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‘Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi’ Animator Took LSD While Working On Film, Still Won Oscar

By Gregory Wakeman
Published on: 13:03 PST, Mar 6, 2016

An animator that worked on Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi has confessed that he was under the influence of LSD while he worked on sequences for the 1983 film.

Phil Tippet, who worked as an animator on A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, as well as Return Of The Jedi, made this admission during his discussion with Vice, via Collectively Conscious.

“I took LSD when I was working on Return Of The Jedi and it’s fine. It was, like, very calming. And so I decided to go back to work. When I walked into the blue-screen stage, it was like, ‘Ahhh.’ I took way too much.”

But here’s the thing; rather than his work being ruined by his use of drugs during his crafting, the now 64-year-old Tippet went on to win the Academy Award for his work on Return Of The Jedi. Winning the award means that he doesn’t harbor any regrets about taking the substance while he worked on the blockbuster.

Phil Tippet’s long and storied Hollywood career means that Hollywood and audiences have profited from his drug-addled viewpoint on many an occasion. Tippet’s career has included work on Piranha, Indian Jones And The Temple Of Doom, Howard The Duck, Jurassic Park, Starship Troopers, Jurassic World, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

In fact, Phil Tippet went on to direct two feature films himself as he oversaw production on both Starship Troopers 2: Hero Of The Federation and 2013’s Mad God, as well as the short films, Prehistoric Beast and MutantLand.

But the reason you might have heard Phil Tippett’s name already is that he became an internet sensation over recent years because of his role in Jurassic Park.

In the credits for Steven Spielberg’s classic 1993 blockbuster, Phil Tippett was listed as “Dinosaur Supervisor.” In the first few years following Jurassic Park’s release, no one really paid much attention to this credit, even though Tippett had, arguably, the greatest billing in the history of cinema on the project.

However, as the internet blossomed, and movie fans began to share their findings with each other in hilarious fashion, Jurassic Park viewers soon started to riff on the fact that Phil Tippett was supposed to be supervising the dinosaurs. The hungry, aggressive prehistoric creatures later caused several deaths with their actions.

A famous meme that featured a picture of Phil Tippett’s name and credit was also captioned with, “Phil, this wasn’t f****** amateur hour. PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE OF YOUR LACK OF SUPERVISION. THERE WERE RAPTORS ALL UP IN THE KITCHEN PHIL. IN THE GOD DAMN KITCHEN.”

But rather than embracing his online celebrity, Phil Tippett admitted during the press tour for Jurassic World that he changed his credit on the 2015 blockbuster to “Dinosaur Consultant” because of the abuse he received.

During an interview with Here & Now, Phil Tippett explained the change.

“I need to thank them because they did this ridiculous thing where they blamed me for failing at my job on Jurassic Park as dinosaur supervisor, and too many people got killed. So there was a huge ridiculous fanbase… I just want to thank all my fans for getting me demoted from a Jurassic Park supervisor to a Jurassic Park consultant, so it’s all your fault.”

You can check out Phil Tippet’s entire interview with Vice, which is entitled, “My Life In Monsters: Meet The Animator Behind Star Wars And Jurassic Park” by watching below.

[Image via Lucasfilm]

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