The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (Enhanced Edition)

by Rinzler, J. W.

  Concept art by McQuarrie.

  A subsequent undated outline for Jedi consists of six pages that cover the three acts with much more detail than earlier descriptions. Now the first scene has Vader arriving at Had Abbadon and meeting Moff Jerjerrod. On his way, he passes another shuttle going to “a moon,” in which Leia and the rebels are hidden—“tension.” They “should have waited for Luke,” but a time-lock situation has left them with no choice but to begin their mission.

  Vader talks and argues with the Emperor; then the Moff and Emperor plot against the Sith Lord, while Vader meditates, contacting Luke. In scene 6, on Tatooine, Luke wakes up from his nightmare in a “strange room—midget peasants talk funny language.” The droids enter from a sandstorm, followed by Lando. Scene 7 has Vader and Jerjerrod inspecting the Death Star, but the former is worried by activities on the moon and sends an armored patrol to investigate.

  Back on Tatooine, the droids, then Chewie and Lando, are caught by Jabba; after meeting Bib Fortuna, the latter two are thrown into a cell with Han. They explain that their capture is all part of Luke’s plan and Han exclaims, “What’s that kid think he’s doing?”

  Leia is on the moon with a giant ray gun, hurrying to set it up. They are preparing to shoot the gun (probably at the Death Star or Had Abbadon) when Vader’s armored patrol shows up. After a gun battle with troops and a two-legged walker commanded by Vader, Leia escapes on a rocket cycle and there’s a race through the trees; Leia runs into an Ewak trap and is thrown from her bike, unconscious.

  Act II begins with Leia being found by the Yussem and carried off to a safe haven to avoid Imperial Trackers (access to the haven is again via a swinging vine). Back on Tatooine, Luke “uses Force as Ben did in SWI” on Bib. C-3PO is now interpreter for Jabba, who tricks Luke with the trapdoor, but Luke defeats the monster, which upsets Jabba, who tells the group that they “all will die horrible death.”

  Back on the moon, Leia makes friends with the Yussem—“thorn out of foot”—but they are found by the Imperial Trackers. The Yussem run off and Leia is taken away. Scene 24 has the sand pit fight with a note asking, “Include Boba Fett?” Jabba is killed and the heroes take off in the Falcon. Scene 25 has Leia and the trackers riding through the forest, where they are attacked by Ewaks. Leia and one tracker are taken away.

  Act III begins with Luke et al. arriving on a “grass planet,” where peace talks occur. The ray gun attempt has failed and Leia is missing; Han goes after her. Luke argues that they must plan an attack.

  At this point the outline trails off, but is taken up by two later, still undated versions of Acts II and III, parts of which redo scenes from the earlier Act I. In the revised Act II, Vader finds the rebel ships and “talks” to Luke, remotely, while Leia organizes work on two big rebel guns. In scenes 3 and 4, on the grass planet, Luke wakes up from a dream (probably of Vader) and then goes to the war room where a general explains their plan for attack. In scene 5, Han is ready to leave, planning to penetrate the moon’s defense shields in the Falcon using “light speed.”

  Back on the moon, rebels return to their ship and are attacked by Imperial troops; Leia escapes on a rocket bike. Her trackers crash and Leia is thrown from the bike after springing an Ewok trap (changed from “Ewak”).

  Leia is discovered by and makes friends with the Ewoks—but they are attacked by Imperial Trackers. Han and Luke arrive on the moon, but Luke is spotted by a patrol and they separate; Han and company are trapped by the Ewoks. Luke has a talk with Yoda (in his mind) and is then caught by a patrol. Han is brought to the Ewok village and reunited with Leia. Luke is brought before Vader and defies his father. Jerjerrod contacts the Emperor. Meanwhile Han fires the first rebel gun, which creates confusion within the galactic capital city. Luke is summoned before the Emperor and Yoda appears (after, presumably, dying), but he can’t come back into physical form while the Emperor is alive. “Battle between Yoda and Emperor?” Lucas writes. “Vader wavers.”

  Han can’t fire the second gun and the battle seems lost until the Ewoks save the day. The Emperor will spare Luke if he kills his father. They fight, but Luke eventually says he won’t kill his father. Vader hesitates. The Emperor tries to force him and Vader kills the Emperor instead.

  In scene 15, “The Celebration begins,” during which Han and Leia—“sister!” Lucas notes next to her name—comfort Luke. The Republic is reborn; Ben, Vader, and Yoda appear “in the flesh,” and the heroes dance.

  The first three creature concept drawings by Joe Johnston, late 1980, each approved by Lucas (via his handwritten red “G”): an Ewok riding a Yuzzem or Yussem (no. 001, TOP); a Yuzzem (no. 002, “face only,” per Lucas, BOTTOM LEFT); and an Ewok (no. 003, BOTTOM RIGHT). The name “Ewoks” was inspired by the Miwoks, a Native American tribe whose coastal lands now make up Marin and southern Sonoma County in Northern California (the word means “people”).

  Concept art by McQuarrie.

  Concept art by McQuarrie.

  * * *

  ADDING IT UP

  While still doing huge business in August 1980, Empire was not destined to surpass Star Wars at the box office. The film was not getting enough repeat viewings, as once was enough for most of the public. “The first film was such a guaranteed good time that there was a lot of repeat business from people who looked in the paper and said, ‘Well, let’s go and see Star Wars again,’ like a second ride on the Matterhorn at Disneyland,” says Hamill. “Empire was a much bigger challenge to pull off and was not a repetition of Star Wars in any way. Round two went to Darth Vader, as it were, so the movie didn’t have that same kind of triumphant, giddy, slaphappy feeling as Star Wars. It was a bitter pill to swallow and I’m still amazed that it was so successful.”

  “Naturally, there are questions in the second act which will have to be answered in the third act,” says Harrison Ford. “I guess it depends on what you go to a movie for. I figure that there was at least $11 worth of entertainment in Empire. So if you paid four bucks and didn’t get an ending, you are still seven bucks ahead of the game.”

  In May the final cost of Empire had been calculated to be around $30.5 million, but when final interest fees were added in August, the negative cost came to $35,829,258 (with a subsequent audit to confirm and, potentially, add another $230,000 of interest). Nevertheless, the Lucasfilm coffers were being replenished, which meant Lucas’s plans for digital cinema, Skywalker Ranch, and the second sequel could move forward. “The idea was to invest my money where I could get the highest return,” says Lucas. “I decided I had the most faith in my own films. Business is a necessary evil for me now. But I’m trying to turn the system around. The studios use films they don’t have the vaguest idea how to make, in order to earn profits for their shareholders. I’m using my profits to make films.”

  An increasing percentage of those profits were coming from merchandising, much of which was overseen at Lucasfilm South. “The licensing part was big,” Greber would say. “And we had not only licensing, but book publishing. We actually published the books ourselves through Random House, which was an exercise that might not have been necessary. I thought it was kind of expensive to pay people in-house to be doing things that the publishing company should’ve done. But George and Marcia Lucas had extremely high standards for anything that carried the Lucasfilm name and I thought that was one of the best things I had ever encountered.”

  Rocket bike concepts by Johnston (nos. 033 and 035, and an early undated “sitting” bike concept, late 1980). “The only thing George said was that it should be like a landspeeder motorcycle, something for one man to ride on,” Johnston says. “That was as far as he went. He hadn’t designed or really thought about the whole bike chase sequence too much. The only thing I remember him saying repeatedly was, ‘They need to fly through the trees, dodging around, and they need to look like they’re going 200 miles-an-hour.’ ” (Johnston’s favorite artists are Vermeer; early comic book artists Hal Foster and Alex Raymond; and McQuarrie. He used chisel po
int pens most often for his conceptual drawings.)

  A rocket bike concept by McQuarrie, circa late 1980 (unnumbered, with Lucas’s red dot of approval).

  Rocket bike concept art by McQuarrie.

  RETURN OF THE MAGNIFICOS

  With a new Chewbacca costume and a new Yoda puppet needed, creature designer Stuart Freeborn was added to the payroll on September 1 (problems with the hero Yoda puppet on Empire had led to parts of his scenes being filmed with a more limited standby puppet). “I must say I thoroughly enjoy this kind of work,” Freeborn says. “If I had time to think on my own and if I had full scope to develop creatures on my own, I’d really like to go way into the depths of space and work out what could be the practical creatures that would naturally develop there.”

  Although Lucas did not have a script, he had enough ideas to start his key concept artists, as well: Joe Johnston, Nilo Rodis-Jamero, and Ralph McQuarrie. The former two began officially on October 1, though already at work the month before, while McQuarrie says that he started even earlier than Johnston, who had been busy working on Raiders of the Lost Ark during the summer.

  “It was just George and I for quite a while, a few months or so,” says McQuarrie. “I think the other guys started to say, ‘Well, are we gonna get a chance to work on this thing or aren’t we?’ I was whizzing along doing everything in sight. I came to be known as the artist who took over everything. And I did sort of, but I didn’t intend to.”

  “Jim Bloom gathered us and said, ‘Tomorrow at nine I need for you guys to be here in this room,’ ” Nilo Rodis-Jamero would say. “So the three of us gathered in that room and I remember thinking, This might be a big deal, because the three of us hadn’t worked together in a couple of years. I got up and made a cup of coffee and got my notes ready, thinking this was going to be a very long meeting. George walked into the art department with Jim and I’m still stirring my cup of coffee. Well, George never let go of the door handle. He said, ‘There are seven highlights to this story—Han is rescued, the Rebel Alliance is gathered,’ and so on. Then he walked away. Ralph goes, ‘Okay, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.’ Joe goes, ‘Yeah, see you tomorrow, Nilo.’ That was it. I was still stirring my cup of coffee.”

  But the artists had understood Lucas’s verbal shorthand and quickly began conceptualizing Had Abbadon, the grass planet, the Yussem (which had also figured in early Empire concept art), Ewoks, a monster, Jabba the Hutt, rocket bikes, and other story elements. “George was kind of sketchy on exactly what he wanted,” McQuarrie says. “So a lot of the things we did earlier were dropped. But George doesn’t overwhelm you with talk and ideas. He gives you very little to go on and I appreciate that. He doesn’t hang over your shoulder.”

  “In special effects—at least at ILM—I’m really more of a designer than an art director,” says Johnston. “I’m given that title because they really don’t know what to call me. I like to think of myself and the rest of the art department as the artistic influence at ILM, but I don’t do it alone by any means.”

  “Joe Johnston is a genius,” says Tom Smith. “When it comes to Star Wars and the work of George Lucas and the look of things, I think he knows more than any other human being.”

  Although Kazanjian was commuting between Northern and Southern California as he organized the final sound mix for Raiders, he was kept in the preproduction loop. “Jabba was the first thing George mentioned to Joe and Ralph,” he says. “Jabba was going to be very large and very ugly, and I knew about that. But we didn’t know at the time where he would be built.”

  “Jabba was this ghastly monster,” says McQuarrie. “I submitted quite a few sketches. I thought of him as somebody who could get around, so he could move quickly and be a threat.”

  “We did a lot of research in the beginning about certain creatures,” adds Kazanjian. “At one time we were going to have a people called the Yussem. They were going to be very, very tall, done by people on stilts.”

  “George said we were to make it up as we go, graphically,” Rodis-Jamero would say. “It was a free-for-all, a very friendly competition. Joe never really showed me what he was working on and Ralph, because he was working from home—he would just arrive and I would be salivating for what he was going to show up with. Every two weeks, George would sit down and I would literally hold everything behind my back. Then, as quickly as you could put down images, he would either mark it with a red dot, or not.”

  A red dot or initial “G” meant the concept was approved for further exploration, usually along lines set forth by Lucas. “At the very start of the show, we can do anything we want when we’re designing vehicles,” says Johnston. “We don’t worry about how they are going to work or how they are going to be built or photographed. We just do what we think would look the best on the screen. Most of the time we do have to compromise, but if we start with something that is the best design, the most creative design, the most unique, then we can go back later and tone it down a little bit or make it work better. We work in reverse—we worry about the limitations last.”

  As the three concept artists and Lucas refined ideas, McQuarrie soon abandoned the Ewoks. “I looked at what we were doing and my own feeling was I would like to have them more animal-like, more sinewy and lifelike,” he would say. “They were starting to look teddy bear–like and I wasn’t for that. So I gave them three or four drawings that I thought were right on and said, ‘That’s it. Now if you don’t like those, I’m out of this competition.’ ”

  At this time, the plan was to wrap up conceptual work as soon as possible and to start shooting during the summer of 1981, which would provide more time for postproduction effects work. However, it would also mean that Lucasfilm would have to carry the negative cost of production for longer given the May 1983 release date. September memos indicate that the finance department was already worrying, due to high interest rates, about the additional $3 to $5 million that plan would entail.

  “George and Joe were going to be on Jedi for about a year before anyone else,” says model shop supervisor Lorne Peterson. “Joe wasn’t going to work on any other ILM films. They were going to be off working together on the perfect movie. The idea was the story and art direction would be ready, so that, as soon as we were free, we would hit it real big! The storyboards would be done. They were trying to save six months by having everything perfectly ready.”

  “In the very beginning, George decided to turn Joe and George Jenson and all the storyboard guys loose and just have them come up with all kinds of ideas,” says visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston. “He didn’t want any sequences, no specifics. He wanted big extravaganza shots and small shots. He wanted spaceships doing all kinds of things.”

  Very early concept art by Rodis-Jamero of the rebel base, circa summer 1980 (no. 001). Early concepts often showed the base partially or completely underground.

  Rebel base by Johnston, summer 1980 (no. 001).

  Concept art of the rebel base by Johnston.

  Concept art by Johnston of the rebel base, or perhaps Jabba’s palace, now located on a grass planet (or possibly a grassy plain on Tatooine), which would be called Sicemon, late 1980. That is, ideas and places at this point in Lucas’s creative process sometimes collided.

  ON OTHER FRONTS

  Word continued to trickle out to the film world that Lucas was searching for a director. “Jedi was first mentioned in a conversation I had with my agent in October of 1980,” says Richard Marquand, whose last film had been Birth of the Beatles (1979). “I said, ‘No, it’s impossible. I wouldn’t think of it.’ ”

  Around this time Lucasfilm issued a press release announcing Revenge of the Jedi, saying that it would begin principal photography in the fall of 1981, that Kazanjian would produce, and that Gary Kurtz would serve as production consultant “while he prepares two outside films that he will be directing.” It also stated that Kurtz was “currently co-producing Dark Crystals [sic] with Jim Henson in London.”

  In England, on January 5
, 1981, production designer Norman Reynolds, assistant production manager Patricia Carr, and production accountant Colin Hurren began work at EMI Elstree Studios and were put on the Jedi payroll. In San Anselmo, Lucas was now working from his outlines toward a full-length script.

  “George will get going at 9 AM,” Kazanjian says. “He’s in his tower room, writing; he’ll come down for lunch and read his mail, then he goes back and writes until six or so. He does this all week long. Doesn’t see anybody. Occasionally, I go over with some information and we talk a little bit to give him a break. It’s very, very painful to write. He started off by writing a 12 or 15 page treatment as a guide, which he was going to give to the writer. Our problem was getting the writer. Eventually, we hoped to get Larry [Kasdan], but, in the meantime, George went off and developed the screenplay.”

  “That’s when I decided that trying to tell somebody what the story is, like I did on Empire [with screenwriter Leigh Brackett], just doesn’t work,” Lucas says. “The only way I can do it is to write the first draft myself and just say, ‘Okay, this is how it looks and feels,’ and then bring somebody in to fix it up and question it and go through it.”

  Lawrence (Larry) Kasdan had performed that part on the Empire script, but was currently directing his first film, Body Heat (1981), and had not yet been asked to do a repeat performance on Jedi. (Kasdan had also written from scratch the Raiders script.)