Trevor Hogg profiles the career of legendary filmmaker George Lucas in the third of a six-part feature… read parts one and two.
“We both have a tradition that, when we have a film opening for which there are high expectations, we get out of town,” stated filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who vacationed with colleague George Lucas in Hawaii while Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Star Wars (1977) were being theatrically released. Lucas asked Spielberg what he would like to do as his follow-up effort. “I said I wanted to do a James Bond film. United Artists had approached me after Sugarland Express [1974] and asked me to do a film for them. I said, ‘Sure give me the next James Bond film.’ But they said they couldn’t do that. Then George said he had a film that was even better than a James Bond. It was called Raiders of the Lost Ark [1981], and it was about this archaeologist-adventurer who goes searching for the Ark of the Covenant. When he mentioned that it would be like the old serials and that the guy would wear a soft fedora and carry a bullwhip, I was completely hooked. George asked, ‘Are you interested?’ and I said, ‘I want to direct it,’ and he said, ‘It’s yours.’”
George Lucas discussed the concept of the tale with Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff) who came up with the idea of the Ark of the Covenant as being the device that drives the plot. Kaufman had heard about the Ark from his doctor when he was 11 years old; he subsequently left the project when given an opportunity to direct a Clint Eastwood movie. “Originally, he was a playboy and lived the fast life in Manhattan,” revealed Lucas. “He used his treasure hunting to fund his lifestyle. When we got on to that part of it, Steven and Harrison Ford both fought the idea. I kept pushing it and pushing it and it’s still there, it’s just not ever talked about. Especially in the first movie, Indy is driven by the significance of what he’s going after, not the money. He’s basically a mercenary, but it’s the thrill of discovery that keeps him going. He loves archaeology and he loves discovering the truth about ancient civilizations and history.” To write the screenplay Steven Spielberg recommended Lawrence Kasdan from whom he had bought the script Continental Divide (1981). “Our outlining was immense, but not detailed,” stated Kasdan who had a four-day story conference with Spielberg and Lucas. “We knew who the three main characters would be, but there wasn’t a word in anybody’s mouth. There were no broad strokes and real structure to Raiders’ plot. I had to come up with all of that. I also had to do a good bit of research. My first draft of Raiders had a lot of information about the Ark of the Covenant, most of which has survived into the final film. It’s been simplified and might sound like a lot of hocus pocus, but the majority of the superstitions and history that the picture attributes to the Ark are beliefs that have been held by people for years. Additionally, I did a lot of reading about archeology, the attitudes and lifestyles of 1930’s America, and that time’s international alliances.”
Producer Frank Marshall, who had previously worked with director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show), recalled, “Larry, George, and Steven had a ball picking exciting moments they’d known as kids from the movies and wanted to see in a movie again. I’d look at them and say, ‘But where are you going to get a flying wing?’ The practical side of it. But it was one of those times when you just come up with all the great toys and the wild ideas you can think of, and then you say, ‘We can do it.’ There was a great, positive atmosphere that George created. His motto was, ‘We can do anything, and we can figure out how to do it for a price.’ That was the challenge.” Looking back on the picture, George Lucas observed, “What I learned on Raiders is that you set the whole thing up. Get the script pretty much the way you want it. Then, if you hire the right person whom you agree with, you go with their vision. I let Steve direct it whatever way he wanted to direct it. But the truth is that we agreed completely on the vision.” Lucas and his screenwriter had some differing opinions. “I had to write, under duress, a different version of the scene where Brody [Indiana Jones’ college supervisor] goes to his house,” explained Lawrence Kasdan. “George wanted Indy to be a playboy, so Jones was going to answer the door wearing a tuxedo. Then, when Brody went into the house, he would see a beautiful [Jean] Harlow type blonde sipping champagne in Indy’s living room. My feeling was that Indiana Jones’ two sides [professor and adventurer] made him complicated enough without adding the playboy element. One of the factors that’s so great about Harrison’s performance is that he makes that combination believable. He didn’t overdo it. There’s real charm to [Harrison] Ford’s performance as the professor, yet you can also believe what Indy does later on is part of the same person. Luckily, that ‘playboy’ scene was never shot.”
Former studio executive Michael Eisner, then at Paramount, upon reading the first 20 pages told Frank Marshall, “‘That’ll take the whole budget.’ But George had enough clout already to say, ‘We can do it, and here are the people involved.’ And we did it for $18 million. And it’s still the most fun and the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had.” Central to the production being able to rise above the budget restraints and logistical difficulties was the creative partnership between Lucas and Spielberg. “Everyone was concerned,” admitted Marshall. “After all, we were shooting in seven countries on three continents. And if you can imagine moving a whole company from Tunisia to Hawaii. Yet we came in two weeks under schedule. George and Steven have a great relationship. It’s a partnership made in heaven, sharing the creative endeavor. They’re both responsible filmmakers. Steven loves directing, George doesn’t. Steven takes in projects others have developed; George likes to develop all of his own.” During the pre-production for Raiders of Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg remembered George Lucas advising him, “‘Don’t try to make the greatest movie in the world. Just get the story told one chapter at a time. Think of this as a B-movie.’” Executive Producer Howard Kazanjian (Demolition Man) served as the liaison between Lucasfilm and Paramount. “Originally everybody thought that the part of Indiana Jones should go to Tom Selleck [Quigley Down Under],” said Kazanjian. “Steven and George wanted him because he was the ideal character.” Upon learning that an offer had gone out to Selleck, CBS immediately put the television series Magnum P.I. into production thereby making the actor unavailable for the production. “Steven is the one who said Harrison would be great, right after Selleck,” confessed George Lucas who was reluctant to use Harrison Ford because of his association with the Star Wars franchise. “I was cast late – like two weeks before the cameras were scheduled to roll,” said Ford, who had a number of questions and suggestions for Spielberg. “We flew overseas together, took out the script, and spent 10 solid hours discussing it on the plane. By the time we disembarked, we had a working rapport.” Lawrence Kasdan was pleased with the casting decision. “There are wonderful heroics in Raiders, but they’re never super-human,” said Kasdan. “Again, that has a lot to do with Harrison Ford. He made Indy come across as a very likeable and competent guy. That brand of capable hero was a very important element of the great adventure pictures.”
Cast with Ford are Karen Allen (Scrooged), Paul Freeman (Centurion), John Rhys-Davies (Victor Victoria), Alfred Molina (An Education), and Denholm Elliott (A Room with a View). “I thought Karen had a spunky personality that was very winning,” said George Lucas who agreed with Steven Spielberg’s suggestion to have English actor Paul Freeman play the French adversary René Belloq. “When I was sitting in the office in L.A. reading it,” remarked Freeman, “and I got to the bit with the monkey, I thought, ‘This is wonderful, it’s a really witty adventure story.’” Alfred Molina was not too happy about being covered with tarantulas on his first day of shooting. “I was covered with at least a couple of dozen spiders,” recalled Molina. “I hear Steven say something like, ‘Why aren’t they moving? They look fake.’ And the spider wrangler says, ‘Because they’re all males, you see? We have to put a female in there, then they’ll fight.’ So he puts the female on me – and suddenly all hell breaks loose. These spiders were running, dropping, and fighting – they were running over my face, and Steven is going, ‘Shoot, shoot, shoot! Alfred look scared, look scared!’ Trust me, I was scared.” As for filming the slithering creatures inhabiting the Well of the Souls, Lucas stated, “I wasn’t there when they shot the snakes. And that’s one of the reasons why Steven directed the movie and I didn’t. I didn’t want to sit on a soundstage with snakes, trying to get that sequence right.”
“My feeling was that we should have edited a little of the chase sequences so that we’d have time to properly establish the characters,” confided Lawrence Kasdan. “George Lucas, though, doesn’t put as much emphasis on personal development as he does on action.” However, Kasdan had to admit, “What’s great about Raiders is that it moves so fast and its conclusion is so incredible, that by the time I got to the ending, I didn’t care about the flaws.” The creator of the tale recognized that commercial success was far from being a certainty. “This film could very easily not be a hit,” declared Lucas whose gamble paid off as Raiders of the Lost Ark grossed $384 million worldwide. “It was this offbeat movie, almost a Western. Nobody knew what it was, or what to make of it. But the word spread very fast and excitement started to build. Once they saw it, they loved it. It was one of those films that after it was put together, it worked like crazy.” At the Academy Awards, the swashbuckling adventure tale won Best Art Direction & Set Decoration, Best Visual Effects, Best Editing, Best Sound and a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing while receiving nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Original Score and Best Picture. The BAFTAs lauded the movie with Best Production Design & Art Decoration; it also competed for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Film, Best Sound and Best Supporting Actor (Denholm Elliott). The American Cinema Editors handed out the Eddie for Best Edited Feature Film to Michael Kahn. Other nominations included one from the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America for Best Original Screenplay – Comedy, and the Golden Globes for Best Director. In 1999, Raiders of the Lost Ark was inducted into the National Film Registry.
Seeking to make his directorial debut, Lawrence Kasdan needed a name director as a sponsor and backup if the production ran into trouble. “He thought the overseeing business was pretty ridiculous,” remarked Kasdan who delved into the world of film noir with the adulteress murder tale Body Heat (1981) starring Kathleen Turner (Romancing the Stone) and William Hurt (Gorky Park). “He thought I was perfectly capable of directing the movie, and he didn’t know what function an overseer served. But the tradition goes on, and now I’m doing it for somebody.” Lucas agreed to be an uncredited executive producer. “There would have been a giant controversy about me making this picture. And it wasn’t me making this picture, it was Larry.” Lucas asked for a fee that was more than Kasdan was being paid but he told Kasdan that the money could be used if the movie went over budget. “That was an extraordinary generous thing to do,” said the rookie helmer. “And he made it possible to make the film with no interference at all.”
“I’m very conscious of the environments. I try to have at least three environments in a movie and have them as different as possible,” remarked George Lucas, who after exploring worlds filled with deserts, swamp, ice and snow found himself with a dilemma when conceiving Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983). “A forest was really the only thing I had left.” The forest idea had been explored during the development of its cinematic predecessor. “We worked quite a lot on the Wookie planet, which was to be the home of Chewbacca,” said Conceptual Artist Ralph McQuarrie who played a critical role in visually designing the original trilogy. “That was very interesting to me. We created this giant forest, Wookiee homes, accessories, the transportation, and the look of the surface of the planet where the Imperials have their base.” Revisiting the planetary habitat for the third installment, Lucas revised the Wookiees. “I basically cut them in half and called them Ewoks.” Given the responsibility of the makeup and creature design for the picture was Stuart Freedman (2001: A Space Odyssey). “Since most of the Ewoks live in trees, we had to find a good number of dwarfs and midgets who could do stunts,” recalled Freedman. “One even had a black belt in karate.” Among the chosen group was actress Debbie Lee Carrington (Total Recall). “There were about 40 little people at first and it dwindle down because it was really hard work,” stated Carrington. “At first, we rehearsed with huge foam pads that we would wear beneath our costumes. We’d tumble, waddle, and climb around. Then once we got used to that, we got the fur.”
Appreciative of George Lucas having sponsored his directorial debut, Lawrence Kasdan agreed to co-write the screenplay. “He believes that a larger mechanical force is vulnerable to a natural force,” observed Kasdan. “You can look at Jedi and see the Vietnam War there. You can see the Ewok guerrillas hiding in the jungles, taking on this improper force of mechanized bullies – and winning.” Warren Franklin, who was the production coordinator for Industrial Light & Magic at the time, remembered reading the script which states, “‘They jump on their Speeder Bikes and take off at 120 miles an hour through the forest.’ The challenge just dropped into our laps. At first we planned to build a miniature forest, but we realized it would have to be huge. Dennis Muren, one of the special effects supervisors, finally hit on the idea of just going out into the redwoods. We actually took a road and painted it green and dressed it and then walked a camera along it, with a guide wire to keep the camera at the right angle. Then we simply came back to ILM and put the actors in it. It was a lot of fun.” Filmmaker Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park III), who served as the Art Director of Visual Effects on the picture, commented, “We have to make each film better than the previous. The public demands a special effects extravaganza, something that will blow them away for five dollars. We were never sure whether the movie was a vehicle for the special effects or for the story.” There was no doubt in the mind of Lawrence Kasdan. “George understood that you could integrate the effects so that they formed part of the story in a way that people had never really tried before,” said Kasdan. “The story was going on in the foreground, but now through the window of the ship, amazing effects were taking place.”
“When I took on the job,” remembered Richard Marquand (Eye of the Needle) who was chosen out of 40 possible candidates to helm Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, “I was worried that the relationship with Lucas might be difficult, but in fact he gave me far more freedom than I ever expected. And Harrison Ford said on the first day of shooting, ‘You’re entering a very exclusive club here.’” Contemplating his role in the movie franchise, Ford remarked, “People want fairy tales in their lives, and I’m lucky enough to provide them. There is no difference between doing this kind of film and playing King Lear. The actor’s job is exactly the same: dress up and pretend.” Mark Hamill (The Big Red One) is of a different opinion. “Lets face it, we made a film for children,” said Hamill who was 24 years old when he played Luke Skywalker in the original film. “I’m relieved and excited that this is the end.” Looking back on her time spent being Princess Leia Organa, Carrie Fisher (Hannah and Her Sisters) stated, “I was 19 when I did the first one and 25 when I did the last one. I grew up on these films. They were my college in space.” Unlike his principle cast members, Marquand was a rookie to the Star Wars universe. “It is as if Lucas were a famous composer who said to me, ‘Here’s a 200-piece orchestra. Here is my music. I’d like you to conduct.’”
Acting along with Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in the $32.5 million production are Billy Dee Williams (Barry Munday), Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Sebastian Shaw (It Happened Here), Ian McDiarmid (Sleepy Hollow), Frank Oz (Bowfinger), David Prowse (White Cargo), and Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai). Performer Barrie Holland (Reds) was offered the opportunity to play a small but memorable role. “I was working on Return of the Jedi as an officer in various scenes with David Prowse and others when the assistant director came up to me and said that director Richard Marquand wanted to speak to me… Richard then asked me if I would like to do the part of Lt. Renz capturing Han Solo in the bunker. Of course I accepted.” Holland was proud of the end result. “I feel in that brief moment I came over as a forceful officer with a ruthless manner which summed up the power of the Empire. It was a great line of course [‘You Rebel scum!’], which helped. The rest as they say is history.” The actor playing the mischievous smuggler entered into the spirit of the occasion. “When I first said that line, Harrison Ford gently slapped my face saying, ‘Nobody calls me that!’ or words to that affect. It was a difficult scene to do as it was a small set and I had seven stormtroopers with me who also had to hit their marks. It took one and a half day’s filming just to complete that small scene.”
The notorious gangster with a grudge against Han Solo was brought to cinematic life by George Lucas. “When we got to the third one where Jabba [the Hutt], appeared we did this whole thing of designing him as a big repulsive character.” Getting the required performance out of the massive puppet was not an easy one for director Richard Marquand. “The thing was 12 feet long. There are three men inside this ghastly slug, making it move and there are others making his eyes work. And I found myself yelling at that ghastly slug, ‘Come on, blink your eyes,’ I would say, as though it could understand.” As for his solution to the problem, Marquand stated, “The only way to make it look real is if you, as the director, think that it truly is real.” Jabba was not the only concern for the moviemaker. “My biggest problem was R2-D2, I don’t mean the actor inside the outfit, but the character itself. He drives everybody crazy. We could rehearse and everything would be fine. But when we did the shot, anything and everything might happen.” In order to avoid any costly surprises, Marquand filmed test sequences involving Star Wars toys and the nonhuman characters. “It was a way for me to get the shot timed out to see how things would go. I would shoot it and see what happened and figure out from that how to cut back and forth.”
“Only once did I get conflicting directions,” stated Carrie Fisher in regards to the relationship between George Lucas and Richard Marquand during the principle photography. “When I came to Jabba’s throne room disguised as a man, Richard told me to stand like an English sentry. Then George walked in and said, ‘Carrie you’re standing as an English sentry. You want to be more swashbuckling.’” The real conflict occurred between Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz (Slipstream) when the project was supposed to be called Revenge of the Jedi. “We had an outline and George changed everything in it. Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn’t want any of the principles killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason.” Harrison Ford agreed with Kurtz. “I thought it would give the myth some body. Han Solo really had no place to go.” Another point of contention for Kurtz was the use of a second Death Star which he felt was too derivative of the original film. “So we agreed that I should probably leave.”
“The effects in this film are more or less the way I wanted them to be in Star Wars, but I didn’t have the technology to carry them out,” said George Lucas who spent $8 million on the special effects. “What we have in Return of the Jedi is a rich, highly emotional story set in the galaxy,” remarked Richard Marquand. “Star Wars imitators have used similar hardware to ours but not the heart. I think if you have a really good story, it doesn’t matter if you set it on horseback or in outer space. I find the practical business of spaceships not particularly interesting but the man who is inside that spaceship is interesting.” Debbie Lee Carrington enjoyed taking part in the publicity campaign for the science fiction tale which grossed $475 million worldwide. “When Return of the Jedi came out, me and one other Ewok girl went travelling with Lucas, promoting the movie,” explained Carrington who attended the world premiere. “We went to this stadium in Denver. We wanted to surprise John Williams, who was conducting a symphony in Star Wars. While he was conducting the symphony we came out in our Ewok suits. We came sneaking out and speared him in the butt. He jumped, turned around and started dancing with us!” At the Academy Awards, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi won a Special Achievement Award for Visual effects and contended for Best Art Direction & Set Decoration, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Original Score and Best Sound. The BAFTAs lauded the conclusion of the original trilogy with Best Special Visual Effects along with nominations for Best Make-Up Artist, Best Production Design & Art Direction and Best Sound; while at the Young Artist Awards it won Best Family Feature Motion Picture as well as Favourite Motion Picture at the People’s Choice Awards.
Also in 1983, George Lucas had to face the end of his 14 year old marriage to Marcia Lucas who received a $50 million divorce settlement. “Some people are nine to fivers,” explained Marcia Lucas (Taxi Driver). “George is a five to niner. He leaves home at five-thirty in the morning and returns at eight-thirty at night.” The Oscar-winning film editor added, “He grew up with the traditional American values of hard work, earning your own way, and more hard work. It doesn’t do him any good to have money to indulge himself if he never indulges himself.” Regarding his ex-spouse, George Lucas admitted, “Marcia says I either live in the past or in the future, never in the present.”
Filmmaker John Korty (Breaking the Habit) told George Lucas about a movie he wanted to make utilizing a special animation technique he had devised. “I’d been working on a new kind of animation, which I called Lumage, from ‘luminous images’”, stated Korty as to the origins of the surrealist story Twice Upon a Time (1983). “The images were cut out and then lit from below, which gave them a special glow. I’d been aiming to do a feature in the technique, and took the idea to George. He arranged an appointment for us with Laddie [Alan Ladd, Jr.] who agreed to finance the film.” An evil outfit called Murkworks attempts to replace dreams with nightmares carried by winged creatures that are a hybrid of vultures and pterodactyls. “A lot of people from improvisational comedy were involved. Marshall Efron was the voice of the principal villain. Hamilton Camp was involved, and Paul Frees, who’s been doing voices forever. Our mistake, I suppose, was to try to make a film that would appeal to everybody, all ages. There was a lot of slapstick in it, but it was much too sophisticated for four and five year olds. We did our first sound mix at Lucasfilm up here in Marin, then finished in Los Angeles. George gave us a lot of great editorial feedback, mainly in the post-production stages. But nobody knew quite how to sell it.”
“The original story was about a haunted castle in Scotland but Steven said, ‘Aw, I just made Poltergeist [1982], I don’t want to do that again,’” stated George Lucas as to the beginnings of the second installment of the Indiana Jones franchise. That’s when we started working with Bill Huyck [Best Defense] and Gloria Katz [Messiah of Evil].” Executive Producer Frank Marshall was quick to point out, “We had already decided to make three movies when we were making Raiders.” Willard Huyck believed that there was a reason for him and Katz to be given the writing assignment for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). “George told us that he and Steven wanted to set the next Indy film in India,” explained Huyck. “And he knew of our interest in India. We had traveled there, when we were collecting Indian art and so forth, and I think that’s why he came to us.” The USC Film School graduate added, “George wanted it really scary. Steve was leery at first, but then he got into it; and when Steve does something, he does it to the nth degree. Writing those movies you work out from the action sequences. You have this great action, then you have to find a story to put it in.” In retrospect things may well have been pushed too far. “The story ended up being a lot darker than we intended it to be,” admitted Lucas. “Part of it is that I was going through a divorce at the time and I wasn’t in a good mood and part of it was just that we wanted to do something a little bit more edgy.”
Screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan was still a prevalent inspiration in the development of the script. “George and Steven asked me to write the Indiana Jones sequels, and I didn’t want to,” revealed Kasdan whose deleted Raiders of the Lost Ark scenes involving an under attack Indiana Jones escaping with the aid of a runaway gong, and jumping from a pilotless plane with an inflatable raft which lands in the snowy Himalayan Mountains appear in the follow-up action-adventure. “When they used those things from the first script, I felt that was very much George’s right. He had paid for the script, the franchise, and I had benefitted enormously from my whole involvement with him on that. He helped me get Body Heat made. So there wasn’t any feeling of not being acknowledged.” A crucial story element escaped George Lucas. “We had a lot of incidents that were taken from the first script but for the life of me I couldn’t think of another MacGuffin that I thought would work,” remarked the filmmaker. “Eventually we landed on the Sankara stones.” Willard Huyck,and Gloria Katz developed the idea further. “We came up with this religious cult that had appropriated the stones and was doing evil things,” said Huyck. “And then we asked ourselves, ‘Well, what kind of evil things? Steven wants a mine, so who is working in the mines?’” The answer took the form of slave labour children.
Also influencing the $28 million production was an internationally successful film franchise. “There was an homage to James Bond,” said Willard Huyck referencing the nightclub scene that commences the picture. “The Bond movies often start with an action sequence from another story. George wanted to open like that, and then go into the second story.” Cast alongside Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw (Black Rain), Ke Huy Quan (The Goonies), Amrish Puri (Gandhi), and Philip Stone (The Shining) is actor Barrie ‘You Rebel scum!’ Holland. “On Temple of Doom I was a nightclub guest at the beginning and also played a musician who runs into the path of the giant gong which Harrison is hiding behind as he makes his escape from the club,” recalled Holland. “This wasn’t easy as the floor was covered with balloons and they were very difficult to run over, so in the end I had to dive in front of the gong otherwise it would have hit me! You can just see a blur of a figure in the film doing this. That was me!”
“Short Round was indeed the name of our dog,” revealed Gloria Katz as to the namesake of Indy’s sidekick played by Ke Huy Quan. “It was the name of a character in an old Samuel Fuller movie called The Steel Helmet [1951].” A native of Saigon, Vietnam, Ke Huy Quan had been living in the America for six years when he crossed paths with the Hollywood production. “They had an open role call in my elementary school,” said Quan. “All the kids that fit the description were called into a room to meet this casting director, Mike Fenton [Back to the Future]. My brother went in, and I accompanied him.” Despite lacking a command of the English language, the young performer won the role, as Spielberg was enthralled with his personality. As for Kate Capshaw, she was more focused on performing in foreign and art house films but was grateful that her agent persisted. “I remember I the day I took the script home, after I found out I would do the film,” recalled Capshaw who was terrified to discover her character of Willie was on every page. “I kept thinking, ‘Maybe she’ll die soon.’” The actress’ fear of snakes caused Spielberg to revise the script. “On the plane back to London, he wrote that other scene where we’re in a clearing and all those animals kept scaring me.” However, other sequences stayed, in particular the meal that has eels, bugs and monkey brains as part of the menu. “If you think of the Republic serials form the 1930s,” remarked George Lucas, “they take themselves a bit too seriously. So we wanted to infuse into Temple of Doom the humour you find in the old Abbott and Costello movies or in the Thin Man series. The dinner scene where outrageous dishes are served was something that I’d always wanted to put in a movie. Steven has a sense of humour that fits right into that, so he went hog wild.”
With the Indian government not being receptive to the “negative” content of the story, principle photography for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom took place in Sri Lanka. “We found everything we needed,” stated Frank Marshall, “including a jungle, a river, and a gorge, all in one spot – which is always your goal when you’re scouting locations. And it’s always easier when you work in a small country. There’s less bureaucracy, and the government is more eager to help because they appreciate getting motion pictures.” Steven Spielberg was guided by storyboards when mapping out his camera shots. “I start with generic illustrations of principal master shots,” explained the director, “which gives me a geographical floor plan of how to pace the sequences and break them into cuts. I use that master shot to pick my angles. I had about 10 master shots, and then [Production Designer] Elliott Smith caught up with me by building these elaborate miniatures of all the sets. So rather than having to work from a flat piece of paper one-dimensionally, I could take my Nikon with a 50mm macro lens, get right down into a 17-inch cardboard set with half-inch cardboard characters, and photograph angles.”
“After I showed the film to George,” said Steven Spielberg, “at an hour and 55 minutes, we looked at each other, and the first thing out of our mouths was, ‘Too fast.’ We needed to decelerate the action. So I actually did a few matte shots to slow it down. We reestablished the palace outside in a night shot before going back inside again. We made it a little bit slower, by putting breathing room back in so there’d be a two hour oxygen supply for the audience.” Given the responsibility of assembling the footage was Spielberg veteran Michael Kahn who won an Oscar for his film editing work on Raiders of the Lost Ark. “There’s one funny thing,” remembers Kahn. “On the second Indy, almost every other couple of cuts, George would say, ‘I wanna flop this [reverse the direction of the shot].’ He made a lot of flop shots. So my assistant and I got him a cap that said, ‘Professor of Flopology.’ And we put the letters backward, too, so you could read it in the mirror. He laughed when I gave it to him.” Earning $333 million worldwide, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom won for Best Visual Effects and contended for Best Original Score at the Oscars; the BAFTAs awarded it with Best Visual Effects along with nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Sound. For his performance in the action adventure, The Young Artist Awards nominated Ke Huy Quan for Best Young Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture.
The Star Wars saga made an appearance on the small screen with the TV movie The Ewok Adventure: Caravan of Courage (1984) which was aired as part of the The ABC Sunday Night Movie. Scripted by Bob Carrau and cinematically designed by Joe Johnston, George Lucas recruited John Korty to direct. A family star cruiser crashes on the forest moon of Endor, while the parents (Guy Boyd, Fionnula Flagan) go off to find help, their children (Eric Walker, Aubree Miller) wander off and encounter the Ewoks. The production stars Warwick Davis and is narrated by Burl Ives (East of Eden).
Teaming once again with Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather), George Lucas was a co-executive producer for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985). The biopic directed by Paul Schrader (Blue Collar) is about controversial Japanese author Yukio Mishima who committed a ceremonial public suicide in 1970. Lucas persuaded Terry Semel of Warner Bros. to finance half of the film as well as commented on the script and visited the principle photography in Japan. The movie which features past sequences filmed in black and white while the present day scenes were shot in colour was released by as coproduction with Zoetrope Studios, Lucasfilm and Filmlink International (Tokyo).
“On the one hand I’m doing these huge productions and at the same time I’m helping on these little productions, for my friends,” remarked George Lucas who assisted cinematographer Haskell Wexler (In the Heat of the Night) on his directorial effort Latino (1985) where Robert Beltran (Night of the Comet) plays a Vietnam vet and Green Beret who helps lead the Contras against the Sandinistas. “They’re all interesting movies, movies that I cared about and wanted to see made one way or another. Some of them were small failures, some of them were huge failures, and some were extremely nice movies. But in most interviews with me, and even with the company, they’re passed right over, as though they never existed. But those movies may be closer to what I am than Star Wars.”
The Star Wars universe returned to the small screen with the TV movie Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985) which, like its predecessor The Ewok Adventure: Caravan of Courage, was aired as part of The ABC Sunday Night Movie. George Lucas wrote the story and brothers Jim and Ken Wheat directed the tale about a young girl (Aubree Miller) and her Ewok (Warwick Davis) companion who become the captives of a wicked witch (Sian Phillips) after her parents and brother are killed. Both of the Ewok TV movies were given a theatrical release internationally and received Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Children’s Program. Riding the success of the TV movies were two half-hour animated series produced by Nelvana for Lucasfilm. One features Ewoks and the other stars C-3PO (voiced by Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2; together they created The Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour (ABC, 1986).
When the directorial debut of his USC classmate Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now) ran into production problems, George Lucas agreed to help out. “I told Walter I didn’t want to be officially involved because Return to Oz [1985] would then be viewed as my picture, not his,” remarked Lucas who commuted between San Francisco and London. “The critics came crashing down on the picture anyway, but they didn’t come down nearly as hard as they would have if my name had been on it.”
George Lucas originally established the computer division within Lucasfilm to build hardware for Industrial Light & Magic and the rest of his expanding cinematic production empire. “I didn’t particularly want to be in hardware manufacturing. So, we sold it off,” said Lucas who found a buyer for the operations in 1986 in the person of Steve Jobs. Jobs transformed his newly purchased enterprise into a landmark Oscar-winning computer animation studio that would eventually be bought by Disney. “What happened with Pixar is they made brilliantly creative movies, but they looked different. They had a different quality about them than on television.”
Continuing to assist his friends and colleagues, George Lucas executive produced the TV movie The Great Heep (1986) written and created by sound designer Ben Burtt (Munich). The tale, animated by Nelvana, revolves around R2-D2 falling in love with a female droid called KT-10 only to be threatened by the evil title character designed by Joe Johnston. Lucasfilm was also involved in the Jim Henson production of Labyrinth (1986). A teenage girl (Jennifer Connelly) searches for her lost brother in a fantasy world where she encounters the King of Goblins (David Bowie).
The most notorious film associated with George Lucas occurred when he gave some copies of the Howard the Duck (1986) comics to the screening writing husband and wife team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz. “George said, ‘I think you guys would really like this because you have a weird sense of humour,’” recalled Willard Huyck. “Years went by. We could never get the rights. Eventually they became available and we called George and said, ‘Listen. We can do Howard.’” An anthropomorphic duck is transported to earth; as he attempts to get back to his planet the creature helps a struggling singer and saves the world from a monster. The $35 million production which stars Lea Thompson (Some Kind of Wonderful), Jeffrey Jones (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), David Paymer (Get Shorty), Tim Robbins (Mystic River) and Chip Zien (Snake Eyes) was the subject of creative differences. “Originally we were going to do it much differently but that wasn’t the way Universal wanted to do it,” revealed Gloria Katz. “We wanted to do it in a sort of film noir way, as a smaller, realistic story.” George Lucas had reservations about using a man in a duck suit while Huyck and Katz liked the idea of a puppet like the Muppets. “We could never figure out how to build the stupid thing,” confessed Katz. “It always looked like a midget in a duck suit,” stated Huyck. “You couldn’t get around it. Lucas was also concerned that introducing the character late in the movie would change the nature of the comedy. “The die had been pretty much cast when I got involved so I endeavored to help Bill bring his version to the screen.” Reflecting on the science fiction comedy which earned $10 million, the filmmaker said, “My greatest regret in my career is that John [Landis] was unable to direct Howard the Duck. I feel that the movie would have been far more successful and [would have] saved me the years of hardship following its release.” Acknowledging the box office success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) which features human beings in turtle suits, Lucas remarked, “I guess we chose the wrong pond critter.”
Collaborating with Francis Ford Coppola (The Conversation), George Lucas executive produced the 3D short film Captain EO (1986) which stars pop music icon Michael Jackson; he attempts to convince hostile aliens that peace is the better option through songs and dance. The 17 minute production opened simultaneously at Disneyland in Anaheim, California and Disney World in Orlando, Florida and later, Disney World in Tokyo; after the death of Jackson in 2009, it was rereleased as Captain EO Tribute. Another theme park partnership between Disney and Lucas was a $32 million motion simulator attraction called Star Tours which was the first ride to be based on a film not created by the legendary animation studio.
Impressed by the documentary Koyaanisqatsi (1983) by filmmaker Godfrey Reggio, George Lucas served along with Francis Ford Coppola as an executive producer of Powaqqatsi (1988). Shot in ten countries from Peru to France and featuring music composed by Philip Glass, the cinematic exposé explores the exploitation of the natural resources of the Third World by the First Nations. The title is taken from a Hopi Indian word that translates into “life lived at the expense of others” or “life of exploitation”. Coppola had trouble securing the financing so Lucas orchestrated a distribution deal with Cannon Films.
After devising a fantasy adventure inspired by a Biblical tale, George Lucas recruited one of his stars from American Graffiti (1973) to helm the project.
Continue to part four.
Visit the official sites of Lucasfilm and ILM.
Short Film Showcase – Captain EO (1986)
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.
Read more on the Raiders of the Lost Ark story conference at MysteryManonFilm.
Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.
