Welcome, in this episode of the GNN Interview we talk to Simón Cross who has surprised many with a revival of Star Wars, a movie franchise from Earth’s distant past that has proven to be very popular today. I: Thank you for joining us today, Simon SC: Not at all, my pleasure. Always have time to talk Star Wars! I: So, for the benefit of the audience who do not know it, can you briefly outline what Star Wars is please? SC: Certainly, Star Wars also known as Episode 4: A New Hope, is a 2D movie primarily produced by George Lucas starting in 1976. For its time, it was full of ground-breaking special effects, action, adventure, and fun. It made a lot of money at release on December 17th, 1976 and won a lot of awards. It made household names of its starring actors and helped science-fiction explode across television and movie screens in a way never seen before. I: Wow. So there had been nothing like it before? SC: Oh no, there had been science fiction media before, for example, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Doctor Who, Planet of the Apes, Lost in Space, Thunderbirds, Twilight Zone, Galaxy Quest etc etc. What made Star Wars different was the breath of its storytelling and its special effects. I: So, it was a huge success and made lots of money, there must have been sequels? SC: Yup! Lighting struck again with The Empire Strike Back, the premiere was on May 4th, 1980, in London, and on general release on May 14th. The film with its shock twist about Luke’s father and Han’s capture brought audiences back again and again. So, a third film was made called Revenge of the Jedi. Directed by Steven Spielberg, who was a big name at the time, the third in the trilogy was released on May 4, 1983, and made huge amounts of money with audiences liking the conclusion to the story with the Wookiee uprising to free their planet, Vader turning on Emperor Palpatine, and other surprises. I: Was that it then after the third movie? SC: There was a pause to be sure. Lucas was burnt out from Star Wars and heading into a divorce, but in contrast Spielberg was pushing for more. In 1985 Lucas relented and let his friend take the helm on a new Star Wars feature, provided he had some input. The result was breath-taking. The New Republic was set 5 years after Jedi and showed us how building the New Republic was going. Along with chasing down the Imperial holdouts, now ironically rebels of course. What Spielberg’s genius did was create ex-Imperials we could sympathise with as well as scheming New Republic figures who were all fighting for Chancellor Organa’s job, who in turn was trying to find someone to dump the mess onto. It was rich, and deep. Spielberg was criticised for ignoring most of the Star Wars tie in books, comics and such that had been released, but Lucas declared them all ‘great entertainment, but separate-canon to my universe’ leading to a parallel literature-verse for Star Wars, not to dissimilar to the Galaxy Quest one. I: New Republic was a success then? SC: Oh, yes. It came out for Christmas 1986 and its themes played well in the era of a tottering Soviet Union and disintegrating Warsaw Pact. Its complex political themes did not sit well with some people of course, but it was Star Wars and made a lot of money, only just behind the original Star Wars movie itself. Many wanted a sequel, but Spielberg was mulling other ideas that eventually became E.T. and passed on a sequel, instead handing the reigns to his friend David Cronenberg who’s 1989 The Phantom Menace brought even more grey into the Star Wars universe with a threat from the ‘Outer Regions’ of the Galaxy being used to try and unify the New Republic under a new Chancellor. Cronenberg added a touch of horror, and threat to everything. It is a strong movie with some electrifying performances from the main cast- especially Jeff Goldblum as Chancellor Velkin. However, it was regarded at the time as ‘dull’ and ‘slow’ many fans and critics wanted more ‘action’ despite there being starship chase and a good 20 minutes of dogfighting as Chewbacca attempts to escape an ex-Imperial base. It made the least of the Star Wars movies, though well over its budget and was hardly a flop critically. It was thought Lucas would stop any more movies after that, or direct one himself, but Spielberg whose efforts to make Empire of the Sun had failed due to political tensions with China stepped in and promised Lucas a ‘spectacular’ 6th movie. Lucas was unsure but did not want to direct himself as he was busy with Labyrinth: The Return, so agreed. Rather than rush out a movie however Spielberg made and released an hour-long TV movie for Fox TV intended to tie into the movie. 1991’s Origin of the Clones came out on May 4th and was set 150 years before the first Star Wars movie when the Republic was still shiny and clean like in ‘traditional’ sci-fi compared to the usual ‘used universe’ look of Star Wars. It was low-key with a unnamed Human scientist played by Bob Hoskins trying to crack the secret of cloning- he is contacted by a shadowy cloaked figure who promises him a breakthrough and sends a Zabrak called Koth played by Ron Perlman to him along with a wealth of scientific data. Koth is to be the template for a clone army. I: Trying back into the earlier movie’s backstory? SC: Exactly. There was a second TV movie called Rise of the Clones released a year later set 100 years before the first movie, we see the Republic has changed, corruption is everywhere. The buildings are getting that used look, and we see why when we find out that to end personnel shortages in the Republic bureaucracy there are millions of Koth clones everywhere; multiple characters including a comparatively younger Yoda complain that ‘nothing gets done any-more’. The clone civil service is supposedly the brainchild of the weak and easily manipulated Chancellor Trendy from Corellia, who is advised by a very handsome man called Palpatine played by Ian McDiarmid. I: Who also played? SC: Indeed, he did. Course Spielberg ends the second TV movie with the Declaration of Succession by the Outer Colonies, and a broadcast of Chancellor Trendy declaring them traitors. Off ‘camera’ the final shot of Palpatine smiling that evil grin was the perfect ending. I: How did they tie it in? SC: They did not exactly, it was subtle. Spielberg used his movie to take the fake menace from the Outer Regions and make it real. Return of the Sith was set 10 years after Jedi and had the return of Darth Sidious aka Palpatine aka The Emperor, but not the old, crippled version, but a young, vital, powerful man played by Tom Hanks. Palpatine was backed by a huge fleet made up of Imperials and aliens, led by Admiral Thrawn an alien tactical genius played by Morgan Freeman. Thanks to infiltrators in the New Republic the appearance of the Sith force was hidden until swathes of the Outer Rim started dropping out of communication. Leia, now a General persuades the New Jedi Order to send someone to investigate and it is her daughter Breha who returns with word of Palpatine’s return. Well, you’d imagine the New Republic gathered its fleet and went and kicked ass? Well nope. The government froze and then effectively collapses as the first wave of Palpatine’s forces pushed into the Mid-Rim. Leia, Luke Han, Lando, and a host of other characters had to save the day by rallying a force about the same size as Palpatine’s, while Luke led a Jedi strike team to take on Palpatine. I: Did they win? SC: Yes, but at cost. Luke was nearly tempted to the Dark Side by the power of Palpatine, until his daughter brought him back to the Light. It took the sacrifice of the hero ship the Millennium Falcon to destroy Palpatine. Plus, several major characters die. Then there is the post credits scene of a room full of cloning tubes which is a call-back to the Origin of the Clones. I: Did it do well? SC: Very much so. Released in December 1992 the movie was a fantasy break from the horrifying news of Khan’s rise in the east. It did better at the box office than Star Wars itself. I: But it was the last Star Wars? SC: Indeed. The Eugenics Wars put paid to any sequels as material and time went into supporting NATO forces. Plus, sadly George Lucas died in the Times Square explosion on October 27th, 1994, throwing the rights into a complex legal battle between Lucasfilm and Fox that deadlocked all future production. Spielberg refused to direct anything else in the universe in memory of his dead friend. Also, a factor was the strides in space with the DY series, the Space Elevator, Mars base etc. As technology got more sci-fi Star Wars seemed less relevant. There was a revival of the books in the 2010’s which was all Fox and Lucasfilm would agree along with a video game series set 4000 years in the past, but the increasing conflict between NATO and ECON meant more and more materials were diverted for military use, and many film-makers were engaged in propaganda works. On December 24th, 2036, the nuclear bomb aimed at San Francisco missed and landed on Nicasio, north of the city, the blast and fires took out Skywalker Ranch, and in the chaos of the post-atomic years after World War III it lay forgotten in ruins. I: So how did you come across Star Wars? SC: Well, just because the original film stock was lost does not mean the movies where, many copies of them survived the war on ancient physical media. My ancestor’s where big Sci-fi fans- they went to conventions, one appeared on Babylon 4, they had all the Galaxy Quest merch, you get the idea. Well, they also collected Star Wars stuff. The family back then lived in Nevada and during the WWIII days they effectively built and moved into an underground bunker. From the records I have they played board games and watched a lot of movies. At the end of the war, the family kept the bunker and all its things ‘in case’. It became storage and then basically forgotten. Fast forward to 2250 and I was building a new wing on the house for my workshop when I broke into a tunnel not marked on the maps. Me and my partner Marc did some exploring and came across the family cache. Now as you can imagine not everything survived, but in the dry atmosphere a lot did. A treasure trove as you can imagine. None of the electrical items where compatible with modern power grids, but we built a converter after some research and managed to get a disk player working with one of the displays, we had also found… it spun up and we were greeted with the John Williams opening fanfare and got hooked. *chuckles* The Opening Credits I: An old 2D presentation managed to hook you? SC: Oh yes. Star Wars told a simple story. One that still resonates now. The Heroes journey. Simple villains. Compared to the complexity of Andorian soap operas, or Tellerite courtroom dramas it was a breath of fresh air. Sure, there was other Sci-fi in the years post First Contact- the reality hopping Stargate Sliders for example, but this was from another time. It was simple, direct. I: You went looking for the rights holders? SC: Well yeah. Lucasfilms had vanished in the 2040’s and the rights lost in the chaos of that period. We tracked a warehouse of their assets until the 2058 Presidio Fire in San Francisco. Even the book and comic publishers are gone by now, lost in the mergers and acquisitions of the post-war period, and all the time since. I: So dead end? SC: Indeed, and with the American Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Centre taking a nuke along with the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base we thought all the original Star Wars actual film reels gone forever too. So, Marc and I decided to take a road trip transporting around the world to find what Star Wars locations remained. We documented our trip and published to an audience of effectively zero. It was Marc who suggested we go to the site of Skywalker Ranch with a metal detector in case we could get something from the site. I: Seems surprising it had not been built on? SC: We thought so, but the whole area of valleys had become a wind turbine generating area in the 21st century during reconstruction, and a nature reserve later. The site itself was almost gone, just a few low walls in the woods. I: But…? SC: But indeed. Our metal detector found some bits and pieces which turned out to be parts of a typewriter. So, we dug about for a bit- finding the odd bit of unidentifiable plastic, or burnt metal thing, then our detector starts going nuts and that was the floor panel. Opening that gave us a mostly collapsed hole. Well, a quick drone down there and we found a mostly covered up doorway. Now we got excited- basements! I: So, you brought the place? SC: Yeah, it was on the edge of the nature reserve and ‘too polluted’ to build on. I was not sure why, but we took the luck and effectively moved a trailer onto the site along with some digging kit, and some friends who had a free summer from teaching like us. Then we where off. The Basement was mostly also trash, walls fallen in, crumbled stuff. We found what had been an editing studio buried in earth. Paul found half a Stormtrooper helmet. That got us some local press, and some archaeological types joined the team, which slowed things up as things got catalogued, but did bring in some credits from a Cal Uni grant. We kept digging and clearing- there where scaffolds and temp force fields everywhere, but we had the upper floor and basements clear in August…. then we found the door behind a huge mud slide right on the edge of the main house. Course we opened it to another ramped tunnel, this one of such serious construction there was almost no degradation in the concrete. Down we went. At the end of the tunnel was the heavy blast door- well for the early 2000’s anyway. It was still sealed tight, and deep underground. It is labelled Archive. I: Tell me about the archive. SC: From what we could piece together during the grim days of 2030 someone at Lucasfilm took the decision to relocate the company archives to Skywalker Ranch, Lucas’ old home in case San Francisco was attacked. Models, concept art, and reels of film where transferred. Ironically it would not have been needed as San Francisco was missed, but you can see why they were taking persuasions. I: Was it all still there? SC: Yes. 84% of the Archive is intact. What had been lost was improperly stored and degraded from simply time. We didn’t just rush in and open the place up you understand. We called in proper Federation experts at this point. We didn’t want to risk whatever was in there- and scanning suggested it a lot of stuff. News spread. Media started getting interested, and so did Admiral Aurm Aleek-Om a senior Archivist for Starfleet. He visited the site and offered us use of a shuttle to scan the sub-basement as well as Starfleet quality environmental equipment. We could not say no. I: Why such a generous offer? SC: Good publicity for Starfleet in a time of increased tensions with the Klingons we figured, but we were not turning down the help! The Shuttle was called Falcon, to our amusement, and sweeping across the estate made a lovely set of scans right into our sub-basement revealing racks after rack of stuff. The scans where so good we were able to pick out Tie Fighters, and other models. Then Aurm dropped a big one- instead of opening the door, he figured we could just beam in. Full spacesuits so not to bring contaminants. Well, I jumped at it, along with Aurm so suited up we were, and beamed in we went. It is strange sensation beaming into blackness like that. Helmet torches can only do so much. But the scale of the place…. Not very tall, but the racking went on and on into the darkness. We explored and wow. It was Aladdin’s cave indeed. Loads of props- weapons, costume, models. Boxes and boxes of records, and another windowless sealed room with dead environmental controls, but labelled ‘Film Store’. I swear I nearly died from excitement. I: Well, it is three years on from that discovery and you have yet to open that vault any reason why? SC: From all our measurements and sensors the Storeroom is 100% sealed, nothing has entered it since it was shut. Since old film can be flammable, and it will be very fragile with age now we are proceeding with extreme caution. We know there are approximately 500 tins of film in there. It is likely there is more works than just the Star Wars films from American Graffiti to Raiders of the Lost Ark, to the multiple Willow series. Scanning unfortunately cannot read the labels we know are attached to the tins. We are hoping to find the expertise to open the store and get to the tins. I: I understand you came up with a... unique way to drum up interest? SC: Well, I guess we did. Marc and I teach at the Academy, so we have lots of ex-pupils out in the fleet and at installations. We are also both engineers, so we drew up plans for a ship, and with help from friends in Starfleet we pulled together the materials to build a little birdy. Which was finally built by the students in our classes as an extra circular project. I: Indeed, The Millennium Falcon herself, and space capable? The Millennium Falcon on tour SC: Warp capable! It took some engineering to get a warp core to generate the correct warp field geometry fit in her profile, but we managed it. We took inspiration from the Phoenix with retractable warp nacelles, though ours are underslung. I: Not much room for crew then? SC: No, at 35 meters by 26 she is a small ship by our standards, back to the size of ships United Earth was flying at the time of the Romulan War, but she is so different from anything else flying she certainly gets noticed. In the 6 months we have been flying her we have had a lot of renewed interest in Star Wars, and the Vault. I: A question that will be asked, why cannot the Vulcan Science Academy, or the Federation Department of Science help you? SC: Well because Starfleet had helped with the Vault and Academy students built the Falcon, it has been dismissed as a ‘Starfleet Project’, which it isn’t. Marc and I own the Star Wars rights now, but as private citizens, however. Starfleet has backed away since it got political, hence our touring trying to drum up interest. The movies have been shown across the Federation now, and we have had interest in turning them into 3D virtual environments, but fiddling with Lucas’ original vision seems like sacrilege you know? I: Is this why you have ruled out making Episode 1 to 3 of the series? SC: Indeed so, while it was exciting to find a box of Lucas’ and Spielberg’s notes on the prequel movies and what their plans for all those clones where, we cannot know how they would have filmed it. We don’t even have the equipment today to film like they did, and a modern interpretation? A visual re-imaging of Star Wars? Not happening. I: Do you think we will ever see the contents of the Film Store? SC: I really hope so. We have made great strides in cataloguing the Vault, restoring some of the models, and scanning everything we can, but there is a lot and its very delicate in most cases, especially the paper objects. We still wear sealed suits in that room and have the place covered in monitors for humidity, temperature, etc. I: So where can people contact you if they want to donate to your project, obtain copies of Star Wars or just find out more? SC: We are on the UFP Infonet of course, just search Star Wars and we will come up. We have a complete data service including news on the project, how to obtain the movies, the history and all the interviews we have been giving to the fantastic Federation press corp. I: Scott Cross, thank you very much. SC: My pleasure. ----***----