Post-Production On Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi Was Plagued By A Mysterious Thief
Back in 1982, excitement around the upcoming "Star Wars: Episode VI — The Return of the Jedi" was high. The last film, "Empire Strikes Back," ended on a cliffhanger, with Han Solo (Harrison Ford) imprisoned in carbonite, and everyone was dying to get more information. We wanted to know if Han Solo would be rescued. Would Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) defeat Darth Vader? Would Princess Leia rescue everyone? Would C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) finally slap R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) for annoying him? While the first film, "A New Hope," didn't need much security, with Mark Hamill actually showing people his script, the third and supposedly final film was highly anticipated.
So was everything, in fact, coming out of George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic effects house, which was started for the first "Star Wars" film. Between 1981 and 1982, "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Dragonslayer," "Conan the Barbarian," "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn," "The Dark Crystal," "Poltergeist," and "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" were all worked on at ILM.
According to the book "The Making of Return of the Jedi" by J.W. Rinzler, the anticipation for these upcoming films may have caused a few things to go missing at ILM during the post-production process for "Return of the Jedi." Though the security for this particular title was high, with nothing outside of the ILM building advertising what the space was used for, there were certainly people inside who were just as excited for these films as the public. Missing items were discovered and talked about during a meeting at the site.
Too much to resist
In the book, George Lucas spoke about how they were trying to keep everyone at ILM employed, even when they weren't working on "Star Wars" films. He said, "We are trying to bring in outside projects so that in between our films we can keep everyone here working. The situation for having a permanent staff on special effects is very unique." In fact, between productions and research into the ever-changing tech the company used, people were working there six to seven days a week. That meant a lot of opportunities for someone with sticky fingers to be around some pretty enticing things.
During a meeting at ILM in 1982, it was brought up that some things had gone missing (the book uses the word "borrowed," in quotes) during the night and hadn't shown back up. The book lists tools, as well as "Raiders hats, patches, posters, and even some Hollywood trade papers" as disappearing from the model shop on site.
At the meeting, they discussed setting a trap for this thief, but it never came to pass. Someone at the meeting hoped that the person who was taking things wasn't going to get their hands on a spaceship next, with visual effects supervisor Richard Edlund saying, "The whole place is like a toy chest anyway." While we don't know if these items were ever returned (if they were, in fact, only "borrowed"), at least they weren't things that affected "Return of the Jedi." It seems like it was only some tools and promotional items for "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and perhaps some of the other films done there, not the all-important spaceships.
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