The new motion picture is a further episode in an epic adventure spanning forty years. The whole adventure is divided into three trilogies, with Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back as the first two parts of the middle trilogy.
"In choosing the episode to be filmed first," Lucas says, "I chose the chapter I felt the most secure with and which I liked the most," The result was Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope. The episode number and subtitle were dropped due to the length and the confusion they might have caused, but are being returned and will appear on new prints of Star Wars. Drawn from folk and fairy tales, myths and a miasma of influences, Star Wars provoked a variety of explanations for its exceptional appeal. "Perhaps hindsight will place it in perspective, " said Irvin Kershner, while directing The Empire Strikes Back, "but this is certainly true—it appealed to the child in us all." Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker, Lucas' alter ego) was as telling when he described it as "a celebration."
Whatever it was, for it is impossible to define an original, it brought pleasure to millions; it was an antidote to stress, suspending our belief in reality in favor of once-upon-a-time. Now, it seems, there is more, and for the background to the making of the new chapter, The Empire Strikes Back, we must go back in time...
The producer of Star Wars was Gary Kurtz. A technician to his fingertips, a product of the University of Southern California Film School, his fortunes have been linked with Lucas' since American Graffiti, which with Francis Ford Coppola, he co-produced. Lucas obtained 20th Century-Fox's backing, but the toughest time of all was when they needed money for the final special effects. "It was a touch-and-go situation as to whether the opticals would be completed," Lucas has since affirmed. "The buck stops at opticals." Later, with the experience of Star Wars behind him, enriched by its success, Lucas would approach his new picture as an independent in every sense. The Empire Strikes Back would be a self-financed Lucasfilm production; its effects, miniatures, and opticals an in-house operation, the responsibility of another Lucas company, Industrial Light and Magic. Thus, Kurtz was able to proceed on the second film with an organizational structure behind him and the nucleus of the team that had served Star Wars so well.
Lucas, himself, had no time to direct the continuation of his creation. Based near San Francisco, he continued with his writing and oversaw the special effects and the editing, while Gary Kurtz and director Irvin Kershner filmed it at the EMI Studios-Elstree, near London, where Star Wars had been made.
Kershner is a director whose films (Eyes of Laura Mars, Loving, A Fine Madness, The Flim-Flam Man, The Return of a Man Called Horse) Lucas thought underrated for their insights into human relationships. At first sight, Kershner seems a surprising choice for a space fantasy, particularly since he has had no experience with complex special effects, until one considers Gary Kurtz's statement in the fall of 1978: "In the new Star Wars picture, the emphasis will again be on action and adventure, but having established the main characters, and having gained public acceptance for them, we intend to develop their emotional aspects, their relationships with one another." Also, even though Kershner has never made a science-fiction film, he is a fan of the genre: "I happen to love science fiction, and I've been reading it since I was a kid."
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