WHAT IF
STAR WARS
WAS MADE IN ORDER?
This WHAT IF ? argument had to come sooner or later: What if director George Lucas had made a fantastical error by not making his movies in 'chronological order'? What if Star Wars had begun at the very beginning? What if instead of A New Hope we had The Phantom Menace - premiering across our movie theatres way back in 1977 ??
That’s a lot of what-ifs. Thats like saying what if JFK wasn’t assassinated or Titanic hadn’t hit that iceberg? Lets face it, it would be a drag. It would be like having to read the entire Bible from beginning to end, when all you really want, is all the juicy bits, like: Noah and the Great flood, Moses and Christ taking on the Roman Empire.
Its easy to say that The Phantom Menace should have been the first Star Wars movie but in hindsight there would have been repercussions: Running Star Wars in chronological order, starting with The Phantom Menace (circa 1977) would NOT have paid off in the '70s and heres why.
For starters nobody would have got all the fuss about Anakin Skywalker. (Darth who???) Jabba would have been humanoid (played by Belfast actor Declan Mulholland) and to attempt to (un)create the many visual effects without CGI would have pushed the production team way over budget and 20th Century Fox would have cancelled the project.
Something as complex as Star Wars had to start somewhere. The original idea was something like Jedi Kane Starkiller and a complex story of revenge, cloning and where Han Solo was a ten foot tall green lizard in spandex. This was essentially the look of Star Wars in 1974. It would take Lucas a little while longer to realise that this version could never be made with the current technology and opted for a simpler idea but even that became another epic story.
In the end, Lucas realised Star Wars could only be filmed if he took one portion of it and make that into a movie - which later became A New Hope. But back in 1977 it was simply called 'Star Wars' because folks, nobody had a clue what Star Wars was. So with that in mind, it was far simpler to use this first film as a vehicle to showcase the entire Star Wars concept.
Lets also not forget that the original Star Wars very nearly didn't get made at all. NOBODY believed in Lucas's vision. They just went along with it because he had a little Hollywood clout. Lucas didn't help things by his shyness. His incessant mumblings and lack of stage direction frustrated actors and crew alike.
‘Faster with more intensity’ would be his stock direction cue.
To make matters worse, the British film crew downed tools every day at 5pm and production was dangerously close to getting shut down. Shooting the Tatooine scenes in Tunisia turned into a nightmare: as film sets got destroyed in sand storms and the crew mutinied to go back to England (presumably for more tea).
If that wasn’t enough headache, the Special Fx Team were way behind schedule, frustrating matters. Without a break, Lucas desperately tried to get the film finished and it almost dam near killed him. In the end Lucas had to fire his editor and cut the film himself and perhaps this single act saved Star Wars.
Looking back, it really was an ambitious project hindered at every turn. But Lucas's genius lay in turning each of those hindrances on their heads and the rest as they say is history. It was the biggest gamble of his career and it paid off but had Lucas gone with some half baked chronological story such as The Phantom Menace, the Star Wars Franchise would have sunk like a lead balloon and call it what you will, that is a educated guess and likely how it would have gone down.
Take also into account that Science Fiction wasn’t terribly favoured by Hollywood at the time. What we got on the cinema screens in 1977, was basically a compromise between what Lucas wanted and what could be agreed upon by the lever pullers.
Perhaps we wouldn’t have a franchise at all if the executives had gotten their way. The deplorable Christmas Special almost destroyed Star Wars. But that’s another story.
All in all, The Phantom Menace could never have been made without establishing the concept of Star Wars with A New Hope and that’s evolution, folks.
