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

by Rinzler, J. W.

  “Then Carrie and Harrison were finished and went home, and it was just me left,” says Hamill.

  On July 23, Luke’s training montage on the bog planet was shortened, with nearly all of the before-and-after lessons cut out, including the sequence in which he first fails and then succeeds in cutting a metal bar into several pieces with his lightsaber. Nearly all of the Yoda–Luke scene had also been reworked by this date and new pages inserted into the shooting script, as Lucas continued to confer closely with Kershner, Hirsch, and Kurtz, often working in the former’s office and having lunch with all three.

  “Over the last few weekends, because the bog planet is going to be so difficult, I’ve rewritten it,” Lucas says. “Kersh and I have worked on how he’s going to do it and what the setups are going to be. I’ve been spending part of this week going through and updating the storyboards, redoing them and getting it down to a reasonable number of shots that we can actually accomplish in two and a half weeks. Kersh understands that we’ve got to get the film finished and he doesn’t want to work any more than anybody else does. There’s no sense in shooting a lot of needless stuff that we will cut out in the editing room anyway.”

  “We got together and asked, ‘Now that we’ve seen the picture up to this point, what do we really need?’ ” says Kershner. “We agreed almost immediately that we needed compression on the bog planet. Right from the beginning, while we worked on the script, I was concerned that there was a change of mood and tempo in this particular sequence. The film moves so rapidly and is so full of varied images that when you suddenly come to a stop and have to deal with naturalistic time as opposed to montage time, there could have been a lag—and you can’t afford that on the last quarter of the picture.”

  Lucas also worked with Kershner to speed up the shooting in general. “I’d say, ‘Do this overall master,’ ” Lucas says, referring to a standard kind of setup in which the camera is able to take in the whole set, all the actors, and the complete scene (usually followed by two-and three-shots and then close-ups of the actors). “And Kersh would say, ‘But I’m not going to use that shot. Why would I do it?’ And I’d say, ‘You do it because it gets everybody on their toes. It gets the makeup done more quickly, it gets the set lit; everything is done more quickly and everybody knows what’s going on. They’ll watch the scene and think, Okay, now we’re going to go in and cover this.’ Kersh is more artistically inclined than I am, but, personally, I think that if you have a group of people trying to work on one creative concept, it’s better to have everybody clued in to what’s actually going on.”

  One item still not resolved per the bog planet was whether it would feature the ghost of Obi-Wan or not. “It’s up in the air at this particular point in time,” Lucas says. “We’re not quite sure what Alec’s situation is in terms of his health, but we’re hoping that he’ll do the picture. We could find somebody who could do his voice with makeup. Ben Kenobi can still be there without Alec Guinness, it’s just that we prefer to have the real thing.”

  * * *

  Storyboards by Beddoes, February 1979, show several of Yoda’s tests that Luke must pass: a bar that he must learn to dice with his lightsaber; a bog over which he has to jump; and attacking seeker balls. These sequences were cut from the film in July 1979.

  * * *

  More storyboards by Beddoes reveal more tests for Luke—for example, lifting objects with his mind—along with the moment in which Yoda surprises Luke with seeker balls as R2-D2 watches.

  * * *

  Luke bids adieu to Jedi Master Yoda in a Beddoes’s storyboard.

  * * *

  THE GODFATHER II

  REPORT NO. 99: TUESDAY, JULY 24: STAGE 9—INT. TREE CAVE, 341 [THE TEST]

  Suddenly the film’s financial footing improved. “I called up George and said, ‘I know people at the Bank of Boston,’ ” Weber says. “By Friday, I think we can have the credit. So I called up Bill Thompson, who flew out on a Wednesday, and we literally did the deal on the back of a napkin and he funded the payroll.”

  “We had to go and completely refinance the movie halfway through with a different bank,” Lucas says. “We had to switch banks in a period of something like 10 days, but they were willing to go the extra $5 million.”

  “I was kind of on the end of a telephone about all that,” says Kurtz. “That was down to Charlie’s area and he kept me informed a bit about what was happening, but it was like trying to negotiate with a gun to your head, I’m sure. I’m sure that’s how he felt about it, because of the time frame.”

  “George appeared one day in England with a banker from Boston,” says Kershner. “George told me that they were trying to get some extra money and we showed them some footage. We showed them some sequences and they thanked me and I think he got the extra money.”

  The “revolving credit” agreement with First National Bank of Boston was signed and dated July 24, refinancing the original loan to the tune of about $31 million, with the bank loan at $27,670,000—and with Fox guaranteeing the $3 million above the $28 million in return for “principal terms of a distribution agreement between SWC [Star Wars Corporation] and Distributor [Fox] regarding the distribution rights with respect to the second theatrical motion picture sequel to Star Wars.”

  “I wanted my independence so badly, we managed to do it in a way that I paid Fox just a little bit more money,” says Lucas. “But they didn’t get any of the licensing and they didn’t get any of the sequels. If I had to pay a few extra points, I could do that. I think Fox was just as concerned as we were that the movie get finished.”

  Instead, the second sequel distributor–producer split of gross boxoffice receipts would be more favorable to the former than it had been for Empire. Fox would also retain 10 percent of merchandising “participation.” However, because it was borrowing the $27 million from the Bank of Boston, with no intermediary companies to run interference, Lucasfilm itself—the parent company—was now liable. It had guaranteed the loan, and if Empire didn’t at least make its money back, Lucasfilm was now on the chopping block.

  Concept of man and tree by Reynolds (no. 30), circa August 1978. A storyboard by Beddoes, from February 1979, reads, “There has been three or four conceptions of the tree of evil.”

  VISCIOUS VADER

  REPORT NOS. 100–102: WEDNESDAY, JULY 25–FRIDAY, JULY 27: STAGE 9—INT. TREE CAVE, 341; STAGE 2—INT./EXT. SNOW WALKER, 173, 174 [LUKE THROWS BOMB INSIDE]; STAGE 1—INT. GANTRY PLATFORM AND PINNACLE, 398, 400 [VADER CUTS OFF LUKE’S HAND]

  On Thursday, July 26, Day 101, production moved to the Gantry Platform and Pinnacle on Stage 1. Now 39 days over, Kershner, Hamill, Prowse, and company would spend nearly a week on scene 400, in which Vader tries to seduce Luke to the dark side of the Force.

  “The most frightening thing I had to do was to back away from Darth Vader along a plank nine inches wide, 30 feet above the ground, with two wind machines going full-blast,” Hamill says. “I said to them, ‘Fine, guys, but do you realize that this may mean delaying the film—I’d say this is an eight-weeks-in-the-hospital type of fall.’ ‘Yeah, yeah,’ they said. ‘Just get up there.’ ”

  “For the last week, we’ve been working almost 50 feet up off the ground,” Kershner says, “which is no fun, climbing up and down ladders to talk to an actor, screaming through loud-hailers [megaphones]. I don’t like heights particularly, but I just had to go up and down these things.”

  “Mark has really done about 95 percent of the actual fight himself,” Diamond says. “Obviously, if we had said yes, he would have done all of it, but under the circumstances, some things were, in my opinion, too dangerous for him to undertake.”

  “I fell one time,” Hamill says. “But I was able to tuck and roll like I was taught. I was later made a member of the British Stunt Union—not just a belt buckle, but a full membership.”

  “You say in the film that Vader triumphs, but I don’t know whether he triumphs because they haven’t given me a copy of the script,” Pr
owse said to Arnold. “I’ve got my speeches, but I haven’t got a clue as to how my speeches fit into the rest of the script or what’s happened prior to me arriving in the picture or what happens after I depart from the picture. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  While Prowse, given his penchant for revealing secrets, was kept in the dark, Hamill was debriefed by Lucas and then Kershner, who called over the actor not long before cameras rolled: “I met with Mark, and said, ‘Uh, you know that Darth Vader’s your father.’ ‘Wha—?’ ‘David Prowse will be saying stuff that doesn’t count, forget it. Use your own rhythm compared to what he’s doing.’ ”

  “They took me aside and said, ‘This is what he’s going to say,’ ” Hamill says. “ ‘You don’t know the truth, Obi-Wan killed your father.’ ”

  “I told Mark, ‘Don’t tell anybody—especially don’t tell David Prowse—but I want you to be able to know, to be able to act appropriately,’ ” Lucas says. “And then Kersh worked the scene with him.”

  “I love when Darth Vader says, ‘The only way you’ll ever beat me is with hate,’ ” Kershner says. “It’s a lie and the kids know it. The last thing Ben says is, ‘Remember, don’t use hate.’ It’s the most important thing in the film.”

  “I didn’t know if James Earl Jones was going to do the voice again,” Prowse says. “I think they established a precedent with the first movie and there’s no way they can go with my voice, but they did go into a sound studio to re-record my lines for guide-tracks. It’s funny—I found the recording sessions difficult because it was hard to sound as villainous as I did when I was wearing the Darth Vader costume. I tried to sound as much like James Earl Jones as I could.”

  “At the time we filmed Star Wars, I had no idea Darth Vader was my father,” Hamill recalls. “I don’t think Alec Guinness did, either, because in the scene where I ask him who my father was, he hesitated. I don’t know how George made him do that. I didn’t hear him saying, ‘Maybe you don’t really want to tell him.’ But it’s tricky. I remember very early on asking who my parents were and being told that my father and Obi-Wan met Vader on the edge of a volcano and they had a duel. My father and Darth Vader fell into the crater and my father was instantly killed. Vader crawled out horribly scarred and, at that point, the Emperor landed and Obi-Wan ran into the forest, never to be seen again. Now I wonder if it’s true? Remember the Clone Wars? They could have cloned my father. It’s all speculation at this point …”

  Luke is stalked by his fear of Vader.

  Special effects crew work on the specially rigged Darth Vader costume, for the moment Luke decapitates his dark-side double.

  Vader’s decapitation was made possible by a specially rigged mannequin. His symbolic “unmasking” was filmed in inserts thanks to a mold taken of Hamill’s face.

  Hamill jokes around while a cast is taken of his hand for the scene in which Vader cuts it off.

  The finished, special effect cutaway hand.

  The first setup on the gantry set, without pinnacle: Vader presses his attack.

  HEADACHES

  REPORT NOS. 103–104: MONDAY, JULY 30–TUESDAY, JULY 31: STAGE 2—INT. JUNK ROOM S360 [CHEWBACCA FINDS C-3PO PARTS]; STAGE 1—INT. GANTRY PLATFORM AND PINNACLE 398, 400

  On Saturday, July 28, Charlie Weber arrived because the budget had continued to escalate. “Bank of Boston called me and they said, ‘What’s goin’ on?’ ” he says. “I said, ‘I’ll go check in London.’ I flew over and George showed me that production was not moving fast; it was nobody’s fault, but the direction, everything, was just slow. But the bank was calling me and asking, ‘How high is this gonna go?’ We assured them it wouldn’t go too high, but it was a scary month or two and it shifted my role from being the umbrella businessman to jumping into operations earlier than anticipated.”

  On Monday, while working on the Junk Room set, Kershner was hit in the head by a cable gun; the resultant headaches gave him problems over the next few days. On the other hand, solutions were found to the early exposition problems.

  “We screened the first three reels a third time,” Hirsch says. “There’s still a lot of polishing to be done yet, but, practically, it works. We’ve simplified and streamlined the information, so we aren’t distracting the audience with a lot of information that really doesn’t matter.”

  Problems of sustaining suspense and believability were solved, for example, by delaying Luke’s escape from the wampa’s lair. Originally, it had occurred earlier in the script between Han and Leia’s argument in the ice corridor and C-3PO’s delivery of Leia’s message to Han; those two scenes, originally separated by Luke’s escape, would now appear back-to-back.

  “By some changes of placement, I think we’re solving it,” Kershner says. “George came up with an idea for a bridging sequence, which is really like 15 seconds, so I said, ‘Why don’t you shoot it?’ It was Mark putting on some of his flying gear and talking to a robot. It’s a cute little sequence that starts off a major sequence.”

  “We shot an extra scene the other day of Luke recovering,” says Kurtz. “We moved the medical center scene up earlier, and by doing so we realized that it was the last time you saw Luke until he runs out and jumps into his speeder for the battle. So we felt we needed a little piece of him leaving the medical center to indicate the buildup to the evacuation.”

  “For some of the second unit in the snow creature’s ice cave, they shot thousands and thousands of feet of film, taking days to shoot stuff that was no good, that we couldn’t use,” says Lucas. “I had to go back and reshoot it all. It was grim.”

  “At this point we’re thinking of opening in space,” says Hirsch. “We’ll see an Imperial ship dispatching a sort of probe to a planet below and when the probe lands, we encounter Luke.”

  Kershner’s detailed notes on photocopies of Beddoes’ storyboards indicate, among other things, when the studio’s manufactured wind should start and subside.

  More of Kershner’s notes and drawings made on photocopied storyboards by Ivor Beddoes.

  More of Kershner’s notes and drawings made on photocopied storyboards by Ivor Beddoes.

  More of Kershner’s notes and drawings made on photocopied storyboards by Ivor Beddoes.

  More of Kershner’s notes and drawings made on photocopied storyboards by Ivor Beddoes.

  Anderson and Hamill take direction.

  Anderson and Hamill then duel.

  Vader vs. Luke (the animated lightsaber glows would be added in postproduction).

  BAD OMEN

  REPORT NOS. 105–107: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1–FRIDAY, AUGUST 3: STAGE 1—INT. GANTRY PLATFORM AND PINNACLE, 398, 400 [VADER CUTS OFF LUKE’S HAND]; PICKUPS [VARIOUS SETS]

  On Wednesday, August 1, the previous day’s difficult shot of Hamill letting himself fall from the gantry into the reactor shaft was damaged in the laboratory, so it would have to be reshot. “Part of one of the rolls of film was ruined when they had a stoppage in the bath,” says Kurtz. “It usually means that the film broke, which stops the roll of the film in the developer or in the bleach. We have an insurance claim, which has a $10,000 deductible, so there’s probably something we can recover. But the art department is working on such a tight schedule that it disrupts them in finishing the pinnacle, which we have to shoot on Friday. This delay forces them into working very late tonight, maybe an overnight shift of artists.”

  “Another dilemma is that unauthorized stills from the movie are appearing in American science-fiction and movie magazines according to Sidney Ganis, who has telexed urging us to stop issuing this material,” writes Arnold. “The fact is, they aren’t coming from here.”

  Later that day, Arnold asked Kurtz if he had any news on Guinness. “No, not yet,” Kurtz replied. “He’s still resting in the country. George is going to meet with him again sometime later in the month.”

  Weber returned to the United States on Wednesday. On Thursday, August 2, following several days of scrambling to different sets for different scenes with fi
rst or second unit, Mayhew completed his role after 76 days worked. Meanwhile, Dr. Collins checked out Kershner, whose head was still throbbing, and Hamill, who had strained his back, continued working. Production was now 45 days over. On Friday, Prowse completed his role as Vader after 53 days worked.

  Making the entire Empire enterprise feel even more precarious, More American Graffiti opened to poor reviews and even poorer box office on August 3. As Lucasfilm’s first sequel, the news was bad.

  “We really don’t know whether Empire is going to turn out to be another More American Graffiti,” Lucas says. “You look at even Godfather II—that sequel was popular and won an Academy Award and everything—but it didn’t make that much money, especially next to Godfather I. If it should be a Heretic [1977, the sequel flop to The Exorcist] or a James Bond film, I will lose everything. So you just don’t know. There is no guarantee.”

  “I don’t think in the history of the film business, a sequel has ever done better business than the original,” says Kurtz. “Maybe it never will.”

  “I’m faced with a situation where everything I own, everything I ever earned, is wrapped up in Empire,” Lucas says. “If it isn’t a success not only could I lose everything, but I could also end up being millions of dollars in debt, which would be very difficult to get out from under. It would probably take me the rest of my life just to get back even again. Everybody says, ‘Oh, don’t worry, the film will be a huge success,’ but if it is just one of those mildly successful film sequels, I’ll lose everything. It has to be the biggest-grossing sequel of all time for me to break even.”