I've read it and love it. How Star Wars Conquered the Universe by Chris Taylor is another good book in a similar vein, though I think I like Secret History better.
It's one of my favorite star wars books. Would really like a second book with new and updated information.
I was hesitant to read it at first because I didn't want to ruin the mystery of Star Wars, but it's been really fun learning how the galaxy far, far away came to be.
Secret History of Star Wars is interesting but it probably shouldn't be taken real seriously as a definitive account of the creation and history of the franchise (read How Star Wars Conquered the Universe for that). Secret History of Star Wars pretty much just takes various quotes said by Lucas over the years and then the author places in his own personal opinion about the meaning behind them. I noticed a few times where the author would take quotes out of context just to try to further expand on the message that he himself was trying to pass along.
Taylor is no more definitive than Kaminski. Taylor speaks to different people and has a somewhat broader focus on Lucas himself, but he gives his own interpretation as much as Kaminski. Which isn't bad. But there's absolutely no reason to assume that Taylor is any more definitive than Kaminski, especially given Taylor goes against official accounts as much as Kaminski does. I know right after the Disney buyout, Kaminski posted on his website that he was planning on doing a second book on the making of the sequels. But of course since then the site died and even the Facebook page has been inactive for almost two years.
What happened? Has anyone contacted him? I remember reading that he is a fellow member here. Is he still active here?
I'm at the point in the book right before ESB is released. I do find Kaminski is overly critical of Lucas changing his version of how Star Wars came to be. It's one thing to point it out, but he's almost accusing Lucas of perjury. There's also a section detailing how Star Wars success was due in large part to the timing of the release. I think he has overemphasized this point.
I find it interesting that after Star Wars has success, Lucas dreamed of producing a series of Star Wars films similar to the James Bond series where each film would have a different director. However during the production of ESB he realized he needed to have more direct control over each film, which in turn cause an undue amount of stress, which in turn made this dream impossible. However, that's exactly the direction Disney is now pursuing!
Such is the life of control feaks. If there is any other constant that we have seen out of Lucas over the years other than him constantly changing his mind over things is that having control is very very important to him.
I read and very much enjoyed the book, it has a lot of interesting observations about what went on or what might have been going on behind the scenes. It's a very interesting irony that GL's original intentions has finally been reached, in a roundabout kind of way. In another sense, the idea of round-robin story telling inspired by the movies did still happen, in different media; comics, novels and video games: the expanded universe that then became legends. Now it's started again. Well, perjury is applied to lying in a court setting, GL is not on trial. From what I recall of reading Secret History, the author was trying to sift through the various things GL said, and discern what was actually true and what really happened. In the course of the text, GL quotes are recounted, and there's a fair few contradictory statements. Stated another way: at one point GL said one thing, and at another time said something else entirely. Some people are way too hung up on calling people liars, or too hung up on calling out people who they think are going around calling others liars. However, I've also across quotes that expound the virtues of storytelling as a noble art that indulges in nothing but lying. And GL is a storyteller. Anyway, Secret History is a great book that I really enjoyed reading.
Finished the book last night. My biggest take away was how Lucas altered his approach to making the prequel trilogy (as compared to the OT), and it really hurt those films: -He did not get anyone to have story conferences with him before developing the scripts (as he did with all the original films, which improved the stories and characters). -He did not get anyone to help with script writing - accept very last minute on AOTC (which he did on the OT and knowing that he tends to focus on story and action as opposed to characterization and dialogue). -He elected to direct them himself because producing ESB and ROTJ was too stressful, even though the collaborative effort clearly produced good results. -He surrounded himself with "yes men" who never challenged his story or ideas. -He seemed to be flying by the seat of his pants for much of the production, from not having the full trilogy arc mapped out when pre-production was started on TPM (beyond the broad stokes), to not having the script completed when ROTS shooting started. This collectively caused a lack of focus in the films, a lot of miscellaneous content to be added to TPM and AOTC, and perhaps most critically, a fuzzy Anakin fall to the dark side motivation because George changed the motivation in post-production and re-shot some scenes but couldn't change other scenes, resulting in a slightly confusing mis-mash. So even though ROTS is a decent movie, it could have been more focused, straightforward, and frankly better. To make this even more frustrating, George had 10 years to plan all of this out. I'd like to state that it was his right to do all this, it's his galaxy, or at least was at the time. But it does confirm my long held belief that the concept of the prequel trilogy is not bad, but the execution was flawed. I know many people enjoy the prequels, but from my perspective they were a disappointment. The potential was there, but they never came close to reaching it, and now I know why.
Sorry for the double post I don't understand how ESB can be the most stressful if it was the one "according to what I've heard from sources" he was the least involved in. You'd think the more involved one would be in the mores stressful it would be.
I think that's exactly why it was the most stressful for him, he was the "least" involved and so had the least control over what he at times describes as his children. Lucas wanted to bang out the sequel to make some bucks on time and on budget while Irvin Kershner and Gary Kurtz were morphing the movie into the slower, more character driven film it turned out to be, and in doing so went over budget and took 6 weeks of extra shooting to do it. This is what gave Lucas ulcers, as he had reinvested everything that had made from Star Wars to make Empire. Lucas knew the movie would make money after the success of Star Wars, and he didn't think the "quality" of the film would have a huge impact on the revenue, and at this point he still had his sights set on the creation of Skywalker Ranch and his independent filmmakers paradise. As a side note. I enjoyed the book, but it is quite long. It didn't "ruin" any mystery behind Star Wars for me and it was very interesting reading how everything unfolded and I have a better understanding of why some things turned out the way they did. But I'm very much looking forward to getting back into some fiction.
Ah...Gotcha, ironic, the movie everyone considers as the Pinnacle of Star Wars movie making....Is the one that gave Lucas the biggest headache because he was the least involved. Fascinating. I might have to get this book myself. Wonder if it mentioned any of the Novel/Comics/Or Games that came out in the 90's and early 2000's or did it just focus on the movie side of things. Which is fine I mean that's kinda the point of the books.
The book also mentions that when ESB was released it wasn't the critically acclaimed, best of series movie it is generally regarded as today - it wasn't universally heralded at the time. The book touches on the revitalization that Star Wars received in the early 90s due to the sales of novels and comics. There's a few mentions of EU material (how concepts compare to script ideas and how much involvement Lucas might have had) but the book is 99% focuses on the movies and how they evolved.
I see. Thanks It's always amazing seeing how some of Lucas's old ideas and concepts live on to this very day. Be it things we see in Rogue One, to the idea of making Star Wars Spin-Off films. The fact George did have some ideas for a Episode 7-9 going back to the 80's.
I read this book over Christmas and really loved it. I do think it dragged in spots, could have used better editing, and was needlessly repetitious at certain points. Fascinating now to read another thread on hear discussing the book, much of it focuses on the 'GL is a liar' issue and selective quoting on Kaminski's part. My take reading the book was that Kaminski was frustrated with Lucas but certainly didn't hate him. I don't really care how accurate Lucas' statements may or may not have been regarding his sequel and prequel plans. I can understand that plans change, though clearly there has been a lot of confusion about how much material he wrote, in what detail prequel and sequel storylines were established. I've never really liked the prequels, although I wanted to badly. I just couldn't get involved in them emotionally and I wondered how they'd been constructed. Why were they the way they were? I think a lot of it has to do with the nature of Lucas' collaborations. It seems very clear that he had many more collaborators shaping the OT in more significant ways, especially with regard to dialogue and story, than he did with the PT. I've heard various things about single 'magic' collaborators that made the difference between the OT and PT, namely Gary Kurtz and Marcia Lucas, and this book dispells those myths. The author distributes the credit all over the place, where it is truly due. It should not be a matter of vilifying Lucas, nor a matter of exalting him. He has strengths and weaknesses, just as anyone else, and he benefited greatly from the talented input of others, just as all creatives do. I found the book very evenhanded in that regard. To me, the idea that George changed the story continually, adding retcons with each new installment is an extremely plausible scenario. Maybe some day I will read through all the available drafts to confirm, if possible, the idea that Darth Vader was not Luke's father. But it seems almost undeniable that Lucas played very fast and loose with names and characteristics of characters in his stories and from a storytelling perspective and that much was not planned out in advance. That was simply his methodology, for good or ill. So the idea that he had many aspects of the trilogy planned in advance, especially the PT, doesn't hold much weight.
If you wish to read the available original drafts, they're out there online to be found. You'll find they make fascinating reading.
