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Adam Savage’s Tested
ILM and Lucasfilm Stories You've Never Heard!
⏱ 43 min video · 4 min read26 May 2026Worth watching
TL;DR
Adam Savage sits down with Don Bies, a veteran of ILM and Lucasfilm who served as R2-D2 operator, archivist, and model maker from 1987 onward. The conversation covers Don's origin story from Chicago theater to Chris Walas Inc. to ILM, and includes never-before-told behind-the-scenes stories about Star Wars productions, the Lucasfilm archives, and how celebrities like Graham Nash got secret archive tours.
Key points
1
Don Bies started at ILM in 1987 as a puppeteer on Witches of Eastwick, operating the tongue of a Jack Nicholson puppet created by Rob Bottin under a union rule that prevented Bottin's own crew from operating it.
2
Don became the second official R2-D2 personal appearance operator after David Shaffer left for Disney Imagineering, landing the role partly because he had already built a full-size radio-controlled R2-D2 as a teenager when Star Wars came out.
3
Don essentially created the Lucasfilm archives role organically after helping organize a hugely successful 43,000-visitor exhibition at the Marin County Fair in 1988, which was a goodwill gesture by George Lucas during his Grady Ranch planning disputes.
4
Grant Imahara was recruited into ILM partly through Don and Nelson Hall, having first done electronics work for Don at the archives including building a Darth Vader breathing system, before Nelson pushed him to apply to ILM.
5
Don and his colleagues used archive access as leverage to meet celebrities, including giving Graham Nash a private tour that led to a friendship spanning years, with Nash's son later appearing on the Episode II set in London.
Key takeaways
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Saying yes first and learning the skill after (Don claiming he could use a mill and lathe before knowing what a mill was) is a recurring theme in how people broke into practical effects careers at ILM.
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Dick Smith openly shared makeup knowledge with anyone who wrote to him, directly inspiring Don to adopt the same ethos of freely sharing expertise, which later manifested in the R2 Builders community.
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The Lucasfilm archives began informally with no trained archivist, stored in unheated warehouses, and only became properly organized because a fan with initiative happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Notable quotes
“Grant called it using our powers for evil.”
“I vowed that if I ever had something that someone would know they need to know that I knew, I would give it to them freely.”
“He was just the second official R2 operator. And so we did this series of commercials that you could find on YouTube.”
Worth watching?
✅
Worth watching the full video?
Watch if you are a Star Wars or ILM enthusiast who wants the unfiltered, conversational version of these stories directly from someone who lived them - the summary captures the facts but the warmth and spontaneity of the storytelling is best experienced in the video itself.
Saved you some time? The creator still deserves a like.
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