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Reference size/height shots of the all-new AT-AT Walker.
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Though Phil Tippett and Jon Berg were always on the
cards to be handling some form of stop-motion duties
for Star Wars II prior to April 1978 (with their work
on the chess sequence for the original Star Wars having been an
element of the film that proved very popular with the
film going public and impressed Lucas, it was not always set in stone that the Tauntaun/Walker scenes would be achieved via stop-motion, and that other processes for achieving the
sequences were being considered. The prior rumours of the time that Lucas had sought out effects legend Ray
Harryhausen for the stop motion work of the Walkers
battle, however, would actually prove true. Phil Tippett
recalled to CINEFEX in 1980: “Lucas approached him
about doing some work on it. They went out to lunch
and discussed it. Because of their schedules
(Harryhausen being in Pre-Production for his upcoming
Clash of the Titans, and was already behind
schedule anyway), they couldn’t get it together.”
Dennis
Muren continues to CINEFEX: “I believe that the
meeting happened in the early part of 1978. Thing is, I
don think they ever expected Ray to actually take the
job. George and Gary really wanted to meet Ray, and
that was sort of a way to do it.” It was when the Empire story/script was being
further developed, that
the immense duties
eventually undertaken
by Berg/Tippett in the
old style effects
format, recommended by Muren, would be given
serious consideration
and then green
lighted. Muren’s first
contract work on the
nature of the Walker
and Tauntaun effects
would begin in April
1978, with the earliest
meetings with Lucas
and Kurtz, followed
with discussions that
would now include
Irvin Kershner in
May/June 1978 (of
which Tippett and
Berg would now be
properly, officially
brought into the
process).
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A fallen Walker with an at-arms soldier atop it.
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With their animation/
stop-motion/effects
work on the then
upcoming film The Primevals now
ground to a halt due to financial problems, talented
effects men Ken
Ralston, Dave Carson
and Tom St. Amand
are hired by the
Empire ILM team-all three
providing critical
contributions to the
realization of the
Walker/ Tauntaun
sequences.
With the problems of
script re-writing and
the much later location
filmed Finse
background plates
proving unstable and
photographically
uneven, which will
prove to be difficult for
overlaying the effects
sequences onto, a
massive period of
design and engineering
work begins from the
autumn of 1978 until the summer of 1979. Whilst
Muren is in charge of working out the practicality and
logistics of the effects filming, the rest of the team are at
the drawing boards.
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No longer inside a Bantha costume, Mardji the elephant returns to help ILM.
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To work out the movements of the Walkers and how to
bring the sequence to life, Stop Motion Animator Jon
Berg recalled an early idea to STAR WARS INSIDER
in 2000: “I remember somebody had done a sketch on
possibly doing the Walkers through some sort of
marionette system. We had to figure out, first, how are
we going to make these big machines -- just make them
-- and then how are we going to make them move?”
Motorized Walkers are also an possibility but this is
ruled out early on. Berg continues: "I remember saying,
'This thing looks so much like an elephant, why don't
we just go out and shoot some film?' It wound up being
this whole expedition that went out -- Dennis Muren,
Phil Tippett and I, and a whole camera crew. The
elephant we used was a sweet Indian elephant named
Mardji (who was at Marineland’s AFRICA USA
enclosure in San Francisco), and she had a trainer. We
shot quite a bit of footage of her walking back and forth,
so we could get an idea of the motions an animal that
size and configuration goes through in just walking.”
Regardless of the elephant, Joe Johnston always thought
the Walkers walked in a very cat-like way, recalling in
1980 to CINEFEX that he thought they moved “stiff legged, head down.” Berg would spend three months
working out the design and construction of the Walker
and working out its final movements.
The primary
motion of the fearsome beasts was refined further
within the story. Dennis Muren recalled on the STAR
WARS DEFINITIVE EDITION LASERDISC audio
commentary in 1993: “Part of the idea behind their slow
movement was that they could be overpowered and they
would lose. That was part of George's vision on it. They
were big, lumbering, you know, obsolete machines that
could be overcome by a clever person in the right spot
with the right weapon. I think we might have talked
about it being an analogy to Vietnam...”
Three primary Walker armatures would be built by Tom
St. Amand using Berg’s
prototype as a model. Berg
recalled some of his
intricate work to STAR
WARS INSIDER in 2000:
“One thing I did when I
was designing the Walker
was to create little squared off pistons in the upper legs
and little doohickeys on the
inside. So when you did the
leg animation these little
mechanisms would actually
move along with it, and
you'd get secondary
animation that you
wouldn't have to worry
about doing yourself. I
thought those little fun
things going on with the
Walker's movement would
make it look like something
was actually happening
mechanically there.” The
Walkers stood eighteen-by-twenty inches when
completed by the ILM Model
Shop, with St. Amand
having to custom build
each part from scratch,
with meticulous painting
by Joe Johnston (with
additional help from
Nilo Rodis-Jamero) brought to
the models which added
depth and believability
to them.
Adding further believability to the Walker sequences, having worked on a snow episode of the original Battlestar Galactica (the two-parter Gun on Ice Planet Zero), Lorne Petersen and Steve Gawley’s experiences prove useful in providing the baking powder snow miniatures set covering that will be later used during the stop motion filming.
