Here comes "The Making Of The Empire Strikes Back" book!

Apparently, "The Making Of Star Wars" is getting a sequel in 2010:

http://www.starwars.com/vault/books/news20090810.html

Nice cover shot!

At least there's some bit of good news around here! :o)

Someone in the comments section claims there will be "excerpts" from the original book by Alan Arnold.

I fear the worst. :(

Awesome!  I can't wait.

What's wrong with Arnold's Once Upon a Galaxy?  I really liked that book last I read it...

Do you think it will include shots of Ady's Revisited Edit?  :wink:

Nothing wrong with it at all! It's my favorite. I just fear it will be edited to remove remarks Lucas made in 1979 that contradict what he says now. (The whole nine movie saga thing, "Revenge" of the Jedi, etc.)

Not to mention any trace of tension or chaos on the set.

SilverWook said:

Nothing wrong with it at all! It's my favorite. I just fear it will be edited to remove remarks Lucas made in 1979 that contradict what he says now. (The whole nine movie saga thing, "Revenge" of the Jedi, etc.)

Not to mention any trace of tension or chaos on the set.

You mean like the part where Lucas takes the film away from Kersh and does his own cut that is faster and more intense? 

The irony of course being Lucas having his films taken away from him and recut against his wishes like THX 1138 and American Graffiti.  Was it written into the deal memo for star wars that he would get final cut?

Thankfully that never ended up in theaters, Empire is a masterpiece because of Kasden, Kershner, and Kurtz.  Along with the cinematography and the music of john williams and the magic of ilm. 

When Lucas came to his senses he realized the film worked better as Kershner had it cut but made some suggestions for changes and some notes for scenes to be reshot on pickups.  Lucas works best when he is part of a collarborative team.

For Jedi he chose a director who had a background in making documentaries like he himself did, and who would direct the film as if Lucas himself had directed it.  I think it would have been far more interesting to have a different style and director for all three films. 

I wish Marquand put his own stamp so to speak on Return of Jedi.  What we ended up with was very much a remake of star wars 77 but not as good or original, as much as i love rotj i have to admit this is true.

Just as had Lucas stuck to his original plan he would have directed Episode 1 and hired different directors for episode II and III.

If i recall the reason he had to write and direct all three prequels himself as not being able to get Steven Spielberg for Return of the Jedi was because he resigned from the wga and the dga.  So he could not get any people who were union to do the films supposedly.

I just hope they keep it SE-free like they did with the first book. I think they will- it seems like they're going for consistency. 

I wouldn't mind an enture SE book when they're done with the Trilogy, but you're right... keep the SE's out of it.

Well put.

digitalfreaknyc said:Damn. I thought we were talking about the "unreleased" documentary. :(

Sorry about that. I'll change the title.

YES!!!

As if Making of SW wasn't good enough.....plus the foreword is written by Sir Ridley Scott!!!!!!

I do agree that these coffee table books are getting out of hand, both in size and price.

BTW what did the hardcover version of Making of SW have that the paperback didn't?

captainsolo said: I do agree that these coffee table books are getting out of hand, both in size and price.

 

BTW what did the hardcover version of Making of SW have that the paperback didn't?

I think it was like 20 or 30 extra pages of content. Can't tell you exactly what, though.

I also agree that the coffee table format is unwieldy. I had a really hard time with the first book just finding a seating position to comfortably look through the thing.

Wait, 20 - 30 extra pages?  Of what, I need to know if I need to upgrade.

Trying to read the ANH one right now.  So unwieldy!  Its good stuff, but even the "paperback" is heavy!

Crap.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Yeah. I feel for you. You bought the paperback. I wanted to buy the paperback but then I heard about the bonus material and I decided I'd better get the ten-ton hardback. I think it's a dirty trick sticking valuable stuff in the hardback only. That section about expanding the universe has a whole lot of 1977 monologue pieces from Lucas in which he gives bits of 1977 Star Wars backstory for use by expanded universe writers. Han, 3PO, Leia, rebellion, rise of the empire, etc.

I'm still in shock that in 77 Lucas had threepio rebuilt by a boy working for a junk dealer and eventuallly given new coverings, later to join Alderaanian service. The thing to be careful about when judging the prequels is that some stuff that looks like it's recent bullshit can turn out to go way back. Still there's a lot of stuff that looks very clearly like it's a 90s development. And if the prequels really were all that faithful to Lucas's backstory then maybe the backstory was crap that was best kept off the screen. But I think no matter how faithful the story elements in the prequels might be to the original backstory, the spirit of how they were done out in the prequels must be seriously at odds with how Lucas envisioned the backstory back in the old days. And no way was Anakin originally envisioned as being like the Hayden Christensen version.

  Vaderisnothayden:

  In that '77 scenario, it wasn't Anakin that built 3PO.  The text-interview doesn't explicitly say that it is,  but frankly,  the context of the whole "Lucas expands his universe" section makes it highly unlikely that the boy in question was actually Anakin or 'Annikin' (as it was spelled then) back in '77.   If you read the other parts of that chapter of SW 'history',  it's made clear that Vader and Annikin were two separate people (Annikin being the last Jedi to die in the purge only tends to reinforce this).   With that,  there's no reason for a 'memory wipe' or for 3PO to NOT know that it was Anakin who built him, if it indeed was supposed to have been Anakin .  So you can forget 'Anakin built 3PO' as being "old"....just that 3PO was built buy a boy working for a junk dealer.  When it came to the prequels,  Lucas merely grafted that 'boy' onto Anakin's history (among other...ahem....'tweaks').

Ditto for the midichlorians,  where it (the '77 text) says that "certain alien species have a higher count than other beings."   Could that be the 'genesis' of Yoda, or a 'proto-Yoda'?  Dunno.  But it certainly doesn't speak of a human 'Chosen One' ,  on account of midis.

TV's Frink said:

Bocce_Linguist said:

Vaderisnothayden:

Gotta love a bump of a year-and-a-half old thread, especially when the member in question hasn't been online in nearly a year.

It isn't like he -  and ONLY - he can address the post.

BaronLando posted his own observation on the subject not long afterwards, which is the kind of thing I was going for (whether Vaderisnothayden responded to it or not). 

btw, BaronLando, thanks for your response.