Clark - Star Wars FAQ: everything left to know about the trilogy that changed the movies: unofficial and unauthorized

Copyright 2015 by Mark Clark

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2015 by Applause Theatre and Cinema Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation
7777 West Bluemound Road
Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

Except where otherwise specified, all images are from the authors personal collection.

The FAQ series was conceived by Robert Rodriguez and developed with Stuart Shea.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Snow Creative Services

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clark, Mark, 1966
Star Wars FAQ : everything left to know about the trilogy that changed the movies / Mark Clark.
pages cm
Unofficial and unauthorized.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4803-6018-1 (pbk.)
1. Star Wars filmsMiscellanea. I. Title.
PN1995.9.S695C57 2015
791.4375dc23
2015016071

www.applausebooks.com

In Memory of Mark A. Miller
Author, educator, musician, friend
You are still loved

Contents

Foreword:
The Merchandising Rights Are Worth Nothing (And Other Mysterious Fables of Our Time)

In a certain dimension, someone at a certain movie studio decided that the merchandising rights to STAR WARS and any subsequent sequels might be worth a few shekels. Consequently, George Lucas was given a modest increase in advance monies in return for those rights.

This is not that dimension.

Pioneered by Walt Disney, the world of movie merchandising was already well established by the time Star Wars appeared. Its safe to say that world would be a very different one had Lucas not retained control over the merchandising rights. So... many... toys. So... many... PEZ dispensers.

But... where do you go if you want to find out a little something about those toys and dispensers and the Chewbacca toothbrushes that all those PEZ dispensers made necessary (a connection, there, of Sith-like insidiousness)? Where can you find reference to everything Star Wars both known and elsewhere unreferenced? Yes, there is much to be sourced from the web. But you cant hold that information in your hands. For all its virtues, the Internet doesnt let you flip easily back and forth between the pictures and prose of Star Wars history.

Well, now you can do that. Theres this here book.

To me, the best reference tomes as well as those that are the most fun are the ones that delve into topics that had never even occurred to me. Researching the history of the domesticated banana, for example, becomes even more interesting (if depressing) when you learn that a single variety (the Cavendish) is all thats available in your friendly nickel-squeezing local supermarket.

While its interesting to learn that one of the primary influences on Star Wars is Akira Kurosawas Hidden Fortress , how nice to have an image from that film accompanying the revelation. Just like with bananas, youre tempted by such marvelous information to delve further. About a thousand varieties of bananas exist (of which we get one). Similarly, young Star Wars fans may not realize that Akira Kurosawa is known for influencing other films besides Star Wars (note the American remake of Seven Samurai aka The Magnificent Seven ). So if properly informed, a reader might go from Star Wars to The Hidden Fortress to Seven Samurai to Yojimbo and so on (or banana-wise, from the Cavendish to the sadly unavailable Ibota Ibota).

What Im saying is that while theres a lot more to Star Wars than Star Wars , tracking down such references can be a bit of a pain in the search engine. Thankfully, in Star Wars FAQ , Mark Clark has done the work for you. Theres so much to explore, and to use as springboards for additional searching.

Where else are you going to quickly find a picture of Han Solo (all right; Harrison Ford) wearing glasses and looking for all the world like a university grad student (or maybe a young Indiana Jones?). Or learn more about the influence of the great comic-book writer and artist Carl Barks (one of my own primary influences) on not only George Lucas but Steven Spielberg?

Theres so much information bound up (pun intended) in Star Wars FAQ that I suggest reading it not in one sitting, but in bits and pieces, much as youd fumble your way through a bowl of M&Ms. Dont go searching for and picking out all the blue ones at once. Let them find you. One of the joys of a book such as this is the pleasure to be gained from jumping around and letting the surprises come to you, instead of the other way around. A map of a theme park is sometimes useful, but hardly necessary. Reading a book like Star Wars FAQ is a bit like strolling the streets of London without a guidebook. You know where Big Ben is, but stumbling across the first public drinking fountain in Britain is apt, in its own more modest way, to be even more enchanting.

Go now and delve. Let the force of Marks research wash over you. I guarantee that the Force will be with you all the way to the last page, and to the last fragment of arcane information that you will use to awe your friends at the next convention, or partyor when your grandchildren ask you about a wonderful place not so long ago, and not so very far away.

Alan Dean Foster
Prescott, Arizona
June, 2014

Alan Dean Foster is the critically acclaimed author of more than a hundred science fiction and fantasy novels and short story collections, including the long-running Humanx Commonwealth and Pip and Flinx series . Star Wars fans know him best as the author of Splinter of the Minds Eye, the first original work of Star Wars fiction. He later penned a second original Star Wars novel , The Approaching Storm. Born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, Foster has an MFA in cinema from UCLA and is also renowned for his masterful novelizations of dozens of screenplays. Foster ghost-wrote the best-selling novelization for the original Star Wars film , and wrote the novelization for the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

I am deeply grateful to everyone who participated in the development of Star Wars FAQ , especially:

My Rogue Squadron of Alpha Readers, whose corrections, questions, and suggestions greatly improved this book: Bryan Senn, The Rev. Julie Fisher, and new recruits Robert James and Perry Olsen.

Steve Vertlieb, the Yoda of film music scholarship, for his assistance with Chapter 23.

David Zuzelo, the Jabba the Hutt of Eurotrash movie collectors, for his assistance with Chapter 13.

Stephen Ashcraft, the Han Solo of science educators, for his assistance with Chapter 28.

Preston Hewis, the Boba Fett of photography, who shot the memorabilia pictured in this book.

Publisher John Cerullo, the Obi-Wan Kenobi of the FAQ Series, who left me with no excuses not to undertake this project.

Marybeth Keating, the Chewbacca of editors (meaning that shes a loyal companion and fierce protector, not that shes big and furry), whose support and friendship have made writing three FAQ books a joy.

The Applause Books art department and promotional staff. Without their excellent work, this book would be stuck in the garbage masher.

A cantina full of friends who supported me in this endeavor, especially Ron and Margaret Borst, The Rev. Kip Colegrove, Phyllis Harbor and Linda Mayer McConnell, Ken Hardin, David Harnack, Joe and Jennifer Hans, Gregory Harris, David Hogan, Lynn Naron, The Rev. Cricket Park, Caren Prideaux, Ted Okuda, Marge Rutherford, and Nick Schlegel.