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Think differently, believe in yourself, and when you can, invest in yourself. But pay your debts.
Like Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon, Lucas’s Bianchina wouldn’t look like much, but it would have it where it counted—and he would make a lot of the special modifications himself.
For Lucas, movies, not marijuana, were his addiction,
Coppola’s first bit of advice: “Don’t ever read what you’ve written. Try to get it done in a week or two, then go back and fix it… you just keep fixing it.”
“the importance of self and being able to step out of whatever you’re in and move forward rather than being stuck in your little rut,” Lucas explained in 1971. “People would give anything to quit their jobs. All they have to do is do it.… They’re people in cages with open doors.”
By denying Lucas Flash, King Features had inadvertently sent him down the path toward creating Star Wars. Flash Gordon, in fact, wouldn’t appear on the big screen until 1980, in a Dino De Laurentiis–produced stinker trying hard to cash in on the science fiction craze Lucas had spawned with Star Wars—an irony that was never lost on Lucas.
It could be said that Star Wars was partly Coppola’s fault.
George may well have agreed that Marcia needed to take on projects other than his movies—“it is hard for a film editor to come home and call the director a son-of-a-bitch when she happens to be married to him,”
For Lucas, using unknown actors was important; he wanted audiences relating to the characters, not the actors.
Yoda carefully built—with small motors and rotors to open his eyes, wiggle his ears, and pull back his cheeks—but also he was brilliantly performed by Oz, with a team of two and sometimes three other puppeteers in support. The moment filming began with Oz and Yoda in early August, it was clear the character was going to work spectacularly well. Oz was so convincing in his performance, in fact, that Kershner often found himself offering direction straight to Yoda rather than addressing his comments to Oz, crouched uncomfortably out of sight just below the set. Even Lucas could get caught up in
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For his part, as Jones recorded Vader’s dialogue in the winter of 1980, he remained convinced that Vader was lying.
The following week, President Carter invited the visiting vice premier of China, Geng Biao, to watch the movie with him and the First Family at the White House. “Geng Biao was on the edge of his seat all the way through the movie,” reported Carter. “Fortunately, he did not ask me for any of the weapons he saw in the movie.”
“He was intimidated by George,” said production designer Norman Reynolds.107 Marquand compared his job to “trying to direct King Lear—with Shakespeare in the next room.”108
