Thank you, IMDb, for providing a wealth of information about the entertainment world. For example, about the life and work of George Lucas.
He was born in 1944 and raised on a walnut ranch in Modesto, California. His father was a stationery store owner and he had three siblings. During his late teen years, he went to Thomas Downey High School and was very much interested in drag racing. He planned to become a professional racecar driver. However, a terrible car accident just after his high school graduation ended that dream permanently. The accident changed everything.
Today, he is widely considered one of the greatest creators of film and these are among his thoughts about his life and work.
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o A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing. The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie. The script is what you’ve dreamed up-this is what it should be. The film is what you end up with.
o [On the making of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)] When you’re directing, you have to get up at four thirty [A.M], have breakfast at five, leave the hotel at six, drive an hour to location, start shooting at eight, and finish shooting around six. Then you wrap, go to your office, and set up the next day’s work. You get back to the hotel about eight or nine, hopefully get a bite to eat, then you go to your room and figure out your homework, how you’re going to shoot the next day’s scenes, then you go to sleep. The next morning it starts all over again.
o The objective is to try to get the (movie) system to work for you, instead of against you. And the only way you can do it is through success, I’m afraid. Making a film is like putting out a fire with sieve. There are so many elements, and it gets so complicated.
o To be renewed is everything. What more could one ask for than to have one’s youth back again?
[describing Luke Skywalker after his duel with Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)] He is his own man, he is not a son anymore, he is an equal.
o I wanted to make abstract films that are emotional, and I still do. [describing Han Solo] He is one of the best. He’s outwitted the empire on numerous occasions, and he has made some very fast deals. One of his problems is that he gambles quite heavily and that’s where he loses most of his money. He’s tough and sharp, but never manages to scrape together enough to get any power…He’s slightly self-destructive and he sort of enjoys being on the brink of disaster…You might meet him and he may be worth ten billion dollars and the next time you meet him he’s in debt up to his ears.
o It’s hard work making movies. It’s like being a doctor: you work long hours, very hard hours, and it’s emotional, tense work. If you don’t really love it, then it ain’t worth it.
o From being a struggling, starving filmmaker to being incredibly successful in a period of a couple of years is quite a powerful experience, and not necessarily a good one. I’ve had a very volatile relationship with Francis (Francis Ford Coppola). It’s on both sides, like we were married and we got divorced. It’s as close a relationship as I’ve had with anybody.
o If you can tune into the fantasy life of an 11-year-old girl, you can make a fortune in this business.
[regarding Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)] Right or wrong this is my movie, this is my decision, and this is my creative vision, and if people don’t like it, they don’t have to see it.
o I am very concerned about our national heritage, and I am very concerned that films that I watched when I was young and the films that I watched throughout my life are preserved, so that my children can see them.
o [When asked what it was like to watch Steven Spielberg direct] It’s like watching Albert Einstein or Thomas A. Edison. It’s like watching Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, any genius you can name.
o With film, if you get a million people to see your movie on the first weekend, you’ve made about $5 million. That basically will not end up on the top-10 chart. You have to get 10 million people on the first weekend. And if you don’t do it in two days, you’re basically out of the theaters and into the DVD market. There’s just an ecology there. If you’re a mouse, don’t expect to kill a lion, because it ain’t gonna happen. If you want to have that kind of power, it’s better to be a lion, because the mice are fine – you can have a life and everything – but the lions are the ones out there prowling and scaring the hell out of everybody.
o [On critics] You have to have a thick enough skin to cope with the criticism. I’m very self-critical and I have a lot of friends that I trust who are film directors and writers and people in my profession. I trust them to be extremely critical but I trust their opinion; their opinion is thoughtful, knowledgeable. I also know them personally so I know the psychological slant they are putting on it. I know what their tastes are and I can say, “Well that’s great for them but that’s not great for me.” Technical criticism is extremely helpful but you are only going to get that from your peers.
o My greatest regret in my career is that John [John Landis] was unable to direct Howard the Duck (1986). I feel the movie would have been far more successful and saved me the years of hardship following its release.
o [On the death of Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) director Irvin Kershner] The world has lost a great director and one of the most genuine people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Irvin Kershner was a true gentleman in every sense of the word. When I think of Kersh, I think of his warmth, his thoughtfulness and his talent. I knew him from USC – I attended his lectures and he was actually on the festival panel that gave the prize to my Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967) short. I considered him a mentor. Following Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977), I knew one thing for sure: I didn’t want to direct the second movie myself. I needed someone I could trust, someone I really admired and whose work had maturity and humour. That was Kersh all over. I didn’t want Empire to turn into just another sequel, another episode in a series of space adventures. I was trying to build something, and I knew Kersh was the guy to help me do it. He brought so much to the table. I am truly grateful to him. He was a friend as well as a colleague. He will be missed.
o I’m amazed and surprised that Star Wars [Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)] was picked as the number one film of the millennium. Little did I know when I started this film 20 years ago that I’d be making a film that achieved such an outpouring of enthusiastic raves and joy. It’s after all the fans that have made this film what it is today.
o I can’t even begin to tell you how much of an influence Disney has had on me.
o Well, Star Wars isn’t sci-fi at all – it’s space opera, which is a sub-genre; I mean, it’s sort of halfway between sci-fi and fantasy. The motif I used to tell these stories was the Saturday night-day serial, which is a particular genre which was very popular in the thirties and forties. I wanted it to look just like that and those were – at least, the Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers kinds of things – were space operas. Some people like to call them comic-book stories, but they aren’t comic-book under the superhero genre. They’re kind of looking at the early part of the century, when adventure serials first started.
Phantom Menace is so popular you know it’s people liking it and going back to see it again. For some it’s like the Meaning of Life.
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