Page 43 - Star Wars Insider #188

THE GALACTIC ARCHIVIST

myself and art director 02 The book features 03
Josh Baker walked into many rare photos ,
including this shot of
the Ranch through the George Lucas and
main communal area, Frank Oz on set.
where there are comfy
03 Carrie Fisher
couches and most (Princess Leia) poses
things are Star Wars in her Endor costume.
related. We were very
04 Anthony Daniels
excited. Laela French, as C-3PO in this
who runs the Lucas behind-the-scenes
shot from A New Hope.
Museum of Narrative
Art, took me to all the
archive sites to introduce me, and that was it.”
“I never know, going in, what the story is,”
Duncan continues. “I have to find it in the
archives, and that’s where the story makes itself
apparent. I do not have an opinion or a voice in
how I tell that story within the book. It’s in the
facts, and in the people who were actually there
to tell the story. I shape it, and edit it in the sense
that, as in documentary filmmaking, the editor
is the ‘writer.’ It was the same way with me on
this book.”

Out of This World

With those fi rst introductions made, it was time
for Duncan to stand on the threshold and take

his first tentative steps into the long-distant
history of Star Wars, and the archives made
available to him.
“At the Presidio, Lucasfilm’s San Francisco
headquarters, I looked at the photography,”
Duncan explains. “I was basically in a locked
room with Gamorrean Guards looking over me—
there are actually pictures of Gamorrean Guards
on the wall—and you can’t get in unless you’re
allowed in. So that space was me, locked inside
with the assets, the original photography—the
original black and white negatives, the original
color slides, everything they have.
“Skywalker Ranch is all about the props and
artwork—probably what people have in their
minds when they think of an ‘archive.’ It sounds 04
like a cliché, but it is out of this world. What
you’ve got there are the original lightsabers, the
destroyed Death Star from Return of the Jedi,
Han Solo in carbonite. You’ve even got an Ark of
the Covenant in there. You’ve got costumes, and
all the artwork.
“It’s low light because they don’t want to
damage anything,” Duncan continues. “It’s air
conditioned, and I had to wear gloves because
everything has to be protected. I open a drawer
and it’s full of original Ralph McQuarrie concept
paintings. I take them out one by one. I unwrap
each piece, I look at it. I think, ‘That’s nice.’
Typical Brit, underplaying it!” Duncan laughs at
his understated display of reverence at holding
something so important to the development of

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