George Lucas Had Samuel L. Jackson Fight Invisible Monsters In Star Wars Way Before The MCU
Actors fighting against computer-generated monsters in films is hardly new these days. Superhero flicks have become the dominant form of entertainment in recent years. Since these creatures are fictional, actors often shoot their fight scenes against a tennis ball on a stick that stands in for the beings they're supposed to be terrified of or very angry at. If you're going into the performance profession nowadays, you know that you'll likely be exercising your imagination fairly often.
Samuel L. Jackson (the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Pulp Fiction") has been going up against computer-generated images (CGI) throughout his time as Nick Fury in the MCU for years now. However, when the "Star Wars" prequels came out, it was a fairly new experience for him. He, of course, played Mace Windu, a member of the Jedi council and wielder of a purple lightsaber (at his request).
As any "Star Wars" fan knows, creator George Lucas had a vision for what he wanted in the original trilogy. The technology wasn't there at the time, so he went back years later to update them with modernized effects for the Special Edition re-releases. Then Lucas — and yes, this is my opinion, which I know will be unpopular with some — went way overboard with the special effects in the prequel trilogy. Whether you are cool with that or not, a whole lot of the backgrounds and beings we saw on screen weren't really there. Back in 2002, days before "Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones" came out, Lucas did an interview with "Good Morning America" (via ABC News) about it. Likewise, in an earlier interview with "GMA" around that same time, Jackson talked about his own experience of fighting against nothing.
'Oh, as big as an SUV'
Whatever you think of the CGI in "Attack of the Clones" now, it was a pretty astounding feat at the time of the film's release. The "GMA" interviewer calls the visuals "just that incredible" and mentions that creating the imagery that makes up the trilogy must be "the greatest job in the world." George Lucas responded:
"Well, the most frustrating job in the world is to be able to think of them up and say you can't do them, which is what I was doing before, and that was really upsetting. And 'Phantom Menace' was [...] we were learning the medium. But we figured things out, and now I can do it. You know, this is the movie that says, okay, I learned how to drive, now watch."
It was certainly a technological leap for the time. Your opinion on their effectiveness may be different from Lucas's, but in 2002 it was all pretty groundbreaking. That doesn't mean it was easy for the actors to deal with the new technology. Samuel L. Jackson's earlier interview with the same "GMA" reporter touched on that very issue, with the actor explaining:
"It's me in a big green room by myself, and George goes, 'Okay, fight,' and you fight and fight and fight until he says 'cut,' and occasionally he'll say, 'Okay, there's a big thing coming at you.' You go, 'Well, how big?' 'Oh, as big as an SUV.'"
That's not an easy thing for an actor. You do want to know what you're fighting and how scary it is, and hopefully, what it looks like, or your eyes go blank. Maybe you have a sort of general determination on your face, but specificity is what sells the whole thing.
'We had a little model on the set out of the creature'
George Lucas wasn't unaware that Samuel L. Jackson and the rest of his actors needed some reference for the creatures they were fighting. He told "GMA" that they had what he called "videomatics," which were animated videos of what the cast was supposed to be looking at. Lucas said it was "so he could actually see how the shots were going together and what it was going to be. And then we had a little model on the set out of the creature — here's the creature, this is what it looks like, only it's as big as an elephant."
Acting opposite a tennis ball or an "X" taped on a wall isn't the easiest thing to do, but at least technology has advanced in the 21 years since "Attack of the Clones" was released. Now we have films set around creatures (like Groot and Rocket in the MCU) that don't exist, and it's sometime legitimately hard to tell they're not real. Again, "Attack of the Clones" might be dated now, but I guess we had to start somewhere.
"Attack of the Clones" and all the other "Star Wars" films and TV series are currently streaming on Disney+.