Back in 1980, while I was still reeling from the experience of The Empire Strikes Back, I remember plotting a scheme to shoot my own space adventure short using Mom's super-8 movie camera and a fleet of homemade kit-bashed models. As for actors - eh, I'd worry about that later. For now, I was just interested in capturing the same excitement I felt watching those snowspeeders take on the AT-ATs.

I'd seen Star Wars a few years earlier when I was 8, but Empire really got my imagination fired up - so much so that I committed myself to learning all I could about how the Star Wars films were made. There was a great book available that showcased a bunch of the artwork associated with the film (The Art of Star Wars), but for the real hands-on nitty gritty how'd they do that kind of stuff, I needed to go to the industry journals - American Cinematographer and Cinefex. I poured over the images and behind-the-scenes techno-jargon for hours, reading and re-reading the stuff until I had bluescreen, motion-control, matte painting and compositing nailed. I finally understood the techniques, but putting that knowledge to any use was pretty near impossible for an 11-year old armed with a super-8 that couldn't even muster still-frame or aperture control.

With lofty aspirations to shoot the Tatooine skyhopper sequence as dramatized in the Star Wars radio show (scenes I was sad to learn were never filmed), I storyboarded out the entire sequence and even built two skyhopper models (still got them!) for Luke and nemesis Fixer. But, alas, the means just weren't there for me to take on such an ambitious project, at least the way my imagination had built it up. So my skyhopper movie was a bust and abandoned, although the experience did impart one lasting effect - it left me with a deep appreciation for the vision and trailblazing nature of Star Wars - for the first film especially -- and a fascination for the creative process that wrought it into reality. That's the story I knew would have to be told someday, but when, and by whom?

About a year ago, I heard that our senior editor Jonathan Rinzler was working on a making of book for the first film, news I'd been waiting to hear since Once Upon a Galaxy: The Making of Empire was released in 1980, leaving me to ask, 'But what happened to Star Wars?' I'd interviewed Charley Lippincott (Star Wars Corp publicist from 1975-78) a few years ago, making a point to ask whatever happened to the making of SW book he'd been reportedly working on back in the '70s. He said he'd conducted dozens of interviews for the book, but he just didn't have it in him to follow through to the project's end. I probably asked what happened to all those lost interviews, but it must not have registered, since we soon moved on to other topics.

To my surprise, those interviews were still gathering dust in the Lucasfilm Archives, waiting to be discovered by Rinzler after a tip received from Steve Sansweet. And these untouched, untapped, and unreferenced interviews form the basis of the enormous, picture-rich, thoroughly-researched Making of Star Wars by JW Rinzler. Folks, this is everything this book should be, and more - literally.

I've always coveted my Nov/Dec 1976 issue of Mediascene magazine for a sequence of early Alex Tavoularis storyboards printed for the first and last time within its pages. That issue was the only place to see Tavoularis' early take on the script, which he translated into a gritty, sometimes gratuitous series of storyboard images - as I said, that issue was the only place -- until now. The Making of Star Wars not only reveals the entire Tavoularis set of boards, but also those done by Ivor Beddoes and a generous number by Joe Johnston. These are in the deluxe hardbound edition, which is definitely worth the extra dinero, in my opinion.

I could gush about this book for days, but to spare everyone from an extended display of welled-up giddiness and over-effusive language, I'll cut to the chase - for fans fascinated by the creation of a saga that has defined much of the way today's films are made, and how myth has been successfully re-imagined in our time, this is the book for you. Or, if you just like a good 'ole yarn about how the little guy beat the Hollywood machine and came out on top, this book won't disappoint.

This will be a work I'll be returning to again and again throughout the years, cross-referencing dates with interviewed testimony from crewmembers or with documents and paraphernalia I've gathered in my personal collection. An absolutely essential resource for students of the Star Wars experience, and a history lesson for those future generations that will be studying Star Wars as one of the stand-out masterworks of the 20th century. [/gush]

With all the technology available to an 11-year-old these days, I wouldn't be surprised to see that fabled skyhopper sequence emerge from a young fan's desktop in the near future -- so is the legacy of Star Wars and the creative spirit it inspires.