Lucas Land: Prince of Darkness

  (Previous chapter: ID Please)

Over my two years as web writer and then editor of starwars.com, I happened to run into my share of celebrities. Protocol dictated that Lucasfilm employees would refrain from drooling all over themselves whenever one star or another walked in—as they were wont to do—but it didn't mean some of those encounters would leave any less of a mark, no matter how cool you played it at the time.

There was the big man himself, George Lucas, on a couple of occasions; personal heroes of mine such as sound designer Ben Burtt (busy mixing Episode I, no less); actors the likes of Robert Redford, devastatingly handsome as always and having dinner at one of the Skywalker Ranch restaurants; and a host more, either properly introduced and greeted in the flesh with a handshake, or else glimpsed en passant which was sometimes even more charming.

And then, surprisingly, there was Ozzy Osbourne.

The affair took place at Skywalker Ranch on May 17, 1999—a mere two days before the official release of Episode I. As part of the big fanfare for the new Star Wars movie, an assortment of artists had been invited to attend what was labeled the MTV Premiere. The event consisted of a grand gathering on the grounds of the Ranch, a cornucopia of items to eat and drink (and at least twice that number of photo ops), with a handful of official speeches followed by an advance screening of The Phantom Menace. 

And as the in-house reporter, I was sent to the scene of the crime and tasked with reporting on the proceedings. 

There were a ton of people pouring in. I remember seeing Paul Rudd and Carmen Electra, just as I recall walking by Ryan Reynolds and almost running into Bruce Boxleitner (TRON, man!). At some point I noticed Elijah Wood—and I'm told Orlando Bloom was also in attendance, although I hadn't yet seen him in anything at that point. Edward Furlong showed up, then Usher, and a veritable torrent of actors and musicians and models that no dam could stop. Not to mention notable elements from the cast and crew.

For a while I just stood around with a glass in my hand, smiling and wondering what I'd end up reporting, because in the end there wasn't a whole lot to write about: it was a show for the MTV camera crew and little else. A man all dressed in black (leather pants), with long slick hair and sunglasses, and—like me—carrying a drink he didn't seem to know what to do with, walked up to me and asked how I was doing. 
The Prince of Darkness.

We ended up talking for the better part of a half hour, discussing life, death, philosophy. He had made the trip with one of his kids, and as we watched him running around in the grass that always seemed greener at the Ranch than anywhere else, Ozzy told me that life was moving fast and that I had to make sure I took it all in. "Still, take time to breathe, in and out. We'll be dead before we know it: we have to make it last."
So I stood there next to him. Breathing in and breathing out, with Ozzy Osbourne. Neither of us touching our drinks.

He didn't take off the shades, of course, which means I never got to really look the man in the eye. As he excused himself (without a handshake, I was sorry to notice) wished me good day and ambled off, I felt a strange connection like nothing I experienced before or since. As if I'd been visited by the spirit of an unexpected mentor who'd imparted some ancient wisdom to the eager youngster that I was, before gently floating away, his task accomplished.

It took me a while to realize we'd never even talked about Star Wars.

But in a way, that's all we talked about.

(Next chapter: Hero Worship – coming soon)

(Full series here!)

 

 

# # #

Lucas Land: ID Please

 (Previous chapter: Stag Night)

One of the things I was looking forward to the most when I first started working at Lucasfilm, stupidly enough, was to get my employee card. I wanted to hold in my hand a piece of laminated cardboard with my name on it, along with my picture and the Lucasfilm logo. To me that would be “proof,” somehow, that I hadn’t just dreamed up my new life. (Let’s set aside for a moment the fact that I was driving into Skywalker Ranch on a daily basis—I told you it was stupid.)

I wanted to be asked for my employee card at the gate, and then produce the little thing like a magic key that would throw open the doors to the kingdom for me. (This isn’t how any of this works: when you show up, either you’re on The List or you’re not. They know if you’re meant to be there.)

So I waited anxiously for that morning when my boss or HR or anyone, frankly, would tell me where to go to get my employee card minted, forged, hammered into shape, handed down by divinities—whatever it was that LFL launched into motion for that precious document to come into existence.
And I waited.
And waited some more.
When it became clear the wheels wouldn’t start turning unless I gave them a push myself, I asked a colleague about his employee card.
“What employee card? They stopped making them almost a year ago.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to camouflage my disappointment. And then, after a beat: “Where were they done?”
“Over at the Fire House.”

Located at 5858 Lucas Valley Road (no relation, if you can believe that), Skywalker Ranch sits in the middle of nowhere. The closest fire engine would arrive too late should a fire break out in one of the many buildings on the Ranch grounds—which, considering what’s housed in many of them (we’ll get around to that eventually) would be a catastrophe. So the decision was made early on to build a fire station as part of the Ranch itself, and to staff it with men and women who are not only trained firefighters, but also certified paramedics. In short, George decided he’d have a bunch of superheroes on the premises, and built them a house to live in—complete with sexy fire engines.

The one and only picture I took of those beasts.
I love that shade of red.

The Fire House stands off to the side, assuming a low profile while keeping a watchful eye on everything around it. It’s big, but at the same time so discreet that it took me a while to notice it was even there—which is all the more bizarre, since the Fire House is rather close to the front gate, and enjoys a direct access to it. You see, Skywalker Ranch is not the only property to exist in the middle of that particular nowhere, and George didn’t want to keep his posse of superheroes to himself: he intended for them to be his neighbors’ superheroes as well.
Which is why it’s not uncommon to spot one of the Skywalker Ranch fire engines somewhere down Lucas Valley Road, putting out a blaze or, less dramatically, helping a driver and their vehicle out of a ditch. And if you’re ever struck by a malaise strolling along Lake Ewok, the fire brigade’s got your back—or any other part of your body that requires medical attention.

The morning after I was told employee cards weren’t a thing at the Ranch anymore, I hopped onto one of the purple bicycles employees could borrow to ride around the grounds, and pedaled my way to the Fire House. I resisted the impulse to knock on what looked like the door to a private residence; instead I turned the handle and walked into something like a living room where half a dozen people straight out of a gym commercial were handling equipment or having a snack. One handsome, mustachioed gentleman looked up and gave me that trademarked California smile.
“Hi! What can I do for you?”
“I—  I’m here for my employee card.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “Your what?”
Someone laughed in the background.
“My employee card,” I repeated, as if that clarified anything at all.
I wondered whether my plan was just about to explode in my face. If it did, I was certainly in the right place to have the deflagration taken care of by experts.
“We closed up shop last year, son. We’re not issuing them anymore.”
I kept up the charade. “Oh—I had no idea. I was just told to come here and get mine done. Today.”
The same voice laughed once more from the back, and Mustache Man looked at me the way I imagined a gunslinger would at high noon, his shooting hand hovering near the butt of his revolver.

There was a tumbleweed-crossing-the-thoroughfare kind of a pause.

“Alright then!”
The man turned toward the hallway to his right, calling out to a space I couldn’t see. “JOHN! Could you bring up the photo equipment from the basement?”
“Say that again?”
“You heard me!”
He looked at me with a grin that lit up his face, and winked.
The duel was off.

(To this day I still don’t know if I they believed me or not. For a while I thought they did… and then grew to feel like it would be even cooler if they didn’t, and decided to play along because they were just awesome people. Don’t tell me: I’ll hold on to the mystery, thank you very much.)

I heard heavy, steady footsteps traveling a staircase in both directions, and then the man called John walked into the living room holding a large cardboard box and a black tripod. He dropped his cargo and gave me a quick once over before stepping back into the netherworld he had been happy to inhabit until I showed up.
A tough-looking lady was already setting up the equipment, and Mustache Man pointed to a blank wall behind me.
“Stand right over there.”
His voice was strong, his tone commanding; my legs walked the rest of my body to the indicated position on their own initiative. “Smile if you feel like it.”
Oh, I felt like it.

The shutter worked its magic (we’re talking 1998, remember), and then another device—the laminating machine—whirred to life. A scant two minutes later, I had my employee card with me. It technically did not exist, nobody would ever ask to see it, and the little plastic rectangle would not gain me admittance anywhere I wasn’t supposed to be. But it didn’t matter: I had my Lucasfilm employee card. What was more, nobody else would ever have one.

(Not on the Ranch, at any rate. I’m sure that when the bulk of Lucasfilm relocated to the Presidio in 2005, some sort of ID worked its way back into the daily routine of the ex-Ranchers. But I can’t imagine any plausible scenario where my employee card wasn’t the last one ever made within Skywalker Ranch.)

I thanked whoever happened to be in the living room when my evil plan had reached its dénouement and made my exit before a curious witness (the laughing man, perhaps) started asking questions—any one of which would have poked lethal holes into my flimsy story.

Outside, the air was crisp and electric, but the bike I’d ridden on the way in was gone.
Win some, lose some.
Gripping my newly minted card, I started walking back towards the Brooke House, smiling like a kid who’s just met Santa Claus and got the best present of all.

This was taken six years later when I went back to the Ranch for a visit. Still looked like a nerd.

(Next chapter: Prince of Darkness)

(Full series here)

 

 

# # #

Lucas Land: Stag Night

 (Previous chapter: It's in the Cards)

“Hey, wanna go see Raiders of the Lost Ark on Friday night?”

Standing tall behind an actual vineyard, Skywalker Sound is a big winery-looking, red brick building that’s home to everything and anything that has to do with sound within Skywalker Ranch. Recording studios (large enough to hold an orchestra), foley studios (footsteps and slamming doors), mixing studios, editing suites, plus a litany of actual offices... you name it, it’s all in there.

And there’s one more thing you can find here: a private screening room called the Stag Theater. With its 300-soul capacity, it’s about the size of your average multiplex theater. And it’s not especially luxurious either, instead coming across as a very nice room, but nothing spectacular. The truth is, you can’t see what’s mind-blowingly incredible about the Stag.
But you sure as hell can hear it.

Back in 1983, Lucasfilm deployed the THX system to ensure that showings of Return of the Jedi would conform to certain audio standards. So in high-end theaters, the movie soundtrack sounded exactly the way the mixing engineer intended—or as close to it as technical limitations and architectural concerns allowed. The system took its name from George Lucas’s first feature film, THX 1138, but also from its inventor’s namesake, hence the Tomlinson Holman Xperiment.

(During my orientation day at Lucasfilm, a sweet HR lady asked my small group of new employees if anyone knew how the THX system got its name. A few hands went up, and when one of them was selected to offer an answer—THX 1138—all the others fell back down, deflated. The cocky, 25-year-old me had been waiting for just that moment to raise my own hand, and mention Tomlinson Holman when called upon. Our HR lady was quick to congratulate me on my erudite answer, but a quick look around the room sufficed to confirm that I had just marked my territory with the smell of absolute dorkness.)

THX went on to certify more than theaters: home sound systems, computer sound cards, physical movie releases (VHS, Laserdiscs, DVDs...) and so on. But its original intent had always been the theater experience. And so the Stag was built around THX.

Think of the Stag Theater as the king of THX: it’s the reference theater, built according to the exact specifications the THX system requires. Its equipment not only provides the greatest surround sound you can experience at the movies, but it also perfectly reproduces what the mixing engineer heard in his or her studio. In other words, the Stag is what every other movie theater around the world tries to be. And if they come close enough, they get the THX certification.
So you can imagine what it sounds like when you step into that sonic temple. The room is neither too muffled, nor too echoey; neither too velvety, nor too wooden. It’s just a perfect balance between liquid and solid. Pure aural bliss.

When I walked in there for the first time—with permission to take a quick peek on my way to lunch—the whole thing felt like a religious experience. My own breathing sounded like the most expertly mixed gust of wind in the history of cinema, my own footsteps altogether like the start of something wondrous and the end of everything. It brought tears to my eyes and I never wanted to leave.
(Those who know me and my hyper-acute hearing will tell you I don’t exaggerate about that stuff: nowhere else have I heard such perfect acoustics, even when the room was empty and no sound was playing. It was beauty at a level that causes pain.)

About a month into my Lucasfilm tenure, a coworker asked me if I wanted to go see Raiders of the Lost Ark with him at the end of the week. He proceeded to explain that, once in a while, Lucasfilm held screenings for employees... at the Stag Theater. Not usually LFL productions, either: it just happened that this time around they were showing Raiders, one of my favorite movies.

So, would I go?
A few expletives later, we had a date.

Friday night couldn’t swing by fast enough. When it finally did, I showed up early to make sure I could sit in the exact center of the Stag Theater, grabbing the sweet spot to end all sweet spots. The room filled up quickly, sometimes with faces whose owners I’d had a chance to meet, but usually with friendly strangers I hoped I would get to know. (It would soon dawn on me that my role as internal reporter meant that I could meet whomever I wanted on Skywalker Ranch—though I did infiltrate ILM a few times—but I hadn’t yet made that realization.)

Right before the movie started, I looked ahead and noticed I was sitting behind George Lucas. (I would later hear that Steven Spielberg was supposed to join him for the showing, but couldn’t make it at the last minute.) He was actually one seat over on my left, which meant that during the entire evening, I watched Raiders with one eye on the screen, and one eye on George. I saw him smile, nod his head, then press his lips together and furrow his brow, in sync with what I assumed were scenes he was still enjoying—almost 20 years down the line—and others he wished had turned out better. (He reacted strongly to the end sequence where Nazi heads melt and explode, but whether his body language expressed revulsion or pride, I’ll never know.) He would sometimes lean over to laugh or whisper something in producer Rick McCallum’s ear, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

Remember we were watching this thunderous adventure in the Stag Theater, where the soundtrack was LOUD yet perfectly defined. I had frankly never heard a movie sound like that, and I fear I might there and then have forever damaged my aural enjoyment of cinema: it would all be downhill going forward. From the rumble of that giant boulder bearing down on Indiana Jones, all the way to the hissing of snakes (so many snakes!) and the crack of our archaeologist’s whip, every frequency was just right, everything mixed together into the perfect mélange. I felt enthralled, as if some alchemical process had transmuted sound into a hypnotic compound delivered straight into my brain.

There was a round of applause at the conclusion of the movie—on that ominous shot of an endless warehouse where the titular ark is re-buried, this time amongst a million anonymous crates—and every single spectator remained in their seat until the last note of the end credits had died down. (Which it did with perfect grace.)
As the lights came on, we all stood, George turned around while putting on his sports jacket—it was a chilly evening—and we nodded a greeting to each other. I blinked hard: George Lucas had gestured a “hello” at me after a showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I said something—I like to tell myself it was “Still a great movie!” or some other enthusiastic compliment, but to tell the truth I can’t remember what crawled out from between my lips. It might not even have been intelligible: George smiled politely and we all ambled towards the exit.

The hallway between the actual theater and the exterior door only took a moment to cross, but for that brief swatch of eternity, I forgot where I stood: I was just one moviegoer amongst many, walking out after an entertaining evening. So when I stepped outside and looked around, the realization that I was at Skywalker Ranch hit me like a road sign flung around by a tornado.
Wonders within wonders.

I would soon find exciting new reasons to go back to the Stag, but as a first introduction, it left a mark I don't think will ever wash away.

 

(Next chapter: ID Please)

(Full series here)

 

 

# # #

Lucas Land: It's in the Cards

(Previous chapter: In the Belly of the Beast)

“Jim will see you now.”

These momentous words were uttered by Jim’s assistant Chris(tine) Butler—who would in time become a dear friend of mine—as I tried not to squirm too much in my chair right outside of the boss’s office.

Remember I had been flown all the way from Montreal to San Francisco and spent the morning going through four interviews on the hallowed grounds of Skywalker Ranch, before coming to a rest on the doorstep of the Marketing VP—the guy who would make the ultimate decision as to my fate within the Lucasfilm organization.

In a late-nineties world that was just learning to harness the power of the Internet, my future position as lead writer (and soon-to-be editor) of starwars.com fell somewhere between the Marketing and Web teams. That’s one reason the interview process was so grueling to begin with: managers tried to see whether the fresh recruit knew what to make of that new tool, how to use it to maximum effect, what pitfalls to avoid, and the kind of future-proofing the entire online enterprise might require—because there were myriad things in that area they didn’t quite know themselves. (Frankly, I wasn’t too sure about most of that stuff, but I believe I succeeded in selling my abilities well enough for everyone to trust that what I didn’t know, I would quickly figure out.)
They also needed to ensure I was someone who knew and loved Star Wars well enough, but that I would know not to behave like a delirious fanboy around the place, and could keep a professional composure around celebrities I might pass by on the Ranch, or else directly interact with in the course of my reportorial duties. (I came the closest to losing it when, half a year later, I spent an afternoon with legendary sound designer Ben Burtt in his Skywalker Sound studio—a story for another day.) They wanted to pick the right addition to their very exclusive family, and I couldn’t blame them. But it made the whole thing nerve wracking in the extreme.

When David West Reynolds, Steve Sansweet and I got back from lunch, the VP of Marketing was in the thick of things with some other concern; it sounded like he hadn’t even left his office to have a bite. By that point I could hardly breathe, so I asked if there was time for me to get back outside and clear my head a little before the big interview. Sansweet nodded with a smile: “Of course, kid.”
(He still calls me “kid” to this day, and I’ve racked up 49 revolutions around the sun at the time of this writing. Whenever Han Solo says it to Luke Skywalker in one of the Star Wars movies, I hear my friend Steve.)

I quickly went down the Brook House exterior staircase and took a few steps towards a copse of trees before the sight of the Main House stopped me dead in my tracks. I had laid eyes on the faux Victorian beauty many times since my arrival earlier that morning, but now it was talking to me.
And it was telling me I had already won.
Not that earning the position was a certainty, of course. But whether or not this adventure turned into a job, I had been flown to Lucasfilm on George’s dime, and I was standing right smack in the middle of Skywalker Ranch, that mythical place that’s never open to the public. How many people get to experience that? Up until a few weeks prior, I had been wondering if I’d ever get a chance to visit the Ranch in any capacity. And now I was there, magically transported into the heart of all things Star Wars and Indiana Jones, two universes that had fueled my childhood.
I believe that’s what saved me—the thought that even given a catastrophic outcome (not getting the job), I had accomplished something I never quite believed would happen. I started breathing again, I felt my entire body relax, and I walked back to the Brook House with renewed confidence.

Chris smiled at me as soon as I reached the mezzanine where Jim Ward’s office was located. “Have a seat. Shouldn’t take long.”
I sat in the chair she was nodding at, attempting to look cool and comfortable. The boss was still on the phone, sounding as agitated as when I’d left; I did my best to blank that out. Against the opposite wall stood a pristine Star Wars pinball machine, no doubt a gift from the manufacturer, and one that nobody ever used. Despite being plugged in and fully functional, its role was decorative—something I would eventually come to change with regular Friday pinball tournaments. (I only ever won a couple of them.)
Then the conversation on the other side of the heavy wooden door ceased, Chris got a quick call at her desk, and she turned to me.

“Jim will see you now.”

Back then Jim Ward was a beast of a man: tall, big and with a voice to make Zeus himself shake in his sandals. Saying he made an impression is selling the experience short. (He has since slimmed down a bit, which I’m sure doesn’t take anything away from his formidable presence.)  He also had smart, piercing blue eyes that connected with anyone he crossed paths with. A veteran of Apple, Nike and Microsoft, Jim didn’t take bullshit from anyone, and certainly didn’t spread any of it around. The first time you shook hands with him—when his large and powerful mitt swallowed your fingers whole—you knew the man was the real deal. You could quite literally feel it.

“Have a seat!”

We sat on a pair of short couches that flanked an elongated coffee table, between Jim’s desk and a small conference table. It wasn’t a large office by any means, but a comfortable one, with some nice windows and a small refreshments fridge in one corner. As with every enclosed space on the Ranch, it looked and felt much more like a living room than an office.

By that point the calming effect of my walk outside was starting to fade out like an 80s pop song, but Jim wasted no time putting me at ease. He proceeded to tell me about himself, asked about my studies (philosophy & literature!), my love of Star Wars, my trip to Tunisia, the morning’s four job interviews... and then pointed to a stack of Star Wars CCG cards on the coffee table between us.
Which I had noticed the instant I walked into his office, to be sure.
I thought Jim was following up on the Tunisia question, how the results of that game’s world championship had whisked me away to northern Africa, and so on. But that’s not what he had in mind.

I would later understand that everyone before Jim had vetted me on pretty much everything they needed to confirm about my abilities. The one, final matter keeping Jim on the fence was my capacity to clearly express complex concepts in English—because I had been raised in French. And the way he decided to go about figuring this out told me a whole lot about the man I was about to start working for.

“I never play games, I just don’t have the time for it,” Jim said. “So I’d like you to teach me—a complete outsider—how to play this.”

And so it was that my fifth and final interview involved teaching the Marketing VP of Lucasfilm the rules of the strategy game that had brought me there in the first place. To paraphrase an oft-quoted line from the original Star Wars movie, the circle was now complete.

It went splendidly: years of teaching all kinds of games to all sorts of strangers had prepared me for this like nothing else could have. And while I’m not sure Jim grasped every nuance of that rather complex card game, he seemed to understand the core concepts and some of the strategy.
At the end of my presentation, he stood up, shook my hand once more and thanked me for teaching him. (How often do you hear something like that in a job interview?)

“We’ll be in touch.”

A few hours later, while I was enjoying an early evening at my friend (and future coworker) David’s place about 30 minutes away from Skywalker Ranch, the phone rang and David picked up. He went through a series of “yeses,” “okays” and “got its” before hanging up and turning to me with a straight face. “The job is yours if you want it,” he announced, his face lighting up like a Christmas tree.
IF I wanted it? I’d never wanted anything that badly in my life.

* * *

The next few weeks flew by in a blur. I had to get ready to move, say goodbye to my old life and prepare to start a new one, and go through the legal process of earning the right to live and work in the US of A. Which boiled down to Lucasfilm needing to demonstrate that nobody else in America could do the job (!), and my having to wait for the immigration department to approve my papers—at the airport, while I sat in the adjoining room (!!)—and grant me a work visa. (I believe I sweated more during the half hour I waited there than during my entire day of job interviews at Lucasfilm.)

It all worked out in the end, with Lucasfilm not only paying for my relocation (which included movers packing up all of my stuff and loading it onto an 18-wheeler that would meet me in San Francisco a month down the line), but also setting me up with a hotel room and a rental car for a few weeks, until I could find an apartment and acquire my own vehicle.

I showed up at the Skywalker Ranch gate—on my own—for the first time on a sunny Thursday morning in the early autumn of northern California, having just driven through a forest of giant redwoods where they shot the speeder bike chase sequence for Return of the Jedi. The simple fact that the guard at the gate let me through was exhilarating enough, but the sentiment paled in comparison to the bone-rattling thrill I felt driving out onto the grounds of the Ranch.
I had made it.
Yet, despite everything I had to brave to win my small place inside George’s empire, it was clear to me that my Lucasfilm adventure was just getting started. I had an entire universe waiting for me.

My old Mazda 626 parked under the Carriage House, I walked across the Ranch’s backyard and made my way to the Brook House. My Brook House, I found myself trying to think. I still felt like an impostor, mind you, but I was working hard to convince my stunned brain that I belonged in that fantastical, otherworldly place.
As I got close enough to hear the titular brook trickling under the building, David stepped out onto the landing at the top of the stairs and spread his arms in a welcoming gesture. His mouth broke into a gleaming smile as I climbed the steps that would take me to my office and my first day of work as a Lucasfilm employee; his extended right hand seemed all at once like an offer to help vanquish the few remaining stairs that separated us, and a congratulatory demonstration.
I can still remember the look in his eyes when I reached the top of the staircase and took his hand. He only said, “Welcome home.”
And then we went inside.

(Next chapter: Stag Night)

(Full series here)

# # #

Lucas Land: In the Belly of the Beast

(Previous chapter: The Call)

I've already explained how strange twists in my life made it so that in the late nineties, I got invited to fly from Montreal to San Francisco and interview for the position of web writer on starwars.com—at a time when most people would have asked, “What the hell kind of a job is that?”
This chapter is all about actually getting there.

My friend David West Reynolds—an archaeologist who had about a decade on me—picked me up at my hotel on that fateful Friday morning (in his Delorean, I’ll have you remember), just north of San Francisco, and drove me straight to Skywalker Ranch for my five interviews. Five. Interviews.
He knew the way very well: he’d been working there for about a year, shouldering the growing responsibilities of starwars.com’s web editor. I’m sure I was trying to admire the rolling landscape as our time machine snaked its way up the hillside that was about to change the course of my life—it was September, when everything’s in full bloom over there—but I can’t remember a thing. I was petrified.
We must have talked: I must have asked questions, looking for any edge with which to arm myself in order to survive the ordeal that day had in store for me. Maybe we listened to some music? I’m telling you, no idea. Whatever transpired in that mythical car, it went into one ear and evaporated before it could even make it out the other one. (I still feel a pang of nervousness as I’m typing this, more than 20 years after the fact.)

At the tail end of a trip that couldn’t have lasted more than 30, maybe 45 minutes, Reynolds pulled up to a nondescript wooden gate and touched a magnetic card to a reader. I watched as the bulky barrier opened without a sound, swinging on massive, oily hinges. The address was 5858 Lucas Valley Road.
I am not kidding.
To be fair, that road had been so named back in the 1800s, an eon before some young filmmaker would hit it out of the ballpark with his little space opera movie, and build up the scratch needed to purchase 4,700 acres of prime, northern California land. Even so, that name was a portent of things to come. And if there were any doubt in my mind as to my destination, everything around me was setting me straight, right down to the goddamn local toponymy.

A dozen meters in stood a small, unassuming gatehouse with a friendly looking security guy. He stepped into the morning sun with a smile on his face and addressed my driver by his first name. “Hey David! Who d’we have here?” Reynolds smiled back. “Francis Lalumière—he should be on your list. He’s here for a bunch of job interviews.” The affable guard, built like a college wrestler with a neck that could stop a baseball bat, fetched a clipboard from his desk and looked me up. “Right! You’re all set. You can go in. Have a nice day.” The Delorean lurched forward, following an asphalted ribbon that weaved between dense foliage. My head swivelled to and fro; but try as I might, I couldn’t make anything out. I felt like I was at the start of a ride, waiting for mechanical surprises to jump out at me. And they sure did.
A minute later, Mother Nature’s curtains parted and my jaw dropped. There it was, basking in the early morning light: the famed Main House of Skywalker Ranch.

I took this picture about a year later, when two relatives came over for a quick visit.

We drove by a small body of water. “That’s Lake Ewok,” Reynolds said. “And right there is Skywalker Sound,” he added, jerking a thumb at a nearby red, winery-looking brick building—fronted by actual grape vines—which I knew housed some of the best sound studios in the world. It was Skywalker Ranch as far as the eye could see, and I was able to take quite the gander. Lush hills all around, with a smattering of low, respectful buildings nested in the middle of the whole thing—and never open to the public.
I must have held my breath the entire way in. The car veered in front of and around the Main House, before slipping under the Carriage House (home to Lucas Licensing, where many future adventures would take me). There a hidden parking lot kept most cars out of sight: only the occasional VIP was allowed to park out front, along the Main House’s curved driveway. We emerged in the backyard, a large and pleasant area where footpaths crisscross between the handful of buildings that drive operations at the Ranch. I followed Reynolds as he headed for the Brooke House, the prettiest of the backyard buildings, and thus called because it straddles an actual brook. My friend talked as he walked, while I tried not to trip over myself amidst all of my gawking around. “So five interviews in one day, eh?” Reynolds said more than asked. “You’ll do great.” He flashed me his best the-plan-is-proceeding-apace smile. “One of them’s already done.” I understood that to mean he was one of the five, and naturally he was already sold. That didn’t quell the feeling of panic building in my throat as we neared the Brook House, which sheltered the entire marketing department.
(So they’re all called “houses,” and they do look the part. Every office space feels like it was unfurled in a guest bedroom. Hell, the office destined to be mine was a cozy octagon with a working fireplace built into one of its eight sides.)
We climbed the wooden stairs as I shot a glance at the brook babbling right underneath us. I thought, “I can’t believe I’m here” and I must have said it aloud, because Reynolds replied, “You better believe it.”

The very cool Octagon (my future office) at one end of the Brook House

Inside, everything looked, sounded and even smelled family-like; I could have been visiting an uncle in his country home. (Except then I wouldn’t have been about to soil myself.) My host introduced me to a few enthusiastic colleagues; I shook hands and stuttered some niceties, got offered refreshments from the full kitchen in the back and then ushered into the aforementioned octagon to face my first interviewer, Steve Sansweet.
Back then Sansweet was Lucasfilm’s Head of Fan Relations, but I knew (of) him as the craziest private collector of all things Star Wars—with a mind-blowing collection that now includes the original cantina door—and the guy who had penned the definitive book on action figures from a galaxy far, far away. Sansweet eased himself into the interview like someone who was born to talk to strangers and made me more comfortable the second he opened his mouth, speaking slowly and deliberately in that rich baritone of his. He was frank and open, asking questions but also volunteering generous information: what it was like to work at the Ranch, the fun stuff and the not-so-fun stuff, and what I should expect if I decided to take the job. (IF??) He was the perfect interviewer, and someone I would often think about later, especially when sitting down to a job interview: I wish they were all like him. There’s something about Steve that makes you want to become his friend, to hug him and break bread and share stories with him—just to be around the guy, frankly. He’s absolutely great.
And I think he liked me too.

Next on the list were Marketing Project Manager Jeanne Cole and Head of PR Lynn Hale, both sharp and business-like, but also charming and caring—not an easy combo to pull off. (They welcomed me into a set of “offices” you could see yourself relaxing in on a Saturday afternoon.) Each of them asked a couple of tough questions, but knew to phrase them in a way that made you want to hit it out of the park and earn a permanent place on the team’s roster. Both interviews ended on a high note, with a “Hope to see you around” topped with a wink, and a firm handshake that said you’re almost there, don’t you fuck this up.
I imagined I was on a roll, and I might even have been right. But would that roll keep with Jim Ward, VP of Marketing? I could feel the drain on my batteries; by then a few hours had trickled by—much like water underneath the Brook House—and Ward was to be my fifth and final interview, like a boss fight at the end of a long level in a grueling videogame.

Reynolds grabbed me as I exited Cole’s office and announced it was lunchtime. He’d nabbed a table for three in the Main House dining room, one of the few facilities serving food around the Ranch. “Steve would like to join us, if that’s okay with you.” (Again with those improbable ifs.)
That meal earned me my first look inside the Main House, which, just like the rest of the structures dotting the Skywalker Ranch landscape, looks nothing like a collection of offices. Its appellation is not contrived: it really is a house, except one where people happen to work.
Getting to the dining room felt like a pilgrimage, with each step of mine that echoed through the hallways threatening blasphemy—I was afraid to breathe wrong. We passed a tall glass case that displayed one of C-3PO’s metal gauntlets (glinting with defiance in the dimmed lighting), a toy-sized speeder bike model, and a remarkable miniature of Yoda. All authentic props, of course. I fought hard to keep a tight grip on the geek inside and broadcast only professionalism; I’m not sure I succeeded. (I couldn’t even begin to imagine the entire week I would one day spend in the heavily restricted Lucasfilm archives, marvelling my way through relics and icons from each of the LFL productions. We’ll get there.)
In another corner stood a massive fireplace designed to look like it had been rebuilt time and time again to secure old stones shaken loose by a century of earthquakes—even though the house itself was only a few decades old. The Main House is a Victorian wonder, snatched through time and space and brought to rest somewhere deep in San Rafael’s bosom.

We soon reached the dining room. Apart from a small team of servers—discreet enough you could miss them if you blinked too hard—the medium-sized area could have passed for one of the common rooms in an old (albeit expertly maintained) boarding house. It held a pastoral atmosphere, as well as one elongated table, plus a handful of smaller ones. Ron Howard happened to be sitting at the big table, talking with energy to half a dozen collaborators. Eh, another day at the office.
I can’t for the life of me recall what we ate. I have no doubt it was delicious, but there was only so much my addled brain could process. I remember I was starting to feel like I was home, and I didn’t want that feeling to stop. At some point Reynolds looked at his watch, swallowed one last gulp of water, and grabbed my shoulder: “Alright Marty, time to meet your new boss.”

(Of course, he was talking about Marketing VP Jim Ward, not George Lucas. I would cross paths with George only twice in the two years to come, but one of them would prove memorable indeed.)

(Next chapter: It's in the Cards)

(Full series here)

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Lucas Land: The Call

(Previous chapter: The Door)

I have previously recounted how I found myself whisked away to Tunisia on a quest for the original Star Wars shooting locations. It was on that trek that I met our intrepid guide, archaeologist Dr. David West Reynolds, who would take us through the looking glass and back, safe yet sated with blue milk and myriad intergalactic memories. 

And so it was on the road to Tatooine that Reynolds and I discovered that we had much more in common than an abnormal passion for Star Wars. Any unexpected twist in the conversation found us nodding our heads in agreement, exploding in shared excitement, or else grow solemn together in silent contemplation. For one thing, we realized we were both Back to the Future freaks, which gave us three more movies to obsess about together. (Did I mention Reynolds had just purchased a Delorean?) Despite a 10-year age gap that attempted to exert some distancing power over us, we grew surprisingly close over the course of our short two-week stay in that galaxy far, far away. So much so that, as our trip was winding down, I realized that what I imagined as the end of an incredible journey might in fact only be the beginning.

A scant few months prior, Reynolds had landed a job as editor-in-chief of starwars.com, and had his office right in the middle of the fabled Skywalker Ranch, nested in the rolling hills of northern California. Unbeknownst to me, he had since been on the lookout for a right-hand man (or woman, as the case may be): someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Star Wars universe, a sense of adventure, a willingness to jump into a ocean of unknown perils and tumbling dangers—and who also happened to have the chops to serve as lead writer in the coolest place on earth.
Me? I had been writing magazine articles for a couple of years, and published in just enough venues to prove that I was worth my salt when it came to typing stuff. (Some years later, a colleague in Virginia would start calling me “wordsmith”—still one of the very best compliments I’ve ever been paid about my writing.)

So one night, as we were actually huddled around a fire—would you believe it— Reynolds turned to me with a glint in his eye and uttered a few chilling words: “You know, you’re exactly the kind of guy I’d need at the Ranch.” I must have looked too stunned to answer, or else Reynolds didn’t feel like waiting. “I believe I have the perfect job for you,” he continued, explaining that there was a ton of writing to get done in order to feed an official Star Wars website that was still in its infancy, and that finding the right person to accomplish that Herculean task felt like subbing for Sisyphus himself. But his quest might be at an end: if he could arrange it, would I consider a position as web writer at Lucasfilm?

To be honest, it sounded like a pipe dream. I was 23, still in college working on my Masters (literature/philosophy—talk to me about 18^th century thinkers one day), and I hadn’t held a real day job yet. What was this guy selling me?
Sure, it sounded like a position I would have killed for, but perhaps in a parallel universe. Because in order to hire me (a Canadian), Lucasfilm would have to unholster a fistful of lawyers and prove to the American government that nobody else in the U.S. of A. could do the job like I could. Fat chance. And yet, what if that Rube Goldberg machine ended up producing that unlikely result?

Upon our return from our mythological odyssey, Reynolds promised to keep in touch—and that he did. I never once imagined he and I would forget each other, being as we felt like long-lost brothers, but I have to admit that the prospect of a job in California quickly faded from my horizon. I was back from the dream, and reality was calling. Still, once in a while, I would receive an email from my faraway friend saying he was still working on the job description, that our “project” was still on, and that he couldn’t wait for me to get over there.

Time flew like an angry river, with my hanging onto classes and papers like I would a disintegrating raft. About a year down the line, late in the summer of 1997, my inbox chimed the arrival of a message from a Lucasfilm HR lady asking for a copy of my resume. Reynolds had told me two days prior to expect such a communication, but I was still dumbfounded. Could this thing really be happening? I promptly fired an email back, with my resume (groomed to death 48 hours earlier) in tow. I remember looking at the screen after the communication went through, wondering what kind of a rollercoaster I had just boarded.

Less than a week later—on a Monday—I got a call from Lucasfilm. Not an email: a bona fide phone call. That same HR lady was asking if I were available to interview for the position of web writer, at Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, California. They would have a plane ticket with my name on it that very Thursday, and a car waiting for me at San Francisco Airport. That one Reynolds had not prepared me for. (He’d always had a sense for the dramatic, and I would soon discover he wasn’t done yet.)
I somehow managed to stutter that yes, I’d be delighted to go out and meet with them, and that Thursday was perfect. (At that moment I couldn’t recall what my calendar looked like for the near future, but I was pretty sure nothing held a candle to the offer I had just received.) “Great!” the lady exclaimed, as if mortals refused an invitation to Skywalker Ranch on a regular basis. “I’ll email you everything.”

Two minutes later, I had indeed been emailed everything. I would land in San Francisco on Thursday night, sleep at a hotel halfway between the airport and the Ranch, go through five interviews (FIVE?!) on Friday before spending the weekend in the Bay Area, and finally flying back home on Sunday night. Reynolds called me while I was still going through my travel arrangements, and I could hear the devilish smile in his voice, bright like a church bell ringing next door. “So, are we meeting on Friday?” he asked. I replied with a conspiratorial grin: “You bet your ass.”

Try as I might, I can’t remember the handful of days leading to my departure. I know it turned into a peculiar blur of hazy preparations and trying to think of something else (to no avail). I do recall sitting on the plane, en route to SFO for the first time in my life, and being asked by the elderly San Franciscan couple seated on my right where I was going. “Well, I’m going to interview for a job at Lucasfilm,” I replied after a beat, not quite believing it myself.
(Ever seen the movie Sleepless in Seattle? There’s this scene where 8-year-old Jonah, having flown to New York on his own, climbs aboard a cab to try to reach the woman he desperately wants his father to date. The driver asks him where he’s going, to which Jonah replies excitedly, “I’m going to meet my new mother!” I’m convinced I sounded just like him when I told that sweet couple where I was headed, and that for an instant I looked not a day older than that kid.)

The plane touched down a few minutes before midnight. My hotel was just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, so I had to drive through San Francisco at night (remember this is 1997: no smartphones to the rescue), cross the famous bridge with my mouth agape, make it to the hotel closer to dawn than dusk (yeah, I got lost), and then attempt to go to sleep. But Orpheus refused me for what felt like an eternity, and when my alarm clock started yelling in the morning, my face wasn’t sporting a single pillow crease.

Reynolds had suggested he come and pick me up, and he showed up right on time—behind the wheel of his Delorean, of course. As the gullwing door rose up and my friend started walking towards me, I couldn’t help but blurt out “Hey Doc!” Reynolds grabbed my trembling hand with one of his, put the other on my shoulder, and smiled like Doc Brown demonstrating his flux capacitor for the first time.
    “Hey Marty. Ready for the ride of your life?”

I knew he meant both the trip aboard the Delorean and my day at Skywalker Ranch.
But I couldn’t know how right he was.

 

(Next chapter: The Belly of the Beast)

(Full series here)

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Lucas Land: The Door

(Previous chapter: Welcome to Tatooine)

I’ve already recounted how the stars somehow aligned to send me to Tunisia, North Africa, on a wild expedition that would eventually land me a job at Lucasfilm. I've also offered a rough sketch of how the trip unfolded, highlighting some of the most spectacular Star Wars shooting locations we encountered along the way.

But it is now time to get down to brass tacks: the cantina door.

Right upon arriving in the vicinity of Ajim, on the island of Djerba, we recognized the telltale architecture that sends the hearts of countless fans around the world aflutter—we knew we were in Star Wars territory. As previously told, we found Obi-Wan’s home on the outskirts of town, and encountered the famous cantina, albeit devoid of its innumerable alien denizens, right in the heart of Ajim.

While shooting A New Hope, that particular building had been enhanced with all sorts of accessories in order to provide it with an even more outlandish, out-of-this-world appearance. The edifice was thus fitted, amongst other elements, with plastic domes on its top and an actual extension to one of its sides, complete with a fake door that, had it swung on its non-existent hinges, would have led to absolutely nowhere. Walking around the humble abode, we did spot the domes in the backyard, used as some sort of protective covers, more than twenty years after filming had wrapped on this weird movie filled with all sorts of creatures. Clearly, the town’s inhabitants had seen no reason to discard the materials left behind by the film crew, and had found uses for those decorations, no matter how bizarre they might have appeared at first.

So maybe, just maybe, the cantina door had survived, somewhere, and was just waiting for us to unearth it. Right?

Our little group (there were six of us) decided to split up and conduct a thorough search of the area, spreading in a circle from the cantina itself, as if a deity had thrown a rock on that very spot from the heavens, and was watching us ride concentric sand waves across the dry, scorching land. We felt that the cantina door, if it still existed, would not have dropped anchor too far from its point of origin. And sure enough, after barely fifteen minutes of stumbling about, the door—the door—appeared right before me, at the end of an open field where goats were grazing without a worry in the world.

The cantina door: one of my personal
Star Wars holy grails 

It was unmistakable: the door had kept its recognizable shape, and the plastic ridges that adorned its front—affixed to sections that had been hollowed out in the wood—were still mostly intact. That ancient, obscure piece of set dressing was now performing important duties as an actual door, guarding the entrance of a rickety shed that no doubt sheltered some tools or others. At some distance, an old man stepped out of the shade and stared at me with curiosity. I raised my hand in a friendly greeting, made a vague gesture that I hoped would be understood to mean that I’d be returning in a moment, and hurried back to round up my travel companions. They hadn’t wandered far, and in no time we found ourselves standing together in front of the shrine.

The old man had apparently understood my intent and was waiting for us, in what little cover from the burning sun the shed could provide. I extended a hand that he shook surprisingly firmly. As we were clearly foreigners, he addressed me in French—in a deep, parched voice and with a beautiful accent that smelled of wild flowers and exotic spices. I explained, also in French and as succinctly as I could, that we were fans of Star Wars, a movie shot in that neighborhood back in 1976; that we were fans who had travelled all the way from North America to visit this corner of the world that was so significant to us. He only replied that he had never heard of that movie, but his warm smile and amused eyes spoke volumes: we were crazy kids with way too much time and money on our hands.

I then proceeded to tell him that the door to his shed had been part of that movie, and that we were very excited to have found it. I actually showed him a playing card that featured that fake cantina entrance prominently, with three Jawas seated in front of it. (That image sits at the top of this article.) The old smile grew wider. Biting my lip in hesitation, I asked the old man if we could re-enact the scene and take a picture in front of his shed. The man let out a soft laugh that had seen generations come and go, and silently waved at the ramshackle construction with his palm turned up, as if saying “knock yourselves out.”

And we did.

Yours truly, sitting on the right

It was a strange feeling, knowing that we were sitting in front of the real cantina door—almost like kneeling before a holy relic. A small crowd had gathered at the edge of the field, and the locals were gazing at us with puzzlement. I remember thinking that the group would have a good laugh at our expense after our departure, and so they should. We were crazy kids. But the craziness was just getting started.

Because it’s right there, on the ground, that our archaeologist guide and my soon-to-be colleague and close friend, David West Reynolds, asked me in English: “Do you think he’d sell us the door?”

I laughed out loud and said this was nuts. What would we do with it—if we could even bring it back with us? Reynolds thought the door would find a place of honor in the private museum of Steve Sansweet, one of his friends and colleagues at Lucasfilm, and also the world’s nuttiest Star Wars collector. I admitted that I liked the idea, and so I stood up and turned to the old man. “We would like to bring that door home with us,” I began in French, “if at all possible. Would you consider letting us purchase it from you?”

I expected the owner of the cantina door to burst out laughing, call out to his friends in disbelief and share some quick comments with them in Arabic, all the while eyeing us like a bunch of loons freshly escaped from the nearest asylum. Instead, he kept a perfectly straight face and returned only one word: “Oui.” Reynolds had no need for a translation here, and pressed on without missing a beat. “Ask him how much.”

Feeling very much like a Jawa haggling over droid parts, I relayed the question. The man bit his lower lip, and after a pause that could have been pregnant with quintuplets, he said, “one hundred American dollars.” Only then did he allow himself a smile—the kind of knowing smile that says, hey, I may be just an old Tunisian shepherd, but I know a good deal when I see one, and I think you understand that. I smiled in return, nodded in appreciation. The man added, “It’s been a good door to me,” and I thought that was a perfect line. I smiled again, with genuine delight, and translated the man’s remarks for my English-speaking companions. Reynolds laughed, said “Oh, I like this guy,” and immediately agreed. Money changed hands, the bills quickly vanished into the folds of the man’s white robe, and he helped us disconnect the cantina door from his shed. No tools were required: the ancient wooden barrier had been hanging by little more than a few loose nails.

It was with a strange sense of elation that we removed ourselves from the man’s field, under the puzzled gaze of half a dozen goats and handful of locals. Grinning from ear to ear, Reynolds and I were carrying the door, like an oversized trophy after a hard fought match, and I wish someone had captured the scene with a camera. (Alas, in that pre-smartphone age, a snapshot was not yet hiding in every pocket.) Despite the excitement of the moment, we understood that we now had a problem on our hands: how did we intend to bring the door home? We quickly decided that the best solution would be to saw the door in half—through the middle section, which was all wood—and then fold it on itself, with the top half facing the bottom half, thus encasing the precious and fragile pieces of plastic set decoration inside the door itself. We figured that if we could just nail the two halves together, the door would be ready to travel in relative safety.

Fine. But how? And where?

In the west, the sun (singular) was setting fast on Tatooine, and we realized we were racing against the clock. We had to find someone with the tools we needed for the job, and soon.

We started walking, our growing shadows connected by a mysterious rectangle of darkness hanging between us. Despite my questioning some of the town folks, night fell before we reached our objective. But we were in luck: one helpful resident eventually directed us not to someone with a saw, but to an actual woodworking shop armed with equipment beyond our needs. Surprisingly enough, given the late hour, the business was still open and several employees hard at work when we stumbled in. Tools ground to a halt and the mechanical ruckus gave way to an amused silence as one head after another turned our way.

I introduced our little group and explained our situation. Could they provide the services required? “Bien sûr,” one of them replied. Two of the men brought our door to what looked like a homemade—albeit fiercely effective—table saw, then proceeded to expertly slice our relic in half, nail the two pieces together, refuse payment and shake our hands with the most charming smile in the world. They even provided a burlap bag to stick our wooden assemblage in and tied the whole thing with a rough piece of rope.

The bag, along with its coveted contents, would make it back with us to the airport and survive four plane trips. Smuggling it through customs proved surprisingly easy: we explained it was an old door we intended to restore and put in a museum. How much more Indiana Jones-esque can you get? The customs official laughed, shook his head and let us through, and that was it.

The cantina door now rests comfortably in Rancho Obi-Wan, in northern California, as one of the most exclusive pieces in my friend Steve Sansweet’s collection—the largest private collection of Star Wars memorabilia in the world. I try to pay Steve (and the door) a visit from time to time, although not nearly as often as I’d like.

Thanks to Steve for the picture!

One day, I promise myself to fly back to Tunisia and find my way to the outskirts of Ajim. I just need to see what that old shepherd installed on his shed to replace the strange door he’d been using for over twenty years. For all I know, some kid might greet me there and tell me, in that fragrant French of theirs, how his grandfather once spun a tale about some sentimental fools from overseas who showed up, decades prior, in search of an old piece of junk.

(Next chapter: The Call)

(Full series here)

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Lucas Land: Welcome to Tatooine

(Previous chapter: First Contact)

In Lucas Land, Part 1, I mentioned an old magazine article I had penned upon my return from Tunisia, where I visited many of the shooting locations used to create the original Star Wars movie. I did manage to unearth that piece (albeit in physical form—somehow I can’t locate the 20-year-old Word file) but I was rather disappointed to find out that it dealt a lot more with the Star Wars Customizable Card Game than with the North African journey itself. It’s basically a gaming article peppered with references to the trip. And since that wouldn’t be much of a fun thing to reproduce here, I’ll dig deep into my memories and try to lift the veils of Time so that I can offer a humble summary of my Tatooine adventures, circa 1997.

As was to be expected, just getting there was part of the fun.

I linked up with our intrepid guide, archaeologist David West Reynolds, in Pittsburgh before flying across the pond for a quick layover in London. It happened to be on that day that a new air corridor was being inaugurated, and with a brand new Boeing 777 to boot. So not only did the plane offer the most quiet flight I’ve ever experienced (it truly is amazing), it also had that brand new car smell to it, having never welcomed passengers before we showed up to soil its carpeted floor and leave snack crumbs all over the seats. The flight itself was uneventful, as was the next one, which took us from London to Tunis. But we still had one more hop ahead of us, in order to land deep into the heart of Tunisia. And that flight, my friends, made me feel like Indiana Jones taking off from some forgotten runway in the mid-1930s. (Not the only connection to Indiana Jones during the trip, as it would turn out.)

It was an old, rickety aircraft packed to the rafters with Tunisians—we were clearly the only tourists onboard. I could hear poultry somewhere in the back, there was some high-pitched local song playing on the PA system, and a thick, spicy smoke filled the entire cabin. When the plane ran out of asphalt and aimed at the sky, the big machine groaned under our collective weight. Not for long, however: we were to land about half an hour later, emerging from a craft bursting with foreign music, animated conversations in Arabic, and laughter. So much laughter. It was the happiest flight I’ve ever been on, the most communal 30 minutes I ever spent trapped with strangers in a tin can. A startling contrast to the high-tech comforts of the Boeing 777, which seemed very sterile by comparison.

Upon arrival, we were assigned a Toyota Land Cruiser and a driver. Both were rugged and reliable, and while the vehicle resembled something you’d see deployed on the front lines, the man behind the wheel was a warm, friendly chap who always had a good story to tell. Communications took place in French, so I found myself acting as translator for my American companions. (When I had to switch to German for one particular encounter, it wasn’t long before references to C-3PO started popping up. Reynolds still calls me TalkDroid to this day.)

Not a Jawa in sight.

Our archaeologist had already mapped out most of the shooting locations during his own, personal trek the year before, which allowed us to proceed without delay. One of the first places we came upon was the cantina. Now you have to understand that when George Lucas and his production team departed Tunisia, they left a great many things behind. Bits of set dressing, building extensions, backdrops: most of it stayed there and was repurposed by the locals. Take the cantina, for instance. The building that would become the iconic Star Wars watering hole was an adobe construction that was already there: set builders just added a small extension, built a Star Wars-looking door and threw plastic domes on top. When we disembarked from our trusty Land Cruiser, the look of the cantina was unmistakable, although the flimsy extension was long gone and so was the door; but the plastic domes had survived and were used as protective covers in the back yard. 

When we visited the troglodyte (i.e. underground) hotel in Tataouine (you read that right) that served at the Lars’ homestead in the movie, some of the set dressing was still there, 20 years after the fact. Reynolds and I had breakfast at the table where Luke ate with Owen and Beru, and we re-enacted their famous disagreement with great relish. (“But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!”) I even stood in the main courtyard, looked up at the huge circular opening, and started yelling “Luke! LUUUUUKE!” like a complete nitwit. (I would have regretted not doing it for the rest of my life.) 

Sulking at breakfast.
(Notice the set dressing in the arch above my head,
still present 20 years after shooting. The motif painted on the
ceiling was already there when the production crew arrived.)

My view of the courtyard lacked a couple of vaporators.

The exterior of the homestead was shot somewhere on the outskirts of the Sahara Desert: the mock adobe domes had been removed but the scars in the ground were still there, 20 years after the fact. So was the circular ridge where Luke rests one of his feet as he gazes longingly into the twin sunset. (I’m sad to report that only one sun shone down on us during our visit.)

Waxing introspective in the middle of nowhere.

We trekked our way to many minor shooting locations, including the cliff where Obi-Wan points to Mos Eisley in the distance, declaring it a “wretched hive of scum and villainy”—the three iron rings nailed to the rocks and used to latch the camera tripod into place were still there, patiently waiting for us. Our driver would always shake his head in disbelief when I asked him to drop us off in the middle of nowhere and come back to fetch us four hours later. But he was always on time, and no doubt surprised to find us all still alive.

Not a bad spot for Sand People snipers, don't you think?

We retraced Skywalker’s steps to the spot where Obi-Wan revives him (yes, we re-enacted that scene as well…) but Reynolds was still one location short: the exact spot where they filmed the Tusken Raider attack on Luke. We knew it had to be close by so, armed with production photos and trading cards (!), we started walking around, scanning the horizon for a peculiar break in the rocky formations. I eventually spotted it and hastened to stand right on the spot where the attack had been captured on film. As if on cue, a donkey (that must have been barely out of sight) started braying, which froze the blood in my veins for a second: the first part of its call, echoing through the canyon around me, sounded exactly like (and was indeed used for) the Tusken Raider war cry.

I emerged unscathed and we eventually made our way to Obi-Wan’s home, which is really a fisherman’s hut, just a few meters away from the Mediterranean. It wasn’t altered at all for its movie role, but was filmed using a low angle to conceal the vibrant sea frothing behind it, and make it look like it’s standing deep inside Tatooine’s barren land.

Standing in front of Obi Wan's humble abode...

... right next to the sea.

You know what? Let’s take a break here and rest our feet while we enjoy a glass of blue milk. I have to catch my breath before I launch into the infamous cantina door story and retell those Indiana Jones tidbits…

(Next chapter: The Door)

(Full series here)

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