AFICIONADO CLASSIC BEHIND THE SCENES INFO - PART FOURTEEN

An Imperial Officer (Milton Johns) informs Darth Vader of Luke Skywalker's approaching X-wing. Image: KURTZ/JOINER Archive.

THE UK 'COLLECTORMANIA' EVENT - JULY 2010

A few new snippets of behind the scenes information on the making of the Classic Trilogy, compiled by Ian Trussler and Scott Weller.

ALAN FLYNG (STORMTROOPER and SNOWTROOPER- THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. EXECUTOR IMPERIAL BRIDGE OFFICER- RETURN OF THE JEDI)

A very happy and enthusiastic person, Alan worked for several weeks on EMPIRE as a Stormtrooper and was dubbed "the chubby trooper" on set. He recalled how dangerous the set was-so much so that one extra in Stormtrooper costume fell from it and was thankfully not seriously injured. Entrance to the set was via one way, normally blocked off by the camera crew when they were filming scenes. Sometimes, the Stormtrooper extras had to climb up ladders to get to the set. As a Snowtrooper he recalled the horrible fumes that came off the fake snow and ice built for the Hoth Rebel base sets. He was not originally hired for JEDI but the original actor cast as the Imperial Officer was sacked after filming commenced as he couldn't get the dialogue right. Alan was contacted by an assistant director he knew and bought in at very short notice. He was given a hand written contract to sign for one days work, but it actually ran to two days work. When he arrived at Elstree he was dressed in a black Imperial Officer uniform and sent to the set. When he got to the set he was promptly sent back to wardrobe and told to change into the Olive Green Imperial Uniform and return asap. He was not dubbed for his scene. He filmed no other scenes other than the one in the movie.

MILTON JOHNS (IMPERIAL OFFICER IN BESPIN CARBON FREEZING CHAMBER - THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK)

During Spring 1979 he contacted his agent to see if he had any work and was told of an offer for one weeks work with two line of dialogue on the new STAR WARS movie. Milton was not keen at all but was persuaded by the pay check. He hated working on the movie as it was so boring- what was meant to be one weeks work stretched to about 7 weeks, due to all the problems with the Carbon Freezing Chamber set. On his first day he arrived at 7.30am for wardrobe and make up and sat around all day and never got called to set. He has no idea why in the movie one of his lines is dubbed (he is seen in the above image talking to Vader) and the other is his own voice.The only thing that kept him going for the seven weeks was the good money he was earning.