George Lucas lies. Search your feelings, you know it to be true. George Lucas is the science-fiction cinema equivalent of Brian Williams. Around the time "Empire" was released, we knew we were watching the middle trilogy of a "trilogy of trilogies." But then the good guys won in "Return of the Jedi," which in a nine-film saga should have been the end of Act Two - i.e. when things are at their worst. Weren't the good guys not supposed to win until Episode IX? It seemed odd at the time. Now, of course, Lucas tries to claim that the saga was "always" meant to be the six-part Fall and Redemption of Anakin Skywalker story. Never mind the fact that the original trilogy isn't written like they're part of the adventures of Anakin Skywalker -- they're presented like what they really were at the time, the adventures of Luke Skywalker. What about those three trilogies? Well, now Lucas claims that it was THE MEDIA that claimed all along there were nine films, never himself.
With this book, Michael Kaminski does a brilliant job debunking that myth, step by step through the entire chronology of the Star Wars saga. I've always wanted someone to write a book like this, and was thrilled to discover that Kaminski has not only done the job but has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Sadly, there's no "smoking gun" - there's no revelation of a media reporter from the 80s who has come forward with an actual audio or video recording of Lucas in his own voice talking about his "three trilogies" saga. It would be nice if such a recording did exist, so it could be played back to Lucas while he was on camera, and watch him squirm his way out of admitting that he originally wanted to do three trilogies, and then changed his mind. For some reason Lucas can't just admit he changed his mind. Instead, he tries to retcon history itself, and Kaminski does a phenomenal journalistic effort at disproving the retcon.
In the interests of fairness, however, the book does have a few minor weak places. In Chapter 11 when discussing the comparison of print reviews of the original trilogy vs. online reviews of the prequel trilogy, he states "My own study of the reviews from original release rates them higher" but doesn't go into any details of his "own study" - show your work, please. This is a 600-page book with eight appendices - one more wouldn't have hurt. (Yes, I'm wishing this 600-page book was even longer!)
Also in the same chapter, discussing the backlash against "Phantom Menace," there are quotes from the actors about how they would be performing "in a scene" with another actor even though the other actor wasn't there that day, and in their place was a stick where they would be digitally composited in later. I also remember a documentary about the film where Lucas explains how he might think Actor A's best take was Take 3 and Actor B's best take was Take 7, so he would digitally combine the two takes. One can't help but think that this practice - in addition to the "stick" method mentioned above - subconsciously provided audiences with a sense that something just wasn't quite right about a scene. Watch your friends when they're all in a conversation together; even when people aren't talking, their facial reactions to what is being said register their involvement. That interpersonal engagement is by definition fractured if you cut-and-paste different recordings of that conversation. I think the audience subconsciously picked up on that, but I've never seen it discussed fully anywhere.
In Chapter XIII there is a discussion of how the art department for "Revenge of the Sith" continued to come up with planets, aliens, ships, etc even though Lucas hadn't even started the script yet. This is something else that's been alluded to in Star Wars documentaries, but has never been stated outright as far as I can tell: Lucas claims the whole saga was in his head, but that clearly can't be the case. Otherwise why would the art department need to come up with all these different ideas for him? Lucas can be seen on-camera in the art department saying that he likes this part of this creature but that part of that creature and thinks they should be combined together. It's clear that he has no ideas and is relying on the imagination of others to tell him what is in his universe. And even when they go to the trouble to think of something that makes sense (a furry lizard on a snow planet), Lucas will shuffle things around on a whim (put the furry lizard on the hot desert planet) with no thought to whether the biology now makes sense.
There are many places in the book where Lucas is quoted as saying how much he hates writing, dreads writing, is not a good writer, is "not known for [his] dialogue" etc. In fact, the story of Episode III was built during production filming. "I cut the movie together, I look at it and figure out what I'm missing." And then film that bit and look at it again and see what scene needs to be invented next for the story to make sense. Any screenwriter will tell you this is an insane way to approach story structure. Writing involves figuring this all out ahead of time, not making it up as you go.
The comedian Robin Williams once referred to the works of Shakespeare as "the greatest body of literature written by a man who couldn't spell his own name." Lucas was making it up as he went. He tries to claim he had it all figured out, but it is astonishing that someone who admits he's a horrible writer can claim to have come up with a masterwork six-film plan and realized it exactly as intended over the following 30 years. Fortunately there is evidence to the contrary, and Kaminski has done Posterity a favor and preserved the actual sequence of events for all to see. Absolutely every Star Wars fan should read this book.
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Outdated book weighed down by way too much angst
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2020
You'd think this book was unveiling the Watergate tapes with how seriously it takes revealing that George Lucas's myth behind The-Complete-and-Absolute-Star-Wars-Saga's creation is indeed just a myth (next you'll tell me the Blair Witch Project was fake!). The argumentative tone gets old fast, and I'm actually on the author's side, believe it or not!Not helping is that the book is also outdated: its boldest and most confident assertion is that Lucas came up with the "Vader is Luke's father" plot turn during an epiphany while writing the second draft of 'The Empire Strikes Back.' But just two years later JW Rinzler's 'The Making of The Empire Strikes Back' would find the plot turn listed in Lucas's handwritten preliminary notes for 'Empire' and the series' then-future (interestingly, it would seem the original idea was that eventually *Luke* would make the sacrifice that redeems his father - see attached).It honestly wasn't a bad guess given the information available at the time, but it's hilarious in hindsight reading the book claim how it would have been preposterous of Lucas to withhold the plot twist from first draft screenwriter Leigh Brackett--he's *right*, it's a ridiculous thing to do... and it appears that is precisely what Lucas actually did. Oops!
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2020
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