Nostalgia: Return of the Jedi "Official Collectors Edition"
I recently had the chance to take another look at my copy of the "Return of the Jedi Official Collectors Edition," which I gather amounts to a movie program sold on the newsstands (it was a little more expensive than I believe the novelisation would have been at the time), that I got back in the spring of 1983. As I perhaps obsess on a little bit of late, I didn't actually see the movie that year, which might have made this magazine-like program or program-like magazine, along with things like the storybook, comics, and novelisation, a vital substitute for me.
One thing I've long noticed about the section at the front, "The Saga Continues...", is that it leaves off just as the three threads of the Battle of Endor are set up, so as to not give everything away for the moviegoing audience. (References to the Death Star tunnel models and a photocomposite of the Millennium Falcon and two X-wings in one of them, though, did give a strong hint as to how the battle would shape itself.) Something I noticed more recently was that the summary is equally coy about the great question of the time, whether Darth Vader was really Luke Skywalker's father, saying only "Yoda and the spirit of Ben Kenobi at last reveal the truth about Luke's father." This, perhaps, leads to a simple interpretation of Luke's final confrontation with Vader, its purpose only to "test his strength against the Lord of the Sith" as the summary continues. Then, on going through the summary once again, I finally happened to notice that it seems very careful in describing each of the characters, as if unsure people could actually remember them. For example, it repeats that Artoo is "a small, barrel-shaped robot who functions as a computer repair and information retrieval droid" and that Threepio is "a human-like protocol droid who translates millions of galactic languages."
Beyond the summary, though, I still find a definite interest in the sections on pre-production, on location, and post-production, as nostalgic as comments about monster puppets and the making of model ships and matte paintings on glass may seem to some. Those who hold suspicions about Ben Burtt doing his best to fill up the audio commentaries on the DVDs may take slight note of "Sound Effects" coming first of all in the pre-production section. After that, though, are a number of comments from Richard Marquand, and they caught my attention. With Marquand having died only a few years after Return of the Jedi was made, before interest in the Star Wars movies shifted back up to a whole other level, in some ways they seem as close to me as we'll ever get to his own opinions on the whole matter of making the movie. He says, I suppose, what I want to see as the right things to say, including: "Word of mouth is the most powerful and effective advertising medium for any movie and nobody is going to tell their friends to go and see a movie where the storyline is boring or pointless, no matter how good the special effects are." He also comments on how much of the Death Star docking bay set was just "acres of black drapes," on which they seemed at times to be "creating theatre rather than making a movie," which for me seems to prefigure the modern use of bluescreen at all times, and mentions how Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher "form a great club." (Artoo was less cooperative on set.)
There are also some interesting comments from Howard Kazanjian, the producer lost somewhere in between Gary Kurtz and Rick McCallum. Like Marquand, he comments on how: "Story is the first and most important element in film-making. Without a first rate script, all you have is special effects, color film, sound, music and an unsatisfied filmgoing audience." He recalls sitting down in the summer of 1981 with George Lucas, Richard Marquand, and Larry Kasdan to spend six full days talking about the backstory, with Luke's parents mentioned in plural. This, of course, may have been where the old proclamation from the novelisation that Owen was Obi-Wan's brother came from, which some people were indeed upset to see vanish. Alas, that's one more point that I've just shrugged off: I suppose that something could be made out of Obi-Wan having to rediscover his own family in the midst of a crisis involving the atypical family connections of another Jedi, but I'm not sure if it could really be made to fit into a mere movie. For me, there can be just as much interest in Owen and Beru doing something out of feelings for a relative by marriage as there is in Owen doing something out of obligation to a sibling. Kazanjian also mentions how all the actors, "even Dave Prowse," received only sections of the script to try and keep things secret. (I'm not quite sure just what light, if any, this sheds on modern "spoiler reports.") One shot "at the end" of the movie "was only dropped into the film at the very last minute", although to me that could be just about anything.
One thing I've long noticed about the section at the front, "The Saga Continues...", is that it leaves off just as the three threads of the Battle of Endor are set up, so as to not give everything away for the moviegoing audience. (References to the Death Star tunnel models and a photocomposite of the Millennium Falcon and two X-wings in one of them, though, did give a strong hint as to how the battle would shape itself.) Something I noticed more recently was that the summary is equally coy about the great question of the time, whether Darth Vader was really Luke Skywalker's father, saying only "Yoda and the spirit of Ben Kenobi at last reveal the truth about Luke's father." This, perhaps, leads to a simple interpretation of Luke's final confrontation with Vader, its purpose only to "test his strength against the Lord of the Sith" as the summary continues. Then, on going through the summary once again, I finally happened to notice that it seems very careful in describing each of the characters, as if unsure people could actually remember them. For example, it repeats that Artoo is "a small, barrel-shaped robot who functions as a computer repair and information retrieval droid" and that Threepio is "a human-like protocol droid who translates millions of galactic languages."
Beyond the summary, though, I still find a definite interest in the sections on pre-production, on location, and post-production, as nostalgic as comments about monster puppets and the making of model ships and matte paintings on glass may seem to some. Those who hold suspicions about Ben Burtt doing his best to fill up the audio commentaries on the DVDs may take slight note of "Sound Effects" coming first of all in the pre-production section. After that, though, are a number of comments from Richard Marquand, and they caught my attention. With Marquand having died only a few years after Return of the Jedi was made, before interest in the Star Wars movies shifted back up to a whole other level, in some ways they seem as close to me as we'll ever get to his own opinions on the whole matter of making the movie. He says, I suppose, what I want to see as the right things to say, including: "Word of mouth is the most powerful and effective advertising medium for any movie and nobody is going to tell their friends to go and see a movie where the storyline is boring or pointless, no matter how good the special effects are." He also comments on how much of the Death Star docking bay set was just "acres of black drapes," on which they seemed at times to be "creating theatre rather than making a movie," which for me seems to prefigure the modern use of bluescreen at all times, and mentions how Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher "form a great club." (Artoo was less cooperative on set.)
There are also some interesting comments from Howard Kazanjian, the producer lost somewhere in between Gary Kurtz and Rick McCallum. Like Marquand, he comments on how: "Story is the first and most important element in film-making. Without a first rate script, all you have is special effects, color film, sound, music and an unsatisfied filmgoing audience." He recalls sitting down in the summer of 1981 with George Lucas, Richard Marquand, and Larry Kasdan to spend six full days talking about the backstory, with Luke's parents mentioned in plural. This, of course, may have been where the old proclamation from the novelisation that Owen was Obi-Wan's brother came from, which some people were indeed upset to see vanish. Alas, that's one more point that I've just shrugged off: I suppose that something could be made out of Obi-Wan having to rediscover his own family in the midst of a crisis involving the atypical family connections of another Jedi, but I'm not sure if it could really be made to fit into a mere movie. For me, there can be just as much interest in Owen and Beru doing something out of feelings for a relative by marriage as there is in Owen doing something out of obligation to a sibling. Kazanjian also mentions how all the actors, "even Dave Prowse," received only sections of the script to try and keep things secret. (I'm not quite sure just what light, if any, this sheds on modern "spoiler reports.") One shot "at the end" of the movie "was only dropped into the film at the very last minute", although to me that could be just about anything.