Welcome to the Classic Moments Archives. A feature of Star Wars. Com, no longer active. This is not a complete archive but have salvaged what I can.
Please note: Not in order of publication.
Check out the Slideshow below of some pics that accompanied this series.
Click to view slideshow.Star Wars : Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
Zen and Now
Some elements of the Force are reminiscent of Zen Buddhism, with its emphasis on enlightenment by means of direct, intuitive insightsWarriors did not live in the future or the past, but in the present. Yoda echoes this concept when he complains to Ben about Luke, ‘All his life he has looked awayto the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, what he was doing. Adventure! Excitement! A Jedi craves not these things.’ And then he chastises Luke: ‘You are reckless!’
- Star Wars: The Magic of Myth
You Know, For Kids
“I feel the characters were all strong, archetypal characters and they are now part of the cultural mythology, at least with the mass media of our times. Certainly, the characters are loved by kids and I kept my eye on the kids all the time. I wanted them to like it, to enjoy it, to understand it.”
- Irvin Kershner, Director
The Empire Strikes Back Official Collectors Edition, 1980
White Room
“I remember the floor of Lando’s world was absolutely white, and no one was able to walk on it without cushions on. It was constantly being polished and mopped.”
- John Hollis (Lobot)
Star Wars Insider #33
Wherefore Art Thou, Rebel Base?
“The unintelligible alarm signal from the Probot in Empire was the voice of a well-known Shakespearean actor — totally changed electronically. I generally don’t use sounds from other sources, but on occasion I like to throw fun things in. I don’t think anybody could figure out who they were originally.”
– Ben Burtt
Sound Designer and Supervising Sound Effects Editor
Bantha Tracks #17
August, 1982
Wax and Fur and Everything
“The wampa snow creature in The Empire Strikes Back was another one of our knock-together things. Phil (Tippett, Creature Designer) would say ‘We’ve got this thing to do. I’ll get a block of wood and some hinges from the carpentry department and you get a crowbar.’ And then we’d discuss how far we’d want the jaw to open up and I’d knock together something that we’d use as a puppet and then he would go and do his beautiful build-up work with all of the stuff — wax and fur and everything”
- Jon Berg
Creature Designer
ILM: The Art of Special Effects
War and Candy
“I have always likened Yoda to a powerful figure like Winston Churchill who might be having to make great decisions about the war, and yet while he’s doing it, he’s wondering if he should take that last candy in the dish or not, because he wants it really bad. It’s that paradox. I think it makes him more human.”
– Frank Oz
Star Wars Insider #42
Walking Tanks
“George said the Imperial weapons attacking Hoth should look like walking tanks. The intention with the walker was to make it more frightening and anthropomorphic so it would look like a big robot. The idea of having a head and shapes that looked like big eyes and a big jaw was really to make it look more frightening.”
– Joe Johnston
Art Director/Visual Effects Creator
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Walk like a Wookiee
“Peter Mayhew was not an actor but he did so well as Chewbacca. Peter got sick He just passed out one day. We took him away and gave him a few days off. So I brought someone in who was just as big and put on the costume. I had him do just a few little things And I had to throw all of that footage out! He didn’t look like Peter. Peter had a certain walk, a certain way of holding his head and it was right.”
– Irvin Kershner
Director
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #11
Vader’s Head
“I shot this scene very carefully. When the captain comes in and Vader is sitting in his capsule with his back towards us, all you see are scars on the back of his neck for half a second. I didn’t want the audience to see anything else. I imagined that beneath the mask Vader was hideous; his mouth was cut away, and he had one eye hanging low. I was very surprised to see that he was an ordinary man in the third film.”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Two-Year Debate
“People were curious about whether it was true or not, and I purposefully left it so it would be ambiguous, so that you wouldn’t really know and people would sort of debate it for the next two years or more…”
- George Lucas
Interview with Leonard Maltin
The Empire Strikes Back, 1995 VHS release
Turned to Stone
“The act of turning a person to stone is found in many mythic stories. For example, as Lot and his family flee the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah to escape God’s wrath, Lot’s wife looks back and is turned to a pillar of salt. Perseus uses the Gorgon’s head to turn his enemies to stone. Han is turned to stone as he is encased in carbonite, and his rescuers will have to descend once again into the underworld of Jabba’s lair to reclaim him.”
– Star Wars: The Magic of Myth
Travel Blues
“Getting to Dagobah was easy — It was just a few blue screens away.”
– Mark Hamill
SPFX: The Empire Strikes Back
1980
Top Heavy Lobot
“That was murder. It had to be self-contained — they didn’t want any wires hanging out. So it was all battery-powered. They put it on a spring clip, so it clipped around my head. It was very heavy. At the end of the day, you were glad to get rid of it.”
- John Hollis (Lobot)
Star Wars Insider #33
Toolbox Trauma
“The bit with the toolbox falling on Harrison was improvised on the set… Another thing we improvised was when Harrison hits the control panels of the Falcon to make them work. We were afraid to do it, but I finally said, ‘Come on, this is fun, let’s do it!’”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Three Lines
“Empire is not an easy story to tell. There’s a lot of plot, a lot of unusual things and changes that take place. And there are many little sections in the script that have something like a three-line paragraph reading, ‘And then the battle started.’ It may have been three lines, but we had to shoot for weeks to get those lines on film.”
– Irvin Kershner
Director
The Empire Strikes Back Notebook
The Good Fight
” Princess Leia’s Rebel forces will not do anything in order to win. They will not sacrifice lives. They do not descend to the level of the enemy. That’s the difference between the Rebels and the Empire. It’s possible to fight because you love, not just because you hate.”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
The Feel of Norway
“We all had to have special clothing while shooting up there. I remember that once you got on all the clothes, the goggles, jacket and boots, you would go outside and it felt like you were underwater. You couldn’t feel anything… I had never worn arctic clothing like that. When the weather cleared and the sun came out it was absolutely beautiful up there, though.”
– Denis Lawson
Star Wars Insider #23
The Executor Trials
“A tough ‘time factor’ can breathe life into things, or it can be frustrating. The Executor had to be done in seven weeks. We worked seven days a week, 14-15 hours a day to get that done on schedule. During that time we had a bunch of boxes piled up in the back where one of our guys would go out about once a night to kick them and let off steam. We all learned a lot working on that model.”
- Lorne Peterson
Chief Model Maker
Bantha Tracks #22
November, 1983
The Definitive Chewbacca
“Irvin Kershner, on Empire, he had definite ideas about what Chewie’s character was. He’d say, ‘Chewie should be doing this, that and the other’ and luckily, I presume, I got his message across, because I never got any complaints. It was, I suppose, luck more than good judgment on my part.”
– Peter Mayhew
Star Wars Insider #28
The Cane Incident
“(Irvin Kershner is) the one who suggested fighting Artoo with the cane. Yoda is a wise Zen master, but like any Zen master, he’ll smack you if you’re wrong.”
– Frank Oz
Star Wars Insider #42
Talking Backwards
“I remember that George had a feeling about the kind of speech he wanted Yoda to have. It had to do with inversion and with a kind of medieval feeling with religious overtones. Once we figured that out, it became very logical to have Yoda say things like ‘Good it will be…’ Inverting everything did the trick.”
- Lawrence Kasdan
Co-Writer, Screenplay
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Subconscious Creature Assembly
“When I was asked to come up with a swamp creature on the planet Dagobah for The Empire Strikes Back, I looked at photographs of deep-sea creatures that exist many miles down in the ocean. I’d then put those pictures aside, and my subconscious would come up with a lot of different forms, assembling a creature from the various parts in my mind.”
- Ralph McQuarrie
Star Wars Galaxy Magazine #2
Stormtrooper Radio
“In Star Wars, I don’t think the stormtroopers said much when they died. In Empire, they just screamed. Not much actual dialogue, but we recorded what little there was by hiring some local disc jockeys to read lines into walkie-talkies transmitting from across the street. It sounded perfect.”
- Ben Burtt
Sound Designer and Supervising Sound Effects Editor
Bantha Tracks #17
August, 1982
Stop-Motion Feat
“If the first film was a technological challenge to get ships to fly in space, with a lot of movement, the second one was to do a stop-motion movie…”
– George Lucas
Interview with Leonard Maltin
The Empire Strikes Back, 1995 VHS release
Star Wars Sequel
On August 4th, 1978, it was officially announced that the title of the sequel to Star Wars will be The Empire Strikes Back.
- Official Star Wars Fan Club Newsletter, 1978
Spontaneous Yoda
“Every scene between Luke and Yoda in Empire had to be looped later, not action scenes, but difficult, serious acting scenes. During looping the main actors have to go back in the studio and repeat their lines and recreate that scene again. That was a struggle a year later. You lose spontaneity and naturalness.”
– Ben Burtt
Sound Designer and Supervising Sound Effects Editor
Bantha Tracks #17
August, 1982
Spaceships and Snow
“The biggest challenge we faced were the snow scenes on the ice planet Hoth. The traditional blue screen techniques and the new ones we developed for Star Wars were all done against black space, which was very forgiving in terms of matte lines around the spaceships and generally making things look real. (With the Hoth scenes), it was as if George had come up with the most difficult thing to do – absolutely.”
- Warren Frankin
Optical Photography
George Lucas: The Creative Impulse
Snow Day
“We began shooting in March in Norway. When we got up the first day, it had snowed like crazy. The hotel where we were staying was completely snowed in. We had to cut our way out of the back door, and we looked and the snow was whirling around; it was twenty-six below zero. I needed to have shots of Luke running around in the snow without a coat on. We put the camera in the doorway of the hotel, and I asked Mark to run outside. When I said cut, he would run back inside the hotel and we would warm him up.”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Smuggler’s Blues
“At one point in the script the characters were doing something, and I had Han say: ‘This is boring,’ and George said, ‘We never want to tell people it’s boring. If a character in a movie says something is boring, then the audience will begin to think that the film is boring.’”
- Lawrence Kasdan
Co-Writer, Screenplay
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Skywalker Empire
“I went to see George and he took me to his office and showed me these drawings of what would later be Skywalker Ranch. He said, ‘This is what the film will pay for.’ I thought, wow, what a dream! That’s incredible! You know, it’s not like saying, ‘Look, we’re going to make a lot of money!’ It’s saying, ‘We’re going to build something.’”
– Irvin Kershner
Director
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #11
Simple Solutions
“We had an electronic head and arm for Threepio, and I manipulated the mechanism with a joystick. But it wasn’t working. The propman said, ‘Give me fifteen minutes.’ We all went to get coffee, and when we came back, Threepio’s head turned perfectly and his arm moved naturally. I looked up and realized that the prop man had a fishing pole with a fine nylon string attached to Threepio’s arm. He had rigged another string around the head, which Chewbacca was holding. As Chewie moved his hands, Threepio’s head turned!”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Screaming Wilhelm
“I tracked down an old movie scream I loved as a kid. I call it a ‘Wilhelm’ after a character in an old western who got an arrow in his leg and let out that scream. Every time someone died in a Warner Brothers movie, they’d scream this famous scream. That scream gets in every picture I do as a personal signature. In Star Wars, the stormtrooper who pitches off the Death Star screams that scream. In Empire, a Wilhelm was screamed during the Hoth battle.”
- Ben Burtt
Sound Designer and Supervising Sound Effects Editor
Bantha Tracks #17
August, 1982
Scalped
“There were lots of little gadgets and knee pads and the boots had two little jets on the toes… I found what I thought was my hair so I put it on underneath the helmet, hanging down. When I came out to show George Lucas, he said, ‘What’s that funny thing sticking out of your helmet?’ I said, ‘Isn’t it the character’s hair?’ ‘No,’ said George, ‘It’s a Wookiee scalp it’s supposed to be tied to your belt.’”
– Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett), on suiting up as the bounty hunter for the first time.
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #21
Rush Rocks
“I needed rocks to rise when Luke gets the power on Dagobah. Well, we didn’t have any rocks. It wasn’t prepared, so the art director on the set said, ‘I can make them really fast.’ He ran off and made little paper mache rocks with little wires on them and brought them back. It took about two hours, and we shot them.”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #11
Quick on Demand
“Boba Fett moves slowly, deliberately, but you know he’s quick when he needs to be. He might stand there not moving for 40 minutes, but when he does move, that one movement will say so much more than a lot of running around and waving a gun at people.”
- Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett)
Star Wars: Boba Fett magazine
Prosthetics
“The audience had to know that Luke had feeling in his hand. That way, even though he has a mechanical hand, when he puts his arm around Leia, it isn’t creepy.”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Plastering Paris
“International film distribution requires a completely different strategy than does U.S. distribution. While television is the primary advertising medium in the United States, there is often not enough commercial time available in foreign television markets. In Germany, for example, only four 30-second spots a year can be bought by a particular advertiser, and these must be reserved a year in advance. In France, television is state-owned, and allows no film advertising. For this reason, in Paris, Empire posters were the primary advertising method; they were plastered all over the subway walls.”
– Victor Ransom
Staff Writer, Bantha Tracks
Bantha Tracks #10
November, 1980
Out in the Cold
“I thought, the doors are closing and here is Chewbacca, who is like a dog, he is hurt, the one he loves is out there in the snow. So as the doors slam shut, I had him scream in agony. That wasn’t in the original script; that was a decision I made during filming. Take out the yell and it’s just doors closing.”
– Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Number One in Norway
“You know what the biggest problem was in working there? Going to the bathroom! We had on seven layers of clothes. We were set up on a glacier and nobody could go to the bathroom. We were dying!”
- Irvin Kershner, on the Norway shoot for Empire
Director
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #11
Not Hollywood
“Of all the younger guys around, all the hot-shots, why me? I remember he [George Lucas] said, ‘Well, because you know everything a Hollywood director is supposed to know, but you’re not Hollywood.’ I liked that.”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #11
Norwegian Tanks
“Originally, when the idea for the snow battle was being formulated, we were going to use existing Norwegian army tanks and were basing the layout of the snow battle on that. Then I came across a brochure that was done in the early ’60s which depicted a four-legged commercial vehicle. So we took that idea and developed a military version.”
- Joe Johnston
The Empire Strikes Back Official Collectors Edition, 1980
No One Will Believe Me
“The trouble is that no one will believe me if I say that Empire is better. They would think I was being paid to say it. I never expected it to be better, but it is better.”
- Anthony Daniels (C-3PO)
Bantha Tracks #7, Winter 1980
Multiple Personalities
“The stage that housed the big Hoth ice hangar was revamped around the Millennium Falcon into the Cloud City landing platform, then revamped again into the interior of the space slug’s mouth and finally the Millennium Falcon was removed and the bog planet Dagobah set was constructed. Four different sets on the same stage, two fairly simple and two very complex were done on a single stage — all within the short period of principal photography.”
– Robert Watts
Co-producer
Bantha Tracks #13
August, 1981
Muddy Water
“The Dagobah swamp scene in The Empire Strikes Back, in which a monster shoots out of the swamp hoping to grab R2-D2, was actually shot in George Lucas’ unfinished swimming pool. We piled the whole crew in the pool, which was filled with muddy water, and George shot the footage himself. Lot of Fun!”
- Ted Moehnke
Supervising Stage Technician
George Lucas: The Creative Impulse
Master in Disguise
“I wanted Yoda to be the traditional kind of character you find in fairy tales and mythology. And that character is usually a frog or a wizened old man on the side of the road. The hero is going down the road and meets this poor and insignificant person. The goal or lesson is for the hero to learn to respect everybody and to pay attention to the poorest person because that’s where the key to his success will be.”
– George Lucas
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Make-Up for Obi-Wan
“We did very little make-up on him. He had a nice tan and his own beard. He looked pretty good as he was. His is a good face to work on, a marvelous face. In some actors the features seem to fight you. Sir Alec has a face that comes together immediately.”
- Stuart Freeborn
Make-Up and Special Creature Design
Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Luke’s Leap
Vader has not been able to dominate Luke, so he now tries to seduce him. “You do not yet realize your importancejoin me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son. Come with me.” Rather than surrender to the dark side, however, Luke chooses an almost certain death. As Vader croons, “Come with me, it is the only way,” Luke steps off into the abyss. The act of giving one’s life if necessary to preserve one’s honor is the ultimate sacrifice required of heroes, from those of the Homeric epics to the samurai of Japan.
– Star Wars: The Magic of Myth
Look, a Meteor.
“3PO’s character is transparent. There’s no guile, no deviousness, no mystery. He is so obvious and he always states the obvious. If everyone is cowering back as a meteor hits the window, he is the one who says, ‘Look, a meteor.’”
Anthony Daniels (C-3PO)
Bantha Tracks #7, Winter 1980
Little Green Wookiee
“One story element I wanted to develop was Chewie’s jealousy of Han and Leia’s relationship. Though that was lost in the final script, I thought it was an interesting idea.”
– Lawrence Kasdan
Co-Writer, Screenplay
The Empire Strikes Back Notebook
Let it Snow, Let it Snow
“We took out the snow scenes in the first film partially because George doesn’t like shooting in the cold. This time, we were able to include a snow environment.”
Gary Kurtz, Producer
The Empire Strikes Back Official Collectors Edition, 1980
Introducing: Boba Fett
“Not much is known about Boba Fett. He wears part of the uniform of the Imperial Shocktroopers, warriors from olden time. Shocktroopers came from the far side of the galaxy and there aren’t many of them left. They were wiped out by the Jedi Knights during the Clone Wars. Whether he was a shocktrooper or not is unknown. He is the best bounty hunter in the galaxy, and cares little for whom he works — as long as they pay.”
– Bantha Tracks #5
Summer 1979
Intense Lineage
“I contemplated for a while whether or not I was going to reveal that Vader was Luke’s father in the second film. I was afraid the scene when Vader says ‘I am your father’ and then cuts off his son’s arm might be too intense. That is a pretty intense moment… But I conceived the scene so that you would not know if Vader was lying or telling the truth, so the audience would walk away saying, ‘He is a bad guy, he lied.’”
– George Lucas
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Indoctrination
“Luke must enter the tree cave ‘strong with the dark side of the Force.’ When Luke asks what is in the cave, Yoda tells him, ‘Only what you take with you,’ but Luke girds on his weapons anyway. They symbolize his impatience and lack of faith, his indoctrination into the ways of violence and hostility in the outside world.”
- Star Wars: The Magic of Myth
Impressive Junk
“I was impressed with the set where Han goes to be frozen. That was 30 feet up in the air and it was a black set. There were no guardrails and it was a round set with about 50 tons of junk hanging overhead, which we got from junkyards. It was just junk but it was so impressive looking!”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #11
I’d Just as Soon…
“We didn’t need to spend too much time on the love story. When Han tried to kiss her, that was enough… Han is always after her, he’s always looking at her and she is always looking at him, and you have this right from the beginning. Basically, that’s all you need.”
– Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
I Know
“If she says ‘I love you,’ and I say ‘I know,’ that’s beautiful and acceptable… and funny.”
- Harrison Ford
Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
I Just Want to Paint
“Ralph (McQuarrie) kept saying to me, ‘I don’t want to know anything about how things work around here, I just want to paint.’ And I said ‘Fine, you paint.’ Well, he started coming in eight, ten, fifteen hours a day, just painting…”
- Harrison Ellenshaw
Matte Painting Supervisor
Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Special Effects
Hubris
One of the tragic flaws that may put the hero in harm’s way is the trait of hubris, an arrogant pride that blinds the hero to his true capabilities. Luke has rushed to meet Vader prematurely, and the cost is great: Vader slashes away Luke’s hand, and Luke’s flesh is now part of his sacrifice.
– Star Wars: The Magic of Myth
Hothsicles
“That wonderful set of the ice base was in fact polystyrene walls carved very cleverly by artists. With a stirrup pump, they would squirt liquid candle wax all up and down the walls. Before it dried, they’d throw salt at it, so the crystals would appear to sparkle. The icicles were tubes of hand-blown glass with a little hole in the bottom. They would drip and melt throughout. It was so realistic until you went and touched the wall and it wasn’t cold. The weird thing was with that all the salt on the floor, anybody with real shoes on, it would just rot the shoes right away. So lots of people would wear really weird foot attire on the set to save their shoes.”
- Anthony Daniels
Dragon*Con 2001
He Isn’t?
“When we were at screenings of (Empire), people asked where Yoda was. He has been accepted by many as a real being.”
- Mark Hamill
November, 1980
Half Nuts
“You have to be an engineer, painter, machinist, metal worker, mold maker, pattern maker, chemist–and half nuts. You work ten to twelve hours a day detailing an area that’s no bigger than a saucer.”
- Mike Fulmer
Model Maker
Star Wars: From Concept to Screen to Collectible
Get Yoda!
“We were doing The Muppet Movie in Los Angeles, and Gary Kurtz came. In my trailer, I saw a picture of what Gary described as a little guy called Yoda. Sometimes I have trouble getting characters and it takes a while, like Bert took me a year to get. Other characters evolve, like Grover. And other characters hit immediately somehow. Yoda hit immediately off that page to me… I strongly felt what he should be like.”
– Frank Oz
Star Wars Insider #42
Freudian Fairy Tales
“I decided that, instead of suddenly trying to make myself an expert on science fiction, I would do what I believed Star Wars was really all about — they’re fairy tales. So I got a hold of some books — a Freudian interpretation of fairy tales, a Jungian interpretation of fairy tales”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #11
French-Fried Asteroids
“In a shot with (several) elements, you can get away with inserting some personal humor. I’ve put wads of gum in some shots. This tennis shoe here is in the space battle scene. Even though no one can really see these things I know they’re there. In Empire there’s a potato in the asteroid sequence.”
– Dennis Muren
Visual Effects Supervisor
Bantha Tracks #21
August, 1983
Forces of Destiny
Cloud City marks the turning point in the trilogy; all the forces of destiny seem to meet here. Luke once again finds himself in a mazelike enclosure, but this time he is going toward Vader, not away from him.
- Star Wars: The Magic of Myth
Force Philosophy
“One of the longest conversations (we) had in our first story conference was on the philosophical background of the Empire story and on the meaning of the Force. Basically, George is for good and against evil, but everyone has his own interpretations of what that means. In my opinion, what emerges about the Force are its similarities to Zen and to basic Christian thought. But in our meeting we didn’t talk about specific religions. Instead, George explained to us what he felt the Force was all about…”
- Lawrence Kasdan
Screenplay
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
First Day
“I met Neil Krepla (Matte Photographer, not shown) in the middle of this big room, with parts of space models and optical machinery scattered all over, and he said, ‘Well, this is the set-up. If we can get it together we’re going to do some wonderful things.’”
– Harrison Ellenshaw, remembering his first day of Empire art production.
Matte Painting Supervisor
Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Special Effects
Fett Evolution
“I designed the final version of Boba Fett. Ralph and I both worked on preliminary designs, and we traded ideas back and forth. Originally, Boba Fett was part of a force we called Super Troopers, and they were these really high-tech fighting units, and they all looked alike. That eventually evolved into a single bounty hunter. I painted Boba’s outfit and tried to make it look like it was made of different pieces of armor. It was a symmetrical design, but I painted it in such a way that it looked like he had scavenged parts and had done some personalizing of his costume, he had little trophies hanging from his belt, and he had little braids of hair, almost like a collection of scalps.”
- Joe Johnston
Art Director-Visual Effects
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Essential Interruption
“It was essential to have Threepio interrupt the kiss between Leia and Solo because he is so taken with himself that it makes sense that he would walk in and say,’Hey, what are you doing here?’ He is not human; he doesn’t understand emotions.”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Empire’s Elephant
“I remember saying, ‘This thing looks so much like an elephant, why don’t we just go out and shoot some film?’ It wound up being this whole expedition that went out — Dennis Muren, Phil Tippett and I, and a whole camera crew. The elephant we used was a sweet Indian elephant named Mardji, and she had a trainer. We shot quite a bit of footage of her walking back and forth, so we could get an idea of the motions an animal that size and configuration goes through in just walking.”
– Jon Berg
Stop Motion Animator
Star Wars Insider #49
Emperor Oomph
“I got a call from (Irvin) Kershner, and he said, ‘Listen, I want you to come down and read something.’ I didn’t have anything planned that day, so I went down to the recording studio. He showed me some clips, and he said, ‘Read it and get some oomph in it.’ So I read the stuff through, and gave it the oomph, and they tinkered around with it — and the result is that I get a lot of mail.”
– Clive Revill (Voice of the Emperor)
Star Wars Insider
Issue 49
Dripping Evil
“The costume was very hot, because it was extremely heavy. And in the carbon freezing chamber, there was steam coming up out of the floor. I was next to David Prowse, and our helmets were taken off every three minutes because it was so hot. We were dripping.”
- Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett)
Star Wars Insider
Issue 49
Days of Haze
“There was so much smoke on Dagobah! I began to get very sick so I wore a gas mask — an old World War II gas mask with a mike built in so they could hear me.”
– Irvin Kershner
Director
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #11
Darth Deception
“That part of the story point was kept secret. We didn’t even have that in the script. Nobody knew that, not even the actors. When it came time to shoot, I explained it to Mark I told him he was Vader’s son and he thought it was great. And he acted it magnificently!”
– Irvin Kershner
Director
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #11
Dark Saga
“Empire deepens the Star Wars saga, taking it to a larger, darker canvas. Luke is changed forever, spiritually. The things that happen to Vader are a logical step from Star Wars and will vastly alter the audience’s perception of the character. To me, the fact that the story is downbeat is very interesting and gives the story texture. If it had a heroic ending, Empire would be the same as the first film.”
– Lawrence Kasdan
Co-Writer, Screenplay
The Empire Strikes Back Notebook
Dagobah Fashion
“I wanted him to wear something that looked homemade, but none of the fabrics we selected looked right. Finally we found this raw silk from India, and it was just perfect. It hung nicely, and it looked homemade. We had a piece left over, and I had a jacket made out of it for myself.”
– Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Cool Outlaw
“I think the secret to playing Boba Fett — if you can say I played (him) — is the less you do, the better. There is no point in Boba Fett waving his gun around and saying, ‘Look at me.’ He was very cool, and he didn’t move much. I always thought of Boba Fett as Clint Eastwood in a suit of armor.”
- Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett)
Star Wars Insider
Issue 49
Coming of Age
” Star Wars speaks to us from that very optimistic, everything-will-work-out-all-right viewpoint we have when we are young. Empire reminds me of that time in our lives when we leave home and discover it can be a hard world out there.”
– Mark Hamill
Bantha Tracks #18
November, 1982
Cold Direction
“In Norway, the tauntaun froze up. We couldn’t get the smoke to come out of the nose, and we couldn’t get the movements right because the thing froze. George (had) said, ‘Remember, nothing’s gonna work.’ He meant the special effects on the set, and he was right. The first shot of the whole film didn’t work.”
– Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars Insider
Issue 49
Cold Anticipation
“I hadn’t anticipated being there at all. My snow scenes were supposed to be shot at the sound stage in the studio. I had just arrived in England as they left for Norway, and in no time at all, found myself whisked away to join them in Norway with no preparation, wearing a costume built for conditions on the stage. Another one of those bizarre experiences in life.”
– Harrison Ford
Bantha Tracks #6
Caught in the Middle
“The evil Empire was opposed by the noble Alliance, and those who didn’t choose sides might get caught in the middle.”
– Andy Mangels
Author
Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Characters
Casting a Legend
“I went to Jim (Henson) and said, ‘Do you want to do this?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m busy, I’m doing this, and doing that, I’m making a movie and all that — I really can’t, but — How about Frank (Oz)? You know, Frank’s the other half of me.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’d be fantastic.’
– George Lucas
Interview with Leonard Maltin
The Empire Strikes Back, 1995 VHS release
Carbon Agony
“When the cast of Solo in carbon freeze was created the first time, he was standing straight up, looking normal. That’s what the prop department thought I wanted. I said, ‘No, he’s got to be looking like he is fighting to get out; he has to look like he is in agony.’ So we changed it to the way it looks in the film.”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Burnt Wookiee
“Carrie (Fisher) and I were in the Falcon cockpit. They had baby spotlights placed between my legs. Next, there was smoke coming out. Carrie turned and said, ‘Oh, Peter, you are on fire.’ I was totally oblivious to what was happening. It was a confined space, my (Chewbacca) head was on, and I thought, ‘Come on, let’s just get on with it.’ If Carrie hadn’t said something, there would have been a burned Wookiee.”
- Peter Mayhew
The Making of Return of the Jedi
Broken Blink
“You know, in the whole film, I saw only one blinkbecause they couldn’t make it (the Yoda puppet) blink. And I wanted him to blink because that gives you a reality.”
– Irvin Kershner
Director
The Lucasfilm Fan Club Official Magazine #11
Bitter Pill
“Empire was so unlike Star Wars it was a bitter pill to swallow. There wasn’t that happy-go-lucky, triumphant feeling Star Wars left you with. Empire left too many loose ends, like Vader making Harrison Ford into a coffee table. I found the end so unsatisfying.”
– Mark Hamill
Bantha Tracks #18
November, 1982
Billy Dee Backlash
“There’s always been a lot of misunderstanding about Lando’s character. I used to pick up my daughter from elementary school and get into arguments with little children who would accuse me of betraying Han Solo.”
– Billy Dee Williams
Star Wars Galaxy Magazine #4
Ben’s New Role
“When Star Wars became a hit and I had a chance to make the other movies, I had to figure out a way to bring Ben back, but a lot of the issues he had to deal with were carried by Yoda. In a sense, I combined Yoda with the spirit of Ben. I wanted Ben to have some kind of influence, but I didn’t want it to be a direct influence where he could help Luke. So Ben has managed to keep his identity after he became one with the Force. One of the things he was doing on Tatooine besides watching over Luke was learning how to keep his identity after he became part of the Force.”
- George Lucas
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Believe in Yoda
“So much of the reason Yoda was successful is because Mark believed in him and responded to him. If Mark didn’t respond to him so well, then the audience wouldn’t have.”
– Frank Oz
Star Wars Insider #42
Battle Gamble
“I definitely thought I was taking a big chance by having a big battle at the beginning of the film. But the whole idea was that the major confrontation at the end between Vader and Luke was going to be a personal battle, and I wanted to use a simple sword fight instead of pyrotechnics. So I had to put the big battle up front; I was relying on the emotional content of Luke and Vader’s confrontation. I wanted it to have another dimension and to be more interesting than just a basic battle.”
- George Lucas
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Bad Accent
“All the Americans in the film play the good guys, and all the characters who speak with a British accent are the bad guys. I did that on purpose. Vader, of course, has an American accent, but you see, he was a good guy before he turned to the dark side!”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
Always Welding
“Do you know why I had Chewbacca work with a welding torch on the Falcon? That was the only thing I could find where you could see what he was doing. If he was screwing something with a tool, you wouldn’t see anything. So whenever anything needs fixing, you’ll notice the characters are welding!”
- Irvin Kershner
Director
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays
A Leg, an Antenna, a Claw
“We would come in to work at three in the afternoon and be ready to shoot by nine at night. We would then move a leg of one figure, an antenna of another, a claw of another. Then we would take one frame of film. And then the process started all over again. It took forever, and we usually didn’t leave until eight the next morning.”
- Phil Tippett, Stop Motion Animator
Bantha Tracks #9, Summer 1980
A Fistful of Credits
“I always thought of him as Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars. That was my model. Boba Fett always cradles his gun just so. You do those little things to give the character dimension, and you just hope people notice.”
- Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett)
Star Wars: Boba Fett magazine
A Beauty To It
“Of the three films, Star Wars is a little grittier and rougher on the edges, in terms of effects, because it was our first effort. Return of the Jedi was the most incredible and intense, it had so much stuff in it. But I still say Empire was the prettiest of the three movies. There’s a beauty to it.”
- Richard Edlund, Visual Effects Supervisor ESB and ROTJ
Star Wars Galaxy Magazine #4
