Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the new This Week In Star Wars. July 13-19 covers a whole lot of important Star Wars dates. In recent history we got a glimpse at that nifty San Diego Comic-Con BTS reel and a bunch of fans out in San Diego got the rare chance to see the three original trilogy leads together and the even rarer opportunity to see Harrison Ford smile.
But we're not focused on what happened for us last week, we want to go back farther than that. Lots of goings on during the making of Star Wars and the pre-production on Empire and Jedi as well as some fun and terribly wrong internet rumors (Darth Bane, anybody?) this week in Star Wars. Let's check it out!
July 13th, 1942 - Harrison Ford was born. What is there to say about Harrison Ford that hasn't already been said, especially in relation to his contribution in Star Wars? He added so much charm, personality and swagger to the role of Han Solo and that produced the perfect chemistry when paired with the standard reluctant hero and princess in need of rescuing archetypes.
The saga might be focused on the Skywalkers, but when you watch that first film Han Solo has the biggest transformation. He wants to be a dick so much, but his heart won't let him. I'm not just talking about when he shows up at the Death Star, lasers blasting, and saves Luke's ass. That's an awesome moment, but there's a more subtle moment that always gets me when I rewatch that first movie.
After an hour of him heckling this young man's belief in the force and rolling his eyes at the crazy old man in the robe he still musters up a “May the Force be with you” to Luke before he goes out on what's surely a suicide mission. It's a brief spark of empathy... whether he believes in this hokey superstition or not, he knows Luke does and that he needs a kind word.
Anyway, from his brief role in one of my all time favorite movies, The Conversation, to Han Solo, Indiana Jones and the dozens of other remarkable performances (Mosquito Coast, seek it out) he's given us, Harrison Ford is a damn national treasure and a true hero. I, for one, am glad you're home.
July 17th, 1956 - Tim Rose (Admiral Ackbar) born. I couldn't let the birth of the actor behind Admiral Ackbar pass. Ackbar is one of the perfect examples of why Star Wars works as a cohesive sci-fi film. Here's this fish-headed guy who pops up out of nowhere, is not explained, and plays an important role in the rebels' final assault against the Empire... and we just accept it. We don't need to know where he came from, he just is and he gets one of the most iconic lines in the entire final OT film.
So, thanks for being a part of history, Mr. Rose, and happy birthday.
July 16th, 1976 - Principal photography ends on Star Wars.
The last day of shooting on Star Wars was in the rebel blockade runner set dubbed “the white hallway.” I don't know if it was the actual final shot of the movie, but I do know that on the last day they filmed the scene of Vader interrogating the captured Rebel before snapping his neck and throwing him into the wall. “If this is a consular ship, where is the Ambassador?”
The white hallway was a last minute thought by Lucas. He wanted something that reminded people of 2001 right at the beginning of the movie and then when Vader steps through the door it would signal that you're getting a different kind of sci-fi flick. Some nice trivia: most of the interior of the rebel blockade runner was repurposed Millennium Falcon sets, especially the area where Leia feeds R2 the stolen data tapes.
The shoot was a rough one for Lucas. He was depressed, he thought he had a bomb on his hands and he was disappointed in how the footage was cutting together. So right after he wrapped he ditched England and went to see his friends. Before going home to California, he went to New York to visit Brian De Palma (who is tied very closely to that first Star Wars movie... they shared audition space for Star Wars and Carrie, afterall) and then went to Mobile, Alabama to spend some time with Spielberg while he was filming Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg's impression of Lucas was that he was depressed.
When Lucas finally got home he went straight to the hospital because he thought he was having a heart attack. That's how badly he thought the movie had turned out.
Luckily for us he was wrong and we got something to obsess over as kids and can now pass that obsession down to our kids.
July 13th, 1978 - “Big Gun” by Ralph McQuarrie painting finished.
Ralph McQuarrie did a lot of production art for The Empire Strikes Back around this time. Every time I post one of these images I'm struck by just how much of the iconography of this galaxy was locked in place at such an early stage. This simple throwaway painting of a large gun protecting the hidden rebel base on Hoth turned into a classic image. I'm always blown away by McQuarrie's work.
July 15-17, 1978 - “Minch house (exterior)” by Ralph McQuarrie.
Yoda was originally known as “Minch” or “Minch Yoda” which is why the title of this McQuarrie painting, which he worked on from 15-17 of July, 1978, is “Minch house.” Yoda was one of the hardest elements for the pre-production crew to lock down. During the time McQuarrie was painting this they were still entertaining the thought of dressing up a monkey to play the character after deciding that a puppet might look too fake.
It was actually Jim Henson's advice to Lucas that changed his mind. Henson would have done the creature himself, but he was busy with the Muppet Movie, so he told Lucas to look up a dude by the name of Frank Oz and the rest is history.
July 18-20th, 1978 - “Star Destroyer Bridge (looking at right hand inboard side)” by Ralph McQuarrie.
Like I said, busy week for Ralph McQuarrie almost 40 years ago. There's not one piece of his I don't adore. Look at the detail in the ceiling and walls of the Star Destroyer concept!
July 13-17, 1981 - Big script conference on Revenge of the Jedi between George Lucas, Richard Marquand, Lawrence Kasdan and Howard Kazanjian.
This is the week that Jedi took shape. These men sat in a room and hammered out details. Lucas knew that Vader was going to stop the Emperor and kill himself while doing so, but they didn't know exactly how. One of the funniest things about reading the transcript snippets of this epic conference that have been released is seeing just how brutal Kasdan wanted to go. He kept demanding good guys die and Lucas was like, “This is for kids! You can't just go around killing everybody.”
Kasdan strongly pushed for Luke to die and leave Leia to carry on the Jedi tradition, but Lucas didn't even consider that a possibility.
They also wrestled with the Leia reveal and trying to make that work with what had come before. Why did Ben lie to Luke in the first film? Lucas was adamant he didn't lie and you can see the birth of “true from a certain point of view” in these transcripts.
One other note about these script meetings is that Jabba's death was directly influenced by Luca Brasi's death in The Godfather. I love that so much!
July 18th, 1997 - Terrence Stamp rumored to play young Tarkin in Star Wars Episode 1 by people who can't do math.
Yep, if you think rampant rumors are bad now time has eroded your memory of the early wild, wild west days of the internet. I'm not sure if we ever ran this rumor on AICN and the search function on the site makes it a bit of a bitch to figure that out, but I do know this is the day the rumor was reported that Terence Stamp was going to play a Young Tarkin in Episode One.
The rumor shouldn't have gained much, if any, traction simply because when Anakin was a young man Tarkin wouldn't still be an old man, but it was out there and widely reported. God, I love looking back at bullshit rumors. Speaking of...
July 13th, 2000 - Rumor of Christopher Walken being the bad guy, Darth Bane, in Star Wars Episode 2.
Yep, we reported this one and Moriarty was 100% sure it was true.
I'm not super fluent in the Extended Universe stuff, so I don't know a damn thing about the character, but I do remember this being the hot shit rumor of this time period. And it would have made sense, too, since Walken was one of the finalists to play Han Solo. Know who the other, non-Harrison Ford, finalist was? Glynn Turman. He was hot off of Cooley High and Lucas loved the sense of cool he brought to the role. He also loved the idea of having a black co-lead in the movie, but ultimately went with some carpenter dude that was hanging around the audition room.
July 15th, 2003 - Knights of the Old Republic Released on Xbox.
Man, oh man, was my little brother obsessed with this game. While I wasn't playing Halo, he took over the Xbox to play KOTOR. It was one of the only games I'd watch him play and be into it. I just hadn't gotten into RPGs at this point in my life, but it was a lot of fun watching him build his character and going around the familiar Star Wars locations tearing shit up... because he always played evil, something else that I can never bring myself to do now that I'm totally hooked on the new generation of RPGs (thanks, Fallout).
This game is huge for gamers and Star Wars fans alike, so happy birthday KOTOR!
I'm traveling next week, but I am hopeful I can still post this column on time. If I fail, know it's because I'm farting around in London or Abu Dhabi and just couldn't make it work.
If I don't fail, next week brings us early peeks into the making of The Phantom Menace, more McQuarrie art and the anniversary of the first Star Wars re-release, which just so happens to also mark the first appearance of one Drew Struzan into the Star Wars universe.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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