The Battle of Yavin

Yavin IV is a small moon orbiting the gas giant Yavin. It’s also where the Rebel Alliance decided to set up camp. Most of the battle preparation scenes took place in the hangar, and briefing room, not counting the few exterior shots.  The famous awards ceremony in the throne room closed out the film. The battle itself obviously took place in space, and there were a few changes from script to film. Let’s take a look at some of these differences.

REBEL PILOTS

According to Star Wars Insider #41, the elusive Lost Cut of the original Star Wars film contains many additional shots of rebels doing their rebel thing while preparing for the fight of their lives. There are more shots of the hangar and ships, the briefing room, and some of the pilots even got close-ups.

First, let’s talk about Wedge Antilles and what I refer to as “The Briefing Room Wedge” controversy, a hotly debated subject in certain fan circles for years. Rebel Pilot fanatic Jim Fisher and I have had many discussions about this. His explanation from 2005 sums the whole issues up nicely:

In 1996, Decipher, the makers of the Star Wars Collectible Card Game, released their “Wedge Antilles” card in the A New Hope expansion set. The photo on the card was clearly not Denis Lawson. Rather, it was the actor who delivers the line, “That’s impossible, even for a computer,” in the briefing room before the battle of Yavin. Jason Winter, Decipher’s online representative at the time, posted the following to the newsgroup alt.fan.wedge:

In Star Wars [A New Hope], Lucas originally got the actor Jack Klaff to play Wedge. He did so in the briefing room scene, where he said “That’s impossible, even for a computer.” We have confirmed with Lucasfilm that, indeed, this is Wedge Antilles. Later, Jack “became unavailable.” Denis Lawson was the actor who played Wedge in the Death Star attack scenes, as well as later in ESB and RotJ.

Sandy Wible, another Decipher rep, commented, “Well, I’m not sure that he [Klaff] actually appeared in the Death Star scenes, or whether that was just an error in the credits. The credits are flat wrong in at least two other places, so it’s not unbelievable.”

However, it turns out that Decipher is flat wrong on this issue. Jack Klaff once wrote to me: “I can tell you that I most certainly was in Star Wars, but that I most certainly was not in the briefing scene.” Klaff also identifies himself in the film as a pilot seen during the trench run. Decipher identifies Klaff’s photo as “Lt. Naytaan, Red 9.”

This leaves us with the question: Who is the actor who portrays Wedge in the briefing room? Carolyn Brady has also done some research into this alternate Wedge, or “Not-Wedge” as she puts it, and has theorized that the actor is not Jack Klaff, but is a British actor named Colin Higgins:

After scrutiny of videos (Jack Klaff in For Your Eyes Only and Colin Higgins in Brideshead Revisited), I was going to concede that “Not-Wedge” could conceivably be Jack Klaff if he had bulked up into someone handsomer between the making of Star Wars and For Your Eyes Only, but I still wasn’t sure, so I recently showed the segments to three friends, and they all said that “Not-Wedge” was definitely not Jack Klaff because his nose and cheek bones were all wrong. Two thought he was more likely to be Colin Higgins, though they weren’t sure, and one friend said she had also thought it was Colin Higgins.

However, when I flashed the Decipher game card around on the movie discussion board at a Jane Austen site (where we’re all obsessive about Brit actors), a woman who had seen Jack Klaff in Ivanhoe on A&E went back to her video to look, and said she thought it could be him (although his character had a beard was twenty years older.) I’m almost sure that Jack Klaff is the X-wing pilot who says “I’m hit!” and gets blown up. I had to freeze the frame to see his face, which is partially obscured by his helmet, but he has a very distinctive nose. Anyway, look at Klaff in For Your Eyes Only. He plays one of the main villain’s henchmen (dark hair, looks Greek, wears jeans and tight t-shirt.) Klaff’s publicity info at the Southern Shakespeare Festival also stated that he was in Star Wars. I don’t think he’d be broadcasting that fact in that venue if he had ended up entirely on the cutting room floor, but who knows! I have not come across any pictures on the Internet yet (not even at the  British Actors web ring.) They are both obscure enough to have not one webpage devoted to either of them!

The best comparative screen capture for Colin Higgins would probably be found in Brideshead Revisited, Ep. 4 – “Sebastian Against the World” – towards the end of the episode where his character, Partridge, has a conversation with Charles Ryder (Jeremy Irons) while sitting on a bench in a quadrangle at Oxford. He’s in good profile and looks particularly non-Wedge. If you go to the closing credits and watch in reverse, it’s the first scene outdoors wedged (no pun intended) between a scene with Jeremy Irons and Simon Jones packing things. Jones asks, “Do you think Sebastian will need this elephant’s foot again?” Higgins also appears briefly in the first episode as one of the scholarly  group Jeremy Irons hangs out with. Look for the scene where they are discussing academics in a dorm room when Anthony Andrews sticks his head in an open window and throws up on the seat. I realize that this doesn’t clear up who actually played “Not-Wedge,” but it should help point out who Klaff is in the film.

Red Four, otherwise known as John D, is a young pilot who gets shot down after eliminating his first target. He was supposedly played by actor Jack Klaff and originally had a few lines of dialogue which were removed from the film. Here’s an interesting quote from the “Behind the Magic” CD-ROM about John D. I say “interesting” because it’s actually wrong, from a certain point of view:

An additional fighter pilot, Red Four (or “John D.”) is mentioned in the novel. He is a young, eager pilot who is sadly shot down after destroying his very first TIE fighter. Actor Jack Klaff was cast in the role for the film and his three lines (“Red 4 standing by…,” “I’ve got one, I’ve got one…,” and “I’m hit! Arrrrgh!”) were shot in under an hour. To reduce the film’s overall length, these scenes were ultimately eliminated. Although he does not appear in the film, Jack Klaff does receive a credit at its close.

The part that’s incorrect is where they say he does not appear in the film. John D actually does appear in the film for a few brief seconds when his fighter is followed and destroyed. The script excerpt below even contains a line from Red Leader (Blue Leader in the original drafts) that made it into the film (“…watch it, you’ve got one on your tail.”)

Here are the script excerpts from the “Star Wars Revised Fourth Draft Screenplay” (dated March 15, 1976) with Red Four’s deleted moments intact:

First, John D. gives the famous “standing by” line:

JOHN D
Blue Four standing by.

and then later in the script we find this:

181. INT. JOHN D’s STARSHIP – COCKPIT – TRAVELING
CU. John D, a young pilot with a scar across one eye, adjusts his targeting device.

JOHN D
I’m on one! I’ve got one!

182. EXT. SPACE AROUND THE DEATH STAR
Full Shot. A tie ship races by camera followed by John D.

183. INT. JOHN D’s STARSHIP – COCKPIT – TRAVELING
POV. shot over John D’s shoulder. The tie ship attempts to outmaneuver the young rebel, to no avail. John D closes on the Imperial craft as it skims the surface.

184. INT. JOHN D’s STARSHIP – COCKPIT – TRAVELING
CU. John D reaches up and pulls the trigger of his laser cannon.

185. EXT. JOHN D’s STARSHIP – TRAVELING
POV. Gunsite. The ship is blown to oblivion and spirals down toward the Death Star.

186. INT. JOHN D’s STARSHIP – COCKPIT – TRAVELING
CU. John D. A gleeful expression crosses his face at his good shooting.

BLUE LEADER
Good shooting, Blue Six…
watch it, you’ve got one on your tail.

John D’s smile instantly disappears from his face as he looks around, but can’t see the ship behind him. His ship shudders as a laserbolt explodes nearby, creating flak out the cockpit window.

187. EXT. SPACE AROUND THE DEATH STAR
Full Shot. John D’s x wing races past camera, closely chased by an Imperial tie ship firing both guns.

188. INT. JOHN D’s STARSHIP – COCKPIT – TRAVELING
CU. John D. The inside of the cockpit explodes as John D is hit.

JOHN D
I’m hit! I’m hit!

189. EXT. SPACE AROUND THE DEATH STAR
Full Shot. John D’s X wing explodes in a fiery ball, parts flying in all directions.

Greg Rossiter alerted me to this bit of information about Red 12 (or Blue 12, if you’re reading the novel/screenplay.) Apparently what happened is that Red 12 (along with Red Leader and Red 10) was part of the second run on the Death Star exhaust port. Red 12 was the first to be shot down by Vader during that particular run. When Red 10 was destroyed, however, the editors used Red 12’s cockpit destruction shot instead, possibly assuming no one would know the difference.

 

 

TIE FIGHTERS

Starwars.com once posted that the TIE Bomber, first seen in Episode V, was originally to be included in Episode IV:

The TIE bomber’s design was actually conceived for A New Hope, though the vessel was not seen in that film. Early sketches labeled it a TIE boarding craft, suggesting its use at the start of the film. From those sketches, both Marvel Comics and the daily Star Wars newspaper comic strip incorporated the twin-pod design in their tales before the bomber’s formal introduction in The Empire Strikes Back.

They also once posted this bit of trivia in a TIE Fighter Pilot Databank entry:

An interior shot of a TIE fighter’s destruction is never seen in the original trilogy, though behind-the-scenes photos prove that such shots were filmed.

 

A SNOW PLANET?

It’s no secret that George Lucas liked to use a wide variety of planets and environments in his Star Wars films. Here’s something interesting, though. It seems that the idea for a snow planet didn’t originate with Episode V. Here’s a quote from producer Gary Kurtz during an interview about the production of The Empire Strikes Back:

“We took out the snow scenes in the first film [Episode IV] partially because George doesn’t like shooting in the cold. This time, we were able to include a snow environment.”

Yavin IV might have ended up a snow planet instead of a jungle planet. It makes you wonder how the films would have been different.

 

RANDOM YAVIN IV PHOTOS

Here are a few random images from Yavin IV that were not seen in the final film from these angles. The shots of the trio looking at Han’s medal are most likely publicity photos or perhaps candid photos from the set between takes.

The picture of R2-D2 being raised into Luke’s X-wing was never used in the original version of the film, and can be seen in The Star Wars Storybook, among other places. If you watch closely during the restored Biggs scene in the Special Edition, you can see the droids and the tech in the background raising R2 into place.

The astromech droid in the close-up (the reddish R5 unit) may have been Red Leader’s astromech droid during the battle of Yavin. Here’s the text from Starwars.com:

Filming of the cockpit scenes took place on one of Britain’s hottest days in 400 years. The production crew only built a single X-wing interior and it served as the cockpit of all the X-wing pilots seen in the film. The astromech droid head seen behind the cockpit was interchangeable. Red Leader’s X-wing had a Red R5 unit assigned to it.

Star Wars Insider #42 includes a quote from Anthony Daniels, who tells a short story about how the throne room scene at the end of the film was slightly altered:

“We (Threepio and Artoo) were scripted to march up the aisle with the rest… On a good day I could do steps — at great personal risk. Like my cleaning lady, Artoo doesn’t do steps — even on a good day. So a decision had to be made. My companion and I would not make the trip at all. Instead we would lurk on the platform awaiting the arrival of the superheroes who could go the distance without seizing up.”

Cinefex Magazine, in their 1996 tribute to ILM (issue #68) makes a quick mention of the Yavin IV shots, indicating that many were left out. Here’s an excerpt from the article called “War Stories” by Kevin Martin:

With the studio maintaining a tight-fisted attitude towards the production, funds for second unit work were only sparingly allotted. Thus, when the time came for a second unit shoot in Guatemala, where the jungle surrounding the Rebel base on Yavin was to be filmed, only Richard Edlund and Dick Alexander were sent to photograph the required plates. “By this time, most of the show was in optical, so they could afford to let us go,” recalled Edlund. “With a production scout, we went to the Mayan ruins at Tikal. There we met up with Lorne Peterson who was on vacation by now and decided to join us on his own. We hired some local péones and schlepped our incredibly heavy Technirama camera – in its case with a two-hundred-foot magazine and a car battery to run it – to the top of a giant pyramid still covered over with jungle. As a lookout post, we erected a pole with a glorified trash can on the end of it that the model shop had made, and Lorne got to play the guard. We were there for about ten days and did a bunch of shots – three or four of which wound up in the movie.”