posted 06-03-2007 04:04 AM                    

quote: Michael Schaffer

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I always wondered why those scenes, given how tight the budget was, weren't shot in California in the first place, or other desert locations in the South West US.

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quote:

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On or a few days after April 5, 1975, [producer Gary] Kurtz traveled to London, taking all of [illustrator Ralph] McQuarrie’s [conceptual] paintings with him as a reference when interviewing potential department heads, because the next step was getting things going in England.

“Why England?” Kurtz asks rhetorically. “Because it was the solution to a multifaceted problem. There was the cost factor. Certain things are cheaper in certain parts of the world. We had investigated Spain, Yugoslavia, and several other countries, and we’d come up with what we thought was the best compromise. We also wanted locations for the desert planet to be in North Africa, and it’s much closer to North Africa from England than from the United States. We could find deserts elsewhere — New Mexico, Arizona, or Old Mexico, Central America, either very good or spectacular — but we wanted slightly bizarre architecture that still looked real. Also we wanted an English cameraman, with a certain level of technological sophistication.”

Lucas and his producer had done the math that showed the United States would cost almost twice as much as England in some below-the-line areas: that is, crew costs. With Fox already panicked about the budget, these savings were essential.

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posted 06-04-2007 03:10 PM                       

quote: Joe Redifer

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I remember having a great deal of fun playing with the Kenner Star Wars toys.

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I like!


BTW, this is one of these "differences" that I seem to remember, namely that when I first saw the movie, or when I saw it later, I don't remember clearly, in any case, in one of the releases I saw, the camera didn't pan all the way over to the charred bodies, or maybe it did, but it didn't cut back to them after cutting to Luke. I am pretty sure one of the releases I saw back then was less "explicit", showed less of the charred bodies.

posted 06-04-2007 10:26 PM                    

From May 25, 1977: A Day Long Remembered

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The “Episode IV: A New Hope” tag at the head of the opening scroll was not present in the original prints of the film. The tag was seen for the first time by audiences in America during the spring 1981 re-release, the first re-release after the 1980 original release of the follow-up to “Star Wars”: “The Empire Strikes Back.”

In a May 1980 interview with The Seattle Times, George Lucas explained why “Star Wars” was originally released without an episode number or subtitle: “I chickened out at the last minute thinking people aren't going to understand what this is all about, so we dropped ‘Episode IV: A New Hope.’ Now we're putting it back on. ‘Empire’ will be called ‘Episode V.’ ”

The presence of an episode number and subtitle on the opening scroll of “The Empire Strikes Back” caused some confusion and received coverage in many film reviews and major news and film industry magazines, including TIME, Newsweek, and American Cinematographer. Why the confusion? Obviously, audiences had not yet seen a “Star Wars” movie begin with an episode number or subtitle!

The “Empire” film review that appeared in The Washington Post clarified the situation: “When ‘Star Wars’ is reissued, probably next summer, the prints will include the subtitle, ‘Episode IV: A New Hope.’ This adjustment may already be seen in the published screenplay, which came out last winter in an attractive book called ‘The Art Of Star Wars.’ ”

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