On the first day of Celebration Europe, Steve Sansweet spoke about his new book, The Star Wars Vault, which he co-authored with Pete Vilmur, and which will be released in October. The good news for UK fans is that we get it on 1st October whilst in the US it isn’t released until 30th October. According to Steve it will also be 40% off on Play.com.
Steve went on to give us a taste of what was going to be in the book so that we could share it with you. You may be aware of the Star Wars Scrap Book which came out a few years ago. This was a book that was about the Star Wars saga including pieces on merchandising, promotion and the making of the original trilogy.
The Vault, which Steve worked on with Pete Vilmur brings us up to date. This new book covers all 6 episodes and like the scrap book before it contains different things to pull out and also there are 2 CDs for your listening pleasure.
Steve and Pete have been working on this book for a number of years and they wanted to include things that people have not seen before. For example there are negatives, contact sheets and other documents.
We also get to look at the creative genius behind George Lucas. How did Darth Vader get his name? It could so easily have been Darth Jones. What about R2-D2? When he was working on American Grafitti George Lucas wanted a certain reel. Reel 2 with dialogue 2 was requested. Hence R2-D2. There is a picture of this famous reel in the Vault.
As well as the nice pictures there are lots of tactile things too. For example there is an envelope that has an invite for drinks with Alec Guinness on the final day of his shooting. How cool would that have been?
There are many other things uncovered in the vault. The making of Episode IV was very difficult with the reshoots from Tatooine taking place in Death Valley in California as George Lucas did not have enough money to go out to Tunisia again.
There are also copies of very rare merchandise. For the premieres of Episode IV and V there were plexiglass stars given out, picures of these are included.
When Episode IV was going to be released there was very little money available for promoting this film so one of the marketing men at Lucasfilm came up with the idea of promoting the film to fans so they went to Comicon and Worldcom to do this.
They also did a deal with Marvel Comics where they launched a comic prior to the film coming out to help promote the film.
Various suggestions were given for a strapline for the film. These included “An odyssey to the edge of your imagination…” or “In the year 3000 there are spaceships…” How about “Good versus evil in the strangest world ever created…” They looked at the start of the film where it said “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” so in the end this was chosen.
Prior to the release of the film there were some test screenings done at a cinema in LA. The viewers had questionnaires to fill in, also included. One of the more amusing questions was Which team did you like best? R2-D2 & C-3PO, Han Solo & Chewbacca, Luke Skwalker & Princess Leia or Ben Kenobi & Darth Vader (??? Possibly in Episodes II and III they were a good team.)
There is also a copy of the Fox Newsletter following the release of Episode IV with a big spread about the film. Star Wars saved 20th Century Fox.
There is stationery from George Lucas and ILM too. Along with blueprints for the full size construction of Luke Skywalker’s skyhopper which is barely seen in the film. How about the poster done by Harold Chaykin. Originally sold for $1.75 and only 100 were made. They now sell for over $1000. Hang on to that Hasbro coin, you never know……
There are some other interesting pieces in the Vault. For example, is it Return of the Jedi or Revenge of the Jedi? There are quite a few myths about why the title was changed. To clarify, they researched the two titles to see which audiences preferred and the results came back 50/50. They found that certain types of people liked one title and some liked the other so in the end they went with “Return”.
In addition to the glossy pages and touchy feely stuff you can listen to the 2 CD’s. Some of the things included on this are radio adverts promoting the film and also an interview with George Lucas from Celebration III.
On the music front there are some real gems too. There is a copy of the booklet from the first concert John Williams did of the Star Wars score. You also get a copy of the handwritten notes for the end credits from one of the films too. There are so many different lines for all the different parts of the orchestra.
I’d like to say that it was a high point, but it wasn’t. Included in the CD was a performance of the Life Day song by Carrie Fisher from the Star Wars Holiday Special. What makes it really special is that you have the lyrics so you can sing along too! Apparently George Lucas is not that phased about that part of Star Wars history about now.
There are some more bits that many people have not seen. For instance the adverts from Japan that George Lucas did for Panasonic. In Japan it is considered a great honour to be asked to advertise and many famous actors have been used to promote products. There were penalties for using these images falsely however. If you used the image of George Lucas you could expect a bill for $1 million. If you used the image of Yoda though it would be $9 Million!
Bet you never thought you would get a book with a sick bag either! As part of the launch of Star Tours when people came off the ride they did not feel too well so they were given exclusive Star Tours sick bags. Now you can have one as well.
There are pictures from Celebration IV included. Some of which are of the 501st Legion in procession, one of George Lucas and his daughter and some younger fans in costume. There is also a droid hunt card and voucher.
Following this there was a brief Question & Answer Session.
Q When will a DVD box set come out and will it be in High Definition?
A Right now is not the right time for HD. There are not enough people with HD in their homes and need to look at what the market and the fans want.
Q Will Droids & Ewoks get a proper release?
A George Lucas wanted the episodes cut together for a movie length episode. No date at the moment.
Q Any information on the TV show?
A Clone Wars – the animated series will be released in Autumn 2008. (The trailer was shown at Celebration in HD, it looks awesome!) Rick McCallum will be producing the live action TV series and at the moment he is interviewing writers. It will be filmed in Australia during 2009/2010.
Q Do you have a highpoint from working at Lucasfilm?
A Was working with George Lucas on a documentary over Christmas and it was good to see how his creative mind works. He visualises stuff all the time. Any suggestions given that were taken on board made you feel like you had got an A+ at school or just got a new Ferrari.