Star Wars (Episode IV – A New Hope) (1977)

Em: 00:02:46

Hi, everyone. I'm Em. And welcome to verbal diorama, episode 350, Star Wars.

This is a podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know and movies you don't that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs. Welcome to Verbal Diorama. Whether you're a brand new listener, whether you're a regular returning listener, thank you for being here.

Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. I am so happy to have you here for the 350th episode, but also for the history and legacy of Star Wars.

And if you are a regular returning listener, thank you so much for continuing to listen and support this podcast over the last seven years and now 350 episodes. Honestly. Thank you so much for your support. It genuinely means so much if you are a new listener to this podcast. I am a solo podcaster.

I've been doing this for a long time and I do this completely on my own. I have no help from anyone and it's really tough to do a podcast on your own, especially with how research heavy this podcast is.

But somehow I've managed to continue to do it for the last seven years now.

And big episodes like this are always a little humbling, but also an achievement as well because not many podcasts do reach 350 episodes and I'm always a little wowed by the literal force. Lol. I have within me to do this and continue to do it.

I'm not gonna lie, I've had had my wobbles one very recently, but I always come back to Verbal Diorama because I love it and I love telling these stories. I can't imagine not doing it. To be honest. I have no idea how long this podcast will go on for, but I never expected it to last for 350 episodes.

So I don't know. Never say never. There is no guarantee. But as long as I love doing it, I'm going to continue to do it. And a big episode deserves a big movie.

One I've been putting off. But you can't stay on your little desert planet forever. Here's the trailer for Star Wars Somewhere.

Imperial forces and orders from the cruel Darth Vader hold Princess Leia hostage in their efforts to quell the rebellion against the Galactic Empire.

Luke Skywalker, a farm boy from Tatooine, meets hermit Ben Kenobi and delivers to him a droid containing a message from the kidnapped princess of For Obi Wan Kenobi asking for his help.

Together they go to Mos Eisley and meet Han Solo, Captain of the Millennium Falcon, and his co pilot Chewbacca, with a plan to rescue the princess, help the Rebel alliance and restore freedom and justice to the galaxy. Let's, as always, run through the cast of this movie.

We have Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia Organa, Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin, Alec Guinness as Obi Wan Kenobi, Anthony Daniels as C3PO, Kenny Baker as R2D2, Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca, David Prowse as Darth Vader and James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader Star wars was written and directed by George Lucas so before we start, a couple of house rules. This episode is literally just about Star wars, aka Star Wars Episode 4 A New Hope.

Nothing of the Star wars franchise, or indeed anything George Lucas did after, or any retconning matters at this stage.

I'm not going to go into the extensive lore of the series, official or otherwise, mostly because there are plenty of brilliant Star wars podcasts out there that do that so much better. Speaking of retcons, much of the history of Star wars as told by the people involved, I'm looking at you.

George has changed somewhat over the course of the decades. He's changed his mind a few times, or perhaps it's just a case of muddled memories.

Either way, I'm going to try and get to the bottom of the real story as best I can. But and I say this every time I do a big episode on something a lot of people love, and I am not an expert.

And honestly, one of the reasons I've held off on doing Star wars for so long is, let's just say the fandom often behaves a little bit toxic towards women. So basically what I'm going to say is, don't be a CGI jabber about it. The story is huge, and this podcast is a rebellion of one.

is. And I'm going to start in: 1975

because when Jaws came out in: 1975

I do actually have a podcast episode on Jaws that is episode 106 of this podcast. So if you want more on the story of Jaws, go and listen to that episode but before Jaws, the summer was considered a dumping ground for movies.

In the early: 1970

The 70s was the decade of auteur driven, gritty, introspective Hollywood movies like Taxi Driver, the Godfather, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Films that reflected post Watergate cynicism, the Vietnam trauma and the collapse of the American dream.

Studios, rattled by earlier financial failures, had given unprecedented creative control to young directors. Jaws changed all of that in a single dune. It buried the practice of controlled step by step releases that the studios had favoured up to that point.

It did so after what Universal's own publicity director called the largest advertising expenditure for a release in the history of the company. The wide release strategy, combined with a saturation TV advertising campaign, created something new.

A film as a national event you had to see immediately or risk being left out. And the numbers were unprecedented.

Jaws became the first film to break $100 million at the box office, displacing the Godfather as the highest grossing film up to that point. Ironically, a movie about a massive shark eating people taught studios about consumer appetite. Jaws wet corporate appetites for big profits quickly.

Studios didn't just want more Jaws, although they did make more Jaws movies. And let's not forget, Jaws also birthed the large out of control creature feature as well. They wanted a reproducible system.

They wanted a high concept, high budget, high profile picture designed to appeal across demographic lines and play on thousands of screens.

Not just a movie, but a cultural event with a stratospheric marketing budget and profits sustained for years through merchandising, sequels, home video and re releases. That was the holy grail as far as the studio system was concerned. But Jaws wasn't that kind of marketable thing.

There's only so much killer shark that audiences can stomach. But what would come two years later redefined the Jaws ideal of a Hollywood blockbuster.

And Jaws and Star wars are usually talked about in the same breath as the twin killers of New Hollywood, but they were also conceived by New Hollywood. Jaws taught studios how to sell a film. Star wars taught them what kind of film to keep making forever.

And so to talk about Star wars, the story really does have to start with George Lucas. One of the most significant people to come out of the 20th century New Hollywood movement.

ity of Southern California in: 1967

One of those assistant editors was Marcia Griffin. She's going to be important to this story. But Fields also hired a young George Lucas, fresh from graduation. And George met Marsha.

In: 1969

It was a dystopian sci fi film about a sterile future where emotions are outlawed. Warner Bros.

Hated it, and after the first cut, the studio took the film away, recut it to remove five minutes of footage, and released it with minimal promotion. It bombed at the box office, but it would give Lucas two things.

A distrust of studio interference and the knowledge that maybe Orwellian haunting and dystopian sci fi wasn't what audiences wanted, something that he and producer Gary Kurtz agreed with. Lucas was then lined up by his college friend John Milius, who'd written a Vietnam War script called Apocalypse now and wanted Lucas to direct it.

But Production stalled in: 1969

In: 1971

De Laurentiis declined because Federico Fellini was their number one choice to make the movie.

ke that didn't do so great in: 2012

The same year,: 1971

to Universal pictures. And in: 1972

In: 1962

American Graffiti, the first movie produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm, was critically and commercially successful and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Director, Best Picture and nominated for Best Editing for both Marcia Lucas and Verna fields.

In early: 1973

Thorpe, the son of the chief pilot of the galactic cruiser Tarnak Han Dardell Thorp, apprenticed to the legendary Jedi Bendu, master of Uchi Mace Windy. It used Edgar Rice Burroughs, a fighting man of Mars, as a backbone.

a profitable genre in the mid-: 1970

wars, was completed in April: 1973

draft used extracts from the: 1973

Ladd organised a screening of American Graffiti for himself and came away so impressed that he scheduled a meeting with Lucas. It was during this discussion that Lucas pitched his idea for a small space fantasy film called the Star Wars.

Ladd was impressed and encouraged Lucas to continue with the project. Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz presented the treatment to several studios including United Artists, Universal and Walt Disney. They all turned it down.

Even his friend Francis Ford Coppola, who ran a division of Paramount Pictures called the Director's Company with Peter Bogdanovich and William Friedkin, questioned Lucas ability and declined to finance it. Jeff Berg took the treatment to Alan Ladd Jr. At Fox and they negotiated the outline of the deal.

. Bear in mind, this is still: 1973

But once it did come out, and it did well, Berg suggested Lucas go back to Ladd for more money. But Lucas didn't want the money.

He wanted sequel and Merchandising rights, one of the most important and profitable decisions George Lucas would ever make.

Fox offered Lucas an additional $500,000 directing fee, but Lucas wanted to pass that up in return for keeping licensing and merchandising rights for himself. Fox originally agreed it was a decision that would eventually cost the studio billions.

But at the time, the studio thought they were getting a great deal because no one expected action figures and lunchboxes to make money.

But it's worth adding at this point that although Alan Ladd Jr. Was very much on Lucas's side and believed in his story and what he wanted to do, not everyone at 20th Century Fox was sold. The Star wars, as it was known at the time, was a huge risk to a studio not in the best of health financially.

Fox president Gordon Stulberg approved the production, and Ladd and Stulberg remained Lucas's support at times when the board of directors of 20th Century Fox wanted to shut down production.

By May: 1974

In January: 1975

It also introduced the concept of being turned to the dark side. This draft was over 200 pages long.

Alongside the draft, Lucas met with artist Ralph McQuarrie and commissioned him to illustrate key scenes from the draft script in preparation to shop the project around Hollywood. United Artists, Universal Studios and Walt Disney all turned it down before 20th Century Fox greenlit it.

In February: 1975

Armed with vivid illustrations of his planned movie, Lucas was able to convince Fox executives to take a gamble. Lucas then started writing with a budget in mind.

By August: 1975

Tolkien's The Hobbit, Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, James George Fraser's The Golden Bow and Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment. Although there is objection to Lucas's claim regarding the Uses of Enchantment, arguing that it wasn't released until after Star wars was filmed.

Lucas also hired Alan Dean Foster, who was ghost writing the novelisation of the first film, to help rewrite the third draft.

January: 1976

The final draft is basically the shooting script.

It contains several cost cutting changes from the third draft, including removing Darth Vader and the Empire, bringing Leia to their stronghold on Alderaan.

Instead, Lucas moved these scenes to all take place on the Death Star, which had the added benefit of of giving the film's villains a single location.

ed to the Trade Press in July: 1975

During production he changed Luke's surname from Starkiller to Skywalker and changed the title to Star wars because nothing with the in front of it is a good name unless you're a band.

And because this was a fairly low budget movie, it was important for the production to get fairly cheap talent and Lucas specifically wanted to get fresh new talent for his movie. So when it came to casting Luke, Robbie Benson, William Catt and Charles Martin Smith auditioned.

Robert Englund, who would go on to become the iconic Freddy Krueger, claims that he's responsible for Hamill getting the part of Luke. They were flatmates at the time and Englund auditioned for a role in Apocalypse Now.

And down the hall from the Apocalypse now auditions were the auditions for George Lucas's space opera.

Englund read for Han Solo, but the casting directors thought he was too young, so he went back home and encouraged Hamill to audition for the Luke role.

As luck would have it, Hamill's agent had already set up an audition and at the eight page screen test, Hamill read against Harrison Ford, who'd starred in American Graffiti. But because Lucas was specifically looking for fresh talent.

Ford, who was working as a carpenter at the time, was asked to step in and read with the actors they were auditioning for the lead roles.

s cast and announced in April: 1976

The change to Luke's name came so late in production that Leia's rescue from her prison cell had to be reshot because it's the first time Luke states his full name in the script. I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you. Hamill preferred Luke Starkiller, but only because he felt it was more macho sounding.

But despite James Caan, Chevy Chase, Robert De Niro, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Englund, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Jack Nicholson, Nick Nolte, Burt Reynolds, Kurt Russell, Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta, Glynn Turman, Christopher Walken, Al Pacino and Perry King allegedly all auditioning for Han Solo. Harrison Ford got the role for Leia. Amy Irving, Terry Nunn, Cindy Williams, Lisa Eilbacher, Linda Pearl and Jodie Foster auditioned for the role.

Jodie Foster was offered the role but turned it down because she was under contract with Disney at the time. Ford also read opposite Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Hollywood royalty Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.

arrison ford's casting in May: 1976

Fisher was 19 when she was cast, Hamill was 24 and Ford was 32. Fisher would go on to write in her autobiography that her and Harrison Ford did have a little fling on the set of this movie.

For Obi Wan Kenobi, though, Lucas wanted an established known Hollywood star and a strong character actor.

He admired the works of Akira Kurosawa so much so Star wars was based on some of his previous works and Kurosawa regularly collaborated with Toshiro Mifune. Gary Kurtz had suggested him for Obi Wan, but Mifune turned the role down.

ness, whose career started in: 1946

Plus he would receive 2.25% of the film's back end, a deal that made him wealthy later in life.

When the papers at the time announced the casting, Guinness was announced first, and it was also announced that his role was the top role in the movie.

Among Ralph McQuarrie's Star wars portfolio were concept paintings depicting scenes on the planet Tatooine, inside the Mos Eisley Cantina, inside the Death Star, and on the moon of Yavin. During filming, Lucas ensured that many shots reproduced McQuarrie's paintings exactly.

Macquarie also designed many of the film's characters, including darth vader, chewbacca, R2D2 and C3PO. His production painting of R2D2 and C 3PO wandering in the desert on the planet Tatooine was the first to be completed.

ensch robot from Fritz Lang's: 1927

The painting had a particular impact on actor Anthony Daniels, who was about to turn down the role of C3PO, but McQuarrie's image and the vulnerability of the character convinced him to accept the role.

Daniels was going to have his voice dubbed, but Lucas agreed he could voice C3PO as some prissy English butler type for R2D2 and Chewbacca, respectively. Kenny Baker and Peter Mayhew were cast largely due to their height at 3ft 8 inches.

Baker was offered the role of R2D2 immediately after meeting Lucas. He turned it down multiple times before finally accepting it.

R2D2's beeps and squeaks were made by the film's sound designer, Ben Burtt, by imitating baby noises, recording his voice over an intercom, and finally mixing the sounds together using a synthesizer.

Burtt also popularized the Wilhelm scream in Joke and created many of the iconic sound effects heard in the film franchise, including the lightsaber hum, the sound of the blaster guns, the heavy breathing sound of Darth Vader, and creating the Ewoks language, Ewokees. Bert was also the sound editor for Wall E and performed the vocalizations of the titular character as well as the other robots in the film.

And if you're wondering is there a verbal diorama episode on Wally, yes, there is. It's episode 237, 7 foot 3 inch. Peter Mayhew initially auditioned for Darth Vader, but David Prowse was cast instead.

Prowse was originally offered the role of Chewbacca, but turned it down because he wanted to play the villain.

Prowse portrayed Vader physically, but Lucas felt his west country accent was inappropriate for the character and chose Shakespearean and Broadway actor and Academy Award nominee James Earl Jones for Vader's voice. In post production, Lucas considered Orson Welles for the voice role, but was concerned his voice would be too familiar to audiences.

Audiences, however, immediately recognized James Earl Jones voice in in the film.

in the Star wars films until: 1983

best known for the effects on: 2001

Trumbull declined because he was already committed to working on Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but suggested his assistant John Dykstra to Lucas. Dijkstra brought with him a small team of college students, artists and engineers and set them up in a warehouse in Van Nuys, California.

After seeing the map for the location was zoned as light industrial. Lucas named the group Industrial Light and Magic and used his own money to start the visual effects division.

ILM had less than two years to build a visual effects studio from scratch and create nearly 400 shots for star Wars. Many of the people Dijkstra assembled would go on to define the craft alongside Dykstra.

Other leading members of of the original ILM team were Ken Ralston, Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Robert Blalak, Joe Johnston, Phil Tippett, Steve Gorley, Lorne Peterson, and Paul Houston. Johnston would later direct Jumanji the Rocketeer and Captain America the First Avenger.

Muren would go on to supervise the effects on ET Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park. He's won nine Oscars in total. And Phil Tippett was famously the dinosaur supervisor on Jurassic Park.

This warehouse full of students and engineers was quietly assembling one of the greatest concentrations of special effects talent of the 20th century. The working environment was chaotic and gruelling.

The team, who were often high on marijuana and not exactly being supervised, also had to deal with warehouse temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. That's 37.7 degrees Celsius. For us Brits, temperatures topped 130 degrees Fahrenheit, 54.4 degrees Celsius.

Lucas had this audacious vision for creating dynamic images of spaceships dog fighting with each other. He wanted the camera to move with the ships as if the camera operators were up there to capture the action by hand.

The idea broke many of the traditional rules in visual effects that typically require locked off cameras to allow for separate elements to be carefully blended together. To achieve this, Dijkstra and his team built the Dijkstra Flex from scratch.

This hand built analog mechanical apparatus used computer programmed paths for camera movements precise to fractions of an inch, allowing repeatable passes over miniatures and enabling multi layer optical compositing for dynamic space battle sequences. Integrating X Wing Fighters, the Death Star and Star Fields seamlessly.

The system's reliance on synchronized motors and analog controls marked a shift from manual model photography, facilitating complex shots that prior movies couldn't achieve without visible artefacts. The technical innovations didn't stop there.

ated by Paramount Pictures in: 1954

These techniques, executed on a $2.5 million effects budget within a two year timeline, transformed the visual effects from a supplementary element into a narrative driver. And the total output was staggering.

for Star wars began in March: 1976

Originally, Lucas envisaged Tatooine as a jungle planet and Kurtz traveled to the Philippines to scout locations. However, the thought of spending months filming in the jungle but made Lucas uncomfortable. So he made Tatooine a desert planet instead.

Because hot heat is better than humid heat.

As anyone in the UK right now can tell you, Tunisia was chosen because Lucas wanted to open the film on a harsh desert planet inspired by Arrakis from Frank Herbert's Dune. Lucas wanted a barren, otherworldly location and Tunisia's billowing sands was the perfect setting for Tatooine.

But as Anakin himself would say, sand is coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Maybe When Lucas wrote the prequels, he was actually just thinking back about his Tunisian experience.

Kurt scouted various desert locations, settling on southern Tunisia. Inchot, El Djerid and Tozha. Luke's Tatooine home is actually the Hotel Sidi Dris in Matmata.

But problems began almost immediately after landing in Tunisia, a country not known for its heavy rain. A freak rainstorm ruined a day's filming, tightening an already limited schedule of 11 days in the country.

The radio controlled R2D2 models function poorly. The controls that operated R2D2 were better at picking up Tunisian radio signals.

And a lot of the time the droid had to be pulled along the desert floor on a skis by a wire. The left leg of Anthony Daniels C3PO costume shattered, injuring his foot.

At the end of his first day of filming, Daniels was covered in scars and scratches from the costume and this was the first and only time he wore the costume for an entire day. The conditions were punishing throughout. Blistering heat during the day turned to unforgiving cold at night.

The crew operated on very little sleep and and many were sick with dysentery. As the shoot dragged on, a massive sandstorm destroyed the Jawa sandcrawler, which then had to be rebuilt in just one day.

And then the sandcrawler nearly started a war. Muammar Gaddafi, leader of neighbouring Libya, accused the Tunisians of preparing to stage an invasion.

With the sandcrawler mistaken as a real military vehicle, the shoot quickly moved filming away from the border with Libya. After completing two and a half weeks of filming in Tunisia, the cast and crew moved into the more controlled environment of Elstree Studios.

The problems were now assumed to be over. However, due to strict British working conditions on set, a new problem arose.

Filming had to be finished by 5:30pm unless Lucas was in the middle of a scene. And even then over time wasn't permitted unless the crew voted and agreed. But the crew really didn't like working with George Lucas.

Most of them considered the project a children's film, rarely took their work seriously and often found it unintentionally funny. And so of course when a vote happened, they would always vote against overtime.

The problem was George Lucas was a fairly shy individual who didn't enjoy working with a a large cast and crew. He gave very little in the way of direction and when he did, it usually consisted of faster and more intense.

Facing a movie that was grossly over budget and well behind schedule, the enormity of blockbuster filmmaking became almost too much for him.

He frequently clashed with his crew over creative differences and was largely dissatisfied with the look of costumes and sets, most of which failed to live up to his vision. He became visibly depressed and passed on his frustrations to the actors while providing little in the way of direction.

The cast often attempted to make Lucas laugh or smile because he often appeared to be depressed. At one point, the project became so demanding that Lucas was diagnosed with hypertension and exhaustion and was warned to reduce his stress level.

But despite Lucas's dissatisfaction with the costumes and the sets and the props, they are genuinely some of the most brilliant things put to screen. The lightsaber choreography was developed by Hollywood sword master Bob Anderson.

Anderson personally trained Mark Hamill and while in this movie David Prowse did his own fight scenes, for the rest of the trilogy, it was Anderson who wore the Vader suit for the lightsaber duels. The lightsaber hilts were constructed by Roger Christian from old Graflex press camera flash, battery packs and other pieces of hardware.

And the special effects that brought the blade to life on screen were made by John Steers. The full size sword props were designed to appear ignited on screen by later creating an in camera glowing effect.

In post production, the blade was a three sided rod which was coated with a square Scotch light retroreflector array, the same sort used for road signs.

A lamp was positioned to the side of the camera and reflected towards the subject through 45 degree angled glass so that the sword would appear to glow from the camera's point of view. The problem was the glowing effect depended on the rod's orientation to the camera.

And during the Obi Wan Kenobi Darth Vader duel, they could clearly be seen as rods. Because of this, the glow was added in post production through rotoscoping.

This was done by Korean animator Nelson Shin, who superimposed the footage of the lightsaber blade prop. He suggested inserting one frame that was much lighter than the others to make the light seem to vibrate.

Shin also recommended adding a degausser sound on top of the other sounds for the weapon, since the sound would be reminiscent of a magnetic field. The whole rotoscoping process took one week.

But as I said, George Lucas clashed with a lot of people on the set of this movie, including director of photography Gilbert Taylor. Taylor was from the old school of British cinematography and had little patience for Lucas's methods or his vision.

The two were barely on speaking terms for a significant portion of the shoot. It didn't help that Lucas's first choice cinematography Jeffrey Unsworth withdrew from the project to work on A Matter of Time by Vincent Minnelli.

Gilbert Taylor was Unsworth's replacement, and while Lucas respected Taylor, they had many disagreements over things like Lucas's lighting suggestions, where Taylor felt Lucas was overstepping the boundaries. According to Taylor, it was impossible to light the Elstree sets in the conventional way.

He was forced to break open the walls, ceilings and floors, placing quartz lamps inside the openings he created. This lighting system gave Lucas the ability to shoot in almost any direction without extensive relighting.

Eventually, the two men refused to speak, and so Taylor made his own decisions about how to shoot the film. Filming in Elstree took 14 and a half weeks. Scenes were also shot in Guatemala, where the local Mayan temples doubled for Yavin.

For all the while filming was happening, Lucas was also rewriting scenes. While in Tunisia he made the decision to kill off Obi Wan Kenobi.

emoved and then reinserted in: 1997

To make matters worse, when Lucas returned from principal photography in England, he he found the ILM facility at Van Nuys in a state of near collapse. Most of the $1 million Lucas had given the company was spent on equipment, and when Lucas visited, they had three shots to show for it.

Lucas was livid.

Tensions arose between Dykstra and Lucas, the latter complaining that too much time and money was spent on developing the digital camera systems and that the effects team had not delivered enough finished shots. Lucas only saw the lack of the finished product rather than the systems they developed to build them.

Despite this, the work was completed in time for the film's release.

And following the release of Star Wars, Dykstra and his team won Academy Awards for Best Special Effects and Special Technical Achievement for the development of the Dykstra Flex camera.

After Star Wars, Dykstra was sacked by Lucas and formed his own visual effects company called Apogee, which delivered visual effects for the original Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, the Motion Picture, Firefox, Life Force, and Invaders from Mars.

Star wars spoof Spaceballs in: 1987

The: 1977

mputer generated image in the: 1977

Californian artist Larry Cuber wanted to bid on the computer graphics, but commercial software was either non existent or proprietary and hardware was expensive.

D connected to a PDP: 1145

Two minutes of footage was originally created for the scene, but only 40 seconds worth of animation appears in the movie.

It gave: 1970

He contacted Triple I, who made a computer generated test of 5x wing fighters flying in formation. He found it to be too expensive and returned to handmade models.

Nevertheless, the test had shown him what was possible and he decided he would create his own computer graphics department. His search led to the New York Institute of Technology, where he found Edwin Catmull.

Graphics Group was created in: 1979

The graphics group was later sold to Steve Jobs, renamed Pixar Animation Studios and, well, the rest became history.

While George Lucas was filming in Tunisia and Marcia Lucas was busy finishing editing Taxi Driver, George Lucas hired a British editor named John Jympson to assemble the first cut of Star Wars.

Jympson began cutting the film, but because Lucas hadn't really communicated his vision to Jympson, he had no idea what the film was even supposed to be. When Lucas viewed Jympson's rough cut, he felt he didn't understand the film or Lucas's style of filmmaking.

In late February: 1977

This was an early cut of Star wars unfinished, with no visual effects. It substituted World War I and 2 dogfight footage for the incomplete spaceship combat scenes. But there was a problem.

The pacing was off, the action didn't land, and the film felt flat. Jympson's rough cut of Star wars, often called the Lost Cut, differed significantly from the final version.

Author David West Reynolds described Jympson's version as slower paced and estimates it contained 30 to 40% different footage from the final cut.

For decades, the legend was that no one in the room believed in Star wars except for Spielberg, and that De Palma specifically was brutal in his takedown of Star Wars.

De Palma's own account is that the room was more positive than people believe, that he appreciated it was unfinished but was honest in his appraisal that he liked it, but it needed work.

Spielberg's account, meanwhile, positioned himself as the lone believer and claimed that only he and Alan Ladd loved the movie in its primitive condition.

Despite his scepticism about parts of the film, Brian De Palma made one of the most quietly significant creative contributions to Star wars that almost never gets credited to him. He co wrote the famous opening crawl.

Now the opening crawl was inspired by the opening crawls used at the beginning of each episode of film serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. And these were the inspiration for Lucas to write much of Star Wars.

The development of the opening crawl came about as part of a collaboration between Lucas and and seasoned film title designer dan Perry.

In: 1976

Perry also designed a logotype seen on the original Star wars posters, notably Tom Jung's Style A poster, the Style B poster by the brothers Hildebrandt, and Tom Chantrell's Style C poster.

Lucas eventually rejected Perry's logo due to readability problems, turning instead to the graphic designer Suzie Rice, who was tasked to create an intimidating fascist style logo inspired by historical German topography and produced a bold logotype using an outlined modified Helvetica black, the Star wars logo that we know today. The reaction to the rough cut screening was decisive though.

John Jimson was fired halfway through production and Marcia Lucas was brought in to salvage it alongside Richard Chu and Paul Hirsch. But while there are many Reddit threads claiming Marcia Lucas effect on Star wars is minimal.

George Lucas has mentioned many times that his ex wife was easily the unsung hero of the movie.

When she jumped into the editing bay with Richard Chu and Paul Hirsch, it was Marcia's suggestion to amplify the threat of Darth Vader by having him murder beloved mentor figure Obi Wan Kenobi.

Her most famous contribution was the Battle of Yavin, where she orchestrated huge amounts of unwieldy footage and dialogue to make an endlessly riveting, deeply satisfying climax.

She reportedly told George Lucas that if the audience doesn't cheer when Han Solo comes in at the last second in the Millennium Falcon to help Luke when he's being chased by Darth Vader, the picture doesn't work. With the film over budget, Lucas was forced to make artistic compromises to finish it.

The last few days of production saw the crew split into three groups to finish filming. Ladd reluctantly agreed to release an extra $50,000 in funding to help it pass the post, which is about $270,000 today.

th of May: 1977

The effort paid off, to put it mildly, because Marcia Lucas, along with Richard Chu and Paul Hirsch, would go on to win the Oscar for Star wars editing. And this is as good a time as any to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference of this episode.

And if you don't know what that is, it's where I try and link Keanu Reeves to every episode that I do. Because why not? Now, obviously Keanu Reeves has never starred in a Star wars movie or anything Star wars adjacent.

However, he is a massive favorite among fans to play the legendary character Darth Revan. Revan. Darth Reven. I don't know how to pronounce it.

So maybe, maybe what I need to do to win the Oscar for podcast editing is say Darth Revan and then say Darth Revan and then put the correct one in. To play the legendary character Darth Revan. To play the legendary character Darth Reven from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.

Honestly, you have no idea how many times I have to say certain words with different pronunciations.

And then when I'm editing the episode, I choose the one that's correct because when I'm actually saying it, I don't know if it's to going correct or not. But to be honest, I might just leave that the way it is because that's kind of funny.

Let's be honest, I'm not going to win any Podcast awards for editing anytime soon. Throughout the making of Star wars was Lucas's ongoing friendship with Steven Spielberg.

And while Spielberg had no involvement in making this movie, save for attending the odd screening here and there, his contribution to the film itself is less about the edit and more about one crucial introduction. Spielberg's greatest contribution to the Star wars franchise was introducing Lucas to the great John Williams.

Williams had previously worked on Jaws with his wonderful minimalist score, making everyone scared to go in the ocean for years without Spielberg's recommendation. The score that arguably does as much as anything else to make Star wars feel like Star wars may not have existed in the form that we know it.

And of course, John Williams score for this movie is probably one of his most iconic scores of all time. And when you're talking about the greatness of John Williams, it's really difficult to say which is John Williams greatest score.

But I would argue that the score for Star wars is so unmistakably John Williams. It is a perfect score.

And honestly, I think it's one of those things that if this movie existed without the John Williams score, it would not be as good as it is. John Williams score really elevates this movie to the highest possible heights, and we all have Steven Spielberg to thank for that.

Now, of course, there are lots of marketing stories about Star wars because Star wars is all about the merchandise. It's all about the toys. That's how George Lucas made all of his money.

But there's one specific story about Star wars that I found really fascinating because it's something that never happened before Star Wars.

cause on Christmas morning in: 1977

y, but they would be in early: 1978

All you needed to do was fill out and send back a postcard. It was basically the world's first toy pre order.

for that lucrative Christmas: 1970

ck your postcard and in early: 1978

Now the Luke figure is probably the most noteworthy of the four because he had an arm fed lightsaber that the other Luke figures also had, but with an additional telescoping tip that could slide out to make the lightsaber even longer.

igures were released later in: 1978

ion. And if you come across a: 197812

ion Star wars figure from the: 1970

So let's talk about the release of this movie, because usually a movie wants to be as accessible to a family audience as possible.

But in a rare move, Fox actually asked for a higher rating from the Motion Picture association of America, because when Star wars was submitted to the ratings board, the votes for the rating were split between G and pg.

So Fox requested the stricter PG rating in part because it believed the film was too scary for young children, citing a scene where Darth Vader force chokes someone, but also because it worried teenagers would perceive a G rating as uncool and not want to see it. So the board agreed to Fox's request and gave Star Wars a PG rating. Here in the uk it has a U rating, meaning it's suitable for everyone.

nally rated U and re rated in: 2020

When 20th Century Fox attempted to distribute the movie in the US to be released the week before the Memorial Day weekend, fewer than 40 cinemas agreed to show it.

d on a best selling book from: 1973

dnight. Now, I wasn't born in: 1977

What must that have been like?

So as a special treat for this 350th episode, good friend of the podcast, Andy from Geek Salad has a few words to say about Star wars and what this movie means to him.

Andy: 01:01:35

Hi everybody, this is Andy from the Geek Salad podcast. First, I want to thank Em who is going to be handling the history and legacy of Star wars.

. A long time ago in the year: 1977

I saw Star wars when I was five. My dad had taken me and this is during its initial run.

So for most of us out in the sticks of Massachusetts, I had no idea the zeitgeist that had begun to form around it. All I knew was that it was a cool looking sci fi movie that I begged and begged and bothered my dad to take me to go see. So finally he acquiesced.

And this is before the subheading of episode four New Hope. This is before Greedo shooting first. And this is before the insert of that Jabba the Hutt scene. To me it was just Star Wars.

And sitting in the theater for that first time and trying to wrap my 5 year old head around just was something that I had never seen before. Something that my brain was trying to comprehend. What was this movie? What was this doing to me?

This movie, without hyperbole, has changed me terms of a number of things. It has changed the way I watch movies. This began a lifelong fascination with the craft of movie making for me.

I love watching behind the scenes, especially the ILM behind the scenes. I love learning about the craft of model making and stop motion and all those different photo visual effects that the team at ILM had been doing.

It also changed me in terms of of how I define myself. I have been a proud lifelong nerd for all of my 50 plus years. And a lot of that, almost all of it is thanks to Star Wars. It's one of those things.

It's an easy gift get for me is in terms of finding things that will make me happy. I have been to Galaxy's Edge. I have several lightsabers.

I have so many different pieces of Star wars merchandise and I love the posters, especially the original film release posters.

But this movie definitely defined how I come across in my everyday life and it has helped me and in the last 18 years has helped my podcast Geek Salad. So check that out. Shameless Plug but as this movie has aged, I have changed my opinion who my favorite character was.

When I was a kid, it was Luke Skywalker. Luke Skywalker was the young, swashbuckling youth who was able to blow up the Death Star as I became older and more cynical.

My favorite character was Han Solo because he was roguish and he would take matters into his own hands and didn't really think about the consequences.

But as I illustrated on Again, Shameless Plug, a recent episode of our podcast Geek Salad, I determined that my favorite character is actually Obi Wan Kenobi. And we see him in this movie at the end of all things.

The end of this culmination that we would later find out had been building and building and building and how he was willing to sacrifice himself for Luke to move the prophecy along, to move the to move the Jedi order along because he knew that he saw something in Luke. Again, this isn't illustrated in Star wars. But going back and watching Star wars and these things resonate to me.

This movie is also it's such a comfort watch to me.

It's easy for me to put on and while yeah, it's easy to point out things like the clunkier parts of the dialogue, for instance, Carrie Fisher's on again, off again English accent and some of the directing, let's just say missteps that George Lucas had. It's still a movie that to me is a perfect movie.

y much day one Star wars fan,: 1977

I know that surprises a lot of people, but I think the sequels are a great way of expanding that story. But that's not what we're talking about today and that's not what Em is talking about today. We are talking about Star wars.

So I hope that gives you a little illustration as to what Star wars has meant to me. And with all that, I'm going to send that back to the studios in England for you. Em. Go forth, be merciful and may the Force be with you. Thank you.

Em: 01:07:13

Huge thanks to Andy for that. He has been a longtime friend and supporter of Verbal Diorama pretty much since day one.

In fact, it's been so long I can't remember when exactly Andy and I started speaking, but Geek Salad is that sort of podcast, like an old friend you can just catch up with. And of course I would highly recommend listening.

They also released a special Star wars episode recently, so I will put links to that in the show notes. And just a huge hi and hello to all my chums over in Massachusetts. To Andy, Mike, Joe and Catherine.

o join them for the movies of: 1996

in the year for the movies of: 1996

Lucas, as with any filmmaker, was concerned that it wouldn't be a success and so he buried himself in his work. He had no idea the growing anticipation for the movie.

May: 1977

By 15 July it had opened wide and was still raking in money. After two weeks it was replaced at Man's Chinese Theatre with Sorcerer, which was a disappointment financially.

So Star wars had a second opening at Man's on 3 August. Cinemas routinely showed Star wars on screens for over a year and people kept coming to see it.

December: 1977

It eventually expanded to 12 cities as well as additional London cinemas. Star wars began production with a budget of $8 million.

The total budget eventually reached $11 million, equivalent to 48 and $62 million respectively in current money. It immediately broke box office records and grossing $307.3 million domestically. It remains one of the most financially successful films of all time.

It replaced Jaws as the highest earning film in North America.

rrestrial set a new record in: 1983

re releases over the years in: 1982

Release the: 1997

That's how big Star wars was and is and continues to be. Steven Spielberg has never worked a day on this movie, but he still earns money from it to this day.

of their respective Films in: 1977

Spielberg was right, of course, and true to his word, Lucas still gives Spielberg a slice of the profits. The wager has reportedly earned Spielberg over $40 million over the years.

Critically, Rotten Tomatoes has Star wars at a score of 94%, with a consensus of a legendarily expansive and ambitious start to the sci fi saga. George Lucas opened our eyes to the possibilities of blockbuster filmmaking and things have never been the same. Critics were overwhelmed.

In: 1977

John Simon of New York magazine found the film boring.

ng banality. And Even back in: 1978

So Star wars was a commercial success, a critical success, and an Awards darling.

10 Academy Award nominations, six wins, plus two Special Achievement Academy Awards for Ben Burtt and John Dykstra, Alva J. Miller and Jerry Jeffress for scientific and engineering for the development of the Dykstra Flex camera system. Star wars was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Alec Guinness, and Best Original Screenplay.

It lost, respectively, to Annie Hall, Woody Allen, Jason Robards and Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman for Annie Hall. What it won was best Art Direction, best Costume Design, best film Editing, as I mentioned, best original Score, best Sound and Best Visual effects.

And it also won two BAFTA awards, one Golden Globe award, three Grammy awards, one Hugo award and 13 Saturn awards.

After Star wars became tremendously successful, Lucasfilm announced that George Lucas had already written 12 more Luke Skywalker stories, which, according to Gary Kurtz, were separate adventures rather than traditional sequels. However, some of Lucas's claims about his writing process are inconsistent, consistent and have been challenged by various people, including Kurtz.

treatments or scripts. And in: 2010

He added, quote, the trick is to pretend you've planned the whole thing out in advance, unquote.

Star wars has inspired many parodies, most famously Mel Brooks's Spaceballs, which is one of my favourites, and Family Guy's Blue Harvest, which was named after the fake working title for Return of the Jedi.

A lesser known parody is Hyperspace, AKA Gremloids, which introduced Lord Buckethead, the visage of whom later became a satirical perennial candidate at British elections. He's since been superseded by Count Bin Face. Yes, that is real. No, I am not joking.

George Lucas would give Blue Harvest his blessing and reportedly also enjoyed Hardware Wars, a 13 minute mock teaser trailer released 18 months after Star Wars. That was the first Star wars parody.

best one being Rogue One. In: 1989

In: 2014

He offered instead the: 1997

rint of the film submitted in: 1978

American Graffiti also had scenes removed by Universal before release.

s for its original release in: 1977

In: 1977

Three different audio versions, a Dolby stereo mix, a six channel mix for 70mm screenings, and a mono mix print were also created with significant differences.

In April: 1981

In: 1994

Because in: 1997

changes to Star wars for the: 1997

From the minor capitalisation of Rebel in the opening crawl, which I think is the least controversial change through to. Well, let's go through it. Tatooine has the most changes.

During the Galactic Empire search for the droids, two newly filmed shots of stormtroopers and CGI dewback lizards were inserted. In another shot, a static dewback was replaced with a moving CGI version. Han Solo is cornered in the Mos Eisley Cantina by the bounty hunter Greedo.

When Greedo begins threatening him, Han kills him by shooting under the table.

Han shot first the: 1997

ned by several frames for the: 2011

e was further changed for the: 2019

In: 2015

anged his character arc. In a: 2004

I'm sorry you saw half a completed film and fell in love with it, but I want it to be the way I want it to be. The original script for Star wars included a scene with Han and Jabba in a Mos Eisley docking Bay.

The scene was filmed by a second unit with Declan Mulholland wearing a furry vest as a stand in for Jabba, speaking Jabba's lines in English.

Lucas intended to replace Mulholland in post production with a stop motion character, but due to time limitations and budget constraints, the entire scene was cut.

In the: 1997

As a workaround, Han was digitally moved to appear as if he stepped on Jabba's tail, with Jabba squealing as a result. It looks janky and silly, let's be honest.

On the Death Star, the violence in the blaster fight between Luke and Han and the Imperial officers was toned down and the infamous stormtrooper hitting his head on the door has a donk added to the sound, which is by far the best change they made. No one is really sure who that extra was, but British actors Laurie Good, Martin Reed and Michael Leder have claimed it was them.

The: 1997

It also included a deleted scene on Yavin 4 in which Luke is briefly reunited with his childhood friend Biggs Darklighter, aka Red TH3, who is then shot down by Darth Vader.

anges in other versions after: 1997

Other changes included in various releases, a CG replacement of the Jawa sandcrawler creatures, robots and ships were added to Mos Eisley, including elements created for the Shadows of the Empire multimedia campaign.

Some of the aliens in the cantina were replaced with new CGI characters, and a shot of the Millennium Falcon fighting its way out of Mos Eisley was added.

Fan edits of the original Star wars films, such as Harmony's Despecialised Edition, exist to reverse Lucas's changes, especially the scene with Han Solo and Greedo, because many feared that the original versions would never again exist as they were.

ow notes too, but in December: 2025

Not because fans might come for me, because I forgot to mention something, there is loads more information out there. Too much for one podcast episode, but just because Star wars as it is now, is this huge franchise beast it's adored and criticized in equal measure.

It's been a part of every generation's life in some way, and while some of the output is better than others, the universe building that George Lucas started in this movie, just by subtle little references, is astonishing. I fully believe he had no idea what he was building at the time.

He pretended to have had all of this built in his mind, but with a movie like this, regardless of sequel deals, he would have had no idea it would have worked.

That it did, and it was such a spectacular success is one thing, but what it's given Hollywood, how it shaped modern cinema, is beyond the realms of George Lucas's imagination or intentions. He profited substantially from the deal he made for Star Wars.

But his investment was his love for the world he'd built, and so he never fully entrusted it to other people. Hence all the tinkering to come.

It would be followed by arguably the best film in the trilogy, the Empire Strikes Back, where he finally entrusted Irving Kirshner to direct. Because Star wars was so stressful that Lucas didn't want to return to the director's chair. And he wouldn't for over 20 years.

But not only would we not have Star wars without Star wars, we wouldn't have the careers and works of filmmakers who've been influenced by Star wars, including J.J. abrams, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Dean Devlin, Gareth Edwards, Roland Emmerich, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, John Lasseter, Damon Lindelof, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, John Singleton, Kevin Smith, and Joss Whedon. As much as I don't want to talk about him, Star wars was created by George Lucas, but it was shaped by three people.

Alan Ladd Jr, Marcia Lucas, and John Williams. Without Alan Ladd Jr Star wars would never have been made, not at least the way it was. Without Marcia Lucas, the emotional beats wouldn't work.

And without John Williams, the movie wouldn't feel the way it ultimately feels because the score is so important to the final movie. On a personal note, female role models in movies were few and far between, unless it was the hero's love interest.

So for me, having a character like Leia who was fearless and bold and stood up for what was right, rather than just being the meek princess to be saved, she was everything to younger me. Carrie Fisher was a legend, taken far too soon. And I don't just mean for her involvement in the sequel trilogy.

I just mean in general, because she was a true Hollywood rebel. She saved more movies than you realize. I've missed loads in this episode.

I know, but if you're a hardcore fan, you already know and you don't need me to tell you. But if you're not, I feel like you now know the basics of what you need to know. Star wars is one of, if not the most influential film of all time.

It's been satirized, parodied, quoted at length. It's been told and retold by fans across the world.

The world of Star wars has been shaped in vivid detail by books, comics, wikis, magazines, fan sites, games, and the various TV series and movies that have come after Darth Vader has become an iconic villain. Characters like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C3PO, and R2D2 have all become widely recognized characters around the world.

Phrases such as the Empire, may the Force be with you, Jedi mind trick these aren't the droids you're looking for and I am your father have become part of the popular lexicon.

their religion as Jedi on the: 2001

Star wars unexpectedly became: 1977

Star wars helped Fox to change from an almost bankrupt production company company to a thriving media conglomerate. Fox was then bought by Disney.

land and Disney World. In May: 2019

Star wars honed the craft of the summer blockbuster, the profitable franchise trilogy, and showed that merchandising rights on on a film could generate more money than the film itself. Not bad for an orphan farm boy from Tatooine. Thank you for listening.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on Star wars and thank you for your continued support of this podcast.

Next Episode I'm Going From Star wars to Empire Records Sorry to build you up and let you down, but I am not going to go into the Empire Strikes Back yet.

I'm planning that for a little bit later on in the year, but I wanted to get something in that was maybe a bit of a palette cleanser for me, maybe something that was not such a big episode because this episode has turned out to be rather large and it's taken me a long time to do so. I thought a bit of a palette cleanser, something that's a bit different.

And I'll be honest, I couldn't really help but tease you all to suggest that I was going from Star wars to Empire something. But no, next episode will be on the history and legacy of a movie that definitely didn't do as well as Star Wars.

In fact, it completely flopped terribly and then became a huge cult classic. Empire Records So join me Next Episode for the history and legacy of Empire Records.

Thank you for listening to Verbal Diorama, a totally free and independent podcast that relies on listener support. If you want to show your support in multiple different ways, you could leave a rating or review wherever you found this podcast.

You could tell your friends and family about this podcast or you could find me and follow me on social media and you can share the podcast that way. I am erbaldiorama across social media where you can share posts like posts, comment on posts.

It all helps really to get the word out there to hopefully get other people to know this podcast and know the recent episodes that I've put out. I genuinely love doing this podcast and anything you could do to help would be so appreciated.

A huge thank you to the incredibly generous patrons of this podcast. I could not do what I do without their support.

To Simon, Laurel, Derek, Cat, Andy, Mike, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Ian, Lisa, Sam, Jack, Dave, Stuart, Nicholas, Zoe, Kev, Danny, Stu, Brett, Xenos, Sean, Ryno, Philip, Adam, Elaine, Aaron and Steve. Please consider joining them and supporting this podcast on Patreon if you have the means to.

If you want to get in touch, you can email Verbal diorama@checkgmail.com. You can also go to verbal diorama.com and you can fill out the contact form.

You could say hello, you can give feedback or you can give suggestions as well. I would genuinely love to hear from you. You can also DM me on social media as well if that's an option available to you.

I love to hear from people and I always try to respond as quickly as possible. Thanks again for listening and thanks for supporting independent podcasting. It means more to us than you know. And finally, Bye.