The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Enhanced Edition)

by Rinzler, J. W.

  On Stage 2, Vader poses with stormtroopers and an Imperial guard, July 6, 1979. They are between takes for the scene in which Vader says, following his battle with Luke: (to himself) “Ben cannot help you now, young Jedi! (to the stormtroopers) Bring my ship in!” In postproduction, this line would be changed to a command for his shuttle.

  Kershner, Williams, and Mayhew (without mask) on set with stormtrooper extras.

  EVACUATION

  NOS. 55–59, TUESDAY, MAY 22–TUESDAY, MAY 29: STAR WARS STAGE—INT. MAIN HANGAR DECK, 60 [LEIA’S SPEECH], 13 [HAN DISMOUNTS FROM TAUNTAUN], 61 [HAN AND CHEWIE FIX FALCON], 34 [DROIDS BY HANGAR DOORS], 35 [LEIA WORRIES ABOUT LUKE]

  After first unit finished the prison scenes on Monday, Kershner finally made it to the Star Wars Stage and its enormous main hangar set the following day. There, approximately 67 Rebel men and 10 Rebel women extras were needed at a cost of £2,047.50 per day and three dining buses—plus a whole lot more fake snow.

  “The day-players that spoke in the various scenes, a lot of them were picked in advance,” Kurtz says. “Irene Lamb, our casting director, helped find most of those. But in the main hangar, when we had about 130 extras, Kersh was always complaining that it didn’t appear to be enough people. It’s very easy to have people disappear into a large set very quickly.”

  The mounds of dendritic salt gave headaches to many of the cast and crew, including John Morton. “Dendritic salt is the basis of it,” Reynolds says, “with magnesium sulfate sprinkled on top to give the sparkle and glisten. I dread to think how many tons we’ve used in here, but it’s quite considerable.”

  “I should say we used something approaching 50 tons of salt,” Bruton says.

  Because production was so far behind, plans to celebrate the stage’s opening—a press reception attended by Prince Charles, and so on—were dropped. One visitor did show up, however: 18-year-old Matthew Pak from Chester, Virginia, who had won a Star Wars Fan Club drawing competition. Another visitor was Charles Champlin from the Los Angeles Times, who wrote that the new structure was second in size only to the James Bond Stage at Shepperton: “Amid the busy jumble, crowning a slight rise of land like a dark castle, stands a huge and brand-new sound stage.”

  Among the first scenes shot in it was one where C-3PO urges R2-D2 to come inside as night falls and the temperature on Hoth drops dangerously. “There were two big airplane propellers blowing wind and snow about, making an enormous noise,” Daniels says. “So there I was, battling against what I considered to be a hurricane, doing hurricane acting—arms up in the air, flailing about in the snow. Finally, they stopped the whole operation and Kersh explained that when I saw the film, I’d hear a kind of breeze in this scene. It was rather more gentle than I was playing it, so could I be a bit more subtle?”

  Another scene that first day had Princess Leia debriefing a large group of Rebel pilots. “In this one where I say, ‘The ion cannon’—well, they changed it just a little bit to ruin the rest of my week,” says Fisher. “And I was frightened, because there were about 200 extras all standing around me who I had no relationship with, and you can’t say, ‘Could I go off and get into character and have a private moment now?’ That scene with the long speech was the toughest, because that set probably cost millions of dollars and they had to get off that set, clear it, and make the bog planet. There is a lot of pressure and it’s all on you: If you don’t get those lines right—and there had to be one master shot where I did the whole speech without any cutaway point.”

  “Carrie was very distraught about two scenes she had to do in there,” says Kurtz. “One was the night scene where they’re waiting for word about Han and Luke, where she was supposed to be upset and almost crying. The other scene was one where she has to talk to the troops. In both cases, she was very nervous about working in there and I ended up spending a lot of time talking to her about it. Like Mark, she doesn’t like to complain on the set. She feels that it makes her look petty in front of the crew. In this particular case, I didn’t find out until a week later that she was unable to concentrate in there. As a matter of fact, they took her out twice during that instruction scene, because she couldn’t get the lines exactly right. She had learned them, but the noise in that set bothered her greatly—the crew and the echoing of all the noise of the equipment made it like an industrial factory.”

  “I finally finish the speech and say, ‘Understood?’ and they say, ‘Yes,’ ” Fisher says. “And I say, ‘Good luck.’ It looks so tense!”

  “Every time we had to cut and do something over because of her not getting her lines right, she felt that she was causing delays and it just built up inside her and made it worse the next time,” Kurtz says. “Eventually, she struggled through, but it was very hard for her.”

  “They kept building while I was shooting,” Kershner says. “They’d build during the night and I’d shoot during the day, but I had to shoot completely out of continuity and from certain limited angles. And you work on a little gadget; it moves along and everything is working beautifully. Then you come on set the next day and put it on the floor, and you realize that the floor is covered with thick salt and it doesn’t work.”

  “The ice hangar was something again,” Reynolds says. “One can never say exactly where every shot will take place, and I think it would be unfair and unrealistic to pin down a director. So one’s always fighting with how far to go with the finish and all the details of every part of the set. But there comes a time when you have to make up your mind and say, ‘That’s as far as we can go.’ I did try to take the set up to a certain standard and hopefully it’s come off.”

  “My job is to make it look as real and believable, but also as dramatic and interesting as possible,” says Suschitzky. “Lack of color can sometimes be beautiful and interesting in itself and doesn’t really present a problem. I have been adding points of interest, lights in shot, colors here and there, but I actually like the restricted tones. Colors come from faces and the costumes, so there’s never a lack of color.”

  The hangar set had one advantage over smaller sets in that both first and second units could work in there simultaneously. “We are getting atmospheric shots like newsreel material, which will be cut into the main action,” says John Barry. “It’s such an exciting set to work on.”

  “John Barry just wanted to direct, period, so he was really in his element,” Hamill says. “He was directing shots on that big stage with lots of extras, lots of action, and I just couldn’t wait to dig in. I went up to him and joked about the fact that I’d been finishing up a lot of the stuff with second unit. I was just real anxious to start working with him.”

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  Kershner directs extra John Ratzenberger and then Carrie Fisher (Leia) as they prepare to shoot a scene on the Hoth hangar set in which she debriefs rebel pilots, late May 1979. The organized chaos of filmmaking is apparent here.

  (1:47)

  Prowse, who was often in the dark as to the context of his scene, and Ford receive direction (in the foreground is second AD Roy Button—who would become a top Warner Bros. production executive for the UK), and then film the torture scene.

  Torture scene.

  On Stage 8, Kershner shows Mayhew how to hold the head of C-3PO in the manner of Hamlet with the skull of Yorick.

  “Ralph McQuarrie, Joe Johnston, and I worked on the designs and the paintings of the sets and then turned them over to Kersh, Gary, and Norman Reynolds,” says Lucas. “When I was over here, I monitored the sets and put in my two cents’ worth, but the designers went off on their own interpretations. The designs are fairly close to my conception, but there are differences, some of which are improvements and some of which I’m not that crazy about.”

  Filming in the Cloud City prison are DP Peter Suschitzky (Kelvin Pike is behind the camera; property supervisor Charles Torbett is behind Pike), as
sistant cameraman Maurice Arnold (standing), Mayhew (Chewbacca), and Anthony Daniels (to operate C-3PO, sitting). .

  Beneath Cloud City, Hamill hangs (after a stuntman tests things out).

  A diagram plots out scene 371.

  Scene 371 is then filmed on Stage 2, with Lando getting a “bad feeling” about Vader and Fett, mid-May 1979. (Notice the new paint job on the Cloud City corridor, which is now a red-brown instead of white—the art and camera departments continually relit and redecorated to make a few Cloud City sets into many.).

  Billy Dee Williams as Lando stands on a fork lift, ready to be raised up to the Falcon’s exterior hull, where he’ll rescue Luke.

  Long shot of ice hangar, production painting by McQuarrie, spring 1979.

  Ford as Solo running for the full-sized Falcon on the Star Wars Stage. “When George saw the painting, he told them, ‘Do it like this,’ ” says McQuarrie. “The way this scene was actually built on a stage, it had a huge, circular opening above the set where we imagined daylight would come through—much like a dome without a roof.”

  Production works on the Star Wars Stage. “We had a full-size X-wing left over from the first film, and two partial ones,” says Kurtz. “We added onto that and now we have three or four complete X-wings.”

  Views of the Hoth hangar set in progress and dressed, as housed in the Star Wars Stage.

  Views of the Hoth hangar set in progress and dressed, as housed in the Star Wars Stage.

  Views of the Hoth hangar set in progress and dressed, as housed in the Star Wars Stage.

  Views of the Hoth hangar set in progress and dressed, as housed in the Star Wars Stage.

  Kershner directs Fisher in a scene she found difficult—where Leia debriefs Rebel pilots—because of excessive noise (with the script is Kay Rawlings, continuity; on the other side of Fisher stands John Ratzenberger as Major Derlin).

  Final frame.

  Clowning around and filming on the Star Wars Stage: Daniels with a helpful sign.

  Mayhew, Fisher, Ford, Hamill, Daniels, and Baker in a rarely seen publicity photo.

  Filming Chewbacca as he fixes the Falcon.

  Hamill posing with a big gun in another rarely seen publicity photo—actually a laser ice-cutter, which Luke would’ve used to battle wampas in scenes that were never filmed.

  Mayhew and Hamill rehearse Chewbacca’s hug.

  Hamill carries Fisher.

  Kershner and Hamill.

  Treat Williams, Fisher and unidentified extra.

  Bird’s eye view of the Rebel hangar.

  Fisher and Ford.

  Kershner on tauntaun.

  “The Sunday Times in New York were very worried about the relationship between Artoo and Threepio,” Daniels says. “They thought there might be something, well, San Franciscan about it, I think. It made me laugh; I couldn’t believe it. I was thinking of editing a magazine, a sort of ‘Robots in Bondage.’ ”

  Shooting on the Star Wars Stage included bit parts played by Norman Chancer (Deck Officer); Jack MacKenzie (Lieutenant); Tony Frier (Robot #3); and John Gavam (Robot #4).

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  A printed daily from a scene in which Chewbacca vents his frustrations at Han Solo, with Mayhew saying dialogue that will later be replaced by Wookiee roars: “Where the hell have you been?” et cetera.

  (0:49)

  “As the doors slam shut, I had Chewbacca scream in agony,” says Kershner. “That was a decision I made during filming.”

  Kershner films Solo with his hand over C-3PO’s “mouth.” (Kay Rawlings sits in the foreground.) Daniels jokes, “What is interesting is I’ve had to rethink quite a few of my reactions because playing around with Han Solo, see, I can’t bully him like I used to bully Artoo, which is a problem.”

  Former Star Wars production designer, John Barry consults with Kershner and directs second unit in the Hoth hangar on the Star Wars Stage.

  Second unit director John Barry (center) with art director Alan Tomkins.

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  Recorded during principal photography in the Elstree Studios cafeteria, most likely, Kershner talks about the acting qualities needed to portray costumed characters. He defends Anthony Daniels and the others against someone referring to them as “cardboard characters.”

  (2:02)

  * * *

  MAY ILM: NIGHTS AND JETS

  On May 4, Miki Herman’s production notes listed several items: “George Lucas will do the remaining storyboard breakdowns when he returns from London in a week … Stage completed 29 elements in asteroid sequence … Huge asteroid crater set was built by Joe Johnston, Mike Pangrazio, and Chris Anderson … Half-size Millennium Falcon was completed [50 percent smaller than the original model].”

  “We made an asteroid surface that was maybe 30 feet in diameter for this big rubber hand puppet that was the worm,” Peterson says.

  “We had to shoot all these asteroids flying everywhere, so, just for laughs, we went out and bought a bunch of potatoes at the local store,” says Ralston. “We stuck those on rods and we started shooting potatoes, but not telling anybody. No one ever knew, but if you know where to look, they’re hilarious. They look pretty much like the rocks; they’re just smoother and go flying by the cockpit.”

  With Johnson and Bloom back in the States and Lucas due to return, tension increased at the effects facility and, on May 11, Bloom instigated a split shift to remedy the shot deficit: “Dennis Muren will shoot Camera 1 days; Ken Ralston will come in 3 PM to midnight; Jim Vellieux will shoot asteroid belt paintings and starfields on Camera 2.” Three days later, Herman wrote that, “Mike Pangrazio is painting generator matte painting; Jon Berg and Phil Tippett have moved across the street [to the stop-motion trailer].”

  The following week, Johnson traveled to Astrovision, in LA, to create the cloud plates. “I probably did the only other location work in the movie, which involved footage I filmed from a Learjet,” he says. “I did the cloud plates with an Astrovision setup. Basically it was a Lear with a snorkel and a camera that shoots through the bottom of it. You can fly around and make pans and tilts by using a joystick inside while watching a TV monitor. It was quite a deal. John Dykstra and I met at Apogee when I rented their VistaVision camera for the nose of the Learjet. He was laid back and heavily competitive at the same time. There was rivalry between Apogee and ILM, but I was an outsider, being a Brit.”

  On May 29, everyone was relieved that the “Empireflex camera is now running. Has switch to convert from stop-motion to soundspeed.” (Prowse had described the Empireflex at Elstree: “It worked with computers, and they flew it and the people trained to run it to England. They would test it out on the bench and it would be running great, but once they got it onto the studio floor, it wouldn’t run. Then they’d take it back, put it on the bench, and check it over. Nothing would be wrong, but once on the floor, it wouldn’t work, again.”) The problem turned out to be a faulty motor—something so basic, it wasn’t checked until late in the game.

  As for the model shop, “Lorne and other people think it would be easier to start from scratch on the Darth Vader Star Destroyer rather than modifying an existing model. He has a new technique in mind that would save time … Would start building around June 4.”

  “The amount of work just kept growing and growing and growing,” Peterson says. “And maybe if we’d been more adult and more business-like, we would’ve just put it down on paper and said, ‘Look at this graph. This is what’s happening and, realistically, we need more staff.’ ”

  At ILM, the model shop (Paul Huston is next to the Falcon).

  Muren, Gawley, and asteroids.

  Inside the Learjet with the Astrovision setup.

  Outside the Learjet.

  Building the asteroid surface.

  Stage technician Ted Moehnke works on an element for, possibly, the establishi
ng shot of the asteroid field— using a motorized motion-controlled device that spun very small asteroids on mono filament string; this device provided the distant background asteroid elements, as photographed by Ralston.

  * * *

  TRAGEDY

  NOS. 60–61, WEDNESDAY, MAY 30–THURSDAY, MAY 31: STAR WARS STAGE—INT. MAIN HANGAR DECK, SCS. 70 [LUKE AND DACK TAKE OFF], 24 [HAN TOLD LUKE IS MISSING], 114 [CEILING CRACKS OPEN ABOVE FALCON]

  The weather intervened again when a violent rainstorm put the Elstree Studio switchboard out of action, but it did not affect filming. Footage from a hangar scene with the tauntaun was cut together and sent back to ILM, where it failed to impress. “I thought the taun looked pretty dead,” Muren says. “They sort of goofed on the eyes. It was a very difficult job to do and they were rushed on it.”