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

by Rinzler, J. W.

  In another bay, Muren and his crew continued work on the speeder bike chase. Once they had the backgrounds, the foregrounds with miniatures could be shot to match; when necessary, the plates were plotted out, one frame at a time, on a pin-registered VistaVision Moviola. By finding out which bounces remained in the background plates, Muren could feed that information into the motion-control camera, which would then move with the plate when the foreground miniatures were shot. The flashing lights from the live-action shoot now helped the crew to match the lighting for the miniatures.

  The Auto Matte, created and built at ILM, which gave the matte department more flexibility and movement on its shots than it had ever had before.

  Sometimes the matte department photographed pictures from magazines and then projected them onto their “canvas” on glass, rearranging elements. “It can be very technical, with not a lot of artistic freedom,” says Pangrazio. They also had to simulate the kind of lens being used, wide angle, and so on. “There’s a whole visual aesthetic to matte painting,” Evans would say. “Dennis used to say there is a kind of heightened reality or idealized reality that is better than a photograph.”

  OP-11, the Death Star “waistband” shot (one of two “waistband” shots), was created in the matte painting department in several parts: the actual matte painting by Pangrazio (above, circa October 1982); foreground models to create parallax (below); and a photo of the shuttle on glass that would move courtesy of stop-motion photography; all of which would be combined on the Auto Matte.

  A Johnston storyboard (September 24, 1982) set the stage for all the elements, though a droid effecting repairs would not make the cut. The final painting would be approved on January 15, 1983. Barron would note that their challenge in creating the shot was to rival a similar moment in the first Star Wars.

  “Pete Amundson, the bike chase editor, and I spent nearly three weeks picking out the right plates for the right moment,” Muren says. “We ran some of the best takes in reverse and some mirror-imaged, and some both, to get the variety and quantity we needed. Bruce Nicholson had to figure out how to pull mattes off all this stuff with lights flickering and flashing and all sorts of things going on.”

  A memo from R. J. Doris to Tom Smith outlined the work to be done by the Computer Division on Jedi: six shots, for $50,000, approximately 30 seconds of the Death Star attack plan during the rebel briefing scene. The images would be generated on their Evans and Sutherland Picture System 2 and would be line drawings only, based on Johnston storyboards; colors would be created through the use of appropriate filters during optical processing at ILM. Two programmers were assigned—William Reeves and Tom Duff—and seven weeks allotted. “I don’t have to tell you how excited we are to help out on ROJ,” Doris concludes.

  “We had a visit from the people at Atari and their president, Ray Kassar, and they were blown away by the work that the computer graphics team had done,” Greber would say. “It was really revolutionary. They said, ‘Will you do games for us?’ So I talked to George and said, ‘Listen, why don’t I hit them up for a lot of money, enough money that we don’t have to spend a penny, and we’ll use the money that they give us to build a team that will do games for them, but for other people as well, and we’ll have a base for making games.’ He thought that was a good idea and it worked.” Lucasfilm Games (later, LucasArts) was born.

  Another missive that day was from Joel Coler, vice president of advertising and publicity at Fox, to Sid Ganis: “It’s my feeling that you and I should plan a series of marketing meetings around the world on Revenge of the Jedi … Our goal during these meetings should be very simple: to put the pressure on locally so that the marketing of Jedi be carried out so as to make the biggest results possible. If the film is as good as you have indicated, and of course there is no reason to doubt this, we should aim to make the success of Jedi bigger than the original.”

  “We went for broke,” Ganis would say. “It was the end of the trilogy; we knew we had an audience ready to go for us. So we pulled out the stops and were much more aggressive and much more movie-like in our approach to the campaign. Television was a major factor in the advertising of movies and although George always felt that we could open a Star Wars movie without it, we planned a gigantic television campaign, with the stars out there and everybody doing interviews. We didn’t hold back. We just blasted away.”

  Richard Ingber, senior vice president of advertising for Fox, began the first work on the campaign. The first trailer for Jedi had been released that summer. A second trailer was planned for Christmas, and a third for spring 1983.

  “We have a couple trailers for the show, which basically show nothing, because George didn’t want to reveal very much, and, frankly, they’re kind of lame,” says Ralston. “There’s a certain edge they don’t have, only because George was far too busy to do them himself. But people in the theaters are going bananas over them.”

  Before and after the rigged explosion shot at ILM, which would be combined with photography of the Millennium Falcon as it escapes the exploding Death Star.

  Pyro effects at ILM were created for the shuttle’s hasty departure from an exploding Death Star hangar.

  LIQUID MUSIC

  About three weeks behind schedule, on Tuesday, November 2, John Williams spent two days with Lucas spotting the music. Also in attendance were supervising music editor Ken Wannberg and Lionel Newman, as they watched the most recent cut of Jedi on a KEM. New cues would include a theme for the Emperor and the death of Yoda.

  “We’re starting to run a little late, but we’re still bringing Johnny in,” says Kazanjian. “His people will start timing the different scenes. They know where the music has to go, they know the music’s heartbeat, so you start timing that so Johnny can write. We’re going to give him two reels. Two weeks later we’re going to give him three reels. Four weeks later we’re going to give him the balance. ILM is running late right now.”

  “Johnny is one of the key elements of the movies—they improve enormously once the music is put into them,” says Lucas. “Six hours and fifteen minutes’ worth of film already, and you’re talking about maybe five and a half hours’ worth of music. It’s the underpinning, a grease that each movie slides along on, as well as a glue that holds it together so that you can follow it. There’s always been a scene or a moment in which the music connects so strongly with the visual that it sends shivers up my spine every time I see it. Johnny’s always gotten that moment for me.”

  Stage technician Joe Fulmer prepares a miniature speeder bike with Luke and Leia for a shot. Mike Fulmer built the final rocket bike miniatures, each about 18 inches long. Dave Carson sculpted little figures of Luke and Leia for the miniatures, under the supervision of Phil Tippett, with armatures built by Tom St. Amand.

  Successive stages of combining the live-action photography with the Steadicam footage shot by Garrett Brown: The background forest plate (FIRST IMAGE) would be bi-packed with the hold-out matte (SECOND IMAGE); the bluescreen element (THIRD IMAGE) would be bi-packed with the cover matte (FOURTH IMAGE) and then the elements would be combined to create the two-element optically generated final composite (LAST IMAGE).

  Stage technician Bobby Finley makes a rigging adjustment to the ¼-scale speeder bike miniature, while Tippett prepares to puppeteer the biker scout figure. The bike miniature is attached to a motion-control rig.

  Effects cameraman Michael McAlister and ILM manager Tom Smith.

  Because sound design and music were so closely linked, Burtt also sat in on the spotting. As the speeder bike chase sped by, still in videomatic form, he suggested that there be no music during the sequence, explaining that “the intensity of the scene would be more pronounced if we surprised the audience with just a point-of-view reality of visceral bike sounds,” Burtt would say. “I felt it was unnecessary to have music tell the audience that it was exciting. Johnny Williams agreed, so George threw up his hands and said, ‘Okay, if you guys say so.’ ”

  Four day
s later, Lucas locked two reels of the picture, which were immediately handed over to Williams. Two days after that, Ganis sent a confidential memo to Lucas and Kazanjian, noting that they had $16 million in guarantees so far, with bookings into about 125 theaters. The plan was for approximately 900 upon release.

  Dave Carson wears Jabba’s hand for an insert shot directed by Marquand in which the Hutt crime boss eats some “Tat Sushi”, circa fall 1982.

  Key sculptor Dave Carson as Jabba’s forearm reaches for a snack in a pickup shot.

  Velma Horne as Oola in a pickup shot of the slave dancer’s fall through a trapdoor, circa fall 1982.

  Lucas checking the shot of Rio Fiore as Leia clandestinely drawing her blaster in front of the bunker, circa fall 1982.

  Marquand directs stage technician Harold Cole as Vader in front of an Endor forest painted backdrop (the shot would include only Vader’s hands), circa fall 1982.

  A pickup shot on the skiff.

  PLAYIN’ THE BLUES

  A glitch had occurred. Kazanjian telexed Watts about complications with the four-perf French stock used while filming Jabba’s throne room scenes: “We’re having huge problems with the blue layer. Optical, dissolves won’t work, subtitles, etc.” Kazanjian wanted to know what other scenes had been filmed using the French stock. “My advice to you on Indy II is not to use French stock but U.S.A. only … George can’t understand why I didn’t use all U.S. stock on Jedi.—Regards, from a four-foot hole in the ground, Howard.”

  “When we started shooting, the rushes came up slightly blue and they were already very worried about it, so I had to do a slight correction,” Barton would say. “I’d said to George, ‘They look like shit.’ ”

  Watts replied the next day saying that all four-perf shooting in England had been done on French stock. No tests had been done beforehand, but Watts assured him the stock was new and that other productions—Superman, Krull, and The Dark Crystal—hadn’t had problems. More sleuthing revealed the problem source: They had in fact been using at least some three-year-old French Kodak stock salvaged from Raiders, “while they were doing the submarine scenes in France,” Barton explains. “Once we knew what it was, we were able to correct the blue layer problem. George was furious because on a movie of that expense to use old stock is ridiculous.”

  Back in editorial, Lucas continued to order pickup shots, which were filmed at ILM using people on hand: Oola in her trapdoor fall (Velma Horne); Jabba’s hand moving into his bowl to grab “Tat Sushi” (puppeteered by Carson); Leia drawing a gun from her holster outside the bunker (Rita, aka Rio Fiore); a closeup of Vader and his lazer sword (Harold Cole); and scout biker pickups (also Cole).

  Total effect shots had now climbed about 25 percent, from 473 to 635. Of those shots, 383 were projected at $20K; 22 for about $10K; 12 for $5.5K; 103 for around $5K; and 16 for the bargain-basement price of $500. The opening sequence of 15 shots was complete except for the 1st, 4th, and 15th—but the facility now had a quota of 50 elements per week, most of which was now weighing down the optical department.

  The lighting in the closeups of the Emperor were objectionable—so Lucas opted to fix it in post. A hand-animated shadow was drawn over many of the Emperor’s closeups, a black blob that danced on the edge of his cowl (which can be seen on the left).

  * * *

  THE FEARLESS FIVE

  A confluence of storytelling, technology, and artistry resulted in Jedi featuring in its first few minutes five fabulous matte paintings: the large moon of Endor and the Vader shuttle approaching the Death Star by Pangrazio; the “waistband” by Chris Evans; and two Death Star hangar bay shots by Frank Ordaz.

  Pangrazio’s side view of the Death Star worked in part thanks to a shuttle taped to a piece of glass photographed on the Auto Matte by Neil Krepela, a shot made entirely in the matte painting department (the only ILM department with the means to go from shot conception to completion, a one-stop shop), which included a large background painting of the docking bay entries with a foreground miniature showing parts of the Death Star still under construction.

  For Evans’s “waistband” painting, Bill George had given him brass stencils from Blade Runner, which formed the foundation for much of the incomplete Death Star painting textures. “It took Chris months to paint every panel line in the ‘waistband’ shot,” Barron says. “It’s a beautiful painting and has an amazing sense of three-dimensionality to it, but what a huge challenge.” (For fun, Evans included a small Trans-America pyramid from San Francisco’s skyline among the details.)

  “George built a huge set for the Death Star landing bay,” says Ordaz. “But in the matte shot of Vader’s entrance, very little of the actual set is visible. The original plate was only a small portion of the frame showing the floor, some troops, and that part of the shuttle which was actually built. The plate that we received also included a portion of the set’s walls, but instead of trying to match our painting to those real walls, we decided to paint out all of the walls. We also painted the whole shuttle, rather than try to match our painting to what was already built.”

  “Why did we build this big huge set if you guys are painting it out in every shot?” Marquand exclaimed when he saw their work.

  Because the plate had been shot close to the right-hand wall, Ordaz added a large TIE bomber craft and several maintenance shafts and flight deck elevators to fill out the composition on the left and to conform with the original design concept. “It was very much a group effort as each of us suggested things which would be visually interesting,” he concludes.

  Chris Evans at work on a matte painting of the forest moon of Endor.

  Final frames of the first five matte paintings of the film, by Pangrazio (the curve of the forest moon, a different matte painting of Endor), Evans, Pangrazio and Frank Ordaz (fourth and fifth).

  Chris Evans at work on the first “waistband” shot of the Death Star, with the final matte painting (below).

  * * *

  * * *

  THE BLACK “BARRON”

  Lucas and Johnston discuss Chris Evans’ matte painting of the Imperial landing platform on Endor.

  Another matte department tour de force and an example of Lucas’s economical storytelling was a single shot in which the audience is shown the simultaneous arrivals of Darth Vader and Luke, as well as the necessary geography of Endor in relation to the second Death Star.

  The process began when Chris Evans painted parts of the scene on a four by eight-foot piece of masonite, which was then composited with the shuttle model element, stop-motion animation of the walker, and other materials—much of which was put together on the Auto Matte.

  “The walker was shot stop-motion by Dennis’s crew,” Barron would say. “To get the correct perspective, Evans made a line-up sketch that showed we had to get way up in the back of the stage with a long lens to shoot down at the right angle. I then rear projected that element into the painting on the Auto Matte.”

  The corner lights on the landing pad were painted by Evans, but those flashing lights on the radar dish were programmed fiber optics threaded through tiny holes in the painting. The landing of Vader’s shuttle was a bluescreen element shot on stage and later put into what was called a “pre-comp,” a technique that enabled them to complete as much of the shot as possible before turning it over to Optical.

  For the disembarkation of Vader from his shuttle, the live action plate was originally shot in England, but was re-shot at ILM by the matte crew. “The original angle was flat, looking straight toward the shuttle,” Barron says. “Overall it just wasn’t a dramatic composition.”

  Lucas approved a Pangrazio-suggested re-do for a better shot on the ILM main stage—where Barron donned the costume of the Sith Lord (this film would be comped into a second matte painting of the shuttle on the landing platform). “That shuttle ramp we built was a lot steeper than the original shuttle ramp and you can’t see out of that helmet very well. But Vader can’t look down at his feet when he’s walking dow
n—so I had to just throw my right leg out in front of me and hope it found the ramp. But David Prowse is much taller than I am, so the cape was literally six inches longer than I was—so I slipped on the cape and slid down the ramp in a pile of Darth Vader. Of course, everyone on the set was laughing.”

  Michael Pangrazio reflects on the shuttle in his matte painting of the same platform in closeup, the second painting in the sequence, for the shot of Darth Vader emerging (Pangrazio is projecting a slide of the actual shuttle model onto his artwork in order to get the perspective correct).

  Three final frames show how Evans’s matte painting and film of the shuttle and AT-AT were combined.

  Craig Barron in the Vader costume (with Pangrazio, sitting) and then walking down the steep landing ramp at ILM (below).

  Pangrazio’s completed matte painting, minus the live-action photography.