The late filmmaker would be 94 on April 29.
To him, the greatest ‘Star Wars’ movie ever made was endless trouble.
Somehow, he made it work.
Credit: Lucasfilm/20th Century Fox/REX/Shutterstock
This Saturday, April 29, marks what would have been Kershners 94th birthday.
He still couldnt believe what theyd pulled off…
A MESSAGE FROM HAN SOLO …
The announcement: the first-ever DVD release of theStar Warstrilogy.
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he told the crowd.
The man they called Kersh had a big laugh and an even bigger voice disconcertingly so.
That was the result of severe hearing loss that started when he was a young man.
Kershner had been a B-24 flight engineer during World War II, coordinating bombing runs over Germany.
A wise old man.
A veteran of a long ago war.
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It was easy to see why Lucas trusted him to make the 1980 sequel toStar Wars.
Irvin Kershner was the real life Obi-Wan Kenobi.
He even had a spiritual, mystic side.
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He was a student of Buddhism, and the teachings of Yoda no longer sat easily with him.
Not very profound, although young people consider it profound.
The filmmaker paused, considering his words: I wish they would read more.
DO, OR DO NOT.
Before I went off to do the film, I had a talk with George.
And he said, I want you to know something.
Theyre going to prepare all these special devices for you but nothing is going to work.
I thought he was kidding.
From the third shot on, it was true!
We had to improvise constantly.
1 was R2-D2, a lovable droid who in those days of early robotics was a non-stop headache.
Kershner estimated there were eight versions of the droid, each built for a different behavior.
They never did what you needed them to do.
So we ended up pulling them with nylon cords instead of using the electronics, Kershner said.
It would get stuck and go in little circles instead of going straight.
That worked the human factor!
He was acting to a mute puppet pretty hard to do!
Before that, figuring out what Yoda should look like tested the ingenuity of the crew.
It seemed like a cliche.
Lucas decided to go the opposite way: tiny.
But that would be even harder to render as a practical effect.
I asked that it could look like it ate, that it could climb, Kershner said.
A puppet, let alone a Muppet, didnt even cross their minds.
They went for an even wilder idea.
His expression said:I cant believe it either.
Inmy old story for the AP, I describe the pitch of his voice rising in frustration.
You go crazy, and you tryanything!
But Kershner made everything work.
Where he saw flaws and headaches, audience still see the greatestStar Warsmovie of all time.
Consider it a Jedi mind trick.
