Hey folks, Harry here with a first time Star Wars spy. You say you want STAR WARS rumors and tidbits... alright, welll.... I'll begin giving them to ya. This is unconfirmed, though there are aspects that I do know as being accurate... like Lucas' not quite being satisfied with what he got on camera in Australia. Also, the massive amount of additional blue screen compared to the last film is very accurate. There might be some very minor spoilerish material below... but nothing catastrophic quite yet. Enjoy...
First time reporter, long time reader. Originally ol Smokey and I were going to try and smuggle this bit of news to an alternative destination, but that rascally Sheriff Buford T Justice of Portague County just got right down obnoxious, so rather than waste it, enjoy this piece for your site:
The recent reports of Jedi's fighting 'imaginary' opponents are true. A few versions of the scenes were filmed, including the Jedis fighting solo, then extras used as their opponents to map out the movements for the benefit of ILM. The Jedis were mostly dressed in black and dark colors like Luke's outfit in ROTJ, and the 'opponents' were dressed all in green jumpsuits, probably to make it easier to scan the movements into a computer.
I spoke to one of the ILM guys and he lightheartedly said that they will be hard pushed to finish the movie on time because many ILMers were in England working on The Mummy Returns. His comments may have been tongue in cheek, but probably pretty accurate. There is more of this movie filmed with bluescreens than there was in Episode 1, hence the speed at which work at Fox Studios was completed, with Lucas opting for ILM to fill in the blanks.
There were indeed a few grumbles and bad vibes during the shoot in Oz, Lucas was very pissed at a few things it seems, namely the shoddy security and the open flaunting of the public attractions in the studio backlot, which meant the crew were restricted slightly and pestered throughout by Joe Public. Rumors are that Lucas may abandon the Australia production for Episode 3 and return to Leavesden Studios as apparently there are STILL props and set pieces from Episode 1 in storage there. He may either opt to wait for Warners to finish Harry Potter there (unlikely), or he may just move everything back to Elstree Studios.
I listened in on a conversation in the Oz production office (i was collecting my Ep2 cap!), they were discussing why they are hurrying the filming in Spain, Tunisia and Italy so they can get back to Elstree to 'clean the mess up', also they were discussing why he was going to Elstree anyway just to do a few bog standard 'bluescreen shots' when he could just come back to Oz where he still has the place hired and available. He's probably gone to size up the place for Episode 3...
Bandit
