The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film (Star Wars - Legends)
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About this book
More than thirty years ago filmmaker George Lucas realized a longtime dream creating a swashbuckling sf saga inspired by vintage Flash Gordon serials classic American westerns the epic cinema of Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa and mythological heroes. Its original title: The Star Wars. The rest is historyand how it was made is a story as entertaining and exciting as the movie that has enthralled millions for the past three decades. Using his unprecedented access to the Lucasfilm Archives and its trove of never-before-published lost interviews photos production notes factoids and anecdotes Star Wars scholar J. W. Rinzler hurtles readers back in time for an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the nearly decade-long quest of George Lucas and his key collaborators to make the little movie that became a phenomenon. For the first time its all here: the evolution of the now-classic story and charactersincluding Annikin Starkiller and a huge green-skinned monster with no nose and large gills named Han Solo excerpts from George Lucass numerous ever-morphing script drafts the birth of Industrial Light & Magic the special-effects company that revolutionized Hollywood filmmaking the grueling nearly catastrophic location shoot in Tunisia and the following breakneck dash at Elstree Studios in London the intensive auditions that won the cast members their rolesand made them legends the whos who of young 1970s film rebels who pitched in to helpincluding Francis Ford Coppola Steven Spielberg and Brian DePalma But perhaps most exciting and rarest of all are the first interviews conducted before and during production and immediately after the release of Star Warsin which George Lucas the films stars composer John Williams effects masters Dennis Muren Richard Edlund and John Dykstra Phil Tippett Rick Baker legendary production designer John Barry and a host of others share their fascinating tales from the trenches and candid opinions of the movie that would ultimately change their lives. No matter where you stand in the spectrum of this thirty-year phenomenon The Making of Star Wars stands as a crucial documentrich in fascination and revelationof a genuine cinematic and cultural touchstone.
