On March 22, 1976, almost half a century ago, George Lucas began filming his most ambitious project, Star Wars (Star Wars). The conditions were never good, the number of people involved was crazy and starting to film in a desert in Tunisia was just the beginning of a disastrous experience that resulted in one of the greatest classics of cinema.
The script for the film was not yet finished – shortly before filming began, Lucas decided to kill off the character. Obi-Wan Kenobithe Jedi incarnated by the experienced Alec Guinness– and, once the exterior shoots were completed, they had to move to the Elstree studios in the United Kingdom. There the tasks began on April 7, although with notable setbacks in the way because the sets were incomplete and the story still had aspects to polish along the way.
Lucas was never known for his work as a director; In fact, his own actors mocked that an ideal film for him would be one without actors. The filmmaker already had this problem from previous productions (American Graffiti and THX 1138). Putting a machine, whether a futuristic computer or a ship, in front of the camera would always be more comfortable for him.
“I have a sneaking suspicion that If there was a way to make movies without actors, George would do it“, he expressed without reservation Mark Hamillaccording to an article by The New Yorker 1997. Despite the barriers of his own unsociable personality, he took a special liking to Mark, the actor behind Luke Skywalker.
Hamill soon realized that his role in the fiction had a lot of influence from its director and, even when he dared to include somewhat ridiculous ways in his interpretation, he did not receive a single complaint. On the contrary, George was happy with his performance for the role. About Carrie Fisher, 19 years old at the time, the bond was more like that of an older brother and his little sister. Her rebellious spirit and sense of humor were key to portraying the princess Leiaalthough she followed all the instructions due to the insecurity of losing the role to other rejected contenders such as Jodie Foster.
The relationship between Harrison Ford and George Lucas It could be said that it was the most horizontal of all, since the artist (and former carpenter) expressed his distaste for dialogues full of complicated terminologies that only Lucas could understand. He took the liberty of improvising and part of his personal charm spilled into the role of Han Solothe charming and deceitful bounty hunter who piloted the Millenium Falcon.
The chemistry between the three lead actors elevated the film to a special place in the hearts of the audience. George may not have had the skills necessary to guide his actors, but he didn’t make a mistake in choosing the people he was going to work with. In fact, his goal from the beginning was to discard the problematic profiles, and opt for the simplest and most pleasant people to collaborate with.
Episode 4 of Star Wars had a budget of 10 million dollars (approved by the film company Fox), an insane amount of money that the filmmaker had never seen to make a feature film. Part of his big problem with the film was that, that it was a large-scale production where he couldn’t have the control that he was used to in independent cinema.
He tried to control everything. “That almost killed me“Lucas acknowledged, according to what the book contains Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of The Empire Strikes Back. “It was too hard and I was very unhappy because things weren’t going the way I wanted.”.
The need to create a realistic atmosphere and in a documentary style It was also another imperative that caused differences with others involved in the film such as the British editor John Jympson, who had a long history of films and was proposed by Fox despite George’s refusal. The latter would later be responsible for firing him due to the lack of understanding of his original proposal.
Jympson’s problem was the long takes that Lucas was sending, since filming and editing occurred at the same time. However, the filmmaker considered that he did not understand his vision. “That’s not what I want and that’s not how it will be“, he complained about the sequences put together by Jympson (Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas, Dale Pollock).
While filming The Star Wars -original name of the first installment- continued in May, George Lucas fell seriously ill with a bad cough and a foot infection. The pace was unbearable, They worked 24 hours a day and, for the director, nothing was enough. His expectations were affected as he delegated functions, something that he ultimately did not like and which was difficult to get used to. He felt that his vision would be altered precisely because of this hierarchical line in the production team.
On the other hand, the pressures from Fox executives became increasingly intense in the face of delays and Gary Kurtz, producer of the film, could not contain them any longer. The initial plan was to announce the premiere for Christmas 1976, but times were against it. Finally, the warning reached Lucas: the film had to be finished within a maximum period of one week. Even, Steven Spielbergthe filmmaker’s staunch professional rival, He offered his help, but it was not welcomed..
In July, exactly on Friday the 16th of that month, George Lucas culminated in the production of the film. He closed everything at a hasty pace, since he was forced to delegate and divide his project so as not to delay time any further. He was 20 days late and his budget flew with an extra cost of USD 600 thousand dollars. Fox’s displeasure did not matter much to George, as he would later admit that doing Star Wars was relatively “cheap” for the type of film it was: “It was really a low budget movie.”.
“The fact is that we didn’t have the money, and the key to special effects is time and money,” he angrily snapped in a past interview about the post-production process. “The movie is 25 percent what I would have liked it to be.”. The truth is that Lucas was never happy with the final cut and this need for perfection tormented him for decades to the point of re-editing it more than once with the new tools that were appearing with the growing modernity of cinema. He wanted exactly what he had in his imagination and the rusticity of the time limited him.
Shortly before the release of Star Wars In 1977, he admitted that making a movie “It is a very painful experience”. His idea for posterity was to retire from this type of commercial cinema and dedicate himself to the most experimental, but on May 1 of that year he ended up leaving. change the direction of your life. The Journey of Luke, Han and Leia hit theaters; and thousands of spectators were delighted. The lines seemed endless and the tickets were sold out.
