Heilemann

I can't find any mentions in that issue I'm afraid. Got me going for a while there :(

Yeah, us poor Mac folk have to make due with Save Screen to file, save region to file or save window (w. dropshadow) to file :(

I like his Vault book.

So what did everyone think?

I loved it, honestly. It repeats itself a few times here and there, but considering the raw length and amount of material in it, that’s more than forgivable. And while I’m sure some of the more cynical among us will disagree, I found it overall very honest in dealing with ‘touchy’ subjects like Kurtz and Brackett. I even sensed some tiredness of David Prowse, even back then (he seems to me like he would get on ones nerves).

I was quite surprised that the whole wampa thing was a The Thing From Another World throwback; never thought of that. I still think it was good it never got made; it seemed like such an odd fragmented idea anyway.

And also, even though I’ve read and seen virtually everything out there, it wasn’t until this that I feel I got a proper appreciation of how grueling the whole film was to do.

I’m looking very much forward to the Jedi book; I have almost no impression of Marquand as a person, nor truly his relationship with Lucas and his role on the film. I have some fixed ideas about it, but it’ll be very interesting to see that given the same treatment.

Zombie, what did you make of the last page? Was that a distant reply to your book you think?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Steve+Sansweet

Quoted For Truth.

The article can come off a bit as if the author is being 'the better man' and forgiving Lucas; that's generous and all, but that requires for him to have held Lucas' 'transgressions' against him on a personal level. 

Listen, I'd like to see the originals restored as much as the ne... Almost as much as the next person. And yes yes, the prequels. But for me, that just doesn't translate into some kind of personal grudge.

633 Squad was actually used as temp footage placeholders for the space battles before the ILM comps were done, IIRC.

Kurtz confirms as much in an interview I'm using. But from there to it being a 'primary' influence... I don't know if I'm altogether convinced. I think you're probably right that it further ingrained the idea, and perhaps it even triggered the idea of fighters attacking the bombers, something that isn't present in Dambusters.

He wrote back, telling me that he unfortunately didn't know anything about it, but that he'd think about who we might be able to get in touch with. So I send him over my own notes, here's an ugly copy/paste:

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> Before showing a cut of the film to John Williams, Lucas and Hirsch added to the temp track. The director had designed his film as a "silent movie," told primarily through its visuals and music, so great care was taken to obtain the right moods. "We used some stravisky, the flipside of The Rite of Spring," Hirsch remembers. "George said nobody ever uses that side of the record, so we used it for Threepio walking around in the desert. The Jawa music was from the same Stravinsky piece. We used music from Ivanhoe by Rózsa for the main title. George was talking about having a majority of the film set to music."

> "George had listened to a lot of records and done a lot of research, and people had given him records," Burtt says. "He had picked out some material from Dvo?ák's New World Symphony for the end sequence of the great hall and the awards. He had chosen some of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony for Luke's theme. We slowly built up temporary music tracks and mixed them in with the film, so we had a temporary version of the film with an essentially complete sound effects track and a patchwork music track that highlighted various moments in the picture. At this point Johnny Williams was brought in."

Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, p246.

> "I was very pleased with the score," Lucas says. "We wanted a very Max Steiner-type of romantic movie score."

Rinzler, The Making of Star Wars, p265.

> MUSICAL NOTES: The rough edit of Star Wars had a temporary track which used pieces of Gustav Holst's The Planets suite, snatches of Alex North's score for Cleopatra (Joseph L Mankiewicz, 1963) and selections from Bernard Hermann's music for Alfred Hitchcock.  Whilst these stock tracks helped create the right mood, there was never - as had been suggested since - the possibility of actually releasing the film with such a track.  Lucas wanted a rich, orchestral score, something old-fashioned and outdated at the time.  He knew it should be reminiscent of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, the multi-award-winning film composer who had scored The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtz, 1938) and The Sea Hawk (Michael Curtiz, 1940), two of his moders for Star Wars.

Smith, George Lucas, p75

Note: This is unsourced.

> Another Good example is the temp track for Star Wars. This was Gustav Holst's 1917 classical piece The Planets.

Davis, Complete Guide to Film Scoring, p98 (http://books.google.com/books?ei=3RKzTJHzDY7qOaWqoeYJ&ct=result&id=xSkYAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22star+wars%22+temp+track+john+williams&q=star+wars#search_anchor)

Recording Star Wars: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.malonedigital.com/starwars.pdf&pli=1

I think, with regards to Lucas repeating things, that it's simply because that's who he is. He hasn't changed a lot over the years.

And he's always reused ideas, Temple of Doom? 50% of that was from the cutting room floor of the first's script.

He is nothing, if not persistent.

It's a shame that the great bits are mixed in with the sugar-rushed shallowness of the rest of that program (3PO and R2 weren't good in the first Making of Star Wars, no need to try that again). I wonder how easily Lucasfilm gives up that old behind the scenes footage, and under what conditions. Often you only see snippets; as if the people putting together the programs have no idea what they have in their hands.

As for names, I've only got this, and it doesn't necessarily fit with the other names:

A Long Time Ago
S T A R   W A R S

Wow. That's one dense timeline :D

avoidz, I couldn't agree more re. the flash, and it's a subject that's been brought up many times, but the author behind it is adamant about it. It still doesn't always work properly for me, and several times I could have wrangled what I needed from it if only I could view source. Yay flash.

> I've been collecting all the movie and television programs which either were inspirations for or referenced SW movies and watched 633 recently.

Maybe we should compare notes; I've been doing much of the same. Mail me at heilemann@gmail.com if you're interested, I can show you some of what I'm working on.

> Rereading my notes, there are terms which were reused: wing commander, blue leader, Hobbie.

Ah yes, those I had overlooked. In Dambusters, even though they use other lines, they just use 'leader' to address. Good point.

> A few lines "hold on this might be a little rough", "critically important operation, that's all gentleman, except good luck". (MTFBWY-like)

I have that in my briefing intercut actually; it's not in Dambusters and it is quite reminiscient of the ending of the briefing in ANH.

> Similar scene sequence, briefing before battle for instance.

Also in Dambusters.

> But for the most part this is probably one of the films GL cut-up to create his Death Star mock-up. For instance at 57:20 there's a shot of a gun whose turrets pumps in and out, cockpit shots 14:25, formation breaks off and attacks 21:45.  So shot framing and battle sequencing are probably some of the things learned from this film.

Well it's not so much that I want to disregard it entirely; Kurtz mentioned it after all. But I feel that its signifigance is wastly overrated, and has been tired inexorably to the film whereever you look. I dare you to find a single mention of 633 Squadron that doesn't always mention Star Wars; and personally I don't find the connection to be quite *that* strong.

I'm working on a project dealing with the influences Lucas used to build Star Wars from and I've been doing some research on the matter for a little while now.

One of the films that keeps getting brought up as having been a heavy influence on the ending is 633 Squadron. Often, but not always, mentioned in the same breath as Dambusters. In fact, Lucas himself is often cited as having mentioned it.

However, I haven't been able to find a single source for any such quote. The only reference I've been able to find from any official source is from Kurtz.

633 Squadron is little more than a poor knock-off of Dambusters, both conceptually and structurally, and with the exception of there being a very specific area that needs to be struck with 'Earthquake bombs', whereas in Dambusters it's more a matter of distance to target (which given that the trench on the Deathstar is narrow and linear, jives well with Star Wars anyway), the two movies share more than they differ; at least in terms of how they might have influenced Star Wars.

So what I'm saying is, 633 Squadron was 'just another' one of the fifty or so movies in the archive; it was nothing special.

I'm wondering if anyone has anything to add? Have I missed a Lucas quote? Is there something I'm not seeing?

PS: There is one thing though, which 633 Squadron does different from Dambusters. A separate team on the ground set out to clear the way for the attacking planes by attacking and sabotaging the fjord defences. In a forest setting. Where they fall into an ambush. It sounds familiar alright, but not for Episode IV.

I've written to him, and hope for the best. I'll be back with anything learned.

It's a toss-up between The Making of Star Wars and The Secret History of Star Wars... And maybe Skywalking. OH GOD DON'T MAKE ME PICK JUST ONE!

I wrote to him, asking for his sources on that particular paragraph, but haven't heard anything back yet.

Here's a thread, but again, unsourced.

Thanks None, that helps. I wonder where he got this information from. I doubt he had direct access to Lucas...

I'm looking for the full text from page 75, and whether he cites a source for it?

I've been looking for a while, and I haven't been able to find any specific references to the temp track. A lot of people, as in this thread, bring up various pieces of music, such as Herrman, Holst or Korngold, and while there's definitely some interesting cues in those (and other often cited works), it seems to mostly be guesswork.

Be wary of guesswork, I say.

So looking forward to this Jambe.

Why would Lucasfilm try to cover up 'Revenge of the Jedi'? They never have before...

The Last Corellian Shipyard explains all.

This hasn't been posted yet? Crazy talk.