Original subtitles

Who has feathers, smokes a cigar, and

carries the fate of the world on his

shoulders?

His name is Howard the Duck and he's the

lead in the new movie produced by Star Wars

creator George Lucas and directed by

Willard Pike.

Howard is a superhero.

He's a little guy.

He's a stranger in a strange land.

He's quackers.

He's nuts.

He's nuts.

I love him.

What a guy.

The real Howard was zapped from his home

planet to Earth.

He thought his incredible adventure would

make an exciting film.

He just wrote us a fan letter and

asked that essentially we listen to his

story because he thought it was pretty

amazing.

It's the first film that actually we have

cast with a creature from another world.

The screen's newest superhero is elusive

off camera, but his co-stars had plenty to

say about Howard.

I just think he's really cool. And

sometimes his feathers, like,

go up on his head like that.

And

I just get the chills all over when I see that.

Let's put it this way.

All the girls love him.

He's a real sexy duck. It's

hard to keep Leah off of him.

Howard is a force to be reckoned with.

Whether he's fighting evil or making movie

history, this duck is here to stay.

Howard is going to

be a major trendsetter, probably bigger

than Madonna.

He's a tough little duck.

I've never met a tougher duck.

He's our leader.

In Universal's new movie, Howard the Duck,

the main character spends a lot of time up

in the air.

But his most daring moments came when he

had to get behind the wheel of an

ultralight aircraft.

This scene involves some very complex stunt

flight.

Death from the skies to all duck hunters!

All the big stars have stunt doubles, you know?

I almost wound up a dead duck.

My biggest challenge in playing this role

was surviving it.

I'm

just learning here.

Howard, in prehistoric times you flew.

Fly, Howard.

Find your instincts.

Trust your birdness.

Fly!

I

would kind of be moving it all the time a

little bit.

Helping Howard accomplish all the elaborate

aerial stunts is veteran pilot Lyle Byron.

We have 12 difficult stunts in the movie,

and one of the most difficult is we have to

simulate a loop around a bridge.

So we're going to fly the aircraft under a

bridge, and

we have a 100-foot hole that we have to hit.

I'm going to loop the aircraft,

and the aircraft's going to be upside down.

Uh-oh.

Then we're going to simulate come back

under the bridge

and go under it.

Felsy,

I did

a loop-de-loop.

When Howard heard that

Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, they do

their own stunts, he said immediately,

forget it.

We were trying to find stunt people to do it.

And he said, if Burt and Clint can do

stunts, I can do stunts.

OK, clear, please.

Clear.

Every now and then, I'll tease Howard,

though.

I'll reach up and I say, OK, Howard, I'm

letting go.

It's all yours.

We have very exciting, difficult stunts in

the movie.

And one of the most difficult is we have

to land on a truck

The difficulty in the stunts is trying to

take an aircraft that's moving 40 miles an

hour and land it on a space that's 8 by 20

feet that's also moving at 40 miles per hour.

It's like landing on the world's smallest

aircraft carrier.

Touchdown!

Great landing, Howard! The problem with

this stunt is

a big truck like that going 33 miles an

hour is creating a tremendous amount of

turbulent air.

When I go off the front of the truck, the

logistical problem is the air moving will

kick my tail up and could nose dive me in

front of the truck.

It does look out of control, but this is a movie.

And that means our job is to give action, and

that's what we're doing.

Whoa!

Big,

big,

cho-cho, big

deal!

Cameras ready. OK,

we'll go again right away.

Here we go.

Filming the many complex scenes in the new

Universal film Howard the Duck

required the highly skilled work of the

special effects experts at Industrial Light

and Magic

near San Francisco. Oh

no, it's a quake.

At the start of the movie, the main

character, Howard, is rudely jettisoned

from his home on Duck World, curled across

the galaxy and plunked down on the planet Earth.

The life-size Howard was shot through

walls, but a miniature model was used to

transport him through space.

When combined with other film elements, it

created the illusion of Howard falling from

the sky.

Joining Howard from outer space is the evil

dark overlord,

played by actor Jeffrey Jones.

When I become the dark overlord, or at

least in the latter stages of becoming the

dark overlord, it involves being in makeup

for five hours.

It happens

slowly over a period of time.

Toward the end, the changes get grosser

until

the dark overlord then appears, and that's

pretty gross.

Boy, are

you ugly.

This character's evil powers include the

ability to move objects with his mind.

In one scene, he prevents the hero's escape

by dramatically blocking the exit.

The special effects team achieved this

illusion by building a slanted set and

letting gravity do the work.

OK, ready,

and

action.

Actress Leah Thompson had her own view on

what it was like to act surrounded by

special effects.

Well, when we did the final battle, we had

to imagine that we were disintegrating, Tim

Robbins and I,

and we were getting disintegrated by this

huge monster.

After a certain point, you know, you feel a

little foolish, but

you just got to go for it and just go,

ay-ay-ay-ay.

I couldn't do it for more than like five

seconds without cracking up.

I mean, you just gotta hope that ILM is

making some great monster, which they

assure me they are.

This creature stands, in reality, close to

15 inches tall,

and on screen, he'll be close to 15 feet tall.

Essentially, this is a computerized rod puppet

that is being enhanced with manual

stop-motion animation.

We call him Alan.

Howard the Duck is a triumph of special

effects teamwork.

The months involved in bringing it all

together have paid off in an action-packed

fun-filled adventure that will long be

remembered.

The new film, Howard the Duck, is an

Earthmound adventure with an outer space

influence.

Creating a title track for the film

required a unique imagination.

Musician Thomas Dolby fit the film.

The song,

How the Duck, it's got to have that slight

unearthly edge to it.

That was an interesting

possibility to try and find music that

wasn't really from here, you know.

It's like from outer space.

Dolby experimented with a variety of

synthesizing techniques to build the

instrumentals.

Hickory dickory duck.

Writing lyrics about a duck posed an

additional challenge.

We just sat down and wrote some lyrics, and

they're pretty out there.

They're pretty wacky.

Hickory dickory duck.

He ain't about to be plucked.

Too groovy for gravy.

Too precious for pantay.

Performing the lyrics is Cherry Bomb, an

all-girl band created specially for the

film and supervised by Dolby.

In order to write songs which could be sung by

four actresses who are admittedly very good

singers, but at the same time

inexperienced,

I had to be here to

keep hauling them in and checking that I

was writing within their limitations.

Happily, the vocals would turn out really good.

And a lot of people are going to think that

we dubbed him professional singers, which

is not actually the case.

It was all

Cherry Bomb themselves that did it.

Dolby also worked with the girls on

choreographing the song,

the goal being to create a completely

believable band.

Ain't

no way from feeling

The months of rehearsals prepared the group

for the most anticipated night of

production.

Power the dark Power the dark Power the

dark

It was for the film's finale.

The Cherry Bomb performed for a crowd of

thousands.

putting the song to the true test.

Judging from the audience response, Howard

the Duck is destined to be a major hit.

The song's creator feels it just may

inspire a new trend in rock.

Interplanetary fun.