Anatomy of a Dewback

To begin work improving and enhancing the original Star Wars saga, the first step was to make new copies of the film from the original negative. But early on, producers and special effects editors realized that this negative had suffered significant damage over the last 20 years. The film was alarmingly faded, scratched and coated with dirt. It was soon clear that a full-scale restoration of the original negative would be necessary before any new footage or digital effects could be added.

When creating Star Wars, George Lucas saved nearly every element associated with the making of the film: props, costumes, models, paintings and so on. The problem was that these pieces were stored at a number of different locales and much had been mis-filed over the years. A search was conducted using an incomplete editorial archive, which should have offered a guide to where each negative and element was stored. The editors carried the search from the archives of Skywalker Ranch to the warehouses of ILM, and even to a subterranean vault in the Midwest. With luck and perseverence they were able in the end to find all the necessary pieces.

The original footage for the Tatooine Dune sequence - "TD3" - was found by chance sitting on top of a cold storage vault. Special effects editors needed this footage because the original negative was not live action. The sequence had already been recomposited to add two effects. Original footage, effects elements, and the filming of new dune scenes were required to create the new scene with the digital dewbacks and extra storm troopers.