By Ed Naha - June - 1980

BEYOND STAR WARS
 
Master Illustrator Ralph McQuarrie designs widescreen wonders for The Empire Strikes Back, the long-awaited Star Wars sequel.

“I want to give young people some sort of faraway, exotic environment for their imaginations to run free,” filmmaker George Lucas commented in 1977. “I have a strong feeling about interesting people in space exploration. I want them to get beyond the basic stupidities of the moment and think about colonizing Venus and Mars. And the only way it's going to happen is to have some kid fantasize about getting his ray gun, jumping in his spacesuit and flying off into outer space.”

The resulting product of Lucas’ fertile imagination was Star Wars, a swashbuckling widescreen space opera that took the movie industry by surprise and the nation by storm. The biggest money-maker in the history of the American cinema, Star Wars introduced millions of fantasy fans to the world of extra­terrestrial idealism; inspiring some movie­goers to see the film eight, ten and twelve times. And just what was the key ingredient of Star Wars' success?

According to Lucas, it presented an “intergalactic dream of heroism” to all those young at heart enough to enjoy it. The film traced the efforts of the young Luke Skywalker, pilot Han Solo, intrepid Princess Leia, hirsute Wookiee Chewbacca and faithful droids R2-D2 and C3PO in their struggle to overthrow the neo-Nazi galactic government - the Empire.

Now, after three years, Skywalker and his impavid peers are back in an all new Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back. The $20 million production once again pits the stalwart rebel forces against the Empire's most deadly ambassador, Darth Vader. In this outing, Vader and company are still in­censed over the rebels’ destruction of the Empire's all-important doomsday machine, the Death Star. Tracking the rebel forces to the ice planet of Hoth, the Empire lashes out against the galactic guerrillas with lightning speed. Luke, Han and company seek refuge in the floating city of Bespin where, aided by space rogue Lando Calrissian, they plot their strategy for their next head-on clash with Vader's villains.

Once more, Skywalker’s adventures appear to be out-of-this-world both in terms of scope and design. And, once again, helping producers George Lucas and Gary Kurtz achieve their cerebral spaciness on screen is designer Ralph McQuarrie. As production illustrator for the original Star Wars, the former Boeing artist conjured up some of the film's most memorable fantastic elements: the sleek look of evil Darth Vader, the Merlin-esque figure of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the monolithic menace of the Sandcrawler. Continuing in his creative role for Empire, artist McQuarrie has concocted some equally impressive sights for 1980’s science fiction epic.





“I worked on almost everything,” says McQuarrie from his West Coast studio, “There were only a few scenes in the film that I didn't contribute to. But,” he hastens to add, “there were also some things that I designed for the film that were subsequently dropped, usually because the space on the sound stage wasn't adequate, or the designs would have been too expensive to build for the small amount of time they would have appeared on the screen.

“There were a few designs for this picture that I was disappointed didn't make it into the movie. But, I really can't talk about them. I don't want to spoil any surprises.”

The artist emits a soft chuckle. Apparently, working with executive producer Lucas is almost as invigorating an adventure as any enjoyed by Skywalker on celluloid. “It's a pretty unique working situation,” McQuarrie concedes. “I am production illustrator and my job was designing. But I'm certainly not the final say on anything. I contribute my ideas. George, the production designer and the illustrators then use my stuff as a sort of reference. It's a constant process of change. For instance, there are always some areas where George has not quite decided on what he really wants. He wants to explore any and all possibilities in order to get the best results possible. This, of course, entails a lot more work in terms of design.

“On this movie, we started designing before we had a finished script. We were working on instructions from George. It was all pretty mysterious at times. We didn't know exactly what was going to be used or how. One example. I was working on the design of an animal called the tauntaun. It's this large beast that Luke rides around on. I thought it was going to be used in the middle of the desert. As it turns out, it's an animal that has to function in the snow! So,” he adds with a laugh, “I took back the beast and winterized it. Later, Phil Tippet redesigned it and improved it quite a lot for the snow.

“We worked almost a year just on the pre-production art before everything was finalized and taken to England where the sets were being constructed. As we worked more and more on the movie designs, we changed things more and more, improving elements constantly, We practically were working down to the last minute.”

The Empire Strikes Back, the second of Lucas’ nine proposed Star Wars-related film fantasies, was a challenging project from its inception. Adding to the hectic activity on the movie were several unexpected problems. Writer Leigh Brackett died shortly before completing the final draft of the script. During the early days of production, an avalanche in Norway stranded 80 cast and crew members for two days before rescue parties could dig them out. Yet, the filmmakers persevered and, in the finished film, several of artist McQuarrie’s more incredible designs will be unveiled in all their widescreen glory.





“I worked the hardest on the cloud city of Bespin,” says the illustrator. “I designed the city itself and the entire environment. In a way, it's a holdover from the first film. It's grown quite a bit since its original design. It's now quite a huge place. It's an ancient city, an incredible sight. It floats through the sky because of this huge anti-gravity design. Various peoples have occupied it through its thousands of years of existence. It was originally a mining community, although we don't stress this fact in the script.” McQuarrie reflects for a moment. “I don't really know what a city in the clouds could mine anyway. Maybe gas. It's just a very picturesque and beautiful location.

“I also designed some pretty bizarre characters for the cloud city. There's this one fellow that everyone came to call 'pig man.' He's a pretty strange monster-like creature.”

From the sky above, McQuarrie turned his attention to the land below, contributing quite a few design elements to the frigid fortress occupied by the rebels on the ice planet Hoth. “I worked on a lot of the equipment used on Hoth, both by the rebels and the Empire. I did very little vehicle work on the first film, although the Sandcrawler was pretty much based on my sketches. This time, I designed the armored speeders that the rebels use to combat the Empire's forces. They’re low-level fighters. They’re comparable to the vehicles called ‘tank busters’ during World War II. I also designed the probot, a large, spider-like craft that patrols the surface of the planet.

“I did some work on the bog planet that I'm very proud of,” he states. “I enjoyed the sketches more than the finished paintings. The bog planet is a jungle-like forest world. I conceived it as a sort of petrified tree world. Those trees have endured the elements for thousands of years and are now dead and gnarled. They tower over the swamp below.”

Together with peers Norman Reynolds and Joseph Johnson, McQuarrie has once again helped Lucas and Kurtz envision the unimaginable... a return trip to a time long ago and a galaxy far away. And, in a very unegotistical way, McQuarrie is very proud of the finished results. “Sometimes the finished product differs a great deal from my paintings,” he shrugs. “Sometimes not at all. Regardless, the finished movie will be the result of teamwork involving some of the most creative people in the movie industry to-day. I'm happy to be a part of it.” 

TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd.

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