Just because I’m not Britney Spears, it doesn’t mean that I’m a recluse.”
Sitting in his headquarters at Skywalker Ranch, George Lucas is engaged in a
bout of myth-busting. Given the rarefied nature of a Lucas interview, the
creator of Star Wars is often cast as something of a loner, a professional
Han Solo, dismissing the outside world while sitting astride his empire,
Lucasfilm, which is buried in the heart of Lucas Valley, in northern
California. (The locale, inciden-tally, boasted the name long before the
film-maker arrived.) “Honestly, everyone feels you have to talk about
yourself all the time,” he says. “They say I’m introverted because I don’t
give many interviews. But I don’t give many interviews because I don’t make
many films.”
Lucas concedes that he can find interviews uncomfortable. “They’re hard work,”
he says, “but this is part of the film-making process. It’s hard for you, I
realise that, but it’s hard for us, too.” Truth be told, much of the mystery
that surrounds him stems from the fact that journalists often treat him with
extreme deference. While his film-making peers, from Spielberg to Scorsese,
have all attained iconic status, Lucas is set apart in the pantheon: he
created Star Wars and, for many, that elevates him to a different plane. In
consequence, interviewers rarely inquire into his private life, his 1983
divorce from Marcia (his wife of 14 years and a close professional
collaborator) and the fact that he went on to raise three children as a
single parent. Yet surely these events must have had a profound effect on
his work?
“Probably,” he concedes. “If I’ve directed fewer movies than I might have, it
was a combination of things. But I think the most outstanding thing was
that, back then, I was financially devastated and I had to get myself back
on my feet. And, at the same time, I had a daughter to raise. These two
things together changed my focus. I decided to spend time building up the
company and doing things I could do a few hours a day.
The rest of the time I could spend raising my daughter.” He smiles. “And, at
that point, it wasn’t realistic to think I could move off and start making
esoteric movies. I simply didn’t have the resources to do that.”
Working amid stories that his wife had run off with a Lucasfilm employee,
Lucas devoted himself to developing his business and raising his adopted
daughter, Amanda, who is now in her mid-twenties. Beavering away through his
forties, he adopted twice more, taking in Katie (born in 1988) and Jett
(1993), and says that, for all his cinematic success, raising a family is
his proudest achievement. Indeed, at 64, Lucas looks the perfect picture of
a family man, a wholesome American patriarch, wrapped in his
almost-trademark attire - blue plaid shirt, jeans and trainers (suits are
for special occasions) - his thick crop of hair and perennial whiskers now a
blanket of white. His patronage extends beyond his immediate family into the
world of industry.
“I am the father of our Star Wars movie world - the filmed entertainment, the
features and now the animated film and television series,” he says. “And I’m
going to do a live-action television series. Those are all things I am very
involved in: I set them up and I train the people and I go through them all.
I’m the father; that’s my work. Then we have the licensing group, which does
the games, toys and books, and all that other stuff. I call that the son -
and the son does pretty much what he wants.” He laughs. “Once in a while,
they ask a question like ‘Can we kill off Yoda?’, things like that, but it’s
very loose.
“Then we have the third group, the holy ghost, which is the bloggers and fans.
They have created their own world. I worry about the father’s world. The son
and holy ghost can go their own way.”
The father’s world has proved extremely bountiful. The six Star Wars films
alone have earned billions in box-office receipts and, at the same time, an
extended family of film-makers has benefited from the advances in digital
technology forged by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a subsidiary of
Lucasfilm, formed in 1975 to create the special effects for Star Wars. From
Jurassic Park through Harry Potter and Transformers, all have borrowed the
expertise gathered by Lucas for his business empire. Yet his firm’s
intention is not to register huge profits for the emperor’s money box;
rather, everything earned is ploughed back into the technology. As Gordon
Radley, who retired as Lucasfilm president two years ago, notes: “This was
never a business strategy, in that you don’t go into a business like ILM to
get rich. If George had invested his profits in, say, pork bellies, he’d
have made a lot more money.”
The tale of how Lucas earned his fortune is almost as celebrated as the
Skywalker saga itself - when the young film-maker came up with the idea for
Darth Vader and his evil minions, he struck a deal with 20th Century Fox
that saw him retain the Star Wars merchandising rights. Each time one of the
stiff-limbed action figures appeared in a child’s toy box, Lucas earned a
few more cents. He is now worth an estimated $3 billion, which isn’t too
shabby for a small-town slacker whose giddy dreams drew short shrift from
George Lucas Sr, a conservative father. Born and raised on a walnut farm in
Modesto, California, George Jr was expected to enter the family stationery
business after finishing his studies.
“Right at the beginning, I wanted to be an illustrator,” he explains. “Then I
wanted to go to art school, to an arts centre in Los Angeles. My father
said, ‘No way - you are not going to be an artist. Artists don’t make any
money, and I won’t pay for that.’ Knowing I was a lazy underachiever then,
he knew I wasn’t going to pursue that seriously. It was hard, but I do
believe that, in the end, if I had gone to the arts centre and started to be
an illustrator, I would probably have drifted into animation, and would
probably have moved into Star Wars, just like I did.
“It would have been the same thing with anthropology, which was my first major
at college. I’d have made documentaries and eventually features, then done
exactly what I did. If you take all the things I love - art, anthropology
and making movies - what I do pulls them all together.”
If Lucas feels there is a sense of destiny at play, it would be apt. While
every Star Wars acolyte knows that the series as an entirety deals with the
redemption of Anakin Skywalker (aka Darth Vader), and that the first trilogy
borrowed from Eisenstein, the Flash Gordon series and the ideas proffered by
the mythologist Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, many
still read the first film, 1977’s Episode IV: A New Hope, as a reflection of
the young Lucas’s dreams.
Just as Luke Skywalker was raised in the galactic backwater of Tatooine,
working for a family member who poured scorn on his dreams of becoming a
pilot, so the young Lucas was reared in lonely Modesto, his father eager to
see him ply the family trade rather than entertaining dreams of car racing.
Then, just as a benevolent savant, Obi-Wan Kenobi, assisted Luke in his
battle against his father, so Lucas met the cinematic sage Francis Ford
Coppola, who helped him to make his first feature in 1971: an adaptation of
one of his student works, THX 1138. Finally, just as Luke achieved his
dreams at the end of the first picture, so, too, did Lucas, who fulfilled
the pledge he had made to his father more than a decade before: that he
would be a millionaire before he hit 30. Honestly, though, did any of those
thoughts enter Lucas’s mind when he was writing the film?
“I don’t read the reviews, that’s for sure, so I’m not so familiar with all
the theories,” he smiles. “But, psychologically, as with every writer or
work of art, it comes from himself. It doesn’t come from some magical place.
It filters through his own brain, and it’s reflective of an artist’s own
sensibility. That’s a given. It would be someone who can divorce themselves
from their work, because it’s a creative medium. You have to drag it out of
yourself, unless you copy something or somebody else tells you what to do.
If you are writing the screenplay, and doing the whole thing yourself, it’s
100% you.”
Lucas has now finished with the live- action films, although the wider Star
Wars universe remains very much alive. In terms of fresh storytelling, Lucas
has overseen production on The Clone Wars, a 3-D animated movie, out here
next month, which will launch an animated television show on the Cartoon
Network this autumn; and he has already started work on a live-action Star
Wars television series, which will go into production in 2009.
“It’s completely separate from the Star Wars films,” he explains. “The Clone
Wars has all of the characters everybody knows — from Yoda to Anakin to Mace
Windu to Obi-Wan — they’re all there. The live-action series, meanwhile, has
nobody there, because it’s after Episode III, so everybody’s dead,
basically, or hiding somewhere. You hear about the emperor, just like you do
in Episode IV, but it’s mostly about a whole different world. I mean, there
are a million stories in the big city — you’ve only seen one of them.”
Lucas is also considering what to do about the fifth instalment in the Indiana
Jones franchise, which he has produced from the outset. The most recent
film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, has taken almost
$750m (£375m) at the international box office, and the whip-snapping
archeologist remains in high demand, even though his own days as a
whippersnapper are behind him (Harrison Ford is two years older than Lucas).
“We were hoping for box-office figures like that, which is, ultimately, with
inflation, what the others have done, within 10%,” Lucas explains. “So, we
squeaked up there. Really, though, it was a challenge getting the story
together and getting everybody to agree on it. Indiana Jones only becomes
complicated when you have another two people saying ‘I want it this way’ and
‘I want it that way’, whereas, when I first did Jones, I just said, ‘We’ll
do it this way’ — and that was much easier. But now I have to accommodate
everybody, because they are all big, successful guys, too, so it’s a little
hard on a practical level.
“If I can come up with another idea that they like, we’ll do another. Really,
with the last one, Steven wasn’t that enthusiastic. I was trying to persuade
him. But now Steve is more amenable to doing another one. Yet we still have
the issues about the direction we’d like to take. I’m in the future;
Steven’s in the past. He’s trying to drag it back to the way they were, I’m
trying to push it to a whole different place. So, still we have a sort of
tension. This recent one came out of that. It’s kind of a hybrid of our own
two ideas, so we’ll see where we are able to take the next one.”
In the meantime, Lucas is set to start production on Red Tails, which tells
the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, an important subject for the film-maker.
They might sound like distant relatives of Star Wars’ Tusken Raiders, but
they were a real-life USAF squadron, the first black pilots to fight in the
second world war. “I’ve had a hard time putting it together — 18 years, it’s
taken me,” he concedes. Why so long? “Because the story is so great, so
fantastic, but so big. There’s also an element of personal responsibility to
those involved.
“I’m only going to produce Red Tails — we have a black director — but then I
think I am going to direct some more, make some esoteric films that have a
personal significance.” And what might they be?
“I can’t say yet, but they’ll be personal. n fact, I’d sooner just make them
and not even release them, just put them on the shelf, like ships in a
bottle — ‘Oh, look, let me show you my collection.’ Unfortunately, it
doesn’t work that way. Films are a very expensive hobby. And you have to get
people to want to go and see them.”
When Lucas does embark on his more personal, esoteric films, the chances are
he’ll talk more to promote them through the press. Although don’t expect a
media deluge. After all, this is George Lucas, not Britney Spears.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars opens on August 15
Money
Central: the top 10 Star Wars collectables
Even as a grown up, I still admire the hard work of Mr. Lucas despite the recent criticisms he receives mostly for the prequels and the fourth Indy movie (they may be flawed but at least the viewers should see them as George has perceived when he watched cheesy Republic serials as a kid. Can you?).
Glen B.Wang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
I love the energy and imagination that George Lucas brings to his works, especially as it relates to the Star Wars sega. My wish is that his television series will be picked up by HBO, where it is more likely to have a bigger budget and less restrictions on time and production.
Rene Requenez, Edinburg, Texas , USA
I didn't care for the prequels that much but on the other hand I can look at his accomplishments and say he's brought so much to cinema. I may not care for his newer work when it comes out but I encourage him to remain true to himself. That's all we can really do as human beings.
Ray R, San Diego, USA
I never would discount anyone's opinion - each is entitled to his own - but why be so brutal, especially when - I'll wager - (almost) no one here knows what it takes to make a movie? And, for the record, GL never has discounted what everyone at Lucasfilm/ILM have done. This is but one interview.
Melinda, Franklin, USA
Lucas sure does take 100% of the credit for everything Star Wars...he did have hundreds of collaborators, esp on the SFX side, but he is discounting their contributions totally.
Tony , Atlanta, USA
Lucas took a step back from Empire and Jedi because of health issues. While directing the first Star Wars film he began having chest pains and his doctor told him to take a step back, not the studio. That said I'm glad he took a step back because I think those two films were better without him.
Adam, Dallas, U.S.
If you factor in the budget, the producer, the director, the actors involved, and the history of the characters this film should have been a masterpiece but due to lucas being blinded by cgi again and his utter collapse as a writer and filmmaker, this film might be one of the worst films of all time
chris grossnickle, los angeles, usa
Lucas was always past it. The reason the original starwars films worked so well is he didn't direct empire stikes back or return of the jedi. He was told by 20th Cent Fox to take a step back and to not be as involved as they were concerned by his vision. Now he has the money+power+control.
glenn, London,
Batman works because although fantasy it is based in reality - the last Indiana Jones movie didn't because it wasn't, the car going off the waterfall and caught by a tree is ridiculous. I think the same is true of Star Wars - as soon as it became CGI people couldn't place themselves in the story.
Gareth Horry, Dubai,
As long as Lucas completely stays out of the Script, production and directing of the 5th Indiana Movie it should be fine.
Andrew, Denver, USA
David from Boerne USA:
No-one should listen to the critics. Look what they gave us for Oscar nominated Best Pictures last year. The magic is gone.
Robert, Scarborough, Canada
i want the man to make a good film. book, script,
whatever. just stand up and make a film.
no star wars gluttony, no (presumably hard to avoid)
reaping insane indy cash... and that an act which forced spielberg to attempt, a presumably unwelcome,
imitation of his own youthful eye.
make. a. film.
swimtwobirds, london,
The true masterpieces of all of Lucas' endeavors is both "The Empire Strikes Back", and "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
greg, los angeles, usa
I think unrealistic expectations are what ruined many people's impressions of Indy 4. If you take time to read the early drafts of Indy 1,2+3 you will see they are pretty far out too. The Nazi in Raiders was meant to have a machine gun arm for one thing. I loved the B-grade 1950's aliens story!
Bob, Melbourne, Australia
Mon vieux -- don't do it -- I think Indy 4 was a perfect end to series, showing its age gracefully -- don't be Rambo to infinity.
Kat, West Des Moines, USA
What excites me the most is him saying the live action tv series is set after episode 6.
L Tinker, Hollywood, Ca
CRYSTAL SKULL is another example of George Lucas being so far from the reality of today's market and what his fans want that a fifth INDIANA JONES should never EVER be made. I was terminally excited to see KOTCS and it was without a doubt the biggest disappointment and worst Spielberg movie ever.
Matt, LA, USA
PS RE: T Wiliams comment: Lucas WAS a brilliant creative and technical innovator. Over the last ten years, he has managed to bring his creative original material from genius originality to copies of lesser quality films. The mantle has been passed. He should stop embarassing himself and his fans.
Matt, LA, United States
Indy 4 was a good film, it wasn't the gritty Indy from 1 & 2 but he still kicked some badguy butt and entertained the heck out of me. When they do 5 they need to raise the stakes a little, give Indy a big finish and give the kid his own franchise when the dust settles.
Brian, Fullerton, USA
The Crystal Skull was a black mark on the Indy franchise and I hope they just leave everything alone unless they do more damage than good.
Modesto Silver, Phoenix, USA
Lucas is way past his prime! The last good thing he produced was the Last Crusade!
The Crystal Skull was awful and anyone who liked it must have drank too much kool-aid before they saw it!
I won't even bother with the prequel trilogy....
Jason, Dallas, TX, USA
A matter of opinion. I felt that the fourth Indiana Jones movie was great, staying true to the old ones while not being afraid to bring in originality. I hope they are able to make a fifth one.
As for the Star Wars prequels, well, no comment.
Christopher Nicholson, Salem, MA, US
There is no doubt that George and his creative visions have changed the entertainment industry for the better but let us not forget that he's also given millions of people many happy times and inspired huge numbers into the industry. Let's give him the opportunity to give us another franchise/film
Siddique Hussain, Birmingham, UK
He should listen to the critics more. He hasn't made a good movie in 20 years.
David, Boerne, USA
Mr. T Williams of Soton U.K. You do not seem to be paying attention. Your comment seems to be irrelevant. Mr. Lucas has forged a new way to make films for an industry that is past 100 and which was still using the techniques and euipment of 100 years ago. As a filmmaker i am deeply in dept.
Munesh, Quebec, Canada
I must say this gives me a lot more respect for George Lucas. He's not someone we ever think of as having been financially devastated, or as raising a family, but clearly he's motivated by his own vision -- and sticks to it. That takes guts. And he's given the world amazing things. Pretty good!
Adrian, London, UK
Just to correct a small error in the article (a common one). The Tuskegee Airman were not in the USAF. There was no separate USAF until after WWII. During the war, it was the US Army Air Corps.
Tom Norton, Glendale, CA, US
Wow, is that what we have to look forward to, the future of cinema and entertainment it's just repeats, copies, embellishments, no new ideas nothing original nothing new. It'll be like living with your parents until your 40. All this power and what do they turn into.. an even eviler empire.
T Williams, Soton, UK