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32 C I N E M O N T A G E F E A T U R E but I don't know if I understood the story as much as I just thought Luke Skywalker was this young teen I could relate to at that age. But more than anything, it was just the icon- ic visuals of the whole thing — the Storm Troopers, Darth Vader, the explosions in space, the space races. Things like that got me very excited about the whole arena. When I was a kid, I would make 8mm movies, and I would read magazines about how to replicate these special effects in my bedroom with lights and cameras and stuff. I was always into that sort of thing, but I never imagined I'd ever really work in "Star Wars." That seemed like something for oth- er people far away. And then one day, after my agent got a call from Jude Babcock, she said, "They want to meet with you. Would you like to meet?" My initial reaction was, "Well, it's TV. I don't know." I had never worked in television before. I'd always been on features. She said, "It's Jon Favreau and it's 'Star Wars.' You're going to meet with them." I agreed, of course, and the rest is history. Naranjo: Mine is the same kind of story. I watched it when I was growing up — the original first movies that came out: what was eventually retitled as "A New Hope," "The Empire Strikes Back," and "Return of the Jedi." I watched them with my dad. We'd put it on anytime it was a rainy day. It was like, OK, time to binge "Star Wars." I loved the visuals, of course, but I also really liked the creatures in it and all the puppe- teer work, to the point that I have a French bulldog because I really liked the Ewoks. It molded who I am and shaped the things I've looked for in movies. Gibson: My entry point was "The Em- pire Strikes Back." The original, "A New Hope," was a little before my time. I didn't quite catch that in theaters but was aware of it back in the VHS days. But I remember seeing "Empire" in the theater and being ut- terly blown away. It's one of the first movies I remember that completely immersed me in another world. I think we all strive for that feeling where there is nothing else but the movie in front of you. There are no distractions whatsoever. I remember that lingering feeling of what's possible in cinematic sto- rytelling, which was incredibly powerful. And of course, I had all the toys. I had the bedsheets. I had a Millennium Falcon, which was my pride and joy until I got a little older and blew it up with firecrackers. I wish I still had that thing. It was all such a phenom- enon. But as Andrew was saying, the idea of ever working on a "Star Wars" project, I didn't even allow that to enter my brain. So the fact that we got a chance to explore our own little corner of the "Star Wars" universe was an incredible experience. CineMontage: What's a sequence or episode from the show that was particularly challenging and/or meaningful for each of you? Gibson: In Episode 3, there's a sequence where they're all being chased by X-Wing pilots. I went through a lot of different iterations. Initially, it was in the middle of the episode when we were in the planning and the pre-vis(ualization) stage, and then it became its own set piece at the end of the episode. It was fun to see that go through various stages of development and land where we landed, and it got tweaked basi- cally until the end. But what was so fun about that for me was that it felt as if I were cutting what truly felt like a "Star Wars" chase action sequence. Their ship is kind of like the M i l l e n n i u m Fa l co n , a n d t h ey ' re b e i n g chased by what they perceive as the Evil Empire, even though they're the good guys. EISEN: "They were refreshing and new," he said of the "Skeleton Crew" scripts.