BTS JW Rinzler's 'Making of Return of the Jedi'

Thank heavens, it's arrived at last.

 

OK, I've started, and amongst the riveting details of contracts, financial negotiations, legal agreements and the purchase of digital printers (God almighty...), I've found a couple of GL quotes on p9 which appear to be from early 1980 which seem to indicate his overall 'Saga' thinking at the time:

So while it's no surprise to learn that he still saw his overall SW Saga at this point as the 'trilogy of trilogies' - three separate, though connected, trilogies - it does also reinforce the notion that the ESB-era Sequel Trilogy of Eps VII-IX had little to do with the characters of the OT (this, of course, changed following the release of ROTJ, when GL began talking about the ST following an aged OT cast).
The 'next trilogy' he refers to in the first quote is almost definitely the PT, but given that he's speaking in such practical filmmaking terms, it has clear implications for the ST as well.

 

It's very unclear to me what the status of the "Trilogy of Trilogies" is even at the beginning of this book. The quotes you pulled were ones I hadn't seen (or maybe just didn't connect to the sequels, myself). The Leia/The Other thing may or may not be more complicated than it appears in the book (it doesn't seem to be commented on very extensively, just pointed out and left there). And the quotes at the end would be pretty confusing if we didn't already have a general Secret History-ish idea of how the plans changed over time. There are a few mentions of the sequels, and also of Lucas's wishes to focus more on his family, and of other people talking about him as if they think the films take a lot out of him and they suggest he wouldn't want to do more at the same level of involvement. But that's just as relevant to the prequels as to the sequels. The sequels just seem like they fade away - there's no moment depicted, as far as I can tell, when Lucas definitively shuts down the ST, or even realizes that by making Leia the Other (or other things), he might effectively be doing this. Though perhaps he never felt like that at the time, anyway. Maybe the Other never had much to do with the ST after all?

If it seems like the ST he was envisioning at this time was very disconnected from the PT and OT, then maybe those notes/outlines/scripts/whatever he gave to Disney to on which to base VII-IX could be older sources from the 1980ish time period.

(Though isn't there a quote where he says that if they all get made, they unfold in a 'very logical fashion' or something like that?)

And does it seem like the type of philosophical/creative stuff is relatively lacking in this book compared to the other two? (I'm thinking of the photos of Lucas's notes, scraps on Bunden Debannen as a Chosen One, saga structure, etc.) I could be wrong, as I've not had a chance to look in very much detail. But if this is the case, does it seem to be because ROTJ just didn't require very much development in that regard, or because the sources weren't available for the book/much of this section was deleted or dropped?

 

Really just skimming so far, but one interesting thing I noticed in the July 1981 story conference pursuant to earlier discussions here about Palpatine is that the idea of him being a "Sith" - a member of a rival and opposite order to the Jedi - seems to emphatically not be present. In fact, it sounds like he was intended as an example of the (also-earlier-discussed) idea that anyone can use the Force if they "take the time to do it".

Also, still amazed that in all of the discussion about the problems with destroying Had Abaddon - the discussion that ultimately led to it being written out entirely in favor of "Son of Death Star" - no one ever raised a moral objection to having the rebels blow up an inhabited planet. It was all just logistical stuff.

 

Me too. Isn't there something in the outlines about a "Rebel Gun" or something? I only got to glance so I could be mixing something up but it sounded like at that stage the Rebels themselves might have some kind of superweapons?

 

I remember something about a "V-Gun" or something like that, but like I said, I'm just skimming.

Currently I'm digesting the revelation that the immensely (if inexplicably) popular Salacious Crumb was originally created for a scene that ultimately wound up being cut - the argument between two of Jabba's flunkies on the sail barge.

 

The 'logical fashion' quote was a 1979 quote that was originally published in Arnold's Once Upon a Galaxy: The Making of the Empire Strikes Back, reprinted in a slightly different way in Rinzler's Making of ESB:

Like I said, I've only just started, but my impression is that the ST had just as much possibility of being made as the PT ever did at the time ROTJ was underway (1980-81), so the 'Star Wars Saga' was still 9 episodes, not 6. The second quote I cited above was mentioned in the context of GL possibly just selling the franchise to Fox - he wanted to get the OT done himself, but who knows what the future might bring.
It wasn't until after ROTJ was done that GL first began to distance himself from the ST, saying how vague and ethereal it was, and as late as 1994 he still refers to the story that "would take at least nine films to tell":

(Just FYI for all, most of these quotes about the various SW Saga visions are available in a Google doc I put together a while ago - I've stickied it in this forum - will probably require an update once I'm through with this book:
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/notes-quotes-on-the-changing-star-wars-saga-1975-2012.50008758/
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4UwMUg-9EVSQjR1V0M1Rk52OVU/edit?pli=1)

As far as whatever story material GL provided to Disney last year is concerned - it's been established somewhat definitively that it's something he put together in 2011/2012, but given a few mentions from various people concerned that the Big Three could be written out of the story if they were unavailable or didn't want to do it, my own opinion is that if it relates to anything he developed back in the OT era, it was the earlier, less connected vision of Episodes VII-IX, rather than the later 'reunion' concept following an aged OT cast, which was mentioned from about 1983 onwards.

Regarding 'the Other' there's a (perhaps) telling quote from Howard Kazanjian, also on p9, which, based on Rinzler's method for denoting archival and contemporary quotes, probably dates from 1981-82:

Key word being 'maybe'.

 

Couple of final points of interest from the story conference:

On the subject of another earlier discussion in here - the slave Leia stuff - I was interested by the way it just suddenly appears during the conference. It sounds like it's being almost made up on the spot, which is a little surprising. In fact, the entire concept of having all of the main characters on Tatooine for Han's rescue - a very important shift away from the revised rough draft and what was really one of the ultimate nails in the coffin for Had Abaddon - just seems to emerge out of nowhere in general.

An intriguing exchange relating to the often-discussed question of how Lucas originally saw the difference between Anakin and Obi-Wan's ages:

And one line I just really liked:

 

Interesting - and a very good reason to ditch the idea, but I can also hear GL's mind saying, "DAMN! Maybe next time." Very early on in the book it's mentioned that he had requested location scouting (around 1980) for unusual locations , including volcanic locations in Hawaii. Ever since he came up with the very concept of The Duel in 1977, the volcano/lava setting seems to have lingered on the fringes of the stories he developed - Vader's castle in the early draft of ESB, the final confrontation in the depths of Had Abbadon in the rough draft of ROTJ.

Sorry, mate, you'll just have to make those Episodes I-III you promised if you're that desperate for the volcano lightsaber duel to happen...

 

I know! I don't have the book yet but I went through the pages Amazon excerpted as an inside look (not easy reading at its resolution) and was wondering (hoping) that someone in the story conferences would finally bring up the ethical implications/dissonance of the good guys blowing up Had Abaddon. I figured maybe the page where someone voices disapproval just wasn't available in the preview. Well, apparently it's never questioned! Kind of baffling they didn't see how problematic this situation was. Glad it never happened at all.

 

A quick note: I've been going through the just-released digital edition of the book, and it's very much worth looking into, if only for several additional pieces of concept art--for instance more of hideous unmasked Vader, and additional glimpses at Lucas's early ROTJ outlines.

I've also been browsing the digital edition of the ANH book, which includes lots of new audio snippets and previously unseen concept art as well. (Haven't started listening to the audio yet, as I need to download it to my iPhone for that--the Kindle PC reader won't do it.)

 

Well, considering a lot of people didn't consider the moral implications of the destroying the second Death Star, vis-a-vis what was in "Clerks", I don't think the idea of killing a bunch of people like that was something worth thinking about.

 

But it's so close to what was done to Alderaan. Just weird.

 

There can conceivably exist no innocents on the Death Star I or II. Destroying an entire planet full of regular citizens to get at a few bad guys is unjustifiable by Star Wars' moral standards alone.

 

The enhanced Making of SW e-book includes concept art by both Ralph McQuarrie and John Mollo for a blonde Leia. (Mollo recalls that Lucas at that point wanted Leia to resemble Jean Harlow.) In fact, there's even a new photo of Carrie Fisher trying on a strawberry blonde wig!

Mollo also consistently draws Luke with blond hair--sometimes short like Flash Gordon's, and sometimes longer like Mark Hamill's. Which helps explain why Hamill got the part.

(Frankly, Hamill had the WASPy, blond, Flash Gordon look that Lucas wanted for his hero. On the other hand, Will Seltzer, who was the front-runner for the Luke role until Hamill auditioned late in the casting process, had curly brown hair and was ethnically Jewish. The fourth-draft script of ANH, written during the time of early casting sessions, describes Luke as having Seltzer's "curly hair," but the revised fourth-draft script changes it to Hamill's "shaggy hair." In the third draft Luke had "short hair.")

 

I guess I was thinking that the difference between a Trilogy of Trilogies ST vs. an OT reunion one would be related to a slashing of the former's potential during the making of ROTJ (possibly because of Lucas's family stresses, which are mentioned in a similar context). But instead, whatever those films were seems to be barely commented on and perhaps barely thought about (?), and just floats away between 1980 and the 90s. I know there's the quote about "taking three trilogies to tell," but that's also after he'd talked about an OT reunion concept. Perhaps the content of the ST is something he went back and forth with, too. It almost has to be. Though, was the 'ethereality' really distancing? It's been a long time since I looked at the quotes, but Lucas seems always to have said they were 'ethereal,' right? (Isn't part of that quote from 1979?) He presented them as part of the overall story, but so much of the PT was set up in the background notes and conversations during the OT that the ST almost certainly had to have been less developed than the PT at that time. No?

If the original ST concept was barely related to the OT or PT to begin with - was less intertwined with either of them than they are with each other, I mean - then what Disney is using could be older. Do you recall where the information on it being more recent came from?

It could be that it's just been awhile since I went over the history, or perhaps that I was misunderstanding what would be in the different ST/Saga ideas (Other as main character, etc?), but I don't really have a good mental model for how this worked at the moment.

Interesting. I wonder how this relates to the Three Outlines. Those must be from 1980, right (even though they're undated)? As in my post a few days ago, maybe the Leia thing was something that went back and forth, even though it's written in as if it's been 'finalized.' The only reason Leia-as-sister is relevant to the story of ROTJ and the OT is that it's used to motivate Luke, and that function is one that was added late, I think. So it might be something that initially just occurred to Lucas - and he wrote it in - as a way to get rid of the Other, and to see what it did to the narrative. I wonder how attached he was to this idea when that first happened. Even later, in the story conferences, I don't think they speak of Leia, they just say "the Other" or "Luke's sister."

They did say that the part of the original The Star Wars Lucas was going to re-use (essentially) for ROTJ was only like the last twenty pages, so they seem to have just thrown a bunch of other stuff in there. Hence Jabba.

I did find it interesting that Rinzler described the rough draft (I think?) as much more in line with the direction established by ESB.

Anything surprising and/or related to the Other/ST?

 

Also got the e-book version of this and there are some great deleted and extended scenes including more Madine stuff, into the Death Star and longer goodbyes in the Home One Hangar.

 

Not really. To be more precise, the eBook gives a look at what Rinzler calls probably Lucas's very first outline for ROTJ. It's 3 pieces of paper with an outline of the film scene-by-scene. The descriptions for pretty much all of the climax of the film were left blank; it jumps straight from the beginning of the space battle to the final celebration scene--already conceived as a bonfire in the treetop village. No mention at all of any resolution of "the Other," or of Leia being Luke's sister for that matter.

To shift gears a bit: One really cool video in the ANH eBook shows the original version of the title card. Originally the STAR WARS logo (in a different design) didn't recede straight backward. Instead it started out in normal orientation, then folded over backwards into the plane of the opening crawl, and then receded, followed immediately by the crawl text.

Also, when I said this earlier:

I wasn't quite accurate--on closer inspection, Ralph McQuarrie did indeed consistently draw Leia as a blonde, but John Mollo seems to have given her light brown hair.

And on the subject of McQuarrie's art, Rinzler has unearthed a previously unknown rough painting by McQuarrie, of a scene that occurs in the rough draft and the second-draft script of ANH. It shows Annikin/Luke Starkiller stuck high in the treetops of Yavin, having just crashed an escape pod, and about to deal with a monstrous spiderish creature perched on his chest, looking for a meal.

 

By chance is it the design used for the old SW Insider magazine?

 

No, it's got the two words on one level. It's the same title card used in the photos of the original crawl that was rejected (because rewritten).

You can see a picture here.

 

Pretty snazzy (I think that might have been on one of the posters).

 

Interestingly, the crawl design in the eBook video is not the same as that in the photo I linked. The video version has shorter and wider letters (which makes for less easy reading at that angle) and the words are arranged differently (although the text itself appears to be the same). For instance, the video crawl has the word "alliance" awkwardly hyphenated between two lines, and the crawl in the photo does not.

This suggests that the photograph shows an intermediate version of the crawl, when it had been reworked to read better on screen, but not yet thoroughly rewritten, as it would later be (with Brian de Palma helping Lucas out), so as to better explain the plot to a mass audience.

 

What does the original pre-de Palma version say? It's supposed to be longer and less clear, but... is it?

Or is this something that's been around for awhile and I just never took notice?

 

The text in the early crawls is from the revised fourth draft (i.e. the shooting script):

Compare the final crawl:

The final crawl explains that the Empire's "sinister new battle station" is in fact named the Death Star, that its schematics have been stolen by the Rebel Alliance, and that the rebel Princess Leia is charged with delivering them to their final destination. None of which is told in the original text, which merely explains that there is a Galactic Civil War going on and that the Empire has built an extremely powerful superweapon.

 

Alternate idea: I just went back through some of the older quotes, and in Brackett's script the name and any specifics of Luke's sister are crossed out (by Lucas, it seems), though the concept seems to be accepted. In addition, the notion of Vader getting information about this sister from Luke's thoughts is actually there right from the start. What if Leia-as-sister was there before Vader-as-Anakin? Just a weird thought. It doesn't make a ton of sense, given Obi-Wan's reaction, etc, but it just jumped out at me.