Thanks for chatting with StarWars.com about how much you dig Star Wars!
I would just like to start this conversation by saying I hate Star Wars.
Hello? Hello?
Just kidding...[laughs]
I remember seeing the trailer when I was 12 or 13. My dad took us too see the film. I was a little bit freaked out when they cut off that guy's arm and it clattered to the ground in the cantina. There wasn't any film like that in the day. The only thing that came sort of close to it was 2001 -- but that was a bit too cerebral for me. So Star Wars was this huge blast of ice cold water awakening all senses. It was Industrial Light & Magic! A buddy of mine, former ILMer Mark Anderson, runs [ILM Spin-Off] Kerner Optical. I think they should throw magic in that new company's title as well.
I always liked the Industrial part of the ILM title.
Goth! [laughs]
Did you ever dress up in Star Wars costumes for Halloween?
I was too old for that. Though my funniest Star Wars moment came much later -- last year in fact -- being at Skywalker Ranch with Seth Green and all his cronies from "Robot Chicken," running around in the parking lot in the middle of the night waving lightsabers in a huge battle.
Did you all jump into Ewok Lake as a ritual akin to Apollonia's swim in Lake Minnetonka in Purple Rain?
[laughs] Oh well yeah, we did that.
Are you playing with lightsabers now since you didn't really do that as a kid?
After my kids went to bed and the lights were all off, I'd come down the hallway with them lit and making sounds. So they happily ended up with the lightsabers.
The battle scene on Hoth with the Imperial walkers descending on the Rebels in the icy wasteland was incredible. Living in the East Bay, you'd see the big cargo container loaders around Alameda, Calif. which [some believe] was the inspiration for the design of the AT-ATs. So every time you drive by those, you get an Imperial walkers flashback.
It was also gross when Han rips open the tauntaun. But I'm a fisherman, so I see gross stuff like that all the time. [laughs]
Ew, really?
Well yeah, I have to cut up fish all the time; and the guts kind of look similar.
So as a hardcore fisherman, were you impressed with the colo claw fish and the opee sea killer in The Phantom Menace?
There's fish and then there's CGI creatures. [laughs]
Moving along from fish to chicken, how was it to cover the Star Wars theme for the "Robot Chicken" TV special?
The Imperial March is my favorite of all the theme music for Star Wars, so I was very excited to do it. I had heard that Metallica had played it every now and again, too. So I wanted to do a very different take. I tried to make it as obtuse and twisted as the "Robot Chicken" theme but still have the pulse of Star Wars. It's only really a half-step difference as far as the key, and it's in the same march tempo. It worked out pretty well.
When you first heard composer John Williams' music, what did you think of it?
It was very smart of George Lucas to not go with a contemporary soundtrack because it would have totally dated the films. Like when you watch Logan's Run -- it's a great movie but you keep thinking about the dated sounds of the synthesizers. That's why I like to use traditional instrumentation but put a twist on it. Like with the "Robot Chicken" Star Wars" theme -- I'm using classic instrumentation but I'm also banging on pots and pans, running it through distortion and whatever. What Lucas did was great. And Stanley Kubrick used classical music in 2001. It makes the films timeless.
If you had full power over the universe and could change the music soundtrack to any of the Star Wars films, would you?
I wouldn't change a single thing for two reasons. One, I think the soundtrack is amazing and it creates the thumbprint for other films. It's just like the theme to Jaws. Why would anyone want to change that? Why would you change the Imperial March? And second, because if I did say I would change it, it would make me look like a pretentious egomaniac amongst the hardcore fans! [laughs]
