Tale of Two Cloud Cities
If there was one thing that you regretted about working on Batman, it's that you weren't able to dedicate all of your time to Empire Strikes Back in its pre-production. Sure George never held it against you and in a way Batman did wonders in helping you increase your skills for Empire, but not having you on board while George was giving his all left a sour taste in your mouth, and it most likely lead to the plethora of issues in October that could have been stemmed with your direct attention. Most pressing of which being the new dispute between Tomino and Ralph.
Hearing that the two artists had developed a feud was something that shocked you as you had directed Ralph to join Gundam as a concept artist and by all accounts he had been a fantastic asset and got along well with the Japanese dominant crew. It was why you and George pushed the two together, as Tomino was very enthusiastic about Star Wars and if they both worked wonders on Gundam then they would be great for Star Wars.
No one knew the exact story since it erupted from conversations that just took place between the two, but there were two conflicting accounts. From the Art Director group, Tomino made it seem like Ralph had no respect for his input and was stonewalling him from contributing to Star Wars, while to Ralph's friends inside the crew Tomino was an egocentric glory hog who tried to turn Star Wars into his movie with no regard for Ralph's art style and influence. With George having returned to San Francisco to watch over his son who had a minor fever, it thus fell to you to try and keep the peace before things spiraled into disaster.
First off was to see visit Dreamworks and see Tomino's side of the story, mainly since Ralph wanted an afternoon meeting while punctual Tomino could always be counted upon to come in first as an early riser. It also doubled as a check up on how Hiawatha was doing with Don Bluth thankfully repeating his brilliance in crafting one of the greatest epics in cinema and creating a worthy work of love to the Iroquois.
"I tried to work with McQuarrie-san O'Brian-sensei, I really have. Unfortunately, he has a purist vision of Star Wars and believes that I would taint it with Gundam." Tomino argued as you sat in his office.
"But Ralph worked on Gundam, he shouldn't act like he's separate when he was just as involved as Star Wars." You say.
"Exactly! I am stabbed in the back. I let him contribute to my Gundam, he makes good designs, and when I want to contribute, he treat me as outsider." Tomino says in exasperation.
You were shocked as that didn't sound at all like Ralph McQuarrie, a guy who for the most part was very mild mannered and relaxed. You also doubted it was racial prejudice because if so then he never would have worked on Gundam and Ralph did incorporate a lot of Japanese elements into Star Wars.
"So what exactly were you trying to put into Star Wars?" You asked.
"Well, for art direction I was given the job of vehicles and set design. I want to work mainly on Hoth and Cloud City, Dagobah does not fit my talents." Tomino said.
"Do you have any sketches or storyboards that I can see?" You requested, eager to see just what the fuss is about.
Tomino nodded excitedly, "Yes, I have a sketch notebook filled with all my ideas for Star Wars." He then pulled a journal out of one of his desk drawers and eagerly presented to you, bowing his head.
You opened the book to the first page and started to understand just why Ralph may have seen Tomino as pushing Gundam when it was concept art for the Battle of Hoth where presumably Rogue Squadron X-wings were making a strafing run against what looked to be the obese love child of a Zaku and Dom.
"Mobile suits?" You asked with a raised eyebrow.
Tomino gives a great smile, "Yes, we see nothing of the Empire's Army, only Stormtroopers. My thoughts were the Empire can use mobile suits as both artillery and mecha cavalry."
You turn a couple of pages, seeing more drawings of Imperial mobile suits assaulting Rebel positions with the Rebellion using a mix of trenches, turbolaser batteries and their own mobile suits to help ward off the assault, "Tomino, George and I both love Gundam, but I don't think it would be wise to replace starfighters with mobile suits in the sequel. We should leave the Gundam to Amuro Ray, not Luke Skywalker."
Tomino seemed a bit hurt at the statement, shaking his head, "No, I no wish for starfighters to be gone, I just want mobile suits to be there, be part of war, not whole war like Gundam. Lucas-sensei wants Star Wars to be like Pacific war, I respect his wish. Mobile suits would just be ground war. Perhaps in some Star Wars stories Empire or Rebels use mobile suits in space, but no Minovsky particles make it bad for space."
You sighed, well at least Tomino had some humility to not entirely replace everything with mobile suits. The X-wing and TIE fighter had become far too iconic to simply have Luke and Vader duel it out in Gundams, as awesome as it might have been. "What has George said about introducing mobile suits and other mecha into Star Wars?"
"Lucas-sensei said he didn't know how it work, but if I come up with a good and natural way, he would allow it." Tomino said.
You mulled over the concept, "Well, I would have to talk with Marcia, Mike and Gary, but I guess there's potential for planetary warfare." You stress, with Tomino nodding in excitement. "What do you think about Ralph's AT-ATs?"
"I think they are good, but seem more for city war than snow. Ralph also wants to use them as tanks when they should be more artillery and against infantry. Also, if the Rebels can defeat them with cables, why the Empire use them when they are so weak?"
"Can't Luke and friends wrap a cable around a Zaku's legs?" You tease.
"The Zaku would then smack the cockpit with its hands or use a heathawk to slice it." Tomino responded seriously, to which you gave off a snort to his confusion.
You then got to the starship section where Tomino had detailed drawings of ships for both sides, and once again it was like Gundam where many of the ships looked like WW2 ships in space. At the very least, Tomino did seem to still include the Star Destroyers and Ralph's Executor design.
"Ships look good but I think we might need to cut down some of the canons length, a little bit too much WWII." You said to which Tomino nodded, "What did you think of Ralph's starships?"
"All good, but the...Nebulon frigate needs more armor in center. Too great a flaw when Empire can just cut ship in half."
You then go forward to Cloud City, and whereas before Tomino seemed to want to just insert some Gundam like frosting on a cake, here he wanted to change the metaphorical cake flavor completely as instead of a spinning top it looked to be a O'Neil colony from one of the Sides, though after a couple of pages it switched to some floating structure with a ring spread around it which appeared to house a settlement. "You want Cloud City to become Side 7?"
"Cloud City is rather....what do you say when bread becomes hard?" Tomino asks.
"Stale?" You suggest.
"Yes, stale. The city is just white hallways, we don't get a sense of community, of an active thriving city, just white rooms and paths, that is for the Star Destroyer. In Star Wars, we only see Mos Eisley as a town, I wanted to show a place where people would want to live, how they have lives beyond the movie, how we shall live in the future, perhaps around Venus."
"What's the second design, the one that looks like a donut?" You ask.
"That is a Torus colony, it is a design from NASA like the O'Neil cylinder. I realize that the O'Neil colony looks strange in the planet, so I switch it to the Torus, more natural." Tomino commented.
"Uh huh." You said blankly. Then you realized perhaps where Ralph was coming from. While he mostly interacted with George, you were present for a good deal of concept planning in Star Wars' pre-production and Ralph took his art very seriously and had a deep love for all of the designs. He by no means was adverse to critique or change as most of Star Wars' final designs differed in many aspects from Ralph's artwork, but the influence was always present and you could see how it was born from Ralph's mind.
You also remembered how Cloud City was one of Ralph's favorites with it originally being intended to be the Imperial capitol of Alderaan. Ultimately, Alderaan had to be scrapped from the final cut, or at least the commercial one as George had filmed some scenes of Alderaan before its destruction for the Director's cut, but he did promise Ralph that he would have it in a future film, where it would come in Empire.
Only for this Japanese man to come who created George's favorite show and was seen by much of the company to be a good friend of you and George to be given the job of Art Director and then slowly insert influences from his show into Star Wars, and accidentally erasing Ralph's touch.
Ralph seemed to express such sentiments when you met him, "I want to work with him, I really do, but the man keeps on insisting on turning everything from Star Wars into Gundam! He doesn't respect me or my work, he wants to make everything about him!"
"Come on Ralph, it's not that bad." You tried to argue.
"Don't you see, this is the exact same crap that happeened to Bill Finger. I did the majority of the concept art, but now Tomino wants to override my influences with his. He's already a household name thanks to Gundam and Dreamworks, if he goes out and tells the public that Star Wars was designed by him, everyone would agree with him and not me. I'm getting Fingered by Tomino!"
You almost busted out laughing at the last sentence, but was just able to hold it in at the cost of it turning into a weird cough/burp. "No one is getting fingered Ralph. I helped Bill fight against Bob because I couldn't stand for plagiarism, you are going to get your due credit and pay. Tomino just wants to add onto what you've built in his own way."
"It may start small now Bruce, but I know that George likes him more. If we don't draw lines in the sand now then what's next? Jedi are Newtypes, Luke uses funnels, Vader is constructing a colony laser, where does it end? Hell, he wants to bastardize Cloud City into one of his Sides." Ralph protested.
You released a sigh and took a moment to think before continuing, "Look, Tomino is a HUGE fan of Star Wars, he based Gundam off of it and it's practically his bible. When George offered him the chance to become an Art Director, he was the happiest I had ever seen him, complete childlike joy at being able to contribute to the project, even if just part of a team. Gundam is a huge hit right now in America and Japan and millions love it. Maybe in the aftermath of that, he got a little bit too excited and was eager to be part of Star Wars. Maybe he thinks if it works for Gundam it can help Star Wars? All I know is that Tomino respects your work and he doesn't want to turn Star Wars into his, he merely wants to honor George."
Unfortunately Ralph and Tomino had still been unsure and very defensive on both there ends, it seemed that artist tempers went a bit deep and there was some fighting words alongside the criticism. So the next day, you called both men into the office, and while there was arguing and pointing first, they both quieted and settled down once you gave them your Batman stare.
"Now before we begin, I just want to set the record straight. You are both very talented men who make very good art and you both want to do your best for Star Wars. All of your designs are good, and no one is seeking to ruin anothers work. Now you are both going to talking to, not at each other, and we are going to find a good compromise.
Well if nothing else you could use this as learning experience for Mary and her future sibling and once they got into fights.
A/N: For the record I'm not trying to say either man is right, wrong or better. Merely just an unfortunate case of misunderstanding, which ironically involves one half of a guy whose entire show is about understanding.
