For 47 years, the Star Wars saga has continued to come and go in the great flow of global popular culture. To the rhythm of generational tides, the “modern monomyth” created by George Lucas is sometimes praised to the skies, sometimes reviled by frenzied amateurs who have become guardians of the temple who are sometimes too sectarian.
An encyclopedic work, The Star Wars Archives – Episodes IV-VI 1977-1983, established by the historian of American cinema Paul Duncan, was published in 2020 by Taschen, for the forty years of this atypical publishing house, at a modest price of 20€. In 512 pages, Paul Duncan brings in George Lucas, who himself recounts the process of making the first three films constituting this “space opera” which marked the history of the seventh art whether we like it or not.
Throughout this work, rich in revelations of all kinds, there are many anecdotes ignored even by the biggest fans. Anthology.
“When I was 18, I was in a car accident and had a near-death experience,” says George Lucas. I was evacuated from the scene and given up for dead. It was only when I arrived at the hospital that the doctors were able to restart my heart and bring me back to life. This is the kind of experience that shapes beliefs.” This anecdote is all the more interesting since George Walton Lucas, born May 14, 1944 in Modesto, California, had intended since childhood to become a car racer. On June 12, 1962, at the wheel of his Fiat Bianchina, while returning to the family ranch, he hit another vehicle, rolled several times, was ejected from the vehicle, while the car crashed against a walnut tree. The shock was so violent that the tree was moved a meter. Lucas will remain bedridden for three weeks. This accident changes his plans forever. He continued his studies and joined a film school…
Enrolled at USC (University of South California), Lucas learned his future profession as a director. After his three-minute short film, made in 1966, Freiheit (which means “Freedom” in German) evokes the death of Peter Fechter, a German soldier shot at the foot of the Berlin Wall on August 17, 1962, who bled to death under the gaze of both camps, he made an end-of-study film, an experimental work which would become THX 1138, under the leadership of his friend Coppola. In 1973, American Graffiti proved to the major Hollywood studios that young Lucas was a filmmaker with a future. At this point in his life, the “little guy from Modesto” wanted to take on a big challenge.
Lucas imagines a science fiction story that takes place in the 33rd century in a distant galaxy and tries to convince the big studios. He did business with 20th Century Fox which, even if it was not enthusiastic about the project The Adventures of the Starkiller, kindly allocated a budget of eleven million dollars. In Paul Duncan’s book, Lucas recalls: “Star Wars is a mix of Lawrence of Arabia, James Bond films and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The aliens are the heroes and the homo sapiens the obvious villains. No one has done something like this since Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe in 1940.”
Also read: The Mandalorian: a nostalgic series in the footsteps of Star Wars to launch Disney
George Lucas readily admits that he drew inspiration for Star Wars from several sources. He followed the concepts of mythologist Joseph Campbell, author of the seminal book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, while drawing inspiration from Akira Kurosawa. “In The Hidden Fortress (1958), the general and the princess, it’s not original,” explains the director. The element that I really took from Kurosawa’s film and which was original is that the story is told from the point of view of the two peasants. I took that idea and used it in Star Wars. The point of view is that of the droids. R2D2 and C3-PO are like Abbott and Costello.”
George Lucas rarely talks about how he designed his characters. Here’s what he says about the droid R2-D2. “I described to Ralph McQuarrie the way I saw R2-D2, as a sort of troubleshooter. It is equipped with retractable arms, and its torso contains a plethora of tools. It’s a Swiss army knife, a factotum with its own thoughts, a toolbox on legs. It has little propellers, a soldering iron. Whatever you want, he has it. That’s what’s fun about R2.”
George Lucas recalls candidly: “Originally, I wanted C3-PO to be a kind of used car salesman, a shifty scrambler. Anthony Daniels (the actor who plays him, Editor’s note) made him a maniacal and irritable valet. The homage to the female android in Metropolis is deliberate, because it’s one of the first films where I saw a robot.
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Played by Carrie Fisher, the role of the princess was to have been given to Jodie Foster for a time. “Her dress and hood underline her kinship with Guinevere of Arthurian legend,” says Lucas. I wanted Leia to be tough, and I wanted her to be young. I didn’t want to play on the fact that she was a girl. She might as well have been a prince. Her macaron hairstyle is inspired by the single women of the Hopi Nation of Arizona.”
In creating the costume of the old Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, designer Ralph McQuarrie explicitly refers to Takashin Shimura’s outfit in Kurosawa’s The 7 Samurai (1954). “For Ben, I had to take Toshiro Mifune,” says Lucas. If I had Mifune, we would have had a Japanese princess. But I was also exploring the Alec Guiness trail.”
For the big bad of the saga, George Lucas wants “a very tall, dark, floating, chilling silhouette, as if carried by the wind”. He mentions costumes worn by Arabs, bodies wrapped in turbans and silks. Darth Vader (Darth Vader in v.o.) must also wear “a headgear, a mixture of a fisherman’s hat and a large metallic helm”.
Illustrator Ralph McQuarrie designed a traditional helmet like those used in American football. But Lucas isn’t satisfied: “I told him, ‘No, more like a samurai.’ With a snap of his fingers, he drew a cross between a samurai and a Nazi helmet. As George Lucas insists, “Darth Vader’s face was ravaged. He needs this mask. It’s like an iron lung. That’s how I described it. It’s a kind of iron lung helmet. This is not protection. That’s what keeps him alive.” Actor David Prowse is voiced by James Earl Jones in post-production. “Initially,” explains Lucas, “it was going to be Orson Welles, but I thought his voice would be too recognizable.” In the French version, the voice of Darth Vader is provided by François Chaumette.
At the time the film was being prepared, Harrison Ford had become a carpenter again “because acting didn’t earn him enough,” he says. George Lucas, who admired his performance as the handsome boaster Bob Falfa in American Graffiti, does not want to take him back. Casting director Fred Loos hatches a ploy. He hires Harrison Ford to install a door in the offices where Lucas conducts his auditions. Harrison Ford then had 50 or 60 candidates rehearse for the role of Han Solo. “I had no intention of giving in. I was looking for someone like Harrison Ford, but not Harrison Ford. I wanted something new.” Ultimately, the carpenter actor won his case because Lucas “really enjoyed his auditions.”
George Lucas was open to the idea of revisiting certain actors he had dismissed quite quickly, including Mark Hamill. “Christmas was coming,” Hamill remembers. And this story had completely slipped my mind. And now I learn that I have a new hearing. I had to memorize four pages of dialogue.” Other candidates for the role of Luke included William Katt, Robbie Benson, and Kurt Russell, who had also auditioned for Han Solo.
In George Lucas’s head, Han Solo’s ship is “a flying hamburger.” “I wanted something really different. The dipole prow which evokes the mandibles of a beetle indicates the orientation of this flying saucer. Many parts were purchased from a scrap yard to add textural detail to the Falcon’s exterior skin. “It’s not a ceremonial vessel, it’s a cargo conveyor. He transports goods, he can have a crazy side.” Joe Johnston designed the Millenium Falcon as a racing car that skids a little when it takes a turn. “The Falcon has a four-wheel fin,” confirms Lucas. In my world, there is air in space when it suits me” (Laughs).
As Lucas explains, “initially, it was Obi-Wan who was supposed to make Luke a Jedi. But unfortunately I killed him, so I had to invent Yoda. As it involved verbal learning which was likely to be very boring, I told myself that I needed something that would appeal to twelve year olds. So, I made Yoda a small, funny character, like a baby.” In the filmmaker’s mind, Yoda looks like “a mischievous gnome”. The technical team will first have the idea of having the character’s head worn by a monkey. Wasted effort. Opposite London’s Elstree Studios where Star Wars is filmed, the Muppet Show crew are recording for the BBC. “I talked to Jim Henson about it,” Lucas remembers. I asked him if he could make a puppet realistic enough for you to believe it was a living creature.” It will take four puppeteers, including creator Frank Oz, to animate Yoda on the set of The Empire Strikes Back. It is the small actor Deep Roy who wears the Yoda mask for the perspective shots. When he walks away from Luke, for example, Roy walks on his knees.
The unique sound of lightsabers in Star Wars was created by Ben Burtt. It comes from a mix between the buzzing of a Simplex projector, and the breakage of an electric wire in a microphone. The impression of movement is created by playing this sound through a speaker and moving a microphone in front of it at various speeds to play with interference and the Doppler effect.
“Twelve-year-olds, on the cusp of adulthood, are trying to understand the place they will occupy in the world when they grow up. This is why Star Wars is aimed at them. My approach was very conscious, explains George Lucas. This is the audience. I will do it for them. No complex intellectual concepts but simple ideas on what makes a civilization, and a civil society, so that young people know how to move forward in this world. Hollywood can’t understand what children want to see in the cinema because Hollywood is too cynical.
Since the release in 2019 on Disney of the first “live” series derived from Star Wars The Mandalorian (season 2 of which has been visible in full for a week on this same platform), a strange consensus surrounds the series developed by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni who managed to reconnect this modern production with the original trilogy.
The sixteen episodes of The Mandalorian, a mix of galactic western and samurai saga, feature a helmeted bounty hunter like Boba Fett who travels the galaxy far, far away, with a child, Grogu, who was quickly nicknamed “Baby Yoda “. The action takes place a few years after the fall of the Empire, told in Star Wars VI – Return of the Jedi. An excellent book, All the art of The Mandalorian, signed Phil Szostak and richly illustrated, has just been published by Huginn
See also – Dave Prowse, legendary interpreter of Darth Vader, has died