Pop Culture Confidential

Episode 22: The Star Wars Episode

We are thrilled to speak with Roger Christian who won Best Art Direction - Set Decoration for 'Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope' in 1977. Along with his team, he is responsible for the iconic interior of the Millennium Falcon, the first lightsaber, R2D2, and much more. And we talk to Entertainment Weekly senior writer Anthony Breznican about everything you need to know about Star War: The Force Awakens premiere and much more! Host/Producer: Christina Jeurling Birro. Producer: Renee Viterstedt. Editor: Tom Hansen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Duration:: 1h 0m
Broadcast on:: 02 Jan 2016
Audio Format:: other

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof like skims or all birds, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and great marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business, making selling and for shoppers buying simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. It's home of shop pay, the number one checkout in the world. You can use it to boost conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going through to checkout. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout all birds uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/income, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com/income to upgrade your selling today, Shopify.com/income. From the legendary Academy Award-winning set decorator of the original Star Wars to everything you need to know about the Force Awakens, this is pop culture confidential Star Wars Spectacular. There are so many things about the Star Wars franchise that make it such a part of cinema history. One important aspect was created from the very beginning. That look, that weathered, real, dirty, oil dripping set design of the 1977 original. It feels as if every film of the Star Wars series has been trying to achieve that authentic rustic appearance ever since. And I'm thrilled to talk to one of the creative geniuses behind that original Star Wars look Roger Christian. He won the Oscar for Best Art Directions set decoration for Star Wars in 1977. So many iconic elements that epitomized Star Wars Roger Christian had a hand in creating. The interior of the Millennium Falcon, the first lightsaber, R2-D2, and so much more. But first, Anthony Brznickin has been a reporter for the AP USA Today and is the author of the novel Brutal Youth. Today he's a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly. As part of Entertainment Weekly's recent double issue devoted to Star Wars The Force Awakens, he's done features, behind the scenes, and interviews with all the major players. He was the moderator at the big official Force Awakens panel in Anaheim where he interviewed everyone from J.J. Abrams to Kathleen Kennedy, the new cast, and the original legendary cast. I think there are very few journalists with more information on the Force Awakens, the history of this film legacy, and is more embedded in the Star Wars universe right now than Anthony Brznickin. Very welcome to the show, Anthony. That's my pleasure to be here. I think you're right. I do feel like I'm immersed in the galaxy. I wanted to ask you a little personal question. Star Wars really means something beyond an average movie to so many, many people. What about yourself? What has it been personally? Well, it means a lot to me too. Not only as a fan from the early years, but as a dad of two little kids now who are really into it, I like the idea that we have a story we can share and enjoy and watch together. Going back to when I was a little boy now, I'm 39, and I grew up with these characters, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo and Princess Leia, although she's not called Princess anymore in the new film. What's she called in the new film? Well, JJ Abrams told me, I asked him in my reporting on this new film, is she still Princess Leia? 32 years have gone by, does her status change? Is she queen Leia? Her world was also destroyed in that original movie, so does she still go by a royal title? He goes, actually, she's now known as general. She calls her general because she's the leader of this resistance, military group, and one character slips up and calls her Princess, and it does not go over well, but that's just a very slight spoiler from the new film. But these characters meant a lot to me as a kid, not just because they were entertaining, but I believe that all that merchandising that people talk about, George Lucas doing all the toys and vehicles and all of that was a real way for kids to engage their imaginations. I didn't go see the movies multiple times in the theatre when I was a little boy, but I relived those characters and those stories in my backyard with my best friend from down the street. We made up our own Star Wars stories and I know many other fans did the same thing when they were young. Yeah, we couldn't go to the movies all the time, we didn't have the access to see them at home and parents weren't bringing us to the movies every time we wanted to see it. So you were like, yeah, it's true what you're saying, I never thought of that really, we're actually making it ourselves. Totally, and I think that's why these characters are so embedded in our psyches, as they were a chance to sort of work out stories and I'm a writer, thank you for mentioning my novel, and I got into journalism because I like telling stories and I'm fascinated by storytellers. And this was a way to tell stories, is to have your action figures and it's almost like your little repertory company of characters that you can make up your own expanded universe stories. And that's what I did and I know that's what countless people around the world did. Let's get into this movie a little bit and talk about some of the major players. I mean George Lucas Spirit is with this of course, but I'd like to start with Kathleen Kennedy, the super producer of ET in Indiana Jones who became president of Lucasfilm when George Lucas, I guess retired if I'm correct, what is she bringing to this new era? What is she bringing to the table to carry on this legacy would you say? Well, super producer is a really good term for her. She began, I believe she was Steven Spielberg's assistant on some of his early films and then I think her first producing credit was ET. And when you're Steven Spielberg's assistant, you're not fetching him coffee and getting his newspaper, you're producing a film, even in those early years. So she started with him and then she met and married Frank Marshall who was the producer of The Raiders of the Lost Ark and the two of them formed the Kennedy Marshall Company and they produced everything from Seabiscuit to the Back to the Future films, she has made some of the classic films of the past 30 years, up to Lincoln, Spielberg's last Oscar-nominated film and when she took over as the head of Lucasfilm back, I believe it was the summer of 2012, people were kind of like, why is she taking over this company that's not really making movies? That's a strange choice, is she retiring? And this is sort of just like an easy, steady gig to run this company, which at the time was making a couple of animated series and managing a toy line essentially, they weren't actively producing any films. Of course, what we didn't know at the time was, they were actively producing films. Over the course of the next five years, we'll get as many movies about Star Wars as we've gotten over the past 40 years. There'll be six by the time 20 rolls around and she is really ramping up the schedule she came up with, not only this original trilogy, but the idea that there are sort of standalone films that could be made about Young Han Solo, about another one that's coming next year is Rogue One, that's about the rebels who stole those original Death Star plans that kicked off the original Star Wars movie, you know, Princess Leia slipping those codes into R2-D2. So how she got those plans will be its own movie next year. So you know, Kathleen Kennedy has brought an amazing ambition to the Star Wars universe. She has opened it up to a young generation of filmmakers, young meaning, I mean, I think JJ Abrams is 50, but he grew up with these things. And Ryan Johnson, the director of brick, and looper, he's directing episode eight. You know, you've got Gareth Edwards who did Godzilla a couple of years back. He's now doing Rogue One. So there are all of these filmmakers who grew up loving and being inspired by Star Wars who are now literally the next generation telling the next generation's story in the Star Wars galaxy. So she's being very reverent to the Lucas vision of the first one. Very, very reverent, but also, you know, making sure it's passed on to new voices. And she's also, I think, done an extraordinary job diversifying the Star Wars universe. You know, she obviously, she's a woman. The person who heads the story group is Kiri Hart. She's also a woman who is overseeing, like, she manages to make sure that the rebels animated series and the books and all of the ancillary stuff and all the films kind of match up and don't cancel out anybody's story and don't step on each other's toes. So you have the head of the story group who's a woman. And, you know, they don't have any female filmmakers lined up yet, but Kathy has said she wants to do that and wants to make sure that's a priority. But they made the main character of The Force Awakens, a young girl, a young woman, Daisy Ridley's character Ray, this desert scavenger who's a lot like Luke Skywalker was in the original film. And Rogue One is another film that has a female lead and, you know, a very diverse, globally diverse ensemble cast. So I think she has tried really hard to diversify, to make sure that girls and boys are allowed to play, that it doesn't matter what color you are or where you're from, there's room for you in this galaxy. Another thing I failed to mention here is The Force Awakens. The three main leads, you have Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, this X-Wing fighter, Oscar was born in Guatemala, you have John Boyega, who is Finn, the runaway Stormtrooper, he's a black man, you know, leading the Star Wars universe instead of just being a supporting character, not that Lando Calrissian wasn't cool as hell. But these are your three leads, and I think it's wonderful that the three leads open the world up to people who aren't necessarily just white guys like me. Who are you, I'm no one, I was raised to do one thing, but I've got nothing to fight for. And what about JJ Abrams, what is he going to bring to this and is he a good choice you think? You know, I think so, again, I'm waiting to see The Force Awakens, I can't pass judgement on the movie until then, but everything we've seen of it so far and everything he has said seems to speak to the heart of what the die-heart fans really want from this series. He takes it seriously, he also gets that you can't take it too seriously, and I think the perfect example of his connection to both the future of Star Wars and its past was a year ago, last December, he wanted to put out the names of the characters, and at this point, if you recall, they put out the first teaser trailer in late November, in the US it was the day after Thanksgiving, a big holiday here, and he put out the teaser trailer, but we didn't know who that rolly-poly droid was, or who this guy sweating it out in a stormtrooper uniform was, or who this young woman was riding a speeder through the desert, we just didn't know who they were. About two weeks after that, he wanted to put out the names of the characters, and I was fortunate enough, you know, he knew my work, and we connected, and he wanted to reveal that through Entertainment Weekly, and I thought he was just going to give me a list of the names, and that would be that, but he said, "Listen, I'm going to email you something, I want you to call me back after you open the email and tell me what you think." And I get this email, and it is these tops trading cards, like baseball cards, with images from the trailer that have the names of the character, you know, Rey on the go. Kylo Ren ignites his saber, and it was the coolest thing because I remember having those little trading cards. Yes, they're originals. Well, they looked like the originals, they were mocked up, they weren't even real cards, I think they've since been turned into real cards, but they were the, you know, like we discussed earlier, you wouldn't necessarily have access to the movies back in the early 80s or late 70s, unless you went back to the theater, but having those trading cards was a way to remember, like, "Oh, yeah, here's this scene with the, with the Jabba, and here's this scene where Aunt Solo gets frozen in carbonite." So it looked just like that. So he was really pushing the nostalgia button super hard with all the fans by revealing the names this way. So I called him back, of course, and said, "I love these, I can't wait to post them." We put them up on ew.com that day, and people just loved it. They just loved seeing the names revealed in that way, as opposed to, like, a press release, you know, they just would have said, "Here's who's who," or listing them quietly on IMDB and waiting for somebody to discover that. He really, he really gave it to the fans in a way that tickled them, and I think he has, as much as people complain about the secrecy, they love the secrecy. He has stoked so much enthusiasm for the movie, and people are going into this film. I'm as deep into it as it gets, and I don't know where this story is going. And I think that's a wonderful way to experience a film. Another thing he's done, or they've done, is the fact that they got the so much of the original legendary cast, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Kerry Fisher. How do you know anything about how hard it was getting them on board? And this must be huge for the franchise. I think so, and I think it really is important to the veteran, to the longtime fans, that those characters and those actors be a part of it. It was, I wouldn't say it was easy. It doesn't sound like it was incredibly hard long before Cathy Kennedy and George Lucas sold the company to Disney. They began work on this idea that we'll start making new Star Wars films, and we want to follow up post-Return of the Jedi. That means where is Han Solo, where is Leia, where is Luke. And so even before they sold the company, they had meetings with Mark Hamill and Kerry Fisher and Harrison Ford, and secured their commitment, essentially. I don't know how locked in it was, whether they, obviously there was no script at that point, but they got them interested enough to say, yes, we will be in the film, let's work out a deal. And they were locked in before the deal, they were part of the package that was sold to Disney, their interest and commitment. So even though they played coy, the studio and the actors about, well, maybe we'll be in, maybe not, they were pretty much committed from the get-go. Yeah, that must have been a major thing for them then, to go moving forward. I think it was key to Disney being interested in returning to this universe. Okay, let's talk a little bit about what to give us some, but what do you know about the basic plot? Well... We're interested, and we won't tell anyone. Again, I'm not holding back on you, but I don't know so much where the story goes. I certainly don't know where it ends up, but, you know, we have three main new characters. You have Rey, Daisy Ridley's character, who is this young woman who was abandoned around the age of five on this world known as Jakku, which is a desert planet that's basically a junkyard planet, because after the events of Return of the Jedi, there was a massive knockdown drag-out fight between the rebellion and the empire. It took place over this world, and so the sand dunes and deserts of Jakku are littered with fallen star destroyers. It's basically like, you know, imagine what's underwater at Pearl Harbor, that's Jakku only without the water. They don't need to have a drop of water on this planet. So, Rey, you know, subsists by scavenging equipment and gear and metal from these fallen star destroyers, and she's just wondering, she's waiting on this world wondering why she was left there, and doesn't want to leave because she keeps expecting her family to come back for her, and she encounters a runaway stormtrooper, played by John Boyega, named Finn, who has been, he's essentially a child soldier. He was born and bred and raised to be a stormtrooper for this imperial remnant known as the First Order, but he doesn't believe in it, and he goes AWOL, and we're not quite sure under what circumstances he decides to flee. You know, we've seen him in the trailer sweating and taking his helmet off, and he crash lands this tie fighter on the desert world and goes on the run, but, you know, he's been, we've seen him in panic mode so much that, you know, how we have the droid BB-8, people were calling him Hyperventilate, like, so he mates up with Rey, and then they go on an adventure together and eventually meet up with Han Solo and Chewbacca. And the big question from the trailers and the posters, where the hell is Luke Skywalker? Well, that's a good, it's a very good question, and it's one that they say the movie will answer, which leads me to believe that where is Luke Skywalker is the quest that they're on? What happened to him? How is he? Where is he? What's going on? We don't know the exact circumstances of his disappearance, but the movie will answer that, and I believe this film will be the search for Luke Skywalker. You have that power too. What do you think the legacy, you mentioned the sort of difference between the look of this, what do you think the legacy of the prequels is going to be? I think it's a mixed legacy for the prequels. There are some fans who really love them, and they are, I would say, equally matched in passion by the people who strongly dislike them. I think if you go back and watch those three movies again, there's a lot to dislike about the performances, about the dialogue. I also think that the criticism is a bit extreme, especially for the latter two. I think there's more to enjoy about them than they get credit for, and so I think what they actually stand for is somewhere in the middle. I think they're okay to pretty good in terms of revenge of the Sith and attack of the clones, but the flaws in them are so pronounced that it makes it hard to embrace them, but there are people who really adore them and enjoy them a lot. I think that they could have been better. They could have been, I think, the visual effects at the time were a bit extreme, especially given that they were 1999 to 2005 visual effects, which have changed a lot. They changed a lot year to year, let alone over 10 years, so I think we look back at them and say, "Oh, they overdid it on the special effects." Well, at the time, that was cutting edge, and I think it's only in retrospect now that we see the seams there in the work that was done, but I'm not sure that Anakin Skywalker was performed very well, and I think that frustrated a lot of people, but there's still some cool stuff in those films. There's some major high expectations with this movie now, and I mean Kathleen Kenning, the whole company there. There's so much writing. They have so many other films coming up writing, and they say, "What happens if it's not the success that they expect it to be?" If it's not a good film, I don't know what happens. I think there will be major disappointment for people. Everything we've seen so far has been so promising, but it's only been about three minutes of footage, so that's a lot of margin for error. I think expectations can get so high that no film can maybe meet them, so I think people should go in and hope for an entertaining story, but is it going to change your life? Is it going to redefine filmmaking? I don't think so. Is there a good chance that it takes you back to that feeling you had originally watching Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi? Yeah, I think there's a pretty good chance of that, and I think if that, if we can manage our expectations at that point, my hopes are very high. Right, but also out of a business sense, they have so much writing on this with so many other movies coming down of this. Yes, well, I don't think that's much of a risk. I think people really want to come and check out these movies, even if they're bad, even the prequels, which, again, had people who strongly disliked them did spectacular business around the world, and so there's not much chance that you're not going to get, like they'll say, "Well, it didn't make enough money, let's not make a sequel." Right, they're making it. They're making it. The merchandise and all the parties. We already bought a BB-8. My boys. Yeah. Do you have the Sphero BB-8? Yes, of course. Yeah, it's a lot of fun, you know, and I think they're capturing the fun and the adventure of it all. They seem to be creating characters that people connect with before they know anything about them. Like Daisy Ridley was telling me how shocked she was that, you know, how many kids dressed up as Rey for Halloween, she's like, "They don't even know who Rey is." How are they connecting with her so much? But I think JJ and Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote Empire Strikes Back and Return to the Jedi, and co-wrote The Force Awakens, are really tapping into a nostalgia and a love and affection for those early films, and they're also tapping into the mythic quality of those movies in a way that people are digging. People are enjoying. When do you get to? When did the review it? When does the press get to see it? Well, that's when I keep asking, "When am I going to get it?" You know, it's, you know, the day I interviewed JJ most recently was the day after he locked the edit on the film. What was that? That was November, the night of November 2nd, he locked the edit around midnight, and the next morning I was at Bad Robots Offices, that's his production company in Santa Monica, waiting to interview him, and I was, the interview was postponed for a couple of hours while he finished looking at some visual effects shots with his team. You know, they go, they just go through almost like we do with these gifts or gifs, you know, from the trailer where they watch just one shot over and over and they try to catch any flaws and the visual effects or make any adjustments. So what that means is the edit is locked. They know what the story is, they know what all the cuts are, now they have to go through and put all the finishing touches on sound, music, loop, any dialogue that may be muddled and needs to be clarified with the actors, and then they will, you know, go through and polish all of the visual effects now that they know exactly what's going to be in the movie. And that whole process is going to take them into the first week of December or the final days of November. So they have a few more weeks to go before it's, you know, it's ready to be seen. And then I do think they're not screening it for awards consideration. All of these sort of smaller awards where if you're an indie film, it helps to get the National Board of Review Award because it just puts you on the radar of the voters for the Academy Awards, which is all anybody really cares about. I don't think they care too much about, you know, all of these critics groups or any of that stuff. They're not going to break their embargo on the film to show it to those guys in advance for the sake of collecting a trophy. I would expect them to start screening the film for critics a few days ahead of its release. Usually that's a sign that the movie's in trouble or they don't want reviews out there. I think it's more to maintain secrecy. They've done it so long and so well. I think to start screening it two weeks early for critics really risks all of those secrets just coming out and everybody knowing what's in store for the movie. It makes it harder even for the people who want to avoid reading those things to miss them because so many people will be talking about them. So I know I might be firing up some of my critic friends who say, "Well, I could be trusted with it." You know, there was a case a few years back with the girl with the Dragon Tattoo where David Denby, he saw an early screening of it and he broke the review embargo. You know, they set these embargoes so all of the critics can go at the same time. It's a way of maintaining fairness and they're kind of on the honor system and Denby broke the embargo, published his review of this film because there was such demand to know how this adaptation of a best-selling book turned out. And it was just, I suppose, in his, it was worth it, the consequences for breaking the embargo to get that scoop, essentially. I think the benefits of running the first or one of the first Star Wars reviews would far outweigh the consequences for any critics. So the studio has to take that into consideration and maybe not show anyone until closer to release. Again, just for the sake of maintaining secrecy, but you know, I think that's on the integrity of the journalists and hopefully they won't spoil it for people. I'm going to be talking to Roger Kristin, who designed, was part of the team in '77, designing the practical sets, doing everything. This seems to have another retro approach again compared to the prequels. Would you say? Absolutely. I mean, he won an Academy Award for his work designing and set decorating on the original Star Wars and they're going after a lot of the similar looks to the work he did. Obviously, it's 30 years after Return of the Jedi, so things have changed, technology has changed a bit, and the designs are a little bit different, but his work is very much alive in this film, and he's a fascinating character for sure. His influence on Star Wars is massive, and in addition with Ralph McQuarrie, one of the original concept artists, he's done some phenomenal work in this galaxy far, far away. He's also, interestingly, he was very close with George Lucas, and he made a short film in 1980 called Black Angel. It was sort of a medieval sword and sorcery film about a knight who returns, I believe he's returning from the Crusades, and he encounters this sort of supernatural, terrifying, dark knight who is holding a damsel in distress, a literal damsel in distress, captive. That was made as a short film to accompany the Empire Strikes Back in 1980, and then it was lost for a long time, and now he is on his own quest to make a full-length feature version of Black Angel. So his journey is a very interesting one. This was so much fun, and thank you for taking this time. It's my pleasure. It's a good talk to you, Christina. And now, one of the true visionaries of the Star Wars universe, Academy Award winner Roger Christian. Roger Christian and production designer John Berry first met George Lucas in Mexico, where they were building sets based on 1930s America for the film Lucky Lady. This meeting would lead to a longtime collaboration with Lucas. From Star Wars, they worked together on Return of the Jedi, and Mr. Christian was also second unit director on The Phantom Menace. He was the art director on Monty Python's Life of Brian, and was Oscar-nominated for his art direction on Ridley Scott's Alien, where his work on the Nostromo is stuff of space film legend. Roger Christian's directing credits include the pretty much universally panned battlefield Earth with John Travolta and forced Whittaker, and the film Nostradamus with Julia Armand. There's no doubt that Roger Christian has been part of creating cinema history with Star Wars, from the first prototype of R2D2, to all the weapons, lightsabers, and the interior of the Millennium Falcon. This is magic that has been part of a whole generation's love for this film franchise, including Force Awakens director himself, J.J. Abrams. Mr. Roger Christian, thank you so much for being here. Not at all, very nice to be here today. Can you feel just beginning with this and see your designs, the history that you guys made and whatever you've seen from the new J.J. Abrams, Force Awakens? Oh, yes, definitely. I think he's been very reverent to go back to really what I think a lot of the fans have always asked for, which was the first one had a special kind of western used quality. And you can see in the way that he's gone back to making a lot of the ships, and the sets, and the props, to be actually a functional on-set rather than relying on CGI. So it's very apparent seeing it now that he's gone a long way towards trying to recreate what we had on that first one. How did you first come to George Lucas' attention? I was working with the designer John Barry in Mexico, and Leslie, the other art director, who was involved. And we were doing a 1920s run-running film set in that era in America, and they were very kind of -- it was set with run-running between Mexico and Los Angeles, and a lot of the sets were pretty dusty and almost work in life. And the writers of that script were Gloria and Willard Hike, and they'd done some work with George. They were all students together and knew, and they'd done some character development work for George for Star Wars. So Gloria and Willard had written "Lucky Lady," and they were down on set all the time, and they'd become very good friends with John Barry and myself. So they suggested to George he fly down and meet us, and that's what happened. I was set decorating a very old salt factory where salt was loaded onto trucks and taken because it was a very valuable commodity in those days. And the car arrived and out get George Lucas looking like a student, including The Chambas Me, and Gary Kurtz. And he came and looked at this, and was absolutely surprised to find it was a set. It wasn't real. All paid. It was -- the lettering was all appealing, and it looked age-aged. And we had a quick discussion about science fiction, and I said, "You know, my vision of science fiction, I disliked what I've seen so far. It's all shiny and plastic that guns don't work. Audiences I didn't think believed in it, and that ships should be like cars that have been repaired and repaired over again, and dripped oil." And he said, "That's what I'm trying to do." So we had dinner with George that night, and then as soon as the film finished, John Barry said, "George has asked us to do the film with him, and we have to be in London on August the 13th." And we start, that's how it came about. He was clear of what he wanted the look to be. Very right up front, yeah. And he'd been developing the look with Ralph Macquarie, who's really one of the big, huge Amazon heroes of Star Wars. He, George, would come up with ideas for the script, and Ralph would draw them and paint them and make his visions kind of work. So when George arrived in London in August, he came with eight Ralph Macquarie sketches in the script, and those sketches really had the reference for us, especially for scale of R2D2C3P over landscape tattooing those things. They were all in those drawings, and that's the connection, really, of how, because it's very hard. Ralph said, "You're doing a period film in the 1800s, you go to reference books, you know, and in the script it says, and you know what pictures to get and what furniture to get, how the sets would look. With science fiction, there's absolutely, especially when we made Star Wars, there was no reference point backwards. There was nothing to point to and say, "Oh, it should be like that." So you're relying on a director trying to kind of say what he wanted, but didn't exist. What did you start with? What was the first set? No, the first, we didn't start with sets. We had four months. George paid us with money. He was owed from American graffiti, and there was John Barry, myself, Los Billy, Robert Watson was the line producer, and George and Gary were in a tiny studios in London for four months, just trying to work out how on earth to make this film. We decided that without R2D2, the film didn't work, and C3PO, so we made a mock-up R2D2 in wood. That's the first thing we ever did. We had no money. The carpenter I had had plywood at home that we built using his wood, and I found an old land top in the scrap pile, and that was exactly the size for the head. He has little arms on the front. I carved those myself for the pen knife at night, because we couldn't do it. We found Kenny Baker, who was the only one who was three-foot-eight, and also was strong enough we knew to work R2D2, so we built the second one around him once we cast him. That was developed to try and make him work. I decided to go off on my own one, then. I got a sterling submachine gun, which I love the shape of. I went to the gun hide place I used, and stuck some t-shirt around the barrel on the gun site I found in the scrap pile, stuck that together, and then I thought the description of Han Solo is like a Western hero, and I found the Mauser gun, which I love the look of, and though it was dark, it actually had a wooden hand grip, and I stuck another sight on that, and a few bits and pieces of cord George over it, so you'd better come and have a look, because this is how I imagined the weapon should be. He came and smiled, and that was it, and stayed with me, and we stuck with Superglue. We made Princess Leia's gun together, and that was how I developed all the weapons before we ever went to EMI studios and started building sets that Fox firmly gleaned at the picture in January. Right. I don't understand. There's a Monty Python connection with R2D2. Well, Bill Harmon, the carpenter I hired, used to be there kind of making all for Monty Python, so he made all the props, and their special effects, and built sets for the things like that. So I knew that Bill could do it, so he came and worked for us here, and we made a very rough mock-up of the land speeder, of Luke's land speeder, using the first one was using wheelbarrow wheels, and polystyrene, and bits of old timber, and we just were trying to get the scale right in the look that would satisfy kind of George's vision and what we could actually make. So we developed them all like that, and a sculptor is more she sculpted, we had a tiny studio there, and she sculpted about 12 versions of C3PO's head, and then we kept building those and building those until it looked almost like Ralph McQuarris, and one day George saw two English pennies, it never quite worked, and he stuck them in the eyes in the clay, and there he was, there was C3PO, that's how he came about. Could you feel when you were doing things with pennies and with the things you were finding and sculptor? Could you somehow feel that this is going to be good, this is going to be, were you feeling this is a serious, it would be the epic that it was? I did, because I grew up with myth and magic, and King Arthur was my favourite, and a scalloper, and I knew what was under the surface on this, and this to me was like a joy, this is what I had always dreamt of, even as a kid, I used to get my dinky toys and repaint them and put stings onto them and stuck them to make them look more real than they were as they were as toys. So for me, yeah, with an absolute joy, I'm for John Barry, the designer, I mean we both, George says, when I saw him a few years back, one of the times, he said that there were really only five people stuck by his side and knew what he was actually doing, and that was us, that we wouldn't just fear in the art department, because nobody else got it, because nothing had ever been made like that, and science fiction was not to be like that, it wasn't supposed to be used and old, it was all shiny and plastic and new, and so there was a definite feeling for me of, finally, we're conquering and creating a new era of how things should be for an audience. Your profession, your art seems to be a lot, built on a lot of mentoring and people influence, who have been some of your influences? Oh, major, I mean, when I was at art school, I went one day to London and I watched Dr. Gergo, and I naturally out of body experience, I just love this film so much, and I knew no one in the film industry, I couldn't get a job, and I finally threw a series of deaf opinion connections, and people helping me, I ended up with the T-boy for John Box, and John Box designed Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Jabhaga. We were on Oliver, and I think John taught me more than anyone, he was, and I came in from art school, an architecture school with a head on my shoulders and clubed on boots, and I was watching Bergman and Fellini and Passolini, and they looked at me completely good news, like what are you talking about, and this was suits and ties in those days. John mentored me through and protected me all the way through the making of Oliver and helped me no end, and the man who did the ice palace in Dr. Jabhaga, the art director, he gave me my second boost as a set decorator, he recognized that's what I should be doing, and I owe them really a huge amount. I'd like to go back and talk about a scene that was really stuck with me as a kid when I saw Star Wars for the first time, and it was a bit jarring actually, and I noticed that with my two young sons as well, that it's quite an incredible scene, and that's the garbage compactor scene, where Han, Luke, and Leia are thrown into the garbage compactor, and the walls start coming in on them, and it's still, when I look at it now with them, it is kind of, it's incredible, tell me a little bit about how you made that scene and what went into it. That was one of the more difficult ones for me, because, I mean, those days we didn't use computer stuff or anything, so the walls were pushed in by grips on the side, it was simple stuff, but it was in a stage that had a tank that we filled with water, so I knew I had to have actors in there with all this garbage, and with the walls coming in, they could easily get hurt, so I had to create so much garbage, trying to use soft pieces of what looked like scrap, and, you know, when you do polystyrene, if it breaks, it's white inside, it's very hard to have that look real, so I found ways of injecting colour into it, so it broke, it would keep its colour, and for instance, I mean, this is where low budget filming comes in, the Han Solo has to put a huge bar across and prevent the two walls coming and it's bending, I couldn't get anything that long, so I got two pieces of grain pipe, or the water pipes on houses, and I found something to join them, and it was never stable, and I went hand to Harrison and said that Harrison, I've got the best I can, you're going to have to help me out here, so he made it work, he actually held it so they didn't fall apart, and made it work, it was pretty hard to do that one, actually, it's one of the more difficult sets, yeah, and I asked you about the Millennium Falcon, which has really sort of been a staple of, you designed the interior of that, and how did you do that on such a tight budget as you've been explaining? Well that was during my time in the four months before, and I was using bits of scrap to stick on to R2D2 and doing the guns, and I broke down what I needed for the sets, and I said to John Barry and to George Lucas, I said I can't afford to dress the interiors, I can't afford to build it in the studios, my budget's so small, and I said I have got an idea though, if I buy a ton of aeroplane scrap and junk calculators, I think if I got them in and open down the full of the most interesting pieces, if I buy 10 jet engines, for instance, I would get a lot of duplicate pieces, if we stick those into the sets, I said I think I can give the look you want, and at that point no one wanted aeroplane scrap, and it was sold by weight, and aeroplanes are very light, so I could buy truckloads for very small amount of money, so that's what I did, because they thought I was mad, I mean instead of chairs and carpets and curtains coming in the prop rooms, there were trailer loads of aeroplane junk, and our prop men were breaking them down, and I did the whole set where they play chess, and the Millennium Hulk and Copic first, and believe me, it eats up junk, we taught the boys how to do it, so it looked like it was engineered, it wasn't just randomly stuck in there, and it ate up the scrap for weeks and weeks, and it doesn't look very good while you're doing it, until you get it all in, and then you spray it a same colour, and put on electrostep little numbers and things, then it kind of works, so with the Millennium Hulk and Copic, for instance, Harold Lang was an art director on 2001, so the basic look was that kind of panels, so he did that, and then I came in and really messed it up, I had all fighter pilots' seats, and I put a couple of those at the back, and then I was dressing in my scrap, all the controls that Hans used, and Chewbacca to fly, those I stuck in and made them work, and then when I finished it, I took George down to see it, and finally it was done, and he smiled as he does, and that's it, that's massive approval, and I said, "George, I've got an idea, because on Americans of Haiti, in Ron Howard's car, he hung some dice, they were a pretty big one, and everyone in America had dice hanging their cars at that time," and I said, "I think for luck, it will personalise it to Han Solo if we hung some dice in here," and he said, "That's a great idea," and I said also for luck, because Americans of Haiti was work, so I showed him six different furry ones and purple ones and chrome ones and plastic ones, and he chose a pair of little chrome ones that we hung in there, so the first two or three shots in Star Wars, they're there, and then the cameraman took them out for some reason, and I wasn't around, I was doing other sets, and they never got put back. But you can see them in the beginning there. You can see at the beginning, I was on Reddit doing the Ask Me End of Bing on Star Wars, and I mentioned this story immediately came in as if you've seen the new Vanity Fair cover on the new Star Wars 7, and I looked, and there are the dice. Great. And apparently, JJ Abrahams had seen them and had an assistant search for weeks and weeks and found the exact ones that I did, somehow they found the same type, and he hung them, so they're now back in Star Wars 7. So they're showing some well deserved love to the Korean, because they haven't, do you know if they've made any other changes to, for example, the Millennium Falcon, or is it keeping the same? It looks pretty much the same, I think it works better. The levers that Hans was using, the pilot, the ship were just stuck in there, and he had to hold it because they'd fallen off, and now I think all of that is better, that are made. But it looks pretty similar. You've been involved in several major, really, film historic movies about space. There's Star Wars, there's Alien, and you also did Battlefield Earth, with maybe people I feel different about, but still, how do they differ, would you say, sort of mythology-wise about space? How have these been different for you? Well, I think, you know, Ridley, I was on Life of Brian, and then that collapsed the first time round. The thunders pulled out, and Ridley called me himself, a person who said, "Get down the shepherd, and now I need you," and I went down and took my prop man, and we created the interiors of the entire Nostromo for him, in the same way I used scrap airplanes, and this time, Ridley wanted, like, an army truck, so we sprayed it all green, and they did that work. And I think, I put it right on Alien, I think that was the one that really broke through, and I think audiences never, ever questioned that we'd gone into a real old spaceship, and I think that was a turning point. Would that have budget restraints as well? Yeah, it felt it was like $6 million Fox, Fox Although Star Wars was a huge success. Here came a director making an R-rated science fiction film, First One Ever, so they, again, were very nervous about it, actually, if it would work, so our budget was about $6 million, even in those days, it was nothing, and Fox kept cutting the budget down as things were costing. Because on a film like that, it's all about the construction, that's the major cost of the film. So they look at that big lump and keep saying, "Well, this is too much, we'll cut that down." It was a huge struggle to make, but I think, you know, it's somehow, like, First Star Wars and Alien, they kind of show on the screen that there's somehow passion and blood that's gone into making them, and Battlefield was the same. I mean, this is, I'd been accused by the LA Times had been delusional, because we made that film for $21 million, 23 went on actors and fees and things, but all I ever had was 21 for everything, and the LA Times keeps calling me delusional, saying, "We know it was a $75 million budget, it wasn't." We showed it, for Walter and I showed it at ILM and to George immediately came and said, "How did you do this? I want to know how did you do this for this money? I need to know what you've done. How can you do special effects like this for $9 million?" I had a simple answer, which was, "I don't know an ILM. We created our own ILM in Montreal and did it ourselves with a lot of model shots, a lot of the old techniques of making films. It's nothing to do with Scientology, I'm not a Scientologist, nor is it going to do that nor does it matter." Tom Hanks makes a film, no one goes out, says, "Oh wow, it's a Baptist film, we can't go to see that." We were ahead of our time again, that's what most people have said. I was trying to do a graphic novel and make it fun and it got slammed for reasons that are there, so it's something I can do, you make them and throw them out and carry on. But the Nostromo and the things you did for Star Wars really sort of changed our perception of space and space movies. The prequels to Star Wars have been very criticized, I would say, or at least fans haven't appreciated very much. They didn't have that original look. Do you agree? Do you think that was the wrong direction for them to go? I did second unit on Jedi and I did a lot of shooting of walkies and things which George loves. I mean, George's target audience is nine years old and he always says, "It's not my fault that adults happen to like them as well." And the prequel, I was the second unit director for Phantom Medicine. In fact, we had two units shooting side by side and George had to leave at the end, so I finished as first unit director for the last few days, I had to finish the film off. It still had an element of the first one, a lot was built, but at the same time, there was more blue screen per hour two units than I think anyone's ever seen, certainly in Britain at the time. And George was always ahead of techniques that were available. He was roped and made people catch up with him. I personally prefer the first one. It's not just because I was so much a part of that one, but I'd like that dusty western kind of reality. And I think what engaged the audience was it had a very few characters that you followed and believed in, whereas the prequels that went on got bigger and bigger with huge robot armies and massive CGI. And by that time, people were figuring out this is CGI, this is not actually real. And I think the first one, an alien felt so real to people, and I think that connection became more distant, so that may have been part of the reason why people were looking back. And they seem to be going back to your original feel now in seven. Yeah, very much. I'm amazed at how reference JJ's been and how much, and I think he's very, very smart. He's a very intelligent director, and he's realized that this is Star Wars. This is what people remember, and a lot of people feel like it's like Empire Strikes Back best, because it's a huge filmmaking kind of exercise and amazing stuff in it. But audiences like the first one, and I think he grew up, he's an absolute Star Wars geek, and it shows he loves this world, and he wanted to help to recreate it and bring it back. And I think that's a very intelligent move by his path. And my last question, Mr. Kristin, what would you say is the key to this enduring, this love of Star Wars since 1977, and people just waiting like crazy now for the next one so many years after? Because Joseph Campbell is the great mythologist. He wrote all his life. He studied mythology, and his book of Hero with a Thousand Faces showed that in the end there's one main hero's story, and there's many versions of it in different countries all over the world. They all help their own fantasy tales. You know, Britain really has King Arthur, India has the Mabharata. You know, when you go through different countries and their mythologies, and they're very important to human beings growing up, there are keys buried in all of these legends that help you find yourself and find your way. And Joseph Campbell did a whole series of lectures on myth, all filmed in George's library at Skywalker. And one of them is on Star Wars and George, and these states in there that George is the only true living myth maker today. And I think that's true, and I think it's George's amazing creative ability was to take a deep mythology and bury it into a kind of surface ride that you just loved going on, which is exactly what King Arthur was. And I think out of, you know, Peter Jackson comes close, I have to say, but I think that George was able to do it, you know, King Arthur's a story for children really, and George was able to do that and bring that back to audiences, who probably don't realize subconsciously what they're watching or what is connecting to them. It's a feeling. Yeah, because every boy, you know, thinks, at some point, maybe he's not my parents, maybe I'm part of some other thing, and maybe in all of us, there's a point where we choose destiny, we choose which way we're going to do and who we are, and Luke has that moment with the twin sons, with the music, and you can tell there is the moment, and Obi-Wan presents him with his father's lightsaber, that's the moment for him where he's going to go and choose a destiny that everyone is telling him not to do, stay on the farm and be a good fanboy. I think those things really play into this, and every woman wanted to be Princess Leia, there's this fighting kind of rebel princess fighting the huge corporations and trying to divide with a human approach with her planet, so the archetype figures, Darth Vader is the evil Satan, I mean he is the evil that's inside all of us, and that is very well developed by George when it comes, you know, I am your father, so I think those things are really important. Will you be seeing Force Awakens? Yeah, yeah, I'm ready to go, I have to go, but I booked it even though the sights crashed, I managed to get my life, and I'm not sure what they're doing yet, or if they're doing premiers in Toronto where I am, but I just in case, if I go, then I've got it anyway. Well, yeah, I have to go to the cinema and watch this. Of course, do you know who's doing the set decor, who's taking over? On this one, no, you know what I don't know, actually I should look and see, actually that's a good question. Yes, you have to find out, you can continue. This was so much fun, I'm really honoured to bet this opportunity to talk to you, and you really made film history, and thank you so much for taking your time. Thank you so much to Entertainment Weekly's Anthony Brznickin and Roger Kristin. Star Wars The Force Awakens premieres worldwide in December. Send us your Star Wars memories and your thoughts on the show to our Twitter page @PoddPopCulture. This episode was edited by Tom Hanson, music by Call Boy, and produced by René Vitestadt and myself. I'm Kristina Yerling-Biro, may the Force be with you. Hello podcast fans, it is I, Bruce Villanche. For over 25 years, I worked on the Academy Awards, so you didn't have to. In that time I've seen and heard things that should not be seen or heard or certainly built. And now, for the first time, I'm sharing all my behind the scenes stories and firsthand knowledge about the Oscars, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the slap, all the things you didn't see. So join me as I use humor and insight to break down the Oscar Awards of the past to explain how and why your favourite movie didn't win. Why some actors and some directors had to fire their agents and how the whole process works or sometimes doesn't work. This is the Oscars, what were they thinking? Available wherever you get podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]