Patty Maloney is the only member of the Wookiee family still involved with acting [Peter Mayhew has since recounted his role as Chewbacca in Episode III after this interview was conducted]: Mickey Morton, who played Chewbacca’s wife Mallatobuck (a.k.a. Malla), passed away in early 1998. “He was the sweetest man,” remembers make-up effects artist Stan Winston. “He had a good sense of humor” [read more from Stan Winston below]. Paul Gale as Attichitcuk (“Itchy”), Lumpy’s
350-plus-year-old grandfather, has retired from acting. “He was just like being with family,” recalls Patty Maloney. “He was so much fun to work with. Paul had worked for Sid & Marty Kroft. That’s were I first met him. He played Hoo Doo on the road show that we did of Pufnstuf and was in Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.”
Maloney has been obsessed with acting since a very young age. “When I was about four years old my mother put me into dancing school and, the minute I walked out onto that floor and looked into the mirror, I went ‘(gasp!) This is it! This is what I want to do!’ I was really, really tiny and I even didn’t know that I was never going to grow any taller, so my dream was that I was going to be a chorus girl on Broadway. I studied dance from then on. That was my life. I would go right from school to dance classes. When the last class was over I went home and slept and got up the next day and did it all over again. I did this five days a week, and on Saturdays I was in dance class all day long. I loved it.”
She has had an extremely fruitful career, having worked on countless ’70s sitcoms and shows such as Charlie’s Angels and the original Love Boat. “When I came to Cailfornia in 1972 with $500 in my pocket, I figured ‘When that’s gone, I’ll return home to Orlando, Florida. I never left because I never stopped working.” Maloney has played many costumed characters besides Lumpy, including McDonald’s Early Bird, Goofy Gopher, and Bonita Bizarre for a travelling Sid & Marty Krofft show, and Piglet on Disney’s Welcome to Pooh Corner. More recently [in 1998], Maloney was in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. “I had a great time in that. It was an episode called ‘The Thaw’. There wasn’t a mask on my face. It was all done with make-up. We were aliens that invaded the crews’ minds.” When she reflects on her career, Maloney cannot single out a favorite project. “I can’t think of anything that I haven’t liked doing.”
FAX: Do you remember auditioning for the role of Lumpy?
MALONEY: Oh, I sure do. I probably auditioned with ten other people, I was the only female that I’m aware of that auditioned for the part. I was surprised, being a female, that I got it but I was thrilled with it. I just loved doing Lumpy.
FAX: What was it like working with the cast of Star Wars?
MALONEY: I thought it was great! It was like icing on a cake to be able to work with those people. Harrison Ford was just the most wonderful person to work with. He was so nice to me. While we were shooting the scene where Han and Chewie arrive at the Wookiee planet, he had a line were he had to say “My he’s grown, hasn’t he?” and he’dsay. “My she’s grown, hasn’t she?” (laughter) And they say, “Cut! Harrison, Lumpy’s a boy,” and he would say, “Oh yeah, that’s right. Let’s do that again.” And in the next take he said “My she’s grown, hasn’t she?” They would go “Cut! Harrison!” He would go “Oh, I know, but I can’t look at her when she doesn’t have this mask on, and think of her as a boy when she gets into this thing.” He was wonderful, and everyone else was great.
We had Ben Burtt, the man who does the sound effects for Star Wars. He came into the dressing room one day and he had me do a tape of my voice, and then he engineered it to all different sounds: high, low, fast, and slow. He sent me a tape that was incredible, just so that I could hear what you could do, engineering voices. He was so fascinated with my voice that he wanted it just for his own.
FAX: How would you describe Lumpy?
MALONEY: Lumpy was like an impish little boy that was rebellious. Very active and curious about everything. If his mother said “Take out the garbage” he would reply “I don’t want to do that now! I’m too busy doing something else.” He loved his grandfather and adored his father, which was obvious when Chewbacca came home. He was just an inquisitive, active, and happy Wookiee. He was not really afraid of the stormtroopers, but a little timid of them when they would get upset with him.
FAX: You obviously had to convey a lot of information with mime, since the first half-hour of the show involved the Wookiees who don’t speak English.
MALONEY: Exactly. Well they had a Wookiee language, and we even went to a class to listen to it on tapes to educate us on what their language was like, and if we heard a particular sound, we knew what it meant to us. But it was basically doing mime. The feelings had to come from the whole body in order to get across sorrow and happiness. It was just a wonderful experience.
A lot of the scenes — such as where I’m at the holographic chess table watching alien acrobats — were done where I couldn’t see any of it. It wasn’t there in front of me at all. The director would say, “They’re swinging up to your right,” and I would look up, or he would say, “They’re finished so you can applaud” and I would clap. It was all done by being spoken to, not by any visual references, which was really interesting to do because it’s hard to do that. When I saw it all put together I went “Whew! That’s amazing!”
FAX: Lumpy, Malla and Itchy’s faces were more expressive than Chewbacca’s. Also, Lumpy’s eyes conveyed a lot of expressions.
MALONEY: Yes. The only part of me that you saw were my eyes, and the area around them was painted black. So the expression that I had to give came out of my eyes. It was a new experience because they had just started doing electronic faces. Stan Winston had made the mask for me. I had wires that went down my arms with little rings on my fingers that I could pull and make the nose twitch, make the lips curl up and smile a little bit and open up the mouth alittle bit so the teeth would show. Chewbacca, on the other hand, was more solid. I don’t think he had that kind of movement in his face. It was really fascinating to do it. When they wanted to do a tight close-up. and I had to use my hands to pick up props or something, Stan Winston would sit behind me and work the strings for me.
There were so many things to be done simultaneously in the close-ups. In the long shots, I had to control the cables myself because he couldn’t follow me around.
FAX: It must have been difficult operating your facial expressions with your hands, and doing body gestures simultaneously.
MALONEY: Yes, but it was just a matter of coordination. I thought of it as a dance routine: you get a rhythm going and you almost count it. I almost felt the music without the music being there.
FAX: What were your favorite sets?
MALONEY: I particularly liked Lumpy’s bedroom, which was supposed to be upstairs. It was like going up into a tree. I loved all the toys that they put in there for Lumpy. The scene that I liked the most was when Lumpy went upstairs and found that the troopers had destroyed his toys and pulled the head off the Bantha and how sad it was that his favorite toy had been destroyed.
FAX: How long did the filming last?
MALONEY: I think it was about ten days. We worked very hard and we worked very long hours. Sometimes we would work until two or three in the morning but we just laughed and had fun. It was hot being in that costume but everybody was so wonderful to work with that I forgot about it. One of the most wonderful things was that when I finished the show they sent me a bonus, which you hardly ever get in this business. They also had a director’s chair delivered to my house with the name Lumpy on one side and my name on the other. Smith-Hemion, the producers, did the Emmy Awards for a long time and they’re a wonderful production company.
Read on for some comments by make-up effects artist Stan Winston…
Stan Winston, Wookiee Make-up
By Ross Plesset
One of the most impressive achievements in The “Star Wars Holiday Special” was the creature make-up. Stan Winston created Chewbacca’s family using leading-edge technology. (Winston was not involved in all of the special effects make-up for the show. According to Miki Herman, Don Post Chewbacca masks were used for the Wookiee crowd scene at the climax. For the recreation of the famous Star Wars cantina, Lucasfilm provided the original masks while Rick Baker and crew provided some new characters).
Several people had input into the Wookiee’s design. Many of their characteristics can be attributed to Ralph McQuarrie. “I drew an old Wookiee getting up out of his chair and several females and children,” he says. Stan Winston and his colleagues also contributed to the designs. Recalls Tom Burman: “I helped [Stan] with some ideas for the hair on the Wookiees’ bodies and my brother Ellis Burman worked with him on the mechanical faces.”
Winston describes his work on the show, which he considers a pivotal point in his career:
“It was quite an opportunity for me. I was able to use a Stuart Freeborn concept, which was very in inspirational to me and my whole career, as a spring board to advance the technology in the direction of where we are today. Stuart had developed the lip articulation for the apes in 2001 and then had created Chewbacca for Star Wars. For the “Holiday Special” they had to have this family of Wookiees and, to my good fortune, Stuart wasn’t available. I had done some lip articulation on The Wiz with the flying monkeys, and this was a chance to take it a step further. The production company sent me the original Chewbacca head so I was able to look at it and see how Stuart had originally done it. I used that as my inspiration to take it to another level, where I could put some expressions into the faces besides having the mouths open and pull back. It allowed me to move into the animatronic face phase of my career.”
This Article was Originally posted 2022-10-10 16:00:31.
Ever since 1980, when the second issue of an industry magazine called Cinefex gave extensive coverage to the making of The Empire Strikes Back’s special effects, I’ve pretty much been an fx geek. Setting up models against a blue screen — state of the art for the special effects industry in the ’70s and ’80s — the artists at Industrial Light & Magic would create the X-wing run down the Death Star trench, the snowspeeder attack against the AT-ATs, and the speederbike chase through the Endor forest, to name a few. These set-ups would include the models, the pylons propping them up, stage lights, the blue screen, and of course the camera — items that recently became available in an auction staged out of the old ILM facility in San Rafael, California.
Naturally, as an effects junkie and a resident of the Bay Area, this was destined to be a red-letter day.
Large crate from the ILM stage containing blue screen material
Because ILM has gone almost exclusively digital in the last decade or so, it shed off its modeling division a few years ago, with the new owners inheriting much of the old studio supplies that had served ILM for so long. But with the new studio recently disbanding, all the old lights, cameras, editing tables and booms — not to mention tables, desks, and even the contents of their drawers — were going to the auction block. With hundreds of lots available — several of which were literally room-fuls of stuff — there was a lot to scrutinize.
Pouring over scores of photos depicting the tools that created some of the most memorable effects shots in history, I’d marked about ten items of interest, two of which I and a colleague were ultimately able to win. I didn’t get everything I’d hoped to, but was glad to be able to take home a little piece of history in the end.
Below is a selection of some of the more interesting pieces of last week’s auction, at least interesting to those with a bent for analog-era special effects (Note: the photos below are a combination of our on-site photos and those posted by the auction house).
The “Vista Cruiser” motion control head used for Return of the Jedi
Stage lights and stands
An old ILM label affixed to a light stand
ILM stage blocks
A label indicating this piece was once owned by the Maker himselfThe “Nikon-flex” camera used to shoot the mine car chase in Temple of Doom
Large lights marked “ILM”
An editing table allegedly once owned by George LucasDirector’s chair allegedly once used by ex-ILM alum and Mythbuster Adam Savage
A trio of model pylons for shooting against blue screen
This Article was Originally posted 2022-11-04 16:32:17.
We react to Kathleen Kennedy’s response to last week’s reports claiming she will be stepping down as president of Lucasfilm and clarifying what was true in the reports and what wasn’t. Kathleen also discussed several STAR WARS projects currently in the pipeline. More footage of ANDOR season two dropped this week as the hype for next month’s season premiere ramps up. We breakdown the “Special Look” footage and search for hints of what’s to come. We discuss the STAR WARS presence in the 2025 Oscars including nominees and presenters, some flubs in the Original Trilogy and more!
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Official YouTube Video Home for Rebel Force Radio: Star Wars Podcast
Today, Disney+ released an exciting special look and unveiled a brand-new poster and images for the highly anticipated second season of Lucasfilm’s Emmy®-nominated thriller “Andor,” which returns for its long-awaited conclusion on April 23. The special look offers a glimpse at the making of Season 2 of the compelling series, in which the characters and their relationships will intensify as the horizon of war draws near and Cassian becomes a key player in the Rebel Alliance. Everyone will be tested and, as the stakes rise, the betrayals, sacrifices and conflicting agendas will become profound.
Rife with political intrigue, danger, tension, and high stakes, the series is a prequel to “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which portrayed a heroic band of rebels who steal the plans to the Empire’s weapon of mass destruction: The Death Star, setting the stage for the events of the original 1977 film. “Andor” sets the clock back five years from the events of “Rogue One” to tell the story of the film’s hero, Cassian Andor, and his transformation from disinterested, cynical nobody into a rebel hero on his way to an epic destiny.
The final season will unfold over 12 episodes broken down into four chapters of three episodes each. The first chapter will premiere April 23, with subsequent chapters debuting each week.
“Andor” Season 2 stars Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Genevieve O’Reilly, Denise Gough, Kyle Soller, Adria Arjona, Faye Marsay, Varada Sethu, Elizabeth Dulau, Alan Tudyk, with Ben Mendelsohn and Forest Whitaker. The series was created by Tony Gilroy, who also serves as an executive producer along with Kathleen Kennedy, Sanne Wohlenberg, Diego Luna, Luke Hull and John Gilroy. Tony Gilroy wrote the first three episodes, with Beau Willimon writing episodes 4-6, Dan Gilroy penning episodes 7-9 and Tom Bissell putting pen to paper for episodes 10-12. The directors for the series are Ariel Kleiman (Eps. 1-6), Janus Metz (Eps. 7-9) and Alonso Ruizpalacios (Eps. 10-12).
[foogallery id=”322752″]
Disney+ is available from £4.99 per month – with no hidden costs and the ability to cancel anytime. There’s something for everyone towatch, adding new TV series, blockbuster movies and exclusive Originals throughout the year under its six brands: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and Star. With a library of entertainment spanning everything from documentaries to critically acclaimed drama, and comedy to classic animation. Customers can enjoy anything from “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour”, “In Vogue: the 90s” and “The Beach Boys”, to “Ed Sheeran: The Sum of it All” or “Camden”.
Robust parental controls ensure that Disney+ remains a suitable viewing experience for everyone in the family. Subscribers can set access limits on mature content and create PIN-protected profiles alongside the already existing Junior Mode profiles to give parents and guardians peace of mind.
Gather your younglings for the charming Life Day classic now on the Star Wars Kids YouTube channel, then stay tuned for LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy arriving next month
By StarWars.com Team
Some of your favorite LEGO Star Wars stories are headed to the Star Wars Kids YouTube channel just in time for the holidays!
Join Rey, Finn, Poe, and their friends on a journey back to Chewbacca’s homeworld of Kashyyyk for a Wookiee-sized celebration of the galaxy’s most magical holiday — Life Day! — in the LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special. Previously released on Disney+, the endearing special is available today to watch on Star Wars Kids YouTube for a limited time, making it even easier to share your love of the galaxy with the next generation of fans in your life….
As a kid whose life was profoundly changed by Star Wars in theaters in 1977, the anticipation for the Star Wars Holiday Special on television the following year was high. It’s hard to imagine there was a time when there was very little Star Wars content available to us, but no one anticipated the unprecedented success and impact of Star Wars, and we were starved for that content in the early years. We got some of that fix through the Marvel Comics series, but the three year wait for the next movie seemed like an eternity. So the announcement of a live action television program that continued the story and included all the main actors was something to look forward to. I was glued to the television for every second of the broadcast, and even some of the commercials were entertaining, such as the Kenner commercial with C-3PO and R2-D2….
It’s not the After Show, but it’s our first thoughts and immediate reaction to seeing the season finale of THE ACOLYTE. Did the finale satisfy? Were all the main issues raised throughout the season wrapped up? And what does the future have in store, if any, for THE ACOLYTE? F.J. DeSanto joins us for a “first blush” review and reactions.
#starwars #theacolyte #review #rebleforceradio
Brought to you by RFR on Patreon!
Official YouTube Video Home for Rebel Force Radio: Star Wars Podcast
In London, Darryl James (author of Trigger World: Elite) hosted a Star Wars Tea Party where one of the attendees was Ron Hone who worked on Special Effects for The Empire Strikes Back. He assisted with IG-88, 2-1B, Yoda, R2 and the Probot plus in this segment, he talks about coming close to killing Mark Hamill in one scene.
Despite the Star Wars Holiday Special’s infamous reputation, it has influenced quite a bit of the Star Wars canon! Here is everything that’s been made canon since it first aired in 1978.
Executive producers James Waugh and Josh Rimes reveal never-before-seen concept art and look back at the modern holiday classic.
It was the early days of Disney+. Lucasfilm had the opportunity to tell new stories for the fledgling streaming service, and inspiration could come from anywhere. Even playtime.
“There was a moment with our LEGO partnership where we wanted to reassess all we’d done before and challenge ourselves to see if we could find a fresh new expression of that collaboration, and a way to lean more into the way kids play with their LEGO Star Wars toys — they dump them on the floor and mix and match them. They’re not timeline dependent. We wanted to unlock that whimsy and wonder that’s unique to LEGO play in our linear content, and find a way to celebrate that experience in our storytelling,” James Waugh, SVP, franchise content and strategy at Lucasfilm, tells StarWars.com. “With the opportunity to do a special, we really realized that if it’s going to be a once a year experience, there’s something that just resonates about timeless holiday specials and the idea that, looking back, I think we all have pretty fond memories of specials that we watch every year over and over, that became tradition. We thought how great would it be to do that with LEGO Star Wars.”…
This Life Day feast is a cornucopia packed with STAR WARS news, film updates, and tons of laughs. Sitting at the head of the table is our own Puppet Lando, who brings us holiday cheer with the world premiere of his latest tune “Have Yourself A Happy Little Life Day”. We look back at the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL and look forward to the upcoming documentary “A Disturbance In The Force”, debuting next month. Plus, production updates from THE MANDALORIAN, STAR WARS: SKELETON CREW, Taika Waiti’s film, STAR WARS in Pop Culture and much more!
Could we see a spooky Star Wars special along the lines of Marvel’s Werewolf By Night? Is Luthen going to inadvertently lead to the Ghorman Massacre? What inspiration will Cassian take from Nemik’s manifesto? These questions and more answered in this week’s Q&A!
Just browsing YouTube and I found this little gem, so I hope you enjoy it.
Originally aired in late 1986 during NBC’s “Disney Sunday Movie.” This half hour special served as promotional ‘commercial’ for STAR TOURS at Disneyland, which was at the time the amusement part newest attraction. The show stars Gil Gerard(Buck Rogers, Sidekicks), Ernie Reyes Jr(Sidekicks), C-3PO, and R2-D2 with a special introduction by then Disney CEO Michael Eisner. In addition to promoting STAR Tours the show also presents a brief history of space travel and how television and film depict space travel and space fantasy.
Without a doubt, this is the most toe-curling, embarrassing bit of TV ever created. It’s no secret that if he could, George Lucas would find and destroy every last copy making sure it is never seen again.
But, as we know, that is an impossible task and so I present it here for you now, to cringe along to. Back in 1978 I so desperately wanted to see this but couldn’t because of my geographical location (UK). Seems I was lucky, I guess.
The following interviews were originally printed in a double issue of Filmfax magazine #69/70 from 1998.
Ralph McQuarrie, Conceptual Illustrations
The “Star Wars Holiday Special” benefitted immeasurably from Ralph McQuarrie’s concepts for the Wookiee planet. One of today’s foremost space illustrators, McQuarrie was crucial in designing the look of Star Wars. He subsequently worked on The Empire Strikes Back in concert with “The Star Wars Holiday Special”. Joe Johnston, another of Lucasfilm’s prominent designers, storyboarded several scenes for the show, none of which were used. Ultimately, Johnston’s only contribution was establishing the scale of the new Wookiee characters and various elements of Boba Fett’s uniform.
FAX: What do you remember about “The Star Wars Holiday Special”?
McQUARRIE: [Joe Johnston and I] had worked out some stuff for the Wookiee planet for The Empire Strikes Back. I was drawing this forest with the mile-high trees and was deciding what the Wookiees’ tree houses should be. We then segued into the Christmas special through that.
FAX: Could you talk about the house’s interior?
McQUARRIE: I wound up with something that looks fairly earth-like. I invented those clay oven stoves and I experimented with all kinds of stuff. Frankly. I never saw the Christmas special so I don’t know exactly what they did with it. I did see a couple of stills and it looked like they had some of my ideas in there.
FAX: Why did the clay oven have futuristic tubing protruding from it?
McQUARRIE: I was thinking about a high-tech circulation system that used parts of old space craft. Half of the stuff on there wouldn’t work but the Wookiees adapted these old parts to their heating and ventilation systems.
FAX: Did the Wookiee technology come from their exposure to imperialism like many third world countries on Earth?
McQUARRIE: You would have to ask George about that. My feeling was that they had plenty of skills. They were kind of like Jawas in this sense. They collected space junk and things that were left over from wars that went by. The Empire would come through, build a base, and abandon it, and the Wookiees would go in and ransack the place for usable parts.
FAX: That’s reminiscent of your rendering of Tusken Raiders salvaging parts from a crashed space ship.
McQUARRIE: Yes. All those cultures on the fringe would be using this leftover hardware.
FAX: Did you design any life forms for Kashyyyk?
McQUARRIE: Well we were working with a caravan of animals. There was a big beast of burden on the Wookiee planet that was sort of elephant-like. I designed that for when the Wookiee planet was going to be in one of the films, not for the special.
FAX: How closely did you work with George Lucas?
McQUARRIE: I only had one meeting with him and the show’s producers and we just had a general conversation.
FAX: Were you given a lot of creative freedom?
McQUARRIE: Right. George just let me go ahead and do what I do. I gave him those sketches and he said: “I like this and I like that.” Usually when he says he likes something. it will get into the show if possible.
FAX: I understand that Lucas didn’t give the show very much attention.
McQUARRIE: Right. I know he wasn’t happy with it.
FAX: Many fans were glad to see the Wookiee planet.
McQUARRIE: Yes. I thought the Wookiee planet idea was terrific and it would have been great if it had gotten into one of the films [this interview was taken before Kashyyyk’s return in Episode III].
The following interviews were originally printed in a double issue of Filmfax magazine #69/70 from 1998.
Although the “Star Wars Holiday Special” aired only once 30 years ago, it is well remembered by Star Wars fans because it expanded the Star Wars universe: Boba Fett was introduced for the first time, and the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk, originally conceived for the Star Wars films, was introduced, as was Chewbacca’s family. Star Wars fans were ambivalent about the show’s vaudevillian take on George Lucas’s universe. However, the involvement of Lucasfilm veterans did give it some legitimacy: Star Wars illustrator Ralph McQuarrie designed the Wookiee planet. Ben Burtt provided new sound effects, and Lucasfilm liaison Miki Herman made sure the special remained consistent with George Lucas’s Star Wars mythology. The following interviews reveal the fascinating and sometimes tempestuous story behind the making of the show.
None of the former-production staff remembers how the special came about but co-executive producer Gary Smith of Smith-Hemion Productions (The Emmy Award, The People’s Choice Awards, The Tony Awards) believes that 20th Century Fox came up with the idea. “I have a feeling that 20th Century Fox was the instigator. In typical television style they probably said, ‘Let’s sell a Christmas special promoting Star Wars and we think Smith-Hemion Productions are the right people to do it. So we met with George and played around with several concepts.” Although the original script was a collaborative effort between George Lucas and Smith-Hemion Productions, the final draft was written without Lucas’s involvement.
The first draft of The “Star Wars Holiday Special” was written by Lenny Ripps and his then-partner Pat Proft, with input from George Lucas. The final script was turned over to producers Ken & Mitzie Welch, who made significant changes to it. Both Ripps and Proft have since worked on highly successful projects. After many successful years of writing for stand-up comics such as Joan Rivers, Rodney Dangerfield and David Steinberg, Ripps worked on Tim Burton’s featurette Frankenweenie and contributed to The Flintstones and Casper. Proft went on to collaborate with Zucker, Abrahams & Zucker on the Police Squad TV series and the Naked Gun films.
FAX: How did you become involved in the “Holiday Special”?
RIPPS: Lucasfilm came to 20th Century-Fox, and they came to Smith-Hemion Productions because of their reputation for doing high quality TV specials. Pat Proft and I had worked for Smith-Hemion. We were chosen for this project because of our work on Captain & Tenniel, which combined comedy and music.
FAX: Did Lucasfilm present you with a story?
RIPPS: Yes. Pat and I spent a day with George Lucas in which he took a piece of paper and said “How long is a TV movie?” He put that number down and said “Now let’s write what we’re going to do every minute.’ It was the only day of my life that I forgot to have lunch!
At that time I was a 310 pound man who didn’t think about food for the entire day! Now I’m a couple hundred pounds lighter but, at that time. I was an eating machine who forgot to eat. It was fascinating! He had a vision of what it was going to be. The original director was a protegé of his. I don’t know why he got replaced. He was a good guy, a good director, but the vision changed. It became more a musical comedy.
FAX: What was George Lucas’s original vision?
RIPPS: I think he wanted to make a sweet and sentimental vision of a holiday season and I think it evolved into something maudlin which was not what I thought his vision was. Now I don’t mean to speak for him, but my inclination was that it got kind of sappy.
FAX: It was an eclectic combination of elements: drama. space fantasy. and musical variety.
RIPPS: To me, it didn’t come together. The ideas were all right but I’m not sure that they belonged in the same room. What was interesting to me was that Lucas started talking about Star Wars as if it was a real world. He said things like “Well, you know Han Solo is married to a Wookiee. but we can’t say that.” Now that was 20 years ago [in 1998], so my memory may be wrong. [As outrageous as Ripps’s recollection sounds, there is evidence supporting it. Pat Proft corroborates it and an early draft of the Star Wars script (January 28, 1975) has Han Solo living with a furry female creature who he kisses. Proft also remembers learning that Han was raised by Wookiees, which is verified on pages 46 & 131 of Laurent Bouzereau’s Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays.]
This was a world that the audience only knew a little bit about. It was like he was showing pieces of history; however, he knew the whole world, a world that we may never know. It was almost like he had discovered the Sphinx and was only showing parts of it, but he had it all.
He creates not just biography but history and context. It was remarkable. I hope that, as a writer, I learned from that. When you look at a character it’s not just who they are on the page but who they were before you created them. He was one of the most interesting people that I ever spent any time with because he had so much focus and passion. I subsequently re-wrote a movie for Steven Spielberg [Casper] and spent a day with him, and he was the same way: passionate and focused. He knew what it was about even though it wasn’t done yet. By the same token, however, both men were totally open to ideas. There was no egotism at all.
FAX: After the meeting ended, how did work progress?
RIPPS: We went off and did an outline based on his notes, and then it was approved. We did not see him subsequently. Pal and I did not do the final re-write. People were brought in who did a lot more of the variety writing. It changed, in terms of style, from what we wrote.
FAX: Did George Lucas’s basic story stay the same? Was it always about Chewie trying to get home for in time for Life Day?
RIPPS: That was the story. It was a re-interpretation of Thanksgiving: home, family, and tradition. I viewed it as a Thanksgiving movie in a stellar context. I felt it became less cinematic and more television. It was George Lucas’s story but not necessarily his vision.
FAX: One of the more interesting aspects about the “Holiday Special” was the lack of violence.
RIPPS: I remember that we were talking about prime time television for families. You have to remember that this was a long time ago when what was violent then would be considered a cartoon now. I know that we were careful not to show violence.
FAX: Was it a challenge writing a Star Wars script with minimal violence?
RIPPS: In the context of a holiday special, it was not hard to accommodate. Even though there was no violence, there should have been more tension. I think it could have been more dramatic without being melodramatic.
Smith & Hemion are terrific producers with real integrity. My inclination — and I could be wrong — was that their vision was not the same as Lucas’s. Everybody involved had great respect for the film because it was more than a movie: it was almost literature. This was a newly-minted icon and maybe we had too much reverence for it. It’s always a problem when you’re trying to interpret somebody else’s vision.
FAX: What was your favorite part of the special?
RIPPS: Obviously the high point was working with Lucas. He was one of the most interesting people that I ever spent any time with.
[After this interview was conducted, Ripps had a chance to watch the special for the first time in decades. He described it as “sweet” but added “I don’t think it was George Lucas’s vision. That’s pretty clear because he doesn’t even want to talk about it.”]
Paul Huston
Senior Matte Artist on Star Wars Special Edition
Paul Huston’s most memorable experience with Star Wars was meeting George Lucas, Ralph McQuarrie, and Joe Johnston in a warehouse in Van Nuys in 1975. Twenty years and millions of Star Wars fans later, Huston is working on Star Wars yet again, and as he says, “I am always trying to meet the standards set by those three guys.”
The Star Wars movie that has had the most influence on Huston is, “The first one . . . here it is twenty years later and I’m still working on it! . . . The opening shot with the roll-up and the rebel blockade runner followed by the Star Destroyer always knocks me out.”
Huston has been working on the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition since January of 1994, creating new shots for scenes in Mos Eisley and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s house on the Dune Sea. Huston has painstakingly matched his Special Edition artwork with the original print of Star Wars to allow new CG creatures, characters, and vehicles to populate scenes in the way George Lucas originally intended. Huston’s biggest challenge is, as he describes: “Doing million dollar work on a shoestring budget.”
This is my greatest challenge yet. A video of pure celebration of one of the most highly criticized Star Wars stories ever created. Here is everything that I think is great about the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special!
AUDIO PODCAST! Celebrating 44 years of the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL! Presented on CBS one-time-only on November 17, 1978, this show has become legendary & infamous among STAR WARS fans. We share our memories of the show with Steven Kozak, producer of the upcoming documentary “A Disturbance in The Force”, who joins us to share some interesting and hilarious Holiday Special info. Plus, we’re looking forward to the season finale of ANDOR with rumors and speculation about what we might see (and hear).
As someone always on the lookout for rare old Star Wars photos, I was pleased to discover Forbes.com’s Geek Beat columnist David M. Ewalt had unearthed a cool old gem from the vaguely-documented “Star Wars Holiday Special” of 1978, which we actually lent a bit of coverage to a couple years ago.
While researching a couple of those pieces, I came across a rare Associated Press image of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in photocopied articles from 1978, but couldn’t locate the original in Lucasfilm’s expansive Image Archives (apparently, wire photos were not automatically sent to LFL for approval and/or cataloging). Enter Ewalt’s Geek Beat column, which appears to have located the original shot of Ford and Fisher in a rare backstage moment captured by AP photographer George Brich.
Ah, to be a fly on the wall to hear what Ford is sharing with Fisher before their next Holiday Special take…
Check out a never-before-seen preview of Andor, exclusive deals, and all of today’s surprises from the galaxy far, far away.
starwars.com TeamStart the Gungan parade, line up some stormtrooper helmets as drums, and cue the fireworks over Coruscant: it’s Disney+ Day, and we’re celebrating!The annual Disney+ Day party has arrived, and there’s lots for Star Wars fans to enjoy — from a surprise sneak peek of Andor, to the premiere of a revealing, emotional documentary about Obi-Wan Kenobi, as well as exclusive limited-time deals. See below for our guide to all of today’s fun from the galaxy far, far away, and enjoy Disney+ Day! Andor: A Disney+ Day Special LookReleased in celebration of Disney+ Day, this thrilling extended preview of Andor is the biggest look yet at the highly-anticipated Original Series. Starring Diego Luna as Cassian Andor and set five years prior to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Andor starts streaming September 21 with a three-episode premiere, only on Disney+….
Episode I exists in a technological paradox. It is a chapter of the Star Wars story that takes place decades before the classic Trilogy, and yet it was created two decades after the original movie. While some visual effects techniques have changed very little over the years, today’s effects specialists use many tools that didn’t even exist when audiences first sat down in darkened theaters to watch the adventures of Luke Skywalker and the Rebellion go up against the Empire. Many effects are being done far differently at the turn of the century, and onscreen results are better than they ever were. But that usually means that today’s effects also look different than their aging counterparts. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon ignite their lightsabers aboard one of the Federation Battleships.Through their work on The Phantom Menace, Industrial Light & Magic had to achieve a delicate balance between superior technology and movie continuity.
On Episode I, Visual Effects Supervisor Scott Squires and his team were responsible for the lightsaber sequences and everything that had to do with the city of Theed. So part of their work involved dealing with two effects that had been born with the original Star Wars movie: the familiar lightsaber blades, and the holograms, used as visual transmission devices.
“In Episode IV, Princess Leia calls upon Obi-Wan Kenobi for help.George Lucas liked the way the holograms looked in the previous movies,” explains Squires, “so we tried to recreate that look. The basic process involves shooting the holographic persons against either black or blue, and then isolating them. After that, the image is run through special filters to give it some transparency, to create video break-out and make it look like it has been processed.” Whereas visual effects artists normally try to make the process of their work invisible to the spectator’s eye, cleverly covering their tracks, the hologram effect is an interesting example of work done in the opposite direction. “With today’s technology,” says Squires, “ we could also make things look better, perhaps more realistic, but we need to keep it consistent through the whole series.” Seen through the hologram effect, the status of Episode I becomes doubly paradoxical. In Episode I, Darth Sidious often uses holographic projections to communicate with his accomplices. First, ILM uses advanced technology to degrade an image projection instead of enhancing it. And second, the visual effects wizards, whose digital tools would allow them to do an even better “demolition job” on the characters appearing as holograms, had to be careful not to degrade the image too much and run the risk of breaking continuity with the way holograms looked in the classic Trilogy. “Today, the hologram effect is done digitally,” says Squires. “But for the classic movies, the technique was quite different. They would shoot the character, then play the footage on a video screen, and shoot the video screen. This would already create some distortion and noise – but they added to it by having someone loosen the plug or shake the equipment around.” This inventive method made the image on the video screen appear degraded. Which it was.
Another classic effect, that of the lightsaber blades, also had to be kept just the way it had been established in the previous Star Wars movies, despite the leaps and bounds enjoyed by digital technology since A New Hope. “We could have done something much more elaborate, much more exotic,” Squires says, “but once again we simply had to respect continuity.” So even though the blades of the laser swords are no longer painted by hand, one frame after another, the digital artists have done all they could to retain the look and feel associated with the lightsabers of Skywalker father and son and Obi-Wan Kenobi, both at rest and in motion.
Luke ignites his lightsaber for the first time. In the first Star Wars movie, a scene where a lightsaber was ignited needed to be achieved in a least two shots, because the lightsaber handle had to be replaced with another handle fitted with a solid “blade” covered with reflective tape. In Empire and Jedi, lightsabers being ignited would have their blades hand-drawn at the end of the handles, while in Episode I igniting lightsabers were given their blades through computer graphics. The same techniques were brought into play to “doctor” the fighting sequences, were the metal rods used in lieu of laser blades were optically or digitally replaced. The technique used to generate the glowing, diffused light of a lightsaber – and many other visual effects – is called rotoscoping. Rotoscoping has been used throughout the Star Wars saga and is in fact one of the most essential tools at the disposal of the visual effects artists. Moving from the optical realm to the digital sphere, the art of rotoscoping is a perfect example of visual effects technology evolving as it should: right under the spectators’ noses without them noticing any seam in the transition.
Visual effects artists use rotoscoping to track a visual element they need to modify, remove, or add to a sequence. Developed in 1917 by animation pioneer Max Fleischer, rotoscoping remained virtually unchanged for seventy-five years. Traditionally, visual effects artists would use the rotoscope, a high-perched camera/projector combination looking straight down at a flat work surface, to project scenes from a movie, frame by frame. One of ILM’s rotoscopes, as used by artist Barbara Brennan in the early ’80s.On each frame, they would trace by hand the elements to be worked on, creating a series of cells used as guidelines to indicate where the special effects needed to go. For the lightsaber blades, for instance, rotoscoping experts traced the “stick” blade of each prop lightsaber, showing the animators exactly where the blue, red and green glows needed to be positioned. Once the blades had been created as separate elements, they would be optically added to the live-action images.
With the computer, things are different. Now rotoscoping is accomplished within the digital realm, and new tools have been developed to speed up the process. “Nowadays you can indicate to the computer that your elbow and arm are here,” says Squires, “and that you want these two elements traced. Digital rotoscoping then allows you to tell the computer that ten frames later the elements are over there, and the computer will go ahead and generate everything in between the two positions.” Once the guidelines have been established for each frame, computer animators step in and create the effects that will be later added to the original footage. Everything is now digital, but the technique remains surprisingly similar to what it has always been. And through better technology and special effects techniques stepping from the physical world into the virtual one, ILM strives to remain true to the classic look of the Star Wars saga. “For things like the lightsabers, we’ll put in the glow and the shimmer, and when they cross we’ll add a flash and all the other details that fans are used to,” Squires says. “But no matter what the technology is or becomes, we’ll always remain consistent within the Star Wars universe.”
