Trevor Hogg profiles the career of legendary filmmaker George Lucas in the fifth of a six part feature… read parts one, two, three and four.
“One of the exercises I wanted to do after Jedi [1983] was to see if the companies I had built could survive not having Star Wars in their life,” stated American filmmaker George Lucas. “So we went fifteen years, and the companies not only survived but they prospered and we were now able to finance a $120 million movie.” The prequel trilogy chronicles the early Jedi Knight life of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the emergence of his pupil Anakin Skywalker as a lethal adversary. “That backstory was sketched out in a rudimentary fashion when I wrote the first trilogy, and there were certain things I knew even then. I knew for example, that there was a character known as Anakin Skywalker who grew up on a small planet, had special skills, and was found by the Jedi. I knew where everybody came from, who they were, and how they got to be what they were. A lot of the story points were there. But the actual scenes and many of the characters were not.” As to his writing methodology when constructing the series, Lucas observed, “Whenever you do a trilogy, no matter how you do it, the first part is always about the characters. It is like the first act of a play. It says, ‘Here are the players. You have the good guys and the bad guys…It is not until the second act – or in this case, the second episode – that the plot really thickens. And it is not until the third act that everything comes to an end and get resolved.”
A major factor contributing to George Lucas revisiting his space saga was the advancement in visual effects. “The first series was written very carefully around the technology of the time and it pushed the effects as far as they could be taken. That’s why it all takes place on Death Stars, in the outreaches of the galaxy, in areas where there isn’t much going on. And the backstory was never written for a movie, because technically you couldn’t do it – to get Yoda to actually have a swordfight would have been impossible. I could barely get him to walk.” However, the filmmaker reconsidered his assessment upon the release of a movie by his friend and colleague Steven Spielberg. “Jurassic Park [1993] showed that you could create things using a computer that were so realistic you could insert them into a movie seamlessly. It offered infinite manipulation of the image, as opposed to before, when you photographed something and were kind of stuck with that image. And it’s infinitely cheaper.” There were other benefits. “I didn’t have to use rubber masks. I could build digital characters that could act, perform, walk around, and interact with actors. I could use digital sets. I could paint reality. In essence, it means that cinema has gone from being a photographic medium to a painterly one.” Lucas had another motive for creating the second trilogy. “Part of the reason I went back to tell the prequel of how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, is that it’s an interesting story and a fun one to tell. It is the story of how a good person turns bad.”
“My primary concern is to make each episode work for the audience and make it so that it is not necessary to have seen the movie before and the movie after,” said George Lucas, who also realized that satisfying the fans of the original trilogy would be difficult. “No matter how you do it, no matter what you do, it won’t be what the other ones were in terms of the impact or the way people remember them.” Even with the backstory, constructing the story for the first installment Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) was not an easy task for Lucas. “In writing Episode I, I spent a lot of time doing research. I had to develop an entire world. I had to make a lot of decisions about things that would affect the next two movies.” A critical decision for the moviemaker was the age at which Anakin Skywalker was recruited to become a Jedi Knight. “There were a lot of things that would have been easier if Anakin had been 12. The casting would have been easier, for one thing; and it would have been easier to justify things like the Podrace or the way he was able to fly a starfighter at the end of the movie. But the problem was a 12 year old leaving his mother, as Anakin does, is not nearly as traumatic as a nine year old leaving his mother. A key plot point revolves around the fact that he was separated from his mother at an early age, and how that has affected him.”
“Duality is one of the main themes of the film,” remarked George Lucas. “There is duality in the character of the Queen, who trades places with one of her handmaidens, Padmé, as a decoy. Duality is also present in the characters of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. In the beginning, Obi-Wan is at odds with Qui-Gon who rebels against the Jedi rules. But by the end of the film, he has become Qui-Gon by taking on his rebellious personality and his responsibilities.” Lucas adds, “The overriding philosophy in Episode I – and in all the Star Wars movies for that matter, is the balance between good and evil. The Force itself breaks into two sides: the living Force and the greater, cosmic Force. The living Force makes you sensitive to other living things, makes you intuitive, and makes you able to read other people’s minds. But the greater Force has to do with destiny. In working with the Force, you can find your destiny and you can chose to follow it, or not.” In rationalizing the existence of the Force within an individual, the filmmaker settled for a scientific rather than a mystical answer. “The midi-chlorians have brought Anakin into being as ‘the chosen one’ who will balance the universe. The mystery around that theory is that we don’t know yet whether the chosen one is a good or a bad person.” Gary Kurtz, who served as a producer with the original trilogy, was not a fan of the idea. “The biggest thing that bothers me about Phantom Menace as far as I’m concerned is the destruction of the spiritual centre of the force, turning it into DNA and blood.”
How Senator Palpatine becomes chancellor of the Republic is the storyline around which all the others revolve. “The second plot is about the Trade Federation trying to gain control over the out-of-the-way planet ruled by a young Queen, and how that Queen repulses the invaders,” stated George Lucas. “That storyline precipitates the third, which is the chancellor sending Jedi Knights to try and negotiate peace, and the way in which the Knights get intertwined in the political arena of this invasion…The fourth storyline involves young Anakin Skywalker and how he becomes a Jedi. That leads to the fifth story point, the rise of the Sith Lords and the Jedi concerns about the fact that they’ve been resurrected after a thousand years.” Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace deviated from the initial concept revealed Gary Kurtz, “Episode one was going to be about the origin of the Jedi and the killing of the Sith Lords.” The filmmaker kept Design Director Doug Chiang (Death Becomes Her) and his team occupied. “Even though I’d just started writing,” recalled Lucas, “I already knew certain things that needed to be designed. I knew which planets I had to go to, for example, and I knew what the look of those planets was going to be. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do for costumes. For the spaceships, I knew I needed fighters, and that I wanted very different designs than what I’d had before – more sleek, modern, and aesthetically pleasing to go with this aesthetically pleasing planet Naboo. I was able to give them a lot of work right away – and I kept them busy for the next two years.” A creative mandate had to be met. “George always emphasized that the designs, no matter how alien or outlandish, had to be based on reality,” said Iain McCaig who served as a concept artist on the project. “In order for the audience to relate to them, they had to have some tie to our culture and history.”
“I was looking for specific personality traits and charismatic qualities,” said George Lucas in regards to how he approached casting the actors for the picture. “I wanted to get a feeling about their natures by the way they carried themselves. Since I was most interested in the ensemble, and how the characters would play against each other, I was mainly trying to find the right pieces of the overall puzzle.” Selected to play Anakin Skywalker was a young performer who emulated the performance of Mark Hamill. “Jake Lloyd [Jingle All the Way] was a natural,” stated Lucas. “He was bouncy, cheerful, everything we wanted. He reminded me of a young Luke Skywalker, and that was good because he had to embody the same presence that Luke had in the first film.” Natalie Portman was chosen to play the role of the future wife of Anakin, Queen Amidala. “Natalie is very strong and mature for her age. And like Carrie Fisher, she had the personality to carry the role of a leader.” Following in the footsteps of his uncle, Denis Lawson (Local Hero) who played the character of Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy, was a Scottish performer. “Ewan McGregor [Trainspotting] is the young Turk of the European film community. He is an extremely strong actor and he has the energy, the grace, and the enthusiasm to play a young Obi-Wan Kenobi.” The part of Qui-Gon Jinn went to an Oscar-nominated Irishman. “Liam Neeson [Taken] is a master Jedi, the centre of the movie – just like Alec Guinness was in the first movie.” Samuel L. Jackson (A Time to Kill) actively and successfully pursued a part in the project. “I’m a huge fan of the Star Wars saga and it was an experience I really wanted,” said Jackson who plays Jedi Council member Mace Windu. “When I was on that talk show, I guess I saw an opportunity – so I just said it. ‘I’d really like to be in the new Star Wars.’ And it was the truth.” A major challenge was in casting the role of Shmi Skywalker. “She is caught in a struggle,” explained Lucas who selected Swedish actress Pernilla August (Daybreak) for the difficult role. “She loves her son, but she wants a better life for him and has to let him go. I wanted to be able to read that struggle on her face.” Other members of the cast in the $115 million production are Ian McDiarmid (Dragonslayer), Ahmed Best (Open Window), Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz (The Score), Terence Stamp (The Adjustment Bureau), Ray Park (X-Men), Sophia Coppola (Lost in Translation), and Kiera Knightley (London Boulevard).
Concept Artist Terry Whitlatch (Beowulf) was involved in the design of a controversial computer generated creation. “We thought of Jar Jar [Binks] as a comedic character with a lot of personality,” remarked Whitlatch. “We worked on his design for a year and a half. In some of the earlier concepts, he looked a bit like a duck. At another point, we tried to make him look friendly and appealing, but he wound up looking too much like a droopy dog. His body shape and gangly long legs were pretty much in place from the start, but his face and neck went through many changes.” To make Jar Jar Binks speak English more realisticly, Film Editor and Supervising Sound Editor Ben Burtt (WALL-E) purposely altered the sound mix. “You understand half of it and the rest you have to figure out,” stated Burtt. “Ahmed Best had a huge input into the design of the language because of the way he performed the character. His vocal abilities brought tremendous originality to the language.” Responding to the negative reaction to the CG character, who has over 90 minutes of screen time, George Lucas is quick to point out that younger audience members enjoyed him while, “It was the older, more jaded ones who didn’t like him.”
Low-end computer animation was used to conceive the 12 minute Podrace sequence featured in the film. “We assembled all this footage and put in sound effects and music,” revealed Ben Burtt. “From that we began to get a sense of how long the scene would have to play to tell the story, how many stunts would be necessary, what the camera angles would have to be. It was easy to see from the videomatics what worked and what didn’t.” The technology proved to be invaluable to the man behind the camera. With Episode I, it was the first time I was able to use computerized animatics to pre-visualize the entire film before I even started shooting,” said George Lucas. “Before you start shooting you’re in pre-production for months. You go to the studio every day and you look at things and you answer thousands of questions. And when you start filming, you have actors and a camera, but basically you continue to answer thousands of questions – so it feels like a regular day. But as soon as Liam Neeson walked on the set, dressed as a Jedi, I said to myself, ‘I guess I’m back.’ It was as if those 20 years had never lapsed.” As for his reasoning, Lucas remarked, “I wanted to direct Episode I because we were going to be attempting new things; and, in truth, I didn’t quite know how we were going to do them – nobody did. So I figured I needed to be there at all times.” The filmmaker was a welcomed presence for the actors during the principle photography. “The whole technical aspect of the film could have been terribly intimidating,” admitted Liam Neeson, “but the fact that George had mastered that technology, and in fact had a hand in developing much of it, was very comforting for the cast.” Questioned on how he instructs his performers, the director replied, “I don’t think that actors should necessarily know everything about their characters in order for them to play their parts. They need to know enough to give the characters the right feel, the right look, the right persona.”
“I tried to come up with sounds that seemed natural,” revealed Ben Burtt. “Most spaceship sounds are akin to World War II propeller aircraft noises that have been altered and slowed down. There is a pulse to them, rather than a continuous hum. If I was dealing with a ship that related to a specific character, I tried to match the sound of that ship to the spirit of that character. For the Queen’s ship, for instance, the sound was both powerful and smooth because the ship was shiny and elegant. By comparison, the Millennium Falcon in the first trilogy was very powerful, but also like a hot rod – so it rattled and sounded as if it were homemade. The TIE fighters were supposed to be very frightening, so they screamed at you as they flew by.” While Burtt was in the film edit suit, the movie continued to evolve. “It was common for George to look at a scene that had been cut together and say, ‘I’d like to change the position of that actor – move him to here. Or he would ask us to modify the set in some way. Because of the technology we used to edit the film, we were able to manipulate everything in the frame. We could immediately interpret what George wanted to see.”
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace grossed $924 million worldwide and received Oscar nominations for Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound; it contended for Best Special Visual Effects, and Best Sound at the BAFTAs. The Razzie Awards lauded the prequel with Worst Supporting Actor (Ahmed Best) along with nominations for Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst Screen Couple (Jake Lloyd, Natalie Portman), Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor (Jake Lloyd), and Worst Supporting Actress (Sophia Coppola). Jake Lloyd won Best Young Actor Age Ten or Under in a Feature Film at the Young Artist Awards while the movie was nominated for Best Family Feature – Drama.
“There’s only one issue for a filmmaker,” observed George Lucas who was presented with a Special Award for visionary cinematic achievement by the National Board of Review in 2002. “Will this make its money back so I can make the next one? With Phantom Menace, we didn’t know. It didn’t have Harrison Ford [The Conversation], Mark Hamill [Eric], and Carrie Fisher [Shampoo]. It was not a slam dunk.” The resounding box office success of the first installment of the prequel trilogy led Lucas to commence work on Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002). “I couldn’t have done Episode I without knowing the complete story. It was all mapped out, and I knew what the story was – I just had to write specific scenes. But it was still quite a challenge, because Episode II required that I write a love story in the middle of a Star Wars movie. Basically, that’s what Episode II is – a love story, with the Sith’s relentless drive to take over the universe in the background. The challenge was to balance those two things.” In describing the performances of the cast that features Hayden Christensen (Jumper), Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Christopher Lee (The Golden Compass), Samuel L. Jackson, Temuera Morrison (Green Lantern), Frank Oz, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Daniel Logan (The Legend of Johnny Lingo), and Ahmed Best, the director remarked, “It’s based on a Saturday matinee serial from the 1930s, so the acting style is very 30s, very theatrical, very old fashioned. Method acting came in the 1950s and is very predominant today. I prefer to use the old style. People take it different ways, depending on their sophistication.”
Actors auditioning for the part of the grown up Anakin Skywalker included Ryan Phillippe (The Lincoln Lawyer), Paul Walker (The Fast and the Furious), Colin Hanks (King Kong) and Jonathan Brandis (Ride with the Devil). In the end Hayden Christensen got the part because George Lucas felt that he and Natalie Portman “looked good together”. Working with all the visual effects was a daunting task for the Canadian performer. “I wish they taught classes in green-screen acting,” confessed Christensen who, according to Gary Kurtz, was miscast in a misguided project. “I didn’t like the idea of prequels,” said Kurtz, “they make the filmmakers go back into material they’ve already covered and it boxes in the story. I think they did a pretty good job with them although I have to admit I never liked Hayden Christensen in the role of Anakin Skywalker. I just wish that the stories and the dialogue had been stronger. It gets meek. I’m not sure that the characters ever felt real like in Empire [1980].”
“He turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things,” explains George Lucas as to how Anakin Skywalker fell from grace. “He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose things, that you’re not going to have the power you need.” Prevalent in the story are the political views of the creator of the space opera. “It is my experience that Senators focus only on pleasing those who fund their campaigns,” declares Obi-Wan Kenobi in the film, and they are by no means scared of forgetting the niceties of democracies in order to get those funds.” In discussing his beliefs, Lucas stated, “I’m more on the liberal side of things. I grew up in San Francisco in the 1960s, and my positions are sort of shaped by that…If you look back to 30 years ago, there were certain issues with the Kennedys, with Richard Nixon, that focused my interest.” The saga served as a vehicle answering some questions for the filmmaker. “That’s the issue that I’ve been exploring: How did the Republic turn into the Empire? That’s paralleled with: How did Anakin turn into Darth Vader? How does a good person go bad, and how does a democracy become a dictatorship? It isn’t that the Empire conquered the Republic, it’s that the Empire is the Republic.” Contemplating the subject matter further, Lucas responded, “All democracies turn into dictatorships—but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it’s Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea … What kinds of things push people and institutions into this direction?”
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones was shot using a new 24-frame High-Definition Progressive Scan camera which was developed by Sony and Panavision. A significant technological advancement was the creation of a CG version of Yoda which resolved the problem of the puppet having trouble grasping its own lightsaber. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Yoda was given an opportunity to show his Jedi fighting skills which impacted upon the work of Stunt Coordinator Nick Gillard (Dirty Pretty Things). “I worked with Rob Coleman and John Knoll at ILM [Industrial Light & Magic] on the Yoda stuff in Clones. I think we did alright with it. It came up very quickly because originally the fight between Anakin and Dooku was going to be much longer… but that was dropped for the Yoda fight.” Practical effects were utilized for the acrobatic feats during the sword fighting sequences. “I never thought the moves on wires looked believable. Instead we used nitrogen air rams…the performers looked as if they were flying, and the landings were hard and realistic.”
Discussing the intricacy involved with making the cinematic sounds, Ben Burtt stated, “Instead of having music on the keys I have sounds. I can perform and play those sounds as if I was composing music. I also have a large library of sounds that I can sample on the keyboard. The sound effects are designed through trial and error, and a lot of listening.” An example of this is the hum of the lightsaber which is a combination of an old movie projector and a buzz Burtt accidentally recorded when a microphone got too close to a television set. “Babies make sounds that we as parents understand,” explained Burtt. “They can sound happy, sad, or angry all communicated through whimpers, high-pitched sounds, sighs, et cetera. So at the time we thought maybe we could do the same thing with Artoo.” Along with R2-D2, C-3PO also makes an appearance in the prequel trilogy. “We also did some ‘phasing’ which is when you add a short echo to the voice to give it a ringing quality. In this film, Threepio had to sound a bit different because of his different appearance – but the voice was still familiar.” C-3PO was supposed to have made his first appearance still in skeletal form; however, in post-production, George Lucas decided to have C-3PO completed throughout the film. To rectify the situation, the designers involved with production repainted and “aged” the outfit from the original trilogy. “All this work, energy, and time go into making each shot and scene as perfect as it can be but then we review the film, and some of those shots and scenes have to be cut out,” lamented Lucas. “It’s a painful process to go through, but you have to do what’s good for the movie.”
Running at 142 minutes, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones had a production budget of $115 million and earned $624 million worldwide. The second installment of the prequel trilogy received an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects and won Scene of the Year (for the Yoda duel) at the Empire Awards; the Motion Picture Sound Editors nominated it for a Golden Reel Award, while the Razzie Awards lauded the picture with Worst Screenplay and Worst Supporting Actor (Hayden Christensen) as well as nominations for Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst Remake or Sequel, Worst Screen Couple (Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen), and Worst Supporting Actress (Natalie Portman). At the Young Artist Awards, Daniel Logan competed for Best Supporting Young Actor in a Feature Film.
Bridging the gap between the second and third installment of the prequel trilogy was the animated TV series Star Wars: Clone Wars (Cartoon Network, 2003 to 2005). Consisting of a collection of three and fifteen minute episodes, the television program chronicles the Jedi as they battle the Separatists opposing the Galactic Empire. “I started doing voice-over work for LucasArts in their game division in the very beginning,” said voice-over actor Tom Kane (9). “I think I was on the very first game LucasArts made and it was not a Star Wars game; it was called The Dig [1995].” The performer impressed his employers enough to be given the role of an iconic character. “One day there was a script that had some Yoda in it. I was just goofing around and didn’t even know the microphone was on…Frank Oz was off directing and he wasn’t available for the voice. The director had me record a few lines as Yoda and they played them for George. George said ‘Yeah, he is good – use him’ and that is all it took.” Asked about the dialogue for the show, Kane remarked, “We really don’t get very much advance stuff. Partly because of security reasons, Lucasfilm has scripts waiting for the actors when they come in. But in my case they have to email them to me because I am in a different state. Even then, they come with a password and quite often I won’t even get the full script…just my lines.” A fan of the first trilogy, Kane readily admits, “The best Yoda lines are the ones that refer back to the original movies.” While the animation series was being aired, George Lucas received a number of career honours: the Vanguard Award from the Producers Guild of American in 2003, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Visual Effects Society in 2004 and the American Film Institute in 2005.
The first draft of the screenplay for Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) began showing the end of various battles of the Clone Wars on seven distinct planets across the Galaxy; the sequence evolved into a montage showing various Jedi being killed on four different planets. The final installment of the prequel trilogy features over 2,200 visual effects shots compared to the 350 found in the original picture. “There’s more imagination required than for regular movie roles because it’s not just imagining what’s going on inside you,” said Natalie Portman. “You’re also imagining the environment you are in. A lot of times, you are working with a tape-marked X and imagining a blue sheet as a universe.” For veteran performer Ian McDiarmid it was business as usual. “Movies are strange things with their own mad rules,” remarked McDiarmid. “You’re always in a corner of a room, and the rest of the room is filled with lots of people.” George Lucas had every clone trooper in the film computer generated. “In post-production,” stated Visual Effects Supervisor Roger Guyett, “he is creating the movie in his imagination, using visual effects.” Lucas quickly pointed out, “People don’t remember that every time you have a digital character, you have an actor. There’s an actor doing the voice, or there’s an actor on the set doing the performance with the other actors.”
“Episode III has got everything the other films had and more!” enthused Stunt Coordinator Nick Gillard. “The movie is 60 to 70 percent fighting. Ewan [McGregor] had 1,000 moves to learn, as opposed to the three pages he had to learn in The Phantom Menace.” Discussing the confrontation between pupil and mentor, Gillard remarked, “Obi-Wan has taught Anakin, and Anakin has gone past him. But when you get to the duel, it’s emotional.” A lot of planning went into the construction of the climatic battle. “It’s a monster of a sequence…I spent probably a year deconstructing the Jedi style of fighting to make it work. I had Hayden with me eight weeks before we started shooting it and I had Ewan six weeks.” Besides giving each of the characters different sword fighting styles, Gillard had a cinematic legacy to address. “I loved the original films but once I took the job, I looked at them and thought, ‘Things have moved on. I can’t make the fights the same as they were back then. I have to up the ante.” Explaining the concept behind “The Force”, George Lucas stated, “I was trying to say, in a simple way, that there is a God and that there is a good and a bad side. You have a choice between them, but the world works better if you’re on the good side.”
“Every time there was a new image,” said Ben Burtt, “I needed to add a new sound. Sound is always relative to the number of cuts in the movie. The sound has to evolve, go up and down. It’s got to be exciting.” A major creative issue is in the sound design of the dialogue. “When you invent the sound of a new vehicle, people have nothing to compare it to in real life, so they tend to accept the sound, whatever it is. But the opposite is true with voices. There has to be a ring of truth there, otherwise the audience won’t believe it.” A long-time George Lucas collaborator, Burtt remarked, “He’s always been more comfortable working in a private creative space than a public one. In the editing room, you have the time to try new things, and if they fail, nobody knows. That’s how the creative issues are worked out. On a movie set, there are a lot of people and a lot of pressure, and you’re paying a lot of money for every moment.” Lucas was in agreement with his colleague. “Am I less comfortable on set working with actors than I am in the editing room trying to put it all together? Yes, I would say that’s probably true.” The director added, “Francis Coppola taught me how to work with actors. Now, Francis takes them home to dinner. He lives with them. I’m a different kind of guy.”
“This is the movie that people have wanted to see,” said Hayden Christensen who gets to don the iconic mask worn by Darth Vader. “And it does it in a clever enough way so that you’re never a step ahead of the story.” Starring in the $113 million production are Christensen, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Frank Oz, Jimmy Smits, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Christopher Lee, Silas Carson (Hidalgo), Peter Mayhew (Yesterday Was a Lie), and Temuera Morrison. “For me it’s even more interesting, because my character comes out of the shadow,” stated Ian McDiarmid who plays the future evil Emperor of the Galactic Empire. “It’s a chance to really act emotionally, because the situation is an extreme one. Obi-Wan Kenobi witnesses the destruction of a great friendship. Padmé sees her husband turn into a monster before her eyes; he himself goes through terrible emotional turmoil and surrenders to this person who finally is uncovered.” The creator of the saga was pleased with the end result. “I’m very happy with it,” remarked George Lucas. “I think it turned out as well as I could have hoped, and at the same time I’m very glad that I finished it. I was desperate just to get the first one made. But the idea of actually doing the other two was this huge Mount Everest. And then the concept of going beyond Mount Everest was completely unthinkable.” Grossing $849 million worldwide, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith received an Oscar nomination for Best Make-Up, contended for Best Foreign Film at the Awards of the Japanese Academy, won Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Scene of the Year (for the birth of Vader) along with competing for Best Film at the Empire Awards. It won the Readers’ Choice Award for Best Foreign Film at the Mainichi Film Concours. The third installment of the prequel trilogy was lauded with Favourite Movie and Favourite Movie – Drama at the People’s Choice Awards; while at the Razzie Awards, Hayden Christensen was presented with Worst Supporting Actor.
George Lucas feels that his signature villain has become more human. “When the story of the six films are put together, there is a more interesting arc because you’re actually rooting more for Darth Vader than you are for Luke. Until now, you didn’t know what the problem really was, because Darth Vader is just this bad guy. You didn’t realize he’s actually got a problem too.” Responding to criticism that The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith are inferior to the original trilogy, Nick Gillard observed, “The prequels were never going to be what people remembered, because they were a lot younger when they saw the original films.” Lucas is unapologetic, “Right or wrong this is my movie, this is my decision, and this is my creative vision. If people don’t like it, they don’t have to see it.”
Reuniting with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), George Lucas dusted off the bullwhip and the fedora once again.
Continue to part six.
Visit the official sites of Lucasfilm and ILM.
For more on Star Wars head over to the official website, along with fansites TheForce.net and StarWarz.com, and for more on Indiana Jones check out IndyFan.com and TheRaider.net.
Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.
