List of Enhancements

Occasionally you will see colored film “slugs” where a sequence was taken to be used in the final film. Not all film clips contain audio.

Chapter One

Audio: Lucas explains how he decided to go to film school at the University of Southern California.
Audio: Executive producer and writer George Lucas discusses how his changing perspectives on the Flash Gordon serials sparked his desire to make the Star Wars saga.

Chapter Two

Audio: Lucas on his feelings post–American Graffiti.
Audio: Lucas on the importance of myths for children and how Star Wars was designed to fill that gap.

Chapter Three

Audio: Ralph McQuarrie on working with Lucas on the first illustrations.

Chapter Four

Audio: Set dresser Roger Christian remembers the beginnings of R2-D2.

Chapter Six

Video: Creature makeup supervisor Stuart Freeborn at work, along with his wife, Kay, at Elstree.
Audio: Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz discuss the story as the former nears completion of a shooting script.
Audio: Set dresser Roger Christian explains how he designed Han Solo’s blaster, the prototype weapon for all those that followed.
Video: On January 14, 1976, screen tests are filmed for “Artoo’s head; random readout; switch panel; scope pattern.”
Video: Mechanical effects supervisor John Stears (with beard and mustache) and others test out early lazer sword effects, circa January 23, 1976.
Audio: Christian goes over how he created the first lightsaber prop.
Audio: Lucas, Kurtz, and director of photography Gil Taylor discuss how they might shoot some of the landspeeder shots from a moving vehicle.
Audio: Vice president of marketing and merchandising Charles Lippincott asks Lucas why he chose Harrison Ford to play Han Solo.
Audio: Costume designer John Mollo on the first steps of transforming concept sketches into physical costumes.
Video: On March 15, 1976, another batch of tests is shot.

Chapter Seven

Video: On location in Tunisia, late March 1976, John Stears radio-controls a droid, while Mark Hamill is filmed watching the skies.
Video: Sir Alec Guinness clowns around with Kenny Baker and then films the scene in which Ben and Luke discover a damaged C-3PO.
Video: A printed daily of scene 47, above Mos Eisley, on location, circa the end of March 1976.
Video: In the Hotel Sidi Driss in Matmata, Tunisia, cast and crew eat lunch where scenes would also be shot of the interior homestead, early April 1976.
Audio: Christian describes having lunch on the road to Djerba, Tunisia, with a tired and dejected Lucas.
Video: In Ajim, Djerba, an extra is lowered, strapped into a droid, and shown how to walk; the heroes’ arrival in Mos Eisley is then shot with the droid acting as foreground dressing; early April 1976.

Chapter Eight

Video: Off screen, Gary Kurtz interviews Alec Guinness at Elstree Studios, asking him about his character and if it was difficult to act with the “robots.”
Video: A printed daily of Ben swinging into action in the cantina, at Elstree, mid-April 1976. Note that you can see Lucas’s reflection in the protective glass in front of the camera at the end of the take.
Video: A printed daily from April 21, 1976, of Harrison Ford as Han Solo turning the tables on Greedo (Paul Blake, who speaks his lines off camera; Lucas can be heard saying, “Cut”).
Video: Behind-the-scenes footage of David Prowse being dressed in his Darth Vader costume at Elstree.
Video: On June 25, 1976, a gag in which a gonk droid finds itself alone in a Death Star hallway is shot (this doesn’t make the final cut). Jack Purvis plays the droid.
Video: A printed daily from April 27, 1976. In a gag that won’t make the final cut, the heroes, just out of the garbage masher, conceal their weapons from Imperial officers in a Death Star corridor.
Video: A printed daily from April 27, 1976, in which a stormtrooper’s squib continues burning after the trooper falls. When “cut” is called, stunt coordinator Peter Diamond runs to the fallen trooper to make sure the stuntman is okay.
Video: A printed daily (a pickup) of the swing across the chasm, late April/early May 1976.
Video: A printed daily of Peter Cushing as Governor Tarkin and Carrie Fisher as Leia.
Audio: Production designer John Barry discusses the process of designing sets with his draftsmen, working with other departments, and Lucas’s involvement in the art department.

Chapter Nine

Video: A printed daily of Ben’s duel with Darth Vader (with Prowse speaking Vader’s lines).
Video: Printed dailies from June 1, 1976, of the Death Star hangar shootout. Several shots are filmed with three cameras for maximum coverage so Lucas will have lots of choices while putting the sequence together in editorial during postproduction.
Video: Mark Hamill interviewed during principal photography at Elstree by Gary Kurtz (off screen).
Video: Printed dailies from the Death Star command office scene with Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca speaking the Wookiee’s lines in English.
Video: Printed dailies from the end of principal photography, July 1976. Lucas directs the extras as cameras roll for the scene in which stormtroopers blast their way onto the rebel ship.
Video: Printed dailies from July 8, 1976. Prowse as Vader chokes the rebel captain.

Chapter Eleven

Video: Printed dailies from the pickup shoot in Death Valley, mid-January 1977, of Mardji the elephant dressed up as a bantha.
Audio: A recording of Lucas directing Guinness during ADR in London, England, March 1977. Guinness experiments with various line readings for several different scenes, as the recorder is turned on and off.
Audio: Composer John Williams discusses the “Death of Ben” cue and the thinking behind his decisions.
Audio: Lippincott calls for a quick check-in as Lucas enters the home stretch, recorded on March 24, 1977.
Video: A black-and-white dupe made for ILM of an early edit, winter 1977, reveals a different opening crawl.
Video: The gag reel made for the cast and crew of Star Wars.