I left Skywalker Sound and the cool blanket of air-conditioning, passed some grape plants used to make Lucas-branded wine and wandered beneath the unforgiving sun. Being the white British minimilk that I am, I did the two things I always do when it gets hot: moan, and look for shade. It was like being in the Wild West. The main part of Skywalker Ranch is surrounded by huge, dry green hills, protecting it like a fortress – this was as secluded as any place I’d ever been to. Outside, I saw the fabled main house on my left, and in front of me, the man-made Ewok Lake (no Ewoks included). There stood a man who had been hired for the day to entertain us simple press types, dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi and who had earlier been brandishing a terrifying Yoda hand puppet with what I can only assume was good intent. I stayed away from this gentleman, through no fault of his own – it merely recalled a terrifying childhood memory of a man dressed as Fireman Sam, slowly lumbering towards my five-year-old self, before I burst into tears. Under a tree next to the man, I saw a payload of toy Lightsabers. At this point, not wearing sun cream, convinced I would be fried on the road like an egg, I was slightly apprehensive.
Apparently, half of our group would do ‘Jedi training’, also known as waving around toy Lightsabers in front of Ewok Lake, while being yelled at by a man dressed as Ewan McGregor and filmed by a couple of amused-looking filming staff hired by LucasArts. Something you should know about me – I don’t like looking stupid. That feeling doubles – nay, quadruples, in the sun. What if this footage got out? What if I became the next Star Wars kid, forever assimilated into internet history and rendered worthless as a human being? I’m sure it was all organised in the name of fun, but I am a professional. It was time to ruin everyone’s fun.
So, I decided to look like a spoilsport – on Skywalker Ranch, no less. Brilliant. One group did Jedi training while my group ventured to the gift shop located in the cafeteria; when it came to our turn to wave the Lightsabers for the friendly Yoda puppeteer, a feeling of dread sank in. To add to that, someone pointed out to me that I looked ‘sun kissed’ from a mere five minutes writhing in the sun. Struck with visions of my father, literally the most sunburnt man in the world still living, I acted reluctantly until someone told me it was all right to sit it out. Phew. As the group walked off and the second group returned, I felt like the kid sat out in PE class because he was too fat to finish the cross-country run. Again, amazing. Something like this happens to me on every trip, by the way, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected to be honest.
Luckily, Collins and the Lucas PRs sat with me, assured me it was no big deal, and I learned a little more about the place. Collins told me about how, despite the majesty of the Ranch, it’s easy to take it for granted – but it was blindingly obvious that he really appreciated being there. He informed me about the library in the main house, containing books on all aspects of production, reaffirming the fact that this place is supposed to be a filmmaker’s haven, of sorts. I didn’t record the conversation since I was too sweaty to move and all fattened up from salmon burgers, but Collins gave me a bit of background on himself – he relayed to me his earliest days of working there, fresh out of college, and how thrilling it was to be part of this company that valued state-of-the-art design in everything.
This was a cool place to work. There was a huge, delightful-looking swimming pool outside the cafeteria. At the top of the hill, George Lucas was sat in the main house having a meeting with writers (not me, obviously). George Lucas! I acted very British and pretended not to be moved by anything going on around me. Lucas was sat in the house, and he would never know that I watched Return Of The Jedi so many times as a kid that I wore out the VHS, or that I once wasted an entire afternoon as an 11-year-old thinking of ideas for a Star Wars TV series and illustrating them with all the skill of Da Vinci if he had to draw with giant novelty hands. After a lobotomy. With a bucket of shit.
We returned to Ewok Lake, where I discovered that the Lightsabers used in the Jedi training would be mailed to us. Only, I didn’t do the Jedi training, so I just stood around feeling like I’d let down the team, and didn’t deserve my treat. Awesome.
I took this time to get a better look at the main house, a humble-looking building that looks like something The Waltons would’ve built if they were guest stars on Grand Designs. We couldn’t go in, sadly, though I was later told only a hallway is made accessible to visitors; one floor of it is even off-limits to employees, with only Lucas himself and Steven Spielberg allowed up there. An urban legend states that anyone caught snooping up there will be fired! I don’t know if that’s true, but still, I love the idea of protecting a creative space like that. In these years where I’ve accumulated a bizarrely high opinion of myself (alongside a prevalent lack of self-worth), I envy the idea of alienating my employees by having a floor for me and my mates for absolutely no reason.
Being on Skywalker Ranch is like being in an alternate universe where George Lucas is the leader of his own state. At the same time, though, it was humble to see that all of the Lucas staff, including Collins, were just really happy to be a part of that empire (maybe the wrong word to use given the context). Everyone was genuinely pleased to be there and very friendly. Like anywhere, it’s the people that define the location, otherwise it would just be a cinema, a studio, a country house and a load of land; everyone gave a crap and as a result, I did as well. The whole expedition might have felt like a school trip as I was supervised between locations as if I was going to put my sticky hands on everything, but bloody hell, any kid that gets to go to Skywalker Ranch is pretty damn lucky.
The combination of heat, tiredness and the passage of time makes it all feel so far away from my desk, piled as it is in rubbish comic books and review discs of non-movies like Big Tits Zombies 3D. Still, if you ever get the chance to go to Skywalker Ranch – and bear in mind, I never thought I would – enjoy it. This is the place that Star Wars and Indiana Jones built, and that context alone made it a fascinating visit. In many ways, it’s the best thing that can happen to a Star Wars fan, the Ranch being as close as you’ll ever get into understanding the creative process at LucasArts and Lucasfilm. I feel privileged to have been there. Oh, and my Lightsaber did arrive in the post, in the end. I gave it away.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is available now on PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC.
