The Force remains strong 30 years after first film

By Matthew Price

Published: May 25, 2007

A long time ago (30 years, to be exact), in a galaxy not so far away, viewers were introduced to "Star Wars,” the motion picture that became a phenomenon that has influenced pop culture for two generations.

Author J.W. Rinzler, who wrote the new "The Making of Star Wars” book, said the difficulty of what "Star Wars” creator George Lucas accomplished with his film may not be understood completely by modern viewers.

"Unless you've been on a set, you don't realize how difficult it is just to get a movie done, even under ideal conditions,” Rinzler said in a phone interview. "What it was like back then, things were falling apart. Nobody wanted to do what he was doing; people were not committing. Every single step of the way, he had to fight.”

"The Making of Star Wars” chronicles Lucas' struggle to revive the space fantasy genre through his film, "The Star Wars.” Rinzler looked through original interviews, original script drafts and more to create the 300-plus-page book released in honor of the film's 30th anniversary.

In Oklahoma, the Toy and Action Figure Museum, 111 S Chickasaw in Pauls Valley, is honoring 30 years of "Star Wars” with an action-figure display featuring "Star Wars” figures. The museum plans to unveil four more "Star Wars”-theme displays throughout June.

"We've got some of the early, original ‘Star Wars' figures that we're going to be putting out,” museum curator Kevin Stark said.

Stark said the quality of the movie and the diversity of the line helped make "Star Wars” toys successful.

"It started with a really good property. The film was great and right for action figures,” Stark said. "It was the first line to actively introduce a ton of figures and vehicles and play sets — in a big way,” Stark said.

Lucas managed to keep the rights to merchandise — including action figures — and sequels, since Fox waited until the director's popularity was peaking with the success of "American Graffiti” to finalize the deal.

"Fox had managed to negotiate themselves into a corner. And that's why he managed to get a number of things that a director wouldn't have gotten, in the way of sequel rights and things like that,” Rinzler said. "Part of it was because they didn't think they were giving anything away.”

Rinzler said Lucas couldn't have foreseen the success the films would have; he was just concerned that his film would be recut or edited without his input.

"He was protecting his intellectual property,” Rinzler said. "His No. 1 priority was making sure they didn't tamper with his film after he was finished.

"There was no possible way of imagining how successful it would be. At various points throughout production, Lucas was relatively sure it wasn't going to make any money. It would break even if he was lucky,” Rinzler said. "At that time, science fiction films, space fantasy films, didn't make any money.”

To unearth the interviews, photos and information needed to make "The Making of Star Wars” happen, Rinzler, the nonfiction books editor at Lucasfilm, pored through hundreds of documents.

"The major work was making sure we had those interviews, and luckily we have a great research library at Skywalker Ranch,” he said. "Then it was a question of reading through over 1,000 pages of interviews.”

Rintzler said the interviews didn't contain a lot of dates, so he had to cross-reference with progress reports from another part of the archive, as well as check dates against other production information, including notes from painter Ralph McQuarrie, who worked on early conceptual drawings of the movie.

"It was like reconstructing the history of ‘Star Wars,'” Rinzler said. "It was basically like a giant Sherlock Holmes thing, then, to get all of that in order.”

Rintzler said many of the photos in the book have been seen rarely or not at all.

"Luckily, since I work here, I could go off for an hour or two every day for months, before we even knew we were definitely doing the book, and sort of prepare for that,” Rinzler said. "We had a lot of stuff, and it's essentially in a lot of different places, and you have to have a lot of time to unearth it all.”

For more information about "The Making of Star Wars” and the 30th anniversary of the film, go online to www.star wars.com. For more information about the Toy and Action Figure Museum, go online to www.actionfiguremuseum. com.