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What is
it
?
Dedicating to exploring
Star Wars history with original research, this site is meant to
supplement the highly-praised book of the same name with original
essays. The Secret History of Star Wars has been published since
2008 by Legacy Books Press.
But
what is the book about? Culled from over 400 sources and filled with quotes
from people such as George Lucas, Gary Kurtz and Mark Hamill, The Secret History of
Star Wars traces all the way back to 1973 to examine how the first
14-page treatment that began the series came to be and was slowly
built, draft by draft, year by year and movie by movie. Covering a
period of over four decades, you will discover how George Lucas got
his ideas for the original film, how Darth Vader was made into Luke
Skywalker's father in 1978 and forever altered the arc of the story,
what happened to the infamous third trilogy in the series and how
the prequel stories came to be. The book also reveals the style and
method of Lucas himself and how his personal life affected and
shaped the story, for better and worse.This is a book which challenges many legends
surrounding the series and places the films in a new light. For
those who think they know everything about the series, prepare to be
surprised!
Updates (Updated
April 2013!)
If
you care about Star Wars, history, cultural heritage, and film
preservation: help Save
Star Wars
04/02/13: I'm not sure if anyone else has heard, but Dark
Horse Comics is going to be making an adaptation of George Lucas'
1974 rough draft to Star Wars. This story is vastly different than
the film itself, and might as well be considered it's own
universe--it's also a really good script. The comic is being written
by Jonathan Rinzler, official Lucasfilm historian, so it should be
legit. The artwork itself is very good, and willl be using Ralph
McQuarrie's earliest designs. You can read more about it here , among other places. Personally, I'm
excited by this and am really looking forward to seeing this in
September. It also inspired me to write something new for the site:
an article where
I basically review every early draft
for
the first three films. These aren't terribly in-depth, and naturaly
subjective, but if anyone is interested in
reading any of the early scripts
this
might be a
good guide for
you.
03/14/13: Just wanted to post that the Sequel Trilogy
article is finally up! Sorry for the long, long delay, although I
think it was for the best as a lot of news came out in February of
this year. I'll be making a few nips and tucks to it over the next
day or two, but for now you can read about it here: The
Complete History of The Sequel Trilogy
. I'll be making an update
in
the next week
with some additional
thoughts.
03/08/13:
My, how the new year does tend to bring distractions with it.
There's been a lot of Episode VII news to talk about, among other
things, but that will have to wait for a few days. For now, I just
thought I would drop everyone a line and say happy 2013. I'm in the
middle of catching up on a lot of work that I really should have
been doing in January, but luckily that means there will be a pretty
big update sometime early next week, complete with a quite lengthy,
all new written piece by me. Thanks for everyone who keeps coming
back here! Once again, you can follow on Facebook if you really want
some
day-by-day updates. See
you all real
soon!
11/12/12:
The first four episodes of a new Youtube channel following Star Wars
news called Apprentice
News, co-hosted by myself, Corey Vidal and Joel Sullivan
are now online. See episode
1 here, discussing Disney buying Lucasfilm. Watch episode
2 here, discussing the fluxuating episode numbers of the series.
In
episode three, we discuss what the future of the expanded
universe is. And
in epiosde four, we talk about directors. Unfortunately the day
after this was filmed Spielberg said he wasn't planning on directing
Episode VII. But of course, he could change his mind before Episode
IX! This is a fun series that I am proud to be a part of, and I
think all of you will enjoy it. Subscribe to us, leave us comments,
and keep up with the latest news on the new films. Meanwhile, I'm
closing in on finishing that sequel trilogy article. Check Facebook
for the latest
updates. See you
soon!
11/11/12:
I'm hard at work on the sequel trilogy article. Some events bumped it
up until tomorrow or so. A preview of things to come? I'm co-hosting
a new Youtube series on Episode VIII news. See our Vlog at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tro1ZuxVpwo&feature=g-u-u and
follow us at youtube.com/apprenticenews. A very respectful
Rememberance Day for those of
us in the British Commonwealth. Oh yeah, Michael Arndt writing
the new film? Seems like good news to me. Toy Story 3 and Little
Miss Sunshine were fine films if I
don't say so
myself.
11/03/12: So, I'm at work and my friend Patrick texts me to
say that IGN is reporting a new Star Wars film and Disney buying
Lucasfilm. "Oh, Patrick, always believes things he reads on IGN."
Because rumours like that are reported every year. Imagine my shock
when I got home! Just say it out loud: Episode VII, VIII and IX.
Mind=blown. To all of us who remembered hearing about these for so
many years, the fact that they are being made, with George Lucas to
boot, is incredible, exciting and nerve-wracking all at
once.
So yeah, I know at least a
few of you are wanting to know my thoughts on all of this. Well,
I'll talk a bit about all that, and also leave you with a few
updates for the site.
So first, what do I think
about all this? Well, the event itself is really not surprising. I
agree with George Lucas, Disney and Lucasfilm are a good match, and
they already had close ties in the first place. This seems like it
was bound to happen one day, whether it was with Disney or someone
else. What is downright shocking is the timing of it all. In 2025
sure, but 2012? Wow. Especially with everyone pre-occupied with
the hurricane and the American election, this was a nerd sucker
punch if there ever was one. What's almost as shocking is the level
of complete secrecy that this massive, massive deal was worked out
in. Not even a rumour. And especially after Lucas swore up and down
a few years ago that he was done with the films and there was no
story for the sequels, man this was a
shock.
But let's get to the meat
of it. Is this a good or bad thing and what will it change. It's a
bit too early to say, but one thing I feel pretty confident about
saying is that I don't think this is a bad thing. Disney owns Pixar, Miramax
and
Marvel, and I think most people will agree The Avengers did just
fine as a product of Disney. There's nothing wrong with Disney owning
Lucasfilm because Lucasfilm will continue to exist and continue
to have a large degree of autonomy. And when it comes to
accusations of pandering to kids and whathave you, I have to ask
if you ever saw Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace; I mean there are
episodes of the Clone Wars series that are centered around Jar Jar
Binks, so I don't think the tone of the series will shift that way
very much, any more than it already has, in fact I partly expect it
may become more adult as a
result of this new deal. The more successful Star Wars
products of the modern era that increase interest in the
series have been things like Force Unleashed and Clone Wars and
Revenge of the Sith, stuff that kids can get into but that have been
noted for including material with more mature audience in
mind.
As for
the films themselves, people
have been worried that the new movies will no longer
be "George Lucas' babies," that this will create a rift in
the series, and to a large degree I have to disagree with
those concerns. George Lucas didn't direct Empire Strikes Back and Return of
the Jedi, and he only co-wrote them, plus many of the ideas
and elements we love were the product of people like John Williams or
Ben Burtt or the many talented designers and artists. But, of course, George
Lucas was the one creating the stories and the characters and
guiding the designs and execution to a large degree, his stamp
is all over the films. That isn't changing. George Lucas is providing
the new films' treatments--the stories and characters--and
will be onboard as a creative consultant, so he will continue
to have input into the design, the overall direction and maybe
even the writing, casting and hiring of crew. So, if you thought
Empire Strikes Back turned out fine, then sleep well,
because the situation really isn't much different. This has also been
how the Clone Wars series has been made, and even though
I don't watch that show very often I feel it's actually a
better product than some of the Star Wars movies
themselves.
So, just
based on the information we have, I'm not worried at
this point. In fact, I'm a little relieved. To be perfectly honest, and I
think we all know this, George Lucas is a rather
poor writer and director, and the prequels suffered some heavy blows because
of this. However, he is amazing with stories, with worlds, with designs, with
ideas and with imagination, and he'll
be a position to provide all of his
strengths and offer none of his weaknesses. Again, Empire Strikes Back--good film,
yes? It's also somewhat exciting that it appears that
for the first time ever he won't be writing any of
the screenplay drafts himself, which is going to create a new direction
that I'm interested in seeing. Maybe some things may feel
weird, but I'm curious to see what the end result is like,
and enjoy this kind of variety, just because the past three films have had
the exact same strengths and weaknesses, so this will be something new
and potentially good. So, basically, I see no reason to fret
just because George Lucas is no longer in the drivers seat.
He's still going to be getting the ball rolling and looking over
everyone's shoulder. Heck, this is how the Indiana Jones movies were
all made.
Another thing I've heard people discuss is the
fact that the series is
now changing. It's no longer "The Tragedy of Darth Vader," the rise and
fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker, and what you thought Star Wars
was about will no longer be the case, it will re-balance and find a
new direction. To those who are concerned about that, you have my
sympathies and I understand where you are coming from. That must be
a little disappointing, and I think this is a very valid point. I
also have this to say: welcome to the club. It's a crowded
one.
Almost
every single fan has now had this experience. What Star Wars "is"
has undergone massive transformations a number of times now, and there
has always been a big part of the fanbase that has
found this a bit disheartening. Empire Strikes Back took Star Wars in
a different direction. The Special Edition changed the original trilogy. The prequels
changed even the Special Edition and completely re-wrote a lot of
the previous trilogy. And now the Sequel Trilogy will
change everything before it, prequels included. But, you will learn the
same thing we all learned years ago: you can ignore
the new stuff and just watch the stuff you like, or you
can roll with it and have slightly mixed feelings about some things like
most of us do. Well, fans of the non-SE
original-original trilogy kind of got the short end of that
stick, but at least they have their VHS tapes and their memories.
Star Wars means different things to different people because over
the course of the last 35 years it's done nothing but change, and if
in the past you've been lucky enough to not have to give up
something to keep up with the series, you are now officially a
veteran like the rest of us.
Another thing I have heard discussed is the Expanded Universe.
Again, like the people that really loved the Six Episode Star Wars
Saga, I feel for you. Because the EU is about to be wiped clean,
at least the post-Jedi stuff. George Lucas has said these will be
original stories, not EU-centric ones. So, I guess that means the EU
will begin anew, post-Jedi. This was going to happen eventually, because the
EU is getting so cluttered that they are now writing themselves
into corners with it. That's why the earliest EU was usually some of
the best, because they had cart blanche to make things up to suit
the story rather than having to make decisions based on an
entire library of established continuity. There is a parallel industry
that faces this problem: comic books. After decades of writing,
long-term comic book series like Spiderman get bogged down by their
own continuity, and the characters either don't change and
become boring, or they have to change and after 30 years are not the
same character anymore. So, they start over. Marvel has done this once
or twice by now. Those EU books and games you love won't disappear
from your shelves, you just won't have many more new ones. Again,
this sucks for people that thought things were fine, but I've found
the EU to be suffering from it's own volume of output for many,
many years now, so I'm glad to take the shotgun to it and put it out
of it's misery. Like I said, this was going to happen one day, but
I'm frankly surprised it was this soon. I fully expected Lucasfilm
to milk it the rest of the decade, and they could have gotten away
with it if they wanted, so I see this as a somewhat classy decision,
to start fresh before more fans stop taking it seriously. I'm in
the middle of reading the Zahn trilogy right now actually, and I'm
glad these things existed, but I do think the time was right to call
it quits. It will be interesting to see what they do in it's
place.
And I
think, when you get down to it,
that's what excites me about all of this. Everthing will be new and
fresh, and not knowing how things will turn out is fun. It reminds me
of the prequel speculation in the 1990s and early 2000s. I think
these films will turn out much better than those films because I expect
the writing, directing and acting will be better, so I'm cautiously
optimistic. I could be wrong, but we'll see. It's really too early
to make many concrete opinions because there literally is only
a tidbit of information to go on. But based on what we know,
I don't really see much to be concerned about. The shock of all
of this--the abruptness--is still making my head spin, but when you
step back and look at everything for what it is, and put it all
in the context of Star Wars history, I don't see much reason for concern,
at least yet. You know, Steven Spielberg has always said he
wanted to direct a Star Wars film; he was the first choice for
Return of the Jedi, and directed a few parts of Revenge of the Sith.
I'm guessing he might be the first guy on George Lucas' mind when
considering a director. And that possibility excites me. It excites
me to be able to see someone else--whomever they are--get to play in
George Lucas' world, and it excites me to be able to see new films.
And that unknown factor is the most exciting of all. Will the films
be set 5 years after Jedi, or 100 years? Will any of the previous
characters appear? What is the story about? Will the story be more
political, more adventurous, more kid-friendly, more adult-friendly?
Who will write and direct and act in it? What will it look like?
What will modern technology be able to show us when coupled with
talented designs and the power of George Lucas? I don't know the
answers to these, but my imagination is going crazy. And I enjoy
that. To me, that was the best part of being around for the
prequels, and like I said, I also think the final products will be
better than those films, if only slightly.
Some have also said that
2015 is too soon. I partly agree. However, this is the same amount
of time that Empire, Jedi, Clones and Sith were made in, from
writing to release. It's do-able. However, I do also agree that the
first entries take longer to set up and make because you have to
consider the following films as well as the immediate film. I sort
of expect this to be delayed until 2017. But at the same time, Lucas
has obviously been thinking about this for some time and has
treatments--the stories and characters--already in hand (supposedly,
at least) so I think he has already been doing that sort of leg work
in secret. The optimist in me is saying don't worry be happy. For
now.
There
is also a last question: why now? Why is George Lucas doing this?
It's not money. See the below paragraph. But really, it's not money.
I know many people think it's about money and toys, but since Lucas
isn't keeping any of the sale that proposal utterly falls apart. I
have two theories. One is that he wants redemption; the prequels were
massively criticized and were not the classics he--and many fans--expected and hoped
they would be. So this is his chance to go
out on top, to make some really good films
and rebuild his legacy. If they don't work, hey, he can't say he
directed or wrote or produced them, and if they do he will rightfully
get a lot of credit. A second theory is that he knows all
of this will happen--the Lucasfilm corporation being scooped up and more films being
made--and this is way of controlling that process, of doing it
all on his terms and having an active voice
in both where Star Wars and Lucasfilm goes in the 21st century,
long after he is dead. If it's going to happen--and it will--he'll decide the
shape of it. He is, after all, notoriously obsessive with control.
A final thing to discuss
before I get to some site news. George Lucas is giving the $4
billion--all of it--to charity. Wow. There's not much to say except
this is one of the most generous moves I have ever heard of.
Whatever criticism you may have about his films, fine, but this is
one classy human being. George Lucas, I already respected you, but
because of this I adore you. Of course, it's really no sweat off his
back, it won't impact his lifestyle at all because he has more money
than he knows what to do with as it is. But still, not many
billionaires would sell their entire life's work just to give the
payment back to all of us. It warms my heart to see him do something
like this; he's always been very philanthropic--again, he can afford
to be--but this is on a level beyond anyone in film history. Hats
off, my good sir! (and can you please throw us original-original
trilogy fans a bone too if you are feeling generous? I'll trade you
my food stamps!)
So yes, those are my
immediate thoughts on what's happened this head-spinning week.
Star Wars is about to get very interesting, for better or
worse.
And what does that mean
for this place? Well, I was in the middle of writing a cool article
on the cinematographers and cinematography of Star Wars when this
news broke. That's on the back burner now. Instead, because I can
already see some confusion on the history of the Sequel Trilogy, that
will be what the next article will be. I'm hoping to have it up
before Thursday, so check back here often. A lot of the info can be
found in the Appendix on the subject in the book Secret History of
Star Wars, but some of it will not be, and it's 100% original, so
it's a good freebie for those who don't own the book. In the
meantime, give the Facebook
page a like to follow news, site updates, links and discussion
that isn't found here. I post to it fairly
regularly.
ApprenticeFacts
is about to re-launch on Youtube, bringing you daily Star Wars
trivia, now with me as the head writer! They are about to launch a
channel/series for updates on Episodes VII, VIII and IX, and I will
probably have some involvement there as well. They are good
channels, so subscribe to them if you want to have some additional
Star Wars info in your lives!
10/22/12: Just checking in with a brief
state-of-things. I've been busy working on various projects the last
month but I should have a new and fairly lengthy article on the
cinematographers and cinematography of the saga. I expect it will be
up some time in the next week or two, so check back shortly. In the
meantime, you can follow some extra links through the Facebook
page
.
09/13/12: Brief update today. If you've read the
book this site is based off, or some of the articles, you may
remember the Journal of the Whills document. Making of Star
Wars
provided a synopsis of it, and a few excerpts.
However, I have realized that the recent book, Star Wars Year by
Year, contains a fuller transcription of the first part of the
story. So, I have done a brief update of my article on that
document. Scroll down to the bottom of
this page to read about. Very
interesting!
08/27/12: New article posted. A little later
than I wanted, but once I introduced the topic of Vietnam it kind of
changed the whole thing and made it a lot bigger than I first
intended. Read on to Battle
of the Primitives: Nature Versus Industry and Vietnam in Star
Wars .
In
other news, the Facebook
page
has grown to 100 likes in its first month and a half, so thanks
to all of you who follow it. I try to add content every day or
so to give you your daily Star Wars fix.
Also, to those who
generously donated a couple bucks my way, thank you a bunch! I have
some old magazines on the way in the mail that I will sharing with
you guys as a result. I'm also hoping to be starting a Youtube
channel at some point in the future. Some things don't work as
well on paper, especially in the style this site works in, than they
do in a personable presentation style video, so I'm trying to get
things together to make that happen, though it may take a couple
months of work. I'm also working on a much needed update to Save
Star Wars, so don't think I have forgotten about that
either.
And
this is pretty cool: a month or two ago, there was released a duo of
anthology books called Myth
Media and Culture in Star Wars
and Sex, Politics and Religion in Star Wars.
Aside from the fact that they are terrific reads, the former also
included a chapter written by myself, based on an edited/expanded
version of the Akira Kurosawa piece I wrote for this site in 2007.
I've only read the book my chapter was in, and while I am proud of
the chapter I wrote for the anthology the real reason to own this is
for the other essays, which are all very good and provide a lot to
think about. The book looks slick too, with a glossy hardcover
finish and high-quality paper. I don't make money on this or
anything so when I recommend it I really mean that; it's well
done.
Finally, I probably should have mentioned this
before, but it slipped my mind. A lot of people have asked for this,
and yes, Secret History of Star Wars is now available on Amazon
Kindle
! So for those of you who want it on the
go, you can pick it up for a much cheaper price than the printed
version. Speaking of which, I am in the middle of working on a
much-needed second edition, but it may be up to a year before this
is even ready (though you never know). There are a lot of factors,
both business and practical, but at the earliest it will be a spring 2013
release. There is also talk about a hardcover edition. We'll see
what happens. Be back soon!
06/30/12: Got a brand new article posted,
looking at one of the more interesting surprises from a
work-in-progress version of Leigh Brackett's draft of Empire Strikes
Back. Read on to The
Sister That Never Was
.
I've been updating the Facebook
page daily, so go join it for a daily dose of Star Wars
goodness.
06/23/12: Hey look! An update! Well, it has been
a while. Here is the state of things. Basically what happened is
that I found studying at University, writing on other projects, and
also contributing to this site regularly was not feasible.
Meanwhile, any spare writing time for the internet I had was
invested in my Save Star Wars
site, which
began as a side project
and now has become more complex than this one. That site's pretty
well off now, and I'm taking a year off of school
to catch up on debt and just get some mental relief. That means
I'll have a lot more time for this
place!
So
starting this month I am going to
be posting at least one new article
a month, and hopefully more than that. So for all you who have
loyally checked back here the last two years, the old days will be back
very soon! I'm also hoping to overhaul the design of this place to
make everything a bit more exciting visually, so big changes will be
coming soon. If any web designers have any ideas or
contributions, feel free to let me know. I really don't know
anything about web design/programming.
Also, I
am aware that
for about three months there was some Google Malware warning flagging the
site. Don't worry, it is in fact just a false alarm. It should
be going away now once I clear this up with Google. There was also this
weird problem a couple months ago where
emails from here were ending up in my junk mail.
If you emailed me and I never got back to you don't take it
personally, and apologies for the unintentional snub. This no longer appears to be
happening.
As a tangent, there is a new
Youtube series called Star Wars
Apprentice Facts. They are posting a new 2-minute trivia video every
day for 1138 days highlighting interesting and lesser-known bits
of Star Wars history. The show looks pro and it's pretty entertaining!
I'm going to be contributing some writing for them in the
near future so check them out.
What
else? I'm in the process of building a Secret History of Star Wars
page for
Facebook
. Because why not. It seems everyone is doing that these days
and I finally have time to build one. So give it a like if you
enjoy what you read here, and I'll post some exclusive links there to
make it worth visiting.
FINALLY...starting this month I'm putting up a
PayPal donation button. I don't really want to, but it's only
voluntary, and to be honest, I'm just a university student with a
$12,000 income and a $25,000 tuition debt, and this site doesn't
come without its cost. The Original
Trilogy Reception
articles, for example, cost me over a
hundred dollars to get all those sources. I couldn't do a piece
like that right now, so any money that comes into
the site will allow more ambitious research and also pay for stuff like
web hosting. I'm not against the idea of an ad or two in
the corner, but I don't want people to have to see
a Viagra banner when they come to read about cool Star Wars stuff,
so this seemed a better direction for now. Anyway, see you all real
soon!
06/21/11: New article
up, this one a study
of Yoda's speaking patterns across the six films. It's an interesting study
made in collaboration with a real linguist, a little lighter than
some of the fare around here. If all goes well I'll have
another article up by the end of the
month!
12/16/10: I'm not dead! Luckily traffic to this site
hasn't pettered off with my non-existant presence the last six
months or so. Real life has kept me pretty busy, and to be honest I
think I needed a bit of a break from this site, as it is often a lot
of work to maintain with all the other things I have going on. Fear
not though, for I do have a number of articles either in the works
or in various stages of completion. I should also mention that
select chapters of Secret History of Star Wars, both the
book and the articles on this website, were included in the course
reader for a Star Wars related course taught this year by professor
Douglas Brode at Syracuse University in the United States. Which is
pretty cool, and it's also neat to see the franchise studied at
universities; sounds like a fun way to earn
marks!
I'm sure by now you have heard about the passing of
Irvin Kershner, which saddens me greatly. He was a terrific, warm
human being who had a passion and energy that never faded even when
he was in his 80s. He's also a hell of an underrated director. I was
building a lengthy work about him since 2008, but I never could get
ahold of him personally, and in his last year he was often
unavailable due to health problems; one of the biggest regrets of my
life is that I never got the chance to chat with him. People know
him for his last few years making so-so Hollywood films (Never Say
Never Again and Robocop 2), but he had a really interesting career
in the three decades prior. I would recommend checking out Flim Flam
Man, The Luck of Ginger Coffey, Hoodlum Priest or if you can find it
my favourite work of his (other than Empire), Raid on Entebbe.
Loving, Eyes of Laura Mars and Return of a Man Called Horse are
often considered to be good examples of his films as well. Rest in
peace, Kersh. Let's hope Lucas doesn't dick around with your
greatest work of cinema too much (more, that
is).
While I am here I should wish you all a merry
Christmas, or if you don't celebrate Christmas then "[insert
religious or secular holiday here]", and I hope each and every one
of you has a fantastic new year. 2010 was not a particularly kind
year to me, but I can tell 2011 is going to awesome for all of us.
Thanks for coming back to the site and I'll see you all real soon.
There are a lot of really interesting things I want to share. Be
sure to also continue to poke around in Save Star Wars, and it would be really helpful if you guys could help
spread the word on that one, as this site wouldn't be here in the
first place if those films hadn't originally existed, and I dunno
about you but I think they are worth
saving.
09/13/10:
Hello all! Hope you had a good summer. You may have noticed I have
been a bit absent this season. This is because for the last month
and a half I have been hard at work on a sister site. As you know,
George Lucas has suppressed (and neglected) the historic and
ground-breaking original versions of the Star Wars trilogy. Maybe
this is just a brilliant marketing bluff, but if Lucas' own words
are any indication, he would like people to forget the originals
ever even existed and he's been making decent progress in this goal.
For all my respect for the man, this really is a disturbing thing,
and something that I think has gone on long enough. It basically is
the most important issue in the modern era of cinematic (not to
mention pop cultural) preservation. So, to educate on the subject I
created savestarwars.com. It's
not a giant bitch-piece about how George Lucas is the devil though.
Instead, I intend for it to educate on the processes involved in
cinematic preservation and film materials, the legal issues
surrounding motion picture preservation, as well as the history of
the original Star Wars films' picture and audio, but most
importantly of all to highlight the travesty that has befallen the
Star Wars films. I like to think of it as a sort of website version
of originaltrilogy.com
(which is merely a petition and forum). So, while you restlessly
wait for more material from this site, there are pages worth of
material that I am glad I wrote. So, take a look at Save Star Wars Dot Com. See you
again soon!
06/19/10:
While I continue to work on Brackett's draft, I thought it might be
fun to post another Empire-related article today. A guy by
the handle of ABM posted at TF.N how Luke's amputation doesn't
actually occur in any early draft of Empire Strikes Back,
and I thought it would be a good springboard for an examination of
this. Read on to The
Origins of Luke's Severed Hand. Also, I'm not a big fan of
conventions, but I think the fact that there will be an hour-long
interview between Jon Stewart and George Lucas will make Celebration
V a really interesting one; their brief chat on the Daily
Show earlier this year was priceless!
05/29/10:
Well, Empire Strikes Back turned 30 this week. Ever since
the 1990s this has been considered the best of the series, and
growing up with the films it certainly was always a toss-up between
this and Star Wars--still is! Hats off to Irvin Kershner,
who is still with us and closing in on 90 years old, for crafting
such a beautiful, complex film. It's too bad that the original
version is not available in high quality to celebrate the occassion.
Or...is it? Remember the guy who did A New Hope Revisited?
Well, he released a theatrical re-construction of
Empire last week, that uses a color-corrected 2004 master
with the original footage re-composited in to terrific effect. It's
a real technical masterpiece. If you want to enjoy the original
Empire--go see if you can find it. And yeah, I said I would
have that article on the Leigh Brackett draft. I don't. It's in the
process of being written, but it won't be available for at least
another week. In the meantime, I was interviewed by Ars
Technica last week on the original 35mm sources for Star
Wars, which might interest some--basically a scaled-down
version of the article I already wrote on the subject. And for those
wondering what I actually look like, there's a photo of me on the People Versus George
Lucas blog from the Toronto premiere. Back
soon!
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