: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford on location in Finse, Norway
Copyright 2010 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.
D EL R EY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-54336-3
www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
Photo Credits: Richard Blanshard, Terry Chostner, Murray Close, Dougie Dawson, Lynn Goldsmith, Irvin Kershner, Gary Kurtz, Nancy Moran, Roger Ressmeyer, Mark Sennet, David Steen, Howard Stein, Knut Vadreth
And very special thanks to unit photographer George Whitear
v3.1
TO GENEVIVE AND IN MEMORY OF JIM HENSON
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
At Lucasfilm present: The invaluable help of those in Lucasfilms several depositories have once again helped make this book possible. So, in the Lucasfilm Archives, many thanks to Laela French, Joanee Honour, and Anna Bies, who tirelessly scanned hundreds of concept artworks and storyboards; in the Skywalker Ranch Research Library, to Jo Donaldson, Robyn Stanley, and Carol Moen Wing, for once more identifying those Raiders-like boxes filled with production material, and to Cindy Young Russell, for the endless and flawless transcriptions; in the Film Archives, to Sterling Hedgpeth, for unearthing the first cut; and, as usual, much gratitude to the Image Archives, the backbone of the bookto the ever-on-it Tina Mills, Matthew Azeveda, Shahana Alam, and Stacey Leongthe latter of whom kept track of every last image and dug up negatives of long-forgotten filed-away pictures of principal photography at Elstree Studios. Also thanks to, in the Chairmans Office, Jane Bayfor lending us great photographs of life at Park Houseand Anne Merrifield; at Lucas Licensing, for oversight and permissions, to Howard Roffman and Carol Roeder; to Troy Alders, for the cover and his help expertly honing the layout and design; and to Sue Rostoni, Leland Chee, and Nancy Frisch; and a big thanks to the readers in several departments, Frank Parisi (who also edited), Pete Vilmur, and Tony Rowe, for making corrections and suggestions to the very long manuscript; in the legal department, to David Anderman, Chris Holm, and Sarah Garcia; and in the marketing and PR department, to Steve Sansweet and Lynne Hale for a couple of important contacts; at Industrial Light & Magic, to Dennis Muren, whose help, patience, and guidance was one of the highlights of the project; for technical assistance, to John Knoll; at Skywalker Sound, thanks to Howie Hammerman, who has been here from the beginning and remembers very funny parts of that; and to the entire Lucasfilm operation, which continues to provide the framework for everyones efforts. And thanks to Rick McCallum.
At Lucasfilm past: To Don Bies, for rescuing the original interview tapes for The Empire Strikes Backand mentioning that fact in a chance conversation; to Ralph McQuarrie, for his great heart, art, and memories; to Jon Berg, for helping to identify many people in the ILM photos and for his reminiscences; to Ben Burtt, for showing me the old Lucasfilm haunts sprinkled around downtown San Anselmo; to Robert Watts, who was an inspiration throughout; to Tom Smith, for providing the original ILM faxes with the changes to the end of Empire; to Patricia Carr, for identifying many of the old guard of fantastic professionals and craftspeople from Elstree Studios; to Harrison Ellenshaw, who generously provided detailed information concerning his departments magnificent matte paintings; for taking the time to help, to Jim Bloom, Selwyn Eddy III, Carrie Fisher (and assistant Garret Edington), Paul Huston, Lawrence Kasdan, Gary Kurtz, and Irvin Kershner; for key email exchanges, thanks to Patricia Blau, Ken Ralston, and Phil Tippett.
Do-gooders at large: Thanks to Marilou Hamill; for his foreword, many thanks for taking time from a busy schedule to Ridley Scott (and assistant Amal Baggar); and many thanks to Alan Ladd (and assistant Natasha Klibansky); thanks to Arnaud Grunberg; and finally a big thank you to Brandon Alinger for acting as go-between with many of the original English production crew.
At Ballantine: For starting the gig, to Keith Clayton, and for making the whole experience the best ever, to Erich Schoeneweiss; and ongoing thanks to Scott Shannon, Dave Stevenson, Nancy Delia, and David Moensch; and thanks to Chris Reiff and Foltz Design.
And, finally, thanks to George Lucas for putting up with this racket.
CONTENTS
List of Enhancements
Occasionally you will see colored film slugs where a sequence was taken to be used in the final film. Not all film clips contain audio.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
FOREWORD BY RIDLEY SCOTT
I was shooting The Duellists at Paramount, in Los Angeles, when I first heard about Star Wars from some of the art department who had worked on it in London. I saw some copies of Georges sketches, which I thought looked really intriguing and originala mix of retro and future. One day, my producer, David Puttnam, mentioned that Star Wars was playing at the Egyptian Theatre in its first week.
When people ask me if seeing Star Wars had a big effect on me my answer ismost definitely! I hadnt entered the sci-fi world as yet. But Star Wars was so original in its characterizations, visuals, sounds, and spectacle that it radically adjusted my view on what I should do next. I had been planning Tristan and Isolde (based on the classic legend), but I dropped that notion immediately and started to look into the sci-fi world. The connection came that summer through The Duellists when it got attention at Cannes and was spotted by a producer who was involved with a script called Alien the rest followed.
There was even some overlap between Alien and The Empire Strikes Back because Brian Johnson was visual effects supervisor on both films. Brian was certainly a tremendous help in that hed come from the sci-fi world. We didnt have the technology and know-how that George and his team at ILM had, but Star Wars certainly raised my target expectation even with our jerry-built methods of technology.
Of course, many people were anticipating the sequel to Star Wars, and the industry is always interested in inside news. While I was doing postproduction on Alien, I heard that there were budgeting problems on Empirebut that is par for the course on any project that is taking such a different approach to storytelling. Its a constant battle of explaining what you want to do to people who represent budget and organization. I experienced the same conditions on