In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars film, Del Ray is publishing what looks to be a magnificent coffee table book titled "The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film." Wired.com has posted a small sampling of images that appear in the book. (Seen here is Lucas with a production prototype of R2-D2 and an early sketch of Chewbacca.) That movie is so ingrained in my brain that it'll be fun to really look behind the scenes at Lucas's creative process and the secret history of the greatest space opera ever told.
From the book description:
Using his unprecedented access to the Lucasfilm Archives and its trove of never-before-published "lost" interviews, photos, production notes, factoids, and anecdotes, Star Wars scholar J. W. Rinzler hurtles readers back in time for a one-of-a-kind behind-the-scenes look at the nearly decade-long quest of George Lucas and his key collaborators to make the "little" movie that became a phenomenon. For the first time, it's all here:
• the evolution of the now-classic story and characters–including "Annikin Starkiller" and "a huge green-skinned monster with no nose and large gills" named Han Solo
• excerpts from George Lucas's numerous, ever-morphing script drafts
• the birth of Industrial Light & Magic, the special-effects company that revolutionized Hollywood filmmaking
• the studio-hopping and budget battles that nearly scuttled the entire project
• the director's early casting saga, which might have led to a film spoken mostly in Japanese–including the intensive auditions that won the cast members their roles and made them legends
• the grueling, nearly catastrophic location shoot in Tunisia and the subsequent breakneck dash at Elstree Studios in London
• the who's who of young film rebels who pitched in to help–including Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and Brian DePalma
