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

by Rinzler, J. W.

  Russell was assigned the throne room scene, the space battle, and the funeral pyre. “Most of my work in the throne room sequence was about positioning visual effects elements, star fields, lightsabers, explosions, etc. I tried to infuse my drawings with all the energy so vividly expressed in the previous Star Wars films, and to introduce the kinetic dynamism that I’d absorbed from the works of Jack Kirby, who has inspired generations of artists and filmmakers.”

  Three storyboards by David Russell, two from the throne room sequence and one from the climactic space battle, December 1982.

  Johnston did at least 42 storyboards on December 1, 1982, as he planned out with Lucas and Muren all the rancor shots over three days: November 30, December 1 and 2. One or two shots were revised just after New Year’s 1983.

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  Burtt (on right) with Gary Summers at Sprockets attending to the final mix (it was in front of that sound board that composer John Williams once conducted the Jedi sound crew on how a certain sequence should flow musically).

  ADVANCED ADR

  A Western Union Mailgram from Lucas, Kazanjian, and Marquand was sent to Hamill at the Shubert Theatre in LA for his opening night as Mozart in Amadeus on December 7: “Have a huge success tonight and all future nights, but don’t break a leg because we need you.”

  Hamill had been recording the Empire radio show when he heard that he’d won the part in Peter Shaffer’s hit musical. To prepare, he’d traveled with his family to Austria to research his role. In fact, Hamill attributed his determination to perform in legitimate theater to Lucas: “He kept telling me, ‘Do what you want—life is too short.’ ” Hamill was also struggling against being typecast and working to expand his repertoire and his reputation, to the point,

  ironically, of regretting Star Wars. “Those movies didn’t give me much pride in my craft,” he says. “I had to act on stage to get that. Special-effects movies are hard on actors. You find yourself giving an impassioned speech to a big lobster in a flight suit. Only later do you see how silly it looks.”

  Also in LA, from December 6 to 22, with a couple of breaks, Marquand and Lucas supervised ADR at Goldwyn Studios—an important period given that about 85 percent of the film’s final dialogue had to be looped. First up was James Earl Jones, who took a ride from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel to the recording studio where he met with the director and executive producer.

  One line that was emphasized during Jones’s ADR was Vader’s “Sister!” “George would start counting syllables in editorial, on his fingers, and that’s how I knew he was about to change the dialogue,” Dunham would say. “For Darth Vader, his dialogue was adjusted because the question put to me one day was, ‘Do you get that Vader realizes that Leia is Luke’s sister?’ I was like, ‘No. Really?’ ” What had sounded like a question in earlier temp readings thus became a sinister confirmation when Jones stepped up to the microphone, with an added line, “So you have a twin sister …”

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  Nearly a final cut, though without music or sound effects, of the scene in which Vader realizes Leia is Luke’s sister—with Marquand doing Vader’s lines. However, this moment will be altered when James Earl Jones performs the Sith Lord’s final lines in order to emphasize Vader’s sinister discovery, late 1982. (1:55)

  Second up was Carrie Fisher, followed by Daniels. “It’s hard on the actors because it’s frustrating and difficult to get a natural sound to the voices a year later on a stage out of context,” says Burtt. “But only about 15 percent of what was recorded on the set gets into the movie.”

  While Daniels was in California he found time to sit down with Burtt at Sprockets to record his fireside chat with the Ewoks, in their words, speaking a language that Burtt had invented. “Ben just sat down and wrote out this speech and it’s a cross between Tibetan and Spanish [sic],” Daniels says. “We had two or three very happy days talking garbage words, ‘Ja ma guata.’ I worked out with Ben how many lines we needed and then we came up with it together.”

  To create Ewokese, Burtt had begun by searching for an exotic language as inspiration, eventually picking a few Tibetan and Nepalese words. A documentary on the nomadic tribes of China and Central Asia prompted a search for speakers of those languages, who turned out to be hard to find. Eventually, he discovered an 80-year-old Western Mongolian woman of the Torghut tribe (from Dzungaria) who had recently been brought to urban civilization.

  “She spoke only Kalmuck [or Kalmyk] and was quite congenial as long as she had her desired beverage on hand—we called her Grandma Vodka,” Burtt would say. “With shot glass in hand, she exuded some very charming folk-tales in a raspy high-pitched voice that inspired Ewok. And then Tony Daniels was absolutely brilliant in that he’d also done a sign language. Finally we integrated into his speech the sound effects from our library with the idea that Threepio was actually playing them back over his built-in mouth speaker. Tony came over to my room and we just went over the sequence, testing out lines, getting them to fit, writing them down.”

  “You have to make it sound like you’re saying something—not just saying words—with inflections and strange intonations,” Daniels says. “ ‘Y manu machoo Vader con yum num’ is actually one of my favorite lines. Ben came up with ‘yum num.’ I wanted to say, ‘Goo boo Vader,’ but George wouldn’t let me do that. He thought it sounded rude.”

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  Burtt discusses how he goes about creating alien languages, specifically Ewokese. (Interview by Garrett, 1983). (2:01)

  Marquand directs a tracking shot of the droids in Death Valley, California, as they approach Jabba’s palace in a pick-up shoot, on December 11, 1982. (DP Hiro Narita operates the camera.)

  The camera team and matte department crew prepare for a matte shot of the droids (equipment support staffer Wade Childress is in the black box, with matte photographer Neil Krepela on the left with crossed arms).

  Crew prepare a path for the droids outside Luke’s cave in Death Valley (including producer Kazanjian).

  Lucas watches Louis Friedman as he lifts R2’s dome to check on the droid whose remote control was being thrown off by radio interference.

  The droids descend the cleared path.

  Lucas and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO).

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  A printed daily from a pickup shot by DP Hiro Narita of C-3PO walking toward Jabba’s palace (shot on location in Death Valley, December 11, 1982). (1:19)

  At ILM Marquand directs Hamill in a pickup shot, where Luke slips a black glove over his injured mechanical hand while piloting his X-wing, on December 20, 1982 (behind him is Gary Platek).

  GOO-GOO JABBA

  Back at Goldwyn, Adeal Crooms voice-overed Wicket’s voice (as performed by Warwick Davis, the Ewok name change having been effected). Between ADR sessions, on Saturday, December 11, Lucas, Marquand, Daniels, Kazanjian, 26 crew, and a park ranger all convened at Twenty Mule Team Canyon, Death Valley, for a one-day location shoot. The two droids would be filmed here and composited together with the cave portion of the Luke/lightsaber scene, scheduled to be shot later at ILM.

  “That was fun because it was one of the first times that George took us, the matte department crew, out on location,” Barron would say. “And it was very funny because George and Richard Marquand had this little thing where sometimes George would yell, ‘Cut,’ on our matte shot and then Marquand would say, ‘What? Don’t cut!’ It was sort of a joke between them.”

  Marquand and Lucas discuss the pick-up of Hamill as Luke in a makeshift cave on the ILM stage, December 20, 1982 (assistant cameraman Randy Johnson and Muren are on the right).

  Lucas and crew shoot the scene, with the intense desert sun simulated with hot stage lights.

&
nbsp; Hamill in his Jedi robes within the cave.

  A final frame with animated lightsaber and C-3PO composited in from the Death Valley shoot.

  Final frame of Ben Burtt in his cameo as an Imperial guard, a pickup shot filmed at ILM.

  Unusually, the shot of the droids heading toward Jabba’s palace would be completed via the “original negative” matte method, which ensured the very best shot quality. Used since the earliest days of moviemaking, but not recently, this meant that both the live action and the matte art would be composited in camera on the same piece of original film without resort to optical or projection compositing. The droids were therefore photographed with a black matte protecting the area of film in which Jabba’s castle and the sky would appear. The painting of the castle and sky would later be photographed onto the exact same film at ILM with the previously exposed area of the droids protected by a matching black matte.

  “It was very exciting, because I thought I could rely on Artoo and know he’s not going to suddenly break down,” says Daniels, referring to his friend’s new electronic innards. “He was radio-controlled by a man named David Schaeffer. But in fact we had a panic on, because nearby Edwards Air Force Base was really screwing up Artoo’s radio receiver—he was going all over the place.”

  Lucas and Marquand then returned to the Goldwyn Sound Facility, where Hamill looped Luke’s dialogue over a period of days. After Fisher did another day of ADR, Harrison Ford recorded his lines, followed by Frank Oz. Up north at Sprockets, Burtt was taping additional voices for many of the secondary characters.

  Known for his work as Pacifica Radio KPFA’s drama and literature director, Erik Bauersfeld performed as both Bib Fortuna and Admiral Ackbar. “I went next door, where Ben showed me photos of Ackbar and Bib, and I did what I thought they sounded like. It took about an hour. I had done many voices for radio, but I do not speak Huttese. I had no idea what I was saying. Ben gave me a general idea and I just did it.”

  The creator of Hardware Wars (1978), the first Star Wars parody/homage, Ernie Fosselius did the voices of the two rancor keepers. Per Burtt’s direction, he channeled Laurel and Hardy. Jabba’s voice was performed by Larry Ward. “He had a deep voice to begin with, but not deep enough,” Burtt would recall. “I pitch-shifted his voice as low as it would go while still maintaining intelligibility. Then a sub-harmonic generator was used to derive even deeper tones, almost an earthquake rumble in short bursts, which were mixed in with the words. On top of all this was added a slurpy noise that I got from the sound of my wife’s macaroni and cheese being fondled in a bowl.”

  The crime lord’s sadistic laugh was a combination of humans, hippos, hyenas, and more elements blended together. “Ben is already developing wonderful, extra characteristics for Jabba,” says Marquand, who was now further along on his next film. “I think Jabba is becoming very frightening.”

  Burtt often auditioned crew for bit parts. He and his team were working fast and often he’d ask, “Who can do a sound like an alien?” One time, Burtt organized an event called “Death Scream Day” and everybody who came in simply screamed their lungs out. For the moment when the AT-ST driver is yanked out of his cockpit by Chewbacca, Craig Barron passed the audition: “I’m the scream. I didn’t know I was good at screaming until then.” Candidates were often asked if they could make any unusual sounds. Mark Dodson could. “He had a really funny hyena-like laugh,” Burtt would say. “So I recorded him and that strange laugh became Salacious Crumb.”

  After Fett is swallowed by the Sarlacc, the monster burps, courtesy of Howie Hammerman, who had also burped for Spielberg’s E.T. and Ridley Scott’s alien.

  WILD WILHELMS

  Lucasfilm threw its annual Christmas party on Saturday, December 18, with Marquand and Barton in attendance. Two days later at ILM, the director filmed Hamill in his low-rent cave and his X-wing cockpit, slipping on the black glove. Fifteen little people were also filmed as Ewoks against bluescreen for the celebration matte painting.

  Hamill then took the short drive to Skywalker Ranch, where a crew had been prepping since 4 PM for the funeral pyre scene. Unfortunately, it began to rain really hard. Barron would remember “begging” them not to have a dinner break at 8 PM because the crew just wanted to get it over with, but instead having to track mud and water through the ranch’s beautiful cafeteria to eat.

  “I remember the pomp and circumstance of burning Vader’s body,” Hamill would say, “but I mean you’re five yards away from a trailer or a makeshift roof of some kind, so it wasn’t all that bad.”

  “We shot Mark through high winds and torrential rains, and had to wrap early,” read a telex to Pat Carr. Hamill worked until 10:15 PM, after which Randy Johnson once again donned Luke’s costume. Both Lukes were filmed by Caleb Deschanel and directed by Marquand.

  The director also shot a spontaneous retake of an Imperial officer in the bunker, who is knocked over a railing and falls to his death. “I was in a meeting going over the film,” Burtt would say, “and somebody said, ‘We’ve got to do this shot. Who do you want?’ And George says, ‘Ben, you go do it.’ I left the editing room, went down the hall. They put me in a costume, I did it, and went back to work. I must have done five or six takes—the camera ran the whole time.”

  The Imperial’s death cry was a familiar sound, something like a “Wilhelm scream,” named after cavalry private Wilhelm, who gets an arrow through his leg in The Charge at Feather River (1953). “It’s actually me imitating the Wilhelm,” Burtt says of his death wail. “The scene was shot without sound, so I had to dub myself later.” (Burtt inserted an authentic “Wilhelm scream” during the Sarlacc pit scene.)

  Marquand and company later reconvened at ILM to film more Endor bonfire scenes with 11 little people. Keeping track of continuity that daylong shoot, Kazanjian’s assistant, Kathleen Ross, remarked, “Call was at 10 AM. It is now 11 AM … Want to bet we don’t get our first shot before the lunch break?”

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  ZOUNDS! IT’S MORE SOUNDS!

  As soon as sound designer Ben Burtt had read the script, he was on the lookout for strange and/or musical effects—all the time, no matter where he was. “My wife would say to me, ‘Turn it off, please turn off the sound editor,’ ” he says. “But my job is a substitution process: I record something and then use it for something else.”

  The first effect Burtt designed was for Jabba’s immense palace door. As was his method, he derived the final sound from several parts: the creaks from rusty bulkhead doors within the ammunition tunnels of Fort Cronkite, Marin County; the rumble from the same effect used for the famous boulder in Raiders, essentially a car driving over a muddy, rocky road on Skywalker Ranch; and the sound of an acacia tree being chopped down.

  For the chicken walkers, Burtt used the same components as the Empire walkers, mostly dumpster doors and metal shearing machines, but sped up. Burtt modified previously created effects for the new spacecraft, but a great “rumble” came from an air conditioner at a Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge motel; the A-wings and B-wings were modified versions of snowspeeders. “There was no time to do more, as those shots came late in the game,” Burtt says.

  The Emperor’s animated lightning bolts came to life when Burtt mixed in sounds recorded from the Frankenstein laboratory props, which Ken Strickfaden had created for James Whale’s 1931 film and preserved in his barn.

  At Sprockets, Burtt, Tom Holman (standing), the creator of the THX sound system, and re-recording mixer Gary Summers work on the audio track of the film.

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  THE OPTICAL DOGS

  Much of the workload was shifting to Optical by mid-December, where Bruce Nicholson and his crew were maximizing the output of their four optical printers (two for generating elements; two for compositing). “The current tally on the whole picture, I think, is more than 500 shots,” writes Edlund. “I don’t know how we’re going to do it. The Quad printer that I sort of designed for Empire has been split into two separate printers. I fought the
idea at first, but when we actually looked at the situation, it was a better deal to have two printers than one super ‘trick’ printer.”

  “We have the space battle sequence, which has roughly twice as many elements as we’ve ever had,” says Bruce Nicholson. “And with each new element you have a potential new problem.” His crew of 18 also had the desert sequence, with its set of unique complications: color imbalances, dirt scratches, and telling matte lines. “We try to spend the first two or three months just testing out everything for each particular sequence,” he says. “But some of those problems have stayed with us.”

  “On Empire we produced 1,650 cam reports (every time an element is shot, it is accompanied by a camera report),” explains Art Repola, supervising visual effects editor. “For Jedi, we will almost certainly produce 3,000 and our filing system has been put on a computer. For a single shot that might last a second or two on screen, involving two dozen spaceships, we are working with as many as 57 separate elements, which means 57 separate pieces of film, 56 for the ships themselves and a final element for the starfield. George personally approves every single element. Not just every shot, but every element—every ship, every planet, every lazerburst. Some of the composites will have been looked at 20 or 30 times before they are finally in the can.”