoulos for his PR help; to Chris Holm, who made sure I didn’t
trespass illegally; and—again!—to the whole infrastructure that George Lucas
has maintained. Of course I owe so much to George himself. I’ve promised him
not to write any more of these books, as I’m sure they take their toll on his
psyche, while taking up too much of his time. But I’m grateful to have been
given the opportunity to set forth in words and images the making of perhaps the
most beloved trilogy in the history of cinema. It’s been an honor.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
List of Enhancements
Foreword by Brad Bird
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Revenge of a Slavering Hulk (February 1979 to February 1981)
Undated Outlines Summary
Rough Draft Summary, February 24, 1981
Chapter 2: Directors Cut (February to June 1981)
Revised Rough Draft Summary, June 12, 1981
Chapter 3: A City Too Far (June to July 1981)
Story Conference Summary, July 13–17, 1981
Chapter 4: A Poet’s Emperor (July to September 1981)
Second Draft Summary, September 21, 1981
Chapter 5: Setup on Space Street (September 1981 to January 1982)
Revised Second Draft Summary, November 1, 1981
Third Draft Summary, December 1, 1981