and walks off, leaving me standing there. You can see the camera just
pulling away and this little doe-eyed kid going, `Oh . . . Hi . . . ' That was
the last I saw of Doug. I thought, `Okay, I can go home.'"
With one day remaining, Lightman suggested that Johnson might want
to take in some of the tourist attractions since he wasn't sure the film he
was covering that day would be very exciting. "He said, `The name is
pretty silly; it's called Star Wars.'" Having come out to see all he could of
filmmaking, Johnson decided to tag along. "We pull into this industrial
building parking lot where the Death Star is laid out before us--I don't
even know what the Death Star is yet. Then I notice this giant, two-story
hot tub. In it were all these long-haired guys smoking cigarettes and
racing radio-controlled cars around the parking lot. We walk in the place
and cool our heels in the waiting room. It was one of those bad industrial
waiting rooms with a couple of couches and some copies of Daily Variety
on the table. On the back wall that leads to the stage is a Mylar teaser
poster for Star Wars. All it said was `Coming to your galaxy this summer.'"
Apparently behind schedule, beneath the tag line someone had written
"Or maybe next summer" and then on a piece of masking tape below that
someone wrote, "Or maybe the summer after that," and so on.
"I thought, `These guys are having fun!' Then suddenly this titanic
man--he had to be seven feet tall--comes bounding out of his office and
says, `I'm John Dykstra. Come on in and let me show you some stuff.'"
Everywhere were prototypes and models for X-Wings, the Blockade
Runner, Landspeeder, TIE Fighters, and the Death Star. "They are all
made out of dragster model kits like I used in my own model building.
I recognize every single part. It was really amazing."
Before the tour is over, Dykstra shows them the Millennium Falcon,
then takes them to an upstairs area to view some of the film footage. "It
was this black tarped-off area with these ratty old couches, old popcorn
on the floor, and a big steam-powered projector that looks like it will
smudge any film that goes through it. He turns on the projector and
Herb and I are thinking, `This guy is nuts.' The first thing we see is
the Star Destroyer going overhead. No sound, no music, just the Star
Destroyer, and tears sprang from my eyes. Herb and I are mesmerized,
staring at this. We look at each other and Herb just starts writing--fast.
With that first shot I realize I'm about to see something unbelievable.
"I got on my little Eastern Airlines flight and went back to Wadsworth,
Illinois, population 750. I had to figure out how I was going to spend the
rest of my life in that town (Hollywood) now that I'd seen all of this. It
was just incredible; it was life changing." Back in school, Johnson tried to
explain to his classmates what he'd experienced, and that this incredible
movie called Star Wars would be opening on May 25, 1977.
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