Phil is so comfortable in his own skin, his disposition has zero pretension or doubt. Everything he says comes with a sense of confidence and pragmatism. He doesn't seem to suffer fools lightly and has the resumé to not have to. Even his old interview in the 80s were the same. lol
George needs 'NO" men around him, for sure. The stars aligned between 1976 and 1979. Marsha, Chew, Edlund, Tippet, Johnston, Dykstra etc. It was a dream team. I wonder if George realizes how lucky he was. Somehow, I doubt it.
the Wampas are so cool. After-all, the Abominable Snowman is one of the coolest cryptids. There's a Wampa on Hoth trying to survive with one arm. I think he's managing well enough.
I read the novelised version first (that I ordered from Weekly Reader) and really wanted to see the scene where the probe droid encounters a wampa and where one bursts through a cave wall in the rebel base. So when I finally saw the film I was like, "...oh, okay."
Phil doesn't strike me as an overly sentimental person. He's looking forward to the next thing instead of back at the things he's done. I'm very happy he's willing to talk about it though.
Thanks! We have some others with Phil and other ILM legends on our channel and on the Tom Spina Designs channel too. Please feel free to check those out and give us a sub!
@@RegalRobot I'm sure hd does think of Ray Harryhausen if ray was alive when the original trilogy came out he probably would have been very proud. I watched many of his films when I was young My friend and friend did stop motion of the Imperial Walker At-At with a small Super 8mm camera it took hours just to get it completed and only for a few seconds shots. I think all or most hardcore Star Wars fans did something like to some extent with stop motion or other SW visual effects to honor Star Wars.
@@apphappy3796 Ray was actually alive during the Star Wars original and prequel trilogy and even visited ILM a few times. The folks there all considered him a hero and there's a beautiful life-sized bronze statue of Ray still in their offices to this day
Thanks! We have others on our channel and also on our Tom Spina Designs channel. Mostly with creature creators and FX legends from ILM. For the Imperials, a lot of that design came from John Mollo, who passed away some time ago.
awesome interview! watching these interviews always makes me feel like a kid again watching from star wars to jedi video. seriously Tom, you need to put all these interviews together for a fun blu ray video someday.
My "Christmas" tree is a white Yeti Tree and I have my original Hoth Wampa action figure as one of the ornaments. Originally, he was just "ice creature" but TOYS NEED NAMES! All hail the Wampa!!
I did a monster suit with the bucket legs for All Wrapped Up. I built a bicycle helmet into the head for when I fall over. In the final movie, it doesn't wind up walking at all. We got to location and it had rained the day before. The buckets just stuck into that mud.
I always wondered why the Wampa in the extended Empire scenes looks so different to the other Wampa. I think the lack of ears is the biggest and most obvious discrepancy, but the proportions, fur color, facial,features and “horns”, etc etc. so they really don’t look like the same animal at all. And if -as some fans have suggested - that it’s 2 different Wampa,then why the heck do they show the new earless Wampa eating and hearing Luke, then Luke reacts to it coming -quick shot to the Wampa with ears striding toward him and Luke slices off its arm and then cut back to the new earless Wampa roaring with its arm sliced off at the shoulder joint and appearing like its in the same part of the cave where it was eating in the first shot, not in the cavern where Luke was! And I know this guy wasnt responsjble, but this made me think of it and thought he might know and could have shed some light on it if the interviewer had asked. They should have given the new Wampa ears and made it to look just like the OG Wampa (why they didn’t is just bizarre given they had the reference material and knew it would be spliced in!) or at the very least co,platelet replaced the Wampa footage with the new less scary Wampa. I think it just annoys me how much George Lucas changes his originals which is fine, but doesn’t fix obvious annoyances (like when Luke activates his lightsaber in Ben’s hit the first time…why do they keep that freaking jump shot in there? FIX THAT! It’s the first time we see a lightsaber and it gets lessened by the obvious frame jump! Smooth it out with cgi so the attention is on the saber and Luke’s reaction to it, not the missing frames!)
All of that Special Edition stuff was just a tech demo for ILM, and all the additions feel like half-baked placeholder effects - and they were left in to become canon 😱
You guys are talking about the really tall guy in a Wampa suit and on small stilts trying to drag a dummy of Luke in the snow and it wasn't working out for them, as the guy kept losing his balance and falling over. Years later I wondered, since it was just the Wampa and Luke in the frame and there was no sense of scale in that shot and it was all just white snow all around, why didn't they just use a regular sized guy in a suit dragging a small version dummy of Luke? I thought of that years later, but I'm surprised they didn't think of that then. Is there a reason that couldn't have been done?
@@bobrew461 Oh wow, I know just the shot you mean, so good I never even questioned it. I love clever tricks like that on film before CGI became the go to. I sometimes watch Darby O'Gill And The Little people just to marvel at how they did most of that in camera. It's still astonishing today.
One tidbit about Phil Tippett that I thought was really cool was that when they were doing The Force Awakens, they brought back Phil to do the 3D chess board again. But what makes that even neater is the fact that the scene you see in the movie is a direct continuation of how the game ended in A New Hope! Most people would not notice it, but I was pleased to find this out. Speaking of the Wampa, I always thought it was odd that Luke didn't stay in the cave after killing the Wampa for protection from the elements. They should have had the cave collapse or something so that Luke had a reason to abandon it. [trivia: When they do a close-up of Luke's lightsaber stuck in the icewall, supposedly you can see "Made in New York" or something on the bottom of the handle, but even on blu ray I can't quite make that out. Either that's not really true or they figured that it would never be visible on VHS which was the only media available at the time of the film.
Phil Tippett telling George Lucas that something looks stupid and he changes it says everything about Phil's contributions to Star Wars. There weren't many that could pull that off especially toward the prequels. He needed more like Phil as the years wore on.
Sounds like circumstances forced them to use the "Hitchcock strategy". It's not what you show, it's what you don't show. Don't show too much of the monster. Imply it with quick edits and scary sounds, but keep it just off camera, and let the audience's imagination scare themselves. Brilliant little touch that helped make Empire the masterpiece it is. Spielberg was forced to use the Hitchcock technique when filming Jaws... of course the "updated" version of Empire ruins the whole effect by needlessly showing the wampa.
Why are they even talking about "George?" He didn't direct the movie (and he didn't write it, either). Irvin Kirshner was the director, Lucas wasn't really involved with the movie in any capacity
Lucas was still the producer holding the purse strings and from what I’ve read about Empire Strikes Back, Kirshner was left alone to direct the film how he wanted but Lucas busied himself with a lot of the effects, creature designs, etc.
Kirshner saw Lucas peering into the camera and let him direct the scene where Luke climbs out of his crashed X-Wing on Dehobah. Big mistake, Lucas kept wanting retakes and what should have been a simple enough scene dragged on.
Phil is so comfortable in his own skin, his disposition has zero pretension or doubt. Everything he says comes with a sense of confidence and pragmatism. He doesn't seem to suffer fools lightly and has the resumé to not have to. Even his old interview in the 80s were the same. lol
zero pretense for sure!
Phil is a legend! I saw Empire in theaters the summer of 1980 as a nine year old kid and it changed everything for me in how I saw movies.
A legend indeed! Seeing ESB in 1980 was a game changer for sure!
Phil Tippett working on a new stop-motion film is nice to hear!
It's exciting!
Watching this with the little stuffed wampa toy I've had since I was a little kid.
very appropriate!
“It looked like something out of ‘Lost in Space’, only worse!” LOL… 😜
yeah, quite the review from Phil! Ha!
What a legend. Just seems like a really chill guy. Cool. :D
He is both those things and a true creative genius
Now I REALLY feel like you’re taking home a real part of Star Wars with your out of this world wampa!!
Thanks! It's why we do what we do! :)
We can confidently mention him in the same breath as Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen
Nothing less than a legend
very well said!
Glad George still listened to people then.
George needs 'NO" men around him, for sure. The stars aligned between 1976 and 1979. Marsha, Chew, Edlund, Tippet, Johnston, Dykstra etc. It was a dream team. I wonder if George realizes how lucky he was. Somehow, I doubt it.
All I know is when I saw the Wampa pop up into the frame as a seven year old in 1980, it scared the daylights out of me!
Phil did his job well :)
the Wampas are so cool. After-all, the Abominable Snowman is one of the coolest cryptids. There's a Wampa on Hoth trying to survive with one arm. I think he's managing well enough.
Poor fella! Hope the one-handed guy is OK out there!
Your comment reminded me of the robot chicken Star Wars episode showing the one arm Wampa trying to get through life fate his are was cut off
@@FP194 that was the saddest! (and still funny)
The Hoth Wampa scenes were better 1997, 4K, DVD updates. The ADR, sounds, music, SFX were all better.
Build a Bear has a Wampa with a Velcro arm that rips off. The Perfect combination of innocence and GORE. All hail the Wampa!!
Phil is my hero
Same!
George needs people like Phil to keep him on the right path.
I read the novelised version first (that I ordered from Weekly Reader) and really wanted to see the scene where the probe droid encounters a wampa and where one bursts through a cave wall in the rebel base.
So when I finally saw the film I was like, "...oh, okay."
Great interview, Great upload, i love all his work, Have you seen, Mad God.
Thanks! And Mad God! Wow, it's a stunning work!
@@RegalRobot 🍻
Great interview!
thank you!
@@RegalRobot You're welcome!
This is great! Thanks for the great info! Also, love the contrast in the facial excitement between Tom and Phill lol
Ha!
Phil doesn't strike me as an overly sentimental person. He's looking forward to the next thing instead of back at the things he's done. I'm very happy he's willing to talk about it though.
that's a pretty fair assessment@@DurkMcGerk and indeed, it's wonderful that he's willing to look back and discuss these old endeavors!
Excellent, what a great interview, I wish this was part one of many.
Thanks! We have some others with Phil and other ILM legends on our channel and on the Tom Spina Designs channel too. Please feel free to check those out and give us a sub!
Love this interview!
Thank you so much!
Phil Tippet is a great creator of Stop Motion which to me is reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen back in the 50s of early Sci fi (horror) movies.
Phil's a brilliant animator and Ray is a hero of his for sure! He speaks of him often!
@@RegalRobot I'm sure hd does think of Ray Harryhausen if ray was alive when the original trilogy came out he probably would have been very proud. I watched many of his films when I was young My friend and friend did stop motion of the Imperial Walker At-At with a small Super 8mm camera it took hours just to get it completed and only for a few seconds shots. I think all or most hardcore Star Wars fans did something like to some extent with stop motion or other SW visual effects to honor Star Wars.
@@apphappy3796 Ray was actually alive during the Star Wars original and prequel trilogy and even visited ILM a few times. The folks there all considered him a hero and there's a beautiful life-sized bronze statue of Ray still in their offices to this day
Legend
yes indeed!
Please do many more of these interviews. If you can, also do interviews about the making of the character outfits, especially the Imperials.
Thanks! We have others on our channel and also on our Tom Spina Designs channel. Mostly with creature creators and FX legends from ILM. For the Imperials, a lot of that design came from John Mollo, who passed away some time ago.
This video is Electric!
thanks for watching!
awesome interview! watching these interviews always makes me feel like a kid again watching from star wars to jedi video. seriously Tom, you need to put all these interviews together for a fun blu ray video someday.
very kind of you!
Amazing interview! It's really nice to hear Phil's non chalant perspective and to learn alittle bit more about their process back in the day
Thank you, Steven! We love hearing from these ILM legends and sharing their unique POV's!
My "Christmas" tree is a white Yeti Tree and I have my original Hoth Wampa action figure as one of the ornaments. Originally, he was just "ice creature" but TOYS NEED NAMES! All hail the Wampa!!
love that!
I did a monster suit with the bucket legs for All Wrapped Up. I built a bicycle helmet into the head for when I fall over. In the final movie, it doesn't wind up walking at all. We got to location and it had rained the day before. The buckets just stuck into that mud.
I swear Phil looks like the philosopher Daniel Dennett.
Phil, you’re the reason I have a Lego wampa on my shelf. Thank you.
No cgi really in 70s to early 80s only magical guys who were highly skilled and imaginative
challenges of the time forced them to exercise their creativity!
The WAS CGI in the 1970s.
But not the photo-realism of today.
Search for LARRY CUBA.
Wow! You got to talk to the great master! What a thrill!
We feel very fortunate we get to chat with these legends on our channel!
Phil is in the same league as my other hero in old school special effects....rick baker!
Agreed!
I always wondered why the Wampa in the extended Empire scenes looks so different to the other Wampa. I think the lack of ears is the biggest and most obvious discrepancy, but the proportions, fur color, facial,features and “horns”, etc etc. so they really don’t look like the same animal at all. And if -as some fans have suggested - that it’s 2 different Wampa,then why the heck do they show the new earless Wampa eating and hearing Luke, then Luke reacts to it coming -quick shot to the Wampa with ears striding toward him and Luke slices off its arm and then cut back to the new earless Wampa roaring with its arm sliced off at the shoulder joint and appearing like its in the same part of the cave where it was eating in the first shot, not in the cavern where Luke was! And I know this guy wasnt responsjble, but this made me think of it and thought he might know and could have shed some light on it if the interviewer had asked. They should have given the new Wampa ears and made it to look just like the OG Wampa (why they didn’t is just bizarre given they had the reference material and knew it would be spliced in!) or at the very least co,platelet replaced the Wampa footage with the new less scary Wampa. I think it just annoys me how much George Lucas changes his originals which is fine, but doesn’t fix obvious annoyances (like when Luke activates his lightsaber in Ben’s hit the first time…why do they keep that freaking jump shot in there? FIX THAT! It’s the first time we see a lightsaber and it gets lessened by the obvious frame jump! Smooth it out with cgi so the attention is on the saber and Luke’s reaction to it, not the missing frames!)
All of that Special Edition stuff was just a tech demo for ILM, and all the additions feel like half-baked placeholder effects - and they were left in to become canon 😱
I can see the resemblance.
ha!
You guys are talking about the really tall guy in a Wampa suit and on small stilts trying to drag a dummy of Luke in the snow and it wasn't working out for them, as the guy kept losing his balance and falling over. Years later I wondered, since it was just the Wampa and Luke in the frame and there was no sense of scale in that shot and it was all just white snow all around, why didn't they just use a regular sized guy in a suit dragging a small version dummy of Luke? I thought of that years later, but I'm surprised they didn't think of that then. Is there a reason that couldn't have been done?
Ah, the Ridley Scott method. I never would have known he used his children in the space suits to make the Alien sets look huge if they hadn't told us.
A clever solution. Hindsight really is 20/20, as they say!
@@RegalRobot 🙂
That trick was also used in the Howling, when a werewolf picks up a girl.
@@bobrew461 Oh wow, I know just the shot you mean, so good I never even questioned it. I love clever tricks like that on film before CGI became the go to. I sometimes watch Darby O'Gill And The Little people just to marvel at how they did most of that in camera. It's still astonishing today.
One tidbit about Phil Tippett that I thought was really cool was that when they were doing The Force Awakens, they brought back Phil to do the 3D chess board again. But what makes that even neater is the fact that the scene you see in the movie is a direct continuation of how the game ended in A New Hope! Most people would not notice it, but I was pleased to find this out.
Speaking of the Wampa, I always thought it was odd that Luke didn't stay in the cave after killing the Wampa for protection from the elements. They should have had the cave collapse or something so that Luke had a reason to abandon it. [trivia: When they do a close-up of Luke's lightsaber stuck in the icewall, supposedly you can see "Made in New York" or something on the bottom of the handle, but even on blu ray I can't quite make that out. Either that's not really true or they figured that it would never be visible on VHS which was the only media available at the time of the film.
Fun facts all around! Neat idea about the cave collapse thing. Never really thought about it!
@@RegalRobotAnother puzzler is, if Degoba is not on any of the charts as he says in The Empire Strikes Back, then how did Luke find it?
@@JustWasted3HoursHere new Force power: Force-GPS!
If you like that, you'll LOVE this - I have an entire Yeti bathroom and there are MANY versions of the Wampa. I kid you not. I am a geek and I OWN IT.
Great video...👍
thanks!
@@RegalRobot>>> You're Welcome.
Cool interview, I wonder if Phil knows who voiced the Gorthok whom he animated in Coneheads?
Such a cool bastard
Phil's one cool cat.
Is your Wampa replica an actual puppet that can be operated or is it just a prop?
these are static replicas, not functional puppets.
If you think the battle scene at the opening was pirates, check out the scene when the pretorians are attacking proximo's dwelling.
Phil Tippett telling George Lucas that something looks stupid and he changes it says everything about Phil's contributions to Star Wars. There weren't many that could pull that off especially toward the prequels. He needed more like Phil as the years wore on.
Phil will always let you know what he thinks!
Isn't that big guy with the hammer in Resident Evil 8 a wampa?
Sounds like circumstances forced them to use the "Hitchcock strategy". It's not what you show, it's what you don't show. Don't show too much of the monster. Imply it with quick edits and scary sounds, but keep it just off camera, and let the audience's imagination scare themselves. Brilliant little touch that helped make Empire the masterpiece it is. Spielberg was forced to use the Hitchcock technique when filming Jaws... of course the "updated" version of Empire ruins the whole effect by needlessly showing the wampa.
The original cut where you barely see the wampa is great.
The newly produced shots ruin the magic. And they look stupid.
Work on some new stuff. How about Alan Dean Foster's? Y'all stuck on memory lane.
Why are they even talking about "George?" He didn't direct the movie (and he didn't write it, either). Irvin Kirshner was the director, Lucas wasn't really involved with the movie in any capacity
Lucas was still the producer holding the purse strings and from what I’ve read about Empire Strikes Back, Kirshner was left alone to direct the film how he wanted but Lucas busied himself with a lot of the effects, creature designs, etc.
Kirshner saw Lucas peering into the camera and let him direct the scene where Luke climbs out of his crashed X-Wing on Dehobah.
Big mistake, Lucas kept wanting retakes and what should have been a simple enough scene dragged on.