Troops

TROOPS

The journal entry of script supervisor, 4-5-97

    Okay, so a couple of weeks back, Ed's friend Crickett asked me if I wanted to offer my free script supervisor services to group of friends she was working with one day at El Mirage, a dry lake bed out in the Mojave Desert. She said they were going to do a spoof of Cops with the Star Wars Storm Troopers called TROOPS. A few more details, and I said I'm so in.

    It seems the director, who works over at the Fox Children's Network, a group of his friends doing CGI for Babylon 5 and another group at the local art school were working together on this project for fun -- maybe it will wind up at some science fiction convention things. The art students had spent a couple of months making the troopers uniforms. That alone intrigued me. The concept, a Cops satire with the episode focusing on part one, the Imperial Attack on the Jawas at Tatooine, and part two, the Imperial blow-out at Luke's farm, all from troopers' point of view (they were merely checking out possible stolen goods and a simple domestic dispute that erupted in more tragic violence), locked me in.

    I got up at 3:30 a.m. this morning and took off to meet with this crew at 5 a.m. before caravaning to the desert. BUT Crickett gave me lousy directions, and I wound up 20 minutes away from them 5 minutes after crew call. At 5 a.m., there are few places to use a phone and fewer places open to get change. And it was raining. I found change, found a phone and paged them, just knowing I missed them and really being bummed (plus the phone I used said "no incoming calls"). Then Kevin (the writer/director) called me with better directions and assured me they would wait. Yeah!

    So I arrive at Kevin's to find a motley crew of long-haired cowboys, gouteed artsy guys, two little people (for the Jawa costumes) and some grungy film students gathering and repacking the cars, trying to find room for more carpoolers (they were one car short). And a perfect Mystery Science Theater Tom Servo model setting on a car. I was informed that Mr. Servo was being placed in my care while all the other equipment was everyone else's responsibility.

    An hour and 45 minutes into the desert, and we're out in the middle of El Mirage, one of the most movie-photographed dry lake beds, 3 miles wide of flat flat flat that cars can drive (or speed) on. No sooner have they unpacked than four of them are starting to pull on their storm trooper uniforms. Beaten up, scorched, perfectly worn and worked-in every day uniforms. But the wind was blowing and at 7:30 a.m., the sun hadn't warmed up the desert and we were freezing, and the suits, which absorbed the surrounding temperature, was freezing the troopers. None of us dressed for cold, just heat. The least authentic and most amusing looking part of their uniforms were their shoes. The three men wore white-painted lace up dress shoes (trooper golf and trooper bowling jokes were made) and the one woman wore high heal white leather slippers (more jokes).

    The troopers, once fitted with their helmets and backpacks and carrying their rifles and blasters (which they built, molded and rusted to perfection) and standing with the rough terrain desert behind them, looked so real it was chilling. Bring in the two Jawas, and we were standing on Tatooine. With the CGI guys looking over the shots and figuring out which campers and parasailers in the background they could digitally cover with moisture vaporators and a Sandcrawler, we were ready to shoot.

    The first act was brilliant. Hand-held camera filming the troopers approaching the Jawas and saying things in a very matter-of-fact tone like "Is this your droid? Whose droid is it? Your cousin's. Is this your cousin? Are you his cousin? You're his friend. Well, Mr. Friend, I'm gonna ask you to stand right over there..." Finally the Jawas make a run for it and the troopers are forced to shoot them (when they discussed that the Jawa didn't really fall down on that last take, the CGI guys said "We have a digital Jawa -- we can just put him in a match position and blow him up."). So basically, what looked like a wild Imperial show of force trying to track the droids in Star Wars, we now realized they were just checking out a routine stolen droid report and the Jawas forced them to shoot.

    For the second half, two more actors, frighteningly realistic doubles of Uncle Owen and Aunt Barue, showed up and played out a domestic squabble (Barue: "And then Luke's like I want to go to the Academy and he says well I still need you for the harvest and then he starts in about Obi-Wan and his father and--" Owen: "I did not!" Barue: "Yes you did! Yes you DID! You're always lying to him! You never tell him the truth about him or his SISTER!" Owen: "Will you just shut up!" Barue: "No, you shut up! I'm tired of shutting up!" Trooper: "You can both shut up, or spend a night in the detention area!"). So Barue leaves to pack a few things, which includes a thermal detonator, the troopers try to shoot her, Owen runs in to help her and they both get cooked (to be CGI'ed in later and match footage from the movie).

    The most fun was the picture taking. I took lots of pictures of our crew (I made a point of wearing the Star Wars trilogy hat that my 20th Century Fox promotions friend Lee sent me so Kevin could feel like he really had a Star Wars crew). I got a couple of shots of me horsing around with the troopers and one of me wearing a helmet. While everyone was snapping pictures, we got ideas for the opening montage that will be used with the Cops "Bad Boys" theme and shot them - troopers beating up Jawas, giving a car (landcruiser to be CGI'ed in later) a ticket, and the pull-back shot on the trooper in the "unh!" part of the song. I can't wait to see this thing.

After the story -

    When I saw the finished product, I was blown away how well it was done - and more blown away that my credit appeared as "Marlyn Johnson." Kevin apologized, saying it was 2 a.m. and they had to finish in post and they had to commit and couldn't find my name anywhere. Ah, well.

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