A Dynamite Debacle Slowed Down Filming For Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
The Hoth scenes in "Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back" weren't easy to film. It was largely shot in Finse, Norway, as well as a nearby glacier. They dealt with avalanches and trains that stopped running because of the weather. They even had to shoot the tauntaun scene right outside their hotel (with people watching from the balconies), because they couldn't get to the original shooting location. However, it was human error involving some dynamite that caused one of the issues while filming on what is supposed to be depicted as a bitterly cold ice planet.
If you recall, at the beginning of the film, Imperial forces send down a probe to see if the Rebels are on the planet. (You may remember the probe because it's actually a surprisingly cute droid for something with evil intent ... or I'm just a sucker for anything that looks like it has a face.) The scene, which required a number of cameras to be set up, involved an explosion of snow as the probe lands on Hoth. Of course, as we all know, sometimes the best-laid plans just don't go right. This scene was no exception, according to the book "The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Enhanced Edition)" by J.W. Rinzler.
'There was quite a tension'
In the book, associate producer James Bloom recalled that they were aiming to get this shot between noon and 1 p.m., because of a patch of sunlight that came over the glacier at that time every day. They set up their cameras and got ready, but the explosion didn't happen. Art director Alan Tomkins explained what occurred. He said:
"We were shooting the space probe coming down and hitting the mountainside, and we had to have an explosion where it hit. So we had three or even four cameras stationed about half a mile away on telephoto lenses. I went up there with the special effects man to lay the charges and he put eight sticks of dynamite into the hole, which had to be three meters deep. I then went back to the bottom, where we waited and waited for the weather to be right. There was quite a tension."
They used more explosives than they normally would have, because they wanted a big blast in the snow, which you can see above. Bloom said everyone was set; cameras were a go, the special effects tech person was up on the hill with his walkie talkie, waiting for a signal, and the sun was just about to come out. So what happened?
'I knew we had to get this little bit of sun, so I started to run'
Bloom explained, " ... at 11:30, we say, 'Here comes the sun!' So I said, 'Roll the cameras.' 'Rolling!' 'Action!' And I finally said, 'Explosion!' And ... nothing." No explosion had taken place. Tomkins said he was staring at the spot where it was supposed to happen, but all was silent. Everyone was getting annoyed. "I knew we had to get this little bit of sun, so I started to run," Tomkins said. "But the air up there is quite thin. I had only been going up the hill two or three minutes when they came on the radio again, 'Have you got there yet?' But I'm completely breathless and I can't actually speak." The sun moved and they didn't get the shot. However, when they finally got the effects tech on the radio, he merely said, "Ready!"
Yup! He had no idea the call had been made, and he was all ready to go! Tomkins said that the effects person had accidentally knocked the battery container off of his radio and hadn't heard the call. He had no idea why they'd missed the sunlight window. It caused some rather colorful language over the radio when they finally did connect. Still, despite that and some minor frostbite on some of the extras, they managed to get the shot in the end.
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