The film American Graffiti was set in California in the early sixties, and has been described by various critics as a ‘coming-of-age comedy’ depicting the rock and roll lifestyle that put some fizz into the adolescence of the post-WWII baby boom generation. Written by George Lucas, the film was poo-pooed by Warner Brothers, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures and Paramount; before Universal Pictures decided that it was probably better than more episodes of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and gave Lucas a cheque for $777,000 and a rolodex of industry contacts. The film would later take the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland by the short and curlies, and ended up being one of the most profitable films of all time pulling in over $200m at the box office. If it wasn’t for American Graffiti, Stars Wars might never have happened as it set Lucas up, gave him some kudos about town, and enough cash to pay the rent. Lucas had longed to make a space film and, after failing to secure the rights to Flash Gordon, he told his friends that “I’ll just invent my own” and one morning, he made some coffee pulled the curtains shut and sat down and wrote his own epic space opera. Cue Star Wars.
Star Wars is forever etched on the American psyche and is so significant that the beards at the US Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, when asked about which films they thought of as being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant, collectively sucked in some meaty breath and whispered: Star Wars. Now if , perhaps like the Apurina people who live deep in the Amazonian jungle, you happen to be one of the few people on earth not to have seen Star Wars, you’ll be probably wanting to know what all the fuss is about.
….The galaxy is in the middle of a civil war. The Government – or Galactic Empire as it is known – sit in a space station ominously called the Death Star, which is capable of destroying pretty much everything and anything it wants. The plans for the Death Star have been stolen by a group of rebel spies, led by the feisty Princess Leia. All is well until the Princess gets captured by Darth Vader. Before she is captured, she hides the plans in the memory of a droid, who then legs it to a distant, dusty desert planet with another droid. The droids are quickly captured and – for some reason that’s not immediately clear – get sent to live on a farm where they meet Luke Skywalker, who lives quietly on the farm with his Aunt and Uncle. Luke then triggers part of Leila’s message which asks for help from an Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke then comes across an old hermit, who turns out to be Kenobi himself. Kenobi tells Luke that his father used to be a Jedi knight – a sort of pan galactic UN peacekeeper – and had been killed by Darth Vader. As if that wasn’t enough to stoke Luke’s hot young coals, some storm troopers then kill his Aunt and Uncle. Game on. The two team up to learn the ways of the Force – a source of energy that gave the Jedi knights supernatural powers – and along the way they meet a smuggler, Hans Solo, and his hairy sidekick Chewbacca, and form a tight fourball. Luke rescues Leila from the Death Star and Kenobi dies, skewered by Vader’s lightsabre. Pouring over the plans for the Death Star, Luke works out a way to destroy it via a well timed chain reaction up the exhaust port. Guided by Kenobi’s spirit and a bit of Force, Luke destroys the Death Star seconds before he and his fellow rebels are annihilated by enemy fire.
There is probably a bit more to it than that, but essentially that appears to be the gist of the plot. Vader by all accounts gets seen off by Solo and Chewbacca, although it’s not clear if he dies. That he pops up in the Empire Strikes Back suggests not, but either way he is sent spiralling off into space to bump around with all the other assorted space debris. To this day, Vader is widely regarded as one of the most iconic villains in popular culture; up there with Hannibal Lecter and the Big Bad Wolf of “Little pig, little pig, let me come in” fame.
Now, making a film is difficult, really difficult; more so if the idea has been rejected on account of it being a “little strange”. As Lucas was to discover, science fiction at the time wasn’t popular and studio bosses wanted things that were popular. The script was rejected by every single studio except 20th Century Fox who scratched their chins and decided to give Lucas some cameras, a sound boom and a hard stare: “This had better be good.” They then returned to their cigars and game of ‘Shag, cliff, marry’. Lucas later told the Chicago Tribune, that he drew inspiration from the politics of the era and the film was really about the Vietnam War and how democracies go sour. Fox, you suspect, just wanted to make money.
A lot of the filming was done in Tunisia, which has the deserted, distant planet look nailed down. Filming in the desert came with a few problems: sand, patchy electricity and for the first week of filming, an unlikely rainstorm, all of which meant that Lucas quickly fell behind schedule. The sands also caused abnormal radio signals which made the radio controlled droids run out of control, giving the set a loose and chaotic air. Two weeks in and filming was shifted to Elstree Studios which had less sand, but more problems. Due to strict labour laws in the UK, come 5.30pm the set was deserted as the crew high tailed it home for tea and toast. The crew, by all accounts, struggled to get into the project throughout the filming of it and, despite Lucas’ efforts, the general view on set was that the end result was going to be pretty rubbish. Which perhaps explains why the crew would spend their careers fiddling about with leads and complaining about the coffee, rather than imagining how their own space opera might look. Vision: you either have it, or you don’t. With production falling further behind schedule, Lucas needed more money. The $8m budget wasn’t going to be enough. Back at the Fox, faces turned pale and reluctantly they wired him more money. They then faxed him telling him that he had a week to wrap it all up. No more. Despite being diagnosed with high blood pressure, stress and extreme exhaustion, Lucas met the studio’s deadline.
The first cut, however, was a “complete disaster”. Lucas tried to persuade the editor to cut the film his way, but he didn’t. And so the editor, a John Jympson, was himself, cut. Others came in with orders to zest up the lethargic pace, and more scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. The special effects team meanwhile were struggling, and blew half their budget on four shots that Lucas himself deemed unacceptable. At least the sound team were making progress. Chewbacca’s growls were a mash up of dogs, lions, bears and walruses all stewed together to create phrases and sentences. Vader’s breathing was a result of shoving a microphone down the mask of a scuba regulator. And yet, there were more delays. The $8m budget, became $12m. The cigars lay idle at Fox HQ and the set grew tense, but finally the film made it into the can.
Lucas then invited some friends round for popcorn and beer and an early viewing but, by all accounts, they drove home “bemused”. All that is, except Steven Spielberg who has, somewhere, suggested that he was the only one to have thought the evening was worth missing Monday Night Football for. Indeed, Spielberg would later take Lucas up on a trade. Concerned that his film would flop, Lucas offered to trade 2.5% of the profits from Star Wars, with 2.5% of the profits on Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg, perhaps having seen the script of Close Encounters quickly shook Lucas’ hand. Spielberg to this day still receives his 2.5% of Star Wars profits. Clever man.
Back at Fox temperatures were rising over their potential dud and, with executives worried that Star Wars would be trounced at the box office by other summer films such as Smokey and the Bandit, the release date was moved to the Wednesday before Memorial Day: May 25th, 1977. Fewer than forty cinemas ordered the film and Lucas decided to take himself off to Hawaii to drink pina coladas and bad mouth the crew. As it turned out they were all wrong, the film was massive. The first Lucas knew about it was lying in a hotel bed in downtown Honolulu watching CBS news. Before moving on to the weather report anchor-man Walter Cronkite went live to a reporter outside a sub-urban cinema who breathlessly described the giant crowds clamouring to see the film. Within three weeks of release, the share price of 20th Century Fox had doubled. Harrison Ford, who played Hans Solo, had his shirted ripped off by the crowds when he popped down to the shops for some loo roll and a pint of milk. Even the previously surly crew members were chased around public lidos and bowling alleys by fans wanting their autograph. It was insane, By August the film was being shown in over a thousand theatres and taking $7m a weekend. About sixty theatres would go on to play the film continuously for well over a year.
When adjusted for inflation Star Wars has pulled in over $2.5bn – not bad off a budget of just $12m – and ranks as the second highest grossing film of all time, just behind the epic historical romance Gone with the Wind adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel starring Clark Gable and the English actress Vivien Leigh. Along with Steve Jobs, Richard Gere, Steven Seagal and, perhaps surprisingly given his propensity to hole if from all parts of the green, Tiger Woods; George Lucas is a Buddhist. As is Harrison Ford.
So there you have it.
Hepburnsays 