Lorne Peterson is marveling about historian Stephen Ambrose’s Lewis and Clark chronicle “Undaunted Courage.” With wonder in his voice, he recounts the twists and turns of fate and luck and guidance and the chain of small miracles that made their pioneering journey possible. 

   The last two years have been that kind of trek for the charter member of Industrial Light & Magic: He’s seen three-decade-plus journey through the Star Wars film saga reach its end; he’s taken a long trip back along that road by working on his upcoming book; and he’s found himself a in a new creative home with Lucasfilm’s sell-off this year of the famed model shop Peterson helped establish. 
   Peterson’s book, “Sculpting A Galaxy: Inside the Star Wars Model Shop,” is set for a November 14 release in two editions. While both versions include the 216-page main tome and its 300-plus photos and illustrations, the deluxe limited edition will be packed with hands-on extras like models, figurines, and a DVD of documentary material. 
   The veteran model maker took the lead in assembling the bonus goodies, which began, Peterson recalled, with the publisher’s suggestion to include a simple collectible with the tome. Peterson figured a re-creation of a small model of Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder – the roughly 6.5-inch version that appears onscreen as barely a blip from the Tusken Raiders’ cliff-top vantage - would be ideal. 
   “We did it to the scale of the German soldiers you get in (model) tank kits,” he said. “As the nacelles of the three jet engines, I used Sharpie ™ caps.” 
   Funny thing, though: When Peterson rebuilt that speeder for the book release, he did his job too well: The rough spots and chipped paint he had painstakingly re-created caught the eye of the sculptors working in the production process, who asked if they were supposed to refine the speeder. Peterson had to then explain that’s just how he meant it to be. 
   The original landspeeder model, he added, became a gift George Lucas presented to the head of Toho Studios in Japan following the success of Star Wars. “(Maybe) it’s in a studio closet somewhere, or maybe it’s on display at a studio somewhere,” Peterson mused. “I imagine when the book comes out, the stories will probably resurface in Japan about it.” 
   The publisher of “Sculpting A Galaxy” asked his input for another bonus item, too, Peterson said. “Originally, they just asked for one other idea, and my own tendency (is that) I overload people – if they like one idea, I have to pile on another one, and another one.” 
   And here’s where it took him: Besides the speeder and the DVD, the limited edition includes two extra booklets, spaceship cutouts and replicas of chunks of the Death Star and Millennium Falcon surfaces. 
   “It keeps opening up like a click-clack box,” Peterson said. “You open up one door, and it reveals one thing, and then another, and another.” 
   Even though he was witness to everything preserved within its pages, Peterson was stunned at the emotional impact the first edition off the press had on him. Though that copy was offered to him on the spot, he said, he felt uneasy about taking it home. That night, he couldn’t sleep until after 3 a.m. thinking about it, and the next day he went back to get it. He still has that true first edition. 
   Peterson also speaks enthusiastically about the DVD of bonus material, particularly a portion he calls “talking galleries,” wherein his narration and recollection is played over a collection of photographs he shot during the early days of ILM. Peterson offered around 800 of his personal shots to editor Van Ling, and the pair recorded about four and a half hours of storytelling to go along with them. 
   “It was about how we started out (in the model shop), and who the players were,” Peterson said. “(Van Ling) made the story have continuity. I have to admit, the first time I saw it … I really got misty-eyed. I hope the general audience can get a sense of what ILM was at that time, and what a seat-of-your-pants operation it was.” 
   Another 2006 DVD release also has Peterson grinning these days: When we spoke in mid-2005, he had lamented the fact that the original, pre-Special Edition trilogy had not been released in a digital format. That changed this fall, and he says it does mean something special. 
   “It’s almost unimaginable to think of the (original) Star Wars films sitting somewhere and rotting within your own lifetime,” he said. 
   But 2006 was also marked by an ending: Lucasfilm sold off its model shop operations to longtime employee Mark Anderson and a group of investors. Though the new company, Kerner Optical, has right of first refusal to any Lucasfilm or ILM modeling projects, Peterson admits it’s a little odd not being beneath the ILM umbrella these days. For instance, there’s the disconnect of not having the muscle of the Lucasfilm name, which, as Lorne puts it “can get people to do backflips for you.” And in a way, he said there’s almost a feeling similar to the early days of ILM, with a sense of uncertainty in the air. 
   “It has been kind of an emotional roller coaster for a number of people,” he said. “Me, maybe a little bit less than most, in that I have an awful lot of things under my belt already.” 
   Still, Peterson seems to see it as just one more step on the path, one more turn in the road. And look where his journey’s taken him so far. 


   John Booth profiled Lorne Peterson for the Oct.-Dec. 2006 issue of Filmfax magazine. Jim Carchidi's photography accompanies the article, which touches on everything from ILM’s earliest days through last summer’s "Pirates of the Caribbean 2."