Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek - Expanded Edition

by John Booth

  That buzz became a reality few could have predicted.

  "They had a cast and crew screening on Wilshire Boulevard just before they released it to the public, and it was an incredible experience. Tears were coming to my eyes when that big white Star Destroyer came overhead. When it had sound and sound effects, it was 100 times more powerful. It was really a big deal."

  Along with the accolades in the wake of Star Wars' success came new challenges, not all of them screen-related. Having had his fill of working under intense studio scrutiny, Lucas had already formulated his plans to shift his base of operations far from the Hollywood environs and almost 400 miles north. Peterson recalls being somewhat torn about the move to San Rafael. Not everyone on the Star Wars crew was invited, for one thing. For another, Peterson had signed on to work on Battlestar Galactica in Los Angeles – in fact, the Galactica effects crew had arranged to rent some of ILM's equipment for the television series.

  Then there was the general sense of unknown about the relocation: Lucas and Kurtz had shared with Peterson their idea of converting an unused warehouse in San Rafael into the ILM headquarters, starting from scratch to design a facility perfectly tailored for the visual effects company. (ILM remained at the nondescript cluster of buildings labeled "Kerner Optical Research Labs" until its heralded move to the former Presidio in San Francisco in 2005.) Peterson and others felt a sense of ownership of the Star Wars vision which they had helped transform into such a believable on-screen reality. "We realized that it would be impossible for him to just take the [Star Wars] models and hand them over to someone else and say 'Go for it,'" Peterson said. In the end, it was that, along with the inherent risks of the project, that led Peterson to cast his lot with ILM. "It was both really exciting and it also felt really dangerous," he said. "Because the possibility of failure loomed. And the people in L.A. weren't really keen on us doing it."

  It didn't help that Lucas and ILM also were now expected to follow the biggest, boldest space opera ever to hit the silver screen. "We were a little bit of pariahs [after the move], and The Empire Strikes Back became the hardest thing to do in comparison."

  Among Lucas' original arguments for luring Peterson to San Rafael was the notion that with ILM's operations now well-established, the effects work for Empire would be relatively simple. "Well," Peterson said, "it turns out it was incredibly more ambitious. The stop-motion [AT-AT] walkers and the big giant snow sets and massive paintings and generators, and new ships, and Darth Vader's [command] ship. It turned out we nearly doubled the amount of models that were made for Star Wars. Then when we did Return of the Jedi, we didn't double Empire, but we went to 160 [models] for new stuff."

  One thing that changed for the better, though, was that Lucas could now keep in closer touch with the ILM crew. "He could be there every day, and he started to enjoy the process, being there at ILM and being tickled at what could happen." That phrase – what could happen – seems appropriately applied to ILM over its entire existence. Yet some aspects of the shop remain unchanged. For example, the odd translation that takes place between an artist's two-dimensional rendering and the development of that drawing or sketch into a usable three-dimensional model. "There are things that you can draw in two dimensions that can't happen," Peterson explained. "You know: planes that can't go together and all that stuff. So part of the job of somebody, whether you're working in industrial design or you're working in space models or whatever, is to solve those kinds of problems. How do you get the feel of it the way the art director wanted, and the way George Lucas wanted, and still physically have it happen."

  There are also the technical aspects of such a project: sizing of the models – ILM crews would sometimes build foam mock-ups or use stage tape to create a ship's outline on the floor – or where to fit internal light bulbs or a power supply. "When we started the walkers, we would get a sheaf of different designs, all on the same theme, but looking at different angles. You know – what if its upper leg was a little bit shorter and the lower one was longer? Some were little sketches and some were more elaborate ones, but it's usually not exactly the same in the drawing as it will eventually be made.

  Asked, then, how he came to "see" these proposed drawings first, whether through his "art" eyes or his "design" eyes, Peterson comes up with a reply that mixes a bit of both views along with the hardest reality of Hollywood. "The really big [thing] is, 'How is this going to be used, and how much [is it going to cost?]' Something that's only going to show in one shot is not worth, say, $200,000 to put out for it unless the director says, 'This is such an important shot.' A big part of it is how many ways it's going to be seen. A lot of times, we've bit on that barbed-wire hook of someone saying, 'Okay, it's only going to be seen from this side,' and then everyone loves it, so we have to go back and retro-fit [for more shots]. Many times, we wouldn't believe the story of 'It's only going to be seen once.'"

  As for actually bringing designs to life, the Star Wars saga – particularly the original trilogy – has long been recognized as chock full of very terrestrial tidbits that turned otherworldly in the hands of Peterson and his fellow modelmakers. Hubcaps from a toy car became sensors in a floating seeker; a pair of disposable paint buckets formed the body of the Rebel Blockade Runner's escape pod; and the Graflex camera flash handle entered film legend as the iconic lightsaber, practically the very symbol of the entire six-film series.

  Yet even after Star Wars proved a gold mine, Peterson said the model shop was always pushed to be creative but tight-fisted. "It continued on, partly because kind of only a fool opens up his pocket book and says, 'Here you go.' Everything had to be budgeted. [Producers] had to say, 'What is this worth? These are the things we would like, in this drawing – how much do you think it's going to cost?' There was no period of time when everybody said, 'The sky's the limit.'"

  While that old saw may not have applied to ILM's budgeting practices, it's certainly appropriate in terms of the company's special effects advances over the years, particularly on the computer graphics front. And nowhere were those technological leaps more prominently displayed than in the 1997 re-issues of the original Star Wars trilogy under the Special Edition banners.

  Peterson has mixed feelings about that project. It was strange seeing his mid-1970s work on the big screen alongside late-1990s computerized creations, and in fact, he "hated some of those [new] creatures that were always walking around in the background." But he concedes that in many ways, the Special Editions paved the way for the computer-dependent effects scenes in the prequel trilogy. "In some ways, CGI [computer-generated imagery] was just coming along, and it had to crawl before it could walk, and walk before it could run. George was using that as a test bed for what was to come, and a lot of people said, 'Why fiddle with the Magna Carta? Why go back and rewrite the Bible?'" (One ILM wiseacre, Peterson related, reacted to the Return of the Jedi: Special Edition proposals with the quip, "[Lucas] is going to be able to take the Ewoks out of every scene!")

  Still, some of the changes were rewarding for Peterson, particularly a revamped shot of the Jawa sandcrawler lumbering over the surface of Tatooine. "[Star Wars: Special Edition effects supervisor] John Knoll and I, we made this landscape, and it's much more dramatic than the first one. For the first one, we just dug a hole in the desert – we found a place that looked like a really good miniature [set piece]. But with the new one, we sculpted the landscape and had the sandcrawler come up over it instead. It's much more dramatic. That morning, we looked up and the clouds were just perfect – there was a blue, blue, blue sky, just what we wanted, and there were three long, layered clouds, just to give it some scale. That shot looks absolutely fantastic. But," he added, unable to hide his old-school leanings, "it would be nice if you could buy a DVD of the original." (Shortly after this conversation, Lucasfilm officials announced plans to make that possible in fall 2006.)

  Though he's among the few folks who can claim hands-on involvement with all six Star Wars episodes and he insists he's loved
working on them all, Peterson clearly favors the original trilogy – warts, minimalism and all – over the prequels. "When you look at a scene from Star Wars, there are like five blocks of things to look at. When we got to the later [prequels], it was almost like moving wallpaper. It's just more complex visually, and it doesn't have that simple German Expressionist look to it."

  At the same time, though, Peterson is quick to defend Lucas' convoluted storytelling which drives the prequels, especially in the face of the saga's legendary fan scrutiny. (Peterson finds it worth noting that while many first-generation Star Wars fans have been harshly critical of Episodes I-III, today's kids have embraced it.) "If he had made this really simple story … he would have been shot out of the water. George had to put together this incredibly complex thing because he didn't really see that picture all in one big dream. He had to bind it all together."

  As Lucas' storytelling methods had to change over time, so did those of Industrial Light and Magic. While the most prominent evolutionary step in visual effects over the past 30 years has been the development of CGI, things have changed significantly in the model shop as well. Computer-controlled mills, lathes and laser cutters now allow for much more precise detail work, and they don't cringe at the thought of, say, cutting out several hundred miniature windows for a scale model of the Empire State Building. "It simplifies some of the more tedious tasks, really. It takes the pain out of some of them. But there's this other dangerous side to me, and that is that we're then playing on the same field as CG. CG is really good at making structures like this column, and pipes, and tubes," Peterson continued, gesturing to a four-sided support pillar. "Well, if the model shop spends too much time doing pipes and tubes and the hard architecture, you know, we'll reach a stage as CG gets faster and faster and faster and faster – we'll lose out."

  That's made for a shift in model shop duties: As computer artists have assumed larger roles in the construction of effects like spaceships and robots and cityscapes, ILM model builders are spending more of their energies on destructive effects and organic sets. "What CG isn't really good at doing is, say, taking one of the columns and breaking it and crumbling it like an explosion has gone off, and then making other cracks and crumbs of cement falling. I sometimes make the comparison that it's like a mathematical formula, and you relate it to music. Say the simplest of music, you know, 'Mary Had A Little Lamb,' you graph that out in numbers and it's a very simple formula. Whereas a piece of music like Mozart's, it's just numbers all over the place; it's very complex. Well, CG, when they try to do something like that crack in that exploding column, comes up with a formula that's too knowable by the human mind." Seemingly simple things, then, like the way the tendrils of a vine drape over a tree branch, or a series of water drops in a rainforest, tend to be difficult for CGI to capture realistically, so it becomes a matter of frugality and practicality for the model shop to handle those projects.

  While such details and tasks might seem mundane, there's pride in Peterson's voice when he talks about them. "Organic things are hard to do in CG, and it takes more and more time. They can keep adding complexity to the thing and say to us, 'It's just so much easier for you to do.' I can see if you were a CG person, and you were assigned to make sure [water effects] drops fell directly down, you'd think, 'I would rather be doing something else.' But [in the model shop], we go 'zip,' and the drop goes down, and we're on to something else."

  Asked to name a personal favorite Star Wars project, Peterson answers twice and his eyes alight with both responses. "The easy answer is that the Slave I was a favorite of mine, Boba Fett's ship, but it was a favorite for a different kind of reason. I was the head of the model shop, and I could only hit the tops of the waves, and I was starting to feel [disconnected from the work].

  "The Millennium Falcon, there were big sections of that that I did myself, like that whole rear [section] of engine. But by the time we did Empire and then Jedi, the shop was getting bigger, it was more people, a bigger budget and everything, and I could only touch the tops of the waves. When I saw Boba Fett's shop, this thing, I thought, 'Well, I want to spend more time on this. I want to have a ship in the movie that I can say almost every shape in there, I did.'

  "The [other] favorite – well, not really a favorite, but – it's more kind of whatever is the immediate challenge. Like, Mustafar was very, very hard, and yet it came out really well. We did a huge set for that – it was about 55 feet by 40 feet, and almost every scene of the lava in the midground and background is all model, for that whole [climactic Revenge of the Sith] duel sequence."

  Though he's worked on more than 100 films and taken home a Best Visual Effects Academy Award for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Peterson says nothing has come close to approaching the ambition, challenges and impact of the Star Wars saga. It's a project which, as of 2005, had occupied roughly half his life, and as he neared retirement, Peterson let both satisfaction and melancholy seep into his voice as he considered the big picture. "Over the years, you got used to the fact that you would probably be doing another series of Star Wars, and then, when you did them, you knew that to make three, it would take at least seven years. It's quite a big commitment – and then it's over with."

  The very fact that the six-film cycle took so long has allowed Peterson to see his on-screen magic produce real-world echoes of permanence. At a gathering in Houston, Peterson recalled, a young man once told him that he had done no less than change his life. "He said he was into art and all that kind of stuff. He said when Star Wars came along, he could go tell his parents, his brothers, his sisters, his friends that there was a job out there in the world for an aesthetic, creative person. He eventually became an art director in Houston, and that's what he wanted to do." Another fan told Peterson his piloting career received a laser-bolt jump start after he witnessed the stunning dogfight scenes between the X-Wings and TIE Fighters.

  Then there are fans whom Peterson has actually found himself working alongside. "John Knoll came up to me one time [when he was new to ILM]. He said, 'You don't remember who I am. When I was 14 or 15 years old, you gave me this tour [of ILM] and it was so inspiring.'"

  Peterson also recalled taking a phone call one afternoon in the moldmaking shop, being put on hold, and suddenly finding himself overwhelmed by the sight of seven young moldmakers hard at work in front of him, several of whom had been inspired by Star Wars as kids.

  As a result, he is pragmatic when asked about the disproportionate amount of attention he receives due to Star Wars, even though the saga represents just a fraction of his work. "Some of the films are stinkers and some aren't, but you can't pre-judge them. You have to put maximum effort into whatever you're [working] on. You can't be cynical. You thrive and depend upon the possibility of failure or extreme success, and that edge of failure drives you on to new things.

  After finishing work on Revenge of the Sith, Peterson more than kept busy, working on Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movies and compiling a book, Sculpting A Galaxy: Inside the Star Wars Model Shop.

  For a quick glimpse into his future, Peterson dips once more into his verbal palette: "The image that I have – because I worked on a horse ranch for a time when I was a kid – is that they undo the cinch, they take the saddle off, and you run out into the pasture, whinnying and whipping your mane back and forth."

  Retirement may be in Peterson's near future, but the end of his creative energy clearly lies beyond a horizon far, far away.

  II.

  The Empire Strikes Back celebrated its 30th birthday in May 2010, and I wrote the following piece for GeekDad.

  30 Reasons the Empire Still Rules

  Let’s be honest: At 30 years old, it’s been ages since The Empire Strikes Back has gotten carded while buying drinks in the Mos Eisley cantina.

  And yet it remains generally acknowledged that on May 21, 1980 – that’s four movies, four TV cartoon spinoffs, two Ewok adventure films and a Bantha-back-breaking load of books and comics ago – George L
ucas and Co. put the Best Star Wars Ever on the big screen.

  In honor of that anniversary, here are Thirty Reasons The Empire Strikes Back Still Rules:

  (Two brief notes: Yes, it’s three decades on, but, just in case – spoilers ahead. Also, I swear by the Original Untouched Trilogy First approach, which is crucial to truly appreciating all Empire’s glory, especially when you’re introducing it to the kids.)

  For starters, the first Star Wars sequel brought us awesome new ships and settings and war machines. Yes, every Star Wars movie trotted out more eye candy, but Empire’s designs still stand among the most unique and iconic in the saga:

  30. Snow Troopers – The ghost-like masks added a new sort of menace to these guys. Never saw a snowtrooper conking his head on a blast door…

  29. All-Terrain Armored Transports – Or just plain old “Walkers.” Brutal and clanking and relentless.

  28. Cloud City – From its stunning skyline hanging over Bespin to the iron and steam and chasms at its core, Lando’s mining colony was the first “civilized” Star Wars city we got to visit.

  27. Imperial Probe Droid – The robot cousin of Mirkwood’s giant spiders, with bonus points for springing from the Airtight Garage mind of Jean "Moebius" Giraud.