30 Years later...

Interesting.... 30 years later and the Ewoks: Battle for Endor still generates a little message board traffic. I suppose the pending release of the next Star Wars movie may have something to do with it as there is great interest in anything related (even if in a small way like this movie). My brother and I spent most of the summer of '85 as Marauders #11 and 12 and it was a great experience. How did we land such a gig? Casting needed guys 6'6" or taller and at 6'11" each, we both fit the bill no problem. My bro was playing basketball at USF and his coach got a call asking if anyone was available for the summer etc.. a few phone calls later and we both had interviews with the Directors: Tall? Yes. Run and Jump? Yes. Are you available for 8 wks or more? Yes! And that was it… we were movie extras. So we spent the summer filming 6 days a week out at Skywalker Ranch and other locations around Marin County plus some indoor blue screen stuff in San Rafael. For being just extras, they treated us like kings! We had costume and make-up people to help us, the food truck was always there, and we met lots of nice folks who had worked on Indiana Jones and the previous Star Wars films (props, makeup, stunt guys, the Ewok actors etc). During one of my first days filming, George Lucas himself rolled up and spent some time on the set; I clearly remember that he was wearing jeans and blue plaid shirt and driving a dark blue BMW 6 series (633i perhaps….not sure). There were some days where they never used us at all and others where we were busy all day with multiple shoots. I’d say the most exciting parts were the battle scenes we did. Running past explosions and scenes with fire usually got us bump in pay for the day (call it hazard pay!). The weapons we used were revolvers and shot guns loaded with blanks but cleverly decorated to look futuristic. A few times my brother and I were at different sites during the day but we both appear throughout the whole movie and both of us “die” more than once during the various battle scenes. When we filmed in town, we could sometimes hang around after hours to watch the footage from earlier in the day or the day before… (called “dailies” I think?). I remember one time walking through an office area and a production shop and seeing some props from Howard the Duck (1986) and another movie called Enemy Mine (Louis Gossett Jr, Dennis Quaid, 1985); the Enemy Mine prop was an astronaut sitting in space chair of some sort and half of his helmet and head were missing. I believe it appears in the very beginning of movie floating by perhaps during the opening credits? It was very brief. Anyway, after it was all done, we had a big wrap-party on set and everyone was there and later we had our own little private showing for the cast and crew at a theater in San Francisco (I don’t recall which one). A few months later, my brother and I were back at school and we watched it on TV during the Thanksgiving weekend. One bit of trivia is that at least one of the Marauders was an NBA player at the time but I don’t recall his name (he drove a red Porsche I recall). Another Marauder was Michael Franti, who was playing basketball at USF with my brother; he is also a well-known San Francisco Bay area musician in the group “Spearhead”. For me personally, I never did any more movie work… that was it. I went on to finish college and have been working in Silicon Valley ever since. Anyway, I hope you found this interesting and it brings back a lot of memories for me.
Regards,
B. Reitz