Johnston assembled the speeder bike prototype out of plastic kits, including a Formula One car nose and parts, the front of NASA’s space shuttle, and plates from a German anti-aircraft gun. “One day Joe got tired of drawing speeder bikes,” Rodis-Jamero would say. “Sometimes you just cannot draw any more, so Joe disappeared for a couple of days. I noticed he was in the model shop tinkering around. Then one day after I’ve presented my design evolution of the speeder bike to George, Joe looks at me, looks at Ralph—and produces his model of the speeder bike. George goes, ‘That’s it. We’re done.’ ”
Johnston sent his approved model to England, where they would build four full-sized nine-foot-long props.
Lucas goes over a batch of storyboards with artists George Jenson (left) and Johnston, at ILM, circa fall 1981.
Storyboard artists George Jenson and Joe Johnston (in matching shirts).
THE COSTUME CAPER
“As I was storyboarding what Richard had in mind, it was difficult to just draw characters without any costume, because it didn’t make any sense to me, so I went ahead and did costume design,” Rodis-Jamero would say. “One day while we were having a story session, Richard turned to George and said, ‘Why don’t we have Nilo costume design?’ I was absolutely taken aback. I didn’t have any plans to do that, but over the next few weeks Richard kept pushing me to do this.
“Finally, George says to Richard, ‘You’re asking me to not use John Mollo, who won an Oscar for me? You’re asking me to replace John with Nilo, who’s never done costumes before?’ I was standing between them and Richard’s response was, ‘Why don’t we give Nilo a chance?’ So George turned to me and he said, ‘You’ve got two weeks to prove it.’ ”
Marquand had frequently expressed disappointment with the costumes of Empire, so he sat down with Nilo and talked him through how he would direct the costume designer and what the changes would be, while the latter took notes. “For two weeks, I don’t remember any sleep,” Rodis-Jamero continues. “When you get opportunities like that, you just go on rocket fuel.
“Then we had a big presentation for George. Norman Reynolds was there, Jim Bloom was there, Howard Kazanjian was there. And Richard was very kind. He allowed me to present it, even though they were mostly his ideas, and walk George through them one after another, and pretty soon George just took over. Then the meeting was over and George and company were leaving the room, so I raised my hand and asked, ‘What does this mean?’ He turned to me and said, ‘Oh, yeah. You got the job.’ Richard gave me a hug and said, ‘Go home and sleep.’ ”
Aggie Rodgers was brought in not long afterward by Bloom; she was known to Lucas, having costume designed, among others, his American Graffiti (1973), Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), and Saul Zaentz’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).
“Nilo’s extremely talented and he’s a really good guy,” Lucas would say. “He was a perfect combination with Aggie, because you also need a costume/wardrobe person who knows how to make the costumes, because what the design guys draw sometimes can’t be made. You need somebody that’s going to say, ‘I have to make this in cloth that’s real, people have to walk around in it.’ You need both of those halves.”
“During preproduction on Graffiti, I guess they’d called and asked the union to send out everyone they could to interview, because they wanted to hire a local person,” Aggie Rodgers would say. “I was definitely the last person. Jim Hogan, who was the unit manager, asked me how old I was, where I had grown up, and, ‘Do you know anything about dragging the main?’ So I told him about my sister who had dragged the main in her ’54 Ford with no door handles. He went out and I met George and then had the job. I didn’t leave the office that day. It was clear I was crazy, but they didn’t seem to mind.”
“Aggie helped me with the process of costume designing,” Rodis-Jamero says. “I could visualize it, but I didn’t know the process of fabricating.”
“But Aggie had just given birth,” Bloom would say, “so she used to bring her baby, James, to the production meetings and breast-feed him—it used to drive Howard crazy, to have this baby boy sucking this woman’s breast in the middle of a production meeting. He used to complain about it, but she would say, ‘Well, what am I supposed to do? My son is hungry.’ ”
In fact, Rodgers, Carol Marquand, Marilou Hamill (when she was in town), and other new mothers would meet every Monday with their young children, taking turns hosting lunches. “I took him to work every day,” Rodgers adds. “I drove everyone nutty. You know, I can’t say that Richard Marquand really thought of me as a costume designer. I’ll just leave it at that. I think that mostly he felt he was stuck with me.”
“There was a lot of work being done with Aggie and Nilo designing the costumes,” says Marquand. “They came up with a lot of stuff, but neither of them had any big movie costume experience.”
Two pages of very early storyboards by Johnston show the beginning of the rocket bike chase, circa summer 1981. Note the Imperial troopers firing on the rebels from an elevated lookout post.
Two more pages of early boards by Johnston. For Muren, the bike chase seemed inspired by Western movies: “There are two horses running along and one person has to jump to another horse”.
PINUP PRINCESS
One of the costumes that Rodgers and Rodis-Jamero worked on was Leia’s slave outfit. “George didn’t tell me ‘Frank Frazetta,’ but I had a bunch of Frazetta books,” Rodgers would say of the costume’s inspiration. “We went over to Richard Miller’s place and talked to him all about it before he started on it.”
“I didn’t know how to construct that design into reality,” Rodis-Jamero would say. “About that time I was introduced to Richard Miller, before Aggie was hired; Lorne Peterson and Richard were friends, and Lorne introduced me to him. Richard had some really graceful sculptures, incredibly sexy. I employed him to make a mock-up for me, so he used this wax material, which, if you hold it long enough, body heat will actually mold it to yourself.”
A local freelance jeweler and sculptor, Miller worked within the parameters of the evolving concept, which at one point involved yards of flowing silk. “If we could have had 45 yards of silk flowing through the air, believe me, we would have,” Rodgers adds. “But we couldn’t figure out how to make it work.”
“I had a sculpture of my own style and I showed it to Nilo,” Miller would say. “He immediately felt I had a handle on something, so we showed George. He’s looking at it and looking at it and looking at it—and then he walks away. Nilo goes with him. So I thought, Well, that’s the end of that—he hates it! Five minutes later Nilo comes back and says, ‘George loves it. When he doesn’t say anything, that’s how we know he loves it.’ ”
VISIONARY DEPARTURE
Notably absent from that summer’s art department meeting notes and budget reports was the name of Ralph McQuarrie. Lucas had hired the artist shortly after concept sculptor Colin Cantwell, in November 1974, to visualize five key moments from the second draft of what was then called The Star Wars. Having worked as an illustrator for Boeing and on the Apollo space missions for CBS television, McQuarrie had gone on to define the iconic looks of Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO, stormtroopers, and the lightsaber; he provided, in collaboration with Lucas, the early aesthetic of the first film, which was then built upon and perfected by production designer John Barry and his art department during principal photography. At ILM, McQuarrie’s paintings had often been the goalposts for everyone’s work. “The way I got my jobs, I’ve never tried,” he says. “Things just seem to come to me.”
After the staggering success of Star Wars, McQuarrie was much sought after. He labored on an early version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture that never made it to the screen. With production designer Ken Adam and director Phil Kaufman, he drew for 10 weeks before Gene Roddenberry told them to stop. “I don’t want to see anything you guys have done,” said Roddenberry, according to McQuarrie. “I don’t like the script.” Battlestar Galac
tica was another somewhat ill-fated project.
“George had a very interesting idea,” says the artist. “I felt we were all here to help him get his project done. I had to be a filmmaker’s helper and that was fine. The lesser filmmakers I really haven’t enjoyed working with, because here I am putting all of my effort into something I don’t really like anyway.”
On Empire, McQuarrie had worked tirelessly on conceptual illustrations, creating the looks for many of the sets, helping to develop Yoda, joining Norman Reynolds’s art department at Elstree, and then segueing into the matte painting department at ILM, where he was instrumental. But he says, “I just wasn’t nearly as happy with the paintings I did on Empire. I was full of apprehension. I looked at my original [Star Wars] paintings and thought, I’ll just never be able to do as good. I was not in a good state of mind.”
By the time of Jedi, though the early script had excited him, he was burned out. “He was easily 20 years older than the average ILMer,” Tom Smith would say. “Ralph later told me he felt out of place among the young people working in the Van Nuys shop. Coming to the ILM shop every day on Empire, he worked alongside artists young enough to be his children. As the film drew to an end, he felt that the fun had gone out of it. He told me he felt there was too much pressure and too much was expected. He said he couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm that he felt was needed, so the adventure was over for him.”
McQuarrie had nonetheless completed over 300 sketches and about 18 paintings for Jedi before calling it quits. One factor in his decision to depart was the speed that film production required of him. “I would think, Well, I have to get back to the design of the concept, because it’s more important to the picture than a finished painting,” he says. “So I’m not happy charging George a week-and-a-half for a rendering that I don’t think he really needs. And it’s been frustrating to do sketches that don’t come up to what Nilo and Joe are doing. I think Nilo and Joe have come a long way; their stuff is so good and I feel sort of burned out and tired, physically tired. I just didn’t feel I was contributing as much as I could or would’ve liked to. They were covering more ground and I retreated. Overall, I just lost momentum.”
“I don’t know if you want to publish the fact that Ralph is no longer with us,” Johnston would tell the fan club around this time. “He’s gone. Quit. I think he just decided that while he can still paint, he wants to paint the things that he wants to paint. So he’s going to be a fine artist.”
“Ralph was not as involved in Jedi,” Craig Barron, who had carpooled with McQuarrie during Empire, would say. “His role was diminished. It was just the reality of the facility getting bigger, so there were more people involved, more very talented young people who wanted to take on more responsibility. Ralph’s position had been the ‘go-to-guy’ in the early films and I think he was disappointed that maybe some people were jealous about that. I know the book The Art of The Empire Strikes Back was referred to by some as ‘The Art of Ralph McQuarrie,’ and Ralph was hurt by that.”
McQuarrie preferred to change media and do woodwork for a while, cabinets with inlaid paintings. “When I’m painting I just have to drag myself to it,” he says. “I was at a party and George and Jim Bloom were there and they asked me about doing more paintings and I just couldn’t do it. I was so tired. I’m still in the same position. I have two projects right now and could make a lot of money, but I’m just burned out on the topic of futuristic spaceships and aliens. I’d like to do something else.”
“There was an afternoon where we were all gathered, months after Ralph actually stopped coming, and George made a point of thanking Ralph in front of everyone,” Rodis-Jamero would say. “Ralph stood up and said, ‘I was one of the first people that George hired,’ because Ralph is an unbelievably humble man. George got up and said, ‘No, you were the first one.’ ”
Audio element not supported.
Conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie talks about his need to withdraw from the film. (Interview by Maureen Garrett, 1983) (0:55)
More refined storyboards of the bike chase by Johnston, circa fall 1981.
MARQUAND’S MAN
On July 24, Marquand’s legal representative sent a memorandum to Howard Roffman, detailing each item right down to transportation class, per diem and gas allowances, secretarial services, and his desire for a top-rate “heated and air conditioned trailer on location and an office at the studio, both with a telephone.” Marquand also asked for mutual approval of the cinematographer and editor of the picture, as well as a complimentary 16mm print of the final film. These last requests were denied.
In reality, Lucas was more amenable to Marquand’s desires, meeting his choice for editor, Sean Barton, that summer. “At one point I thought, I’m not going to do this film—merely because it was so important,” says Barton. “In the back of my mind I thought, One doesn’t get treated this nicely, things aren’t that easy. I was very apprehensive—I usually am on films—rather paranoid for the first few months.”
“Sean has cut all the major stuff that I’ve done,” Marquand says. “So Sean flew out to meet George and they got on very well. The character of Sean meant a lot to him because, obviously, once the director delivers his cut, then the producer gets his little go at it. That’s normal. It was important to George that in post he wouldn’t find a guy who was defending my cut and this sort of awful person in there.”
“Paul Hirsch had cut Star Wars and Empire with George, and I, for one, would have liked to see the continuity continue,” Lucasfilm editor Duwayne Dunham would say. “But Richard wanted to use Sean and Sean’s a good editor, and that relationship between director and editor is a very, very close relationship. There’s a certain kind of shorthand between them.”
Barton had begun as a commercials editor at age 23, doing about three a week, an average of 150 per year, working with directors such as Ridley Scott. He recut a film for a friend of his, director Richard Loncraine, called Full Circle (aka The Haunting of Julia, 1977). Because of that Barton was offered Quadrophenia (1979), his big break. In turn, its DP Brian Tufano recommended Barton to Marquand, who was looking for an editor on Birth of the Beatles.
“I relaxed a lot once I arrived in America and thought, If they have bothered to get me over here, they mean it,” Barton continues. “George’s concern was whether he would get on with me. He’s very shy and I’m quite shy, so initially we hardly said a word to each other—which seemed to be what he wanted!”
Howard Kazanjian, costume designer Aggie Rodgers, Marquand (mimicking one of Jabba’s dancers), Lucas, Reynolds, and costume designer Nilo Rodis-Jamero discuss costume concepts.
GIRLFRIENDS, A CONVENT, AND DEATH
Empire ended its first theatrical run on Thursday, July 23, with the termination of a long-running engagement in Seattle and a final domestic tally of $181,379,640. Despite ongoing negotiations, Lucasfilm and Fox began a limited re-release only eight days later, presumably in new towns. Empire was scheduled for runs of at least six weeks and would top $16 million at the box office, with $7,148,846 its first weekend.
Of course Lucasfilm and Fox had still to settle their arrangements for the second sequel. Roger Faxon therefore met with Fox executives Leon Brachtman and Walter Swanson at their office in Beverly Hills, where they discussed and resolved a number of issues raised by the studio. A major point was sequels. Fox continued to maintain that if Lucasfilm were to cease to make sequels, the studio would then have the right to take over making those films. “I reiterated our position that no such right now exists and that we would never agree to such a term. Though it appears that Fox agreed to not press the point, they may raise it again.”
On Wednesday, August 5, Faxon again met with Brachtman and Swanson. This time the Fox executives more vigorously objected to several aspects of the May 18 contract draft. They felt that Lucasfilm had removed their right to make a television series based on Star Wars, though Faxon in fact disagreed, remarking only that Lucasfilm would have approval if they e
ver went forward with the idea—a “major concession.” “This dispute has been a sore point with Fox from the beginning of our relationship,” Faxon notes.
Fox also argued that they retained the right to remake Star Wars. “I pointed out that it was our understanding that the term ‘sequel’ included remakes and that all sequel rights belonged to the Star Wars Corporation,” Faxon says. No agreement was reached on this point; it was left open for further discussion as the final terms were hammered out.
Marquand also flew down to LA that summer, to meet with his stars: Ford, Hamill, and Fisher. “I wanted to, and I was very much encouraged to get together with the actors,” he says. “So I spent quite a bit of time with them, talking about their characters and where they thought they were going. Carrie expressed a concern that Leia had come off as this sort of boy in girl’s clothing who marches up and down and shouts at everybody, and that maybe she could just mellow a little and have moments of despair.”
“There are a lot of people who don’t like my character in these movies,” Carrie Fisher says. “They think I’m some kind of space bitch.”
The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (Enhanced Edition) Page 18