SE: What materials were you working with when you wrote the Star Wars: Episode I comics adaptation? Did you have access to images from the film as well?
HG: In May of 98, Lucasfilm sent me a copy of George Lucas' final draft script, I think the date stamped on it was June, 1997. Also, for the first issue (the first quarter of the film), I was sent a few reference photographs of sets and locations. However, security was tightened after that and I wasn't allowed anymore visual reference. I didn't even know what the characters looked like! It was disappointing, but Dave Land at Dark Horse and Allan Kausch at Lucasfilm were extremely helpful in helping me bring the film script to comic script to life. From what I've seen, the adaptation artist, Rudolfo Damaggio, has done a fantastic job of making the comic adaptation feel like the film.
SE: What were your first thoughts when you saw the materials you'd been given to work from?
HG: I thought the Episode I script was excellent. It was obvious to me the story had been brewing in Lucas' head for quite a while as every story element was extremely well thought out. It has everything; great characters, atmosphere, action, pacing and an awesome climax. There was stuff in the script that baffled me, as I had no idea how Lucas was gonna pull it off on film -- he wrote it really challenging ILM. I can't wait to see it!
SE: How old were you when you saw the first film? And what did you think of it then?
HG: I was 10 years old when I saw Star Wars at the Mann's Chinese in Hollywood in 1978. This was the first time I'd ever been in a movie theater. I almost peed my pants during "the" opening sequence! It had a profound effect on me. I was stunned. My parents thought I was shell shocked from the theater's sound system!
SE: Did your appreciation for (and similar entertainment from your childhood) affect your career decisions as you grew up?
HG: After Star Wars, the film that very much inspired me to become a screenwriter was another Lucas production, Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was so inspired after seeing that film I remember telling my mother, "I'm gonna be a writer because I want to make people feel the way I feel right now." That feeling, ecstatic and full of wonder!
SE: And now what's your full-time job?
HG: I'm a story editor for Walt Disney Television on "Disney's Mickey Mouseworks" animated series. It's the first new Mickey, Donald & Goofy short cartoons in decades. It's going to be a great show.
SE: What other comics have you written?
HG: I've written Aliens comics for Dark Horse, Tex Avery comics for Dark Horse, and an upcoming "classic characters" Star Wars story illustrated by Glen Murakami, one of the producers of the Batman animated series. It looks awesome!
SE: What did you first think when Dave Land called you with the news that you were chosen for the Episode I adaptation?
HG: I know that my experience as a screenwriter factored into my being chosen as the adaptation writer, but I felt thrilled and extremely lucky to have been chosen. Actually, the word "giddy" is probably more accurate.
SE: How was it to try and capture the atmosphere of Episode I in comic book form?
HG: Capturing the atmosphere of Star Wars in the silent, static storytelling medium of comics is difficult, as Lucas makes the most of motion and sound in his films. The best way I've found to capture atmosphere in comic storytelling is with pacing. I tried to pace the story so that every time the reader turns the page, they get a cool reveal, which is what you get in a Star Wars movie -- every scene has something new and cool in it. This job was made even harder as the film was in different stages of editing while I was adapting it, so I was always making pacing revisions as Lucas made pacing revision as he moved scenes around during the film editing process.
Also, I had only a limited amount of page length to work with for the adaptation. This story is so big, that some things had to be compressed just to get it to fit into a four issue series. Regardless, I think this adaptation is really good, mostly due to the artists, Rudolfo Damaggio's amazing work.
SE: What was it like to try and see what George Lucas was going to do with the epic scope of the story and then match it?
HG: This was the greatest pleasure of the adaptation process. I was being charged to adapt the exact same screenplay that an artist would bring to life on the page while George Lucas was bringing it to life on the movie screen. Wow! It was inspirational. Would I make the same creative choices he would? Would I reveal character, plot and emotion like he would? Even camera angles, would I choose the same ones he would? It was an honor, really. In a way, I got to direct the story from the screenplay I was sent. It was great to get notes back from Lucasfilm, because sometimes I'd be right with Lucas' sensibility in how I described and paced action, while other times, I would be off or Lucas would rewrite a scene or edit the film in such a way to make it work much better.
Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace is being released by Dark Horse May 5 as both a graphic novel, and as the first part of a four-issue series.