Echo Station: Review of "The Making of Episode 1"

Tour de Force:
The Making of Episode 1

Review by Toryn Farr
7/25/99

Forget the TV specials.
If you want to know the scoop on the making of Episode I, buy this book.

This book is 164 slick, color-filled pages of inside info on the making of Episode I. It comes in both a hardcover and softcover edition. (The links here are for the softcover version.)

This book would be a valuable addition to the library of any Star Wars fan, not only for the beautiful pictures, but also for the quotes that give us insight into the ideas and themes that underlie the whole series of movies. I'll give you a brief overview of each section of the book, with a few interesting quotes at the end of the review. Be sure to check out the trivia questions below as well.

This short, uncredited intro summarizes what most of us already know. As an introduction its main virtue was its brevity. "What follows is the story of how Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace made the journey from inside the mind of George Lucas to a local movie theater . . ."

This part covers everything that happened before filming began. The information is divided roughly into two sections. The first describes George Lucas's involvement in the writing process, with a short plot summary. The second is an account of all the contributions falling under Rick McCallum's umbrella, including the areas of production planning, location scouting, staffing (which started even before Lucas began writing the script), creature and set creation, costume design, model making, casting, etc. It is here that the book really shines, giving us quotes and photos of the people behind the production. With more than 2000 contributors to the film, however, only a handful could be shown.

Originally the Neimoidians had facial profiles similar to their battle droids.

These concept drawings of the underwater denizens and habitats of Naboo are examples of the wealth of information contained in The Making of Episode I. At top you can see the relative sizes of the bongo, opee sea killer, colo claw fish, and the sando aqua monster (the famous "bigger fish"). At left you see evidence of Lucas's original idea of having Otoh Gunga's underwater cities be attached to rock formations.

This part covers principal shooting of the movie. We gain insights into Lucas's views on directing, the techniques of bluescreen and lighting, computer generated (CG) effects, the travails of location shooting in Tunisia's incredible heat, the logistics of creating and moving such a vast amount of stuff, the infamous rainstorm, stunts, fights, props, etc.

Brian Blessed (Boss Nass), Ahmed Best (Jar Jar Binks),
and Andy Secombe (Watto) stood in for rehearsals
and stood by during shooting to provide voices for their characters.

George Lucas and Rick McCallum look over the almost
total destruction of the Tatooine set
caused by a freak rainstorm right before shooting was to begin.

This part covers the two years of post-production work needed to bring all of the virtual sets, locations, and creatures to life, from maquettes to software development to Lucas's nonlinear editing style. Included in this section is a brief description of John Williams's work in creating the soundtrack, the creation of languages, and the sound effects.

Colored Q-tips fill a model of Mos Espa stadium.

Threepio was operated in the Japanese puppeteer style, and the operator was then removed from scenes using a computer

Stunt Coordinator Nick Gillard goes over some moves with Liam Neeson.

Several pages of credits are listed here, along with reproductions of the teaser and one-sheet movie posters. There was, however, no index -- a major omission.

Overall, I can say this is one of the best "making-of" books I have ever seen, although it would have been better with an index. You can click here to order it from Amazon.Com.

Lucas: "There is duality in the character of the Queen, who trades places with one of her handmaidens, Padme, as a decoy. Duality is also present in the characters of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. In the beginning, Obi-Wan is at odds with Qui-Gon, who rebels against the Jedi rules. But by the end of the film, he has become Qui-Gon by taking on his rebellious personality and his responsibilities."

"In the course of the conceptual phase, hundreds of creatures were designed -- although only a small percentage would be seen in the film -- and each creature's place in the ecosystem of the particular planet on which it lived had been thoroughly thought out. 'It was like Noah's ark,' Whitlatch commented. 'The food chain was all there. The biology was all there.' "

"Ultimately, hundreds of costumes and hairstyles would be designed. 'When I first met George,' McCaig recalled, 'he described Episode I as being his first costume drama. He always knew what he wanted, and he guided us to match that vision. By the end of it, I felt like the wardrobe had always been in George's head; and, somehow, just magically, I was able to draw it on paper.' "

"Burtt's first cut for the Podrace was twenty-five minutes long. Once that cut was edited down and approved, Dozoretz's computer animation team re-created the video sequence in animatic form. 'The animatic allowed George to determine the reality of the Podrace very early on,' McCallum commented. 'He could look at the basic concept for the race, then start playing with it -- "I'd like to zoom back here; I want this to be a fifty-millimeter lens; I'd like it to be two frames shorter at the head and six frames longer at the tail" -- and boom, it would be there in the animatic.' "

Liam Neeson on Qui-Gon Jinn: "He is almost like a monk, an old-time warrior who is wise and quite philosophical, yet very skilled in martial arts. He has incredible confidence, as well as a magical quality that enables him to see into the future. He is not really a rebel, but he has his own code."

"Armed with pictures of Guinness as a young man, Gurland selected fifty actors who had potential. 'I asked Robin to do a composite split screen on tape,' McCallum said, 'so that we could run pictures of those fifty actors against those of young Alec Guinness.' Among those who fared well in the comparison was Ewan McGregor."

" 'Even with all the digital sets we were going to be doing,' McCallum noted, 'we still had to build sixty to seventy sets. This movie was so plot-driven, every page and an eighth we were in a new set. There would be a minute's worth of dialogue and, boom, we'd be onto another set. It was constant plot, thrust, and movement. It was insane.' "

"The dinner scene -- and in fact all the scenes featuring interchange between Qui-Gon and Shmi -- was energized by a subtle chemistry between the two characters. 'There is just a hint of romance in those encounters,' Liam Neeson said, 'something very subtle. Both Pernilla and I were very conscious of that. There was warmth between them when they looked at each other. It didn't have to be obvious, just subtle and loving.' "

" ' I was looking for a kind of sword fighting that was reminiscent of what had been done in the previous films,' George Lucas explained, 'but also something that was more energized. Up to this point, we had never actually seen a real Jedi in action. We'd seen old men, young boys, and characters who were half droid-half man, but we'd never seen a Jedi in his prime. I wanted to do that with a fight that was faster and more dynamic -- and we were able to pull that off.' "

"By the time the shoot had ended -- on September 30, 1997 -- twenty-five hundred first-unit camera setups and twelve hundred second-unit shots had been realized in just over three months."

" 'When I started the first Star Wars,' Lucas recalled, 'everybody said it was impossible. I even recall telling the effects team, back in 1977, "At this point in time, this is impossible. We can't do it." But I went on faith and did it anyway, not knowing what the results would be. This time, even though I pushed ILM into frontiers they'd never been to before, I knew, based on my twenty-year-long relationship with the company, that they could do it, and that they'd come through.' "

Lucas: " 'I could move things around, cut people out of one shot and put them in another, change sets, or take a scene from one location and put it in another location. I could completely reconstruct and rewrite the story in the editing process.' "

TRIVIA
Just for fun, I'm including a few trivia questions gleaned from the pages of this book. Highlight below each one for the answers.

Q. Name the nonlinear editing system Lucas had developed in 1980 which later became the popular software Avid.

Q. When did John Williams first see a rough cut of Episode I, and when did he record the finished score?

(Toryn Farr knew everything about Star Wars back in 1977 thanks to Starlog Magazine. She's been trying to keep her know-it-all reputation ever since. During the 90 minutes per day her three-year-old is napping, Toryn attempts to run an internet design business and write fantasy fiction.)