Lawrence Kasdan on Why It Was Important for Him To Make ‘Light & Magic’

Legendary screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan was recently a guest on Entertainment Weekly‘s Star Wars podcast Dagobah Dispatch (you can check out the episode here), to promote his documentary series Light & Magic. This is a six-part event, now available on Disney Plus, that recollects and documents the history of Industrial Light and Magic, the company that George Lucas founded back in 1975 to bring the visual effects he needed for Star Wars to life. Here are some interesting bits from the interview.

 

Kasdan started explaining how he was first contacted by Steven Spielberg to do the script for Raiders of the Lost Ark, even before he got the job for Empire Strikes Back. But then, when he handed the first draft to George Lucas, Lucas asked him to help him out on Empire — even before he read a single page of Raiders. Here’s how Kasdan explained it:

 

“It had taken me seven years to sell two scripts that I had written, two spec scripts. And the second one was purchased by Steven Spielberg. And the day I met Steven Spielberg, he said, ‘I’m going to do a movie with George Lucas and I want you to meet him. Are you okay with that?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’m very okay with that.’

And we walked over and we saw George, and he gave the bare bones of what Raiders would be. And I wrote Raiders before. And when I finished it after about six months, I took it to George and before he read it, he said, ‘I’m having trouble with the sequel to Star Wars. Will you help me with that?’ And I said, ‘Well, don’t you want to read the [Raiders] script first?’ And he said, ‘I’m going to read it tonight. If I don’t like it, I’m calling you up tomorrow, I’m taking back this offer.’ I thought that was perfectly fair, but he did like it. And so I found myself unexpectedly writing first Raiders and then Empire in quick succession. And I was in heaven.”

 

Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas

 

Kasdan continued to explain how he didn’t really know who the people at ILM were when they were making those movies, though that changed over the years:

 

“And what I didn’t know at that time was who these people were. But over the years, I’ve used them. I’ve made other movies there. And I saw that the group was a group of geniuses and I loved the spirit that they had with each other. And it continued right through the generations.

And you can see there’s a real affection in these people for each other, for their experience. They’re very grateful for having the experience of working there, being around these equally brilliant people. So I found that all kind of moving. And as the years went by, I got to see and know more about them. And then, of course, this was the deep dive that I just really wanted to take. Where did these people come from? How did they wind up at ILM?”

 

Light & Magic writer/director Lawrence Kasdan

 

After watching Light & Magic it is undeniable that, even though computer graphics are behind the most realistic visual effects of all time, having models and practical effects adds a sense of magic and wonder to any movie that just can’t be replicated by a set of zeros and ones. Kasdan commented briefly on this, saying how it is, ultimately, human nature to feel this way:

 

“Many things in our world and our culture have gone from being handmade with their fingers, with their hands, with their eyes, modeling things, painting things. They’ve gone from that tactile place into a digital place. And sometimes the digital stuff is brilliant, but it can’t have that thing. And I think what you’re talking about is an affection. It’s not just you. It’s the species. They did it before anything. They were in caves and making things, they were painting on the walls. I think there’s something irresistible about that. And when you don’t see the tactile part of it, you miss it.”

 

When asked about his favorite effect from a Star Wars film, Kasdan revealed that it is still the original, the one that blew everyone’s mind in 1977:

 

“There are millions, but I have to go back to A New Hope, because that was what blew my mind and everybody in the theater around me in 1977. And so many of these people that worked at ILM subsequently, they were seeing that movie around the world and saying, ‘How’d they do that? Why is it more exciting than anything I’ve ever seen?'”

 

Light & Magic
Richard Edlund in a scene from Lucasfilm’s LIGHT & MAGIC, exclusively on Disney+. © 2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.

 

He also added that his favorite discovery about the history of ILM when he started doing research for the docuseries, it was that the company was ultimately a big family, filled with generosity and humbleness. He said:

 

“Well, there was something that I hoped, I didn’t know it, but I was hoping. It seemed to me being on the outside of it and being around it for so long that this community that makes up ILM — and now it encompasses people my age to people who are very young — that community has been infused with the kind of generosity toward each other. It’s a team sport. And I suspected that. I hoped that.”

 

Light & Magic had some truly incredible behind-the-scenes footage, some of which had never been seen before. Kasdan explained how this was possible because George Lucas wanted everything well documented when he was making his movies in the 1970s:

 

“I had a great producing group from Imagine, and the freelance producers that came on and the research people and the archivists. They’re astounding, and like you say, Lucasfilm is probably the most well documented enterprise like this ever because George Lucas decided when he was making A New Hope that he wanted a good record. When he was making American Graffiti, he wanted there to be a record of the process. And he with full commitment, always had people documenting it. And we had access to things that no one’s seen. And that’s kind of thrilling when you see.”

 

Make sure to head over to Entertainment Weekly to check out the rest of the interview. All six episodes of Light & Magic are now available on Disney Plus. You can check out John Hoey’s review of the series here.

 

SOURCE: Entertainment Weekly

 

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Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.

Miguel Fernandez

Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.

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