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And we'd love to hear your stories. Send them to ouramericanstories.com. Our listener stories, well, they're some of our favorite. George Lucas is best known for creating both Star Wars And Indiana Jones, two iconic American film franchises that shaped our childhoods or our children's childhoods. But before he brought us to a galaxy far, far away, Lucas made two other often forgotten movies.
His first film, P H X1138, was produced by friend and godfather director Francis Ford Coppola. But despite the talent behind it, was anything but a box office success. His second film, American Graffiti, was a surprise success and led to the opportunity to begin his third film. Star Wars Today, Robbie brings us Chris Taylor, author of How Star Wars Conquered the Universe. the past, present, and future.
of a multi-billion dollar franchise. You know, Marsh Lucas once said that I think that damn movie was running through the. reels in in George's head like the the day I met it. And a lot of people say this, that he was Sketching out visions of star troopers, you know, in his notebooks instead of going to parties while he was at USC. Like, he was still.
a nerd and his his nerdery was very much attached to Flash Gordon. Which was, you know, a serial that he saw on T V growing up in the 50s. The idea of a non-state. static space battle. was something that intrigued him for many years.
Uh because of course you you you watch Star Trek, the original series in the late 60s, and you see a lot of Spaceships just sort of hanging out there. You know, it looks weird now because George Lucas changed all of that with. The special effects that we see in Star Wars of spaceships that could do dogfights, right? You know, World War II movies, yet another influence, but. Bring it back, always bring it back to Flash Gordon and that idea of Saturday morning cereals.
And science fiction, or rather, space fantasy that was easy to consume. accessible Didn't matter which episode you were jumping in on. You know, you can talk about that, the catalyst. for this and that gary kurtz the producer of star wars talked a lot about this kind of moment in the early 70s they've they've just done THX1138, it's kind of a mess. Warner Brothers doesn't like it.
You know, there's a lot of indication that he was thinking about America Graffiti and his untitled space opera. as a package. They're looking at what's playing at the movies Decide that there's nothing that either of them would really like to see because they're kind of both, you know, nerds in the sense. They start talking about Flash Gordon, about the joys of seeing Flash Gordon when they were young. and how there isn't any version uh of any movie like that.
So of course Lucas first wants to go and get the rights to actual Flash Gordon itself. Um, that doesn't pan out. Dino DeLaurentis kind of beat him to the punch. But this is actually a liberating moment for Lucas because he realizes that he doesn't need. Flashcore, you know, he's able to let go of that legacy and start creating his own space opera, and it starts off.
You know, not where you would expect it with, like, hey, here's Han Solo, here's Luke Skywalker, here's, you know, the names do enter it fairly early on, but he starts with uh Mace Windy. The character of course becomes Mace Windoo. played by Samuel L. Jackson in the prequels. And he writes a page and a half of treatment.
The Star Wars might be in his mind at this point, but it's It's just this really weird, convoluted stuff. He doesn't even like it. He puts his pen down halfway through and it takes him a while to come back to it. But he's sort of constantly making lists of names that sound cool. You know, Han Solo is is on that one.
Uh possibly from the solo cops. You know, all of the names have kind of this legacy to them, right? It's R2D2 comes from Real 2 Dialogue 2 in American Graffiti. Uh that that is actually a true story, not a Star Wars legend. You know, he's always listening, he always has his ear open for things that sound cool, sound science fictiony, you know, and he files away the fact that uh he and his wife drive with their Uh their dog in the in the front seat of their car, their Alaska big Alaskan husky, you know, sitting there in the front seat.
uh called Indiana, by the way. Um, you know, g give rise to two films in many ways. But you know, that that idea of the dog being the co-pilot, you know, came from something in his own life.
So that's sort of the real beginnings of Star Wars as a real movie. Uh and then it is greatly helped by the fact that he basically becomes a millionaire. after American graffiti. And uh you know, is kind of thinking about what he wants to do next and he realizes that, you know, with the all those profits, the unexpected flood of profits that he makes, he can actually take his time and make this Science fiction, space opera, space fantasy movie that he has been dreaming about for years. And uh the vast majority of time is just Spent trying to Create a draft.
of this movie where anyone can understand what the hell he's talking about. Because he is not. As he has proved with his previous two movies, he's not normally the best kind of script editor in the world. He's always needed someone to come in and kind of. work on his own scripts and It it's just basically a long letter of him going through every studio in Hollywood.
uh every one of the majors and they're all kind of Refusing. It's not a great thing. It's hard to pitch science fiction movies at this time in history. We do have to remember that. George met Ralph Macquarie, the artist, which would turn out to be that the only way Star Wars got made was because of Ralph Macquarie's paintings.
Because again, nobody knew what the hell he was talking about. This allowed him to visualize it. And with that visualization, Can one studio And a lone executive. And Fox, and of course, Alan Ladd Jr. is the only one who wants to take a bet.
Laddie. as he was known, had had seen American graffiti He didn't really understand what Lucas was trying to tell him about Star Wars, but as he told me, he said I believed in his brain. But getting a studio to agree to make his film was just the first of many uphill battles Lucas would have to face. And you're listening to author Chris Taylor tell us the story of how Star Wars conquered the universe. When we come back, more of this remarkable story of imagination.
of entrepreneurship and so much more. The story of Star Wars here. on our American stories. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country.
Stories from our big cities and small towns, but we truly can't do this show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to ouramericanstories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. Go to ouramericanstories.com and give.
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But maybe it's a little bit sensitive and you don't want to do that. Bissell told me. You could build an AI agent, a resource for new students that helps them navigate a new campus, register for classes, access the services they need, and even schedule appointments on their behalf, which in turn buys them more time to focus on their actual schoolwork. We can see patterns of how agents and assistants can help. Employees and customers and end users be more productive, automate workflows so they're not doing certain types of repetitive work over and over again, and streamlining.
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20th Century Fox executive Alan Ladd Jr. or Laddie. was the only one who thought Lucas was worth taking a chance on them. Back to Chris. A budget hadn't even been set.
Like he was he had to spend his own money. Uh it's kind of a nutty way to make a film when you look back on it, but You get the sense that he knows he's sitting on something big. He doesn't know how big. At some point in the process, he suggests that it could be as big as a Disney movie. Um the average Disney movie, it could make like twelve million dollars.
Which is roughly kind of what he is expecting the budget to be. It is roughly what the budget ends up being, which is. uh an overshoot which is more than than fox allotted him Uh t supposed to be eight million, you know, he ends up Spend it closer to twelve. But yeah, he thinks he's basically just going to make his money back. Because that was the thing with science fiction movies in this day and age: small budgets.
uh because the stuff was just for kids and there wasn't that much money there and you didn't you know, no point in spending big on it and kids won't notice the difference anyway if it's good or bad, if the special effects are good or bad. you know, 2001 didn't make its money back until 1975. Which is crazy. We think of that now, like it's a Stone Cold classic. Why did people not go see it?
They just didn't. And it wasn't until actually, you know, Star Wars was sitting in limbo waiting for its budget to appear that 2001 gets re-released and finally. You know, makes a profit.
So that's all Lucas is expecting. They're just like. George, you had no idea what you're sitting on. But yeah, he's a terrible script writer. It takes him four drafts.
to get close Um and even then he has to draft in Willard Hook and Gloria Katz. to do a rewrite of it's been estimated roughly a third. of the dialogue in the original Star Wars is theirs. Despite the progress being made on the script, 20th Century Fox wasn't making things easy for Lucas. They froze all spending in mid-October of 1975.
A board meeting on December 13th, with filming scheduled to start only a few months later in March of 76. Fox is really dragging its heels. There's no budget in sight. It really does take until that 1975. meeting After 2001 has been a success, and after the Fox board has seen the Macquarie paintings.
They can finally visualize what this thing is supposed to be. Because without that meeting, without them deciding that budget. It never would have been made. I mean, it was barely made as it was. And it really is.
Resources stretched to the absolute limit, right? Uh George seems to be in the 70s, he seems to spend a lot of time around the dying parts of the industry. like the the internship that he had at Warner Brothers. That got him to meet Coppola in the first place. The only reason I met Coppola is because he was supposed to work in the animation department and Warner Brothers, and they just closed it.
He sees that the animation industry is more ribbon, he sees that the special effects industry is more opened.
So kind of has no choice. but to start his own. And it's sort of weird. Like I don't know I think this is something that we have a hard time grasping. In the 21st century, because there's obviously so much work for special effects houses.
In this day and age, that it can support a vast global industry. But yeah, you know, what? You just create one of the most legendary special effects houses because. Nobody else had?
Well yeah. And he kind of had the money to do it. Again, this is why the American graffiti money was so important. Because he could never have just gone cap in hand to Fox and said, oh, yeah, by the way. On top of the budget for this film, I also need to start a special effects house.
Can you maybe spot me some.
some cash for that. Uh no.
So yeah, industrial light and magic. Started in a warehouse in Van Nuys. These ideas of cameras, computer control cameras. That's the really the secret source of ILM. Uh but also it takes so long to get off the ground that it almost gives George a heart attack.
uh that they're they're working so slowly that they've only got one shot done. Um by the time George comes back from principal photography in London.
So uh Yeah, so you know, I that but that's kind of aside the fact that I LM had to Reinvent everything from the ground up. That's why there was only one special effects shot in the can, is because there's so much work on the technical side to be done. No, Lucas is Casting throughout 75 with Brian DePalma working on Carrie at the same time. Luke Skywalker, like, it doesn't. There are many other options, but Mark Hamill kind of wins that one pretty easily.
Uh Carrie Fisher almost didn't get it because she was in acting school in London. At the time, her mother, Debbie Reynolds, packs her off to London. She goes off to learn proper pronunciation. on things, which is why If you watch Star Wars, she seems to have half of a British accent for like half the movie. That's why she was in London repeating things like, I've got to have a proper copper coffee pot.
But yeah, she just comes in, and it was actually the. Fred Roos, the the casting guy on Godfather. Who tells Dr. He's sort of an unofficial casting executive for Star Wars, kind of unpaid. Just because he You know, knows George well through Coppola.
The most interesting piece of casting, and one that's thrown up a lot of legends over the years, is that of Hans Sola. We know that there are many other actors who could have done it, but also we hear that, and this is true. George did not want to cast Harrison Ford because he had been in American graffiti. Because The thing that George was terrified of critics saying when Star Wars comes out is, oh, it's just American graffiti in space.
So, I think as a director, you're always terrified that your last movie is going to influence the. Perception of your current one.
So he, you know, he was a dropping actor, he was also a carpenter, and the The myth has grown up that Fred Roos, casting director, was so certain That Harrison Ford was right for the Han Solo role, that he brought. Harrison Forden to do some carpentry on a door In his casting studio to kind of throw Harrison Ford in his path. And I sat down with Fred Ruse in person. I was like, is this really the case? And he kind of sheepishly.
Admitted that the legend, as good as it sounds, is not true, and that, in fact, he just actually needed a door. And Harrison Ford was the only carpenter he knew, so he just brought him in. to make that door anyway.
So it wasn't it was inspired in retrospect like a lot of the Star Wars stories. And a lot of it was just more haphazard than you think. And sometimes a carpenter making a door is just a carpenter making a door. Unfortunately, Even though the cast was in place, That didn't mean that everything would go smoothly from there. quite the opposite.
They had location shoots to film in Africa. And filming at a studio in London. which did anything but inspire confidence in Lucas. The shooting in Tunisia itself is an absolute nightmare. You get this part of the world that's not supposed to have any storms, have its biggest storm for 40 years.
A lot of the equipment is destroyed. The first air shooting goes terribly. The droids especially are all over the place. Uh this is kind of a a thing throughout Filming of Star Wars that R2 Dito didn't function in. And if you pause every scene in Star Wars where R2 Dito is rolling forward and just kind of look at the the trajectory of where he's going.
It's almost always into a wall. And then you imagine those scenes on Tatooine, AKA Tunisia, you know, supposed to have gone a lot more differently and look a lot more impressive. Than it did. Again, we have this sort of happy accident of the fact that The The Tunisia shoot went so badly The desert scenes had to be so stripped down that it kind of ended up looking accidentally like a western. And That you know, people saw that, oh, like, ooh, John Ford, you know, that really, but no, he was not as much, this was not as much of a Western homage as we imagine.
It was just he didn't have the budget to. Throw in all of the creatures and all of the stuff that was in his imagination. This is how much of a mess the script is in. Luke's name, I mean. Luke's name in the script.
As far as they are concerned, while they're in Tunisia, is Luke Starkiller. And you're listening to Chris Taylor, author of How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, tell a heck of a tale about perseverance, about accidents. George Lucas was crazy. He took his own money from American Graffiti and started a special effects company, The Story of Star Wars, How It Almost Never Happened and How It Came to Be. Here on Our American Stories.
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Get up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns. Shop now at washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions. may apply. Malcolm Glabwell here.
I recently recorded the first episode of Smart Talks with IBM, where I learned how AI agents are joining AI assistants. as a major productivity tool. Let's start with AI agents. AI agents can reason, plan, and collaborate with other AI tools to autonomously perform tasks for a user. Brian Bitzel, an expert from IBM, gave me an example of how a college freshman might use an AI agent.
As a new student, you may not know How do I deal with my health and wellness issue? How many credits am I going to get for this given class? You could talk to someone and find out some of that. But maybe it's a little bit sensitive and you don't want to do that. Bissell told me.
You could build an AI agent, a resource for new students that helps them navigate a new campus, register for classes, access the services they need, and even schedule appointments on their behalf, which in turn buys them more time to focus on their actual schoolwork. we can see patterns of how agents and assistants can help. Employees and customers and end users be more productive, automate workflows so they're not doing certain types of repetitive work over and over again, and streamlining. their lives and making data more accessible to them. 24 hours a day.
To learn more about IBM's AI agents and how they can help your business, visit ibm.com/slash agents. Tired of flipping through apps to find something good? Meet TiVo Plus, your one-stop free streaming network, no credit card required. With over 300 free channels, you get binge-worthy movies from action and comedy to Indian award winners. Plus, top TV shows, live news, sports highlights, and family programming all in one place.
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And we're back with Our American Stories and author Chris Taylor. who is telling us the story of how the original Star Wars came to be. George Lucas was actually reworking the script as they were filming in Africa. There was still shooting to be done in England, but Lucas wasn't exactly hopeful.
However, not all was lost. Much of the Western feel in Star Wars was due to production impairments. A happy accident. Back to Chris Taylor. With the story of Star Wars.
So it's a mess, it's all over the place, the script is being revised at the last minute. And then when he gets to London, it turns out to be not better than Tudisia in a lot of ways, in terms of his inability to. communicate with the crew. and the London crew especially, Are really just not happy with this weird, shy. glasses wearing big bearded big haired interloper guy who can't even you know Kind of mumbles at you, and like they're like, who is this dude?
And they're just kind of. making jokes about him and about the the movie the whole time. You know, the uh uh the the the studio has been cleaned. which is exactly what what Lucas didn't want. Um You know, the the def style, we we think of it, oh it was supposed to be gleaming.
And bright, and uh, no, it wasn't. You know, George had this idea that Tunisi actually really helped him with all of the. the the dirt and muck that they got and everything. The idea of the used universe is a really big one in George's head. And so, you know, things get a bit scuffed up, things get a bit used.
You have this sense for. almost every object in Star Wars that Um It has been used before, it's a bit dirty, and that's what helps us believe it, right? You look around the room you're in. Kind of, maybe it's a bit mismatched. The things you bought on this date, things you bought on that date, that's a bit scuffed, that's got dust on it, right?
And we've never seen that in science fiction before, but not on the Death Star, because the crew in the UK have cleaned the set. and would clean the set every day, like He's like, no, this is not what I want. But of course, it kind of works. It's beautiful for all the reflections and like Vader's helmet. Like, again.
Not meant to be the case. Turns out brilliantly. But yeah, George had a terrible time in London, he had a terrible time with the crew, he had a terrible time with Gilbert Taylor, you know, as an award-winning cinematographer who kind of was as dismissive as the crew of George's shortcomings, especially when George kind of got on the wrong side of him by like. looking through the camera. Right, doing the stuff that a cinematographer is supposed to do because George had done that previously on both of his previous movies, THX1138 and American Graffiti, had been small.
They'd been low-budget. This is his first time on anything like a Hollywood epic. And here he comes face to face with Gil Taylor. You know, he's worked with Kubrick, he's worked with Hitchcock, he's worked with Polanski, and he's. Kind of, you know, telling George, no, you don't look through the camera, son.
That's my job.
So George is in a funk the whole time. You know, Gary Kurtz is having to try to negotiate with the crew to get them to take this seriously. It is the hottest summer on record. The summer of 1976 in the UK, still famous, even now, still 76 is known as one of the biggest, hottest, nastiest, sweatiest you know, gave rise to the famous A Sun tabloid headline, Phew What a Scorcher. Um In that summer.
That was the summer of 76, and that's when Star Wars is being filmed. And it's just.
so much of a mess and they don't have like a lot of the costumes aren't ready and just lot of stuff happening all over the place that just makes it feel like a mess. They get round to the end of shooting. Fox won't give them any more budget. Um and they still have to film all of the scenes on the tantal. Um, you know, which is the ship at the very start of Star Wars.
This is one that famously gets shot at by the Star Destroyer passing overhead, and it's the one that 3PO and R2 on, Darth Vader invades it, etc. All of those scenes. Of those rebels sort of lining up in front of the door. They're famously producing the tension of like Darth Vade is going to walk through this door, and we know that they don't say a word, but really, really great masterclass. In building up tension in the first few minutes of a movie.
And it really was just. filmed at the last minute. You know, on the last day with a second unit, I think Gary Kurtz wants to direct the second unit, you know, and they're just they're shuttling back and forth, they're trying to get all these scenes filmed. You would never get it today looking at that scene, that it was just such on a shoestring, on the last day, kind of thrown together kind of thing. But it works, and they were just so lucky.
in the in in that sense, and then the things that they were able to do the resources of the original Star Wars were just stretched gossamer thin, you know Everything was like on the on the point of breaking, and you can see how. If you're coming back from that shoot, Uh and you're going to I believe it was Alabama where Steven Spielberg was filming Close Encounters at that time. You would think this is such a mess. Like ILM, I started this special effects house. They've only got one shot in the can.
That's what he discovers, by the way, when he comes back from Spielberg's shoot. From close encounters. He goes back, he checks in on ILM and the Van Nuys warehouse. Dyke's just like, hey, we've only got one shot, but we've figured out a lot of stuff. You wanna sh see the shot?
Looks a lot like 2001. That's it. That's all I've had for my months and months of investment of my own money into this for the special effects. That are either going to save or damn this film. Um Yeah, so he he sees that and he flies back.
to San Francisco. from down in LA. Finally he's heading back home. And um Almost straight from the plane, he starts feeling like he's gonna have a heart attack. Has to check himself into hospital instead of going home in And um Turns out it's not a heart attack, but he's also told he's having an incredible amount of anxiety, a lot of stress.
and he should probably go take some rest. Which is kind of good advice. But yeah, George is kind of put through the ringer. This also explains why while he and Spielberg are together, on the set of close encounters, they swap points. I think it's two points each in so Spielberg gets two percent of the profits of Star Wars.
Lucas gets 2% of the profits of Close Encounters. Not an unusual thing to do, but also an indication of each of them thought that the other ones was going to be the better movie. And you can see George thinking, well After that mess of a shoot with my special effects houses, just nowhere in this process. Obviously, I'm going to win that bet. Obviously, I'm going to.
Somewhere's going to be a disaster. It's going to be, you know, my name is going to be mud in Hollywood, but that's fine, because I'll just make my personal films and. I'll have my 2% of close encounters to keep me going. And Lucas seemed justified in his feeling. when the movie's release is pushed from Christmas of 1976.
to the summer of nineteen seventy seven. And the novelization still does come out in the fall of 76, which is just bizarre. looking back on it to us these days like oh we the whole story of Star Wars was out there? Like for months before the movie hit theaters. Really weird.
So, you know, the release date slips, not unusual, but it slips because the special effects are so far behind schedule. And they're so far behind schedule that George, when he screens his rough cut of Star Wars for his friends, including that that screening where Brian DePalma tore him to pieces. Um He's screening a shot with Kind of Temporary placeholder. Special effects, which is basically he's using, especially for the Death Star sequence at the end, he's using a lot of. shots from World War II movies.
And what a story we're being told by Chris Taylor: how Star Wars conquered the universe. My goodness, all of those early scenes done at the last minute. On the last dime, And it just shows you that indeed Benjamin Franklin's quote, Necessity is the mother of invention, My goodness, it's the mother, the father, the grandmother, and the grandfather here. It indeed drives the film. It was a hot mess.
And maybe indeed that's why this worked. When We Come Back, more with author Chris Taylor, The story of how Star Wars came to be. and almost didn't. Here. on our American stories.
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Chris Taylor, author of How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, was just sharing how Star Wars release was pushed back from December of 76 to the summer. of 77 due to delays in the special effects. Lucas had even gone to the hospital for what he felt was a heart attack. brought on by extreme stress. Things were not looking good for Lucas, and and his passion project Star Wars.
The release date slips, not unusual, but it slips because the special effects are so far behind schedule. And they're so far behind schedule that George, when he screens his rough cut of Star Wars for his friends. including that that screening where Brian De Palmer tore him to pieces. Um He he's screening a shot with Kind of Temporary placeholder Special effects, which is basically he's using, especially for the Death Star sequence at the end, he's using a lot of. Shots from World War II movies to illustrate, like, oh, the, you know, the attack on the Death Star is going to happen here, you know, cut to Spitfire from World War II, you know, downing a couple of German meschersnets.
Just the explosion of the Death Star, like when they when they filmed that on set, it was just a guy holding a piece of paper and going, bang. You know, but yeah, so all of that is waiting until right in the last minute. You know, this is part of the reason why. George and Marcia are just kind of sleepless and dazed. on the day Star Wars is released, 'cause they're still working.
They're still tweaking it, they're still changing it. They uh You know, obviously, again, this is a. The looping of the dialogue is an area where you see a lot more happy accidents. the casting of James L. Jones.
as the voice of Darth Vader. You know, he wasn't paid that much money, it was just a couple of days' work. Cause by the way, Darth Vader, George didn't think he was a very scary villain. He's only on the screen for ten minutes. in the original Star Wars.
He didn't seem scary until you add the sound effect. And until you add James Donald Jones's voice. Uh and Ben Butt breathing through a scuba mask. You know, that's what really sells Darth Vader. You know, it all brings together.
But he's worried that Darth Vader isn't going to be seen as that big of a villain. Like he almost wants to kill him off. Um So, you know, a lot of this stuff doesn't come through at the last minute. Obviously James L. Jones was a great get, really, really makes the film.
Part of George Lucas' pessimistic outlook on Star Wars certainly stemmed from the numerous delays in production. and another part came from his perfectionism. and the idea that this movie would never live up to his expectations. a feeling he still has to this day. Yeah, George was definitely heads down in the studio in those final days working on the audio.
And I believe what Lucas is doing on May the 25th, 1977, the day that Star Wars is released, by the way, a Wednesday. Kind of weird to us this day and age. The Wednesday before Memorial Day weekend, like, what are you even doing releasing it then? It's just bizarre. Like, kids aren't off school.
This is supposed to be a movie for kids. What are you even doing? You know, just kind of a sign that Fox wasn't even thinking. about that sort of thing. actually trying to get theaters to Take a movie called The Other Side of Midnight, which we don't even remember today, but it's a gritty 70s drama, by saying, Well, you have to take Star Wars if you want The Other Side of Midnight.
And it wasn't until a month or so after Star Wars comes out they flip it. They're like, Oh no, you had to take The Other Side of Midnight if you want Star Wars.
So they're just not thinking about it, it just gets released. And I I think George isn't thinking about it either, because there w there was no premiere party.
So he's he's sleepless, Marsha's sleepless, and supposedly. They go to hamburger hut. which was a restaurant. that is on Hollywood Boulevard, it was on Hollywood Boulevard right opposite Man's Chinese Theatre. I guess he didn't realize which 32 theaters it was being released in around the country, and that one of them.
was right here. I could believe that he would He sit in there for a hamburger, which is his favourite food. with Marcia and just sort of kind of get over the kind of Sleeplessness, you know, that kind of Where you've pulled an all-nighter and nothing seems real. And then you look out the window and you see, oh, my movies. Plan.
Over there this movie that I'm still fixing. That's weird. Um Is playing over there and there seems to be a line. But yeah, we should remember that he. My favorite story about this, about where his head was, is the fact that.
He calls George Lucas calls up Mark Hamill. on the day on May 25th. And he says, hi, K Do Famous yet.
So he's obviously aware that... It's kind of it's doing okay, at least at this one theatre. Little remembered fact, it wasn't actually Star Wars that was the most popular. Movie of that week, it wasn't Top of the Box Office. It was Smokey and the Bandit.
And that was simply due to the fact that it was on more screens. Jaws, I believe, which was the best-selling movie up until that point. Um opened in over a hundred. And you know, it was kind of a hit from the beginning. 32 is like that's just.
Such a sign of defeat and failure. To open your movie on just 32 screens. Even 40 would have been a sign of defeat. and a sign that not only did Fox didn't believe it, but the movie houses themselves didn't believe in it. But then.
That too kind of turns out to work in Lucas' favor because it means that there are lines. If you've got supply and demand match perfectly, no lines. But the interesting thing about Star Wars is it very early on becomes famous for being famous. and it becomes famous for having its lines. And Journalists kind of latch onto that.
Like, there's no mention of the lines in the first day reports. There's mention that it's done pretty well. Like, you know, variety is a gog at its per-screen average. Which is part of the reason why you see eight other theatres by the end of the week going, oh, yeah, actually, I'll take that. You know, and it kind of snowballs from there, but Part of the reason that it's snowballing is because everywhere it goes it has lines.
And because the lines become famous for being lines, Star Wars becomes famous for being a thing that people will wait in long lines to see. And I mean, I always go back to the San Francisco Chronicle's report. which I believe the was the first report on the line and The uh the movie theatre owner is just aghast at At the kind of people who are waiting in these lines, like you know, the long hairs, the acid freaks, the stoners, the you know, the people playing chess in line, but also like people of different ages. It's not. one particular age group, it's not just limited to kids.
So the lines are sort of this great physical example of how it is Not just for children. It's not just your average science fiction flick. We can go too far in saying, oh, it wasn't going to be a hit, or it wasn't supposed to be a hit, but. we can definitely say that it became phenomenon. because of the supply and demand problem, because of the lines.
Then it starts to open up in other countries because, of course, you know. America is the the global center of culture and you know we You hear about American movies suddenly growing up in the UK. Uh you you would hear about American movies long before you would see them. That was definitely the case with Star Wars, that my first encounter with Star Wars was on the back of a box of cereal. When I was about four years old, it's just it starts, people start to realize that it is just.
so rewatchable. And we think of that as sort of being a normal thing now. Like, of course, that's what. That's what Directors are going for. They want to make a movie that you'll want to re-watch, and you know, Lucas was the first to do that.
It's just so compelling. The story is so compelling. that uh just taps into something deep. and primal in our brains. Just probably a good point to.
I'll just throw in the, you know, the legend being that George Lucas. Based it on the hero with a thousand faces, right? Joseph Campbell and all of that kind of. you know archetypal Hero narrative. You know, and these days Star Wars is used as a great example of that.
But in terms of Lucas thinking that he had produced this hero's narrative that audiences were just going to fall for, no, he had no idea. He had no idea what he was what he was doing. And to quote Charlie Lippincott, his marketing director, He was just farting around. And a terrific job on the production and storytelling by Robbie Davis. And a special thanks to Chris Taylor: How Star Wars Conquered the Universe.
and go to bookstores, go to Amazon, however you get your books. Buy it. If you're a Star Wars fan, buy too. And if you're not a Star Wars fan, watch the movie again. Give it another shot.
And my goodness, happy accidents? None bigger than the voice of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. No one saw the scenes as scary until, well, you add the soundtrack, you add Jones's voice, and that eerie breathing sound. Think about that premiere night. What is Lucas doing?
Grabbing a burger after tweaking a film. he was sure wasn't going to do well. And then those lines. The story of how Star Wars Conquered the Universe. Here on Our American Stories.
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