Stars In His Eyes

So the most important question is how many bottles of wine were consumed on set?
Do you mean me personally? We went further than wine on set. That was just what we boiled up with coffee in the mornings. By afternoon, think freebasing! But seriously, it was a great production. We got to shoot in seventeen countries – in China and Thailand and Australia and Switzerland and the UK. So we had fun.
So how’s your liver?
Right now, it’s fantastic.
How does it feel finally getting to episode three after so long?
Well, we’ve literally just finished the movie. George (Lucas) and I have only just seen the film totally completed with all the visual effects. So now we’re dubbing it into forty different languages and producing 20,000 prints. I can see the tunnel, but I don’t see any light there yet.
But this is the last Star Wars movie. Is there an emotional attachment there?
Oh yeah. Work wise, there’s been a great level of security! But George and I have been working together since the Indiana Jones days, so we’re all ready to move on to the next chapter now – whatever that may be.
So you won’t be leaving George just yet?
Oh no. We’ve finally reached a level where we can financially afford to fail.
Speaking of George – is he a pain in the ass?
No. One of the reasons we operate outside the Hollywood system completely is because George is a very loyal and generous guy. There’s no bullshit. We don’t have the wacky vagaries that are tolerated just south of us in Los Angeles. We just want to do the best work and live full lives.
From reading about the making of Revenge Of The Sith, I got the impression that you felt frustrated at times. Is that just part of the job?
Well, you’re dealing with many different languages and 2,200 people, so it’s like moving a small village all around the world. Plus, you’re trying to find the most cost efficient way of realising this vision, because we’re financing it ourselves. That’s the hardest part.
I suppose your first real taste of the whole thing came with the re-issue of the first three movies?
Having made so many unsuccessful films prior to that – luckily I was living in London where failure is a way of life and you could be rewarded for failure as long as the picture was reasonably good – it was a unique experience. Ultimately, you make movies to be seen, so it’s a great feeling to make one that’ll be seen by a shit-load of people.
Were you a fan of the original Star Wars movies before?
I wasn’t a major sci-fi fan but I was eighteen and just starting out in the film business when I saw the very first one. I was going home one day and I saw all these people queuing around the block. I thought there had been a fire. This was the seventies and I was convinced that I wouldn’t be producing my first film until I was forty. So to see somebody only twelve years older bending all this technology and creating it and bringing their imagination to life in a way that nobody thought possible was mind-boggling. How did he do it? Then you find out there was a lot of pain involved.
It must be amazing to see how the technology has advanced?
Well, we’re in an evolutionary stage of filmmaking. Old tossers like me and George are coming to grips with digital technology. We’ve been shooting on digital for seven years now. The next generation of filmmakers coming up don’t have this problem. They’re not obsessed with new technology. And there’s a lot of unhappiness because people think we don’t care about the story or characters and that’s partly true. Sometimes you’re struggling with this thing and trying to make it happen. But in the next five years, a writer will be able to sit down with a director and write anything they want and we’ll have the tools to create anything they see in their mind’s eye with a degree of photo-realism that’s unimaginable. If we’re lucky, some extraordinary talents will be able to express themselves.

Revenge Of The Sith is released May 19. To read Tara Brady's review, click here.