I was on record as saying repeatedly that
I would rather be tarred and feathered
than do another movie adaptation.
THE PHANTOM MENACE
IT WAS LATE in November of 1997, just before Thanksgiving, when I retrieved a phone message from Linda Grey, then president of Ballantine Books, asking me to call her. I was on my way out the door with Judine to do some Christmas shopping at Southcenter Mall, so I decided to hold off returning the call until later. But when I got to the mall, I found myself standing about with time on my hands because Judine had wandered off to the lingerie department, so I decided to go ahead and call Linda back before she went home from work for the day.
I reached her right away. She told me that George Lucas wanted me to write the adaptation of the forthcoming Star Wars movie, Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Would I be interested in doing this?
Two distinctly contradictory thoughts crossed my mind instantly.
First, I was on record as saying repeatedly that I would rather be tarred and feathered than do another movie adaptation. At every book signing, convention, conference, and public appearance of any kind, I had made this declaration. Vehemently. The Hook experience was still fresh in my mind eight years later, and I was not anxious to stick my foot in the bear trap a second time. No more movie adaptations for me, I had proclaimed. Not ever. No matter what.
Second, if I turned the offer down for no better reason than this, I could not imagine how I was going to explain it to my kids. The oldest was a huge Star Wars fan and the other three were rabid enough to be considered dangerous. Whatever explanation I offered, they were not going to understand.
So I asked Linda, who was not at Ballantine at the time of the Hook fiasco, if she was aware of the fact that I had sworn off movie adaptations. She said she was, but she insisted this was different. I said I understood. In truth, I did. For several reasons, this was enormously different. It was the most anticipated movie of the last twenty years. Everyone would go to see it. The exposure for a writer who did the adaptation would be huge. Hundreds of thousands of people read my books, but millions would go to see Episode I. If I took the project, I had a chance to reach them.
If I agree to do this, I said to Linda, I want to meet first with George Lucas. I want to reassure myself that working with him is not going to turn out to be another Hook nightmare.
Good, she said without missing a beat. He feels the same way about working with you.
I hung up the phone. What had I gotten myself into?
When I called Owen to find out—for with Lester’s death several years earlier, Owen was now my editor—he advised me that Ballantine had bought the rights to do various books based on the next three Star Wars movies. Clearly, they wanted to launch the book for Episode I with an author who was not associated with writing Star Wars books. He did not suggest that I had lost my mind by agreeing to consider the project. To his credit, he did not even ask me how it felt to eat my own words. Probably, he knew. Probably, he had eaten a few of his own over the years.
I was scheduled to fly down to Skywalker Ranch and meet with George and the LucasBooks staff in early December. But first, a contract had to be worked out between Ballantine and my agent. I had learned a few things since Hook, and one of them was not to take anything for granted or on faith when dealing with movie people. Another was to have an agent, something I had not had in the past. Janklow & Nesbit now represented me, and Morton Janklow would hammer out the agreement with Linda.
The negotiation took place over Thanksgiving. I was back in Sterling with Judine so that we could be with my ailing father. We were staying at the house of friends who were elsewhere for the holiday. My father had gone back into the hospital, so Thanksgiving was celebrated without him. It was also celebrated in the midst of a flurry of phone calls from New York that suggested an agreement on the Star Wars project might not be reached after all. At one point, Mort called and asked me if I was prepared to walk away from the book. I took a big gulp and said I was.
What the heck, I had been saying it for eight years now anyway. I supposed I could say it one time more.
In the end, however, an agreement was reached, one that satisfied both parties. Afterwards, I broke down and told the kids what was happening. The huge fan kid was ready to pack her bags for Skywalker Ranch, and the others would have been happy to join her, but I reined them in. This wasn’t settled yet. I still had to meet and talk with George Lucas and company. I still had to find out what sort of experience this was going to be.
I had one advantage this time that I did not have during the Hook debacle. I knew someone who worked with George. Lucy Wilson, whom I had met several times before, was the contact person with LucasBooks. She was the person with whom Ballantine and I would be dealing. I liked Lucy, and I thought we would get along fine. If she was indicative of the sort of people with whom I would be working, I could stop worrying.
Several days into December, I flew down to San Francisco, rented a car, and drove north to Marin County and Skywalker Ranch. I had directions to a hotel. Once there, further instructions would be faxed to me in my room. I was reminded of Mission: Impossible and wondered if I would get to see anything self-destruct.
Sure enough, at the hotel a message and directions to Skywalker Ranch awaited. I got back in the car and drove out. The ranch was situated in one of those incredibly beautiful valleys nestled in the hills off Highway 101. The entrance wasn’t marked. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, you would never find it.
Lucy met me and introduced me to Howard Roffman, the director of subsidiary rights for the company. I liked Howard right away. He was a former lawyer who had been with George since the beginning of the Star Wars program. I told him he should read Magic Kingdom for Sale. He told me I should read the script for Episode I and write down any questions I might have.
I was placed in a room where I read the script and made notations on a legal pad about things I did not understand or about which I wanted more information. (I already had a page of questions that essentially related to how I was to be treated.) I finished the script and my notes. I thought the script was terrific. You can’t always tell, but from what I saw, I thought this was going to be a great movie.
Of course, I thought that about Hook initially, too, so I managed to curb my enthusiasm.
Next, I met with Sue Rostoni, who would be my editor at LucasBooks on the project, and several of her staff. They were friendly and relaxed. Already, I could see a big difference between the attitude of the people working on this project and the unfortunate functionary I was forced to deal with while writing Hook.
I had dinner with Lucy that night. She was quiet and reserved as always, but reassured me that everyone was happy I was writing the adaptation. I took her at her word. I was feeling pretty good about them, too.
The following day I attended a presentation given by Howard to a number of licensees who were seeking to secure various merchandising rights that would tie in with the movie. The format was a combination of oral and visual, with Howard giving a partial synopsis of the story and offering slides and brief rushes from the film. It was impressive, and the potential licensees sat glued to their chairs.
After they left, Howard sat down with me to answer what questions he could. I decided to be blunt. I told him my main concern was getting the sort of cooperation I did not get on Hook. I wanted to be reassured that when I asked about something, I would be given an answer. I wanted access to drawings and documents. If there was anything I was not supposed to know or have, I would like to hear about it now.
Howard told me not to worry, that this was going to be a different experience entirely. The Lucas people were going to open the vault; they were going to give me anything I wanted. This would include drawings of ships, characters, weapons, and scenes, and a CD that contained over a thousand stills from the movie. If I needed something more, they would see that I got it. I breathed a deep and heartfelt sigh of relief.
After lunch and a tour of Skywalker Ranch, I met with George Lucas. By now it was after three o’clock, and I was flying back to Seattle that night. Howard and Lucy took me up to George’s office where George was waiting. He was sort of impish, stocky and bearded, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, and short like me, which took the edge off the size of his reputation and put me somewhat at ease. We sat down on couches around a coffee table and took out our cassette recorders, which we had all brought. It was a little weird, but that was okay.
The conversation began with me asking George if he was sure he had the right man for the job. After all, I didn’t write science fiction. Neither did he, he advised. We agreed, after a brief discussion, that we both wrote adventure stories. I asked him if he was familiar with my work. He was. We talked about Judy-Lynn del Rey, who bought the book adaptation rights to the first three Star Wars movies back in the mid-seventies and believed in their potential when others did not. George had not forgotten. We talked a little about our past. I quickly became convinced that even though he was a California boy and I was from Illinois we had grown up with many of the same influences. He asked me where we should start our discussion. I asked a few questions in response, but he quickly suggested it might be easier if he just told me what he was looking for.
He said that he was interested in knowing if I could tell the story in the book more from Anakin’s point of view. The original focus of the movie was going to be on Anakin, but it became too unwieldy to film it that way. Was it possible to change this in the book? I said I believed so. He told me he was looking for original material, and I practically fell off the couch. Was he asking me to add to his script? Yes, indeed he was. He began to diagram scenes he might like to see. Getting into the spirit of things, while still not quite believing what I was hearing, I countered with revisions of his ideas and suggestions for other scenes. We went back and forth for some time, trading possibilities. There was a fierce intelligence behind his arguments. He was passionate and committed to his work, and he reminded me of myself when he talked about it.
At one point, I found myself practically lunging at him to insist that an approach he was taking that relied on flashback was all wrong, couldn’t possibly work, and shouldn’t even be considered. I knew I had overstepped my bounds when both Howard and Lucy gave me a rather stunned look. But George accepted what I said without comment, and we moved on to other matters.
I asked if I could change his scenes around. He said I could, and furthermore I could keep scenes from the original script that he cut in editing. I asked if I could change his dialogue, knowing that what works on the screen, buttressed by visuals, sometimes just lies on the page and begs to be put out of its misery. He agreed again. I was both flabbergasted and elated by all of this. I asked certain questions about where the story was going. Mostly, he told me. He also told me what I could and couldn’t use in the book. Some of what he told me was not going to be revealed to the public until Episodes II and III. I was expected to respect his confidences. I was just happy to have them for a change.
After a while, we went down to the editing room and watched film rushes. Principal shooting on the movie was mostly complete. What remained to be done was extensive editing involving the inclusion of all the special effects. What I was shown that afternoon was stunning. George made the console operator rerun the Podracer scene several times. I felt like a little kid with a new toy as I watched. George looked like that was how he felt, too.
Four hours passed, and finally I had to leave if I was to catch my plane. George said he was available anytime I wanted to talk. He said he would be in touch after a few final scenes were reshot.
I flew home on the plane, but I suspect I could have flown without it, given the way I felt.
George and the people at LucasBooks were as good as their word. I was given everything I wanted. I went back down to Skywalker Ranch one other time to discuss changes in the film and how they might affect the book. At one point, I called George to ask about the history of the Jedi and the Sith. He talked to me about it for almost an hour. Goodness.
I completed the book and turned it in by May 1 of the following year. It had been a dream project. Everything had gone as well as it possibly could. I was pleased with the book. So was everyone else. I had to make a few cosmetic changes, but that was all.
The book came out three weeks ahead of the movie and went straight to number one on the New York Times Hardcover Best-Seller List, where it stayed for five weeks. I was interviewed by every publication known to man. I could not have asked for anything more in the way of exposure. It was exhilarating and satisfying. George was kind enough to write a personal note thanking me for my work on the project.
There are a couple of things still left unsaid about this experience.
I firmly believe that George Lucas and I have written the same sort of story in Star Wars and Shannara. Both are epic generational sagas. Both deal with dysfunctional families and hidden secrets that will destroy some members of those families. Both use magic of a sort, mine of a traditional fairy kind, his of the Force. Both invoke magic that works in the same way, able to help or harm either the user or the target, with the result not always being predictable. Both are coming-of-age sagas involving quests and archetypal confrontations between good and evil. Only the trappings are different, his of science fiction, mine of fantasy. Both are classic adventure stories.
Could those who decided I was the right person to adapt The Phantom Menace into book form not have been aware of this?
In 1977, Star Wars and The Sword of Shannara were released within months of each other. Both books were shepherded through the publishing process at Ballantine Books by the sure hand of Judy-Lynn del Rey. She talked to me at the time about how important the Star Wars project would turn out to be. She told George Lucas the same thing about The Sword of Shannara. I could not bring myself to ask him if this had anything to do with bringing me into the Star Wars world twenty years later, but I cannot help but think that it did.
What the experience illustrates is that the people and events that will help our careers and prove important in our lives are not always recognizable at the time we first encounter them.
So I say to you in closing, May the Force be with you. It certainly was with me.