Early look at THE MAKING OF THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

This fall Del Rey will publish The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back by New York Times best selling author J. W. Rinzler. For those of you who can’t wait until this fall to see the book we’ve decided to bring you some sneak peeks over the next few months of some of the pages from the book. Along with the peeks Mr. Rinzler will provide some insider’s notes on what you’re looking at. This is information that might not have made it into the book.
We start the early look with a page that should have been included in the first book, The Making of Star Wars. Mr. Rinzler explains, “One day after finishing The Making of Star Wars, when it was on press but not yet available in bookstores, I was talking with George and mentioned that we’d never figured out exactly what the first effects shot had been. He said something like, ‘Oh, that’s easy. I have it in my office. The guys at ILM all signed the shot and gave it to me.’ My jaw dropped and I asked George if we could photograph it. He said yes and brought it to Skywalker Ranch where Tina Mills, the head of Image Archives, took a few photos of it.
Obviously it was way too late to get it into The Making of Star Wars, but it seemed like a fitting way to start off The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.”
And here is that page featuring the first ever completed effects shot done by Industrial Light and Magic. Click to enlarge.