Suvudu Universe

The Making of Return of the Jedi completes J.W. Rinzler’s definitive trilogy of books creating the most comprehensive historical account of the film making process for the original trilogy of Star Wars films.

In between a fun foreword by director Brad Bird and an Epilogue by Rinzler, the author provides an account of the events leading up to production of Jedi, the production itself, and ultimately the films release and what came next.

This book is a treasure trove of materials, behind the scenes and on set black and white pictures dominate the pages, a smattering of color photographs are included as well as page after page of concept art from various artists who worked on the film.

Painstakingly researched (as you can tell by the book’s bibliography) Rinzler provides a historical account of production in a chronological order, relying on primary sources as much as possible to fill out the account.  Rinzler was given the run of the Lucasfilm archives and you can tell that it paid off in the richness of the story that is told.  In addition to Rinzler’s writing and the quotes included in it, we also have sections featuring excerpts from various drafts of the scripts and my personal favorite a transcript from a Revenge of the Jedi story conference from July 13 to July 17, 1981 featuring George Lucas, Richard Marquand, Lawrence Kasdan and Howard Kazanjian.

Throughout the book we get a look at the business side of things with Lucasfilm’s ongoing issues with 20th Century Fox, the internal issues within Lucasfilm and ILM also feature prominently, the negotiations and costs of productions as well as the financial results of the films release.

We meet or are re-introduced to a number of people involved in production of the film behind the camera and Rinzler does a great job following their individual stories as well in fleshing out the larger story of Return of the Jedi. For long time Star Wars fans, this book will almost certainly show you something new and for newer fans you will be able to spend hours delving into this massive book.  One of the striking things about the book for me was seeing just how dynamic the creative process was between Lucas and those who worked for him on Return of the Jedi.  It is also amazing to see it reinforced that Lucas never threw away a good idea and you can see in some concept art here elements that would later be re-used.

Whether you are a filmmaker, a writer, an artist, or a fan, I cannot suggest highly enough adding The Making of Return of the Jedi to your library. This is a book you can keep coming back to and discovering new things each time you pick it up.

The MSRP for the book is $85.00 so this is definitely a premium product, but you will most likely be able to find it on sale, Amazon currently has it listed for $51.00 and while Barnes & Noble has it for $52.02. For more on The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi visit Random House’s website.

Author’s Note: A review copy was provided by the publisher for this review.