For 14 days in April, 1982, Lucasfilm and company converged on the Imperial Sand Dunes (no really, that's what they are called, you couldn't make that up!), which lie at the southeast corner of California [17 or 18 miles outside of Yuma, Arizona], to build and utilize one of the largest movie sets ever constructed and film part of the new Star Wars movie there. The summer before, when dealing with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to secure the necessary permissions, word began to get out, and rumors began to spread. So Lucasfilm did an interesting thing. They went straight to the Yuma Daily Sun and offered them a deal. If they would agree to hold off any coverage of the goings-on in the desert, and not breathe a word until filming was complete and everyone was gone, then the Sun would be allowed to send writers and photographers to the set, and have not just an exclusive, but "the world's exclusive." It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that the newspaper heartily agreed to.
Soon after this conversation, the enormous set of Jabba's Sail Barge was constructed in the desert, along with smaller skiffs and the Sarlacc pit itself. The rest of course is history, but what we have here is an interesting eye-witness description of it that appears nowhere else. This is the Sun's exclusive publication, which they printed as an oversized tabloid-style supplement dated May 2, 1982, a full year before the finished film would be released (I guess the BLUE HARVEST was long over by that time). As such, it still bears the original REVENGE title, which is pretty cool in itself. May 2 was a Sunday, which traditionally was the day that newspapers contained the most extras, as well as the day with the biggest circulation.
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| A rare look at the unfinished back of the set (bottom photo)! |
The 20-page publication has lots of great info, as well as behind-the-scenes photos that you won't see in the many making-of books (which is odd in itself because Lucasfilm tended to supply the photos--but, a deal's a deal). There's an interesting article detailing the construction of the sail barge, which used up a million of their $4 million Yuma filming budget. The 20-foot high platform it sat upon was 150 by 200 feet, with the barge itself being an additional 52 feet high, consisting of "miles" of two-by-fours, "over 1,000 sheets of plywood," and used 10,000 pounds of nails!
But we will come back to the barge in a moment--continuing on, there is an article describing how the filming was economically helpful to the local community (everyone stayed at the "Stardust Resort Motor Inn," who even took out an ad in the publication).
The Sun writers also took opportunities to get one-on-one interviews with several of the leads. An interesting point comes up in both Carrie Fisher's and Mark Hamill's interviews, and that is the sudden mega-stardom of Harrison Ford, specifically because of the recent RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. I have to admit, I'd never thought seriously about it. In retrospect, I'd always assumed everyone went right on with their business, but it must've really changed the dynamic when Ford was able to be the first one to break away from the pack, so to speak, and be hugely successful for it. Hamill even laments not being able to be taken seriously for other roles because of the trilogy. (Ford, meanwhile, apparently stayed completely away from any of the Sun reporters or photographers, because he's pretty much AWOL here). Then again, it's easy to forget (from today's perspective) that Ford wasn't even planning to be in the film at all. In retrospect, of course, we know now that he will be in absolutely anything if you throw enough money at him.
Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, and Anthony Daniels are also interviewed. These are short and pretty par for the course. Producer Howard Kazanjian and two local 20-somethings who were hired as stand-ins also get short articles.
There is an interesting two-page spread that details how extremely boring (tedious is the word used here) film-making really is, and how dreadfully long it takes to get even the minutest of scenes set up and filmed. It's the part of movie magic that fans forget...or don't even know about.
One of the centerpieces (and longest articles) in here, though, is a sit-down with George Lucas, and he is downright depressed about how much the film is costing him to make. This is one of those frustratingly self-effacing Lucas interviews where you wonder why he got out of bed that morning. At one point, in attempting to explain why copycat Star Wars films fail, he even refers to his own films as "what I call a dumb movie that's just entertaining." He does once again tell the interviewer that there will still be nine movies in the saga, though. (Too bad that never happened...but hey, at least we have six Star Wars films!)
As we mentioned, the publication also allowed ad space, and while some of the ads are mundane, others are interesting and even hilarious. Let's go ahead and spoil some:
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| Ah, K-Mart. Do I miss K-Mart? No. Well, yes. I'm torn on that one...hey, Pac-Man was 30 bucks (and also famously terrible)! That was a lot of money in 1982! |
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| You know, by now we have all heard every tired, hackneyed, cliched Star Wars pun in existence, but this cracked me up. Also, they are flying. Or are they supposed to be hovering like landspeeders? It just gets funnier. |
And, for the grand finale, here is the back cover:
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| Yeah, we've all run into a CAR WARS or two in our time...this one is just funny for different reasons. |
The last article we will discuss is an excellent piece called "What Becomes of the Sail Barge?" that is fascinating reading. We learn that Lucasfilm actually tried to donate the entire structure to the city of Yuma, Arizona...and they declined (in their defense, it would've required moving it). Another possibility that was seriously (or semi-seriously) discussed was blowing it up. You read that right, and the article points out that the script already called for that, anyway...but ultimately the decision was made to do that in miniature, which probably was much, much more feasible in the long run.
The third possibility mentioned was selling it to scrap and salvage merchants, and writer of the article wonders if that's what would happen...
And, we can tell you from the perspective of history, that's exactly what happened! To this day there are people in the immediate and surrounding areas who probably have no idea that their homes, sheds, or other structures contain wood from Jabba the Hutt's Sail Barge. What most people don't know though, is that when the demolition was complete, and with the mandate to leave the desert as clean as they found it, Lucasfilm simply pushed all of their leftover trash into the Sarlacc Pit and freaking buried it.
I was fortunate enough to speak with a guy a few years ago who had made regular expeditions into Buttercup Valley over the years, and he was able to dig up copious amounts of foam, orange sail fabric, and wooden fragments from the barge itself! Can you imagine finding buried treasure like that?
The foam, of course, composed the mouth and tentacles of the Sarlacc. Here are just a few of the pieces I bought from him:
The orange fabric from the giant barge sails is one of the easiest Star Wars-related relics to obtain. There was such a surplus of the material, the Lucasfilm crew used it to make sandbags to hold down their cameras during filming, and there is still some of it in the archives today (unless the current Mouse overlords have sold it all in a garage sale or something). In fact, you can still track down these Topps relic trading cards from several years ago that contained swatches (although the prices have gotten pretty dumb):
Real wood from the sail barge can be pretty hard to come by, but it's out there. I was lucky enough to get this piece from the same Star Wars archaeologist I mentioned (it even has paint on it):
Finally, you know we aren't going to go on about this document without providing it for you, so here is the entire publication. It's very hard to capture an oversized document like this without a drum scanner (you have to rig up a photo stand), but it still turned out very well. Enjoy!
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