61“We are trying to encourage people: New Zealand email quoted in Porter, “‘I Am a Jedi,’” 97.
62“For a group to be included: Hugh McGaw in emails to Australian writers Bernhard O’Leary and John Stevenson, April 9, 2001, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/aus.bicycle/fOAEYGAZGMU/N_YklxE8P_EJ.
62Some seventy thousand Australians: Census numbers in this section are from Porter, “‘I Am a Jedi,’” and numerous news media.
63In 2006, Labor’s Jamie Reed: Carole M. Cusack, Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2010), 127.
63the Daily Mail couldn’t resist: “Jedi Knights Demand Britain’s Fourth Largest ‘Religion’ Receives Recognition,” Daily Mail (London), November 16, 2006, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-416761/Jedi-Knights-demand-Britains-fourth-largest-religion-receives-recognition.html.
63“It states in our Jedi: “Jedi Religion Founder Accuses Tesco of Discrimination over Rules on Hoods,” Guardian (London), September 18, 2009.
63“All religions are true: Joseph Campbell to Bill Moyers, Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, PBS, 1988.
64“There was an ideological power struggle”: Jennifer Porter, author interview, March 6, 2014.
64“All of it is rather crap: Alain Bloch, author interviews, September 11–12, 2013.
67“I was just goofing around: “10 Years Later, Star Wars Kid Speaks Out,” Macleans, May 2013.
69Waxy.org got remorseful: Donations listed at http://waxy.org/2003/05/finding_the_sta/.
71“It’s certainly been true in my own life,”: Bouzereau, Annotated Scripts, 286.
71Here’s something I learned: Lucas, speech to the Academy of Achievement, July 3, 2008, http://vimeo.com/19153918.
6. BUCK ROGERS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
73“I bleed on the page: Larry Sturhan, “The Making of American Graffiti,” Filmmaker’s Newsletter (March 1974).
73$150 weekly checks: Lucas’s contract in the Hollywood Reporter, September 18, 2013, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/early-george-lucas-contract-reveals-649370.
73“You can’t write.”: Lucas quoting Francis Ford Coppola in interview with Jon Avnet, chair of the American Film Institute Board of Directors, 2004, http://www.afi.com/members/features/lucas.aspx.
74the script was as much as 70 percent: Paul Scanlon, “The Force Behind Star Wars,” Rolling Stone, August 1977.
74Mona Skager: J. W. Rinzler, The Making of “Star Wars”: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film: Based on the Lost Interviews from the Official Lucasfilm Archives (New York: Ballantine Books, 2007), 2.
75“A Japanese film: Marcus Hearn, The Cinema of George Lucas (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2005).
75lifted verbatim from Richard Nixon’s: Lucas, commentary, THX 1138, Two-Disc Director’s Cut Special Edition, DVD extras, directed by George Lucas (Warner Home Video, 2004).
76“It is probably the most beautiful location: Pittsburgh-based developer Thomas Frouge quoted in John Hart, “Saved by Grit and Grace: Wild Legacy of the Marin Headlands,” Bay Nature, July 1, 2003, http://baynature.org/articles/saved-by-grit-and-grace/.
79only movie I really enjoyed: Dale Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, updated ed. (New York: Da Capo, 1999), 92.
79“It’s like a sci-fi scene.”: “The Stones at the Speedway,” Wall Street Journal, November 16, 2010.
79“It’s a kind of therapy”: Sturhan, “Making of American Graffiti.”
80“For low budget pictures, that was perfect,”: Gary Kurtz, author interview, April 24, 2014.
80“We had these huge heads,”: Bill Wookey, author interview, April 10, 2014.
81“probably just dropped his name to be silly.”: Terry McGovern, author interview, March 23, 2014.
81masturbation or a masterpiece: Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock-’n’-Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 98.
82“But I mean, it hurts.”: Stephen Zito, “George Lucas Goes Far Out,” American Film, April 1977.
82“Some talent, but too much ‘art,’”: “Goings on About Town,” New Yorker, October 7, 1972.
82“We need the money,”: Marc Norman, What Happens Next: A History of American Screenwriting (New York: Random House, 2008), 392.
82“Because it’s a fairly straightforward action: Kurtz, author interview.
83I’ll just invent my own: Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Saul Zaentz in “A Long Time Ago: The Story of Star Wars,” BBC Omnibus, season 33, episode 10, July 7, 1999.
83“Flash Gordon is like anything: J. W. Rinzler, The Making of “Star Wars”: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film: Based on the Lost Interviews from the Official Lucasfilm Archives (New York: Ballantine Books, 2007), 4.
84“Why don’t you do something warm?”: Scanlon, “The Force Behind Star Wars.”
84“Those who know George Lucas: Judy Stone, San Francisco Chronicle, May 23, 1971.
85“I’ve been toying with this idea: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 5.
85“You can imagine how many meetings: David Picker, author interview, January 7, 2014.
86“The discussion about [the title] was: Kurtz, author interview.
86“The name, before it came out: Patrick Read Johnson, author interview, September 11, 2013.
86no one else dared to go: Lucas, interview with Gene Roddenberry Jr., in Trek Nation, directed by Scott Colthorp (Roddenberry Productions, 2010).
87wasn’t action-oriented: Lucas, interview with Roddenberry Jr., Trek Nation.
87“If I went to a strange planet: Gene Roddenberry, “Star Trek Still Has Many Fans,” Associated Press, March 14, 1972.
87“To not make a decision: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 108.
88“A large technological empire: Lucas notes quoted in Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 17.
88a big, brassy, Cinemascope-style graphic: Kurtz, author interview.
89second picture: Document in Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 6.
89“The way we solved that was by saying: Kurtz, author interview.
90“The set was very wild, very loose,”: McGovern, author interview.
91“It sounded great to me,”: Starlog, #120 (July 1987): 42.
91“I need R2, D2.”: Pollock, Skywalker, 141.
92“whipping up this treatment: Jean Valelly, “‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ and So Does George Lucas,” Rolling Stone, June 12, 1980.
7. HOME FREE
94“That’s kind of cool,”: Hal Barwood details and quotes from author interview, May 21, 2013.
95“Science fiction movies ran roughly: Edward Summer, author interview, June 24, 2013.
95ounce of taste for crazy humor: “Screen: Wonderful Trip in Space; ‘Forbidden Planet’ Is Out of This World,” New York Times, May 4, 1956.
96Anthony Daniels, seeing his first: Anthony Daniels on Dermot O’Leary Show, BBC Radio 2, March 21, 2009.
97“To see somebody actually do it: Lucas quote in Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick: The Legacy of 2001, Blu-Ray (Los Angeles: Warner Brothers, 2001).
97the Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky: The story of Jodorowsky’s Dune film attempt is from Jodorowsky’s “Dune,” directed by Frank Pavich (Sony Pictures Classics, 2013).
99“The 1970s was a perfect storm: Summer, author interview.
100“They’re these angelic creatures: Barwood, author interview.
8. MY LITTLE SPACE THING
102Lucas began by scribbling a list of names: Names list and first two pages of treatment in J. W. Rinzler, The Making of “Star Wars”: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film: Based on the Lost Interviews from the Official Lucasfilm Archives (New York: Ballantine Books, 2007), 8.
103“totally unreleasable.”: John Baxter, George Lucas: A Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 138.
104Joseph Gelmis loved it: Baxter, George Lucas, 147.
104he offers the faint p
raise: Lucas, interview, Hidden Fortress, DVD extras (Criterion Collection, 2001).
105Lucas’s second treatment: Treatment text on scifiscripts.com, cross-checked with extracts in Laurent Bouzereau, “Star Wars”: The Annotated Scripts (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), and Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars.”
107“Disney would have accepted: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 12.
107“I understood completely,”: Alan Ladd Jr., author interview, March 26, 2014.
109tapping into the collective unconscious: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 16.
110“a small independent country: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 16.
110“I thought, ‘well, why the hell: Charles Platt, Dream Makers: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers at Work: Profiles (London: Xanadu, 1986), 74.
111“The Star Wars is a mixture: Lucas interview in Chaplin [Swedish Film Institute] (fall 1973).
111the first script of The Star Wars: First draft on scifiscripts.com, cross-checked with extracts in Bouzereau, “Star Wars,” and Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars.”
113“It was a universe nobody could understand: Willard Huyck in Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 25.
113“You beat your head against the wall: Dale Pollock Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, updated ed. (New York: Da Capo, 1999), 142.
114“George approached me: Hal Barwood, author interview, May 21, 2013.
114“You go crazy writing,”: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 26.
114a gold-embossed folder: The folder is in Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 27.
114“And in the time of greatest despair: Second draft on scifiscripts.com, cross-checked with extracts in Bouzereau, “Star Wars,” and Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars.”
115“That’s not true,”: Gary Kurtz, author interview, April 24, 2014.
118“the first multi-million-dollar Flash Gordon: Lucas to Esquire, quoted in Brian J. Robb, A Brief Guide to “Star Wars”: The Unauthorised Inside Story of George Lucas’s Epic (London: Constable & Robinson; Philadelphia: Running, 2012), e-book, Chapter 3.
118“That was definitely a finger-in-the-wind time.”: Kurtz, author interview.
119“The Star Wars corporation shall have: Legal document quoted in Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 25.
119absolute gobbledygook: Baxter, George Lucas, 165.
120“Absolutely 100 percent not,”: Anthony Daniels, author interview, July 25, 2013.
120“ratty little guy”: According to McQuarrie understudy Paul Bateman, author interview, August 30, 2013.
120“fascist white uniform”: From the second draft, scene 18.
120“They were done as a substitute: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 32.
121The third draft still opened: Third draft on scifiscripts.com, cross-checked with extracts in Bouzereau, “Star Wars,” and Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars.”
125“it really straightened some of them out,”: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 63.
125“more man against machine than anything else,”: Scanlon, “The Force Behind Star Wars.”
126“the whole idea of Star Wars as a mythological thing,”: Kurtz, author interview.
126“Star Wars is a sort of compilation,”: Stephen Zito, “George Lucas Goes Far Out,” American Film, April 1977.
127“She was fairly quiet about the whole thing,”: Ladd, author interview.
9. SPOOF WARS
128“He acts now like: Charley Lippincott, author interview, July 8, 2013.
129“This is one of the first things: Interview with Jon Stewart, Star Wars Celebration V, August 15, 2010.
129“I laughed all through: Ken P., “An Interview with Mark Hamill,” IGN.com, May 2004, http://www.ign.com/articles/2004/02/03/an-interview-with-mark-hamill?page=2.
130“That’s a powerful aspect: Albin Johnson, author interview, October 11, 2013.
130Sean Goodwin looked at them: Sean Goodwin and Anjan Gupta, author interviews, April 3 and 5, 2013.
132the White House responded: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/isnt-petition-response-youre-looking.
134probably contracted to build the Death Star: Lucas, Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones, DVD commentary (Twentieth Century Fox, 2005).
134“you’ll laugh, you’ll cry: “Hardware Wars: The Movie, the Legend, the Household Appliances,” Salon, May 21, 2002.
135“Special Oscars should be awarded: Lucas letter to Mad quoted in Jonathan Bresman, Mad About “Star Wars” (New York: Del Rey/Ballantine Books, 2007), 32; Roffman quoted on 23.
136“It should have been made several years: Roger Ebert, review of Spaceballs, Chicago Sun-Times, June 24, 1987, http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/spaceballs-1987.
136“I couldn’t do a serious piece,”: Kevin Rubio quoted in Backyard Blockbusters, directed by John E. Hudgens (Z-Team Productions, 2012).
137who sent Nussbaum an approving letter: George Lucas in Love, directed by Joe Nussbaum (Mediatrip.com, 1999).
138“He’s like the most evil guy: Jack Sullivan, author interview, April 21, 2014.
140just Robot Chicken neutered: Devin Faraci, “Seth Green, George Lucas, Pixar Piss on the Ashes of Star Wars,” Badass Digest, August 24, 2012, http://badassdigest.com/2012/08/24/seth-green-george-lucas-pixar-piss-on-the-ashes-of-star-wars/.
141“We didn’t think it made any sense: Seth Green, “Ask Me Anything,” Reddit, September 17, 2013, http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ml9cw/seth_green_here_actorproducer_writer_director/ccaba64.
141“somehow do a Jedi mind-meld”: President Barack Obama, White House press conference, March 1, 2013.
10. STAR WARS HAS A POSSE
142“I’ve loosened up a little bit,”: J. W. Rinzler, The Making of “Star Wars”: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film: Based on the Lost Interviews from the Official Lucasfilm Archives (New York: Ballantine Books, 2007), 97.
143very happy if you came up with ideas: McQuarrie in Star Wars Insider, no. 50 (July/August 2000): 63.
143“like bubbles in champagne,”: McQuarrie as recalled by Paul Bateman, author interview, August 30, 2013.
143“If I had a hundred people: Bateman, author interview.
144“We did have long discussions: Gary Kurtz, author interview, April 24, 2014.
144“Immediately, I could see this: Burtt details and quotes from interview with Pablo Hidalgo, Star Wars Celebration Europe II, July 26, 2013.
145“George just asked me to come along: Fred Roos, author interview, February 27, 2013.
146Lucas offered Mifune: Mika Mifune made her comments in a Japanese history quiz show called Sekai Fushigi Hakken!, quoted in “How Star Wars Might Have Had a Different Darth Vader,” Kotaku.com, January 14, 2013.
147“Good God, it’s science fiction!: Alec Guinness diaries quoted in Piers Paul Read, Alec Guinness: The Authorized Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 503–504.
14720 hours a day: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 106.
149“think of a flying saucer”: Laurent Bouzereau, “Star Wars”: The Annotated Scripts (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), 52.
149“I’m trying to make props: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 97.
150“compromising left and right”: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 160.
151“there weren’t a lot of people there: Kurtz, author interview.
152“depressed” and “desperately unhappy.”: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 160.
152like a second home: “George Lucas Praises British Film Industry at Windsor Castle Event,” Yahoo! News, April 5, 2013, http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/george-lucas-praises-british-film-industry-windsor-castle-143700635.html.
152“80 percent of the crew: Carr quoted in The Making of “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” ed. John Philip Peecher (New York: Ballantine Books, 1983), 12.
153“A bit late: Guinness diaries quoted in Read, Guinness, 505.
153The dialogue changes came courtesy: Huyck and Katz contributions
to the script noted in Laurent Bouzereau, “Star Wars”: The Annotated Scripts (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), 5–120.
154“It’s not what I want it to be.”: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 190.
154“George came back from Star Wars: “Spielberg on Spielberg,” Turner Classic Movies, 2007.
155“My life was collapsing: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 218.
155“This is where you’re shooting: Rob Lowe, Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography (New York: Henry Holt, 2011), 54.
155“The originals were a little too: Phil Tippett, author interview, April 11, 2014.
156“No applause: Viewing story according to Kurtz, author interview.
156“It wasn’t particularly the movie: Rinzler, Making of “Star Wars,” 224.
157“It’s the At Long Last Love: Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock-’n’-Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 334.
157“It’s kind of a bubble gum movie,”: Edward Summer, author interview, June 24, 2013.
158“Thirty years in Los Angeles: Quotes and details from Charley Lippincott, author interview, July 8, 2013.
159“I heard you’re making a movie: Don Glut, author interview, July 9, 2013.
159“I’m watching a movie in my head: Alan Dean Foster, author interview, June 26, 2013.
162Gary Meyer: Coronet story quoted in “Star Wars and the Coronet in 1977: An Oral History,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 27, 2013.
11. THE FIRST REEL
164“Star Wars: Magic Ride,”: John Wasserman, San Francisco Chronicle, May 25, 1977, 51.
165“If you hook the audience: Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock-’n’-Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 99.
166“Thank goodness: Allen Ginsberg quoted by Wired journalist Steve Silberman, who was with him that day, to the author.
167Rice found herself at ILM: Details from Suzy Rice, author interview, May 15, 2013.
168“war drums echoing: Quoted in the script, per Laurent Bouzereau, “Star Wars”: The Annotated Scripts (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), 5.
How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise Page 60