Johnston storyboards of the snow battle (no. 119), January 1978.
“We did talk to a few directors,” Lucas says. “But they weren’t name directors and they weren’t people that I knew. We were just checking out who was out there, who was available, who could do something like this.”
“The problem you encounter when doing a follow-up to a very successful picture is that there are directors who shy away from the project for fear of being overshadowed by the reputation of the first film,” Kurtz says. “The perceived wisdom is that if a sequel works, the original director gets the credit; if it doesn’t work, you get the blame. So it isn’t a very popular thing. We also hoped to find someone who not only had the right attitude toward fantasy, but who would also develop the characters without losing sight of the inherent humor or slowing down the action of what essentially is an adventure story. Some of the younger directors working in Hollywood today are very good and very clever, but they also tend to be a little cynical about their material. The worst thing that could have happened would have been to engage a director who didn’t believe in the material.”
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Lucas on the evolution of his role from writer-director to writer-producer on the second Star Wars film. (Interview by Arnold, 1979)
(2:14)
So Lucas tacked toward a director with more experience, someone with enough maturity to understand the different levels on which the first film had operated. That someone was Irvin Kershner, or “Kersh.”
“I’ve known George from USC for many years,” Kershner says of his alma mater, which Lucas had also attended. “I went back for some seminars; I also taught a course there in the 1960s. I’d come in to judge the student films and discuss them with the classes. That’s where I made contact with George. I had always noticed his work there; his film projects were really extraordinary. He did a little film for Carl Foreman [6.18.67] that was incredibly beautiful. He seemed to have a different way of seeing film. Then I saw THX 1138 [1971] and I loved what he attempted to do; it was something fresh. Later American Graffiti just knocked me out. Here was somebody really working with his own psyche, with his own life, not going out for phony material.”
“I knew Kershner, Gary knew Kershner,” says Lucas. “He’d just finished this TV movie, Raid on Entebbe [1977]—it was really good and it was done in a very short time frame. He was a friend of Haskell Wexler’s [a cinematographer and friend of Lucas’s]. He went to USC, which is a whole backstory—and I just admired his work.”
Kershner was in fact one of the judges at the 1968 National Student Film Festival in which Lucas’s student film THX 1138.4EB won top prize, in a sense launching his career; Kurtz had also known the director for some time. “I did work with him when I was a student at USC,” Kurtz says. “He directed a film on venereal disease for the US Public Health Service, a 30-minute dramatic film about the effects of the VD epidemic on high school kids. It was cast with real actors; it was a fairly professional film, in 35mm, and I shot some second-unit footage.”
“I was surviving the completion of Eyes of Laura Mars [1978] when I got a call from Gary Kurtz saying that he would like to have a drink with me,” says Kershner. “That was quite surprising because Gary doesn’t drink. But I figured, There’s something up. We sat in a bar; he had a Perrier and I had a stiff beer … He said, ‘Would you like to do a science-fiction picture,’ being very cagey. And I said, ‘Yes, I might, because it fits into the area of fantasy that I want to work in.’ I told Gary that, in fact, I was writing a musical fairy tale for children. He said, ‘A musical fairy tale? We’ve got to talk about that sometime.’ I said, ‘Now. Let’s talk about it now.’ He said, ‘No, no. Sometime.’ That’s a producer ploy, you see. He said, ‘But you are interested in a science-fiction picture?’ I assured him of my interest, but explained that I was also working on other pictures. He said, ‘Okay, you’ll hear from me.’
“I got a call from Gary Kurtz,” Kershner continues. “We met in the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset Strip and sat and talked. He said, ‘Would you be interested in doing the next Star Wars?’ I said, ‘Jeez, would I? Um, is it going to take a lot of time?’ He said, ‘Yeah, it’ll take a lot of time.’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’ ”
“Kersh isn’t cynical,” says Kurtz. “That attitude shows through on the screen and was a principal reason why we thought Kersh was right. Also, in almost all of his pictures, Kersh has concentrated on his characters. His work shows humor and a fine sense of timing that is devoted to developing human relationships. He had also done some good action pictures: The Return of a Man Called Horse [1976] and The Flim-Flam Man [1967].”
“I called Gary back the next day and said that yes, I would be interested,” Kershner recalls. Shortly thereafter, Lucas telephoned Kershner. “George Lucas had just arrived from San Francisco and wanted to know if we could have lunch at Universal. That was unusual, since George doesn’t normally have lunch at Universal. In the commissary, everybody’s neck was craning to see what was up. He asked me if I would like to do the next Star Wars. He said it was the middle act of a trilogy and a very difficult film to make. He said it was very important to him, because, if this one worked, he could foresee a whole series that would go on for years. All I could think was, You want me to make a sequel to the most successful film ever made, George? That’s a hard act to follow!”
“Kersh asked me why I didn’t direct Empire myself,” Lucas says. “ ‘You’ll see …,’ I said. These films are infinitely harder than other kinds of movies. You end up feeling like a harassed corporate executive. I had no life other than making the movie. I had to take time out to be a normal person.”
“We talked about old times,” Kershner adds. “George said that it was so difficult to do the first one that I would be crazy to do the second one. He said, ‘Boy, I couldn’t get up in the mornings after a while; six months of shooting is very, very hard. Everything goes wrong.’ So he said, ‘I want somebody who under tremendous pressure will not cave in. Somebody who has a vast experience in films and likes to deal with people and characters.’ I felt very flattered. He knew how to get to me. The rat. I told George that the only way I’d do the film is if I felt I could top the first one. He laughed and said that’s why he wanted me to do it. He said, ‘It’s not a sequel. This is a continuing saga.’ ”
“We talked with Kershner,” Lucas says. “I had respect for Kershner and I think he had respect for me. I thought we could work well together; at the time, I thought Gary could work with him, too.”
“I said, ‘Yeah, I want to do it—let’s make a deal!’ ” Kershner says. “We were both very pleased and we shook hands. The more I thought about it, the more I got excited, because I love the technical aspects of film, I love the visual possibilities, I love the fact that it’s really for children, or as George says very aptly, ‘for the child in all of us adults.’ ”
“Pod car” and “shuttle” concepts by McQuarrie (no. 64), December 1977.
“Pod car” and “shuttle” concepts by McQuarrie (no. 67), December 1977.
“Pod car” and “shuttle” concepts by McQuarrie (no. 68), December 1977.
Pod car concepts by McQuarrie (no. 99).
Pod car concepts by McQuarrie (no. 59).
Color sketch by McQuarrie of a floating metropolis.
“City in Clouds” by McQuarrie.
Color study for “City in Clouds”
Initially an Imperial prison in an early Star Wars script, the floating metropolis returned in Empire now titled “City in Clouds” by McQuarrie, January 16–18, 1978 (nine-plus hours).
“You may note it bears a bit of resemblance to the mothership in Close Encounters, which I also created,” says the artist. “I’ve painted this scene a number of times already, originally for the first film. I wanted something more mechanical and I came up with something like the side of an aircraft carrier … I put a kind of city on the top of it that looked like it had ancient monuments.”
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Undated color study of a cityscape by McQuarrie, (possibly for Lucas’s City Planet, ton-muund, or Cloud City).
Cloud City and pod car concept by Johnston, March 1978.
Pod car concept by Johnston, March 1978.
Cloud City concept by Johnston, March 1978.
Cloud City concepts by McQuarrie.
THE NEGOTIATION
At 54 years old, Kershner had the experience Lucas wanted and more. He was musical, playing several instruments, and had studied painting under Hans Hoffman. He served in B-24 bombers during World War II while stationed in England for two and a half years. “I turned to photography,” he says of his life afterward. “I believe that temperament determines everything. Rhythm is an extension of temperament.”
At USC, Kershner studied anthropology and history—and discovered movies, almost anticipating the academic path of Lucas many years later. “I did some work in documentaries,” he says. “I worked in the Middle East for the World Health Organization. Then I returned to the States to direct one of the first TV documentary series—Confidential File [1953]—I wrote, directed, and shot the programs, which was great training and led to my first feature, a picture about drug addiction [Stakeout on Dope Street, 1958]. I followed this with a movie about capital punishment and prisons [The Hoodlum Priest, 1961]. I was on a highly social kick and I felt that films were a very important part of, let’s say, benevolent propaganda.”
Like Lucas, Kershner loved the work of Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa and that of the French director Jean Renoir. They also shared a deep interest in philosophy and religion.
“I’ve been a student of Christianity for many, many years, of Christian philosophy,” Kershner says. “I’ve been interested in the historical basis of Christianity and the Muslim religion. I’ve been studying Buddhism for many years and I’m quite fond of its notions of Zen. I don’t think of myself as a Jew except by birth and by acceptance of the fact that I am a Jew. I’m more a Jew because other people consider me a Jew than myself, and out of respect to my parents, because I don’t follow the holidays.”
“Quite a number of churches have used Star Wars as a way of getting young people into the church,” Lucas says. “They use it as an example of certain religious ideas, which I think is good. It gives young people something entertaining to relate to and at the same time it can be used as a tool to explain certain religious concepts, more general good and evil concepts.”
Negotiations between Lucasfilm and Kershner began, and Tom Pollock made an official offer on February 13. The two camps discussed the “film by” credit. Kershner wanted the words An Irvin Kershner Film, at the front of the movie, but Pollock indicated in a letter that only the same opening credits as on Star Wars would be featured—just the company logos—but that they could place the desired wording in the end credits.
“Maybe the first consideration was, they were going to pay me,” Kershner says. “I said that under certain conditions, I’d make the film. First of all, if I felt that I could make a film that was better than the first one, that meant having freedom. And sufficient money. George assured me that money was not a problem—within limits, of course. He further assured me it would be my film completely. He also knew that I was disciplined and therefore would plan it well and respect the budget.”
While Kurtz did more preproduction work in London that month, Pollock sent a deal memo to Kershner on February 15. Letters were exchanged between lawyers later that month—but a “firm commitment” had been made. “I only saw Star Wars twice,” Kershner says. “I was fortunate in seeing the picture at one of its first showings at the Academy in Los Angeles, with my 10-year-old son, before it opened, and I ran it once on a Movieola. Then I never wanted to see it again because I didn’t want it to enclose me too much. But I retained the image.
“I saw the picture partly through my son’s eyes,” the director continues. “Watching his reactions and talking to him about it later, it quickly became obvious that a very satisfying thing about the film was knowing who was good and who was bad. The morality within the film had clear definition and since the good tended to triumph, that was highly satisfying—at least to my kid. But the film appeals to the subconscious in all of us. People are interested in Zen, in the power that is in everyone. That’s a step toward assuming responsibility for oneself, which is what the heroes in Star Wars seem to be doing.”
Rough sketch of tauntaun and rider, by McQuarrie, late 1977. Inspiration for early tauntaun concepts came in part from “Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops” by Charles Knight (for the Field Museum, 1927).
Early taun concept by McQuarrie (no. 44), December 1977.
Early taun concept by McQuarrie (no. 161), January 1978.
Early taun concept by McQuarrie (no. 43).
Early taun concept by McQuarrie (no. 100), January 1978; a note reads, “winterized lizard—seems more like a rodent now.”
Early taun concept by McQuarrie (no. 146).
MISFIRE
Ned Brown of Associated Agency personally delivered Leigh Brackett’s first draft to Andrew Rigrod on February 21, 1978. In Rigrod’s memo to Lucas and Kurtz, he suggested that Bunny Alsup retype the script to give it a more professional appearance (Brackett’s submission had a lot of sections crossed out and inserted text written by hand). On delivery, Brackett was due $16,666 (minus taxes, $12,770), and a check was sent to Brown at his Beverly Hills office.
In Variety’s February 24 issue, Charles Schreger reported that Fox would “definitely” be getting the Star Wars sequel, that Irvin Kershner would direct, and that all three principals would be returning, but “it is not expected that the Alec Guinness character […] will reappear in the sequel.” Schreger ends his article by noting that the second of 12 films will take place on location in Europe and Africa, and that, as of February 22, Star Wars had worldwide grosses of $208,934,715.
On February 25 at 3 PM, Lucas, Kershner, and McQuarrie met at the Beverly Hills Hotel to go over the film’s concept art; the executive producer and director also discussed the script. Both of them were concerned. Brackett’s draft did not have the right feeling for a Star Wars movie. That same month, Lucas had signed up another writer, Lawrence Kasdan, to transform his Raiders of the Lost Ark treatment into a script for Steven Spielberg to direct.
“Leigh had written something that was of a different era,” Kasdan says. “She hadn’t quite gotten what it is about George, all the ways in which Star Wars revolutionized these kinds of movies; I don’t think Leigh was quite up to speed with that. I think she just was in an entirely different mode—and it may be a perfectly valid one, but not in the George mode. And he wanted something that would fall in line with Star Wars, that had that same sound and yet deepened the story.”
“There were many things that didn’t quite work when I first saw the script,” Kershner says. “The ending didn’t work. There were sequences in the snow that really didn’t work.”
“The truth of it is, I got captivated by the thing; it’s in me now,” Lucas says. “And I can’t help but get upset or excited when something isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. I can see that world. I know the way the characters live and breathe. In a way, they have taken over. It’s the hardest thing in writing to be able to develop individual characters that aren’t a reflection of the mind that created them. My thoughts during the story conference weren’t fully formed, and I felt her script went off in a completely different direction.”
Although Brackett’s script was faithful to Lucas’s treatment in almost all superficial respects, the dialogue and actions of the personnel seemed to belong in another movie, particularly those of Darth Vader (see the sidebar on this page). Lucas started by making detailed edits on the first 40 pages of the first draft, having Solo say, “There isn’t enough life on this ice cube to fill a small space cruiser.” He also transforms the “ice castle” of the Rebels into “ice caves.” He names a character “Baron Rabatt” and writes new words for Solo: “I wish you’d
never found out about him.” “He’s your father,” Leia replies. “Not really … he never adopted me.”
Lucas notes that Luke is “hanging upside down” in the “snowman cave” and that, during the Battle of Hoth, a “force field protects base from above attack.” When Luke meets Minch, another edit reads, “Intro more Buddhalike. ‘So you’ve come at last.’ ” However, about halfway into the script that was so far from what he’d wanted, his detailed comments are often replaced by a simple “No” scrawled next to whole scenes.
“George called up to talk to her about it, but she was in the hospital,” Kasdan says.
Preparatory drawing for “Rodent mount.”
Preparatory drawing for “Rodent mount.”
Preparatory drawing for “Rodent mount.”
Preparatory drawing for “Rodent mount.”
“Rodent mount” (8-plus hours), by McQuarrie, February 9–10, 13–14, 1978.
Preparatory sketches for “Rodent Mount” by McQuarrie.
Preparatory sketches for “Rodent Mount” by McQuarrie.
The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Enhanced Edition) Page 9