Two Helicopters in Northern California

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Chapter 1
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    • rmlohner

    George Lucas was furious.

    It had been painful enough when his first film THX-1138 had been butchered by the studio in the name of mass appeal, which hadn’t happened anyway. But now his new film American Graffiti was suffering the same fate despite a smash success preview screening that the studio representatives had seen with their own eyes.

    His wife Marcia had tried to calm him down, saying that the cuts only amounted to a few minutes, to which he’d exploded that she knew nothing about being an artist. Which wasn’t fair at all; she was a highly experienced film editor, and after he’d been able to stew in his foul mood a while longer, he’d be ashamed. For now, the only thing he could think to do was throw himself into a new project, of which there were two major possibilities.

    The first was a science fiction story inspired by the old Flash Gordon serials he’d adored so much in his childhood. He’d actually tried to get the rights to make an actual Flash film, but with just one flop to his name, he’d been laughed out of the meeting. So now he figured he might as well make his own original story in a similar setting.

    The second potential project had been around a good deal longer. While getting his film degree at the University of Southern California, one of the best friends he made was aspiring writer and director John Milius. Despite their radically different political views, they’d gotten along beautifully, to the point that Milius had actually written a screenplay specifically for Lucas to direct. It was inspired by the classic Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness, with the action transplanted to contemporary times in the Vietnam War. He called it Apocalypse Now.

    The decision for which one to follow was actually largely out of Lucas’ hands. His business partner Francis Ford Coppola had also taken an interest in Milius’ script, and thanks to the vagaries of their contracts, he actually had a legal stake in it despite never actually being involved in the writing process. And with his latest film The Godfather already being hailed as one of the greatest masterpieces in movie history, Coppola had far more clout behind him to pick his future projects.

    In the end, Coppola erred on the side of his friendship with Lucas. With not one but two major films lined up for the next year in The Godfather Part II and The Conversation, he decided this project wasn’t worth wrecking a relationship that had already been on shaky ground after the failure of THX doomed their fledgling American Zoetrope studio, and allowed Lucas to have it.

    Lucas promptly put his science fiction film on the backburner. He still had faith it could be something special, but for now he was going to follow the project his heart was truly in. Apocalypse Now by George Lucas was on its way.
     
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    • rmlohner

    Hi everyone, this is my first attempted story here. Please be as brutal as necessary; I'm a published author and I can take it.

    I've long found Apocalypse Now to be one of the most fascinating "What if?" stories in movie history, as not only would it have turned out radically different under Lucas (the story title is taken from a joke Coppola once gave about how Lucas would have done it) but it might well have meant Star Wars never happened, resulting in a radically different movie industry altogether. Hopefully I'll be able to do that concept justice.
     
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    Ogrebear

    Ogrebear

    Lucas does 'Nam?

    Well this should be interesting.

    Pop culture without Star Wars will be VERY interesting.

    Star Trek Phase II is coming...
     
    Chapter 2
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    • rmlohner

    American Graffiti was released in August 1973, and the response left Lucas fully vindicated. Critics across the country (except, annoyingly enough, the one his own family in Modesto would be reading) fell over themselves proclaiming him a bright new voice in the artform, and the film a success as both an entertainment and a deep character study. All this naturally put him in a much better position as he started getting Apocalypse Now off the ground.

    Just one problem: after suffering such drastic studio interference on two films, Lucas now wanted nothing to do with them. With his own net worth soon crossing a million dollars thanks to Graffiti's continued success (while never a huge smash on any particular week, it proved to have tremendous staying power and remained popular enough to keep in theaters for nearly two years), he was now determined to finance Apocalypse himself.

    Naturally, most studio execs had no idea what to make of this idea, and Lucas took quite a few disheartening meetings where he struggled to get them to understand he wasn’t going to budge on this issue. Finally, one of them got it: Alan Ladd, Jr., who’d just recently become the Head of Creative Affairs at 20th Century Fox. Ladd was a huge fan of Graffiti and immediately trusted the person who made it would be worth investing in. He eagerly helped arrange a deal where Fox would distribute the film, but would stay completely out of the creative side.

    With that taken care of, Lucas turned to finding a suitable cast to portray John Milius’ gaggle of oddball characters. Luckily, Graffiti had already shown him to have a masterful eye for young talent, casting all kinds of then-little-known actors who’d go on to great success. For the lead role of Captain Benjamin Willard, requiring an ability both to grab the audience with natural charisma and then lead them into an increasingly surreal mindset, Ladd recommended the actor who’d played antagonist Bob Falfa, Harrison Ford.

    Lucas balked at the idea. He was extremely wary of the public associating him with any one actor, which would inevitably limit his choice of actors down the road. Which ended up being for the best, as Ford had his eye set on working with Coppola on The Conversation. But he did pass along his own suggestion for the role. Ford had gotten his first acting jobs on the cop show The Streets of San Francisco, starring veteran movie star Karl Malden as an experienced cop, and Michael Douglas, the up-and-coming son of the legendary Kirk Douglas, as his partner. Michael was beginning to tire of the show and was looking for ways to expand his career out of his father’s shadow, and he quickly impressed Lucas as well. One down.

    Up next was Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, commander of a napalm bombing regiment who unexpectedly also turns out to be a surfing enthusiast who deliberately takes on missions in proximity to good waves. This time, Lucas had only one person in mind: Paul Le Mat had brought a terrific lunkhead charm to the character John Milner in Graffiti, which Lucas believed could translate very well to such a specifically odd role.

    Nor would this be the only carryover from that film. As something of an in-joke given the final text narration revealing that his character Terry “the Toad” had gone missing in Vietnam, Charles Martin Smith was cast as Gunner’s Mate Tyrone “Mr. Clean” Miller. While technically a bit too old for the role at 20, Lucas was counting on audiences’ continued affection for his portrayal of the lovable nerd Terry, which here would be turned on its head with him playing a cocky New Yorker.

    And of course, there was the film’s villain, the mad despot Colonel Walter Kurtz. Milius had structured his screenplay so that everything built up to seeing Kurtz in the flesh, and if the actor didn’t deliver on that promise, the whole film would suffer for it. This time, it was Coppola who came through with the perfect choice. While casting The Godfather, he had considered giving a small role to a newly established actor, Robert De Niro. When that didn’t work out, Coppola had also considered him for the role of the young Vito Corleone in the sequel, but perhaps as one more piece of fence-mending, he instead offered the rising star to Lucas. What really drove the deal home was that De Niro was perhaps a bit too overeager to become a physical match for the emaciated, malnourished character described in the script. As Lucas would later jokingly put it, “He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

    Michael Douglas also made his own contribution to the casting. Ten years earlier, his father had starred in a stage adaptation of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and ever since had tried to get a film adaptation going. This led to Douglas becoming good friends with one of the actors in a later revival, Danny DeVito, who played the sweet-natured, childlike Martini. Combined with his diminutive stature which belied the brash confidence he could easily summon up, DeVito always stood out in a crowd, and Lucas was convinced to give him the small comic relief role of a photographer who’s become one of Kurtz’s disciples.

    With casting complete, production was ready to begin.
     
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    • nick_crenshaw82

    nick_crenshaw82

    rmlohner said:
    While casting The Godfather, he had considered giving a small role to a newly established actor, Robert De Niro. When that didn’t work out, Coppola had also considered him for the role of the young Vito Corleone in the sequel, but perhaps as one more piece of fence-mending, he instead offered the rising star to Lucas.
    Click to expand...
    Does this mean that mean that De Niro won't be a young Vito Corleone in The Godfather II or does he do both roles?
     
    nick_crenshaw82

    nick_crenshaw82

    rmlohner said:
    Unfortunately, there isn't time for both.
    Click to expand...
    Using the production of Star Wars, particularly the writing period, as a basis for Apocalypse Now! combined with your own TL I don't think filming will start at least until the back half of 1974, so I think he could do both.
    (Shooting for Godfather II was between October 1, 1973 and June 19, 1974.)
     
    Ogrebear

    Ogrebear

    Nice part II there @rmlohner - glad you didn't fall into the trap a lot of timeline authors do of just casting the Star Wars actors for alt Lucas projects.

    You may want to consider Threadmarking your official timeline entries for easy navigation?
     
    Xenophonte

    Xenophonte

    Very unusual, but interesting scenario that you have started to develop here. I'll be following this with great interest.
     

    Flammy

    For a topic (Movies) that I find quite bored about typically, this was a really interesting piece that drew me in. I thought you did a great job capturing the perspective and priorities of some of the personalities involved, which gave them a lot of depth.

    I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this. You've got my 'Watch.'
     
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