The People vs. George Lucas

Senator organ a takes Leia to Alderaan,

and... and... and, uh...

Darth Sidious doesn't feel a disturbance in the force?

I mean, seriously. You expect me to believe

that he can raise Leia on Alderaan,

and... and... and the sith lords...

the sith lords, they're not going to pick up anything.

I mean, Kenobi is on Tatooine.

He's living right up the street!

Dear George Lucas...

Will your feckless fans build a monument to your masterpiece

and slay the maker with their scorn?

George Lucas fingered my late adolescence.

I love-hate George Lucas.

I love-hate him hard, you know?

There was a day where he was just...

he was just a scruffy nerf herder from Tatooine, if you will.

You know, he was one of us.

There is something about our love for "star wars"

that is different from our love for other things.

It's funny that this can make people angry,

that these movies can make people angry.

But it does make you angry.

The most important thing in the world to me.

Like, don't ever say it's just a film.

It's not just a film!

Without good ol' 9.L.,

we wouldn't have any of this!

Or this!

Huh?

Woman: Stop that ship!

Chewie, get us out of here!

I think there was something creatively inspiring

about the "star wars" universe

that children of the seventies wanted to

not just watch it and enjoy it, but actually make it.

What he's got there is something very powerful,

something that really touches people

and propels people to want to bring about changes in their world.

I think there are just these...

Essential building blocks to who I am now

that are "star wars."

I think they're branded.

George Lucas' trademark is on these little elements of my life.

I remember sometime in my late teen years realizing,

in a little popping epiphany,

that "star" wars had created my entire moral universe.

The most remarkable thing about "star wars,"

people standing in a line-up on one of those opening days...

within that lineup, you're going to have

screenwriters, directors,

composers, visual effects artists.

You're also going to have physicists, astrologers,

and astronomers, linguists...

people from all walks of life doing everything they're doing.

And they'll say, "'star wars' inspired me to do this."

That guy and his work unlocked a generation's imagination.

Narrator: George Lucas, the man who created "star wars,"

the story that has changed the world,

a man of 1,000 imaginations and ideas,

George has achieved in 20 years more than most would in a lifetime.

A shy, retiring individual,

George Lucas is a simple man who, like the rest of us,

enjoys the finer things in life.

But inside that quiet exterior is

a man who has brought tears of joy and sorrow

to so many millions of people across the planet.

George Lucas: I grew up in a small town, central California,

and I was kind of an underachiever,

typical kid who got into a fair amount of trouble.

My father said, "well, he'll be a late bloomer."

He always used to say that.

I've always been very into building things.

My teenager years, they were completely devoted to cars.

I was a terrible student in high school.

So I was at this sort of crossroads.

I was in an accident that, in theory, no one could survive.

So I was like, "well, I'm here,

and every day now is an extra day."

And so, for the first time,

I think I sat down during that summer

and did a lot of meditating on my future

and what I was here for.

I got very excited about anthropology

and about social sciences and psychology,

and I was able to push my photography even further

and eventually discovered film.

Man: Can you tell us something about

your young assistant George Lucas?

Well, he's not my assistant, actually.

Lucas: I like cineéma veriteé documentaries.

I like non-story, non-character,

um, tone poems that were being done

in San Francisco at that time.

And that's the filmmaking that I was interested in.

Most of my first student films were very technically oriented.

They were mostly visual exercises.

And the first was really a visual exercise.

Just now, I'm beginning to get into saying things.

Here, you've got someone filled with all this promise

coming out of usc,

and then, you get smacked down so hard from the system.

Feelings hurt is putting it mildly.

I think there was this feeling of personal outrage.

It's a fact of kind of resentment, I guess,

that everyone feels when one finds that

somebody who has the money or has,

as a result of the money, has the power,

they can make, like, ascetic directorial writing decisions

which they have, really, no business making.

In order to get my vision out there,

I've really got to learn how to manipulate the system.

'Cause it's designed, really, to tear you down

and destroy everything that you're doing and push it off ot the side.

Dale pollock: He, for some reason,

was so traumatized by his experiences

with universal on "American graffiti,"

with Warner brothers on "thx,"

that these became defining moments for him.

I was fortunate there was one guy in the film business back when.

He said, "you know, I don't understand your films."

"I don't understand your script.

But I think you're a talented guy, and I'm going to invest in you."

Woman: Who was that?

That was al ladd Jr. at fox,

and that's how I got "star wars" made.

Pollock: These films represent, to him,

not just what he can achieve technologically,

but he sees these as breakthrough films for the industry.

He's interested in a larger agenda,

which is transforming the way movies are made.

Everybody who looked at "a new hope" thought he was crazy.

It was a very personal film for him.

And people were telling him left and right what a doofus he was.

Turns around, everybody's wrong.

It's the biggest thing ever.

Announcer: Hollywood, California,

August, 1977.

A triumphant moment in screen history

as the 2 heroes of "star wars" make

their indelible impressions on

the ground reserved for movieland's legends.

The world resounds with the fact that

"star wars" itself has become a full-fledged social phenomenon.

I found the invite to the first preview of "star wars."

I remember when the title first came up, went up, disappeared...

which was quite impressive.

And then, when that spaceship came in over the top,

the audience went wild.

When you see "star wars," it goes... Through the screen,

and the music starts up, that's the best,

'cause once that starts, you're just like, "yes! Come on!"

And then...

We've all got a movie like that

that grabs us as a kid and just shakes the innards.

George Lucas was everything to me,

because he was this god, the great creator.

Well, the man is a certifiable genius.

He kind of took "no" and turned it into a very big "yes."

You can't overestimate just how important

that first "star wars" movie was.

The whole world was blown away.

I remember getting a phone call from, of all people, my mother,

who had been in america,

and phoning up to tell me there was this thing called "star wars."

I actually saw "star wars" with my grandmother.

The transition between the end of the first "star wars" movie

and the parking lot in west Covina,

that has got to be one of the most jarring transitions

I've ever experienced. It was something like being born.

1977, that was lightning in a bottle.

You had a perfect storm of just social, economic pressure

forcing people to go to a theater and escape for 2 hours.

And you gave them a product and a story that was great.

While our faith in the old religions of our parents was dying,

he gave us a new mythos to understand ourselves and our world.

It's like touching on something universal

and sublime about just the human experience.

It's tough to put George Lucas on a level

with Shakespeare and with homer right now,

but you know what? It's not about the author.

It's about the culture that embraces it.

It's about what that author evoked.

He's a genius, and I can prove it,

because he did "star wars."

Part of the genius of "star wars" and of George Lucas was

really understanding how to market it.

He had already achieved, accidentally,

a level of expectations that he couldn't meet,

because they simply couldn't ma...