Much Of The Original Star Wars Crew Thought The Movie Was A 'Joke' During Production
The Hollywood system was a rigid, impenetrable system that suffered from reverse agism and a certain lack of raw creativity until a group of maverick filmmakers changed movies forever in the 1970s. Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, and a young George Lucas were a crucial part of a new movement in cinema that captured the public's imagination like never before. Spielberg and Lucas didn't invent the blockbuster with "Jaws" and "Star Wars," but they certainly provided a new model for Hollywood that's still being followed today. When Bruce the mechanical shark in "Jaws" kept malfunctioning out in the open waters of the Atlantic, the production seemed doomed. The outtakes alone make the famously troubled production seem amateurish and frankly laughable. Then, "Jaws" became a sensation all over the globe.
With nine saga films, multiple spinoffs, and a continuous onslaught of Disney+ TV show, it's worth remembering that the first "Star Wars" was a massive risk for George Lucas and 20th Century Fox Studios when production started in 1976. The documentary "Elstree 1976" offers some insight into what it was like for some of the actors and extras at the famed Elstree Studios just outside of London, but doesn't quite capture the general mood on set at the time. Most of the English crew were older and fairly workmanlike, leaving Lucas and his young band of ILM upstarts to fend for themselves.
Granted, without the finished effects and completed models from the art department, it probably looked like a nearly impossible task to transfer illustrator Ralph McQuarrie's truly awesome concept art onto the screen. Fortunately, Lucas' determination and his team of artists rose above the behind-the-scenes snickering to achieve a level of movie magic that had never been seen before.
'We have to keep going.'
The official keepers of canon over at StarWars.com compiled an oral history of the Battle of Hoth for the 40th anniversary of "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" featuring some telling quotes from George Lucas himself. Regarded as one of the best sequels ever made, there was no guarantee that the creator of "Star Wars" would even get the first film off the ground, let alone a second, more ambitious follow-up. "On the first one, the production crew on the set, except for the art department, just thought it was a joke," Lucas remembered. "And they were not that interested in the movie or helping or doing anything except getting their paycheck."
To be fair, there shouldn't be too much made of the production crew's lack of support, even if that kind of silent rebellion can lead to a completely demoralizing atmosphere on set. Most, if not all, of the interiors for "Star Was: A New Hope" were shot at EMI's British studios where John Williams' pulse-pounding score was also recorded. Didn't any of the crew get a chance to hear the fanfare of the "Main Title" or the quiet grace of "Princess Leia's Theme?" Apparently not.
The decidedly lackluster blue-collar mentality of the UK crew didn't keep the "ILMers" (as Lucas called them) from staying the course. "They knew we were doing something that had never been done before and so that excited them and that kept their morale up," Lucas explained. "And even though we went through some very hard setbacks, I had to go up and be a parent and say, 'We can do this. We're not going to give up. We have to keep going.'" Maybe Vader's famous line, "I find your lack of faith disturbing" finally has an origin story.