A Brief Guide to Star Wars by Brian J. Robb

Author:Brian J. Robb
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780335834
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Chapter 10

The Road to the Prequels

When I did [Star Wars], we were really bumping up against the ceiling of technology. I was able to push the limits of the medium and the cinematic form just a tiny bit. What I really wanted to do was much grander, but I could only do so much with the technology I had. I’ve always been pushing that technology.

George Lucas

The first film project to get George Lucas’s attention following the completion of the second Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), was an unexpected return to the Star Wars universe, though not perhaps in the way that fans wanted. In 1984 Lucas had stepped back from detailed involvement in Lucasfilm, beginning a divorce from all things Star Wars that would last over a decade. ‘I’ve put up with Star Wars taking over,’ said the frustrated filmmaker, ‘pushing itself into first position, for too long.’ Now he had a family to which he wanted to devote time, with two adopted daughters – Amanda and Katie – and an adopted son, Jett (named after James Dean’s character, Jett Rink, from Giant, 1956).

It was to please his young children that Lucas gave the go-ahead to two made-for-TV movies featuring the Ewoks, the Empire-thwarting ‘teddy bears’ of Return of the Jedi. His original plan was for a simple one-hour special, but this rapidly grew into a more elaborate project. As with CBS in 1978 and the ill-fated Star Wars Holiday Special, ABC commissioned Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure for their Sunday Night Movie spot for the Thanksgiving holiday season in 1984. Lucas developed the storyline, inspired by the fairy-tale Hansel and Gretel and a dash of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes, but left it to Bob Carrau to write the teleplay (he later made a career of writing for various animated TV series including Tiny Toon Adventures, Manic Mansion and Dragon Tales, as well as various Star Wars tie-in books for kids).

Lucas wanted to avoid the mistakes that had been made with the Holiday Special, so Lucasfilm itself retained full control of the project and brought in Bay Area filmmaker John Korty (who had made the Lucas-produced animation Twice Upon a Time) to direct. Aimed at children, the simple story sees a young brother and sister (Eric Walker and Aubree Miller) stranded on Endor (home of the Ewoks) when the family spaceship crashes and their parents head off in search of help. The pair – Mace (a name from Lucas’s earliest Star Wars drafts later used for Samuel L. Jackson’s Jedi character in the prequels) and Cindel Towani – fall in with the Ewoks, led by Wicket (Warwick Davis reprising his role). Lacking the scope or epic feel of the big-screen films, this low-budget production (filmed simply as ‘The Ewok Adventure’) was released in cinemas across Europe. Simply told, with the help of folksy narrator Burl Ives, the film was shot in the Northern California redwoods. Industrial Light and Magic art

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