Robert Watts

Robert Watts has been involved with Star Wars since the beginning.  For A New Hope he was a production supervisor before becoming an associate producer on The Empire Strikes Back and co-producer for Return of the Jedi.

Mr. Watts also worked on the Indiana Jones films as a production manager on Raiders of the Lost Ark and a producer on both sequels.

On Thursday, August 12th, Robert Watts held a panel at Celebration V titled "Producing the Saga."  Hosted by David Collins, Mr. Watts spoke about his time on Empire and the challenges they faced, especially on some of the Hoth shoots which took place in Norway.  He produced Empire until it returned to the US to finish shooting and then again when it returned to England for the scoring of the film at Abbey Road.  He mentioned that he was surprised how well the score sounded with an 11 piece orchestra vs just a piano, which is how he first heard it played by John Williams.

Speaking about filming in Norway, Mr. Watts recounted filming during what turned out to be one of the worst blizzards Norway had seen in fifty years.  While in Finse, they filmed scenes of Mark Hamill, as Luke Skywalker, while standing with their backs to the hotel.  Hamill ran out into the snow and they filmed the sequence where he escapes from the Wampa's cave.

When it was decided that Harrison Ford needed in Finse for shooting, a call was placed and Ford flew into Oslo.  Mr. Watts sent a production manager with a bottle of whiskey to Oslo in a snow plow to pick him up.  Ford returned at 1:00am drinking the whiskey and Watts had to tell him that they were filming at 7:00am.  According to Mr. Watts, Harrison just swigged some more whiskey and went to bed.

Frank Oz did the puppet work on Yoda for Empire Strikes Back, but during the panel, Mr. Watts mentioned that actor Deep Roy, who is credited on Return of the Jedi as Droopy McCool, was put in a suit in order to film the scene on Dagobah of Yoda walking away from the camera.  As many know, Warwick Davis would do similar duty on The Phantom Menace in a scene with Ewan McGregor, as Obi-Wan Kenobi, on Naboo.

Empire Strikes Back had more pre-production time than A New Hope did, but as Watts explained, it was still technically an independent film and they tried to follow their budget as much as possible.  Empire ended up going over budget, but it was the only film in the trilogy to do so and Mr. Watts never worried about it.  Mr. Watts believes that he started as a budget-minded producer but has become more of a creative producer over time.

During the panel, and again during the Q&A, Mr. Watts was asked about practical shooting versus CGI.  He feels that building the models, shooting on site and doing the stunts adds an energy to the movie that CGI doesn't.  He also likes the "feel" of real film, the grain and the warmth, yet he also thinks digital is still in transition and will get better as time goes on.  He also mentioned how he likes the tools available now that allow people to shoot videos and upload them to YouTube and the like.

It's interesting to note that Robert Watts has worked on six of the top 10 all-time box office leaders, including the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films.  Mr. Watts also worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey before working with George Lucas.

Other interesting anecdotes Mr. Watts told during the panel included the fact that he was a neighbor of Julian Glover.  Glover is known to both Star Wars and Indiana Jones fans as he played General Veers in Empire Strikes Back and Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  For more modern fans of film, Mr. Watts told of selling his old home 32 years ago when he was looking for a larger house.  The Pattison family purchased his old house and raised their son, Robert there. 

Robert Watts finished his panel by speaking about beating cancer.  Saturday, August 14th, just happened to be the final day of his most recent round of drug therapy and then he's done.  Celebration V marked the first time in over a year that Mr. Watts had been able to travel due to his illness and was happy to do so, being able to attend the convention and also visit his house in California.  Mr. Watts spoke about how a positive attitude helped him and how he actually felt good during his treatment, much to the surprise of the doctors.  The proceeds from Mr. Watts' weekend signing were donated to cancer research.

"Producing the Saga with Robert Watts" was an enjoyable panel and was the first I attended during Celebration V.  It set a positive tone and it was interesting to hear another perspective on the original trilogy to that of the model makers and actors.  Being able to meet with Mr. Watts for a few minutes on Saturday in the autograph hall was also an exciting event and will remain one of my fondest memories from Celebration V.

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